Reflections on Surat al-Furqan

Occasion: A transcription of a lecture delivered on November 7, 2019, as part of Reflections on Surat al-FurqanSource: A transcription of a video lecture by Dr. Ahmed Abouseif — Watch the original video on YouTube

Praise be to Allah, and peace and blessings upon His servant, His Prophet and His Messenger, our master Muhammad, and upon his family and Companions, with abundant peace. O Allah, we ask You for the good of this gathering and its blessing, and we ask You for sincerity in word and deed, truthfulness in intention, excellence in performance, well-being of hearts and bodies, soundness of minds, Your covering and the continuance of Your covering. To proceed:

Allah the Exalted has honored us by standing before Sūrat al-Furqān, which is among the sūrahs beloved to the souls of those who read the Qur'an and recite it slowly, and we have reflections on it, at which we pause whenever we read it. Among them is His words, the Exalted: ﴿وَقَالَ الرَّسُولُ يَا رَبِّ إِنَّ قَوْمِي اتَّخَذُوا هَٰذَا الْقُرْآنَ مَهْجُورًا﴾ [الفرقان: 30] (And the Messenger said, "My Lord, indeed my people have taken this Qur'an as something abandoned" [al-Furqān: 30]). Whenever the reader passes by this verse, he feels a measure of shame at the shortcoming of all of us toward the Book of the Lord of the worlds, glory be to Him, the Exalted. What are we giving for the sake of the Qur'an? That is our first mission in this life, because we have no life without the Qur'an.

The Kingdom, the Method and the Human Being

We mentioned in the last meeting that Allah the Exalted opened this sūrah with His words ﴿تَبَارَكَ الَّذِي نَزَّلَ الْفُرْقَانَ﴾ (Blessed is He who sent down the Criterion), and opened Sūrat al-Mulk with His words ﴿تَبَارَكَ الَّذِي بِيَدِهِ الْمُلْكُ﴾ (Blessed is He in whose hand is dominion). A shared opening, a different reason, and what is meant is the glorification of Him, glory be to Him. This makes us ask: why did He say there "Blessed is He in whose hand is dominion" and here "Blessed is He who sent down the Criterion"? So we understood that this kingdom which Allah created by His power, wisdom, will, self-subsistence and the perfection of His craftsmanship cannot function in life without a method, and the method that runs this universe is none other than the Book of Allah the Exalted. Without the Qur'an, the universe is a cosmos without a method; and the Qur'an alone is a method without a place in which to move; and the intermediary between this method and this universe is the Muslim human being, who is held responsible.

An example of a car brings this closer: we have a big, magnificent car with a system by which it moves, and it will not move without it; but the system alone, without these wheels and this chassis, has no function. And the intermediary between the system and this big body is the driver who takes this car. So our role in the great life is to apply this divine method which Allah made for us a constitution, and with it we set out, by the permission of the Lord of the worlds.

And we also paused in our last meeting at the relationship between Sūrat al-Furqān and Sūrat al-Nūr. If Allah legislated for us in al-Nūr a set of manners and ethics that regulate the movement of society morally, allowing no kind of license, leaving no opening through which Satan could enter, and opened for us the door to social manners; then in al-Furqān He expresses that this is the Criterion that separates error from correctness, truth from falsehood, polytheism from faith, and monotheism from its absence.

And we also mentioned that the importance of the Qur'an as a method that puts life to work requires that it be inside homes, inside factories and workplaces, in our raising of our children, in our treatment of our husbands and wives, in our driving on the road; a method for the whole of life. The Qur'an in the universe is like blood in the body: without the movement of blood the body cannot move, nor interact, nor deal with life in any way. And we also mentioned that calling to Allah is obligatory on everyone, and that this Qur'an which Allah sent down to be a criterion must have an instrument, and this instrument is us, by the permission of the Lord of the worlds.

The Method and Its Bearer

Today we want to listen together to what the polytheist said when Allah sent down this Qur'an, and this great system of social and moral manners in Sūrat al-Nūr. Do you think that what we speak of, our attempt to regulate society, will be answered by all people? And that all people will hear the words and say: Yes, sir, you have come to us from our Lord with heavenly instructions, and this is your great Qur'an? Will they submit to us? No. Allah the Exalted gave us in Sūrat al-Furqān a set of examples of objections, and they fall on two things: the first is the method, so the objector begins to find gaps in it as best he can; and the second is the one who speaks with the method. So the criticism with them is directed at two things: the method, and the one who speaks with this method.

Striking the symbol. We saw in Sūrat al-Nūr an attempt to strike the symbol through speaking about the Mother of the Believers ʿĀʾishah, may Allah the Exalted be pleased with her. When the people of the slander tried to accuse the purified one, may Allah's pleasure be upon her, they wanted to strike her in the most particular thing a woman has of honor, chastity, dignity and self-respect, because if the house of the Prophet ﷺ is struck from within, everything the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ says is struck. So they wanted to attack through this door. And the matter of striking symbols is very serious; let me repeat the sentence: when they wanted to strike the symbol, the movement of the call stopped.

Imagine with me a child who trusts his father or mother greatly, and then suddenly a rumor spreads that this mother is walking in falsehood, God forbid, and doing what is forbidden. The shock that occurs in the mind of the child, the boy or the girl, toward his mother or father produces an intellectual paralysis inside the brain, so he cannot act, and has no ability to face life; he comes out of his shock with an electrical paralysis in the brain. By the same logic: when the first leader, the highest ideal and the example set for the Muslim community is Muhammad ﷺ, and then the strike comes upon this symbol, the call stops, and paralysis occurs in the movement of the community of the call.

And you know that the Prophet ﷺ did not receive revelation during this period; the people of knowledge say that revelation stopped coming to the Prophet ﷺ for a whole month until the words of Allah, blessed and exalted, were sent down: ﴿إِنَّ الَّذِينَ جَاءُوا بِالْإِفْكِ عُصْبَةٌ مِّنكُمْ ۚ لَا تَحْسَبُوهُ شَرًّا لَّكُم ۖ بَلْ هُوَ خَيْرٌ لَّكُمْ﴾ [النور: 11] (Indeed, those who came with the slander are a group among you. Do not think it bad for you; rather it is good for you [al-Nūr: 11]), up to the end of the verses in which the Lord of the worlds, glory be to Him, commanded a new method, which is the method of stopping rumors and ceasing to circulate them, and how to deal with them: what we do first, second, third and fourth. And this is the point of the statement: that they wanted to strike the symbol, who is the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ.

And this matter of striking symbols, although it is a little outside our topic, I mention it because it may happen in our time in another form: a person is brought forward who has in his behavior what he has, and then we begin to polish him and put him on screens and magnify him in people's eyes and put a big turban on him, while we hold papers on him until a known time. Then, when people begin to take from him and be convinced by him and say: this is the venerable Shaykh, we bring out the paper and say: goodbye, and the symbol is burned. And what is the danger in that? The danger is that all the followers, when they see that the symbol they follow has fallen, are left with no goal they seek, and they fall with his fall.

For this reason we always say, as we speak to our colleagues the imams and honored shaykhs and our teachers: O brothers, we often refrain from much of the lawful that Allah has made lawful for us, fearing that it may become a pretext for someone who does not do what we do, so that it seems as if we are doing the forbidden. So a person guards himself completely against many situations even if they are lawful, and says: By Allah, I do not want to protect Ahmed, I want to protect the symbol that Ahmed carries; for he is a shaykh, a mosque imam, a spiritual leader. And this is a call to all the veiled sisters as well, especially if it is known about you that you speak well, or that you aim to do good, or that you take the lead in giving religious opinions in some place or field: complete caution is necessary. Beware that any of us should see you in a place where you should not be.

And look at the stance of our master the Prophet ﷺ, for in it is what teaches us this. Imagine a respected man whose respectability people know, standing with his wife; someone might say there is a problem in this. So the Prophet ﷺ called to the Companions and said to them: Come, and it was said to him, in meaning: O Messenger of Allah, is someone like you suspected? So he ﷺ said that Satan runs in the son of Adam like blood, and that I feared Satan might cast…^[1] So let none of us say: My scrupulousness is great; for the measure of scrupulousness that I have does not have to be in others.

Close to this logic is what came from Lady Hind when the Prophet ﷺ took the pledge from the women in the women's pledge of allegiance, and said: "and they shall not commit adultery," so she said, in meaning: Does a free woman commit adultery, O Messenger of Allah? This may not even occur to the minds of free noblewomen and people of lofty moral standing. Then the matter of striking symbols comes, and a mufti comes out for us, and a shaykh comes out for us, and an imam in such-and-such a place, and the aim is to strike this symbol so that all of Islam is defeated in the eyes of its followers. And when we speak today with people about wanting to bring back the Azhari method in teaching, the first sentence they say to us is: Fine, and what are the shaykhs of al-Azhar doing? If you sit down to defend, you have lost half the time in which you could have moved forward, spread your call, and given what you have in your hands.

The Qur'an Was Fair to Them When It Reported Their Words

So what did they say? Look. The Exalted says: ﴿تَبَارَكَ الَّذِي نَزَّلَ الْفُرْقَانَ عَلَىٰ عَبْدِهِ لِيَكُونَ لِلْعَالَمِينَ نَذِيرًا ۝ الَّذِي لَهُ مُلْكُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ وَلَمْ يَتَّخِذْ وَلَدًا وَلَمْ يَكُن لَّهُ شَرِيكٌ فِي الْمُلْكِ وَخَلَقَ كُلَّ شَيْءٍ فَقَدَّرَهُ تَقْدِيرًا ۝ وَاتَّخَذُوا مِن دُونِهِ آلِهَةً لَّا يَخْلُقُونَ شَيْئًا وَهُمْ يُخْلَقُونَ وَلَا يَمْلِكُونَ لِأَنفُسِهِمْ ضَرًّا وَلَا نَفْعًا وَلَا يَمْلِكُونَ مَوْتًا وَلَا حَيَاةً وَلَا نُشُورًا﴾ [الفرقان: 1-3] (Blessed is He who sent down the Criterion upon His servant that he may be to the worlds a warner. He to whom belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth, who has not taken a son and has no partner in dominion, and who created all things and determined them with precise determination. Yet they have taken besides Him gods that create nothing while they are themselves created, and possess for themselves neither harm nor benefit, and possess neither death nor life nor resurrection [al-Furqān: 1-3]). Before His words "and created all things and determined them with precise determination" and "to whom belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth and who has not taken a son," we understand and then fall silent; we respect ourselves and hold back from every word that might come out of our mouths. Then He says to us: "and they have taken besides Him gods." Who says this? It is Allah telling us about His enemies. So pay attention: the Lord of Might, glory be to Him, the Exalted, tells about His enemies that they took gods besides Him!

And one of us today, if someone reminds him of some of his mistakes, goes mad, and if false things are said about him he is angry, even if some of it is true. And our Lord relates false speech about Himself to teach us fairness and neutrality in handling our topics. Then look at Allah's comparison, glory be to Him, between Himself and the gods they took, so that each of us understands that none of us is high or strong or above his station. For with the dawn of every new day we say: O Allah, we ask You for the good of this day and the good of what is in it and the good of what comes after it, and we are awaiting our Lord's provision in it; is there an Egyptian among you? We go out in the morning and say: O Opener, O Generous, O Opener, O All-Knowing, O Provider, O Generous, provide for us and for our dependents, it is on You, O Lord. This simple, beautiful tune means that we are awaiting the doors, awaiting the new creation in this day. So if those who were taken as gods create nothing but are themselves created, and possess for themselves neither harm nor benefit, and possess neither death nor life nor resurrection, then they have no qualifications at all that would put them in that position. Our Lord here compares between Himself and the gods they took, so that we understand that none of us is above the station of Allah. By Allah the Great, Allah, mighty and majestic, teaches us manners: Get down low, and do not raise your head over creation; be well-mannered until you are raised to a level at which Allah raises you with Him, glory be to Him, the Exalted.

We have no enemies. Then Allah's relating about His enemies teaches us something else. And these people who say about You what they say, are they not Your enemies, O Lord? But we have a concern for our enemies like our concern for our loved ones; we want everyone in Paradise. We as Muslims, in the method of Islam, have no enemies, but all people for us, as a method of calling, are a place of calling. We have no enemies, and the basis of our hearts is purity and cleanliness all along the way.

Send blessings upon the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. At the conquest of Mecca, ʿIkrimah ibn Abī Jahl came. And who is Abū Jahl? Does it remind you of something? He was the greatest enemy of Islam and the Muslims. So when his son is present on the day of the conquest, what do we do with him? Do we say: This is the son of our enemy, so we do such-and-such to him? But our master the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, ʿIkrimah's wife comes to him and says: O Messenger of Allah, ʿIkrimah wanted to take to the sea, and I seek security for him from you. So he said: I have granted him security. It is as if the matter is not a consideration at all for the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ; we have a bigger mission than this, we have no time for this talk: so-and-so did, and so-and-so went, and so-and-so came. Let us see what is before us and work on it. So he said: I have granted him security, so she went after him until she caught up with him, and he wanted to go to Yemen, so she said to him: Come, where are you going? I sought security for you from the Prophet ﷺ, and he has granted you security. So he returned with her.

Then he came to speak to the Prophet ﷺ about his old harshness, it seems, saying: This woman told me that you granted me security. He said: She spoke truly. Then look at the Prophet ﷺ when he saw him coming from afar, for he had prepared his Companions for his coming and said: This is ʿIkrimah ibn Abī Jahl, so do not curse his father, for cursing the dead does not reach the dead and harms the living^[2]. Understand the word you say about any person: some of his relatives or acquaintances or old companions may be present, hear it and be hurt, and the words will not reach there, so why do you speak? So be careful.

Then the Prophet ﷺ opens his arms and embraces him and says: «مَرْحَبًا بِالرَّاكِبِ الْمُهَاجِرِ» (Welcome to the migrating rider). The son of whom? The son of Abū Jahl, the son of the greatest enemy of Islam and the Muslims, and yet he receives him like this, as if saying to him: Uncle, where are you going? We have things we want to do together. So when ʿIkrimah saw this scene, nothing was left for him but shyness and shame, and he said: O Messenger of Allah, I bear witness that there is no god but Allah and that you are the Messenger of Allah; show me a war whose mill is turning now so that I may defend this religion, as I fought it for a long time of my life. Imagine the scene: he asks for nothing except to defend Islam after having fought it for a long time. So do we understand from this that in our hearts there is a drawn-up enmity for anyone on the whole earth, whoever he may be?

And look also: there is no justice with Allah greater than what He did with Pharaoh. He says to Moses: ﴿اذْهَبْ إِلَىٰ فِرْعَوْنَ إِنَّهُ…﴾ (Go to Pharaoh; indeed he…), then teaches him manners: ﴿فَقُلْ هَل لَّكَ إِلَىٰ أَن تَزَكَّىٰ ۝ وَأَهْدِيَكَ إِلَىٰ رَبِّكَ فَتَخْشَىٰ﴾^[3] (And say, "Would you be willing to purify yourself, and that I guide you to your Lord so you would fear Him?"). As if He is saying: With your permission, please, would you be willing to purify yourself? And after that He gives him the proofs, and commands him to cast the staff and bring out his hand. And who is this Pharaoh before Allah, glory be to Him, that He commands His prophet Moses with all this seriousness? Because he is a person targeted by the call, and we want his heart, we want him to be with us. And we have no buried rancor in our hearts toward any of creation; that is the basis.

Disturbing the Call

Then He, glory be to Him, says, relating their words: ﴿وَقَالَ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا إِنْ هَٰذَا إِلَّا إِفْكٌ افْتَرَاهُ وَأَعَانَهُ عَلَيْهِ قَوْمٌ آخَرُونَ ۖ فَقَدْ جَاءُوا ظُلْمًا وَزُورًا﴾ [الفرقان: 4] (And those who disbelieve say, "This is not but a falsehood he invented, and another people assisted him in it." But they have committed an injustice and a lie [al-Furqān: 4]). And this is the propaganda surrounding every lecture and every event, empty talk that they say to deafen people's ears from hearing this call.

Send blessings upon the Prophet. A famous story I have narrated many times, about al-Ṭufayl ibn ʿAmr al-Dawsī, who says: When I entered Mecca, Quraysh received me and said to me: Among us is so-and-so, the Ṣābiʾ. And the Ṣābiʾ is the one who has left the root of religion. They are speaking about Muhammad ﷺ: He left the religion of the forefathers and declared our gods foolish and did this and that, and he speaks with what separates a man from his wife, and a son from his father^[4]. Imagine: he separates a father from his son! And in the science of media they call this the suggestive influence.

An example is that you come out to us and say: The temperature over the next two months will be extremely cold, and for the first time in life it will fall fifty degrees below zero, and the region is going through such-and-such crises, and there are warnings from atmospheric scientists that the human bone will not endure such-and-such for such-and-such a time… then you say at the end: And we are giving a discount on jackets! So why all this long introduction? Why not say: We are giving a discount? Because it does not work, so you must prepare the psychology of the recipient for what you want to say. And this, from the marketing side alone, is a full job: to make the one in front of you draw an idea, evoke an image, be convinced by it, and be saturated with it, until he closes his own eyes and sees with your eyes.

So what did al-Ṭufayl do? He said: They kept at me until I put a kursuf in my ear, meaning cotton. And they kept nagging at his mind until the poor man almost feared to come near Muhammad ﷺ or to hear his voice from any place, far or near, so he put cotton in his ear so as not to hear. This is the media influence: the Qurashī media took our friend and did not leave him. And by the way, this talk makes us, when we see in any country that has been taken over in some way, or in which there is injustice and tyranny, people who are still convinced by the ideas broadcast to them, excuse them somewhat.

He said: When I went to the House and wanted to circumambulate, I found Muhammad reciting the Qur'an, so I ignored it so as not to hear. And I mention this as an example that clarifies what is meant, and I do not say that it is an established fact in all its details. The point is that when words come out in a loud voice, they will reach. He said: So I said to myself: Woe to you, Ṭufayl, you are a sensible man, you know the speech of the Arabs and you know and you know. I kept talking to myself until I said: I will listen to this man, and if what he has is good I will take it, and if it is other than that… When he sat with him, the Prophet ﷺ recited to him from the opening of Sūrat Fuṣṣilat, and he accepted Islam and bore witness that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, then said: O Messenger of Allah, adultery has spread among Daws, so send me to them, perhaps Allah will guide them. And he went to them, and Allah the Exalted decreed for him of good at his hands what He decreed, and the matter ended.

But the point in the incident is that the disturbance of the call is ongoing. And consider the mentality of the caller who has no spare time to sit and defend himself: We did this or did not do it, we meant this or did not mean it, we have no time for this talk. We have work, by Allah the Great, we are not free.

And among that is that someone says about the speaker: Be careful, he tells many Isrāʾīliyyāt, and most of the stories he tells are not authentic. And our sister hears this and does not even know what "Isrāʾīliyyāt" means, and has no such background, so she says to herself: Surely the one who says this knows. And after two or three months she asks: What does this mean? So compare the divine response with the sentence that was said, even in the span of time: the response to their first saying: ﴿فَقَدْ جَاءُوا ظُلْمًا وَزُورًا﴾ (But they have committed an injustice and a lie). I told you from the start: brief.

Then they said: ﴿وَقَالُوا أَسَاطِيرُ الْأَوَّلِينَ اكْتَتَبَهَا فَهِيَ تُمْلَىٰ عَلَيْهِ بُكْرَةً وَأَصِيلًا﴾ [الفرقان: 5] (And they say, "Legends of the former peoples, which he has written down, and they are dictated to him morning and afternoon" [al-Furqān: 5]). And the response here is not a brief defensive response like the first, but a response of calling that explains the reality of what is in our hands. Therefore He said: ﴿قُلْ أَنزَلَهُ الَّذِي يَعْلَمُ السِّرَّ فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ ۚ إِنَّهُ كَانَ غَفُورًا رَّحِيمًا﴾ [الفرقان: 6] (Say, "It was sent down by He who knows the secret within the heavens and the earth. Indeed, He is ever Forgiving and Merciful" [al-Furqān: 6]). We have no other doubts.

What Do People Expect of the Caller?

Then the Exalted said: ﴿وَقَالُوا مَالِ هَٰذَا الرَّسُولِ يَأْكُلُ الطَّعَامَ وَيَمْشِي فِي الْأَسْوَاقِ لَوْلَا أُنزِلَ إِلَيْهِ مَلَكٌ فَيَكُونَ مَعَهُ نَذِيرًا ۝ أَوْ يُلْقَىٰ إِلَيْهِ كَنزٌ أَوْ تَكُونُ لَهُ جَنَّةٌ يَأْكُلُ مِنْهَا ۚ وَقَالَ الظَّالِمُونَ إِن تَتَّبِعُونَ إِلَّا رَجُلًا مَّسْحُورًا﴾ [الفرقان: 7-8] (And they say, "What is this Messenger that eats food and walks in the markets? Why was not an angel sent down to him so he would be with him a warner? Or [why is] a treasure [not] given to him, or has he not a garden from which he eats?" And the wrongdoers say, "You follow not but a man bewitched" [al-Furqān: 7-8]). And what is your concern with that? Look: here we move from the stage of criticism to the stage of challenge. And this is an important lesson about what ordinary people expect of callers, and we will dwell on it a little, so forgive me.

I want us to imagine together, may Allah be pleased with you all, that you have stood calling before people: what do people expect from the caller? The first thing is the magic wand. "Shaykh, I have a problem, solve it, O our master, in a second," and he has come with a problem that is a month or a year or ten years old, and put it before the shaykh, and what formed over ten years is required of our master the imam to solve with a magic wand in a few minutes. This is number one.

﴿لَوْلَا أُنزِلَ إِلَيْهِ مَلَكٌ فَيَكُونَ مَعَهُ نَذِيرًا﴾ (Why was not an angel sent down to him so he would be with him a warner?): they want him, when he speaks, to speak in the name of the angel, and in the tongue of the angel. And you know the police officer, they put on his shoulders all these ranks, and stars, and crossed swords; why? Because it is a symbol, so when he walks and speaks with people he does not speak to them as a human being, but with the shoulders and what is on them, so awe seizes the one addressed. And if I were a citizen standing before two people, both apparently of high rank, you would find in my voice a tremor and trembling even though the two persons might be silent, not speaking; for I am not afraid of the tongue, but of the awe. So this is their saying: ﴿لَوْلَا أُنزِلَ إِلَيْهِ مَلَكٌ فَيَكُونَ مَعَهُ نَذِيرًا﴾ (Why was not an angel sent down to him so he would be with him a warner?).

So the first: a magic wand. And the second: that he should have the ability to encompass all people with wealth and riches: ﴿أَوْ يُلْقَىٰ إِلَيْهِ كَنزٌ أَوْ تَكُونُ لَهُ جَنَّةٌ يَأْكُلُ مِنْهَا﴾ (Or [why is] a treasure [not] given to him, or has he not a garden from which he eats?), then they say: ﴿إِن تَتَّبِعُونَ إِلَّا رَجُلًا مَّسْحُورًا﴾ (You follow not but a man bewitched).

Allah's Response on Behalf of the Call and the Caller

And we notice that Allah responded directly when they spoke about the call, saying: ﴿فَقَدْ جَاءُوا ظُلْمًا وَزُورًا﴾ (But they have committed an injustice and a lie), and saying: ﴿قُلْ أَنزَلَهُ الَّذِي يَعْلَمُ السِّرَّ﴾ (Say, "It was sent down by He who knows the secret"); He responded for the call Himself, glory be to Him. But when the caller was spoken about, look at what He said: ﴿انظُرْ كَيْفَ ضَرَبُوا لَكَ الْأَمْثَالَ فَضَلُّوا فَلَا يَسْتَطِيعُونَ سَبِيلًا﴾ [الفرقان: 9] (See how they strike for you comparisons, so they have strayed, and cannot find a way [al-Furqān: 9]). And the caller should not have paid them any attention at all when they say this empty talk. But I tell you, may Allah forgive you: they too are human, what afflicts humans afflicts them: happy, cheerful, self-sufficient, poor, needy, in crisis, in hardship, in pain. They are also human. And because they are human, the Lord of the worlds, glory be to Him, shows us how, as it were, He pats the shoulder of the Prophet ﷺ and reassures him.

Look at the words: ﴿تَبَارَكَ الَّذِي إِن شَاءَ جَعَلَ لَكَ خَيْرًا مِّن ذَٰلِكَ جَنَّاتٍ تَجْرِي مِن تَحْتِهَا الْأَنْهَارُ وَيَجْعَل لَّكَ قُصُورًا﴾ [الفرقان: 10] (Blessed is He who, if He willed, could make for you better than that: gardens beneath which rivers flow, and could make for you palaces [al-Furqān: 10]). And by the way, I tell you as a matter of amusement: we had a professor at university who used to say to us, while we were still students: Whoever among you wants to be rich, let him look for another line of work from now. May Allah have mercy on him, he always used to say that. Why? Because the basis of this work is that it is for Allah the Exalted. Then people always look at what you wear and what you ride: why this car, and when, and how, and who? And we agreed from the start.

So our Lord, glory be to Him, says: Blessed is He who, if He willed. And what prevents Allah from willing that good for His servant? So what do you want? When the Lord of Might treats His Prophet ﷺ with this majesty and this gentleness, the basis is that He will give him what he wants. Imagine you have a son, masha'Allah, well-mannered, obedient, academically excelling; if he asked you for your eyes you would not say to him: Excuse me. But the Lord of Might, glory be to Him, as if He hangs all this giving on His will, which is tied to the request of the one for whom the benefit will come about. This is the meaning of: ﴿تَبَارَكَ الَّذِي إِن شَاءَ جَعَلَ لَكَ خَيْرًا مِّن ذَٰلِكَ﴾ (Blessed is He who, if He willed, could make for you better than that).

Then He said: ﴿بَلْ كَذَّبُوا بِالسَّاعَةِ﴾ [الفرقان: 11] (Rather, they have denied the Hour [al-Furqān: 11]). So their case is not with Muhammad ﷺ, but their case is with the Lord of Might, glory be to Him, and with the Day of Resurrection. They do not want to remember that they will be questioned one day, because your feeling that you will be questioned one day prevents you from doing what you desire. And this is wrong, and we are speaking about the polytheists. But our faith in what Allah has prepared for us on the Day of Resurrection makes us refrain from what our souls desire, out of desire for what the Lord of Might, glory be to Him, the Exalted, has encouraged.

I ask Allah, mighty and majestic, to reward me with good, and to repay you on our behalf with great reward, and to bless you, and to mend your hearts, and to make us and you secure. O Allah, amen, Lord of the worlds.

From the Questions

Is it permissible to congratulate Americans on their holidays? The lecturer distinguished between two kinds of holidays. Holidays connected with religion, which have religious roots, like Christmas: I do not say to people directly "Merry Christmas" and the like, but I am commanded to the gentle courtesies present in society, so I say: May you be well every year. And this is a general phrase with no specification, and without binding myself to having made him a partner in the error of what he does or believes. As for general social holidays, whose cause was social and not religious, they are another kind. And if the holiday is purely religious and has an error in what they believe, then I keep myself from taking part directly, and I can maneuver around the situation in some way, because we live among people, and courtesies are required by custom and by the Sharīʿah of us believers, and we want to win over the hearts of creation. And it came in a narration that when the Christians entered upon the Prophet ﷺ in his mosque they were left to pray in it, if the narration is sound^[5], and in this is an indication that participation may come in some form while preserving the fixed principles and the rulings of the Sharīʿah. And if the matter is within the framework of social holidays, there is no problem. And he said: I, for example, do not do this, but if my aim were to gather the whole family and we meet on that day because it is a day off, not because it is the holiday of so-and-so, then it is fine. And he closed with a single saying: The Prophet ﷺ said: «إِنَّمَا الْأَعْمَالُ بِالنِّيَّاتِ، وَإِنَّمَا لِكُلِّ امْرِئٍ مَا نَوَى» (Actions are only by intentions, and every person will have only what he intended)^[6].

Celebrating the Prophet's Birthday. He said: By Allah, if you have some sweets, bring them to us, for we do not find them in America. Then he said: What would the form of the celebration be? And what is the meaning of the word celebration? We object to people celebrating the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, one night in the year, and we command them to celebrate him three hundred and sixty-five nights a year! The point is that the Prophet's ﷺ biography should not be absent from our homes and minds and all our lives. We celebrate the Prophet as we go out in the morning saying: In the name of Allah, we rely on Allah, and there is no power and no strength except with Allah; as we enter the house we say: In the name of Allah we enter and in the name of Allah we leave, and upon our Lord we rely; as we say: In the name of Allah over the food, and we say: Praise be to Allah after the food; and we say: O Allah, I seek refuge in You from the foul and the foul deeds; and we say: O Allah, I have risen in the morning with You in blessing, well-being and covering; and we say: We have reached the evening and the kingdom belongs to Allah at evening. And I celebrate him in the two units of Ẓuhr or the four, and in the two units of Fajr, and in the night prayer; I celebrate the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, in all my life over the twenty-four hours. And this does not prevent that if there is an opportunity to remind the children about the Prophet and tell the story and the biography and this talk, then, O good brothers, let it continue, may Allah reward you with good.

A question about balancing tolerance and confronting injustice. And one of those present asked: You said that we find in these reflections gentleness and tolerance with people, and, praise be to Allah, one tries that, but how do we balance this with injustice, and the oppressors are many and the pharaohs around us are many, and Allah sent Moses to Pharaoh and told him: gentle speech, and what we find in our hearts from the effect of injustice? And he mentioned the hadith of "the well," and that the Messenger ﷺ supplicated against them for a month. And he asked that this topic be explained in the next meeting, God willing, so that it may be officially a matter for our consideration; and the transcript here is disordered, and the lecturer's answer was not transmitted. May Allah reward you with good, and peace and the mercy of Allah and His blessings be upon you.

--- ^[1]: Editor's documentation: The story is in the two Ṣaḥīḥs from the hadith of Ṣafiyyah bint Ḥuyayy, may Allah be pleased with her, in which he ﷺ said to two men of the Anṣār: «إِنَّهَا صَفِيَّةُ بِنْتُ حُيَيٍّ» ("She is Ṣafiyyah bint Ḥuyayy"), and said: «إِنَّ الشَّيْطَانَ يَجْرِي مِنَ ابْنِ آدَمَ مَجْرَى الدَّمِ، وَإِنِّي خَشِيتُ أَنْ يَقْذِفَ فِي قُلُوبِكُمَا شَيْئًا» ("Satan runs in the son of Adam like blood, and I feared he might cast something into your hearts"). The speaker did not mention Ṣafiyyah's name or the full wording. ^[2]: Editor's documentation: Something like it was narrated by al-Ḥākim and al-Nasāʾī in al-Sunan al-Kubrā with the wording «يَأْتِيكُمْ عِكْرِمَةُ بْنُ أَبِي جَهْلٍ مُؤْمِنًا مُهَاجِرًا فَلَا تَسُبُّوا أَبَاهُ، فَإِنَّ سَبَّ الْمَيِّتِ يُؤْذِي الْحَيَّ وَلَا يَبْلُغُ الْمَيِّتَ» ("ʿIkrimah ibn Abī Jahl will come to you as a believer and emigrant, so do not curse his father, for cursing the dead harms the living and does not reach the dead"), and its chain has weakness according to some; so the meaning has been recorded as the speaker mentioned it. The story of ʿIkrimah's conversion and his wife's seeking security for him is well known in the books of sīrah, and we did not find in the narration the mention of the embrace that the speaker mentioned. ^[3]: Editor's documentation: The verse is in Sūrat al-Nāziʿāt, and its full form is: ﴿اذْهَبْ إِلَىٰ فِرْعَوْنَ إِنَّهُ طَغَىٰ﴾ [النازعات: 17] ("Go to Pharaoh; indeed, he has transgressed" [al-Nāziʿāt: 17]), and the two verses the lecturer recited are [al-Nāziʿāt: 18-19]. The lecturer did not mention the sūrah or the locations of the verses. ^[4]: Editor's documentation: The story of al-Ṭufayl ibn ʿAmr al-Dawsī is well known in the books of sīrah, and Ibn Isḥāq narrated it. The speaker mentioned it briefly; and what he reported of the Prophet's ﷺ reciting to him from the opening of Sūrat Fuṣṣilat and of the mention of the spread of adultery among Daws, we could not verify in the narrations. ^[5]: Editor's documentation: The lecturer referred to this narration with the qualifier "if it is sound," and we did not verify it. ^[6]: Editor's documentation: A hadith agreed upon, from the narration of ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, may Allah be pleased with him.