Qur’an 30 for 30 | Season 6
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Juz 10: How to Be Steadfast in Islam | Sh. Hassan Elwan
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Are your good deeds truly for Allah, or could hidden intentions be holding you back? What if even your sadaqah is tainted by desire, and your hopes for Jannah rest on shaky ground?
Join Sh. Hassan Elwan with Dr. Omar Suleiman and Sh. Abdullah Oduro as they explore juz 10 of the Qur’an, uncovering how to purify our intentions, pass life’s tests, and stay steadfast on the path to Allah.
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Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings.They contributed perhaps politically to its destruction, but a way to save face is then to rebuild hospitals after you destroy 10 hospitals. Really really desire something and it will drive us to call on Allah to ask for that thing. This is good, but to remember that you made a promise. I am with the one that remembers me. So when we remember Allah subhanahu wa ta\'ala, I\'m not alone. That\'s how we feel we\'re alone. Nobody\'s helping me. The test is too. I\'m not alone. As-salaamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh everyone. Welcome back to Qur\'an 30 for 30. Alhamdulillah we are on Juz 10. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta\'ala to accept all of the fasting, the charity, the prayer, the recitation of the Qur\'an and to make it heavy on your scales. A reminder to please contribute as you\'re benefiting from this series and all the other stuff that\'s coming out from Qur\'an 30 for 30. We are blessed to have with us Dr. Hassan Elwan. One of my favorite people in the world. I\'m not biased at all by the way, but I\'ll say my favorite guest on Qur\'an 30 for 30 with my love and respect to the other 29 guests is you. May Allah increase your rank and may Allah subhanahu wa ta\'ala elevate you and may Allah subhanahu wa ta\'ala put both of you with the Prophet (ﷺ) and make all of us be with you insha\'Allah. JazakAllah khair. May Allah bless you and reward you. We benefit so much from your presence. We enjoy your presence. We enjoy your company. I enjoy being here and I would love to be silent and just hear from both of you. So Sheikh Abdullah and I agreed that we just want to talk for just a couple of minutes and let you talk insha\'Allah. So we want to benefit from it. I was thinking the opposite. I\'ll be silent and finish in two minutes and just, you know. Do you see Sheikh Abdullah\'s dress? He\'s here just to look good for us, insha\'Allah. Beautiful and early color, Sheikh.
JazakAllah khair Sheikh. May Allah bless you for being with us. I can\'t say enough about, I think you\'ve done a lot to help people understand the connection to Allah subhanahu wa ta\'ala, the deeper meanings and also reasons for disconnect. I remember there\'s a paper that you and Dr. Uthman wrote together on God and how we understand God and sort of the trauma that can inform the relationship with Allah subhanahu wa ta\'ala. Just quickly, can you tell people about the paper, Sheikh, and what they can benefit from it? Yes, so this paper is, the basics of it is that we understand things based on the way we understand Allah subhanahu wa ta\'ala. And the worst thing that can happen is if somehow my so-called image or idea of Allah subhanahu wa ta\'ala is distorted, then my relationships become distorted. And the way I understand things become distorted. And sometimes maybe we can get that from society, from our parents. How can I detect that? How can I change that? How can I make sure that my attachment to Allah subhanahu wa ta\'ala, the way I perceive him, is the way, who he is? Only because you insisted, Sheikh. I will insha\'Allah quickly summarize my part, I\'d love to hear your reflections. You know, subhanAllah, we are in Surah At-Tawbah. And in the last Juz, we talked about this idea of access to power and how the magicians of Fir\'aun wanted to be from Muqarrabin. They wanted to be from those that are close to Fir\'aun, but then they ended up in the place aqrabu ma yakunu al-abdu li rabbihi. The closest that a servant is to his Lord is in their sujood. They ended up in a place of sajdah. And so, you know, the weakness that is found in trying to gain access to power in the worldly sense. And I think that this Juz, for me personally, subhanAllah, there\'s one ayah that stood out to me. The lesson is, charity isn\'t a get-out-of-sin-free card. Charity isn\'t a get-out-of-sin-free card. What do I mean by that? I want to give like a geopolitical manifestation of this, because there was a conversation that stuck with me with the demolition of Gaza.
I was speaking to an NGO head, and he was saying that Gaza\'s reconstruction will not be paid by private donors. It\'ll be paid by the same governments that signed off on its destruction. Meaning, as a way of almost absolving themselves from the sin of its destruction. So like, they contributed perhaps politically to its destruction, but a way to save face is to rebuild hospitals after you destroy 10 hospitals. It\'s a way to, charity is a get-out-of-sin-free card in the political sense too. They may have contributed to the destruction in different ways, but he was saying that these governments are going to throw money at Gaza after they\'ve thrown money on the weapons. It\'s all a circulation, it\'s about the circulation of money for them. I was thinking, that\'s such a profound insight, because you can see this with war zones after the fact. That some of the same parties that profited from the war, try to profit from the social capital after the war, by saying that we spent this much money on reconstruction, we spent this much money on taking care of the parties and things of that sort. That\'s so profound, because it\'s a hypocrisy, and there can be hypocrisy in charity in multiple ways. Now obviously for us, on a personal level, Allah talks about when we give charity, and we harm when we give charity, we boast when we give charity. But there can be something that is so malicious about the intent of charity, that your charity can actually come against you on the Day of Judgment. The verse here, is verse 19 of Surah At-Tawbah, and obviously this is a surah that is full of references to hypocrisy. Allah says,
Allah said, do you, oh pagans, so Allah is speaking to the pagans here, do you consider providing the pilgrims with water and maintaining the masjid, masjid al-haram, as equal to belief in Allah in the last day, and struggling in the way of Allah? They are not equal in the sight of Allah, and Allah does not guide a wrongdoing people. Now subhanAllah, this is so profound, because if you think about the psyche of the people of Mecca, and particularly the Abu Jahls of the world, if you met Abu Jahl before Islam, very generous man, taking care of the hujjaj, spending on the pilgrims, and really lifting up his own people, and the image of his own tribe in that process. Banu Makhzum looks good because of Abu Jahl pre-Islam, but after Islam, his intentions are exposed. As evil intentions, that there was an ulterior motive there, there was an evil agenda that was there. And so you don\'t just get to say, we do all this good stuff, and we spend all of this, and Allah is saying, that\'s not equal to the belief in Allah and the last day, and those who are sincerely striving in the path of Allah. You don\'t get to make this connection. There\'s also what I think of, a cousin of Abu Bakr as-Siddiq (رضي الله عنه), Abdullah bin Jad\'an, very famous narration, where Aisha (رضي الله عنها) asked the Prophet (ﷺ), that he\'d be forgiven. He spent a lot on the pilgrims, he gave a lot of charity, and the Prophet (ﷺ) said, no, because he never once said in his life, So it\'s not enough to just spend and give charity. You have to do more. And Imam al-Ghazali mentions this as one of the ways of ghurur, one of the ways of delusion, that a person can have so many sins, and if you\'re charitable, and subhanAllah, the irony is that we start off the program by telling people to give charity, sadaqa is important, but sadaqa is in concert with all of the other ibadat,
and it has to come from the same place that all those other ibadat come from. And Imam al-Ghazali talks about it as ghurur, because a person can give charity, and when you give charity, you\'re often praised. Like you think about the fundraisers, everyone looks around, who\'s raising their hands for the highest amount? And everyone says, mashaAllah, Allahu Akbar, and people are afraid to even maybe give that person nasiha, advice about their haram business, because the haram business is paying the bills for the masjid, or lifestyles, because no, that\'s a generous person. And that person, as a result, can develop ghurur, they can develop a delusion, and think, okay, I\'m good, I write my cheque to Allah every month, I write my cheque to Allah every year, I don\'t have to do anything. And of course, there are some sincere people that, just like the rest of us, we\'re all flawed Muslims, maybe flawed in some areas, and that\'s really one door between them and Allah subhanahu wa ta\'ala. But it could also be a form of ghurur, could be a form of delusion, that you don\'t just get to write a cheque and then, you know, all the other sins go away. No, you still have to strive for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta\'ala in every way. And we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta\'ala to make that our case, that we strive for His pleasure in every way, and that we don\'t become deluded by one door that we have, and then shut all the other doors. It\'s a beautiful reflection, Allah subhanahu wa ta\'ala, and like, in a way, we don\'t get to choose the questions in this life. When we say that, in general, life is a test. Sometimes we don\'t want the difficult test, and it\'s true. Who wants a confrontation? Who wants a difficult test? I don\'t want it, right? But sometimes I cannot graduate from a university without taking any tests. I can\'t escape the test. And in a way, a test comes to me with a question, and I say, no, the other question is easier. Let me give you the answer to the other question. It\'s a correct answer, but that\'s not the test. And in a way, sometimes when we do this, this test is for a reason. And I cannot, if I try to avoid it, Allah will keep bringing it back, bringing it back. And it\'s not about feeling good.
Sometimes saying, Ya Rabbi, I did not do good, sitting with that feeling, telling Ya Rabbi, please, I wish I could do better. I wasn\'t ready in this exam. I took a C. I failed. But if I face that, and I start studying, maybe the next exam I\'ll get an A. So I cannot skip a question and answer another question. You\'re mentioning those that use sadaqa as charity, as a form of expiation. Although in the sharia there is some place for it, but it goes back to initially your intention behind it, when one wants to do an element of philanthropy. And they want to do that to do some type of tasfih, or purification for their previous sins, even though they have no intention inside to itakhallas minha, to finish, or to leave those acts that generated that type of money. It\'s beautiful because there are those that say, I\'m going to finish. Oh, Allah subhanahu wa ta\'ala, I\'m trying my best. And if you give me this opportunity to get this money, to get this virtue, I promise I\'ll leave it off. Allah subhanahu wa ta\'ala talks about that reality as well. And many of us, you mentioned the test, whether it\'s in college, whether it\'s with marriage, whether it\'s with something that you want of this life, you\'re doing a form of another even, like an oath. Allah, if you give me this, I promise I will do so-and-so. But then Allah subhanahu wa ta\'ala mentions the fact that there are some people that they may say that, but as soon as they are given that virtue, they go back to their ways. So allow the virtue, and this is the title, allow the virtue of Allah to make you virtuous. Do not let it make you other than that, or opposite of that, or lower than that. Allah subhanahu wa ta\'ala says in the chapter of Toba, verse number 75 and 76, He\'s mentioning what they say, he said, some of them made a covenant with Allah, and what did they say?
It\'s funny, Allah mentions what they would say. Whenever you read in the Qur\'an, the statements of people, you have to ask yourself, have I ever said this to myself? Have I said this to someone else? And what does Allah say about them? He says, I want to just stop on the Arabic, because it\'s so beautiful, because the morphology of the Arabic really hits home with the nature of man. What did they say? He said, if Allah gives us out of his bounty, we will give alms, and act righteously. But the English doesn\'t do justice to the Arabic here, because they say, oh Allah, if you were to give us, I recognize this from his virtue, the shadda here, and the laam, it\'s like, we will surely, oh Allah, we will give as much charity as we can, I promise you, I will do my best, I promise you, I recognize firstly, and this is from your bounty, and I\'ll give as much as I can. And also, not only that, not just the action, but I\'ll be a better Muslim, I\'ll be a better person, like in this month of Ramadan, hopefully, we\'re making this type of du\'a, hopefully, we\'re making this type of promise with ourselves, and using this as a catalyst to change, but then Allah subhanahu wa ta\'ala reminds us of our reality as human beings. Insan, as some say, insan comes from nasia, to be forgetful and neglectful, the next verse, Allah subhanahu wa ta\'ala says, then when he gave them out of his bounty, he gave it to them, he answered the du\'a, they grew greedy and miserly, and they turned their backs, what\'s interesting here, is that he mentions, they said, no, and at the same time, they weren\'t from the salihin, they were from the muridin, they weren\'t from the ones that were righteous,
they were from the ones that turned their backs, so this is a reminder for us that in the times of helplessness, when we really, really desire something, and it will drive us to call on Allah, to ask for that thing, this is good, but to remember that you made a promise, to remember that when you asked Allah, you trusted in him, hopefully, and to remember that when you\'re given that thing that you asked, or more than that, sometimes we ask Allah for something, and then you\'re given more than that, but you don\'t remember at the moment of being the recipient of his bounty, I don\'t even deserve this, how many times have we said to ourselves, I don\'t even deserve this, the microphone is handed to you at the award ceremony, and everybody\'s applauding you, giving you applause, and they\'re praising you, they\'re saying your name, people are whistling, what do you say at that moment, do you thank Allah, or do you turn back, this is what I\'ve been given from my knowledge, or from my virtue, and that\'s why I love the word sadaqa, because sadaqa needs sitq, the Arabic language is so rich, when you say sadaqa, it needs a form of truthfulness, and honesty with yourself, and being true to yourself, by being true to Allah, may Allah make us of those that, whenever we give charity, we are of those that are truthful, and not allow it to be a means for our destruction, by not recognizing his virtue. May Allah grant us truthfulness, to be true to the truth, and to be true in seeking him, and may Allah grant us to remember him, and never forget him, in the time of ease, and in the time of difficulties, and when you\'re speaking, the amount of time that you said the word forget, remember, do you remember, do you remember your promise, and the problem of the human being, is not that we\'re born in sin,
or we\'re sinful, we just forget, especially when we\'re confronted with life, some people forget when life is good, and some people forget when life is difficult, and subhanAllah, relating to what Sheikh Omar said, sometimes again, I don\'t want to face difficult tests, and sometimes I try to avoid, but sometimes the decree of Allah, you have to stand for the truth, if you\'re truthful, who\'s going to stand for the truth, if it\'s not me, I don\'t like confronting people, I don\'t like to clash with someone, but sometimes enemies do exist, other people might not leave me alone, and in that case, the test is difficult, this question is hard, I\'d rather be home praying, or I\'d rather be giving charity, but not speaking up, that\'s a difficult, it\'s a giant, it\'s powerful, and when I act this way, I forget who\'s in control, the real question of a believer, is not the test, whether it\'s easy or difficult, may Allah make all our tests easy, but the concern of a believer, which this verse deals with, is my performance in the test, if I was to be tested, and I\'m truthful, I want you, if he tells me answer this question, I want you to face this enemy, I want you to stand, bear my decree, how can I be steadfast, and this verse deals with this, Allah does not only tell us the life of this world is a test, He tells us what to do in the test, how to find steadfastness, and the title is steadfastness through remembrance, don\'t forget, and the verse is in surat al-anfal, يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا إِذَا لَقِيتُمْ فِئَةً فَاثْبُتُوا وَاذْكُرُوا اللَّهَ كَثِيرًا لَعَلَّكُمْ تُفْلِحُونَ فَاثْبُتُوا وَاذْكُرُوا اللَّهَ كَثِيرًا لَعَلَّكُمْ تُفْلِحُونَ Oh you believe, if it\'s decreed upon you
that you ended up confronting a difficult test, sometimes psychological, sometimes financial, sometimes an enemy, this is speaking about the battle of Badr, it\'s a very difficult situation, the battle is about to happen, it\'s difficult, and they look stronger and more powerful, so what do I do, I want thabit, so Allah says فَاثْبُتُوا, be steadfast, how Ya Rabbi, that\'s my question, how do I do that, I want to, but I\'m not steadfast, وَاذْكُرُوا اللَّهَ كَثِيرًا This is a place of a lot of dhikr, dhikr of Allah brings steadfastness, and the reason is simple, the hadith أَنَا مَعَ مَن ذَكَرَنِي as he said, I am with the one that remembers me, so when we remember Allah, I\'m not alone, that\'s how we feel, we\'re alone, nobody\'s helping me, I\'m not alone, لا تَحْزَنْ إِنَّ اللَّهَ مَعَنَا don\'t be sad, Allah is with us, there is only one qualifier for dhikr, so whenever I\'m in a difficult situation, that\'s the time of dhikr, but unlike any other ibadah, dhikr is very special, it\'s very easy, but it has one condition, you know, salah, you have to make wudu, you have to face the qibla, dhikr, you can be lying down, you don\'t have to make wudu, but there is one condition, كَثِيرًا a lot, a lot, a lot, and subhanAllah, what comes to my mind, some of the early salaf, the way they did dhikr, they did it so often, so many times, so when you ask them, for example, sheikh can ask me, how far do you live, how long was your flight, two and a half hours, they won\'t answer that way, they say, well, about 500 tazbihs, I live about 50 ayahs away, some of the sahaba, they measure time, they are always in dhikr, it\'s a unit, dhikr is so common for them,
so in a place of difficulty, don\'t forget, dhikr brings Allah so much in his awareness in my heart, and that helps a person, be steadfast, I have one story I\'ll finish with, Ibrahim Al-Khawass, one of those great luminaries, a story narrated by his student, they were travelling together, and then he\'s sitting under a tree, and then a mountain lion comes, and the student is like, it\'s done, this is over, and he\'s so steadfast, and the mountain lion came, and apparently perhaps licked him, and left, and the student was like, this is a very courageous teacher, but he said, next day, we go to a village, and we\'re sitting there, and a bug fell from the ceiling, on his teacher, and all of a sudden, the same man was like, scared, and he said, I don\'t understand this, yesterday it\'s a lion, and you were just, nothing happened, today it\'s a bug, why? and he said, yesterday, I was in a state of remembrance, with my heart, with Allah, but today, in that moment, I was by myself, if Allah makes me steadfast, nothing brings me down, if I try to do it by myself, I\'ll always fall down, and Allah prunes us, only to make us stronger, Allah gave us the ability, to bear his tests, through him and by him, for him, Allahumma ansurna bikalik I think that, one thing that I take away, from everything that you\'re mentioning, Allah wants to see,
what you\'re going to do, during the test, it\'s not just passing the test, what will you do, during the test, and the beauty of Islam, is intentionality, so in the beginning, you know that actions are put by intentions, and at the end, you\'re asking Allah for acceptance, because you\'re not sure if along the way, you may have lost your intention in some way, so there\'s something deeply profound, to just the intentionality, of it all, and truly if that intentionality remains, then the action remains on course, and if the intention sways, a lot of people don\'t realize that, the intention can deviate, and so that\'s part of this maintenance, that we are to keep throughout. There\'s a statement, قَدْ تَسْتَوْلِي نَفْسٌ عَلَى الْعَمَلِ الصَّالِحِ وَتَصَيِّرْهُ جُنْدًا لَهَا وَتَصُولُ بِهِ وَتَطْغَى وَتَرَى الرَّجُلُ أَزْهَدْ مَا يَكُونُ أَطْوَعْ مَا يَكُونُ أَعْبَدْ مَا يَكُونُ وَهُوَ عَنِ اللَّهِ أَبْعَدْ مَا يَكُونُ God is here, and he\'s praying, he\'s guarding the sincerity in the beginning of the prayers. But after the prayer is done, and I feel certain states, my nafs can come and jump, and grab that, and I start to, I am. And I lost my intention, my sincerity is gone. And my ibadah, with that kind of arrogance, increases me in nothing. But this is from Allah. This is the beginning. But sometimes, what happens when I succeed? Do I remember that it\'s from Allah, so that I\'m protected from self-admiration? This was not from me. If Allah leaves me, a bug can scare me. And we see this. We see people under tremendous tribulation, and they\'re steadfast. And we see sometimes ourselves, and something that big, we can\'t take it. How do we teach hope without delusion? How do we teach hope without making them delusional?
SubhanAllah. Taking them to a place of ghurur. I think the very definition of hope in our tradition, al-raja\'a huwa al-nathar ila sa\'at rahmatillahi wa qudrati wal-lutmu\'inan limutala\'at karami So hope is not hope in me. As long as I\'m looking at the vastness of the compassion and the rahmah of Allah, and the immense power that He has, I can\'t, but He can. So there is no ghurur or delusion, because it\'s not about me, it\'s about Him. I have to do what I do till help comes from Him. It\'s the beauty of the salah, I\'m just thinking of the salah, you know the hadith of the Prophet (ﷺ), when he talks about the fractionality of the prayer, and maybe, and he said, like there\'s a portion of your prayer that may be accepted. Does it mean, since from takbeer, takbeer til haram, that you\'re a mukhlis throughout. Maybe on raka\'at al-ula, the intention was pure, you were thinking about something and it reminded you about Allah. But raka\'at al-falat, the third unit of prayer, you were totally diverted. But then you reminded yourself, and came back. The salah in and of itself, from the sharia, the way that it\'s constructed to where it\'s impermissible for you to have speech outside of that. And during the act, you\'re saying, Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar, and you\'re in the lowest position, and you\'re mentioning the most high. It\'s so much of an opportunity for you to come close to it. And that\'s beautiful about the verse, because in order to have thabat, you need dhikr kathiran. Like you mentioned, sheikh, and it\'s not only one time, it has to be continuous. And in the salawat, throughout this whole time, you\'re mentioning the name of Allah, you\'re moving, you\'re praising Him, and then within it, you\'re asking Him, you\'re pouring your heart out to Him. As you mentioned, sheikh, the hadith of the Prophet (ﷺ),
the closest that the servant can be to Allah subhanahu wa ta\'ala is when he is sajid, when he is prostrating. Just pondering over the way Allah subhanahu wa ta\'ala has constructed this deen, and the blueprint of it, and the framework, it allows us and gives us so many opportunities to come closer to Him, giving us so many names and attributes for us to allow them to come to life in our lives. That increases the dhikr and remembrance of Him, which increases that connection, and enriches the intention. O Allah, aid us to take the test. O Allah, aid us to be always in Your remembrance, and always grateful to You, and aid us, help us, this is what I want, to worship You in all conditions, easy and hard, in the best and most beautiful ways. Allah grant us all this. JazakAllah khair. JazakAllah khair to all of you. We will see you all tomorrow. Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.
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