Divine Laws No One Escapes, and the Arrogance of the Great and the Small Pharaoh

Occasion: Transcription of a Fajr khatira delivered on 4 May 2026 Source: A transcription of a video khatira by Dr. Ahmed Abouseif — Watch the original video on YouTube

Praise be to Allah, and blessings and peace upon the servant of Allah and His Messenger, our master and our Prophet Muḥammad ﷺ, and upon his family and Companions, with abundant peace. O Allah, we ask You for the good of this day, 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 day, the evil of what is in it and the evil of what comes after it. O Allah, set right for us our religion, our worldly life and our Hereafter, prepare for us right guidance in our affair, bless us in what You have provided us, protect us from the punishment of the Fire, and turn away from us the causes of punishment in this world and the next.

Divine Laws No One Escapes

In the first of the verses we heard in the prayer: ﴿وَلَوْ أَنَّ أَهْلَ الْقُرَىٰ آمَنُوا وَاتَّقَوْا لَفَتَحْنَا عَلَيْهِم بَرَكَاتٍ مِّنَ السَّمَاءِ وَالْأَرْضِ﴾ (And if only the people of the towns had believed and feared Allah, We would have opened upon them blessings from the heaven and the earth).^[1]

Our Lord, Glorified is He, laid down divine laws that He made a law of nature for this universe, within whose framework people move and from which no one ever departs. There is no one who pleases Allah except that his Lord pleases him, no one who worships Allah except that his Lord honors him, and no one who draws near to the Lord of the worlds with more acts of obedience except that Allah, Mighty and Majestic, gives him, of the kind of every act of obedience, what he loves to meet from his Creator, Glorified is He.

And in this place we want to remember the states of the bygone nations and how they were. I do not like to say "the divine reaction," for it is not fitting with the Lord of the worlds that this phrase be said, but: how was the doing of Allah, Blessed and Exalted, with them when they disobeyed, strayed, denied, persisted, transgressed and were obstinate?

The Great Pharaoh and the Small Pharaoh

Then Allah gave us after that an example in Pharaoh, and what he did to his people, and what he wanted to feel from this exaggerated haughtiness. And how he did not surrender psychologically, although he was convinced rationally that he owned nothing, that his hand was empty of means, and that everything in his hands was temporary. Pharaoh believes that he will die, and yet he does all this to satisfy this human arrogance.

And human arrogance occurs at the level of the very great Pharaoh, and occurs at the level of the small Pharaoh, a person who owns of his life only dirhams or dinars or dollars or pounds or whatever it may be, but who becomes overbearing within himself and feels a false power beyond what he has.

Be Upright, May Allah Have Mercy on You

We do not want to speak at length so much as to say to our souls: be upright, may Allah have mercy on you, be upright on the path of the Lord of the worlds. Let no one depart from the frame of his humanity before the Lord of the worlds, and let none of us feel that he has power over Allah's creation, or that the fates of people are in his hand, or that he is able to deprive or withhold or give or grant. That is only the power of the Lord of the worlds, and we have nothing in our hands but simple means: to the measure that you fear Allah He honors you, to the measure that you hold Allah in awe He mends your heart, and to the measure that you draw near to Him He makes you feel love and intimacy with Him, Glorified and Exalted.

O Lord, teach us how to be servants to You, teach us how to find intimacy with You and in You, O Lord of the worlds, teach us how to be before You prostrating, humble and submissive, surrendering ourselves, yielding and compliant to all that You have commanded. O Allah, amen.

--- ^[1]: Editor's documentation: Sūrat al-Aʿrāf, verse 96.