Auto-generated transcript:
My dear brothers and sisters, I’m standing on a little hillock in Mactayo Park which looks down on the Connecticut River which you see there in the middle distance and part from snow melt, part from rain, the river is full back to back. It is very cold. It is right now it says feels like minus 11. I think the actual temperature is about maybe five or six degrees which feels much colder. Alhamdulillah today I want to talk about and remind myself and you. The question that people ask me, Allah bless them, they say how can we and how should we introduce Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala to people? How can we kindle or we can’t kindle or obviously even torment when we present Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala as the glory and majesty in a way which kindles in the hearts of people the love for Allah, the love for His Rasul, alayhi salatu wasalam and the desire to follow this beautiful religion that Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala blessed us with, al-Islam. I can do no better than to take lessons and share my lessons in this line from the Quran. So the first three ways of introducing Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala. The first and foremost is Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala’s introduction in the Quran al-Kareem. Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala introduced Himself. Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala told us who He is and for example Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala said qul hu Allahu ahad, Allahu samad, lam yaleed wa lam yulad, wa lam ya qullahu kufwan ahad. Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala said say to them, Ya Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam, that Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala He is one and one not as in a number which is which can be multiplied or divided but one as in unique. Hu Allahu al-Ahad, al-Ahadu samad, lam yaleed wa lam yulad and He is complete and He has no needs and He has no offspring and He was not born and He wasn’t He didn’t begot He didn’t have any son or something and this is a shout out towards Isa alayhi salam and the belief that they have the false belief that He is son of God. Allah is making this very clear. Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala is saying no it’s not this and wa lam ya qullahu kufwan ahad and they’re saying He is free from all needs and desires and everyone needs Him and He doesn’t need anybody. This is Allah unique. Allah is Allah. Lay saka mislihi shay’un, wa hu wa sami’ul basir. There’s nothing that can be compared to Him and He is the all seeing and the all knowing. So and there are many other ayat in the Quran. There are take from for example ayat al-kursi, take the last parts of surah al-hashr, take the beginning of surah al-mulk and many other surahs all of them introduce us to Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala. All of these are introductions of Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala which Allah gave. So that is one very very very powerful way of introducing Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala. Simply quote what Allah said because no one can introduce Allah better than He introduced Himself. So just quote what He said. Who is Allah? This is who Allah said He is. Now for that it’s very important to be able to recite the Quran correctly. That is very important. Don’t take the time and trouble to learn how to decide the Quran al-karim correctly. I’m not talking about so much about the the lahm, the tune, the qiraat. I’m talking about tajweed. I’m talking about reciting it correctly so that the meaning doesn’t change and so that people when they hear and they listen to the Quran they are clear in their minds and they can feel the glory and majesty of the kalam of Allah. That is very important right. So don’t recite the Quran in a way that people do not feel its glory and majesty. So very important to be able to recite the Quran al-karim correctly and recite. So say introduce Allah by simply reciting the Quran. This is what Rasulullah did all the time. When people asked him about Allah SWT, he recited Quran and people came to Islam because they heard the Quran and these were linguists, these were people who were the people of the language and they said this is not the word of any human being. There is no human being who can speak like this. Because they were the experts and they said but we are the experts and we know that we cannot speak like this. So this is something which is divine. The second way is by talking about the creation of Allah SWT, by showing the creation of Allah SWT external and internal. Because Allah SWT mentioned this. Allah taught us how to introduce Himself. Allah said verily and truly in the creation of the heavens and the earth and in the alternation of the day and the night, there are signs for people of intelligence. Ayat. Remember Allah did not say verses ayat. There is a very important thing and on the side note I want to mention this. When we translate the word ayah as verse, linguistically, grammatically maybe it is correct but it does not serve the purpose and it is not what is meant in the Quran. And ayah in the Quran is a sign. Now you might say is this simply some game in linguistics that you are playing. What does it matter if you say sign or verse? It makes a massive difference. And the difference it makes is that a verse does not call towards any action. For example if I recite for you any poetry, then you might appreciate the poetry, you might say beautiful poetry, fantastic, it might bring tears to your eyes and so on and so forth. It might make you very happy and sad and or sad but there is no compulsion and there is no invitation to action. Whereas a sign always, always, always without exception, compares to action. You see a sign, the sign is telling you something, is telling you to do something, it’s telling you to stop or it is telling you to go, it is showing you direction, it is warning you about dangers ahead, it is promising you some good things ahead, right? There are restaurants and this and that, rest areas. As you drive, signs have meaning, signs give direction, signs are things that guide to a good ending. And therefore the ayahs of the Quran are signs of Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala, His glory and majesty. So Allah is saying in the creation of the heavens and the earth, and in the alternation, the changing of the day and the night, there are signs. The emphasis, the verily and truly, surely there are signs for people of intelligence. Now if we are people of intelligence, we need to look at these signs and therefore second way of introducing Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala to the people is through His creation. Look at this, now take this same park for example. I made many videos here and you would have seen this park in different seasons, you’ve seen this park, these same trees, you’ve seen them completely green in the summer, you’ve seen them in fall, in autumn with brilliant, brilliant colors and now you see them, they all look as if they are dead, they look as if they will never come alive again, finished. But then Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala said, Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala revives the earth and gives it life after it has died and so on. You can see the sign of that, that is you can see this here, that you hear, we’re looking at the river here, this river has obviously a lot of fish and the reason the fish remain alive is because of what is called the anomalous expansion of water, which is that when water freezes, the top freezes and when the top freezes, ice is a poor conductor of heat and therefore the bottom of the, below the ice, the water is not as cold as the surface of the ice and therefore below a certain depth, which is usually the minimum depth about three feet, below three feet if there is water, the water will unfreeze, so the river will never freeze solid and thereby the organisms, the fish, the other things that live there, the the insects and the crabs and various things, they remain alive, they are able to go through this winter. As I told you today, the temperature is minus four, here it goes down to minus 20 Celsius. So, but Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala’s creation is such that when Allah wants to keep something alive, Allah keeps it alive. So that’s the second way of introducing Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala. The third way is to look at yourself internally, look at our internal processes, our body, the way the body functions, the way the mind functions, all of this and that’s the reason why it’s important to get some knowledge. So don’t become a doctor and don’t start prescribing medicines, but at the same time by all means learn and quote facts, that is why doing good research is very important. Quote facts, don’t quote stories, quote facts and inshallah the glory of Allah will come into the hearts of people and may Allah use you to make that happen. So we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala to help us to do this in a way that pleases him and we ask Allah to use us as the means of kindling the love and the glory and majesty of Allah in the hearts of anyone who listens to us and we ask Allah to before all of that to kindle that glory and majesty in our own hearts. Very very important, let’s try and do this the whole time inshallah.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 11:12 — 7.7MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | Email | Youtube Music | RSS