The Farmer's Tawhid in Surat al-Naml

Occasion: Transcription of a Fajr khatira delivered on 8 July 2026 Source: A transcription of a video khatira by Dr. Ahmed Abouseif — Watch the original video on YouTube

The Shaykh opened with a prayer (its beginning is cut off in the transcript): …the evil of this day, the evil of what is in it, and the evil of what comes after it, and set right for us our religion, our worldly life, and our Hereafter, and prepare for us right guidance in our affair, and bless us in what You have provided us, and protect us from the punishment of the Fire, and turn away from us the causes of punishment in this world and the Hereafter. O Allah, do not entrust us to ourselves or to anyone among Your creation, and cleanse us of the sickness of hearts and the ailments of bodies, and grant us well-being, pardon us, and take us under Your care with Your mercy.

When the Qur'an expresses power

The very many theories in explaining tawḥīd cannot express the power of Allah, blessed and exalted, as the verses direct these truths for us.

Drive them out, they are people who keep themselves pure

Our Lord, glorified, in the wake of the story of Lūṭ and his people and the people's attempts to drive the people of purity out from among them, relates that this was the greatest crime in the lives of these people: ﴿أَخْرِجُوهُم مِّن قَرْيَتِكُمْ ۖ إِنَّهُمْ أُنَاسٌ يَتَطَهَّرُونَ﴾ (Drive them out of your town; they are people who keep themselves pure).^[1] Do you imagine this wording? Drive out these bad people, they are very clean, they purify themselves! And take it from there: drive them out of your town, they are people who pray, they are people who give charity, they are people who fast, they are people who treat their parents well, they are people who know the value of the family, the right of the wife, and the kindness of the children. They are people who walk on this path, and we want no one to walk on it: the path of what is right, the path of purity, cleanliness, chastity, and trustworthiness, the path of giving rights and fulfilling duties.

Say: Praise be to Allah

Then our Lord directs His Prophet ﷺ with His saying: ﴿قُلِ الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ وَسَلَامٌ عَلَىٰ عِبَادِهِ الَّذِينَ اصْطَفَىٰ﴾ (Say: Praise be to Allah, and peace upon His servants whom He has chosen). Praise be to Allah that you are on the path. Praise be to Allah who guided your heart to this place to pray. Praise be to Allah who restrained your mind from slipping when you speak to your mother or your father. Praise be to Allah who made your heart willing to spend on your daughters and your family. Praise be to Allah who made you a Muslim who knows how to lower the gaze in times of hardship. Praise be to Allah who did not make your pocket the controller of your heart and mind, but made your heart the controller of what you own, all that you own, so you give it willingly, neither compelled nor forced. Praise be to Allah who made you a person of will, in which you choose right from wrong, and distinguish between truth and falsehood. ﴿قُلِ الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ وَسَلَامٌ عَلَىٰ عِبَادِهِ الَّذِينَ اصْطَفَىٰ﴾ (Say: Praise be to Allah, and peace upon His servants whom He has chosen); so if you are among those He has chosen, you are the owner of this praise, because you are the recipient of this blessing.

Then He said: ﴿آللَّهُ خَيْرٌ أَمَّا يُشْرِكُونَ﴾ (Is Allah better, or what they associate?). And this directs attention to the fact that the war of these tyrants is not with these purifying, praying, almsgiving people, but with Allah. Then He frames for us what draws out of tongues and hearts the word of praise and brings it out of you: ﴿أَمَّنْ خَلَقَ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضَ﴾ (Or who created the heavens and the earth…).^[2]

The heavens and the earth

After this sentence you need no further proof. For the phrase "the heavens and the earth" and their creation takes in the rain pouring down from the sky, the plants bursting forth from the earth, the rivers that flow, the mountains, and everything in this universe. A very broad phrase that takes in what the Lord of the worlds, glorified, created and what lies beyond that; for we are between heavens and a higher world whose end and reality we do not grasp, and an earth on which we stand and whose depths below we do not know in reality or content.

﴿وَأَنزَلَ لَكُم مِّنَ السَّمَاءِ مَاءً﴾ (and sent down for you from the sky water). What did Allah send down? He sent down water. But notice this arrangement: had He said "and sent down from the sky water," the speech would have been consistent, but He said: ﴿وَأَنزَلَ لَكُم﴾ (and sent down for you), as if every drop of the water that descends from the sky knows where it will settle; in your belly, in your stomach as a morsel of bread or a grain of food. So it is not only that which comes to me, but what results from it comes to me.

And accordingly I understand that this drop of water falls at the farthest edge of the earth, and a very simple farmer receives it in his hut and his land, and it flows with the water and waters one particular spot from which a plant comes out, and it is harvested, collected, shipped, exported, and moved, and comes to a maker who turns it into bread, or the bread is made there and comes here and is in the store. We have given this example many times: you are standing buying bread, and you pick up a loaf and say: this looks a bit dry, I'll put it aside and take the one underneath. Then someone passes behind you and takes it and goes. And why didn't you like it? Because it is not for you. So your heart and soul were turned away from it, because it is for so-and-so, who came at the right time to find you have lifted it in your hand, so he takes it and goes, and he wants no other, he came for it specifically, and he will take no other, and you will not take it. This is the matter of the arrangements of provision as the Lord of the worlds, glorified, conveys it to me: ﴿وَأَنزَلَ لَكُم مِّنَ السَّمَاءِ مَاءً﴾ (and sent down for you from the sky water).

I want to picture this dimension in the descent of this water. The drop of water that fell in the midst of this rain, the wind had the power to divert it to another place, so perhaps it moved five centimeters and would not have been for me. But the Lord of the worlds brings it down in a specific place it does not go beyond, and hence it does not go beyond you, and what comes out of it does not go beyond your belly or your heart or your mind, or whatever you wish to say.

The God who made the trees grow

﴿فَأَنبَتْنَا بِهِ حَدَائِقَ ذَاتَ بَهْجَةٍ مَّا كَانَ لَكُمْ أَن تُنبِتُوا شَجَرَهَا﴾ (and We caused to grow by it gardens of beauty; it was not for you to cause their trees to grow).^[3] Who makes their trees grow? Allah. So the Lord of the worlds, glorified, points you to His power, His might, His authority, His self-subsistence, and points you to the marks of His deserving this divinity, glorified. We did not say tawḥīd of divinity, nor tawḥīd of lordship, nor tawḥīd of names and attributes, nor did we plunge into the names and attributes and the issues of disagreement in them, nor did we enter into all these details. We went along with the sequence of a single verse only, to show you the greatness of this universe and what the Lord of the worlds, glorified, originated in it.

One of our teachers related that he was being tested in an interview for a job, and they asked him: Is the tawḥīd you hold the tawḥīd of the Ashʿarites, or such and such? He said to them: What shall I tell you? I am a farmer, and my father said to me: when you put this seedling in, the One who makes it come up is our Lord; this is your tawḥīd. And my provision is in the sky, not in your pockets, O good people. This is the mentality of one who understands the reality of his tawḥīd of Allah: I worship none but Allah.

So who is this God who created the heavens and the earth, and sent down for me, the owner of this station, for whose sake the heavens and the earth move, for whose sake the troops of winds move, for whose sake this clay is subjected to bring forth this plant? For me, as a creature of Allah, causes are set in motion.

Allah's management of provision behind your back

In the evening, before ʿIshāʾ, one of the young men may say: You need to do such and such. And another says: I know so-and-so, I'll talk to him. So we speak to him and he says: Right away. Then we ask him: How much will you take for this job? He says: such and such. Excellent, we put our trust in Allah, may Allah reward you with good. And this is a natural, ordinary event. Or it is said: We need an eye doctor. I know Dr. so-and-so, I know a brother such-and-such, put us in touch with him. So what is happening here? This is the management by Allah, blessed and exalted, of the system of provision that is behind my back. Our friend whom we spoke to is asleep in his house, or busy with a dispute with his wife and the children and making a racket in his world, but Allah manages the system of provision for him, so He inspires so-and-so with the name of so-and-so and reminds him of him, and a need is fulfilled or a provision is caused. How does Allah arrange what lies behind the causes that are in your hands? None of us is able to reflect on that. We, by Allah, are poor souls, thinking only of the numbers in our hands, while how the Lord of the worlds, glorified, arranges for us is another matter.

Why in Sūrat al-Naml?

Explaining the verses would take very long, and in them is a wonderful flavor and an unnatural sweetness if you recite them with a measure of deliberation and calm and an attempt to savor, you see in them a pleasure not found in many places. Glory be to the Creator!

But what we want to understand: where did these verses occur? In which sūrah? In Sūrat al-Naml. And why the ant? This is the first question that comes to your mind when you read a verse of the Qur'an: in which sūrah is it, and why this sūrah? Why did it not come in al-Wāqiʿah, or al-Sharḥ, or somewhere else? Because it reorganizes a person's mind in his reflection on how Allah manages sovereignty.

And the very simple example that you do not perceive even with your sight is that there is a very well-crafted system of performance and work, where? In the ants. So understand, then, O great one, O owner of this size. Understand that this ant is among the indicators of order and commitment: ﴿قَالَتْ نَمْلَةٌ يَا أَيُّهَا النَّمْلُ ادْخُلُوا مَسَاكِنَكُمْ لَا يَحْطِمَنَّكُمْ سُلَيْمَانُ وَجُنُودُهُ وَهُمْ لَا يَشْعُرُونَ﴾ (An ant said: O ants, enter your dwellings, lest Sulaymān and his soldiers crush you while they do not perceive).^[4] How many kinds of knowledge, how many levels of awareness does this ant have to understand, perceive, infer, analyze, draw conclusions, issue warnings, and raise her voice in a certain tone, until that warning came, and Sulaymān smiled, laughing at her words: ﴿رَبِّ أَوْزِعْنِي أَنْ أَشْكُرَ نِعْمَتَكَ﴾ (My Lord, enable me to be grateful for Your favor).^[5] What a miracle! Glory be to the Creator, the All-Knowing.

May Allah keep these hearts of ours sound for us and you, and make these minds of ours retentive, and make us among those who understand His intent, and grant us good action according to what He wants for us in His Book.

--- ^[1]: Editor's documentation: Sūrat al-Aʿrāf, verse 82, and similarly in Sūrat al-Naml, verse 56 (﴿أَخْرِجُوا آلَ لُوطٍ مِّن قَرْيَتِكُمْ﴾). ^[2]: Editor's documentation: Sūrat al-Naml, verses 59 and 60. ^[3]: Editor's documentation: Sūrat al-Naml, verse 60. ^[4]: Editor's documentation: Sūrat al-Naml, verse 18. ^[5]: Editor's documentation: Sūrat al-Naml, verse 19. The speaker confined himself to this much of the supplication (and in the transcript he pronounced "niʿmata" with a cut-off ending).