Your Rizq is in the heavens – Mahmood Habib Masjid and Islamic Centre

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Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil ‘Alameen. Wasalatu wasalamu ala ashrafil anbiya wal mursaleen. Muhammadur Rasulullahi ﷺ wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam. Tasliman kathiran kathiran. Faman badu.

My brothers and sisters, I want you to imagine a situation. And the situation is that in the house of a very dear and close friend of yours,

there is a general gathering, a general dinner. What we call in Urdu, Dawat-e-Aam. So it is an invitation for everyone. The whole village, the whole place.

So you also pitch up there. And there is a big long dastarkhan, which is spread in the courtyard. And there are people.

There are people sitting on either side of the dastarkhan. And these are people, you know, it’s a Dawat-e-Aam, so it’s open to everyone, open house.

So it’s anyone who comes there. So people are sitting, waiting to be served. And you also go and you take a seat along with the people. You do that because you say, you know, I don’t want to disturb my friend and so on. I’ve come here in due course, I will meet him. So you sit there.

And then as the food is being served, suddenly your friend spots you.

What do you think he will do?

And my submission is that what I think the friend will do is he will come straight to you and he’ll grab you by the shoulder, by the arm. And he’ll say, get up. He’ll pull you from there and he will take you away.

Now, if that happens, what will be your feeling? Will you be happy? Or will you be sad? Will you be upset?

I was sitting here at this dastarkhan. I was looking forward to the food. And just as the food is being served, going to be served, this man grabs me and takes me away. I mean, what kind of thing is this? I have been deprived. Right? I’m going to go hungry. Is this how you’re going to think? If you think that way, then it means that you are really insulting and abusing the relationship that you have with your friend. Because how can you expect from this friend, from whom you have never received anything negative in your whole life? Imagine, I mean, somebody doesn’t become your best friend because he’s been deceiving you or he’s been, you know, he’s been abusing your relationship. You become your best. You become your best friend because this person has given you the best in life. He has treated you well. He’s respected you. He’s helped you. And you have helped him. And there’s this mutual bond between the two of you, which is based on a lot of good stuff. Right? So when you have this whole history of this goodness of this person, that particular behavior of lifting you up from the general dastarkhan, you will not be upset. Why? Why?

Because you will think and you will be right in thinking that is that my friend doesn’t want me to sit with the common people, with everyone and eat the general food which is going to be distributed. Instead, he’s taking me away to sit with him at the head table, inside his house or wherever and be served some special things which the general population is not going to get. Right? And that’s exactly what happened. When this happens, it is a sign of, of the closeness and of the friendship and of the love that your friend has for you.

Now, take this and apply it in your own life. In terms of our relationship with Allah Subh’anaHu Wa Ta-Ala. Jalla Jalak. A friend of mine, a very dear and very close friend of mine, the other day sent me a message saying, I have been laid off from my job. So my response to him was, Alhamdulillah, I’m delighted.

So I don’t know what he thought. He thought, I didn’t understand the message. Or maybe he thought I’m crazy or something. So I told him, Alhamdulillah, I’m delighted. You know, I’m very happy. Because this was the reaction of the Sahaba, Ridwanul Ahi Alayhi Majma’in. If they lost a means of livelihood, they said, Alhamdulillah. Because it means that Allah Subh’anaHu Wa Ta-Ala wants to feed me directly. Right? If Allah has, if Allah has closed one door for me in terms of my rizq, then that is because Allah Subh’anaHu Wa Ta-Ala intends to open my heart. To open another door. And what comes from Allah Subh’anaHu Wa Ta-Ala is always good. Because Allah Subh’anaHu Wa Ta-Ala told us very clearly where he said that it is possible

It is possible that you dislike something, but there is benefit in it for you.

And it is possible that you love something, but there is, there is, there is, you know, harm in that for you.

And he said, Allah knows and you don’t know.

So, Alhamdulillah, if Allah Subh’anaHu Wa Ta-Ala, I thought something is good, but Allah closed it, he said, Alhamdulillah.

He said, very good.

I remember many, many years ago, and I think, I’m talking about almost 30, maybe close to 40 years ago, when I first, actually, exactly, the year I will tell you, 1994,

when I first set up my company, Yabar Began Associates,

I was designing my invoice. So, the Profama invoice. And at the bottom of the invoice, I had a cancellation policy. So, it said that if you cancel, and this was a, at that time, it was a training company. So, the thing said that if you cancel,

with a one-month period, and you cancel within one month, with 30 days notice, then there is no, then there is a full refund, or you won’t lose any money, for the course. If you cancel three weeks earlier, then you lose 25%. If you cancel two weeks, you lose 50%, and so on. But Alhamdulillah, when, when I understood this, the concept of risk, in Islam, I removed this cancellation policy from my, from my invoice. My accountant actually was,

you know, my accountant is really,

he said to me, why are you doing that? Because, you know, we,

cancellation policy is standard, and if they cancel, then they should compensate you, so I said, look, what Allah has written for me, nobody can cancel. And what Allah has not written for me, it meant that even the first thing which came was not really meant for me, so there’s no, there’s no thing that I need to claim for cancellations. And I cancelled, and I, and I removed that.

So the thing I’m, I want to say is that, when we have this understanding, that Allah is my Radhaikh, and Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala gives me, and that nobody can take what is meant for me, and nobody can give what is not meant for me, then the concept, then the question of disappointment, and so on, doesn’t arise. And that’s the reason why Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala said, Qul inna Rabbi yabsutur rizqa liman yasha’u wa yaqdir, walakin aksaran nasi la ya’lamu. Allah said, say, O Muhammad ﷺ, say to them, that my, it is my Rabb, who expands provision, or who restricts it, what most people don’t understand. So Allah is saying, this is Allah’s job, Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala does that, right? In another place, Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala said, Walau basatallahu rizqa li ibadihi, labaghaw fil aqad ard, walakin yunazzilu biqadrim ma yasha’u, innahu bi ibadihi khabeerun basir. Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala said, and if Allah had extended excessively,

His provision for His slaves, they would have committed tyranny throughout the earth. But He sends it down in an amount which He wills. Indeed, He is of His slaves, acquainted and seeing.

So, Allah is saying that if He gives wealth, limitless wealth to people, then invariably it leads to corruption, it leads to all kinds of things that are evil, right? And I think with the Epstein files, this is evidence of the truthfulness of this ayah. The people in the Epstein files who have been named, there’s not one single poor person in that. Just think about that. So much for way. So much for way. So much for wealth and wealthy people and whatnot. There’s not one single poor person in that. Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala saved the poor people from disgrace and from evil because whether any action is taken on the criminals who have been named in the Epstein files or not, wait till the day of judgment because every single one of them will pay a price and they will pay a very, very heavy price which will be appropriate for what they have done in that context. People who have so much money and so much power, then not only can they be saved, not only can they do these completely unimaginably evil things, but that they get away with it. There’s not one single prosecution, not one single arrest, not one single action that has been taken against anybody in that entire list of people to this day. The future Allah knows best. But this is the situation with people who have so much power and so much wealth, which they have used for such unimaginably evil things, but nothing has happened. They think nothing happens to them or they think nothing happens to them, but that is the reason why there is a day of judgment.

I always say that this world is such that if the day of judgment was not the truth, if the day of judgment was not haqq, then human beings would have had to invent a day of judgment philosophy just to remain sane,

just to remain sane, just to remain on track and not completely go wonky with frustration and with anger. So this is, alhamdulillah, the truth is that nobody will be able to do this. Nobody will escape retribution for the evil that they commit on this earth. And of course, concomitantly, nobody will be denied the reward for the virtue that they commit.

So I remind myself and you that this whole concept of risk, of provision, is so beautiful that Allah told us Allah said the purpose of your creation is to worship Allah . To obey Allah , worship Allah . And Allah said I have not created the jinn and the insan for anything other than to worship Me. Worship as in the ritual worship, worship as in obeying Allah , which is worship. And then Allah said Arabic

Allah said we don’t ask you to feed us. We don’t ask you to feed our creation. But we feed you. This is the royal we which is not a plural. It’s an indicator of the magnificence of Allah . And Allah says Arabic

Verily and truly, Allah , He is the provider and He provides with His power. Arabic What more do we want? Which I want to close with this, which is, which reminds me of this wonderful story of Imam al-Awzaeer Rahmatul Ali and he narrated it himself. He said that I was going for Hajj and our caravan was, you know, we were in a caravan and we were going for Hajj. And in one place we were attacked by a group of bandits.

And they, you know, they looted the caravan. And in that whole confusion people some running and trying to save themselves and their wealth and what not. And this huge commotion and so on is going on.

He said suddenly I found myself in front of me was standing what turned out to be the chief of the bandits with a naked sword in his hand. And he stood in front of me and he said to me, who are you? So al-Awzaeer Rahmatul Ali and for those of you who don’t know, Imam al-Awzaeer Rahmatul Ali was one of the great Imams of this Ummah. Somebody on par with the Aima al-Alawah, Imam Abu Hanifa, Imam Malik, Imam Shafi’i and so on. Whose fatawa and his

his rulings are in all the books of fiqh to this day. And he was, he was, he followed what is called the Zahiri Mazhab. So this is Imam al-Awzaeer.

So al-Awzaeer says that this man stood in front of me and he asked, he said to me, he said who are you? What do you do? So Imam al-Awzaeer didn’t say to him that I am this great Imam and I am a faqih. He said to him, I am a teacher.

He said, what do you teach? He said, I teach the Quran.

So this man says to him, recite some Quran for me.

Imagine this is happening in the middle of banditry, middle of a robbery. This guy says, recite Quran for me. So Imam al-Awzaeer

recited for him this ayat of Surah Al-Zariyat

where Allah said

which means your rizq is in the heavens and whatever you want and whatever you need, whatever you wish.

Imam al-Awzaeer said, this is the chief of the bandits. This is a killer. This is a murderer. This is a bad man. He’s not a nice guy. He said he started shivering and the sword fell from his hand and there were tears in his eyes and he said to Imam al-Awzaeer, this is the word of Allah?

Imam al-Awzaeer said, yes, this is the word of Allah. He said, my rizq is in the heavens? Imam al-Awzaeer said, yes. This is what Allah is saying. Your rizq is in the heavens. He said, if my rizq is in the heavens, why am I doing this?

Huh? He said, I know this is wrong. Why am I doing this? Imam al-Awzaeer said, I didn’t say anything.

The man picked up his sword. He called his people and he said, I have understood today that my rizq and your rizq is in the heavens.

And so I make istighfar, I make tawbah that I will not do this banditry anymore. Return everybody’s things to them. And it’s up to you. You want to follow this, you follow this. If you don’t want to follow this, I am free from you.

So his whole tribe, they said, look, we follow you. You are our leader. This is what you are doing. And this is what you say. We follow you. So everyone’s things got returned to them. Everybody was very happy. Alhamdulillah.

Al-Awzaeer said, Alhamdulillah. We thanked Allah ﷻ. We proceeded. We reached our destination. We finished our umrah and so on. And then he said, one morning, early morning, after Salatul Fajr, I was making tawaf and I heard somebody weeping loudly. And I said, the weeping was so, with so much pain and such suffering and such pathetic weeping. Ibn-e-Awradah said, it was like as if it was a woman whose baby had been taken from her arms and the throat of the baby was slit and the baby was handed back to the woman. And how would that woman cry? Imagine, her baby has been slaughtered in front of her eyes and the body is given back to her. How would she cry? That is how this person was crying.

So, I was so disturbed by this that I went looking for this person. Who is this person? And guess who it was? He said, when I went there, I saw it is that same bandit leader who is sitting there in front of the Kaaba and he is weeping like this.

So, Al-Auzai says, I recited the next ayat. This is the ayat from Surah Az-Zariyat. So, he said, the first ayat he recited in the forest was,

And then at the second ayat, Allah said,

Allah said, Allah said, this is the truth.

Like, and to give you an example, Allah says, this is as true as you talk to each other.

You know, Al-Auzai says, when I recited this, the man stopped crying. He looked up at me and he says,

Why does my Rabb have to take an oath to convince me?

Hey! He said,

Al-Auzai says, sometimes,

We are, We consider ourselves to be learned and this and that and the other. He says, there are hijabat. There are curtains between us and Allah . He said, people like this who know nothing. Their hearts are pure and the word of Allah goes directly into his heart. There’s nothing to stop it.

Hey! Now imagine, this man, he gives up his livelihood. Okay! His livelihood was not a good way, but he was happy.

I mean, that was his love, you know. He gives it up just on the recitation of one ayah of the Quran.

Just two or three words.

And he turns towards Allah ﷻ.

Ajeeb, eh? So I remind myself in you that this whole thing of risk, if you understand the truth of this and you get this that Allah is my Raziq, then believe me, the whole world can turn upside down. The whole markets can collapse. You know, the oil supply of the world can shut down. There can be droughts and rain can… I’m not saying all this should happen. May Allah protect us from all this. But none of this will make any difference to you. And you will sleep peacefully irrespective of anything else. Because you know that Rizq is in the hands of the provider and he is the one who is Ar-Rahman Ar-Rahim.

So I remind, I say to you and I say to myself, the one who planted you will water you. Don’t worry about anybody else.

It’s not anybody else’s responsibility. So why do you look to them? It’s the job of the gardener to look after the gardener. It’s not somebody else’s job. The one who planted you will irrigate you. The one who planted you will water you. And inshallah, the one who planted you promised to water you. and he does not go against his promises. We ask Allah ﷻ to provide us

in keeping with his glory and majesty, not in keeping with our needs, in keeping with his glory and majesty and with safety that that provision does not become a means of testing for us. Wasallallahu ala nabiyyil kareem wa ala alihi wa sahbihi ajma’in bi rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.