Educational Objectives in Qur’anic Stories: Khalīfa, Imām, Obedience and Giving

Occasion: transcript of a lecture delivered in Woodbridge on August 13, 2026. Source: transcript of a recorded lecture by Dr. Ahmed Abouseif — watch the original video on YouTube

It is my pleasure to be with you. I ask Allah to accept from all of us. I want you to take two words from tonight. Take them and go if you wish, but on one condition: keep them in your mind and make them the theme of your life. What are those two words? The first is khalīfa, the steward.^[10] The second is imām, which needs no translation, though if I must explain it I would say something like leadership.

If we try to understand the theme of Sūrat al-Baqara as a whole, what is its main idea? We will keep coming back to this question. At the beginning of the surah Allah showed the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ three kinds of people, and you have to choose which side you are going to be on.^[1] And then Allah gave us the mission of the human being. What is that mission? We have Ādam, the khalīfa of Allah. Allah said it plainly, and Ādam took that position. What does it mean to be a khalīfa? It means to implement what Allah has asked you to do. Does everybody agree? Did everybody get this one?

The imām and the one who prays behind him

Let me ask it another way. If I invite everybody here to come and pray, with no requirements and no conditions, and the only thing you need is your wuḍūʾ, am I asking you for more than I ask of the imām? What is the difference between the [maʾmūm] and the imām? Which of the two has more tasks? The imām must have his recitation. He must know the rules of the prayer. He is supposed to present himself as a leader for the people. Even his clothes are supposed to be more decent. None of this is asked of the [maʾmūm].

Seen this way, we find something about khilāfa itself. It is not what people have imagined. I am sorry to say it, but it is not some peak at the highest level. It is the normal position we are all supposed to occupy. It is required of every Muslim, as part of being a Muslim. I am supposed to be a khalīfa, and I am not required to do anything extra for that.

What Allah asked of Ādam

Look at what Allah asked Ādam to do and you will find it is almost nothing. But there is a key word here, which my brother gave us a moment ago. What did he say? Obeying. That is the mission of the steward. When we read the surah, we find that the only thing Allah asks of Ādam is to follow the direction: whatever we give you, you say yes to it.

After that Allah told us the long story of Banū Isrāʾīl. If we ever hold a workshop on this surah, we will find a great deal as we read the sentences together: the endings of the verses, and how Allah ordered the verses one after another. It will be amazing, subḥānallāh. But let us keep it humble tonight.

So what exactly did Allah ask of Ādam? Two things. First, to tell the people around him the names of things. Is that a big requirement? Nothing; he already had the information, and he was simply to tell them what he knew. Second: do not touch this tree. That is the only prohibition Ādam received. And when he made the mistake, Allah asked for a third thing. What was it? He returned to Allah and said: forgive me. That is the whole story of Ādam.

What disobedience grows into

Now let us look at the consequences of disobeying, and Allah gave us a living example of it in the story of Banū Isrāʾīl. I do not want to go through all the details. At the beginning, they broke their word with Allah. They did not fulfill the covenant that was already between them and Him. They said no, we will not do it. They went further and said that Allah is, in the transcript’s words, “one to three”.^[3] Imagine: they accused Allah, glorified is He, with bad words. And what did they do with the prophets? They killed them. Imagine that disobedience can lead a person to such corruption that he comes to killing people, and not just anyone, but the highest level of people. And they came with trickery too, going around, trying to be smart with Allah. There is a long story there, when Allah tells us the story of the cow, al-baqara.

I notice you are still with me. Usually we are sleeping after…, but tonight you have no excuse; you are going to be awake with me. I am not hearing your voices! Got it? Okay, two people said yes. Now you are trying to wake me up.

Every time Mūsā calls his people, what does he say? "O my people." But look at the place where they had killed somebody. They carry a major sin, and at that moment, as long as you are doing something like that, you are out of my relationship. That is what he says about what they did, they killed someone.^[2]

Now let us move on. This is the first of their sayings: what is the meaning of lan? "We will never do it, we will never do that." Have some adab! You are talking to a messenger, to Mūsā, and you have just seen with your own eyes the miracle Allah gave him. Have some manners when you speak to the messenger. And they said: we will never believe in your Lord until, one, two, three... Who is setting conditions against whom? Where is Ādam in this? You will never find him here, because disobedience begins as the ego in the self, in the soul, which makes a person see himself as better than the others.^[3]

Can somebody help me with what they asked for? They wanted to see Allah directly: if you cannot show us your Lord, we will not believe. Allah punished them at that time, and then gave them another chance, to bring them back to the beginning. And then again: we will never be patient anymore. Where are you going, man? Give us a break. And then they moved on to making a nice little god for themselves. They collected the gold and made it, and they came back to disobeying with a lot of other things.

To make a long story short: what is the main condition? What did you say, brother? Obeying. This is the main condition. If we can say yes, we can do everything after that. Do you agree? You can sign the contract? Yes, I will sign the contract. And what does the contract say? It has a job description, and the job description says you will follow all the items in it. Just signing: I agree, I am there, I am in. That is it. And whenever you find you are missing in your word, you come back to the contract and see what is in it.

Ibrāhīm: obedience, and then more

Now we have people who went against what they had pledged to Allah. They did not fulfill it. If we move to Ibrāhīm, the imām, what do we find there? We have talked about these issues a few times already, but what we find is the main mission of the imām. The first one, with the khalīfa, was obeying. Can we remember that? Can we write just one word? What is the word? Obeying. Obeying Allah, glorified is He. Once you obey somebody, you receive everything coming from his side, and you fulfill whatever he asks of you. At that point, you are asked to pray five times a day, and you say yes. Thirty days of fasting? Okay. To go to Makkah for Ḥajj and ʿUmra? Okay, no problem, I am there. Maybe two and a half percent of your money? Okay, I am here. Once you have accepted the essential element, obeying, you have no problem after that. You may be fighting with your wife at home, but you come around and say, okay, not because of her but because of obeying Allah, glorified is He. You have a problem with your partner, a deal, a disagreement; somebody wants to… and the sound from Allah's side comes, regardless of whether it comes from your friends, whoever, even from your conscience… (the transcript is garbled here: "you're not coming to say you're going to stay alhamdulillah"), and it is because of obeying.

On the other hand, when we come to Ibrāhīm, what do we find? When he received the words from Allah, glorified is He, what did he do? Allah said [a word]: what is the meaning of this word? He completed them perfectly. He did not merely receive the message and say yes. He went on to finalize the ways of action, the ways of doing what Allah was asking him to do. He started to accomplish the things Allah had mentioned. Imagine: he said yes, I am here, and he started to fulfill the promises. He moved on to start building the House of Allah, with a kind of construction. And he did not ignore his offspring, the next generation. He started to prepare the people who would come after him to continue his mission and his journey with Islam. He looked around at the situation of the people and made a specific, special prayer to Allah to give the people around him safety and to feed and sustain them. And he looked toward the future. Even when he had children, he asked: what about your dīn when I am gone?^[4]

The khalīfa and the imām: which is higher?

What are we talking about right now? The imām. I said at the beginning that you could take these two words and go. Which one is higher, the imām or the khalīfa? The khalīfa position is normal, shared by everybody, and everybody can do it. All the students in a class can sit in their seats, look at the teacher and flip the pages of the books. But not everybody can lead the class to some kind of movement. How many leaders can we find, and how many ordinary students? The ordinary people all receive the message from Allah, glorified is He, and just practice the foundation.

So when we come to the foundation of the imām, what can we understand from his position? What is the essential element of the khalīfa? Obeying. What are the two positions we have so far? The khalīfa, and the imām. And what is the essential element of the imām? Giving. What did Ibrāhīm give? Let us start. He gave his time when he started to build the House of Allah. That is easy to understand. He gave his mindset, his mentality, his thinking and concentration. He gave all of that, with every part of his body, in order to raise his children through the rules coming to him from Allah, glorified is He. Got it? That is the point.

Giving himself

Now imagine what Allah, glorified is He, tells us about Ibrāhīm in the next position. He is standing before oppression at its highest level in his time. Ibrāhīm was standing there to say no to the tyranny. What was he giving at that moment? He was giving himself. He was giving everything. He knew that if that man made a decision right then, he could be killed in a second. Even so he stood up and said: it does not work like this.^[5] What kind of giving was that? He gave himself.

And what had he given before that? When he was standing next to the Kaʿba he was giving his time. He was giving his mind. He was giving his power. He was giving his money. He was giving everything. Because of that, Allah, glorified is He, made him the model of giving. When he shows us Ibrāhīm standing in front of this man, you will hear Allah say something you have heard before. I am sure you have. All the fundraisers come and say those words to remind you about getting your money back.^[6] What is the verse talking about? Giving.

Righteousness: the highest level of giving

Now we move to the next level. Allah, glorified is He, tells us: listen, if you want to give, you need to give that kind of righteousness. I think that is a nice word, right? What is the meaning of that word? It just came to my mind: righteousness. What is that righteousness in itself? Do we have another word? This is the best translation I found: righteousness in itself. It is the highest level of goodness. What Allah says, this is the highest level of giving. And the highest level of giving is not just coming to the masjid, saying Allāhu akbar and al-ḥamdu lillāh, and going back home. That is not righteousness. That is the kind of performance of the khalīfa: everybody does that. Righteousness comes with the people who lead, and then we have the conditions. What are the conditions? Let us see.

The first part of giving is īmān. When you give your īmān you are giving your submission. You are submitting yourself in a position from which you cannot get back. Once you have a signature on the contract with Allah, you have already submitted yourself and you have no control over yourself. Is that clear? Okay, what else? We are talking about the conditions of righteousness, and righteousness is a sign of giving, and giving is the essential element of the imām. Did I confuse you? Not yet. Let me say it again. We have two positions. The essential element of the khalīfa is obeying. The essential element of the imām is giving. Righteousness is the highest level of giving.

Let us see the examples. What is the first thing we need to give? Ourselves, before money, by the way. Before the children, before the homes, before the position, before everything. In this, I am giving myself from the beginning.

Wealth, given out of love

Now we will see Allah's words, and you will find the parts of the imām's giving, and giving the money. Is that the zakāh? Can we consider giving money as zakāh or not? Zakāh is one of the performances of the khalīfa, or one of the conditions of the khalīfa. Let us say it together again: zakāh is one of the performances of every khalīfa in this world. Anybody who has money is going to give zakāh. It is not a condition of being an imām to give zakāh; it is a normal action. Because of that, Allah made another condition here. Can you help me with the meaning of "love"? What can we understand from somebody loving to give? It means he is not just giving zakāh. He is giving because of the giving itself. He gives because he sees himself there to give to the people. He does not sit and wait for the imām to come and say, "Dear brother, this is the 2.5%, you have to do so and so," and then say, "Okay, okay, let me come, I will look, I will come back and give it to you." It is not like that.

That is why, when I encourage people to give for the sake of Allah, we usually differentiate between two concepts in the Qurʾān.^[7] Think of people who give money. They will never say no to anybody who comes and says "I need something." Once they are asked, whatever they are asked for, they give. They never say no. Do you like that kind of person? Somebody who, a hundred percent of the time, gives and never says no. Okay. And what is the difference between those and the people who look at the position of the needy in order to give before being asked? Is my English clear? Now we have two people. One of them never says no to anybody who comes to ask him. The other does not wait for somebody to come and ask; he looks for the needy people and gives them before they ask. Now we can understand together the meaning of the second condition of righteousness, which is a condition of giving, which is the essential element of the imām.

Prayer, promises and patience

Let us continue with what Allah said as He comes to the conditions of righteousness. There are two words here. As for the prayers, there are those who perform the prayer on and off, once in a while missing something. But here the meaning is of a person standing up and waiting for the time of the prayer. He looks at the clock: where is the time, why is it late? I cannot wait to say Allāhu akbar. You will find those people during the night: everybody is sleeping, but they are standing there. That is part of righteousness. But before that, we said: do not forget this one. Got it?

Then they usually fulfill their promises, their agreements and their words. They never break them. Why? Because they respect their relationship with Allah before their relationships with people, and that is what brings them to fulfilling all of these things. And that kind of person will never have an easy life, is that right? If somebody acts like that, he will never go through life in easy harmony with everything. Because of that he needs patience, and Allah mentions patience. If we explained all the words, we would take a much longer time. How often do you find these words coming together in one verse, one after another? This is the place, and this is the time.

A review

Let us review for a second. What are the two main positions? The khalīfa, and the imām. Which one is higher? The imām. What is the condition of obeying? And the condition of giving: what is the essential element of the giving? Righteousness. What are the conditions of righteousness in the surah? We find them: one, two, three, four, as we mentioned in this verse. By the way, this is verse number maybe 177. Yes, it is 177 in al-Baqara.^[8]

Fasting

Then, if we move on, we find Allah, glorified is He, asking us to fast. When we come to fasting, we can count fasting among the conditions of the imām. We need it in a different way from the rest of the people, as normal people. Allah told us that there are two kinds of people who fast. One of them fasts like the normal people, and the other comes to the covenant with Allah. They are not just concerned about food and water. They are concerned about the consequences of it, and what we need to do after having that kind of …

I hope, God willing, that I have given something humble. After these verses, whatever you read, especially when you read everything that comes after them, you will find the conditions of the imām, even when it comes between the imām and [the one who prays behind him]. But you will find them a little different, to show who carries the responsibility for the community and the ummah, and who acts like the rest of the people, having a funny time after each prayer in the masjid: I will see so and so, we will talk after the prayer, we will stand there and lay out everything that comes with it. But the imām comes with a different condition.

A prayer for one's own shortcomings

Now we can understand why Allah asked us, at the end of [the surah], to say that if we have missed anything or fallen short in any way... What is the relationship between that and making a specific prayer for myself? Because I am not here for myself. I am here for the call to Allah. I am here for Islam, as long as I am here for this Book. My only mission is to beat the corruption, and the people who encourage that kind of corruption, in this life.^[9]

I ask Allah, glorified is He, to guide all of us to the straight path, and to give us the ability to understand the Qurʾān.

--- ^[1]: توثيق المحرر: The transcript says "the three types of the people. First of them, the second one is the third one…" and the categories are not named; they are conventionally the believers, the disbelievers and the hypocrites (Qurʾān 2:1–20), but the speaker did not name them in the transcript. ^[2]: توثيق المحرر: The transcript is broken here ("In this place it doesn’t have because of what? They already killed somebody… At that time, you are out of my relationship as long as you’re doing something like that"). It appears to refer to the story of the cow (2:67–73), where a soul was killed and then disputed. What the speaker meant by the loss of the "O my people" address is not clear and is rendered as closely as the transcript allows. ^[3]: توثيق المحرر: The speaker’s paraphrases correspond to Qurʾān 2:55, ﴿لَن نُّؤْمِنَ لَكَ حَتَّىٰ نَرَى اللَّهَ جَهْرَةً﴾, and 2:61, ﴿لَن نَّصْبِرَ عَلَىٰ طَعَامٍ وَاحِدٍ﴾. The verses are not recited in the lecture. Likewise the phrase "one to three" (about accusing Allah with bad words) is garbled in the transcript; it is kept as the speaker said it, and the editor does not interpret it. ^[4]: توثيق المحرر: Qurʾān 2:124, ﴿وَإِذِ ابْتَلَىٰ إِبْرَاهِيمَ رَبُّهُ بِكَلِمَاتٍ فَأَتَمَّهُنَّ ۖ قَالَ إِنِّي جَاعِلُكَ لِلنَّاسِ إِمَامًا﴾. The lecture speaks of the "words" and of Ibrāhīm’s completing them without reciting the verse. The speaker’s "what about your dīn" may allude to 2:132–133 (the bequest to the sons); the transcript does not say. ^[5]: توثيق المحرر: The scene appears to be Qurʾān 2:258, Ibrāhīm’s argument with the ruler who disputed with him about his Lord. The lecture does not name the verse, and the ruler is not named. ^[6]: توثيق المحرر: The verse is not named in the transcript. It may be one of the verses on spending in Allah’s way, such as the "goodly loan" (2:245) or the parable of the grain that multiplies (2:261). This is the editor’s guess only. ^[7]: توثيق المحرر: The transcript is garbled here ("we are differentiating between the two concepts in the Quran one of them is okay…"), and the two Qurʾānic terms were dropped by the automatic transcription. The distinction that follows is recorded as the speaker explained it. ^[8]: توثيق المحرر: Qurʾān 2:177, ﴿لَّيْسَ الْبِرَّ أَن تُوَلُّوا وُجُوهَكُمْ قِبَلَ الْمَشْرِقِ وَالْمَغْرِبِ وَلَٰكِنَّ الْبِرَّ مَنْ آمَنَ بِاللَّهِ وَالْيَوْمِ الْآخِرِ وَالْمَلَائِكَةِ وَالْكِتَابِ وَالنَّبِيِّينَ وَآتَى الْمَالَ عَلَىٰ حُبِّهِ ذَوِي الْقُرْبَىٰ وَالْيَتَامَىٰ وَالْمَسَاكِينَ وَابْنَ السَّبِيلِ وَالسَّائِلِينَ وَفِي الرِّقَابِ وَأَقَامَ الصَّلَاةَ وَآتَى الزَّكَاةَ وَالْمُوفُونَ بِعَهْدِهِمْ إِذَا عَاهَدُوا ۖ وَالصَّابِرِينَ فِي الْبَأْسَاءِ وَالضَّرَّاءِ وَحِينَ الْبَأْسِ ۗ أُولَٰئِكَ الَّذِينَ صَدَقُوا ۖ وَأُولَٰئِكَ هُمُ الْمُتَّقُونَ﴾. The lecture cites the verse by number and paraphrases its conditions; it does not recite it. ^[9]: توثيق المحرر: The fasting verses (probably 2:183–187) and the end-of-surah supplication (probably 2:286) are not named in the transcript; they are identified here from context only. The transcript ends with the unclear "Does that pull?", which was not carried over.