Remind Them of the Days of Allah

An Opening: ﴾Remind Them of the Days of Allah﴿

There is a decisive Qur'anic phrase, in which God commanded Mūsā (peace be upon him) to remind his people of what had passed with Pharaoh — of his tyranny, of his violence, of the stages of their oppression beneath his hand. It is said upon the tongue of the Kalīm:

﴾And remind them of the Days of Allah﴿ [Ibrāhīm: 5]

What are "the Days of Allah"? They are not the calendrical days that orbit with the celestial bodies; they are the days in which the hand of God is unveiled upon humanity — days of trial, days of victory, days of sifting, days of manifestation. They are the days that differ from all other days, because in them God reveals great *sunan* (recurring laws) that habit veils from us in the ordinary days.

The question the Qur'an asks us today is: Has anything passed before us, in the recent period, that differed from all other days? Yes — the COVID-19 pandemic. We lived through a real crisis. The world seemed to change in form and kind and scale. Its marks remain on all our faces. No one today dares to kiss someone they do not know, or shake the hand of one they meet for the first time. The mark is still upon the souls before the faces.

So what have we learned? What lessons have we drawn? Or are minds still heedless of the Maker of life? This is a reading of six lessons that the pandemic uncovered — lessons that deserve our pause and reflection.

The First Lesson: And God Is Predominant Over His Affair

The first law to emerge in these "Days" is a settled cosmic principle:

﴾And God is predominant over His affair, but most of the people do not know﴿ [Yūsuf: 21]

Nothing happens in God's dominion except what He wills. Whoever believes that human industry is capable in itself has doubted the power of God. Whoever believes that God is unable to protect people from harm or evil has doubted His mercy. And from His mercy upon us is that He shows us this small glimpse of His power, when corruption appeared on land and sea by what the hands of people had earned.

Notice how the virus affected some people and not others. How it entered some bodies and altered them for a time, while passing through others as though it were a breath of air, never felt. How it acted in still other bodies in such a way that they left life altogether. He is Doer of what He wills, predominant over His affair; nothing in the heavens or earth can render Him incapable. ﴾Indeed, He encompasses what they do﴿; ﴾and behind them is One who encompasses them﴿.

This is the first lesson: that we recalibrate the scale by which we see ourselves and the cosmos — that we are not deceived by what knowledge and technology have been given to us, nor despair of God's power when the earth closes in upon us.

The Second Lesson: ﴾And None Knows the Armies of Your Lord but He﴿

Among the grandest revelations of this trial is that God has armies which humans do not see:

﴾And none knows the armies of your Lord but He﴿ [Al-Muddaththir: 31]

Note this: the verse was revealed in Sūrat al-Muddaththir, at the most difficult moment in which the Prophet ﷺ needed support — when Quraysh was at the height of its dignity, power, and dominion, its voice reverberating throughout the lands around it. And yet, the Lord of the worlds revealed this reminder to His Prophet: do not fear, for God has armies that Quraysh and others know nothing of.

The Qur'an then unfolds the landmarks of the cosmos: ﴾Nay, by the moon, and by the night when it departs, and by the morning when it brightens — indeed, it is one of the greatest [warnings], a warning to humanity﴿. Why this display of the moons, the heavens, the orbits? Because the One who established the sun in its abode, the moon in its place, and the stars in their stations — is capable of establishing His call in the manner He wills.

In the time of COVID, a tiny soldier — invisible to the naked eye — was unleashed upon humanity, and it stopped cities, economies, and airports. Who knew that in God's dominion there was a soldier of this magnitude and impact? And perhaps in the very air we breathe now, in the very breath we inhale, there are other soldiers we may discover tomorrow — or may never discover. ﴾And to God belong the armies of the heavens and the earth﴿.

This lesson protects the believer from arrogance and opens before him the door of utter neediness before God — neither feeling safe from His decree, nor despairing of His mercy.

The Third Lesson: The Five Psychological Stages

Among the subtlest revelations of this trial is that it stripped us bare before ourselves — it showed us the inversions of the human soul across five successive stages that the constriction of the pandemic produced:

(1) Denial: "Impossible, it cannot be!" — minds refused to believe that the whole world could be brought to a halt.

(2) Tyranny and Recklessness: People who treated the matter lightly, gathering in events, and a great number of them were then infected.

(3) Panic: When the news and the death tolls grew, souls moved from levity to severe dread.

(4) Caution: People began to abide by the precautions and to avoid gatherings.

(5) Vigilance, then Hope: After the emergence of treatments and vaccines, hope returned to the hearts, in expectation that God might bring a victory or an affair from Himself.

These stages are not unique to COVID; they are the pattern of the human soul in every great trial. Whoever contemplates them comes to know himself before the next crisis takes him by surprise — sparing himself a road heavy with turmoil. Glory be to the One who brings the disease and brings its cure, who tries with sickness and tries with health. ﴾Glory be to the All-Wise Creator﴿.

The Fourth Lesson: Solitude and Gathering at Home

Among the deepest things the lockdown uncovered about us were two contrasting states of human existence:

The First: Solitude. We saw people withdraw from the world. Streets fell still. Media producers filmed the great cities of the world, empty upon their thrones, as though a single month could return the cities of the twenty-first century to the scene of abandoned villages. Each in his house, receiving goods bought online, opening the door only to receive a package the driver left and fled.

In this is a warning to the towering edifices that their owners boast of: they can empty of their inhabitants in less than a second by a power from the All-Powerful — so the servants may see their true size in the cosmos, even if they are deceived by what they possess of knowledge, technology, and media.

The Second: Gathering at Home. Here was a different scene. Many people began to discover their own homes anew. Some came to know one another as though they had not met before:

"She is the daughter of good people, by God!""Praise be to God that He provided me this wife — she turned out wonderful!""I discovered I have four children, not five, not three!"

It is as though the pandemic — in God's hidden mercy — returned many a father to his children, returned many a husband to his wife, and returned many homes to themselves after they had been mere bedrooms and parking lots.

But the tragedy is that other homes did not bear the prolonged togetherness, and collapsed. And the more painful: homes that broke not because of many problems, but because of their absence! The inhabitants began to search for problems to invent, lest they be subjected to tranquility. As though some souls cannot endure rest when it lasts!

Here the trial revealed that closeness is not merely a shared space, but a system of mutual understanding, responsiveness, concession, and compassion — needing a language in which you understand the mindset of the other, and grasp what he expects of what you utter, not merely what you intended by your words. The husband from Mars and the wife from Venus, as some writers in popular psychology have said — yet hearts of one substance still intersect.

The Fifth Lesson: Why Do We Only Unite in Crises?

A painful question imposes itself after the pandemic: Why do we only unite when the mill turns?

In times of crisis — with people sick in their homes — every heart attended to every other. Each watched over the others; everyone forgot his small disputes. Then, when God restored us, and we stood on our feet, and returned to the streets — we returned immediately to division.

This is not in the homes alone, but at the level of Islamic work itself. In the times when we were building the mosque and strengthening it, all were at one table, each sitting to play his role and bear his share. When the building was complete, and we became secure, disputes erupted, and voices rose over matters of much lesser weight.

What is in these minds? Why does blessing summon division, and tribulation summon union? This is a psychological law we must derive and remedy — that we train ourselves on unity in prosperity, not only in hardship. For that is more indicative of a sincere structure than the unity necessity imposes.

The Sixth Lesson: The Security That the Lockdown Created

Among the most astonishing revelations of the lockdown was that the police had no work but service. No crime in the streets, no theft, no looting, no homicides. Because God confined people to their homes.

A simple but piercing question: Why do we not learn to feel this security in our souls, hearts, minds, and spirits, without God confining us to our homes?

Security is not an external system imposed by a lockdown; it is an inner serenity granted by God to whoever trusts and obeys Him. The Prophet ﷺ taught us that the believer is accompanied by security in his heart before it takes hold of his streets. ﴾Indeed, in that is a reminder for whoever has a heart, or listens while present in mind﴿.

Conclusion: A Return to the Guidance of the Prophet ﷺ

The seal of these lessons is that the pandemic came only to remind us of what our Prophet ﷺ taught us fifteen centuries ago — only for us to discover it today as though it were new science:

• That one of us place his hand over his mouth when he yawns
• That he not expel his sneeze into the faces of others
• That his hand not wander across the plate, but that he eat from what is before him
• That he not spit in the resources of common benefit
• That he not leave any kind of harm in people's pathways

Have public health advisories produced anything more than what Muḥammad ﷺ left us? By God, I do not think so. The pandemic was a reminder, not new instruction. The believer is the one who catches the reminder, so he does not wait for it to repeat.

The summary of the matter: drawing closer to faith; drawing closer to the wellness of hearts and bodies. And greater turning toward God, for in it is greater tranquility of souls and steadiness of hearts and minds.

O Allah, we ask You for well-being so long as You give us life, and we ask You for a beautiful ending, and we ask You for protection in this life and the next, and for forgiveness and well-being in our religion, our worldly affairs, and our hereafter. Direct us to what is upright in our affair, bless us in what You have provided us, and shield us from the punishment of the Fire.

This article is adapted from a Friday sermon delivered by Sheikh Dr. Ahmed Abouseif one year after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. It reminds us of "the Days of Allah" that pass over humanity, unveiling His great laws, and extracts from them six lessons for the reflective heart.