Lecture
48 / 84
17
Social Justice
Islam, A Coherent Social Justice Tradition | Omar Suleiman | 16th MAS-ICNA Convention
22
Jurisprudence (fiqh)
Appreciating Scholarship: Intro to Islamic Law - Tesneem Alkiek | Yaqeen in NY
26
Islamophobia
How Yaqeen Heals Internalized Islamophobia - Dalia Mogahed | Making Principled Progress
29
Education
How Yaqeen is a Resource for Our Community - Sh. Omar Suleiman | Making Principled Progress
34
General Psychology
Spiritual Personality - Zohair Abdul-Rahman | 2018 Yaqeen/MAS Academic Conference
35
Social Justice
Conflict Resolution: The Line Between Justice and Peace - Sh. Omar Suleiman | Lecture
47
Identity
Keeping Masculinity from Trending Toxic - Dr. Jonathan Brown | Reframing the Gender Question
Why Does God Ask People to Worship Him? - Sh. Mohammad Elshinawy | Lecture
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Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Bismillah, alhamdulillah, wasallahu salam wa rasulillah, ala alihi wa sahbihi ajma'in, wa biidhna yawmullah, all praise and glory be to Allah, may his finest peace and blessings be upon his Messenger Muhammad, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, and his family and his companions and all those who tread his path. I ask Allah at the onset of this gathering to purify our hearts and illuminate our minds and permit for us in this talk and subsequent talks moments to advance us in guidance and cultivate the light within us so that we can confront the challenges of the world the day that the world goes dark or the day that our world goes dark. Allahumma ameen. So what I wanted to actually discuss is a very particular aspect of our understanding Allah, subhanAllah wa ta'ala. And that is why does God ask us to worship him? For many people it's a very unsettling question that can sometimes even challenge their faith when they lose hope that there's an answer to it or a satisfactory answer to it. And that's why Yaqeen Institute actually put together a paper that you can find where they essentially summarize and translate a book for Dr. Sami Amiri, Hafez Abu Dhabi, addressing this question. And so I'm going to offer you, inshallah wa ta'ala, 11 responses to this question. And if you wish to write them down and take notes of them, I promise you that I have a gift for somebody after this talk that I can guarantee has no monetary value. But it will be worthwhile on some level, some capacity. So there are 11 responses, 3 of which are actually objections to the question itself. And then 8 of which are addressing the question itself. So first we're going to deconstruct the question. People ask, why does God ask us to worship him? Like if praying and fasting and all this stuff doesn't benefit him, then what's the point? Is there even a point?
Some people, they word it a bit wiser, a bit more politely, and they say, what is the wisdom behind God creating us? And as soon as you tell them to worship, they say, well what does he get? What does he gain out of us worshipping him, bringing us back to the initial question? So there are some premises or some presuppositions embedded in that question that we need to uncover. First and foremost, our first objection to the question is that someone demanding to understand God fully is already a problem, right? How can we not recognize our limitations in comprehending the divine when we are finite creatures, right? We're very limited creatures and he's an infinite eternal God, subhanahu wa ta'ala. You know, even in a beautiful hadith in Sahih Muslim, the Prophet ﷺ said, حِجَابُهُ النُّورُ لَو كَشَفَهُ لَأَحْرَطَتْ سُبُحَاتُ وَجْهِهِ مَن تَهَى إِلَيْهِ بَصَرُهُ مِنْ خَلْقِهِ That his veil is light, subhanahu wa ta'ala. Were he to remove this veil, the glory of his face would incinerate, would burn away everything his eyesight reaches, meaning everything. So our eyes have extreme limitations when it comes to beholding God, right? Likewise, our mind has extreme limitations. وَلَا يُحِلُّونَ بِهِ عِلْمًا They can never fully encompass Him in knowledge. لَيْسَ كَمِثْلِهِ شَيْئًا There's nothing like Him, right? Allah cannot be compared to anything. We can never find a proper analogy for God. And that's why when they say, God asks, therefore He must have a need, that's where it comes from. That you're overextending the analogy, right? You're thinking God is essentially like human beings, can be comprehended the same way people's actions can be comprehended. Sure, you're supposed to think about God and ponder over His signs.
But while recognizing the limitations, right? There are certain aspects of God's fullness, greatness, fully comprehending Him, is locked behind an impregnable door. You can't get past it. I mean, think about the fact that Jannah itself. وَلَا خَطَرَ عَلَى طَلْبِ بَشَرٍ The Prophet ﷺ said that Allah said that paradise is what no eye has ever seen, no ear has ever heard, and never dawned upon the imagination of any human being. So if you can't even have the imaginative power, potential, to figure out what Jannah is really about, the full reality of Jannah, and Jannah is just creation, just another creation of God, then how can you expect to fully comprehend God Himself? That's already one problem. The second response is what? Presuming that God is human, or human-like, presuming the humanness of God is another problem. The people that think God is asking for worship because of some need, these are the people that have never fully escaped the ancient mythological pagan mindset, where the gods of the Greeks, they deprive people out of jealousy and envy, or they ignite wars to secure dominance on the cosmos. You know there's an ancient Greek philosopher, his name is Xenophanes, if I'm pronouncing it correctly, he basically talks about how the whole world does this, we humanize God. He says when you go to Ethiopia, they draw their gods just like them, with a flat nose, that's what he said. Then he goes to the Thracians, he says they go and they give God red hair, they're redheads, so they give God red hair and blue eyes. And likewise you see it in Europe, right? That when they want to draw a picture of Jesus, peace be upon him, who they may consider God, or an extension of God, they give him blonde hair and blue eyes. Which is kind of odd, because he's supposed to be from Jerusalem, from Palestine, right?
And so this is a human tendency. And so when they extend that notion that asking means need, therefore when God asks, that means God has a need, that's them assuming God is like them. That's the second problem with the question. Which you can't fill the blank with that. Especially in what we do know about God, it's not a blank. We know that God has no needs, right? He told us that about himself, subhanAllah to Allah. The third response is that presuming, even among human beings, that requests communicate need is not necessarily true. That's another faulty premise. Is every time you ask someone of something, that means you have a need for that something? Or could it communicate something else? Like when I tell my children, here are the metrics for getting your rewards at the end of the week. Do I have a need for my children to respond to my request? Or is this me being just and fair by putting a standard that they have to follow? When someone in a competition, for example, requests that they come to the finish line, tells them come this way, does that communicate a need of that person holding that competition? Or is that putting a fair, equitable standard so that he can exact justice between the competitors? So requests don't always communicate need, they can communicate other things as well, even among human beings. Nevertheless with Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala. So those are the three problems with the question. But what's really beautiful here is that Allah, who created the human being, and understands better than anybody the nuances of human psychology, answers that question because it's as if He is telling us, I know what's going to arise in your head when I ask you to worship me.
And so He settles it if you would just look in the right places. When He says, وَمَا خَلَقْتُ الْجِنَّ وَالْإِنسَ إِلَّا لِيَعْبِدُونَ مَا أُرِيدُ مِنْهُمْ رِزْقٌ وَمَا أُرِيدُ أَن يُطْعِمُونَ إِنَّ اللَّهُ هُوَ مَا زَفَضُ الْقُوَّةِ الْمَتِيئِنُ I did not create the humans or the jinn except to worship Me? I don't need from them to provide for Me. I don't need from them to feed Me. Why is that there? Allah, as the Al-Jinn, is pre-empting what could arise, our human tendency to compare God to ourselves. That's not why I'm telling them to do this. I don't need for them to provide for Me. I don't need for them to feed Me. إِنَّ اللَّهُ هُوَ مَا زَفَضُ الْقُوَّةِ الْمَتِيئِنُ Certainly, it is Allah who is the Provider, the Bearer of Great Strength. سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى So those are the first three. Now let's address the question itself. Why is it that worshipping Allah is necessary for us? And why is worshipping Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى so beneficial for us? Part of the problem is us not knowing what the word worship means. Actually, part of the problem is us, me, the guys on the microphones, using the word worship. Because the Qur'anic term which is usually translated as worship is actually عِبَاد. And عِبَاد is really different when you get to the heart of it than what عِبَاد, than what worship is, especially when it first comes to mind when you think of worship. When you think of worship, you think of like some ritual, mechanical motion, right? Ritual devotions. It could be very dry and stiff and like spiritless, lifeless. And عِبَاد is way different. Like Ibn Tayyib, may Allah for example, an expert theologian, right? He says that there are 60 words for love in the Arabic language, the highest of them is عِبَاد. The peak, pinnacle of love. Where you feel utterly powerless in front of your beloved because you just love them so much. And al-Asfahani, may Allah be with him, was also a master linguist of the Arabic language. If you check his dictionary, there is lexicon.
He says عِبَاد, at the heart of عِبَاد is brokenness, humility, powerlessness. So these are basically the two meanings of عِبَاد, which is translated as worship. Now you have a problem translating it as worship. At the core of this عِبَاد, which is reductionist, fallacy, or a problem with just reducing it to the word worship, it's English. Maybe devotion is a better word, maybe loving devotion is a better word, I don't know. But let's just dig deeper. At the core of عِبَاد is you loving God above all else. Everything else, that's at the core of it, everything else that you do is basically a manifestation or an expression of your love for God. Because if you're worshipping God, by the way, like in the ritual sense, and you hate Him at the moment, that's not considered عِبَادَةِ الإسلام. It's not. You're not even Muslim at that point. And so at the core of it, it's loving God. These are expressions of our love for God. And also it turns our attention to the fact that عِبَاد is extremely comprehensive. It renders you powerless, meaning you do whatever God wants. And God doesn't just want five prayers a day and some rituals and that's all. Not to underestimate the value of those rituals. So that's what عِبَاد is at its heart, at its core, at its innermost core is love. And its manifestation is you being captivated by that love into surrendering to Allah totally and consistently. Make sense guys? So that we can answer now. So why is it beneficial or necessary for us to enlist in عِبَادَةِ? The first of them is that only Allah عز و جل is worthy of that kind of recognition, that kind of veneration, that kind of emotion even, that kind of surrender, that kind of commitment. Only Allah is worthy of عِبَادَةِ. SubhanAllah wa ta'ala.
Because عِبَادَة emanates from that place where you recognize just how perfect, awesome, flawless, mind-boggling Allah is, and just how tiny and flawed and limited and powerless you are. When you recognize that, this is when عِبَادَة crystallizes. And that's why the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم for example, in his ninth prayer, as Aisha رضي الله عنها would say, I caught him in sujood, weeping and saying أعوذ برضاك من صختك و معافتك من حقوبتك وأعوذ بك منك لا أرسي ثناء عليك أنت كما أثنيت على نفسك Oh Allah, I seek refuge in your pleasure from your anger. Like I'm not even in the picture, it's like you and you. And your forgiveness from your punishment. Nothing to do with me. He's lost in the love and in the recognition of Allah. And I seek refuge in you from you, he said. I can't praise you enough. You are as you have praised yourself. Or for example, in the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم says that the angels on the Day of Judgment, those who did not sleep, did not eat, did not get distracted, night and day, round the clock, tirelessly worship Allah on the Day of Judgment, when they see Allah's full glory, they will say سبحانك, glorified you are. ما عبدنا بحق عبادتك We have not worshipped you as you deserve to be worshipped. We haven't given you your due rights. Only Allah is worthy of that سبحانه وتعالى. And so, you know, even among human beings, like you feel compelled to recognize people's achievements, right? When someone does something so impressive, or some huge accomplishment, you feel compelled to recognize and give credit where credit is due. So عبادة is the credit that's due to Allah.
That's number one. That's the first reason. Even if He didn't command you to, He just deserves it. Even if He didn't forbid you from doing otherwise, even if He didn't promise a reward, even if He didn't threaten with punishment, even if He didn't create paradise, even if He didn't create the Hellfire, He would still be worthy of عبادة by virtue of who He is. Does that make sense? By virtue, He is the only one worthy of it سبحانه وتعالى. So that's response number? Four, right? Three, deconstructing the question, and eight, answering the question. Three, and we've done one so far of the answers. That's four. The next five, the next five, so basically number five, six, seven, eight, and nine, probably all fall under one big umbrella answer, which is فضل الله, the bounty of Allah سبحانه وتعالى. That عبادة is more a gift from Allah to us than it is a request from Allah of us. Does that make sense? It's not something He's taking from us, it's more something that He's giving us, the opportunity to worship Him سبحانه وتعالى. You know, like, even before I even list those five, when the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم says that Allah is happier with the repentance of one of you. Like, imagine someone who does so much wrong, and what's repentance? Repentance would be one sincere moment of regret for Allah. One sincere moment of remorse, and a tear that falls, and determination to not go back. One moment, Allah is happier with the repentance of one of you, a moment of repentance, than someone who's lost in the desert, and loses his camel, and loses his supplies, and is waiting for death, and all of a sudden finds his camel came back, and is standing on top of his head, so overjoyed, the person that he says, Oh Allah, you're my slave, and I'm your God. That's what the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said. Imagine someone who lost his mind in joy, while not attributing any deficiency to Allah,
he's saying Allah is happier when one of you repents, than this person who found new life. But why? Why? Why? Why does Allah get the most repentant? That's who He is. It's because He is الودود, the most loving. He is الشكول, that He loves to reward you for the smallest acts. He loves to give you without measure. He is that compassionate and that protective of you, more than a mother is with her newborn child. He's the one that continues to give and forgive, even to people that spend a lifetime just getting and forgetting, as they say. Allah just loves it. He loves to see you prosper. And so He asks you to perform عبادة, so that you may prosper. Is that clear? Now how, in what ways, let's analyze this prosperity from different angles, five angles. Number one, which is our fifth response. عبادة is required for inner peace. And you know people that have all of the outer, but they don't have peace on the inside? They don't consider themselves successful. They're miserable, aren't they? So this is the greatest prosperity that you will have on earth, at least. عبادة is required for inner peace. The human being has this need that Allah gives him through عبادة, fulfills for him through عبادة. The need to feel close to Allah عز و جل. When they get that, only then do they settle. They find serenity. They find clarity. They feel like they've escaped the anxieties of feeling like life is meaningless. You know, just as your body needs oxygen to breathe, your spirit needs loving Allah and remembering Allah to breathe. Otherwise you feel suffocated. That's why the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said,
مَثَلُ الَّذِي يَذْكُرُ رَبَّهُ وَالَّذِي لَا يَذْكُرُ رَبَّهُ كَمَثَلِ الْحَيِّ وَالْمَيْلِ حَيْزٍ بُخَارِيٍّ مُسْلِمٍ That the person that remembers his Lord, and the person that doesn't remember his Lord, is like the one who's alive and the one who's dead. And so you see all around you, so many people live lives that are not worth living. Correct? So many people around you, their lives are so empty, and they're so restless, and they're so anxious, and they're so insecure. And many a times they feel it's worth it to just pull the plug on their lives as a result of that. Emptiness. You know when your battery's ruined, guys, like on your phone, your laptop, or something? What do you have to do? Buy a phone. I was waiting for a wise guy to say, get a new battery. Yes, what do you do? Buy a phone. You have to keep it charged, right? You know when that happens to your stuff? Like if you pull it out and it turns off, it's like the battery's shot. How many people around you are like that? They have to continue binging on food, or photos, or series on Netflix, binging because the moment they pull out, they're not able to face reality anymore. They're that void of being able to be sustained away from the distractions. They have no peace. They only can handle sedatives. So that's the first thing that Ibadah provides you with, and nothing else can provide you with it but Ibadah. Inner peace. The next one is that Ibadah is liberating. So human beings, how does Ibadah liberate you? How does that even work? Like enslaving myself to God? How does that liberate me? That's tying me up? That's not loosening me up? This is how you make sense of this.
You as human beings, alright, were specifically designed by Allah to be purposeful creatures. Meaning you have a purpose, just like the rest of Allah's creation. You have an aim, you have an end, that's your function. You serve a purpose. That's just part of your fitrah, your nature. You want to use big terms and call it your metaphysical DNA, that's fine as well. But that's how Allah created you, to serve a purpose. So now you have two options. You can't avoid not serving a purpose. You are going to serve something. You'll either serve a very honorable purpose, the only. Truly honorable purpose, which is to serve the true God, Subhanahu wa ta'ala. Because we already said He's worthy of it. And He's the only one that actually can offer you anything. He's the only one that's capable. And He's the only one that's going to fulfill you and offer you that inner peace we just spoke about as well. You can serve that end. Or you can demean yourself by serving everything else. You'll serve all these contending forces in your life that snatch you apart and pull you apart in all these different directions. You'll serve your self-image that you arbitrarily made up. You'll serve your career path that you're not sure this is where you can self-actualize or self-transcend or maximize your potential. You're going to serve your spouses and you're going to serve your boss and you're going to serve your kids and you're going to serve society and you're going to serve money and cultural norms and your reputation. And it's just going to wear you out. That's why one of my favorite ayat in the Quran, Allah Azza wa Jal gives examples for this and He says فضرب الله مثلاً رجلاً فيه شركاء متشاكسون ورجلاً سلاماً لرجلٍ هل يستويان مثلاً الحمد لله بل أكثرهم لا يعلمون He said Allah strikes an example. Those who serve Allah will serve Allah. This is the example. This is the example of a man who's owned by many partners. Imagine with a slave, like a human slave, human slavery.
A person who is owned by many masters and a person who is solely owned by one owner. Can they ever equate? الحمد لله. Praise be to Allah. This is the example of the Muslim. We are slaves and Allah is the master, but he's not the slave master that jumps in your head when you think of the ordeal of jackal slavery in the African American experience. But still, imagine having all of these things owning you. You're dependent on them and their pleasure and fearful of them, their fear, all of them simultaneously. Imagine a slave that's owned by six guys. One of them tells him, I'm going to get you my tea. And he's going to get him his tea. And the other guy says, I said to you get me my shoes an hour ago. And he goes and grabs his shoes. And he grabs his shoes and he says, did I tell you to get me my tea? And this is just like a micro example of this. We're all like that. We're just torn and so straining on our psychology, our emotionality, everything. And a person who's just owned by one, only takes orders from one. الحمد لله. Praise be to Allah who did not hand us off to anybody else, who didn't give anyone else ownership over us. If you want to give someone else ownership of yourself after Allah spared you of that, then Allah is praiseworthy. And we can only blame ourselves then. الحمد لله. Praise be to Allah. بَلْ أَكْفَرُهُمْ لَا يَعْلَمُونَ. Rather most of them do not know. You know, even I remember, I used to watch lots of Jim Carrey growing up. Now I'm not approving of movies. Jim Carrey used to say that I wish everybody would get rich and famous and get to Hollywood and realize that's not what you think. You know the names of the people that used to make you smile and make you cry and entertain you and make you laugh and the comedians and they would take their own lives.
They would go through the most vicious, the most vicious cycles of society's bullying and society's standards and all of that. The people that were the most rich and famous, they were the least happy with their lives. But at the same time, they couldn't let go. Can you imagine being more miserable? Something destroys you and you can't give it up. It's tearing you apart, but you can't think of forsaking it. That's called an addiction. Allah spared us of the shackles of those addictions, all of them, by plucking you out of there and saying, I'm certain. That's why the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, Da'i sa'ab l-dina, da'i sa'ab, miserable is the slave of the gold coin, miserable is the slave, they called him a slave, right? The slave of the silver coin, miserable is the slave of fashion, miserable is the slave of fabrics and trends. The next way is that Ibad is the foundation for us being truly principled, truly moral human beings. Without singling out where you get your morality from, yes? Without singling out who the authority is in your life. And without singling out also something separate, where you look to for appreciation, for being moral, without that all being for Allah, only for Allah, you will never be truly moral, nor will you be truly consistent on whatever you assume is moral. Was that a bit too much? You need those two things. My morals come from Him, He's the best to determine them, subhanahu wa ta'ala. And my perception, the only perception I care of is how Allah perceives me, subhanahu wa ta'ala, nobody else. And so that's my self-image. Morality is as defined by Allah.
And regard, value, appreciation is truly valuable when it comes from Allah. You involving yourself day in and day out in Ibadah, ritual devotion, all the other kinds of expressions of your love of Allah, commitment to Allah, that reminds you of that identity of yours of being a abid, right? Being a servant of God. Your Ibadah reminds you of you being a abid. Think of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam, he taught us part of our Ibadah is every morning before the sun comes up, and every evening before the sun sets for us to say, and he said whoever says this in the morning or the evening while certain in it and dies that morning or dies that evening, will be admitted to paradise. This is called Sayyiduna Astaghfar, right? The master or chief or most superior way to ask for forgiveness. But what would he say, just the self-image? Allahumma anta rabbi, O Allah, You are my Lord and Master. La ilaha illa anhu, nobody worthy of our devotion, our worship, our recognition but You. Khalaqtani wa ana abiduk, You created me and I am Your servant. Wa ana ala ahdika wa wa'dika mistadhaq, and I am upon, working upon, adhering to my promise and my covenant with You, my contract with You as best I can. A'udhu bika min sharri mas sana'a, I seek refuge in You from all the evils I have done. Abu'u laka bin'amatika alayya, I turn to You admitting Your favors over me. Wa abu'u bilanbi, and I turn to You admitting my crimes, admitting my sins. Faghfir li, so forgive me. Fa innahu la yakhulu thunuba ila anz, for nobody forgives sins but You. What does that do for someone's self-image about how they see themselves and their relationship with the rest of the world? Also, this is really important too, you being moral is not just you being moral to other human beings, that's for sure a part of it. But you recognizing Allah and recognizing yourself as a subject of Allah is the most fundamental aspect of morality. Because think about it, even if you were good with everybody, you didn't wreak havoc in the world, you didn't corrupt the world,
but you refused to recognize this world belongs to Allah and He has rights upon us, not just people that have rights. The Creator for sure is greater than creation, right? Right or wrong? Like can you imagine someone, imagine this, this is the example we give in the paper, I can't think. Imagine someone enters a mansion without permission, right? And he just begins strolling through the mansion, going to one room and just eating all the awesome food, going to another room, you know, just checking out the view, waterfall in front of it, and going to a third room, the spa, and like getting a massage on his toes, you know. And as they're getting the massage, the owner of the mansion comes in. What is this person supposed to at least do? Like get up, run, jump off the balcony, okay, problem. But at least say what? Show some sort of like regard that I concede to this being your house. Like oh I'm sorry, I didn't know this was your house. Like make up, do something, right? Recognize that they own the house. Yes? What if this person only said was, what? I didn't mess anything up? I didn't ruin anything? It's still clean, isn't it? Would that be acceptable? So even if you didn't ruin planet Earth and wreak corruption on private, refusing to recognize this is Allah's does not keep you qualified for being moral. And then in the hereafter, you being rewarded by Allah while not believing and accepting that He's the one that rewards would be a problem as well. Lots of people say like why do I have to enlist in Ibadah? Why do I have to be a person of Ibadah? Why do I have to be a person that surrenders to Allah, Islam, to be rewarded in the hereafter? Well simply put, Allah created the world, created you in the world, gave you the capacity to do good. Unless you give God credit for that, then you're kind of like plagiarizing your goodness. Do we reward people for plagiarizing? No, we convict them, right?
So this is of the necessity, especially and this will only apply of course to people who have heard about the message of Islam. For us, just to recognize how we look at morality, Ibadah is the foundation for morality. Recognizing God, recognizing who determines morality, and recognizing for our own consistency, whose respect, admiration, reward we're looking for when we are moral. The next one, because we're running out of time, 11 minutes left. This is that Ibadah refreshes our Iman, refreshes our faith. Like if you think of how Allah has self-registered his Deen, and let's reduce Ibadah a little bit just for a moment to ritual worship, is ritual devotion. You find that Allah has placed for you such a splendid cycle to keep you replenished, right? To keep your heart in tune with the reality of your existence, the reality of the creation. That fundamental relationship between you and the Creator, subhanahu wa ta'ala. And that's actually what keeps you going. That's what resists the grind, the grind, and it's such a grind, of going through this world and finding our faith eroded by all of the glitter, and all of the lies that we sell to ourselves, all of the doubts, and all of the desires that erode our faith. Our Ibadah is a beautiful cycle, a splendid cycle that keeps replenishing, keeps renewing our faith. That's another gift from Allah to us, that he gives us rest areas on our journey so we never get stranded. He gave that to us, subhanahu wa ta'ala. And we always need to say this, because sometimes the five prayers can be underestimated. The same way you cannot just push off your meals to the end of the week when you have time for that, you won't survive, right? You can't just push off your prayers to the end of the day or the end of your week. It doesn't work. You will be malnourished, you'll fall apart. And so Allah blessed you with this, and that's of the grace involved in giving us Ibadah.
So that's how many so far? Are you guys breathing? We only have nine minutes left. We have... The next one would be the sixth of our answers. We have three objections and then eight answers. The sixth of our answers is that Ibadah harmonizes human beings with the universe. Everyone wants to like, it's trending to be like a cool hipster that's like one with the universe and drinks the right kind of tea, right? Herbal teas and go the organic way. The whole universe involuntarily aligns with Allah's will. And then he gave you a degree of free reign. So you voluntarily aligning yourself with Allah's pleasure and His will, is going to mirror the rest of the universe already doing that. You're the X factor. And that's why people are just miserable when they look for being wholesome and balanced and all that stuff in the wrong places. You're going against the grain. You're going against the universe. Allah created the whole universe. It doesn't just surrender to Him. Allah subdued it for you so that you can fulfill Ibadah. When you ignore all of that, you can't expect to have like a life of stability and a life of peace and a life of productivity. It's not going to work. It'll be dysfunctional. So those are all Allah's grace. The last two answers I will give you quickly, inshallah. These are my favorite two answers. Perhaps, I don't know. Hard to pick. Is that Allah loves hearing and conversing with His servants, subhanahu wa ta'ala. Because a lot of people, they ask, why does God even want this? Because we have this perception that Ibadah is like a one-sided conversation, right? Like we're talking just one-sided and that's all that's happening. But it's actually so much more beautiful than that. Like Ibadah, as Allah tells us through the Quran and the authentic Sunnah, is like an intimate dialogue that happens with Allah, isn't it?
And that our devotion to Allah is met with just unimaginable mercy and affection from Him, subhanahu wa ta'ala. Even the hadith of al-Fatiha, how Allah splits al-Fatiha between Him and His servants and He responds after each and every verse of al-Fatiha. Or when the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, says that, I'll read you the whole hadith, I have to. أنا عند ضلل عبدي بي. I am whatever my servant expects of me. Talk about a two-way street. I am what my servant expects of me. و أنا معه إذا ذكراني. And I am with him when he remembers me. In another narration it says, و تحرّر بيش فتاة. And when his two lips, or her two lips, move with the mention of my name, I'm with them. He says, so if he remembers me within himself, I remember him within myself, meaning in front. And if he remembers me in a gathering, I remember him in a greater gathering than that. And when he comes to me, steps to me a hand span, I step to him a cubit, an arm's length. And if he comes to me an arm's length, I come to him a huge distance, a fathom, some translated. And if he comes to me, and if he comes to me walking, I come to him running. What is that? Why does Allah عز و جل do that? Because He loves that. That's who He is, سبحانه و تعالى. Like this man, even Allah, reciprocating endearment back and forth with the slaves. This is your supreme creator who has no need for you, loving to connect with you more than you love to connect with Him. And seeking more nearness to you than you're seeking with Him. And rushing to you faster than you rush with Him. So that's the ten of the responses. And the eleventh, the last of them, is that عبادة is the perfect exam question. So your life is an exam, right? And عبادة are the questions on the exam.
And so Allah created you for عبادة, right? And He sent His messengers, عليكم السلام, to tell you what that looks like. And He revealed the scriptures to delineate that for you. But He also created inside of you certain leanings, certain tendencies. He gave you some degree of free reign. With that free reign, you're going to decide. Some people are going to embrace عبادة and ascend using عبادة, they're going to climb the ladder of human excellence, ascend all the way to salvation and prosperity, in the truest sense, in the hereafter. And other people will reject عبادة and plummet because of that they're doing. And so عبادة is the gauge of your virtue, it tests your virtue. But if it's a test, there has to be a degree of difficulty, right? Or it's not a test, there has to be a little bit of difficulty. So here's how to make sense of the difficulty of the test of عبادة, the test of life. There's going to be difficulty because inborn inside of you is like the desire, the fondness for like relaxation and ease. But what Allah always tells us though is that avoiding the unease, avoiding the adversity of life or the adversity that comes with عبادة is actually very misleading. Like what this world demands of you is so much and the returns are so little. That's not really ease in the long term, right? Whereas what Allah asks of you عبادة is so little and the returns are so huge. So it's the easier road to take with the better outcome. That's why He chose عبادة for you, سبحانه وتعالى. And then عبادة if you analyze it ironically and philosophical on you, it's just so amazing. Because it has like a built-in intrinsic reward system, like a positive feedback loop. Like you pray to Allah one prayer and so that gives you like greater recognition, greater adoration of Allah.
And so that makes the next question of the exam, the next prayer, the next act of kindness even easier, right? Which gives you greater recognition of Allah. And so you do more, then you get more and you do more and you get more. You don't wait till the end for your payday, right? Even Ibn Taymiyyah used to say very beautifully that if you don't find any taste to your عبادة, then accuse your عبادة, accuse your actions, the quality of your actions. He says فإن رب شكور because Allah is way to appreciate. Meaning to wait for the hereafter for a reward. Allah عز و جل will give you a first installment here to keep you going till you get what you can never imagine in the hereafter. And also عبادة is amazing from a built-in feedback loop, positive feedback loop, intrinsic reward system, but also from another angle it's amazing. It has a rational appeal, right? Like a عبادة isn't just, technically you could have said, listen, life's a test, here's your test. Okay? See that big boulder? See that big mountain? Put the big boulder on top of the big mountain. And every time it falls down, bring it back up. And every time it falls down, bring it up again. Does that have a rational appeal to you? That, the pain involved in that, even psychologically, I'm like, ah! And the pointlessness of that would make so many more people rebel against this. But Allah عز و جل is telling you, do the right thing, what you know is the right thing, what makes sense, what makes your world better for you, and the world and everybody around you, for you. And that's what I want from you. So even these little bits of adversity, it's just that in reality when you look at it, it's an amazing opportunity to get bursts of Allah's mercy in your life. And these subtle sweetness in your life that you're not going to find anywhere else. And at the end, let us also say about عبادة being the question on the exam,
Allah is not indifferent. Like, He couldn't care either way. He's not indifferent about how you answer this exam. Like, this all shows you, doesn't it? Allah desires for His creation mercy. He desires for His creation rahmah. I mean, think about it. If Allah needed our actions, or forget that, we're past Allah needed our actions. If Allah didn't care whether we're rewarded or not, would He have given us reward for just the intentions? Would He have done that? I haven't done anything, I just decided to do something. Right or wrong? Would it be that me saying سبحان الله و بحمده, saying سبحان الله و بحمده a hundred times, would get all my sins forgiven? Would it be that me saying سبحان الله a hundred times gives me one thousand good deeds? Would the odds be stacked in our favor? Would me thinking about Allah deeply, just a moment of reflection, a momentary reflection, be rewarded for that? For eternity, forever, in Jannah, just a passing thought? Or a deliberate passing thought, a momentary thought? He wishes for us guidance, He wishes for us mercy, He wishes for us success. And that's why the exam questions are so easy and so rewarding and so fulfilling and so motivating. I'll end with the ayah in Surah Maryam, and Allah, as-Salaatu wa Jal says رَبُّ السَّمَالَ فَعَبُّتِهُمْ So worship Him, وَاصْطَغْرِ لِعِبَادَتِ And be very pursuant, enduring upon that عبادة. Let that be your number one at all times. وَاصْطَغْرِ Show great resolve upon that عبادة. هَلْ تَعْلَمُ لَهُ سَمِيَّةً Do you know anything like Him? سبحانه وتعالى. Anyone, anything comparable to Him, so He deserves it?
And He has given it to us as an opportunity, and He loves that we connect with Him more than we love to connect with Him. And He has made it so easy. فَعْبُدْهُ وَاصْطَغْرِ لِعِبَادَتِ JazakAllah khairan wa salallahu alayhi wa sallam wa rahmatullah wa barakatuhu. Al Fatiha.
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