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Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen, wa salatu wa salamu ala ash-sharafi al-anbiya wal-mursaleen, Muhammadin Rasulullah, sallallahu alayhi wa ala alihi wa sallam tasliman wa rafiqan. Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim.
My brothers and sisters, we are seeing this fabulous sunset on the Kafue River in Zambia, and I don’t have to describe it to you because you can see it here.
The thing I want to mention to you is that as you see these colors and you see the clouds and so on and so forth, Allah mentioned in Surah Aal-e-Imran, He said:
إِنَّ فِي خَلْقِ السَّمَوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ وَاخْتِلافِ اللَّيْلِ وَالنَّهَارِ لَآيَاتٍ لِأُولِي الْأَلْبَابِ
Allah said that in the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the alternation of the day and the night, there are signs for people of intelligence, people who think.
I ask myself and you, let us think about this issue. What happens to a lot of us, when we look at people of intelligence, meaning also education, when we look at natural phenomena, is that we get involved sometimes in the physics of it. For example, refraction of light; for example, the color of the sunset being a factor of the dust particles in the air; what happens to the sun because of the clouds, you know, all kinds of things, all of which are true, all of which are things that explain certain things. But it still does not explain why every sunset is different.
Again, from the how perspective, every sunset is different because atmospheric conditions are different, but it does not explain why.
I want to give you an example to illustrate what I’m saying. For example, if you go to somebody’s house and this person knows that you love a certain kind of food, and so they especially make that dish for you. You say, “I’m so grateful, thank you so much, you’ve honored me.” So say, for example, this person knows that you love Hyderabadi dum biryani, so they make the biryani for you, and you are very, you know, honored and touched. You say, “Oh subhanallah, you made this biryani. Why did you do that?” And this person says, “Take a pot, clean the meat, wash it, and then braise it, fry it, and then put some masala in it, and then take basmati rice and so on and so on.”
So you say to the person, “Look, thank you so much, but I’m not asking you for the how. I’m not asking you how you made the biryani. I’m not asking you for the recipe of the biryani. I’m asking you, why did you do that? Why did you go to all the trouble of making this biryani?” And the person says, “No, that’s what I’m telling you. This is how you should do it. You know, take a pot, take meat, take rice.”
Now, what would you say to that? I would say that this person has mistaken the how for the why. They’ve mistaken the how for the why. How is the method. Why is the reason. And there is a huge difference between the method and the reason.
And that’s what I want to explain to you: this is what we do when it comes to appreciating the khudrat of Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala, appreciating the glory and majesty of Allah. We tend to get stuck, because of our education, in the how. How does this happen? How does that happen? Nothing wrong with the how, except that if I ask you a question why, and you answer it with the how, then you’re not really answering my question. You’re getting confused, and you are giving me an answer that doesn’t serve the purpose.
So I must therefore ask you to think about this and say: how can I answer the question correctly? And the correct way of answering the question is to answer the how with the how, and the why with the why.
Now in the example of the biryani, the why to that is: because I love you, because you’re my friend, because I know you like this thing. These are the answers. The answer is not how to make the biryani.
If you look at Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala’s khudrat and you say, why are there twelve varieties of kingfisher, for example, all of which eat the same fish, all of which fish in the same, you know, atmosphere, same conditions? What is the answer? Similarly, if you say, why is every sunrise and every sunset different? Why is there this infinite variety in the creation of Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala? The answer to that can only be one thing, which is that Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala wants to show us His glory and His majesty, so that we then recognize the signs of Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala.
We say: Oh Allah, You have not created all of these things in vain. You haven’t created all these things for nothing. Subhanak — all glory and majesty be to You, all purity be to You, glorified are You — and save us from the hellfire.
Alhamdulillah, the sign of intelligence is to recognize the glory and majesty of Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala, and to praise Him, and to ask Him to forgive us. I ask Allah to forgive us. I thank Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala that He gave us these beautiful opportunities, and He gave us His wonderful friends, thanks to whom we are able to enjoy the beauty and magnificence of Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala’s creation. And we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala to bless our friends, and in this case, bless our dear friend Ilyas Bhai and his wonderful hospitality. May Allah bless him and his family and fill their lives with khair and barakah and afiyah. Wa sallallahu ala nabiyyil kareem wa ala alihi wa sahbihi ajma’een.