Zia Sheikh – Tafseer of Surah AnNahl Status of Prophet Ibrahim A.S Ayah 120 onward
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the use of " umQuad in the context of the Bible, including the individual's actions and intentions, their religious, political, and intellectual history, and their religious and political history. They also touch on the importance of guidance and rules, regulations, and rules for the sh lowering qualities of Islam, as it is meant to be a source of blessings and thanks. The discussion touches on the god's name and its use in the Jewish culture, as well as strict rules for work and driving during the day. The title of the Day of Saturday is meant to represent the seventh day of the
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AI: Transcript ©
I seek refuge with Allah from the accursed
Satan.
In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious,
the Most Merciful.
Ibrahim was a true follower of Allah.
He was not of the polytheists.
He was grateful for His favours.
He chose him and guided him to a
straight path.
We gave him good in this world, and
in the Hereafter he will be of the
righteous.
Then We inspired you to follow the religion
of Ibrahim, and he was not of the
polytheists.
The Sabbath was made for those who differed
concerning it.
And surely your Lord will judge between them
on the Day of Resurrection concerning that in
which they differed.
Last week in the final closing ayat we
talked about the issue of the things which
had been prohibited to the Jewish people in
terms of the meats and the things which
are halal, but specifically for the Jewish people
they were made haram.
So that was the last discussion that we
had.
So connecting to that we have the ayah
which starts today, which talks about Ibrahim and
his status.
So the status of Ibrahim is undoubtedly amongst
all the madhahib, amongst all the religions, Jewish,
Christian is well known, Muslims obviously is well
known, but also amongst the mushrikeen of Mecca,
they respected Ibrahim knowing him to be the
one who actually had built the Kaaba.
So his discussion comes up and how Allah
SWT instructs us as an ummah and the
Prophet to follow in the footsteps of Ibrahim.
So Allah SWT says Indeed
Ibrahim was an ummah and what does this
ummah actually mean?
The word ummah in different context it has
a different meaning and there are various places
in the Quran that uses the word ummah
and in different places it means different things.
For example, in the story of Musa A
.S. He went to Madian and when he
came to Madian He saw a group of
people giving water to their sheep.
So here the word ummah is being used.
So the meaning in that context refers to
a group of people that have one focus
and one intention.
So these shepherds they came together, they have
one focus and one focus only to make
sure that their sheep they get the right
amount of water.
So in that case Allah SWT has used
the word ummah.
In other cases Allah SWT used the word
to describe nations like the people of Rome,
the nation of Romans, the nation of the
Farsis basically the Persian Empire, Empires basically.
And in another context and this is the
usual context in which the word ummah is
used it refers to the people that follow
as a group a particular prophet and we
are being in the ummah of the Prophet
A.S. Prophet Muhammad A.S. We are
his ummah because we wholeheartedly follow in his
footsteps and we obey what he tells us
to do and we do what he has
instructed us to do.
So from that context we are an ummah
and this is the context in which Ibrahim
A.S. has been described as an ummah.
So he himself was a person whose Iman,
whose conviction in Allah SWT his trust in
Allah SWT, his generosity, his fear of Allah
SWT they were so complete that he was
like an ummah by himself.
So if you get a group of people
for example you know you would have a
person who has good qualities he has good
qualities but he may have shortcomings in others
for example he might be brave, you know
bravery might be his strong point but then
that same person he may be stingy when
it comes to giving in charity.
So another person who may be generous when
it comes to giving in charity but he
is very weak when it comes to coming
to the masjid.
So everyone has shortcomings from different perspectives but
Ibrahim A.S. was such that his qualities
were complete in every single way.
There was no deficiency in his character and
because of that Allah SWT has described him
as an ummah.
He was like an ummah by himself.
He had within him all of the qualities
that a complete nation would have not just
a single person.
So this is the first thing that Allah
SWT has described that the quality of Ibrahim
A.S. and then after that there are
more qualities.
He submitted himself to Allah SWT.
He was subservient to Allah SWT.
Qunoot is from the same word.
When a person is doing Qunoot he is
basically humbling himself in front of Allah SWT.
So Qanit means he humbled himself in front
of Allah SWT and Hanifan is the next
quality.
So ummah, Qanit and Hanif, the third quality
is Hanif.
Hanif refers to focusing on one single objective
and especially when people all around you are
deviant from that objective you turn away from
that deviancy and turn towards that one sole
goal of turning away from that deviancy.
That is what is meant by Hanif.
And this quality of being Hanif was actually
a quality that all the Anbiya A.S.
had.
So in this case we look at Ibrahim
A.S. He was raised in a household
in which not only were statues worshipped but
his father actually used to make statues and
sell them.
So he was so devoted to his idols
that he used to make them and also
sell them.
He was a manufacturer of idols.
So he was raised in that household.
So he turned away from the idol worship
and he broke all the statues, the very
famous story and he focused on Tawheed.
And then there is another incident that is
mentioned in the Quran how Ibrahim A.S.
focused on all of the things that could
be taken as great around him.
Stars, sun, moon, everything and he saw that
each one had deficiencies and each one finished,
disappeared and how could he worship something that
finished, disappeared, was not visible all the time.
So he said that I cannot worship any
of these things I worship only the one
who created all of these things and that
is Allah S.W.T. So that is
another incident, again focusing only on Allah S
.W.T. That is the quality of being
Hanif and being focused on one objective and
turning away from the deviancy.
And he was not from the polytheists.
He was not from the people that committed
Shirk.
Now the question is, you have three qualities
mentioned already about Ibrahim A.S. He was
an Ummah, meaning he was complete in every
sense.
He was Qanit, he submitted himself to Allah
S.W.T. He was Hanif, he was
fully focused on Allah S.W.T. So
obviously he is not committing Shirk.
All of these qualities that are mentioned here
that means that he is not committing Shirk.
So why then Allah S.W.T. mentions
He wasn't from the people that committed Shirk.
So the scholars say that this could have
two meanings.
Firstly, that it could be referring to that
same Shirk which is the opposite of Tawheed.
That basically Allah S.W.T. mentioned those
qualities and the immediate understanding of those qualities
is not Tawheed.
So specifically Allah S.W.T. mentioned that
he didn't commit Shirk to specify in words
that he wasn't committing Shirk.
But the second meaning is the one that
is most wonderful.
And that is that he did not have
Shirk in the sense that he had complete
and utter trust in Allah S.W.T.
to such a degree that even the things
around him they were not regarded as having
any kind of power whatsoever.
Only Allah S.W.T. had the power.
And the understanding of that or the example
of that would be that when he is
thrown into the fire this huge fire that
the people made for him after he broke
the idols and it was such a huge
fire that they could not actually put him
into the fire physically so they had to
use a catapult to put him into a
catapult and actually throw him into the fire
from far away.
At this point Jibreel A.S. comes and
says to Ibrahim A.S. that you need
any help from me?
He said not from you.
I want only help from Allah S.W
.T. So the fact is we know that
fire it burns.
We know that fire burns.
This is the sebab, the fire is the
sebab and the means through which people and
things burn.
But Ibrahim A.S. conviction and faith was
so strong that the burning of the fire
was sidelined and his belief in the creator
was so strong that Allah S.W.T.
is going to protect me and the quality
of burning is going to be removed from
the fire.
So basically he denied any type of conviction
in the things that he saw around him.
So many examples we have in our lives
for example a person he has a headache
and he takes Tylenol or he has a
cup of coffee.
He thinks that the Tylenol is the thing
that is going to remove the headache from
him and the Tylenol is the one that
gives the cure.
Or he feels that he has a headache
because he didn't have caffeine the whole day.
So he feels that the caffeine is the
thing that is going to remove the headache.
So this is you know true in the
sense that Allah S.W.T. is the
one who puts into these things the power
to give a cure, to remove the headache,
to remove the pains, to make a person
more alert.
This is true in a certain sense that
Allah S.W.T. has put those qualities
in them.
But ultimately our conviction should not be in
those things per se.
Our conviction should be Allah is the one
who gives the cure.
Allah is the one who makes a person
free from illnesses.
Yes a person goes to the doctor, seeks
a cure, but ultimately Allah is the one
who gives the cure himself.
So this is what is meant by He
was not committing any type of shirk not
even in the sense that he had any
conviction in the things that were around him
that people usually take for granted that they
do things as opposed to Allah S.W
.T. himself doing them only and only Allah
S.W.T. doing them.
So this is from that sense he wasn't
committing any shirk with Allah S.W.T.
which also is referred to as shirk khafi.
The fifth quality that is mentioned here is
He was grateful for the blessings of Allah
S.W.T. And why is this specifically
being mentioned here?
Because if you remember at the last week
or the week before that Allah S.W
.T. mentioned a village in which Allah S
.W.T. had blessed it from many things
and still the village became disobedient to Allah
S.W.T. So Allah then sent the
punishment down for their ungratefulness.
So this according to some scholars was maqatul
mukarrama which fell victim to a drought for
about seven years and they were deprived of
any types of crops or fruits for seven
years as a punishment from Allah S.W
.T. So as opposed to that Allah S
.W.T. is telling the people of Mecca
that you are not supposed to be ungrateful
for his blessings you should be grateful just
like Ibrahim A.S. was.
Allah S.W.T. chose him.
The word ijtaba is like the word istafa
Allah S.W.T. chose him Ibrahim A
.S. as a prophet just like he chose
all the amni alims S.W.T. and
especially our beloved Prophet S.A.W. as
a prophet and he guided him to the
straight path.
So the question is that Allah S.W
.T. guided Ibrahim A.S. to the straight
path.
What does it mean?
He was already guided all of these qualities
we've just mentioned.
What does this mean from guidance?
So yes he was guided and he adopted
the waheed and he rejected the idols, he
rejected the worship of the sun, the moon
and the stars.
But Allah S.W.T. guided him further
to give him guidelines to give him sharia
rules, laws, regulations and so on.
This was the guidance that Allah S.W
.T. guided him to the straight path.
And we gave Ibrahim A.S. in this
world also hasana.
Hasana means good.
So how did Allah S.W.T. give
him hasana?
We've already mentioned from one perspective that Ibrahim
A.S. who was accepted and still is
accepted by all the religions Christianity, Judaism and
even in the days of the Prophet A
.S. the mushrikeen of Mecca actually respected Ibrahim
A.S. and actually this was a dua
that Ibrahim A.S. had made to Allah
S.W.T. Allah S.W.T. Hasana
refers to a truthful tongue.
Meaning people praising him, glorifying him, saying good
things about him and even to this day
we understand Ibrahim A.S. and again all
the mazahib, all the religions respect and love
Ibrahim A.S. because of the fact that
he was the father of prophets.
And in every salat what do we do?
We use Ibrahim A.S. as an example
and make dua for our beloved Prophet S
.A.W. that oh Allah send salutations and
blessings upon our Prophet S.A.W. just
like you did for Ibrahim A.S. that
in itself is such a huge honor that
we are comparing and requesting Allah S.W
.T. to honor and elevate our Prophet to
the status of Ibrahim A.S. and to
give him the blessings as he gave the
blessings to Ibrahim A.S. and the family
of Ibrahim A.S. So the fact that
he has been given in this world hasana
this is one thing that is meant that
he is being praised, loved and respected by
everybody until the day of judgment.
And the other thing that Allah S.W
.T. blessed him in this world was the
fact that he was the father of many
Prophets A.S. First of all he had
two children Ismail and Ishaq A.S. Two
children and Ishaq A.S. had the son
Yaqub A.S. Yaqub A.S. also known
as Israel and from Israel twelve children are
born and those twelve children become the twelve
tribes of Bani Israel.
And in those twelve tribes hundreds and hundreds
of Prophets A.S. were born.
Yushaq A.S., Harun A.S., Musa A
.S. and Isa A.S. all of these
were the Prophets that were born on that
side of the family tree.
And on the other side of the family
tree from the progeny of Ismail A.S.
our beloved Prophet S.A.W. Just imagine
such a huge and blessed family tree that
Ibrahim A.S. has that all of these
Prophets A.S. go back to Ibrahim A
.S. himself.
So, We gave him in this world good
and indeed obviously so much honor and dignity
is given to him in this world so
obviously in the hereafter he is also going
to be from the ones that are from
the pious people and from the ones that
are in a good situation.
Salih can mean Salih in the sense pious
and Salih can also mean free from any
kind of trouble.
So he will obviously being the Prophet that
he was he will be free from all
the troubles that people will face in the
hereafter.
Now the Prophet A.S. our Prophet S
.A.W. is being addressed here.
And when our Prophet is being addressed that
means indirectly we are all being addressed.
Allah says to him then we reveal to
you O Prophet of Allah that you should
follow the way of Ibrahim A.S. meaning
with full devotion.
So the same Tawheed that he had and
the same convictions that he had the same
Tawakkul that he had follow in his footsteps.
And actually even before the Prophethood was given
to the Prophet A.S. he used to
engage in worship that had been handed down
for over generations which was the worship that
Ibrahim A.S. used to do.
He never engaged in any type of idol
worship.
Prior to the Prophethood he did that and
then Allah S.A.W. emphasized to him
after the Prophethood that he should continue to
follow in the same footsteps of Ibrahim A
.S. and again Allah S.A.W. emphasizes
was not from the people that committed Shirk.
After that Allah S.A.W. then goes
into talking about the Jewish people and specifically
talking about the day of the Sabbath or
Saturday.
The word Sabbath is used in Hebrew Shabbat
and from that is the English word Sabbath
but it is actually also in Arabic it
means to rest.
So the day of Sabbath was the day
of rest for the people of the Bani
Israel and the Jews.
Now Allah S.A.W. let me do
the translation and then I will explain the
different meanings.
Allah says Indeed the day of Saturday or
Sabbath was made upon the people that disputed
it.
So the story goes that Musa A.S.
presented the day of Friday to his people
and he said to them that Allah S
.A.W. has allocated this day for you
and he has given this day to you.
They said no we don't want Friday we
want Saturday.
Why?
Whatever their reasoning was they said we want
Saturday because it is the seventh day of
the week basically after six days of working
we want one day in which we rest.
So Allah S.A.W. after they chose
Saturday for them imposed upon them the strict
rules of the Sabbath that they are not
allowed to work at all on Saturday.
And even today orthodox Jews they do not
work and even the stricter orthodox Jews they
don't even drive anything or use anything man
-made.
So even to the degree that they are
not allowed to put the switch on in
their houses from sunset on Friday night all
the way until Saturday Friday night.
So they have ways around it nowadays you
have electronic timers and so on.
But this is the rule that the strict
orthodox Jews follow and also on the day
of Saturday they are not allowed to drive
their cars.
So you will see that they will have
their houses close to the synagogues and they
will be walking to the synagogue on Saturday
rather than actually driving.
So these are the strict rules that the
orthodox Jews still maintain.
But there is a story that is mentioned
in the Quran about a specific group of
villagers that ridiculed this command of Allah S
.A.W. How so?
They were living near the coast.
They were fishermen and Allah S.A.W.
tested them by sending huge amounts of fish
on Saturday.
Why?
To test them and on the other days
very little fish used to come.
So they thought to themselves well you know
this is not right.
We are being deprived of this fish.
This is our livelihood.
So what they did on Friday they put
out the nets and they collected them on
Sunday.
So Allah S.A.W. the story is
in detail.
I won't go into the whole thing right
now.
But Allah S.A.W. punished them by
turning them into pigs and monkeys and after
that they were destroyed.
So this
story is specifically about catching the fish and
basically working on Saturday that they were forbidden
to do.
So Allah S.A.W. punished them for
that.
Now many people they actually take this story
and generalize it for all Jews.
And this is not correct.
That these are the sons of, this is
not correct.
That these are the sons of monkeys and
pigs.
This is not correct because it is about
a specific village that specifically disobeyed Allah S
.A.W. And Allah S.A.W. punished
that particular village and turned it into pigs
and monkeys.
But this is not a general thing that
we should use for all of the Jews.
It is not right that some people do
that.
Okay, so all across the Quran, Surah Al
-Baqarah, etc.
Allah S.A.W. actually talked about how
he honored the Bani Israel in so many
different ways and how he gave them so
many different types of blessings.
Again, Surah Al-Baqarah is full of that.
I won't go into that now.
But this is what Allah S.A.W.
is referring to.
Indeed, the day of Saturday was imposed upon
those people that did Ikhtilaf in it, that
disputed it.
Okay, so two meanings.
Firstly, they disputed it in the sense that
Allah gave them Friday and instead they chose
Saturday.
That's one dispute.
And the second dispute is like those people
did in that story of the village that
was close to the sea.
They disputed in it, meaning they disobeyed Allah
S.A.W. in it.
So Allah S.A.W. punished them for
it.
وَإِنَّ رَبَّكَ لَيَحْكُمُ بَيْنَهُمْ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ فِي مَا
كَانُوا بِهِ يَخْتَلِفُونَ Indeed, your Lord will judge
between them on the Day of Judgment about
that what they are disputing.
So basically, the disobedience that they did and
the fact that they didn't choose or they
didn't take what their Prophet had given them
in so many instances, not that one instance
only, there were many incidents that took place
in the time of Musa A.S. that
they just made difficult, made life difficult for
Musa A.S. The story of the cow,
when Musa A.S. told them to slaughter
a cow, they said, you know, that's confusing.
Tell us what the color of the cow
should be.
What should be the age of the cow?
And they just kept on asking question after
question until they restricted the whole thing upon
themselves.
So that's one incident.
Then they had the incident of the Promised
Land, when Musa A.S. told them, the
Promised Land is for you, go.
They said, no, there's a huge army inside
and they're going to kill us.
So you and Harun go and fight.
We'll wait here for you.
So different incidents that took place with the
disobedience of Musa A.S. So Allah SWT
says that Allah will judge them on the
Day of Judgment about the things that they
continued to dispute about.
So with that, inshallah, we finish today's lesson
and we'll continue with this next week.
So what was your question?
Why did they make it?
Now, Sunday is the chosen day of the
Christians.
The Christians chose Sunday.
The Jewish people, they chose Saturday.
And the wisdom or the reasoning that they
gave...