Surat al-Burūj and Building a Mindset That Can Absorb Recurring Crises

Occasion: Transcription of a Fajr khatira delivered on 10 May 2026 Source: A transcription of a video khatira by Dr. Ahmed Abouseif — Watch the original video on YouTube

We seek refuge in You, our Lord, from the evil of this day, the evil of what is in it, and the evil of what comes after it. O Allah, set us right and set our hearts and souls right, guide us to what You love and are pleased with, ease for us the means of salvation in this world and the next, and grant us the means of obedience for as long as we live. Do not disgrace us in our religion, and do not put us to trial in our worldly life; preserve for us the blessings You have entrusted to us, and extend to us the provision by which we may help ourselves toward obeying You. Do not make us among those who transgressed, altered and spread corruption, and make us among those who were saved in their religion and their worldly life. O Allah, make our families and our children a proof in our favor before You. O Allah, we brought them to this land, so do not try us through them or with them, mend our hearts concerning them on the day we meet You, and make them witnesses for us when we stand before You, O Most Merciful of those who show mercy. O Allah, we ask You to draw over us the covering of faith and the well-being of taqwā, and clothe us in the garment of the God-fearing.

And now: may Allah greet you, be pleased with you, accept from you, and place your steps to His house in the scale of your good deeds; may Allah not disgrace you in religion or in worldly life.

The Epic of the People of Fitra

We listened to Sūrat al-Burūj in the Fajr prayer, and this sūrah in particular is a heritage that records a very great epic between the people of faith, who are upon simple fitra, who had not received much teaching and had not gained deep understanding of many texts, but were simple people who believed in one word and one sentence with no second to it: there is no god but Allah. They believed that this universe has a God. Yet Satan does not allow his followers to leave people like these to move about on the earth or live upon it; he does not allow them to remain or to settle in the world, for he always wants them at the bottom.

Indeed, Allah, Blessed and Exalted, relates to us this scene that no one could imagine: ﴿النَّارِ ذَاتِ الْوَقُودِ ۝ إِذْ هُمْ عَلَيْهَا قُعُودٌ ۝ وَهُمْ عَلَىٰ مَا يَفْعَلُونَ بِالْمُؤْمِنِينَ شُهُودٌ﴾ (the fire full of fuel, when they were sitting by it, and they were witnesses to what they were doing to the believers).^[1] The meaning of this is that these wrongdoers brought these people of tawḥīd, dug a trench for them, lit a fire in it and set it ablaze, then hurled them into the heart of the fire.

Among the reports is that a woman said: "How can I be there with my child on my shoulder?" So Allah made her child speak to her: "Are you not upon the truth? Do not hesitate." Then she was thrown into the fire.^[4] Whether or not the report is sound, or whether there is something in it, Allah, Blessed and Exalted, shows us from this heritage and this history not what frightens us but what steadies the hearts of the believers in times of hardship and crisis. Our Lord, Glorified and Exalted, does not make for us a history that terrifies hearts or unsettles souls; rather, He rebuilds the mindset that can absorb crises that recur throughout time. The world is not as simple as the soft, gentle, small minds dream it to be; it is for the minds of people of wisdom, experience and maturity.

Children and Money

Look at children as they deal with money, for example: they see it as merely a few papers that came into their hands, which they spend wherever they please, enjoying the moment. Your children take the money and spend it anywhere, "it's no big deal, Dad." But they do not picture the moment when that brow was worn with toil and the sweat ran, nor the moment you received a harsh word from your boss at work and felt ashamed before yourself, nor the moment you were longing for a raise so that you could provide them with something they would enjoy in due course. They do not picture that you work in a field you may not love and do not feel at ease in, but you are compelled because you have dependents behind you. They do not picture this, for in their minds they deal with money as a toy. But the grown-ups, who earned it after toil, fatigue, effort and perseverance, know the value of the dirham, the value of the penny, the value of the dollar, whichever it may be; they know the value of what has come into their hands, so they hold on to it.

The result is that these children accuse you, after a while, of stinginess and miserliness toward them, and that you do not want such-and-such for them, and that you keep them from happiness. And you excuse them, because they are children who have not yet reached the acceptable degree of appreciation for this worldly enjoyment.

Rebuilding Awareness

The point is that when our Lord, Glorified and Exalted, entrusts to us a sūrah like Sūrat al-Burūj, or says to us: ﴿أَحَسِبَ النَّاسُ أَن يُتْرَكُوا أَن يَقُولُوا آمَنَّا وَهُمْ لَا يُفْتَنُونَ﴾ (Do the people think that they will be left to say, "We believe," and they will not be tried?),^[2] then in this strict and powerful rebuke He stands us before the reality of the world and of those in it: those who do not want us to exist, who do not know how to accept another opinion, and who are not accustomed to listening to a word of truth that comes rebuking them or commenting on something they have done; they do not accept this. Our Lord rebuilds awareness for us.

That is why you see that Sūrat al-Burūj came after Sūrat al-Inshiqāq, and the splitting comes after the existence of defrauding, does it not? There is a defrauding that comes from minds that play with life, so the line of society splits and divides into very great capitalists, the owners of immense wealth in the world, who make up 5% or 3%, while the rest of the people they do not even accept to be of the middle class: go down, "stay down" at the bottom. So when they are there, and as long as creation remains below, you see that after this splitting the matter reaches the point of the towers, and the owners of the towers are the people of the trench, the people of tyranny, the people who give orders to light this fire, and they do not realize that there is a night visitor who comes every now and then.

Accordingly, the task of the people of tawḥīd is: ﴿سَبِّحِ اسْمَ رَبِّكَ الْأَعْلَى﴾ (Glorify the name of your Lord, the Most High),^[3] by which the Overwhelming Event passes, and a new dawn is renewed by which lands are built up, and the sun remains kindling a light that seeps into the depths of the night, and its morning brightness remains, by which people's chests are opened. By such means we can understand how the Noble Qur'an forms a new mindset that deals with recurring events, absorbs them, bears their hardship patiently, and in which faith is renewed, so that it becomes capable of meeting the challenge.

Supplication

I ask Allah, the Most High, the All-Powerful, to grant us understanding of what He intends in His Book, to help us act upon what has been sent down to us, and to make us and you firm with the firm word in the life of this world and in the Hereafter. Our Lord, do not let our hearts deviate after You have guided us, and grant us mercy from Yourself; indeed, You are the Bestower. Our Lord, give us good in this world and good in the Hereafter, and protect us from the punishment of the Fire. Our Lord, place us, our families and our children in Paradise. O Allah, we seek refuge in You from separation in this world or in Paradise, O Lord of the worlds. And I ask Allah, Blessed and Exalted, to bless your day for you, and to grant us and you in this noble day lawful, good, blessed provision, through His mercy and good pleasure. May Allah send blessings and peace upon our Prophet.

--- ^[1]: Editor's documentation: Sūrat al-Burūj, verses 5–7. ^[2]: Editor's documentation: Sūrat al-ʿAnkabūt, verse 2. ^[3]: Editor's documentation: Sūrat al-Aʿlā, verse 1. The speech also alludes to the names of the sūrahs al-Ghāshiyah, al-Fajr, al-Shams, al-Ḍuḥā and al-Sharḥ, following the order of the muṣḥaf; the speaker did not recite their verses. ^[4]: Editor's documentation: The speaker related the report without attribution and with reservation about its soundness; the origin of the story of the People of the Trench is in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, from the ḥadīth of Ṣuhayb (may Allah be pleased with him), in which a boy spoke to his mother and said: «يا أمَّه اصبري فإنك على الحق» ("O mother, be patient, for you are upon the truth"). It is not asserted here that the speaker's wording occurs in the ḥadīth.