The Caller's Priorities and a Life Not to Be Gambled On

Occasion: A transcription of a dinner lecture delivered at AIA on 29 September 2026Source: A transcription of a video lecture by Dr. Ahmed Abouseif — Watch the original video on YouTube

The gathering began with a comprehensive supplication: «O Allah, we ask You for the good of this night, the good of what is in it and the good of what comes after it, and we seek refuge in You from the evil of this night, the evil of what is in it and the evil of what comes after it. Set right for us our religion, our worldly life and our Hereafter, grant us right guidance in our affairs, bless us, O Allah, in what You have provided us, and protect us, O Allah, from the punishment of the Fire and the causes of punishment in this world and the next, by a mercy, a good pleasure and a generosity from You, O Lord of the worlds.»^[1]

Then the lecturer turned to the opening of Sūrat ʿAbasa, a passage that connects (as far as can be gathered from his words) to being occupied with people and with calling them, since a blind man came to the Prophet ﷺ.

A reproach that speaks of someone absent

﴿عَبَسَ وَتَوَلَّىٰ ۝ أَن جَاءَهُ الْأَعْمَىٰ ۝ وَمَا يُدْرِيكَ لَعَلَّهُ يَزَّكَّىٰ ۝ أَوْ يَذَّكَّرُ فَتَنفَعَهُ الذِّكْرَىٰ﴾ [عبس: 1–4] (He frowned and turned away, because the blind man came to him. And what would let you know? Perhaps he might be purified, or be reminded and the reminder would benefit him.)

Dr. Ahmed pointed out that the speech here is about an absent person, "as if he were not there," and contrasted it with the direct command in the words of the Exalted ﴿سَبِّحِ اسْمَ رَبِّكَ الْأَعْلَى﴾ (Glorify the name of your Lord, the Most High).^[2]

Then the address turns to the one addressed:

﴿أَمَّا مَنِ اسْتَغْنَىٰ ۝ فَأَنتَ لَهُ تَصَدَّىٰ ۝ وَمَا عَلَيْكَ أَلَّا يَزَّكَّىٰ ۝ وَأَمَّا مَن جَاءَكَ يَسْعَىٰ ۝ وَهُوَ يَخْشَىٰ ۝ فَأَنتَ عَنْهُ تَلَهَّىٰ﴾ [عبس: 5–10] (As for the one who considers himself self-sufficient, to him you give your attention; yet it is not on you if he does not purify himself. But as for the one who came to you striving, while he fears, from him you are distracted.)

"Yasʿā" and "talahhā"

He paused at the word «يسعى» (yasʿā, "striving"). Saʿy is walking; from it comes the saʿy between Ṣafā and Marwa, and from it the words of the Exalted ﴿فَاسْعَوْا إِلَىٰ ذِكْرِ اللَّهِ وَذَرُوا الْبَيْعَ﴾ (then hasten to the remembrance of Allah and leave trade), and he mentioned alongside it the words ﴿فَامْشُوا فِي مَنَاكِبِهَا وَكُلُوا مِن رِّزْقِهِ ۖ وَإِلَيْهِ النُّشُورُ﴾ (so walk in its tracts and eat of His provision; and to Him is the resurrection).^[10] We understood from his words that the one who came striving came in earnest, asking about matters of his religion, afraid that something might hinder him on this path, and seeking guidance from the one who holds the message. So what is your stance toward him when he is aiming at you with such an aim?

Then he paused at «تلهّى» (talahhā, "to be distracted"): lahw (diversion) is of the same kind as in the words of the Exalted ﴿… لَعِبٌ وَلَهْوٌ وَزِينَةٌ وَتَفَاخُرٌ بَيْنَكُمْ وَتَكَاثُرٌ فِي الْأَمْوَالِ وَالْأَوْلَادِ﴾ (… play and diversion, adornment, boasting among yourselves, and rivalry in wealth and children). And he asked: does this fit the station of prophethood, that it should be said of the Prophet ﷺ "talahhā," as though he were playing? Then he moved on (as appears from the English interspersed in the transcript) to priorities: what comes first, what comes second and third, and that this requires an organized mind.^[3]

Your station is the station of what you carry

Then came the words of the Exalted ﴿كَلَّا إِنَّهَا تَذْكِرَةٌ﴾ [عبس: 11] (No! Indeed, it is a reminder). He pointed to the pronoun in «innahā» (it): it refers to the message, and the feminine form is for its sake.^[4] After it: ﴿فِي صُحُفٍ مُّكَرَّمَةٍ ۝ مَّرْفُوعَةٍ مُّطَهَّرَةٍ ۝ بِأَيْدِي سَفَرَةٍ ۝ كِرَامٍ بَرَرَةٍ﴾ [عبس: 13–16] (in honored pages, exalted and purified, in the hands of scribes, noble and virtuous), and the safara are the angels.

And he said: your station is the station of what you speak of. If you hold honor through what you possess of the Book of Allah, the Exalted, and the Sunnah of His Prophet, then you feel this station as elevation, loftiness and standing before Allah, Blessed and Exalted. Hence a caller must never stoop, nor look at what is below. And he recalled the words of the Exalted ﴿… بَلِّغْ مَا أُنزِلَ إِلَيْكَ … وَاللَّهُ يَعْصِمُكَ مِنَ النَّاسِ﴾ (… convey what has been revealed to you … and Allah will protect you from the people).^[11] The call does not tolerate laziness: the caller does not say "I don't feel well, I'm going to sleep," if he wants to proceed in the matter with seriousness.

The sabīl, not the ṭarīq

Then the context moves to the human being: ﴿قُتِلَ الْإِنسَانُ مَا أَكْفَرَهُ ۝ مِنْ أَيِّ شَيْءٍ خَلَقَهُ ۝ مِن نُّطْفَةٍ خَلَقَهُ فَقَدَّرَهُ ۝ ثُمَّ السَّبِيلَ يَسَّرَهُ ۝ ثُمَّ أَمَاتَهُ فَأَقْبَرَهُ﴾ [عبس: 17–21] (Destroyed is man; how ungrateful he is! From what thing did He create him? From a sperm-drop He created him and proportioned him; then He eased the path for him; then He caused him to die and put him in a grave.)

And he asked: what is the difference between the sabīl and the ṭarīq? The ṭarīq is a place where people walk, whereas the sabīl is prepared and paved. Then he said that every word may have its meaning inferred from the signs of its letters: the sīn in it has such ease as makes it possible for the servant to walk the sabīl at all, while the bāʾ, the yāʾ and the lām are soft letters with tenderness in them.^[5]

In «yassarahu» (He eased it) there are two possible readings: He eased the path, or He eased the one who walks the path. So He eased the path for the traveler who cannot walk well, and He eased the walking for the one who stumbles on his way because of its difficulty or ruggedness. Whichever is needed, the Lord of Might grants it: if what is needed is the facilitation of the means in your hands, Allah makes the means easy, and if what is needed is that you be given more strength, the Lord of the worlds, Glorified and Exalted, gives you strength.

He gave an example: imagine a patient who keeps visiting a physician who is truly expert and wise. Would it be wise for the physician to leave him stumbling among the afflictions of the illness? He does not merely rescue him; he gives him this vitamin D and that C and that E, and tells him: with this you do such-and-such, and this benefits you at such a time, and this protects you from such a thing, and gives him the prescription and the tools that keep him ever strong, solid in body, moving in spirit, energetic at all times. And our Lord knows and is wiser about the condition of His servants.

Resolve and the body

Then he said: By Allah, besides whom there is no god, we have never seen weakness in our bodies except that it was a sign of slackness of resolve. When resolve begins to collapse you find your body aching, but as long as your resolve is strong and intense, your body goes along with it and moves. These are signs: whoever sees sluggishness in himself should know that a review is due with faith. He says to himself: I want to go over my accounts: I have this much of prayers, this much of expenditures, this much of fasting, I have a reckoning. When the reckoning is set right, you find the body itself recovering and moving and rising up again. As for the state of sitting back and defeat, it means that there is a problem inside, and that there is shortcoming.

A lifetime in two words

He said: ﴿ثُمَّ السَّبِيلَ يَسَّرَهُ﴾ (then He eased the path for him): how many words are in this verse? Count the sentence by what stands on its own and needs nothing else: «thumma al-sabīla» is incomplete, its meaning does not come to completion. But «al-sabīla yassarahu» is complete, so we can remove «thumma» and the sentence becomes only two words, in which Allah condenses for us a person's whole life: al-sabīla yassarahu (the path, He eased it). How old are you? (He named various ages in the transcript whose numbers are not clear.) However long or short the servant's life, it was a path that Allah made easy to pass through.

It is, as he likened it, like someone entering a train station or an airport where there is a gate that rises: you put in your ticket and it opens, you pass through as the light has turned green, and you say "thank you." The whole world is like this. How much of your life has passed and how much will you remain in it, my dear? It is a gate that opens, you cross, and the matter is over.

Then He says: ﴿ثُمَّ أَمَاتَهُ﴾ (then He caused him to die). Well, shouldn't we enjoy life a little? Pamper ourselves, take our ease, swap the jallābiya for a suit and dress up a bit? There is no time, my friend, there is no time, my dear, by Allah there is no time: ﴿ثُمَّ أَمَاتَهُ فَأَقْبَرَهُ﴾ (then He caused him to die and put him in a grave).

And he asked: do you know the meaning of «fa-aqbarahu»? It means He hid him from the eyes of those he used to look up to, in their standing or their authority.^[6] You poor soul, for whom were you dressing up and beautifying yourself? You wanted your standing to rise before these people, and here you are, buried. And what does buried mean? That people, even if some periods pass, hardly remember his name or his appearance or his look, so that he no longer has any presence with them.

You are betting on what has no guarantee

He said: I will close with two matters because I have taken too long with you, and this picture needs long sittings. The first: Glory be to the Most High, the Almighty, my Lord is speaking of a life that has ended. When does a life end? And when will it end? No one knows. Someone says to you: no, I must know when I will die, because I am still planning: I will build a palace, and I will buy such-and-such, and in a partnership, and in a factory, and in a plot, and I have very many things. And the only thing we bet on while planning for the future is lifespan, and the only thing never guaranteed at all is lifespan. So it is as if you are betting on nothing, because all the plans you build can end in a moment, right now, if it were said to you: come on, let's go.

And he said that this friend of ours died while prostrating in the ʿishāʾ prayer. Allahu akbar. He entered the mosque in a state of wuḍūʾ, greeted us, bowed, then fell.^[7] Would anyone say to him: man, get up, you still have many plans in life? No, thank you, he will not sit up.

And the second matter: however high a servant's standing rises in life, he must have a grave. And the grave embraces and conceals. It embraces, that is, it takes you in with everything you had. He says: I wonder how these intelligent, brilliant thinkers die. I can't imagine how they die! When one dies he is in the grave, and all this intellect we left there and came away. And as it seems, he alluded to a brilliant man who had come to them in a meeting a few days ago, beyond description, as if he were looking at the unseen with human eyes, a giant, then he dies and we go and bury him and return at ease, having left that mind in the grave. Is that reasonable, my dear? This is Allah's ruling on all creatures, and hence the Lord of the worlds, Glorified and Exalted, says: ﴿ثُمَّ أَمَاتَهُ فَأَقْبَرَهُ﴾ (then He caused him to die and put him in a grave).

From food to the Deafening Blast

Then he presented a simple approach: ﴿فَلْيَنظُرِ الْإِنسَانُ إِلَىٰ طَعَامِهِ ۝ أَنَّا صَبَبْنَا الْمَاءَ صَبًّا ۝ ثُمَّ شَقَقْنَا الْأَرْضَ شَقًّا ۝ فَأَنبَتْنَا فِيهَا حَبًّا ۝ وَعِنَبًا وَقَضْبًا ۝ وَزَيْتُونًا وَنَخْلًا … وَأَبًّا ۝ مَّتَاعًا لَّكُمْ وَلِأَنْعَامِكُمْ﴾ [عبس: 24–32] (Let man look at his food: that We poured down water in torrents, then We split the earth in clefts, and caused to grow therein grain, and grapes and herbage, and olives and palm trees … and fodder, as provision for you and for your livestock).^[8] And after this long journey and these stirring scenes: ﴿فَإِذَا جَاءَتِ الصَّاخَّةُ﴾ [عبس: 33] (Then when the Deafening Blast comes). And what is the Ṣākhkha? A blast, or one of the names of Hell.

Then he mentioned our master the Prophet's, peace and blessings be upon him, description of the situation: that the Hour will come upon a man watering his animal with such-and-such water, and he will not return with them.^[9] Then he digressed in the manner of country folk: we farmers know this, we take the livestock, may Allah honor you, and water them from the big trough from which all the livestock drink. Agreed?

And the point of the statement: who is it that can remain until tomorrow by his own permission, by a decision of his own self, by a will from within him? No one. And so he returns to the opening: ﴿عَبَسَ وَتَوَلَّىٰ ۝ أَن جَاءَهُ الْأَعْمَىٰ ۝ وَمَا يُدْرِيكَ لَعَلَّهُ يَزَّكَّىٰ﴾ (He frowned and turned away, because the blind man came to him. And what would let you know? Perhaps he might be purified).

O Allah, forgive me for squandering my time

My dear man, fill your time, and do a good deed.^[12] And beware of wasting time, for my Lord will question me about it more than about anything else. And we need to make it one of the particular items of our supplication: "O Allah, forgive us for squandering our time." By Allah, it is a supplication worth writing down: "O Allah, forgive me for squandering my time."

Today this phrase is said by those who stare at apps and play games and stare at the devices and screens that have taken their time. But we have squandered our time in talking about one another, we have squandered our time in thinking ill of people, we have squandered our time in petty problems inside our homes that could have passed if you had tied up this tongue of yours for a period ("a year," as it seems), man, and let the matter go by. So you find women being divorced, men being tormented, people being jailed, children being orphaned, and they are nothing but problems whose cause is that I squandered my time in thinking empty of substance, and a mind that did not take in the meaning of the word "wisdom" in life.

Forgive me, I have gone on too long. O Allah, forgive us our sins and our excess in our affairs…

--- ^[1]: Editor's documentation: the phrase «وأسباب العذاب» (and the causes of punishment) is garbled in the transcript («اللهم عنا أسباب العذاب»); it is recorded in the closest sense. The supplication comes at the start of the recording, before the lecture began, and it is not known whether it is in the lecturer's voice or someone else's. ^[2]: Editor's documentation: the verse ﴿سَبِّحِ اسْمَ رَبِّكَ الْأَعْلَى﴾ is the opening of Sūrat al-Aʿlā. The first segment at this point is garbled in the transcript; what is understood from it is that he spoke of "the absent one as if he had not been" and then contrasted it with the imperative form in "Glorify the name of your Lord, the Most High." The reason for this contrast was not recorded, so no explanation of it is attributed to him. ^[3]: Editor's documentation: the verse cited is from Sūrat al-Ḥadīd (20), and the lecturer did not name its location. The rest of this passage in the transcript is garbled English from simultaneous interpretation, and nothing of it was clear except what is stated in the body about priorities. ^[4]: Editor's documentation: it appears that he contrasted «إنها تذكرة» here with the words in al-Muddaththir «إنه تذكرة» ﴿كَلَّا إِنَّهُ تَذْكِرَةٌ﴾ [المدثر: 54]; the passage is garbled in the transcript, so the contrast is not asserted with certainty. ^[5]: Editor's documentation: what was said about the significance of the letters is a personal reflection of the lecturer. ^[6]: Editor's documentation: the transcript has «في جهله أو سلطانه» (in his ignorance or his authority), and the original may be «جاهه» (standing); «جاههم» (their standing) has been recorded in accordance with the sense. ^[7]: Editor's documentation: he mentioned the incident without a name or a date, and his wording about it is not entirely clear (he may have said that he was leading the people in prayer), so that sentence was not recorded. ^[8]: Editor's documentation: the verses came out garbled in the transcript at «حدائق غلبا» and «فاكهة», so the body was limited to what could be clearly read; the full verses are: ﴿وَحَدَائِقَ غُلْبًا ۝ وَفَاكِهَةً وَأَبًّا﴾ [عبس: 29–31]. ^[9]: Editor's documentation: this meaning approximates a ḥadīth reported from Abū Hurayra (may Allah be pleased with him) (its meaning: the Hour will come while a man is plastering his trough and will not water from it); the lecturer did not give its wording or its source, and the transcript here is unclear, so it should be checked. ^[10]: Editor's documentation: ﴿فَاسْعَوْا…﴾ is from Sūrat al-Jumuʿa (9), and ﴿فَامْشُوا…﴾ from Sūrat al-Mulk (15); the lecturer did not name the two passages, and the segment is garbled in the transcript, so the way he contrasted them is not asserted with certainty. ^[11]: Editor's documentation: Sūrat al-Māʾida (67), the full verse being ﴿يَا أَيُّهَا الرَّسُولُ بَلِّغْ مَا أُنزِلَ إِلَيْكَ مِن رَّبِّكَ ۖ وَإِن لَّمْ تَفْعَلْ فَمَا بَلَّغْتَ رِسَالَتَهُ ۚ وَاللَّهُ يَعْصِمُكَ مِنَ النَّاسِ﴾. The lecturer's words at this point are garbled in the transcript. ^[12]: Editor's documentation: the phrase after «املأ وقتك» (fill your time) is garbled in the transcript («بشويه كلام مليانين»), so it was not recorded.