Ramadan 18, 1435/2014 Tafseer, by Imam Muhammed Shoayb Mehtar, Khadeeja Islamic Center, SLC, Utah

Nightly Notes (18)*:

Tonight we talked about an ayah that makes us realize the only difference between 2 people is what we perceive. As far as Allah is concerned, He gives to whom He pleases, when He pleases, in any form or manner He pleases. One person may be more educated than the other, have better looks than the other. Allah is the one that gives wealth, prophethood, positions, you name it. You will come across both less educated and more educated scholars. But Allah will inspire those with less education to the extent that the more educated scholars learn from them. Allah distributes, He gives, however He wishes to do so. It is our job to simply accept how.

Why should we accept why some people seem to have better jobs with less difficulty than others? People say that because I am a Muslim, I suffer a lot everywhere I go. Allah says, if you complain I will give you more reason to complain. We should be thankful to Allah for what He has given us. Why?

• For some people it seems that money is just raining down from the sky, why can’t we get that too? Allah could’ve made us all into one nation. He could’ve given us silver roofs. He could’ve given us golden walls. You want $25,000,000? No problem. A second or third or fourth house/car? In an instant.

•  Why doesn’t He do all these ‘magnificent’ and ‘wonderful’ things for us?

Because giving us less is a blessing. If Allah gave us more it would’ve affected our Imaan. Ever think ‘if I only had $1,000,000 I would give to charity, I would help the poor, the orphans, I would help build masjids, I would do X and I would do Y.’ Despite all our sincere and noble intentions, Allah knows, if He gave us more than what we have right now, we would possibly lose the Imaan that we have left. Is any amount of money worth paying that price? The destruction of our Imaan?

• Allah safeguards our Imaan by keeping you and I humble.
• (How many (few) people come for Jummah? Is their wealth, their gold, their silver, distracting them from Allah? It is something worth pondering over.)

Who is the owner of your house, is it you? What about your car? Your cell phone? Your bank account? Guess what, you really are not the owner for anything that you have in your life. Why?

• Because everything belongs to Allah. So why do we pre-occupy our lives and waste our precious little time on focusing on what we have vs. what we don’t have?  On the earth, below the earth, above the earth, every single thing in the universe belongs to Allah. Aren’t car companies the owners of the cars until they sell it to us? Didn’t they make the cars? Same way as car manufacturers engineer cars, didn’t Allah engineer the universe?

• We are His servants, He gives us life, and He gives us death. In His hands do our souls lie. Understand the reality of this life – it is a test for us from Allah. This world and the things that are in it are here to trick us. Accept what Allah has given us as trinkets (nothing) because compared to everlasting life (we are talking about infinity times infinity) what is 60, 70, 80, 90 years? Nothing! We would be fools to even try to compare.

We must not only recognize, understand, and accept this life as a test but understand that the Day of Judgment is not some story we read to pass the time. No, It is a reality. Resurrection and questioning by Allah for every single deed we have ever done is a reality. We will see every single nation, from the first human being, Adam (AS), to the last human being on this earth, billions of people on that Day. Every single human being will kneel, will bow down before Allah.

• Each individual will go down kneeling on that Day and we can’t even kneel to Allah in this life. Case in point: we are too worried about our ‘$300 Nordstrom pants’ that we can’t do proper Sujood (prostration) because we don’t want to damage it. We pick up our pants before doing Sajdah. If we bow down before Allah in this world, we will find it easy on that Day to bow down to Him. However, if we play around with our religion and make excuses for why we cannot bow down due to worldly reasons, we will not be able to bow down to Allah on that Day and we will be forced to kneel and it will feel like our back is breaking.

• Every Muslim, every non-Muslim, will bow down before Allah. Every nation was given a book. Every nation was given prophet(s) to follow. Those people who followed their prophets will directly go to Jannah. Those people who did not follow their given book in the proper manner will be punished by Allah. We all believe in the Qur’an, there is no doubt about that. But on that Day, just believing in the Qur’an will not be enough to get our Book of deeds in our right hand… so how will we enter Jannah?

By not just believing in the Qur’an but following it, following what Allah and Rasulullah (SAW) have taught us.

One final point is teaching our children the importance of kneeling, prostrating, doing Ruku (bowing) properly, doing Sujood properly, in the manner that Allah wishes us to do so. If for nothing else then the following reason should be enough to suffice us to impart this to our children:

To save them from the embarrassment on the Day of Judgment.

May Allah (SWT) guide us and help us at all times.

 

*Nightly Notes provided by note-takers in the masjid, as heard during tafseer.