Podcast: Play in new window | Download (12.8MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | Email | Youtube Music | RSS
Auto-generated transcript:
Bismillāh ar-Raḥmān ar-Raḥīm, al-ḥamdu lillāhi rabbil-‘ālamīn, wa-salātu was-salām ‘ala ash-sharafi al-anbiyā’ wal-mursalīn, Muḥammadur Rasūlullāh sallallāhu ‘alayhi wa ‘alā ālihi wa sahbihi wa-sallam, taslīman kathīran kathīran. Amma ba’du, my brothers and sisters, Allāh subḥānahu wa ta’ālā is the One who controls everything, wa huwa ‘alā kulli shay’in qadīr. Allāh subḥānahu wa ta’ālā is Qadīr over everything.
And this is our faith, this is our belief. And when we say we have tawakkul on Allāh, we mean that we trust Allāh subḥānahu wa ta’ālā’s decisions in everything.
That we trust Allāh’s decision in everything. And the final level, the highest level of tawakkul is what we call riḍā bil-qadar. Riḍā bil-qadar, to be pleased with the qadar of Allāh subḥānahu wa ta’ālā. Not only to accept the qadar of Allāh, but to be pleased with it. And we say al-ḥamdulillāh. This is the final level. Because the reality is, that no matter what we want to happen, only what Allāh wants to happen will happen.
Accepting that saves us from internal turmoil. Saves us from going crazy. Because if you don’t accept it, it’s still going to happen. And you can keep on saying, why did it happen? Why not this? Why not that?
There are no answers. There are no answers to that. And you just go crazy. So, if you accept the decisions of Allāh subḥānahu wa ta’ālā, with al-ḥamdulillāh, at least the mind is at peace. But the highest level of that is riḍā bil-qadar, which is to be pleased with the qadar of Allāh subḥānahu wa ta’ālā.
Now, to be pleased with the qadar of Allāh which you like, obviously that doesn’t take much doing. But to be pleased with the qadar of Allāh which you don’t like. You want to have wealth, you don’t have wealth. You are struggling. You want to have children, you don’t have children. You want to get married, nobody wants to marry you. You want a job, you don’t get a job. You want your business to succeed, it’s not succeeding. And so on. Now, your business may not be succeeding because you are not doing it properly. That’s a different issue. But I’m saying, even if you make all the effort and so on, still it’s not happening. So, the thing is that, despite that, to be pleased with it. I’m saying, al-ḥamdulillāh.
One of the shuyukh, he asked a beautiful question. He said, when you read Surah Al-Kahf, and in Surah Al-Kahf you read the story of Mūsā ‘alayhi-s-salām and Khidr ‘alayhi-s-salām. And if he asks you, where do you see yourself? Supposing I say, place yourself in that story. Where will you place yourself? You’ve got Mūsā, you’ve got Khidr. Where will you place yourself?
So, most likely you’ll say, well, I put myself in the place of Mūsā ‘alayhi-s-salām. Right? But think about this.
What is the reality? The reality is that, if you say, place yourself in that story, obviously you are not Khidr ‘alayhi-s-salām, because you don’t know the answers. And you are not Mūsā ‘alayhi-s-salām either, because you are not the Rasūl of Allāh or anything like this. So, where are you, who are you most likely?
You are most likely the other people, the people mentioned in that story. For example, the story has three sections. Right? The first section is where Khidr ‘alayhi-s-salām made a hole and sank the boat. After they crossed the river, Khidr ‘alayhi-s-salām sank the boat. So, who are you likely to be? The boatman. The owner of the boat. Right? So, what did you see?
You saw that you did a favor to two people. And one of them destroyed your boat. He sank the boat. Do you know why that happened?
No. You don’t know why that happened because, Khidr ‘alayhi-s-salām gave that answer to Mūsā ‘alayhi-s-salām. He didn’t give the answer to the boatman. Read the story. Did he talk to the boatman? No. He made a hole in the boat and he went.
Right? At the end of the three incidents, when Mūsā ‘alayhi-s-salām could not contain himself, he kept asking the question. Khidr ‘alayhi-s-salām finally said, This is the separation between you and me. But before this, I will tell you, this is the reason. So, Khidr ‘alayhi-s-salām gave the reason to Mūsā ‘alayhi-s-salām. He did not give the reason to the boatman. The boatman doesn’t know.
Yet, his boat got a hole in it. There was a material loss for him. He is seeing it as a material loss. He is not saying, Oh, this is why it happened and there was a king and the king would have taken back. He doesn’t know all this. All he knows is, I had a perfectly good boat. Now, my boat is sunk. So, now I have got to spend money and I am already a poor man. How will I find money? So, he has seen a loss and he doesn’t understand the reason.
If you are that boatman, if I am that boatman, what will we do?
Will we moan and groan? Will we complain or will we say, al-ḥamdulillāh, this is the Qadar of Allāh. I am pleased with it. This is something to reflect. I am not saying, give me answers. It is very easy to say, you know and I know, it is not easy. May Allāh protect us from this stress. If it happens to you, then you understand what it is. Right? So, but very important to reflect on this. I, myself, I have been thinking about this and I ask you to reflect on it. What will happen if you are that boatman? Second story,
Khidr ‘alayhi-s-salām kills this little boy.
So, who are you in that story?
You are not Khidr ‘alayhi-s-salām, you are not Mūsā ‘alayhi-s-salām. You are not the boy because if you are the boy, you are dead so he can’t talk to you. So, who are you likely to be? His parents. Now, imagine the parents.
The Mu’afasirīn, Allāh subḥānahu wa ta’ālā did not say that in the Qur’an. But the Mu’afasirīn have said that Allāh subḥānahu wa ta’ālā later on gave the parents another child and this child was a righteous child and so on. And Khidr ‘alayhi-s-salām also said, he said that maybe this is what Allāh wants to do. He wants. As far as they are concerned, what did they see? They saw this little boy, that the fact that this little boy was going to grow up into somebody who would be a, you know, fitna and a problem, they didn’t know that. Today, if you look at the shayāṭīn who are ruling this world, every one of those shayāṭīn was a little kid. And at the time when he was a little boy, he was a sweet little boy.
His mother loved him, his father loved him.
But they didn’t know that this is going to turn out into this.
So now, as far as the parents are concerned, we had this beautiful child, somebody killed him.
Now, what is in their heart? Now, if you are in this story, who are you likely to be? The parent.
So, what will you say or feel about the death of your child?
May Allāh save us from all of this. But I’m saying, these are true stories. And the Qur’an is mentioning them, so it is a true story.
Similarly, the last one, who are you and I likely to be? The townspeople.
Right? We are not musakhkhir, third party, townspeople. So, as far as the townspeople are concerned, here was this wall breaking down. Now, the wall, these two people are building this wall. They are constructing it. They don’t know that under the wall, there is a treasure and whatnot.
So, what do they think and feel about these people?
The purpose of the Qur’an, Allāh subḥānahu wa ta’ālā said, أَفَلَا يَتَدَبَّرُونَ الْقُرْآنَ أَعْمَلَ قُلُوبٍ أَقْطَالُهَا Don’t they make tadabbur on the Qur’an?
Tadabbur and tafakkur, to have, to reflect on, to think about deeply. This is the purpose of the Kalam of Allāh subḥānahu wa ta’ālā. It’s not simply to just read it and so on. It is to reflect on it, to think about it, to put yourself in that situation. If I was here, what would I be doing?
Riḍā wal-khaḍa is to be pleased with that. Pleased with it, even when on the face of it, my experience of it is painful, it is unpleasant, it is hard, it is harsh.
To give an example, it’s like going in for surgery. May Allāh protect us
from all this. When you go in for surgery, what are you doing? You are giving yourself into the hands of usually a stranger because you don’t know the doctor. To the extent that most surgeons will not operate on their own children, for example. Out of, you know, I’m the father and so on, how will I cut my child? So, you don’t do that. So, usually the surgeon is a stranger. So, you go and willingly, not only do you willingly go under the knife, you actually pay the man for it. You sign an indemnity bond to say that he is not responsible. He is cutting me, if I die, it is not his responsibility. You are taking ownership of that. You are giving a signed document and then you are paying him a fee. And when you come back, you regain consciousness from the anesthesia and the surgeon comes and he asks you, how are you feeling? You say, Alhamdulillah, thank you very much, doctor. You are in pain. You will say, I mean, I have some pain, but you will thank him. He will say, thank you very much for the opium. So, here is a human condition where, even though, the man did something which caused you pain, you thank him because you understand that this pain is for my benefit. Because of this pain, this cancerous tumor has been removed and I am, Inshallah, going to be cured. You don’t complain about that. You say, Alhamdulillah, Allah Ta’ala saved me. This cancer has gone. And I am free from it.
So, I remind myself in you, let us reflect on the Quran. Let us reflect on what Allah is telling us and understand and try to inculcate this in our lives, which is that never complain. If something is wrong, go fix it. I am not saying don’t fix it. Fix it. But, if it is something which cannot be fixed, the simplest example, for example, is the weather. You say, how is the weather? Oh my God, it’s horrible. Look at this heat. It’s killing me. If you really think the heat is killing you, I will show you a way in which you will change your mind in five minutes. Go find a construction site where they are head-loading bricks and go and do that work for half an hour. Ten head-loads. Only ten. I am not saying you work. The guy working there is working all day. I am not saying work all day. Just ten head-loads. So, try to really do that. And if somebody complains, take him and say, okay, pick up. Pick up the gamba, keep it on your head, pick up ten gamba. Then you understand what is the meaning of it.
Alhamdulillah, Allah Ta’ala gave us. I have seen, I have lived in this city at a time when there was load shedding and there was a lot of load shedding. And we used to get, we used to get electricity for two hours in the day. Two hours in 24 hours. I have lived in this city in those days. Today, it doesn’t go. The power doesn’t, it’s worth 24 hours. We used to get water once in two days, once in three days. And those days, there were no tankers. You just collect it. When the water came, you collected the water, you kept it, you used it very, you know, carefully. Alhamdulillah, today there is plenty of water, there is, electricity doesn’t go, you are living in great comfort. Everybody has got, Alhamdulillah, everyone has got air conditioning in the houses, air conditioning in the cars. There was no such thing as air conditioning. You had fans. Even coolers were not there. Even if there was an AC, there would be one window AC unit in the bedroom. And in the night, the children would come, put a mattress on the floor, the children would sleep on the floor, parents on the bed, everyone in one room because that is the only room with AC. And that AC also, after some time, the current will go. So, the AC is there, but, you know, there is no, we didn’t have inverters. The current went, when it came, it was coming. Some inverter, some inverter, some thing. They used to be generate, gen sets. It was a small gen set. They used to put diesel, petrol, and you wore kerosene. Those days, we had kerosene also. We would put kerosene, and, you know, the place would stink up with that kerosene.
So, thank God, Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah. Allah Ta’ala has given us, you know, what can we do? Allah Ta’ala literally, if you put your head in sujood, you cannot lift your head, really. So, Ridha bil Khada, Alhamdulillah, you always, always, always thank Allah Subh’anaHu Wa Ta-A’la. Never, never, ever say one single word which is a word of thanklessness. We ask Allah Ta’ala to make us among the thankful, min al-shakireen, and we ask Allah Subh’anaHu Wa Ta-A’la to make us people who are obedient to Him, and who do what pleases Him, and to save us from disobeying Him in any way, at any time. Wa sallallahu ala nabiyyil kareem ala alihi wa sahbihi ajma’in bi rahmatika rahmatullahi wabarakatuh.