Provision Between Earth and Heaven

Occasion: A transcription of a lecture delivered at one of the gatherings of the "Arabic Book Club" on November 19, 2017, with the participation of Dr. FaisalSource: A transcription of a video lecture by Dr. Ahmed Abouseif — Watch the original video on YouTube

The gathering began with a reflection drawn from the day's events: we went and buried a noble brother from the community, in his forties. He was the twin of another brother who died twenty years ago, and he had left a will that he be buried in the same cemetery where his brother lay. The family is large, and the parents are in their eighties, yet Allah chose two of its youngest members. Glory be to Allah! There is no law that tells anyone: you are young, so you will not die, or you are old, so your turn is now. People speak at length about death, but the point here is that Allah chooses, and that everyone has an appointed time.

And I asked Allah to keep these hearts gathered together on what pleases Him, to grant us sincerity in word and deed, to keep us alive in obedience to Him and take us in a state that pleases Him, of faith in Him and certainty in what is with Him, and to make the best of our days our last ones and the best of our deeds our final ones.

Introducing the Guest

With us at that gathering was a noble guest, Dr. Faisal, whom I had not seen for years, and I introduced him by saying: he is, in my view, among the sincere callers to Allah. For in the matter of calling to Allah, what counts is not the abundance of information so much as the sincerity of what leaves the tongue and what Allah delivers to the hearts of people. You may find a simple layman, plain in his phrases and words, who, when he speaks, gets across to people what he means; and you may find a person who has knowledge that books cannot carry, but his words do not go beyond his tongue; he speaks and that is the end of it, and nothing of what he said reaches people's hearts.

And I still remember his famous sentence, which he repeats almost everywhere and insists upon: «أنتم رُسُل رسول الله ﷺ» ("You are the messengers of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ"). I heard it years ago, and when I reflected on it, it was as though I had never tested this matter before: how are we truly messengers of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ; do we carry the same concern and the same trust; are our hearts pained by our inability to convey the message or by people's not accepting it; and do we deserve to reach a station at which the Lord of the worlds will one day address us with His words, glory be to Him: ﴿فَلَعَلَّكَ بَٰخِعٌ نَّفْسَكَ عَلَىٰٓ ءَاثَٰرِهِمْ إِن لَّمْ يُؤْمِنُوا۟ بِهَٰذَا ٱلْحَدِيثِ أَسَفًا﴾ ("Perhaps you would grieve yourself to death over their footsteps, out of sorrow, if they do not believe in this message")^[7]? We ask Allah for pardon and well-being.

And I said that I would speak only a little, for I was eager to hear from our shaykh and teacher. He had said to me jokingly: why are you doing this to me? I said to him: in the parlance of the shaykhs, this is called "the jurisprudence of tadbīs" (putting someone in a fix). And he would say at the end of the gathering, jokingly, that he was the one who fell into the fix.

What Do We Mean by "Our Provisions Between Earth and Heaven"?

We agreed to speak about our provisions between earth and heaven. And I was asked: what did you mean by this title? I said: I meant that in the everyday conduct of many people there enters a crookedness. And what is its form? You see him lying, so why does he lie? Because he wants to obtain money. And you see him cheating, forging, deceiving, flattering, or colluding, and so on through these behavioral and social diseases that gnaw at the minds of the Ummah and the hearts of its individuals. Why do they do that? Because their certainty in the matter of provision is not complete certainty. If each of us were certain that his provision is in the hand of Allah, blessed and Most High, then it would not concern me with whom I deal so much as what I do and what I deliver. My role in life is what the Lord of Might will ask me about, my honesty with people is what I will be held to account for before the King, glory be to Him, and my excellence in my work is the place of Allah's provision, mighty and majestic. And yet you see a person who gets angry, flares up, and argues falsely in an attempt to obtain a provision that may not even be his in the first place.

A Hadith for the Crossroads

In this vein, I love to repeat a hadith of the Prophet ﷺ, which I repeat whenever I stand at a crossroads in my life, when I ask: shall I stay here or go there? For making a decision is something that needs divine support. He ﷺ said: «إن روح القدس نفث في رُوعي أنه لن تموت نفسٌ حتى تستكمل أجلها وتستوعب رزقها، فاتقوا الله وأجملوا في الطلب، ولا يحملنّ أحدَكم استبطاءُ الرزق على أن يطلبه بمعصية الله، فإن ما عند الله لا يُنال إلا بطاعته» ("The Holy Spirit has breathed into my heart that no soul will die until it has completed its term and received its full provision, so fear Allah and be moderate in seeking, and let not the slowness of provision lead any of you to seek it by disobeying Allah, for what is with Allah is not attained except by obeying Him")^[1]. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ spoke the truth.

Then we went through the hadith word by word. Its meaning, simply, is that Gabriel, peace be upon him, came and breathed into the heart of the Prophet ﷺ, that is, deposited within him, that no one will die in this world except after having received his full term and his full provision. So no one will die incomplete, and nothing is cut from his life, not even a day. (And I said it in Egyptian for the Egyptians who were with us: "Nobody's going to die short." The meaning is the same though the accents differ.)

But a person sometimes needs a reminder, so he ﷺ says: «فاتقوا الله وأجملوا في الطلب» ("so fear Allah and be moderate in seeking"); that is, do not seek your provisions through humiliation, or disobedience, or betrayal, and so on. And sometimes people ask for things that do not come at the time they expect, and then they come a little later, and this is "the slowness of provision." As if I say: I asked my Lord to send me five thousand today and it has not arrived yet, so what do I do? Come on, let's steal and plunder by whatever means. So the Prophet ﷺ says: do not let the slowness of provision lead you to seek it by disobeying Allah; if provision is delayed for you, beware lest its delay lead you to say: since it has not come, I will bring it by any means. «فإن ما عند الله لا يُنال إلا بطاعته» ("for what is with Allah is not attained except by obeying Him"). If you want what is with our Lord, you will not get it except by obeying the Lord of the worlds, glory be to Him, the Most High.

Why Did the Prophet ﷺ Mention the Angel?

Had the Prophet ﷺ said: fear Allah and be moderate in seeking, or said: no soul will die until it completes its provision, the statement would have been complete. So why did he say: «إن روح القدس نفث في روعي» ("The Holy Spirit has breathed into my heart")? I pause at this sentence to say: the Prophet ﷺ reminded us of the existence of the angel to open our horizons to the fact that beyond what we see there is another world that we do not see. For when we assess provisions from our point of view, we assess them by what our eyes light upon and our senses perceive, and our sight is very limited. If I took provision to be only what I see, then right now I do not see what is behind these walls. And if I took people to be only those I see, I would have confined humanity to the number of those present, men, women, and children.

But the Prophet ﷺ, because the matter of provision is among the pressing matters in the world of life, opens our horizons to what lies beyond the nature of what we see, and reminds us of the existence of another world. And among the basics we know about this world is that the angels ﴿لَّا يَعْصُونَ ٱللَّهَ مَآ أَمَرَهُمْ وَيَفْعَلُونَ…﴾ ("do not disobey Allah in what He commands them, and they do…")^[8]. When I remember the angels, I remember the rule that attends them; and the mere remembrance of the angels is a reminder from me to myself not to disobey Allah, blessed and Most High, and to do what I am commanded in my life, not only my worldly life but my life of faith, which will naturally regulate my worldly life. Agreed?

So "the Holy Spirit" opens the horizons of your mind to think about another world, perhaps far from the reality we live in. And the problem with people is that they imagine that reality is only what is in their hands, that reality is only what they see. As we say: the houses of the whole world are my house, my concern is my house, as if there were no houses other than mine. I may kill myself for four walls, and imagine that the work I do is the arena for which I fight people. So you find him, for example, in a job where people pull tricks and fights on one another, and he disobeys Allah in the process, imagining that these means will preserve his position and standing.

Four Truths We Forget

And we mostly forget a group of things.

The first: that the One who brought me the first job is able to bring me another. Is He able or not? Rather, He is able to bring me something better than it. If I were certain of that, through my certainty in the unseen and in what lies beyond this nature, by the reminder of the existence of the angel, and certain that Allah is able to send me something better than what I am in, I would not lie, I would not deceive, I would not wrong myself, I would not take bribes, I would not cheat, and so on through these afflictions. And if we were certain that provision is in the hand of Allah, blessed and Most High, the eyes and tongues of people would become light for us, and we would count everything people say against us in the scale of their evil deeds, not in the scale of affecting our morale and our selves. How often you hear a word and spend the night awake because so-and-so said such-and-such to you, and what did he mean, and what do you see him intending, and the person stays up all night over this; what do you have to do with this? The One who inspired him to say that only made him a cause for carrying out a decision, so is it an earthly decision or a heavenly one?

We must understand that it is a heavenly decision. Everything that happens in our lives: earthly decisions or heavenly? It is heavenly. Let us take other examples: even the word most hateful to women, the word they do not like to pass over their tongues, the word "divorce"; the One who made the tongue utter it is only the Lord of Might. And when you are dismissed from your job (and the word heard in the recording was "fired," that is: we have dismissed you from work), whoever said it said it only by a heavenly decision that the King willed, which so-and-so will carry out. And on the other side, when you are given a bonus, this is a heavenly decision before it is an earthly decision. People, my brothers, are executors.

And my simple analogy for this is the teller sitting at the safe. The chairman of the board lifts the phone and tells him: so-and-so will come to you on his way, give him a check for such-and-such. He says: Yes, sir, very well, sir. He hangs up and starts writing the check, and our man has already arrived at the window. Then the phone rings again: one moment, we have discovered that he has proceeds from a fraud, so do not give him anything. The decision was issued, and then its execution was halted. So when I had a child and rejoiced in him and then he passed away, I said: my provision has been reduced. No, nothing was reduced; my provision is merely with its execution halted. Understand. If we realized that everything is managed in heaven by the command of the King, glory be to Him, the Most High, and that these creatures are nothing but executors, then any project you covet and which then stops is not by the decision of people but by the decision of the Lord of the worlds, and any door of provision that opens for you without your having expected it is the decision of the Lord of the worlds, glory be to Him, the Most High.

The second matter: that we have forgotten that what is great to me is little to the One who brought it about for me. Imagine you brought your son a beautiful jacket for twenty or fifty or ten thousand, whatever the currency, and the boy's highest ambition was to wear this jacket. Is it, to him, a big thing or a small one? Very big, to the point that he spends the night hugging the shoes until morning; remember the days of Eid long ago, when one of us would hold on to his new shoes until dawn. So the thing you gave your son is something very great to him. But however much the value of this jacket and its greatness to the boy, is it as great, to the same degree, to the father who brought it about for him? You swiped the card and the twenty or fifty came out easily, a light matter for you. And sometimes we say to our children: no, forget this one, it is somewhat expensive, but we do so to bring them up and teach them that not everything comes easily.

So what is great to the boy is little to the one who provided it for him, and we carry the comparison over (and exalted is Allah, mighty and majestic, above any likeness). You have a house worth half a million or two million or ten million or a billion, so what does that mean to the One who gave it to you? And Qārūn, by the way, before Allah tells us what he had, said of him: ﴿كَانَ مِن قَوْمِ مُوسَىٰ فَبَغَىٰ عَلَيْهِمْ﴾ ("He was of the people of Moses, but he oppressed them")^[9]; that is, one of the people, a poor soul, a man among the people who were there, who brought nothing from himself. And Qārūn's problem was not that Allah gave him, nor that he had a great deal, nor that he was rich. His problem was in one phrase: ﴿إِنَّمَآ أُوتِيتُهُۥ عَلَىٰ عِلْمٍ عِندِىٓ﴾ ("I was given it only because of knowledge I have")^[10]; that is, I am the one who made it, not my Lord who gave it to me. That is the problem.

So everything great in your eyes, your job that you see as filling ears and eyes, the title written on your ID card when you walk in and introduce yourself as "Dr. So-and-so," here, calm down; because what is in your hands is small. And if it were great, I would not have obtained it with my meager goods, and if it were great, there would be in the universe someone more deserving than I to obtain it. They are only provisions.

The third matter: that good has no single place in which it is confined. And people forget that Allah, glory be to Him, is ﴿ٱلرَّزَّاقُ ذُو ٱلْقُوَّةِ ٱلْمَتِينُ﴾ ("the Provider, the Possessor of strength, the Firm")^[11]; they forget that good has no single place. So you see a poor man killing himself to hold on to the job, and you say to him: why are you doing that? He says: where would I go if I lost this one? And you say to him: no, provision is plentiful and great, the fields of the world are wide, and the goodness of our Lord among people is abundant.

And you see someone who may kill himself for a child among his family, as if he worships him in his eyes. And of course I am not speaking about the root of the natural disposition, and care, and the divine obligations in raising our children and attending to them, and their being part of human nature, and that we have legal duties to care for children and to convey to them the places of happiness; we ask Allah's blessing for them. Rather I am speaking of a person who may betray a trust for the sake of his son, and of a person who may steal to bring something for his son, and of a person who may deceive his conscience to meet his son's need. These are matters of religion, and those are matters of worldly life, so which influences the other? That is the crux of the matter.

The fourth matter: the world, and this is what we agreed on from the start: is it small or big? Are we convinced that the world is small? If we are, then someone who has a million dollars, is he rich or poor? Some of those present said: poor. And why? And if we find a person whom Allah has granted millions of dollars, but who is afflicted with a kind of illness that does not let him eat any fūl or mosaqqaʿa, is he a poor soul, or wretched, or rich? And what if Allah gave him the ability to think and made him one of the cleverest people in the world? Yet he is wretched, unable to eat with other people.

And imagine three men, each of whom enters his house and says: Peace be upon you. (And I asked myself: whom do I find in the house? I find my wife and I find my children, and I was told: and the angels are present, of course, and I said: I mean the angels of blessing present in the house.) The first found those in the house stood up and said to him: Welcome, thank God for your safe return, how are you? You look tired, a bit worn out, it seems work today was such-and-such. The second came in and said: Peace be upon you, and one of the group answered him, and no one moved from his place. And the third came in and did not even say "Peace be upon you" because it is not in the vocabulary of the house; he enters from outside to the corner where he sits and takes care of his affairs, and if someone bumps into him and says a word to him, the other says to him: it's over, from the first line. So which of them is richer than the other? And if we imagine that the first has a million, the second half a million, and the third, as it seems from the recording, five "tarīfas" (trifling piasters), which of them is worth more? The first is worth more, isn't he? So why, then, is his life made miserable at the end of the month if what he wants does not come? And whoever's wife rises to him and kisses him and says to him: Welcome, my dear, thank God for your safe return, he is richer than the world and all that is in it. True, my brothers, we are the ones who set the standards. And, sadly, we claim that life controls us based on the developments that come: I am not able to arrange matters as I want, why? We are the ones who set the standards.

Planting the Root

And because the matter of provision is very important, I found that the Prophet ﷺ says: «نفث في رُوعي» ("breathed into my heart"). This resembles what you do when you plant something: you dig for it, then go down a little so that you lower all the roots, then you put soil over them, then you put water, and the water settles the soil further and increases the root's stability in the depths. The matter of provision in particular is a fundamental matter in our lives, and that is why we found the Prophet ﷺ saying "breathed into my heart," as if he placed it at the root of the heart.

People's Worries and Psychological Problems

The worries that renew themselves for us every day, and the psychological problems that people face, are for the most part all matters of provision. Someone who got depressed because his beloved left him and walked away, if he were certain that this is a matter of provision, and that Allah, the Most High, extends provisions to whom He wills and gives what He wills to whom He wills, his soul would settle. And someone who went and threw himself from atop a building or off a bridge because he could not get 99.9 percent and got 98.7, poor soul, went and killed himself! Why do you do that? If he had been certain that this is a provision from Allah, blessed and Most High, his soul would have settled.

And likewise a poor soul for whom the world turned black and dark before his eyes, and there is no provision left in it: where will we get it from? What shall we do? We will be lost, my brothers! The matter of provision! And if you like, let us leave all this: the poor soul who went and dealt in usury, and bought and sold in what is forbidden, and misled himself and misled people, for what? For the sake of the world. If he had been certain that provision is in the hand of Allah, blessed and Most High, he would not have gone astray in that. For this reason we saw the Prophet ﷺ say: it was breathed into my heart, in its depths, that no soul will die until it completes its provision and receives its full term, or completes its term and receives its full provision.

Linking Provision to Death

And linking worldly provision with death is something I picture like this, and I had said something close to it to your brothers two days ago. Imagine you are driving in a car with other people on the highway, and the posted speed is seventy. At what speed do you go? At eighty? You go up to seventy-nine, but above the speed limit, watch out. If you go at seventy, some of them go at eighty and they crash a little later, and some at seventy-five. And if the set speed is thirty-five or forty, each goes according to his own. And what makes the difference? When I want to leave by an exit on the same road: the road is a seventy road, so at what speed do I go down? No, at forty, for the curves and exits require that.

Why do I give these examples? I give them because speed has to be tied to a group of factors surrounding it: among them the length of the road, the distance you will cover, the obstacles ahead of you, the exit you will take, and when it will come. So linking the matter of provision with death makes us understand that death is like an exit. So when will the exit come? No one answers, because no one knows. Well, when I do not know when the exit is, and you are driving and do not know where the exit is, do you go at the road's same speed, or do you take a calm, quiet, pleasant side, and move your hands and feet carefully between this and that?

So when the Prophet ﷺ linked the matter of provision with the matter of death, he made us understand that we must set out in life at a speed that suits the nearness or distance of death. And since we learned that we cannot perceive how near or far death is, we need more caution as we deal with our pace in life. And for that reason the Prophet ﷺ draws a set of lines and says: this is the term, which cuts off the servant's hope^[2]. Is this point clear? Send blessings upon the Guide, peace and blessings be upon him.

And I have many other things, if Allah wills, and we will continue in a coming gathering our talk about provision. And I apologize that I went on at length, for I am eager to hear from our teacher Dr. Faisal.

The Story of the Pharmacy and the Contractor

Dr. Faisal began his talk with praise and blessings upon the Prophet ﷺ, and asked Allah to let him live up to his shaykh's good opinion of him. Then he said that, regarding provision, he would tell us a story from about twenty years ago.

He had a project in Michigan, and he used to go to it three or four days every week. Once he found himself sick from the severe cold, it being winter, so he went to the pharmacy to buy medicine. As he was paying, he found in front of him an elderly African woman with a disabled white girl, and they were buying chips, Coca-Cola, candy, and things of that sort, and their bill was fourteen dollars. He saw the woman take out small change, nickels, dimes, and pennies, to pay the fourteen dollars. So he said to the cashier: I will pay for them.

The next day he returned to Chicago, to his office, where he had an engineering office. And there was a man knocking at the door whom he had never seen in his life, a contractor with drawings that he wanted someone to look over and stamp for him so he could get a building permit from the municipality. He asked him: when do you want them? He said: tomorrow. I said to him: tomorrow? I will drop all my work and do it for you. And, glory be to Allah, to get rid of him he said to him: how about seven hundred dollars? He said to him: all right. He said: but come tomorrow and bring it in cash, because I do not know you. And he came to him the next day, and at the moment he entered the office Dr. Faisal remembered: Glory be to Allah! The day before yesterday I paid fourteen dollars, and now I have asked him for seven hundred! So he said to him: sit down, and took the money from him, and then said to him: if I had asked you for fourteen hundred, would you have given me fourteen hundred? He said to him: By Allah, if you had asked me for fourteen thousand dollars I would have given it to you.

He said: I said to myself: I am a Muslim, and our Lord, glory be to Him, the Most High, says in the Qur'an that a good deed is repaid tenfold and that He multiplies for whom He wills^[3]. So, glory be to Allah, Allah sent me a Serbian man, one of those who kill Muslims in Bosnia^[6], to return my fourteen dollars to me fiftyfold. Yes, fiftyfold.

Certainty of the Hereafter and Mutual Love

He said: and therefore dealing with our Lord, glory be to Him, the Most High, must involve certainty: ﴿وَبِٱلْـَٔاخِرَةِ هُمْ يُوقِنُونَ﴾ ("and of the Hereafter they are certain")^[12]. It is a process of certainty in the Hereafter, and what is certainty of the Hereafter? That I hope our Lord will give me Paradise. If I have no certainty about Paradise, how will I deal with my Lord? And for that reason, too, this certainty must be in how we deal with one another: that I hope and pray to Allah that my smile in my brother's face, or my greeting to my brother, or my asking him about his health or his children, will be a cause of my entering Paradise. For that reason, when we were praying Maghrib and ʿIshāʾ, I was reminding myself and reminding you that the Messenger ﷺ said: «لن تدخلوا الجنة حتى تؤمنوا، ولن تؤمنوا حتى تتحابّوا…» ("You will not enter Paradise until you believe, and you will not believe until you love one another…")^[4]. So how are we to love one another? By text messages on the phone? And he almost wept, as he said, as he enters the mosque and greets someone who does not reply to him, or greets him and the man extends his hand to him as though throwing it, or smiles at him and the man scowls at him.

Then he said: do you think that Allah will admit one of us to Paradise today, at least one of us, O Lord, O Lord? If this one were going to take us into Paradise, should I not go and look for him so I can greet him? We were speaking about provision: all of us are foreigners and all of us came as immigrants, and if we were told that in such-and-such a place there is a man who appoints people and employs them, we would go looking for him carrying a gift for him, and bring him anything. So what will he give us in the end?

Shaʿrāwī's "Package" and Contentment

And therefore provision is indeed as Shaykh al-Shaʿrāwī had a saying on the subject: that our Lord, glory be to Him, the Most High, gives every child of Adam a "package" like the other's, so that the contents of each one's box differ from the other's, but in the final sum they are one hundred percent equal. The one who eats red meat early, the doctor comes to him and says: you cannot eat red meat or you will perish. And the one who eats white bread early, the doctor says to him: that's enough for you, you must eat brown bread. And therefore contentment must come with provision.

And he said that he learned the word contentment in practice from a young man in Chicago, the son of an acquaintance, who graduated from university and became a successful lawyer, and then cancer suddenly came upon him, and his hair fell out, may Allah keep him safe, keep him safe. This young man said: By Allah, he taught me the word contentment; I did not know or feel the word contentment until this disease came to me, and, praise be to Allah, Allah healed him and restored his health. So contentment is with the good thing and the bad thing, contentment with the decree, and contentment with the decree and destiny is part of faith. And if we are not content with our provision, our Lord says to you: fine, you don't like the provision? Go look for the one who provides for you.

So we ask Allah, glory be to Him, the Most High, to grant us contentment with this provision, and that we deal with Allah with certainty that He will give us what suffices us, and what exceeds us, and what we do not need, and what we do not deserve, O Lord.

The Cost of Heart Surgery

Then he gave an example: do you know how much any small operation costs here in America? He said that about ten years ago he had an operation in which they opened his chest and did four bypasses for him, and it cost him one hundred and thirty-four thousand dollars, and they did not put in a new heart for him or anything like that. But the problem is that when he went to the hospital he had no idea that anything was wrong with his heart, so they said to him: you have such-and-such and we must do it for you, and he said to them: wait. But they wanted money from you, so they cut your chest open, took out your heart and put it in ice, and brought the vessels and cut them. What will you say to them? So what about our Lord, glory be to Him, the Most High?

And therefore our Lord says: ﴿وَفِى ٱلسَّمَآءِ رِزْقُكُمْ وَمَا تُوعَدُونَ﴾ ("And in the heaven is your provision and what you are promised")^[13]. So our Lord, glory be to Him, the Most High, determines provisions, and every year we say: we hear and we obey, ﴿غُفْرَانَكَ رَبَّنَا وَإِلَيْكَ ٱلْمَصِيرُ﴾ ("Your forgiveness, our Lord, and to You is the final return")^[14]. We are content with our provision until Allah is pleased with us. And we ask Allah, glory be to Him, the Most High, to grant everyone broad, lawful, good provision and to protect them from all harm. May Allah reward him well, and he said jokingly that it turned out in the end that he was the one who was put in a fix, and that he did not know how to get out of it this time, "the jurisprudence of the shaykhs," with which the student gets nowhere.

The Child at the Table

Then I returned to speak and welcomed the guest to Dallas-Fort Worth (and I asked Allah for blessing for us and for you), and I repeated the hadith: «إن روح القدس نفث في روعي أنه لن تموت نفس حتى تستكمل رزقها وتستوعب أجلها، فاتقوا الله وأجملوا في الطلب، ولا يحملنّكم استبطاء الرزق على أن تطلبوه بمعصية الله، فإن ما عند الله لا يُنال إلا بطاعته» ("The Holy Spirit has breathed into my heart that no soul will die until it completes its provision and receives its full term, so fear Allah and be moderate in seeking, and let not the slowness of provision lead you to seek it by disobeying Allah, for what is with Allah is not attained except by obeying Him"). And I said: on the matter of provisions being completed, I picture a small child sitting at the table with the portion he has been assigned in front of him, this is what he will eat. As soon as you set the food before our friend, he eats very fast and greedily. You say to him: slowly, my son, why are you eating like this? The food is not going to run away. And there was a child sitting at the table with the grown-ups, eating though unable to, and they said to him: My son, for shame, the food is hot for you, wait until it cools. He said to them: if I wait until it cools, you will eat it! So our friend is very anxious, because those around him advise him, and they are advising him sincerely, of course. But if I put the amount that is his on a plate in front of him and said to him: this is what you will eat and no one will eat with you, would he have any reason to eat the food hot or to eat it all at once? No. So if I grasped that the Lord of the worlds, glory be to Him, the Most High, has filled my basket completely and said to me: here you are, this is your provision, I would not be greedy, taking what is in people's hands.

The Dishes on the Same Table

And I take up another matter, which is that the dishes are placed on the same table, with different kinds of food, and each person looks at the food in front of the other. And I will take the example our teacher gave on the matter of illness connected with what enters the body and what leaves it. Yesterday I was in a good gathering with good people, and one of them was telling that he had a stomach-reduction operation, not as many people do it for the diet and slimness and figure, but because for thirty years he has had diabetes and was unable to treat the problem, and he loves food very much and cannot resist. So he is a poor soul between two things: to treat himself, and so he was forced to do that so he could continue his life normally and be able to fulfil the mission of the Lord of the worlds, glory be to Him, the Most High, on earth. If I had put a quantity of food like this before this person, would he have eaten it? No, he takes from it as much as suffices him.

And the one who knows what suffices you is not you, but someone greater than you. You do that with your son at home: he wants to go into the fridge and take everything and eat it, and you say to him: My son, for shame, it is now eleven at night, you must go to sleep so you can get up for school. He says: what is the objection? I eat and then sleep. You say: no, my dear, it is not good to eat these amounts of this kind now and then sleep. This food is good at noon, you eat it and then move about, come and go and stay awake at least until night comes and you have digested it so you can sleep. This whole composition, in the mind of a small child, he does not understand it, so he insists and complains. So because he does not understand it, do we give him the chance to do what he wants? What do we do? We take him by the hand and say: no, I will not hear a word, this food is not eaten now. And our Lord says to us at certain times: this provision is not good for you now, hold yourself back, it will come a little later or not come at all.

And we have children, we ask Allah for well-being, a child is born with diabetes, so is he permitted to eat like the rest of the children? So when we prevent him from certain amounts of food or certain kinds, does this mean that we are torturing him, or taking revenge on him, or that we hate him at all? No. So when Allah willed that one of the people be poor, in the sense that the provision coming to him is of such-and-such an amount, does that mean that our Lord does not love him, or takes revenge on him, or wants to torture him? No, never. So what is the meaning? The meaning is that Allah, the Most High, knew that this was his need, and gave him according to his need.

The Two Bottles

And the example I always repeat everywhere: I have a small bottle, and beside it a large one, and I filled both of them with water to the brim. Then we find the small one crying, and we say to it: why are you crying, little duck? It says: it's none of my business, you gave the large one more than me! So what would you do if you were in my place? What is it to us? It says: and why does the large one have more than me? Is it honest or lying? We say to it: no, we gave you according to your capacity. It says: it's none of my business, I want more, why does the large one take more? So what do we do? Do I act like a madman and get up and give it more? If I gave this one a liter, say, and gave that one the same, then the liter that I added to the small one, where does it go? It is poured out onto the ground, isn't it?

It is the same story: Allah, glory be to Him, the Most High, knew that my needs are of this measure, so He gave me this measure because my strength does not hold more. And if I asked for more I would be like the small bottle that cries. And if our Lord gave me more, where would it go? It is poured out. And how is it poured out? Drugs come, or well-being goes, or one's mood is clouded; because when the bottle spills, it dirties the world, so you feel that life is not as clean as it was at first, and that something in it is off. Agreed?

And there was a very simple man, from the countryside, an employee who received a salary of a limited amount, and the month that hurt him most, poor man, was the month in which bonuses or raises came. They were astonished and said to him: why, Doctor, are you upset? He said: because I know where what comes goes; if a raise comes it creates more expenses. Look how the man thinks: this extra expense, what will it come in? A child who will fall ill? A problem that will occur? Something in the house that will break? So it is better that it stay covered, going along according to what comes. Imagine how the man thinks. This may be right and it may be wrong, but it is his own way of thinking; for he sees that any extra amount of money means a new door of expense will be opened, and he does not want doors to be opened.

And I imagine, for example, may Allah honor you, that no extra hundred dollars came to me today in my provision. But if I went out in the morning and hurried two steps and ran the light, and the police stopped me and gave me a ticket for two hundred and seventy, how much do I need today to put things back to their normal state? I need at least three hundred. And I did not ask for a hundred, and I did not ask for two hundred or three hundred, the matter is in its normal state. Or you now have increases in provision, and a problem occurred with the air conditioning, and you went to bring the man and he said to you: such-and-such and such-and-such, and the matter will exceed twenty dollars or fifty or seventy, then he says to you: no, actually the pipes are like this, and they have wrecked such-and-such for us. O Lord, what is all this? Why all of this? A check for a thousand or two or three. And we all understand the dimensions of such matters.

Our Problem with Equality

So how does the matter of provision come? Our problem as human beings is that we want provisions to come level, equal. What does equal mean? He gave him four so He gives me four, He gave him seven so He gives me seven. No, I am speaking about provision in general. You have two hundred thousand that you put aside, or deposited in the safe, and I want two hundred too, why him and not me, why me? So our Lord says to me: be careful, He gave him two hundred thousand because he will need to do such-and-such and such-and-such with it, he has his projects that he will carry out, he will feed a poor person, and treat a sick one, and give charity in this place and that. And you are not asked to do that, you do not have this list in front of you. So He gave me according to what I need, and gave each one according to what he needs.

The Forms of Provision

And how are the forms of provision? I am not speaking here about the matter of lawful and unlawful; I am imagining the forms of provision. The forms of provision in our imaginations are only money and numbers. But if I imagine: health. A child. Life span. Peace of mind. (And some asked: the righteous wife? Do you remember only this? Remember something else.) And here we gave an example a little while ago: your son's smile in your face when you enter the house or when you meet him. Or a text message in which he writes to you or to your mother: peace be upon you, how are you, reassure us about you, what are you doing, and it descends upon your great heart as coolness and peace. We agreed on this. And what else? Who will give us examples? The pleasure of the parents. And what do you know! You sense that a problem has happened, then Allah suddenly saves you from it, and afterward you lift the phone and speak to your mother, and she says to you: how are you? I have been worried about you for two days and praying for you. What is it, Hajja? She says to you: I feel that something is wrong with you, my son, how are you? I have been praying for you for two days, and yesterday in particular I got up two hours before dawn and had nobody in mind but you, and I sat praying and in prostration I found nothing but your name, and I do not know how to pray even for the rest of the children. What is the story? Is that not a provision?

Then we speak about the matter of well-being. You tell us that you spent one hundred and thirty-four thousand on the matter of the valves and these things. If our master Shaykh Faisal, may Allah preserve him, had one hundred and thirty-four thousand in the bank, with no need for insurance, go ahead, we gave him the one hundred and thirty-four thousand in the bank, and in exchange we have a fault in the valves that send the blood back and forth. So what do you think? All my wish in life is to save. We said: how much? One hundred and thirty-four thousand, so that I put it beside you. Do you feel that you now have one hundred and thirty-four thousand? But at the same time a heart problem will come to you! So let us get rid of both the one hundred and thirty-four thousand and the heart problem, and be content with our good and our bad. So who will bring for you? Allah, and He knows best what He brings for you and how much.

No Falling Short in Seeking

But this talk does not mean at all that you should fall short in seeking more provision. My motto in life is that to go to my Lord, glory be to Him, the Most High, with a million prayers and a million dollars that I earned in good and gained from what is lawful is dearer to me than to go to my Lord with two million prayers and no money, not even a million. Because these funds, what did I do with them? And someone may say to me: what is this, our master? Money is nonsense. No, money is not nonsense; it is a means for driving the movement of life. And it is not fitting for wise Muslims to leave the money in the hands of their enemies, who run the movement of their lives with it. And this, if you like, is a policy of mine: it is no good for me to leave the money that is in the world in the hand of one person who moves me with it, plays with my future, and corrupts my children's morals with it. No, at that point I would be a lion in acquiring this money, using it for good and for developing good in the societies I live in, and leaving him whatever he managed to take and do as he wishes.

And therefore, when we speak about dealings between Muslims with one another, or I go to a non-Muslim and buy something or get treatment or take care of a need or otherwise, I do not say that dealing with a non-Muslim is forbidden, I do not say that. But I say: if you deal with a Muslim and you profit from him (you make a gain from him), someone may say to you: you are gathering the surplus? This one has millions! And I say: he will pay zakat on it. So when I deal with a Muslim and increase the provision he has, and I know that at the end of the year he will pay the zakat on his wealth, then when other Muslims benefit from this transaction, this is more hopeful than dealing with a person when you are sure that there will be nothing in it for Allah, glory be to Him, the Most High.

What May Be a Reward from Allah

And I had written a word in which I say: if we fear Allah, then Allah, glory be to Him, the Most High, will give us rewards fitting this piety. And these rewards may be the children's success in their studies, or the well-being of the children's bodies, or more love of you from them and eagerness to please you. Or it may take the form of a blessing in your wife, who guards your cover and honor and helps you in your religion and faith and in fulfilling the trust of Allah, the Most High, that is in your hands. And it may take the form of the well-being of your body, or a blessing in the lives of those you love. And it may take the form of people's contentment with you. And when people are content with you, this, by the way, is not a simple matter: that someone sees you and feels at ease because he saw your face. And when you feel that people look at you at ease, this, by Allah, is worth the treasures of the earth and all that is on it. But for people to look at you anxious or tense, with a mixed feeling inside them: who is this? And what does he do? Afraid now!

And the reward may take the form of wisdom that Allah, the Most High, drives into your heart and mind so that you become a source of counsel for people, and people come to you saying: may I consult you on a matter? So this is worth how much? How much is it worth in the world of people and the material world? And it may take the form of Allah's, the Most High, granting you success in making the right decision. My friend told me two days ago that he has a friend who has entered about seventy projects over the last three years until today. And you realized what lies behind that. Whenever he entered a project it went bad, and he tried to enter another matter, and they say to him: My son, settle on something. He says: no, no, just listen, when we do this and it is available we will sell. And after five or six days his friend meets him: why are you sitting here? Where is it? He says: we discovered that the matter has such-and-such, then such-and-such came up for us. Then: listen, we will buy a taxi, and do such-and-such. Man, you have no place in this field. He says: no no no, listen, this is an easy matter and needs no procedures and the government... And after five or six days the story fell apart: it turns out I discovered that the shops that sell such-and-such... Man. And so on. So the matter of the ability to make decisions in your life is a provision from the Lord of the worlds, that He inspires you with what is right, so that you are a mature person who does not hurry to destroy the details of his life one after another without awareness. I ask Allah, blessed and Most High, for that.

And Allah's rewards may take the form of turning you away from the disobedience that would make your life miserable and trouble your sleep. And they may take the form of Allah's protecting your children from bad company and their staying steadfast in their religion. And the reward may be in a kindness that you do to a person who remembers you for it and prays for you whenever your name comes to his memory or people's talk turns to your life story. He says to you: we were sitting the day before yesterday and your name came up. You say to him: O Lord, I hope it was good, O Lord, cover me. He says: no, by Allah, good, may Allah reward you well, for someone was saying that he met you ten years ago and that you did such-and-such. You say to him: who is this? He says: so-and-so. And you do not remember anything, something you threw away as you walked by, and it became for you a praying tongue for all time.

Two Things Are Required of Us Now

And in a hadith of the Prophet ﷺ, two things are required of us right now. Number one: that we be convinced that provision is with Allah and not in people's hands. Number two: that we purify our hearts. Do you remember the hadith of our master Anas ibn Mālik, may Allah the Most High be pleased with him, who says: while we were sitting with the Prophet ﷺ, he said: «يطلع عليكم الآن رجل من أهل الجنة» ("A man from the people of Paradise will appear before you now"); that is, one of the people of Paradise will enter upon you now. And a man from among the Anṣār appeared, his beard dripping water from his ablution; a man dripping water, having made ablution, and coming in, having hung his sandals in his left hand, holding them. Can you picture this scene? The next day the Prophet ﷺ said the same: «يطلع عليكم الآن رجل من أهل الجنة», and that man appeared in the same state as the first time, with the same appearance, entering in the same way. And on the third day the same thing happened. When the Messenger of Allah ﷺ rose, ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ followed him.

ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿAmr walked behind the man, and told him, in essence, that a dispute had occurred between him and his father, and that he would take a leave from him, and did not want to go to any of the people of disobedience, and that he felt your house is a place of safety, and he sees you going to the mosque and coming back, so he said: what do you think about my staying with you two or three days? The Anṣārī said to him: please. And he said: look at whatever place you put your head in, on any pillow that faces you. So he entered his home. Imagine the matter: our master ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿAmr, as if he is sitting just waiting for him to breathe, and follows him all night. He says: whenever he rose from his sleep he remembered Allah; that is, whenever he turned right and left. So our friend has his radar running! And I did not find him doing much prayer or much fasting. A day, two days, three days. So he said to him: listen, in the end I have no problem with my father, rather I heard the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, say such-and-such, so I came to see what you do more than we do, and I did not find you doing anything, so what is it? The Anṣārī said to him: By Allah, it is nothing but what you saw. And the speaker commented, as it seems, that a person sometimes, when he has a guest, is embarrassed to increase his worship so as not to put him in an awkward position, with the possibility that the guest is not, for example, among those who pray at night, or does not do much supplication and remembrance, so he is modest in his worship out of consideration for the guest's presence; so the story, as the Anṣārī said, amounts to what you saw. He said this to him twice. Then he said to him: listen, by Allah it is nothing but what you saw, except that I do not go to bed with anything in my heart against anyone^[5].

Do you go to bed with a good heart? How many nights do you go to bed with something in your heart against your wife, or your husband, or the reverse? And among ourselves, how many nights do we spend angry with one another or sour? These wrongs, my brothers, between us and one another. My brothers and my noble sisters, life is too short for us to hold things in our hearts against one another. And I can upset my wife a little because I am very sure that if I died tonight she would forgive me. Why? Because she has a very large balance of good that helps her forgive me. If the troubles are repeated and the same actions follow one another, the balance is wiped out, and only what I do of evil in the heart remains. So I ask Allah, glory be to Him, the Most High, to purify our hearts.

And whoever does you something bad is one of two: either a righteous person who made a mistake, so it is fitting that you forgive him, or an evil person acting deliberately, and I believe you are too great to hold something in your heart against humans like these. So you throw back to him what he did, and you go to the Lord of the worlds, glory be to Him, the Most High, with the wrong in full, and say: here you are, this man did such-and-such, and I forgive him. So we hope it will be said to you: enough, you deserved this level in Paradise, and we are more generous than you, so take the level above it.

I ask Allah, glory be to Him, the Most High, to preserve our religion for us and for you, to expand provisions for us and for you, to grant us good certainty in what is with Him, glory be to Him, the Most High, and to bring us to the places of His pleasure and the places of obedience to Him. May Allah keep your night safe for you, and may Allah, the Most High, bless you, and may Allah, the Most High, reward you well, and peace, mercy, and blessings of Allah be upon you.

A Closing Story of the Smile

And before the gathering broke up, on the occasion of giving advice, I asked our shaykh and teacher Dr. Faisal to tell the story of a Friday sermon he had given, as it seems, in one of the mosques, in which he asked the men, when they return to their homes, to smile in the faces of their wives and to thank them for the food and for what they do. He told how after several months he went to the same mosque again, and found a man of fifty running to him and saying: you almost killed us, you almost ruined my passport, you almost destroyed my home! He said to him: why, my dear? He said: Did you not tell me to go and smile in my wife's face? He said: Yes. He said: I went home, opened the door, my wife smiled and I kissed her, and we sat down to eat, and every time I ate something I said to her: By Allah, I have never eaten food like this in my life. After two minutes she got up and said to me: How many years have we been married? I said: thirty years. She said: And have you ever said "thank you" to me in your life? He said to her: No. She said: Today I was tired, and it was our neighbor who brought the food. She says to him: the only time you thank the food is when our neighbor is the one who made it! Glory be to You, O Allah, and praise, may Allah, the Most High, reward you well, and peace, mercy, and blessings of Allah be upon you.

--- ^[1]: Editor's documentation: The ḥadīth is from the narration of Jābir (may Allah be pleased with him), reported by Ibn Ḥibbān, al-Bayhaqī, and others. ^[2]: Editor's documentation: He refers to the ḥadīth of the lines, reported by al-Bukhārī. ^[3]: Editor's documentation: He refers to the words of the Most High: ﴿مَن جَآءَ بِٱلْحَسَنَةِ فَلَهُۥ عَشْرُ أَمْثَالِهَا﴾ [al-Anʿām: 160] ("Whoever comes with a good deed will have ten times the like thereof"), and His words: ﴿وَٱللَّهُ يُضَٰعِفُ لِمَن يَشَآءُ﴾ [al-Baqarah: 261] ("And Allah multiplies for whom He wills"); the speaker did not specify their locations. ^[4]: Editor's documentation: Reported by Muslim, and its wording is: «لا تدخلون الجنة حتى تؤمنوا، ولا تؤمنوا حتى تحابّوا، أولا أدلّكم على شيء إذا فعلتموه تحاببتم؟ أفشوا السلام بينكم» ("You will not enter Paradise until you believe, and you will not believe until you love one another. Shall I not direct you to something which, if you do it, you will love one another? Spread greeting among yourselves"); what is in the body is the speaker's wording, and the last word was cut off in the transcription. ^[5]: Editor's documentation: The ḥadīth is from Anas (may Allah be pleased with him), reported by Aḥmad and al-Nasāʾī in al-Sunan al-Kubrā. In Aḥmad's narration the man said: «ما هو إلا ما رأيت، غير أني لا أجد في نفسي لأحدٍ من المسلمين غشًّا، ولا أحسده على خير أعطاه الله إياه» ("It is nothing but what you saw, except that I find in myself no deceit toward any of the Muslims, and I do not envy him for any good that Allah has given him"), which is more precise in wording than what appeared in the lecture. ^[6]: Editor's documentation: The description of the contractor as a Serb, one of those who kill Muslims in Bosnia, is from the words of Dr. Faisal as heard in the transcription, and had dropped out of the first formulation; it is a description of a specific person by his narrator and is not meant to disparage a nation, and the intent is wonder that provision came through the hands of one from whom it was not expected. The phrase is near noise in the recording, so it should be reviewed against the audio. ^[7]: Editor's documentation: al-Kahf: 6. The speaker did not specify the verse's location. ^[8]: Editor's documentation: al-Taḥrīm: 6. The speaker pronounced the verse up to «ويفعلون», and its completion is: ﴿مَا يُؤْمَرُونَ﴾. He did not specify its location. ^[9]: Editor's documentation: al-Qaṣaṣ: 76, and its beginning is: ﴿إِنَّ قَٰرُونَ كَانَ مِن قَوْمِ مُوسَىٰ…﴾. The transcription has «فبغى عليه», which is a garbled hearing; the muṣḥaf has «عليهم». The speaker did not specify the location. ^[10]: Editor's documentation: al-Qaṣaṣ: 78. The speaker did not specify the location. ^[11]: Editor's documentation: al-Dhāriyāt: 58. The speaker did not specify the location. ^[12]: Editor's documentation: al-Baqarah: 4. In the transcription the speaker pronounced «والذين هم بالآخرة يوقنون», and the verse's orthography has been given as in the muṣḥaf. He did not specify the location. ^[13]: Editor's documentation: al-Dhāriyāt: 22. The transcription has «وما تعدون», and the muṣḥaf has «توعدون». The speaker did not specify the location. ^[14]: Editor's documentation: al-Baqarah: 285. The speaker did not specify the location.