Zia Sheikh – Tafseer of Surah Yusuf Ayah 105 onwards 2132017
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AI: Transcript ©
In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious,
the Most Merciful.
And how many a sign is there in
the heavens and the earth that they pass
by it and turn away from it.
And most of them do not believe in
Allah except while they are polytheists.
أَفَأَمِنُوا أَن تَأْتِيَهُوا غَاشِيَةٌ مِّنْ عَذَابِ اللَّهِ أَوْ
تَأْتِيَهُمُ السَّاعَةُ بَغْتَةً وَهُمْ لَا يَشْعُرُونَ We are
continuing the tafsir of Surah Yusuf and inshallah
we are starting from ayah number 105 today.
If you remember last week, Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala addressed the Prophet ﷺ and in
these verses he told him that all of
these stories that you are mentioning, the story
of Yusuf ﷺ, the story of Nuh ﷺ,
the story of all the Anbiya' alimu ﷺ,
these were not something that you, our Prophet
of Allah, knew before this.
But in fact, all of these stories are
given to you by Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala in the form of revelation, in the
form of wahi, and this should be complete
proof to the people around you that this
Qur'an is from Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala.
In addition to the fact that you are
unlettered, you don't know how to read and
write, not even Arabic, let alone the other
languages like Hebrew and Aramaic in which the
previous scriptures were written, and yet you are
able to bring these stories, like the story
of Yusuf ﷺ, in great detail.
So this should be proof for the people
who have any doubt that this Qur'an
is from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
But after that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
says, وَمَا أَكْثَرُ النَّاسِ وَلَوْ حَرَصْتَ بِمُؤْمِنِينَ Most
people, even though, O Prophet of Allah, you
are eager for them to become believers, they
are not going to be believers.
And I gave statistics last week that still
the majority of the world are non-Muslim.
One-fifth or maybe one-quarter of the
people of the world are Muslims, but the
rest are non-Muslims.
And this will always be the case, that
أَكْثَرُ النَّاسِ The majority of the people will
not be believers and will not have Iman.
So keeping that same theme continuing, this is
where we start off at the beginning of
today's lesson.
وَكَأَيِّمْ مِّنْ آيَةٍ فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ يَمُرُّونَ عَلَيْهَا
وَهُمْ عَنْهَا مُؤَرِضُونَ Those same people that you
are trying to invite and you are calling
them towards Islam, Allah SWT mentions about them
that how many signs do they in the
sky and in the earth, they pass by
them and yet they continue to turn their
back to them.
Meaning that there are so many signs, so
many ayat, so many miracles around them that
they are looking at and yet they continue
to reject Iman in Allah SWT.
They continue to reject faith and they do
not have Iman in Allah SWT.
So there are a few words that we
need to kind of focus on and contemplate
over.
One of them is the word كَأَيِّمْ.
كَأَيِّمْ is the first word here and this
is like the word كَمْ in Arabic.
كَمْ means how many and كَمْ is used
in two forms.
One is when you are asking a question
that how much money do you have or
how many children are enrolled in the Islamic
school here, how many people come for Salat
every day.
So that is a question.
But then the other form of saying how
many is to ask a question to the
person in front of you with an intention
to show what is known in Arabic as
تَكْثِير.
تَكْثِير means a great big amount.
How many times have I told you to
do your homework on time?
How many times did I buy X, Y,
and Z things for you and yet you
continue to be ungrateful?
So this is the second form of كَمْ.
How many?
When you ask a question with the intention
to show that you have done something so
many times or the thing that you are
talking about, it has happened so many times.
So كَأَيِّمْ is like that but it is
multiplied many many times over.
So كَمْ means how many times have I
done this for you?
It is like a question that you are
asking the person to show a lot of
things but كَأَيِّمْ is multiplied many many more
times than that.
So Allah SWT is saying that how many
signs do these people see in front of
them?
How many miracles are produced in front of
their eyes every single day?
The rising of the sun, the setting of
the sun, the moon and all of its
phases, the stars and the planets and the
whole universe and the galaxies.
Everything that Allah SWT has created which is
so huge that we cannot even get our
mind around it and we cannot imagine how
huge it is.
So these are signs that they see with
their own eyes and they are taught in
their science classes and they are taught by
scientists and yet they continue to reject them.
They continue to turn away from them.
So the scholars have actually mentioned that the
word ayah can be of three kinds.
And ayah basically, if you want to look
at the literal translation, it means a strange
or wondrous thing.
That's what ayah actually means.
For example, if you say about a person,
هو آية في الذكاء meaning he is a
sign from Allah SWT in his intelligence.
He is such an intelligent person, it's as
if he is a sign from Allah SWT.
So there are three types of signs or
three types of ayat that we can find
around us.
One of them is the thing that we
see on a day-to-day basis with
our own eyes and we kind of even
take it for granted somehow.
And these are the things that I've mentioned
already.
The rising of the sun, the setting of
the sun, the phases of the moon, a
baby coming into existence and being born right
in front of our eyes, being created from
nothing.
Nothingness created and from that created a walking,
talking human being.
That is a miracle that is being performed
in front of our eyes and a creation
of Allah SWT coming into existence in front
of our eyes and yet because it's kind
of an everyday thing, we take it for
granted.
There are verses in Surah Ar-Rum that
Allah SWT mentions one after the other, His
ayat, His signs.
And so on.
So in Surah Ar-Rum, which is basically
the second page of Surah Ar-Rum, you
can go through verse after verse starting from
Allah SWT goes on to describe so many
of His signs that are around us every
single day and they should instill into us
that there is a creator that has created
us.
That fitrah should be within each and every
human being after seeing these signs around him.
That there is a creator who created us.
And then that iman is kind of officiated
or becomes official by the emergence of a
prophet that tells them that yes, there is
a creator and he is Allah and you
have to worship him and him alone.
So this is what happens when a person
ponders into these signs and miracles that are
around him.
So this is the first type of ayah.
The second type of ayah is the commands
of Allah SWT and the wisdoms that we
can find within those commands that Allah SWT
has given us.
So, sorry, the second type is the miracles
of the Prophet SAW.
Ijaz, ayat, miracles that the Anbiya' alayhi salatu
wasalam were given to show further proof of
their prophethood.
So that's a second type of ayah.
And in our case, the Prophet SAW was
given and performed many miracles.
One of them was the shaq al qamar,
the splitting of the full moon and the
many instances where the rizq or the food
was less and by the Prophet SAW putting
his hands inside it, the rizq became more
and was sufficient for everyone and many, many
other miracles besides.
So, and other prophets, they had their miracles
like the asaw of Musa alayhi salam and
the shining hand of Musa alayhi salam and
the miracles performed by Isa alayhi salatu wasalam
bringing the dead back to life and curing
the sick that were terminally ill.
All of these miracles were given to the
Anbiya' alayhi salatu wasalam to show proof of
their prophethood that they were in fact from
Allah SWT.
So that's the second type of ayah.
And the third type of ayah is the
commands of Allah SWT that he has given
us and within those commands, there is so
much wisdom that sometimes it goes over our
head and we don't understand the wisdom behind
them.
There is a wisdom, for sure there is
a wisdom.
Sometimes you understand it, sometimes you don't understand
it.
For example, the issue of talaq and the
issue of divorce that Allah SWT has ordained
and allowed for human beings to have, why?
Because sometimes it happens that two people, they
marry each other and they just cannot get
along and there is no other alternative except
for to divorce.
So Allah SWT has allowed that thing to
happen and there is a wisdom behind it.
Otherwise, how difficult would it be and how
much of a torture would it be for
us as human beings to try to live
with the person that we cannot get along
with and basically that leads to hatred of
each other, that leads to fighting, it leads
to problems with the kids, the kids see
the violence and the arguments going on all
the time.
So in that situation, rather than continue with
that poisonous relationship, it is better to get
what has been ordained by Sharia and allowed
by Sharia and that is to get a
divorce.
Not like in the Catholic faith where it
is truly as they say at the time
of the marital vows that till death do
us part, that there is no way that
they can be separated until they actually die
from each other or one dies or the
other one is alive.
Islam is not like that.
There is a wisdom that Allah SWT has
allowed the divorce to take place and that
wisdom for sure is there.
And then there are certain things that we
do not know the wisdom behind them but
maybe over time, scientific research will show that
there is a wisdom behind it.
For example, a person might object to the
fact that okay, I have gone to the
bathroom and I have cleansed myself thoroughly after
I have used the bathroom.
So why do I need to go through
the motions of washing my face and then
my arms up to my elbows and my
feet including my ankles?
Why do I have to go through all
of that when I have cleansed myself properly
in the bathroom?
Allah knows.
Allah knows what the wisdom is behind that.
This is known as Amr Ta'budi.
But in any case, all of the commands
of Allah SWT, they have a wisdom behind
them and there are signs within those commands
of Allah SWT and we have to believe
in them.
So much so that if we reject any
command of Allah SWT that has been unanimously
agreed upon by all of the ulama, then
the rejection of that can actually lead us
out of faith.
We can become non-believers by rejecting those
things.
For example, a person says about the fasting
in the month of Ramadan.
He says that Allah SWT doesn't want to
torture us in the West while we are
in our Muslim countries.
The employers, they give their employees a bit
of a break because it's Ramadan.
Early people can go home.
They can have a siesta in the afternoon
and then come back to work a little
bit later on and so on.
So I believe in the West, fasting is
not obligated upon me.
So that kind of attitude can actually lead
a person out of Islam.
So this is a very dangerous situation to
be in.
So the commands of Allah SWT that have
been unanimously agreed upon, we cannot reject them
and we cannot say we do not believe
in them.
So these are the three types of ayah.
Again, the ayah is first and foremost the
signs that we see around us in the
universe, the sun, the moon, and so on.
The second are the miracles that the anbiya'
alimu salatu wasalam performed and the third, the
ayat in the commands of Allah SWT, the
wisdoms behind the commands of Allah SWT.
This is the third type of ayah.
So these people, if they are rejecting any
one of those ayat, then basically they are
out of the fold of Islam and they
continue to reject all of those ayat.
Actually, if a person is a non-believer,
he continues to reject all of these ayat.
For the sun and the universe, he will
say, well, everything came into existence by itself.
And for the miracles of the prophets, he
will say, well, these are all fabricated stories
of the past and I don't believe anything
like that ever happened.
As many so-called Christian scholars actually talk
about the flood of Noah and stories which
are related to the anbiya' alimu salatu wasalam,
they say, well, actually, possibly they didn't even
happen.
These are just stories of morals that were
handed down from person to person and maybe,
na'udhu billah, they didn't even happen.
So, again, this is rejecting the ayat of
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and if a
person rejects anything like that, he is actually
out of the fold of Islam.
So, Allah says, وَكَأَيِّمْ مِّنْ آيَةٍ How many
of those signs, how many?
And again, this is a wording of astonishment
and wonderment and showing takthir, meaning a lot.
How many of the signs in the heavens
and the earth?
يَمُرُّونَ عَلَيْهَا They pass by them.
وَهُمْ عَنْهَا مُعْرِضُونَ While they are turning their
back to them, meaning turning their back and
displaying kufr and disbelief.
This is a figurative figure of speech.
Turning your back means not literally turning your
back.
It means not believing in those things.
وَمَا يُؤْمِنُ أَكْثَرُهُمْ بِاللَّهِ إِلَّا وَهُمْ مُشْرِكُونَ And
most of them, they do not have iman
in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala except they
are committing shirk.
Now, shirk here, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
is saying, He is talking about the word
shirk.
And generally speaking, we talk about shirk as
associating partners with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
And this is obviously the greatest form of
shirk that a person has to avoid, and
this is an unforgivable sin.
However, as believers, also we sometimes tend to
delve into or touch shirk without even realizing
it.
And that can be in many forms.
First of all, for example, dealing with superstition
and things like amulets and magic charms and
you know, horseshoes and so on.
Believing in bad luck, good luck, all of
these things are not permissible in sharia and
actually they can lead a person to shirk.
That you believe in the horseshoe or you
believe in a black cat that crossed your
path.
You believe that walking under a ladder is
going to give you seven years bad luck.
You believe that breaking a mirror is going
to give you seven years bad luck.
All of these things are nonsense and believing
in them are tantamount to shirk.
That you believe, for example, that that mirror
or that ladder or the black cat has
the power, na'udhu billahi wallahi wa sallam,
no.
This is shirk.
So we need to stay away from that
type of shirk.
Then there's a lesser form of shirk that
on the one hand we say that yes,
we believe that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
does everything but, and then this but is
the very kind of sensitive thing, that obviously
we do believe that Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala does everything and that iman has to
be there.
That Allah is the one who cures all
of our sicknesses and He is the one
who does everything and He is the one
in control of everything.
He is the one that gives us rizq
and sustenance.
And that iman has to be there and
we have to maintain it.
And the things that lead us, the asbaab,
we are supposed to take the asbaab and
adopt the asbaab.
Like, for example, the Prophet ﷺ, he said,
for every illness there is a medicine.
So what does that mean?
That you look for the medicine, try to
seek a cure, go to the doctor and
if you are sick, take a prescription, take
the doctor's advice.
But after doing all of that, in the
back of your mind and as a believer,
we all believe that ultimately the cure that
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has put into
the medicine, that is from Him and Him
alone.
And the fact that I went to the
doctor, he is not the one who is
curing me, I am simply taking up the
asbaab as the Prophet ﷺ instructed me to,
but Allah is the one who is the
shafi, He is the one who will give
me the cure.
When it comes to rizq and sustenance, we
don't just sit at home and wait for
the rizq to drop from the sky because
it's never going to happen.
We go, send out resumes, look for a
job, make sure that we try our hardest
to find a good job which is paying
a good salary so that we can support
our family and doing that is actually a
form of ibadah if we do it with
the instruction that the Prophet ﷺ instructed us
to seek the rizq.
And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala commanded us,
اِبْتَغُوا مِنْ فَضْلِ اللَّهِ اِذَا نُوذِيَ لِلصَّلَاةِ مِنْ
يَوْمٍ جُمْعَةِ فَاسْعَعُوا إِلَىٰ ذِكْرِ اللَّهِ فَإِذَا قُضِيَتِ
الصَّلَاةُ فَانْتَشِرُوا فِي الْأَرْضِ وَابْتَغُوا مِنْ فَضْلِ اللَّهِ
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala commands us to
seek the fadl and not just sit at
home or even sit in the masjid, rather
to seek it.
So when a person is seeking his sustenance
and he realizes it to be a command
of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala knowing full
well that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is
the raziq, he is the one who is
the razzaq, then he is actually fulfilling the
command of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, he
is engaging in ibadah when he is seeking
his sustenance and providing for his family.
However, if a person, he thinks to himself,
now I'm the one who is providing for
my family, I'm the one that goes from
morning to evening, and at that point a
person forgets about Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
and it's me and me and me, then
that's a dangerous situation to be in and
that is kind of shirk, that you are
putting yourself in the place of Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala, that you are the one
who is providing.
No, you are not the one, I'm not
the one who is providing, Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala is the one that is providing,
but we simply have to adopt the means.
So, this is a lesser form of shirk
that we have to try to avoid and
then there is another form of shirk that
a lot of people and all of us
have to try to avoid as much as
possible and that is the shirk of our
intention and associating partners with Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala in pleasing them.
For example, a person, when he comes to
the masjid and he wants to show that
I come to all of the five times
daily prayers or when there is a fundraiser,
he raises his hand and his intention is
to show people that I'm such a generous
person.
There is nothing wrong with doing those things,
but the intention always has to be clean.
Always a person needs to purify his intention
and sometimes in these situations, better to remain
anonymous, for example, when a person is giving
in charity, better to give anonymously rather than
saying the name so that his ikhlas is
maintained, his sincerity is maintained and he is
not engaging in this form of shirk, which
is known as shirk khafi, a lesser form
of shirk or a hidden form of shirk.
There are many, many hadith and verses of
the Quran that talk about the importance of
ikhlas and sincerity and making sure that we
do things only for the sake of Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala so much so that
the people who are at the pinnacle of
their deeds, they, according to a hadith, will
be thrown into the hellfire because their intentions
were contaminated.
So we always need to make sure that
whatever we do, we do it only for
the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala,
not for any type of showing off, not
for any type of what's known as riya
and suma'ah, riya and suma'ah, these
are two words that describe this wanting to
get fame for what a person does.
So this is another form of shirk that
we need to avoid.
So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says here
in this verse that most people, they do
not have iman in Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala except they are committing shirk.
Except they are committing shirk.
So even with iman, people are committing shirk.
So this verse can take two meanings.
First of all, they don't have iman in
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and they are
committing shirk, meaning they are associating partners with
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and another meaning
could be that despite having iman, they are
still committing shirk and these are the lesser
forms of shirk that I've just described.
So again, we have to be very, very
careful of those forms of shirk.
And finally the last ayah Are
they at peace that something will overcome them
from the punishment of Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala?
Ghashiyah is from the word ghishiyan.
Ghashiyah yaghshah it means to basically cover somebody,
like a blanket covers you.
So this is called ghashiyan.
So are they at ease that a punishment
that will cover them completely is going to
come to them?
Or assa'ah, the day of judgment, comes
to them baghdatan, suddenly, wahum laa yashuroon, while
they are not aware.
So these people that are committing these lesser
forms of shirk or they are not believing
in the Prophet a.s. Are they at
peace that first and foremost that a punishment
could come to them at any time?
We have seen this on so many occasions.
People are living and enjoying their lives and
all of a sudden a tornado comes or
a flood comes or a hurricane comes or
an earthquake comes or a fire comes.
Something can happen at any time destroying a
person's life.
So are people at ease that that cannot
happen to them?
We see it all around us at all
times but yet we always think that it's
not going to happen to me.
That it's never going to happen to me.
But the reality is that next it could
be us.
awta'atiyahum assa'atu baghda or that the
hour can come to them suddenly.
You know the Prophet a.s. he said
mammaata qamat qiyamatuh Whoever dies his qiyamah has
already started.
That's really the reality.
That once we leave this world then our
life of the hereafter has already started.
When we are put into the grave then
our questioning starts and basically that is the
life of the hereafter.
So the qiyamah has already started for us.
So when Allah a.s. is saying that
the sa'a can come suddenly it means
that the death can come suddenly while they
are not even aware of it.
And we see this all the time.
Sudden deaths that occur young people, old people,
middle-aged people the understanding that most of
us have is I'm going to live till
I'm 70, 75, 80.
The reality is we don't know.
The death can come to us at any
time and we've seen younger people, 20s, 30s
passing away without sometimes even any kind of
explanation.
Scientifically baffled people that a perfectly healthy person
is leaving this world without so much as
any kind of illness that can be seen
but suddenly he leaves this world.
So the punishment or the day of judgment
or death can come to us suddenly while
we are not even aware and what that
means is that we need to be prepared
for that death and when it's talking about
these disbelievers it means that they should adopt
Iman before this death comes to them otherwise
it's going to be too late because Iman
at the time of death when they see
the angel of death at the time of
what's known as Ghar Gharah in Arabic when
the soul is being removed from the body
that Iman is not accepted at that time.
So I pray that Allah SWT gives us
Tawfiq to understand and practice what has been
said and heard.
I pray that Allah SWT gives us the
understanding of the Qur'an and gives us
Tawfiq to understand what we've said.
Jazakumullah Khair.