Keeping Connected with the Qur'an
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Allah is the Light of the Heavens and the Earth | Qur'anic Parables Episode 3
Tune in for the third episode of Qur'anic Parables with Dr. Omar Suleiman, Dr. Osman Umarji, and Ustadha Tesneem Alkeik.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. I've been going through these parables in the Qur'an and there has been a connection as you've seen thus far with this concept of light, the light of the believer. And we wanted to continue along the same lines when talking about this concept of nur. And when we started off, we talked about the light of sincerity versus the light of hypocrisy. And we continued along that same trend. We're talking about how Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gives life to dead earth and the possibility of reconnecting to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and resurrecting a dead heart, resuscitating a dead heart. And inshallah ta'ala tonight we're going to continue along the same lines speaking about the verse of nur, speaking about the verse of light. And alhamdulillah wa barak to all of you. I'm joined of course by Ustada Tasneem Al-Qeer and Dr. Uthman Omarji and inshallah ta'ala tonight Ustada Tasneem is going to start us off by giving us the context for which this ayah shows up inshallah ta'ala and then I'll continue talking about the parable itself and Dr. Uthman will give us some reflections on a day-to-day some greater practical manifestations of this bid'ah in our own life. So inshallah ta'ala I'm gonna go ahead and hand it off to Ustada Tasneem. Salam alaikum everyone and welcome back to a new week. As Shaykh Omar mentioned we are talking still about this concept of nur. And in fact the parable, the method that we're talking about, the ayah that we're talking about today is often referred to as ayat nur. That the verse of nur, the verse of light, of guidance, whatever you know word we use to to translate what nur is. And it's actually in the surah of nur. It's surah 24, the verse we're referring to is verse 35. I'll let both Shaykh Omar and Shaykh Uthman go into the details of what this parable is like, but for the purposes of our context, it's important to know what it's generally about. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, Allahu nuru al-samawati wal-ard.
That Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is the nur, He is the light, He is the guidance, He is everything. You know this sight, this light of what the both the heavens and the earth. And it goes on to talk about the parable of how we can understand, how we can even sort of try to grasp, to conceptualize what that means, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala being that nur. And the ayah ends, yahdillahu linoorihi man yashaa. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will guide whoever whom He wills to that nur. Again, we see this association between huda, between guidance and nur. That this idea, the concept of having that light, having that inner sight that comes with that light is guidance. Now as I mentioned, ayat al-nur, this verse of nur, comes in the chapter of nur. And that essentially the surah was named after this verse. So what does this tell us? This tells us that basically the ayah is sort of the centerpiece of the surah. So much so that the whole chapter is named surah al-nur. So when we have that in mind, we're thinking as we read through all of the ayats, we read throughout the entire surah, we're going to, there's going to be this theme, this reoccurring theme, just as the chapter title tells us of nur. So pretend you don't know surah al-nur at all. You've never read it before, you're not really sure, you know, what's going to come. If I told you that this whole surah is going to somehow revolve around this concept of nur, what would you think? We're thinking about the same things we've been talking about the past few weeks. We're talking about guidance, we're talking about light, we're talking about hudah, we're talking about, you know, coming out of darkness into this nur. What are some of the ayats you would think about? You would probably think about, at least, and again, this is me thinking, if you're thinking along the same lines as I am, you'd think, okay, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is going to give us examples to reflect on the world, to, you know, think about things, how life grows.
He's going to, you know, talk about how Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is, you know, the source of our happiness. He's going to be talking about His mercy, all of these different concepts that I personally would associate with nur, with this idea of hudah, of light, right? More of like these feel-good topics that really motivate us to be, to search for that nur and to ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for it. And if you get the gist of what I'm saying is that you, in the context of now this ayah, with this in mind, thinking about what nur, what would that entail, what type of examples and ayat that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala would give, setting this, I say that all to set the stage for what surah to nur actually is. Now, as any surah with legal verses, surah nur is one of my favorite surahs, and you know, again, you're prepared coming in with this idea of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is going to be talking about nur, He's going to be talking about ways we can obtain this nur. And what is He, how do you start this surah? What's the first ayah? Surat an-anzalnaaha, a surah that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, we brought down, wa faradnaaha, that you know, we made essentially like obligatory. We're bringing this for you to follow through with. Surat an-anzalnaaha wa faradnaaha, feeha ayati mubayyinat. We're bringing clear signs, all building up, right? All building up to that momentum. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is going to give us those ayats, those ways of clarifying how we can obtain this nur. la'allakum tadhakkaroon. So that you can, you know, you can really think about this, reflect. All of these ayat that are about to come are going to be signs of manifestations of how to reach that nur. What's the very second verse in the surah? al-zaniyatu wa al-zaniyatu fajridu kulla wahidin minhumi'at al-jalla. The adult fornicator, you know, the female fornicator, the male fornicator, the male adulterer, adulteress, whoever commits zina, what's the punishment for them? You lash them a certain amount of times. Now that whole page is
all about this. Rules, laws, you know, what do you do if you, you know, you catch your spouse cheating on you, committing adultery, committing this massive crime, breaking apart a family, all of these really heavy topics. The whole page going through testimony, oaths, court procedure, heavy, heavy topics. Move on to the second page. What's the very first ayah on the top of the second page? inna allatheena ja'u bilifki usbatu minkum. We're now talking about the famous story of Aisha allahu anha, where she essentially was accused of what? Adultery. This is at the time when she was married to the Prophet ﷺ, she was facing this accusation. That entire page, second page of surah an-Nur, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is going through all of, you should have done this and this is the procedure and this is, you need this many witnesses and if this occurs, these are the legal ramifications. Tough ayahs, right? Continue all the way up until the methad, the verse that we're talking about today, right now, you know, plethora of legal verses. You have the ayahs of kullil mu'mineen yaghuddu min absarin. Tell the believing man to lower their gaze. Tell the believing woman to lower their gaze and this is how they should dress and this is whom they should cover from. Again, all of these ayahs that are legal in nature. And one thing that's, and just to wrap up as to how this is connected, within all of these legal ayahs that go by the way, all the way up until right before the ayah of an-Nur, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, four separate occasions ends these ayahs saying, walaw la fadlullahi alaykum warahmatuhu. If it wasn't for the bounty of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, the graciousness of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, the mercy of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, you wouldn't have been able to purify yourselves. How, you know, how would you be able to repent? How, you know, you can't reach a state of repentance, a perfection, a purification,
if it wasn't for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's fadl, His bounty and His rahma, His mercy. So all of this, I bring, I say this all to really put into context the ayah of Nur. Now you have this ayah saying, Allahu nurus samawati wal-ard. How, you know, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is the light, He's the guidance of the heavens and the earth and He brings His guidance to anyone whom He wills. Immediately what you would think, again, you would assume that the build-up would be, you know, okay, well, how are these legal verses talking about like this guidance, this hudah, this nur? And it really, it's about dismantling this idea that, you know, actually I should say reconstructing this idea that the shari'ah, the legal rules, the fiqh, all of these things that we've unfortunately sometimes associated, you know, made negative connotations with, that all of these are manifestations of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's nur. They're manifestations of His light, of His guidance, His mercy, His bounty, that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is bringing us these laws, these rules, all in order to bring us guidance, to bring us hudah. And it's something, I think it's just a way to really reconceptualize our understanding of the shari'ah, of laws, that really Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala could have put them in any other surah, these, you know, very heavy ayats, but it's in a surah of nur, of light, of guidance, right before the most powerful, one of the most powerful parables in the Quran, talking about Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, how He is that source of light and of guidance. And so it's really important that based, you know, just as Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has associated the goodness, the mercy, the beauty in these legal verses, that we too make that association. And we appreciate the laws, the wisdom behind everything that has been granted, that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala knows what's best for us.
And that when it comes to, you know, the way we structure our lives, the way we understand the shari'ah, the fiqh, the laws, everything like that, that we do so in a way that we appreciate them, that these, again, are something that bring us closer to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, and are our means of manifesting that nur and that guidance. And with that, I'll go ahead and pass it along, inshallah. BarakAllahu fikih. I think that's a wonderful, subhanAllah, situating of the ayah. Why? Because, you know, when you start to say Allah is the light of the heavens and the earth, that means that the guidance of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is the light of society as well. And so when society clings to Allah's guidance, then they experience nur, they experience light. And when they turn away from Allah's guidance, they experience dhulma, they experience darkness upon darkness. And that has many ramifications and many implications. So before I get to this ayah, in the few minutes that I have, I'm going to cover the most frequently commented upon ayah in the Qur'an, according to some scholars, is actually this ayah. And so the tafsir of this ayah is rich, because every single word has a deep connotation. But I really want to connect it to the very first parable that we started off with, which was the hypocrites and their nur, and then the believers and their nur on the day of judgment, the light of the hypocrites and then the light of the believers. And we said that the hypocrites and the first mathal, the first parable that we have in the Qur'an, the hypocrites kindle this fire and they make use of the light, but they don't take or they don't accept the consequences of belief, the hardship of belief. But instead, they merely try to exploit the benefits of belief when that is when that's open to them and when they can use that to gain worldly benefits. And then on the day of judgment, what they experience is that the light has been taken away and the only thing left is the heat of the fire.
And the fire and the hereafter is far worse than the fire of this world. The believers, on the other hand, experience the fire of belief in this life, which means that they deal with the consequences, readily accept the consequences of accepting the truth in this life. And on the day of judgment, all they have is nur, all they have is light stretching forth before them that guides them to the ultimate place of light, Jannatul Firdos biidhnahi ta'ala, the highest level of paradise. So that light of sincerity. Right. And so they were concealing it, and it really was something that they invested in in this life. They put a lot of currency in secret good deeds and deeds from which they would only benefit from on the day of judgment. Right. So Sadaqatul Sirr, the secret charity, the prayer in the depths of the night, Qiyamul Layl. So they see that light on the day of judgment. The Prophet ﷺ mentioning that there is a Bushra, a glad tidings of a far stretching light on the day of judgment for those who used to walk to the masjid in the dark. Right. So there they are on the day of judgment with this light. So this light in this life is guidance and guidance in clinging to the nur of ilm, the light of knowledge that Allah ﷻ has revealed to us through the Qur'an and through the practice of the Prophet ﷺ. And it is guidance on the day of judgment. It lights the path all the way until we reach that promised place of paradise. That's also, by the way, a deep connection to the hadith of the Prophet ﷺ, where he described the seeker of knowledge, that he who takes a path of knowledge, Allah ﷻ will facilitate for him the path to paradise. Imam Malik, he said, لَيْسَ الْعِلْمُ كَثْرَةً رِوَيَاتً He said, knowledge is not compiling numerous narrations. It's not compiling memorized text. But he said, it is nurun yaj'aluhu Allah fi qalb al mu'min.
It is a light that Allah ﷻ places in the heart of the believer. That's true ilm, that's true knowledge. It's not information. It is what you mix of that information with a ready heart, an accepting heart, a submitting heart that then leads to actions of light and inspired actions, where we find from the enlightened path of the Prophet ﷺ before us. So why do I set up this parable this way? Allah starts off with, اللَّهُ نُورُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ Allah is the light of the heavens and the earth. You cannot gain light in your life until you properly understand who the source of light is. Similar to when we finish salah, we say, اللَّهُمَّ أَنتَ السَّلَامُ وَمِنكَ السَّلَامُ Allah, you are a salam, you are peace, and from you is peace. Then we can give peace, we can spread peace to everything that's around us when we understand who the source of that peace is. So, you know, there are multiple hadith where the Prophet ﷺ mentioned, اللَّهُمَّ أَنتَ نُورُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ Allah, to you belongs all praise. You are the light of the heavens and the earth. Or the Prophet ﷺ specifically sought refuge in the light of Allah's face from the darkness of this world and the darkness that presents itself. بِنُورِ وَجْهِكِ Right? So this is something that we find from the Messenger ﷺ. So, اللهُ نُورُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ So, Allah is the light of the heavens and the earth. Abdullah bin Mas'ud radiAllahu ta'ala anhu, he commented on this and he said that there is no night or day, no layl or nahar with your Lord, no night or day with your Lord. The light of the throne comes from the light of His face and everything is lit from His light subhanahu wa ta'ala. His hijab is nur subhanahu wa ta'ala. His veil is light subhanahu wa ta'ala. But in the deeper sense here that Allah is the source of guidance.
And then, مَثَلُ نُورِهِ The parable of His light. The ulema differed here, but it will have the same, it will actually have the same meaning or the same benefit to us. But the ulema differed here as to who nuriH is referring to. Is it His light as in Allah's light? Or is it His light as in nurul mu'min, the light of the mu'min, the light of the believer? And that's a technical debate that you'll find in the books of tafsir. But the benefit of it is still that the source of light is Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And what Allah is to describe now in terms of this misbah, this lamp, this torch of light is the heart of the believer. Okay, is the heart of the believer. So Allah says the example of His light is like a niche and within it is a lamp. Within it is a lamp, المصباح في زجاجة. And then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says that this lamp is in glass, a precious glass. And the glass is as if it was a brilliant star lit from a blessed tree, a blessed olive tree, لا شرقية ولا غربية, neither of the east nor of the west. Some of the scholars, they commented on this. They said because a tree of the east primarily receives sunlight in the morning and a tree of the west primarily receives sunlight in the evening. So as the sun is setting. So this is a tree that is exposed to light all day long. It is always being nurtured by light. And then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala mentions يَكَادُ زَيْتُهَا يُضِّيءُ that its oil would glow forth in and of itself. وَلَوْ لَمْ تَمْسَسْهُ نَارٌ Even if fire was not to touch it, نُورٌ عَلَى نُورٍ Light upon light. So let's go ahead and give this example or visualize this parable for a moment inshaAllah. The niche is in the wall. Okay, so there's this chamber that exists. And some of the scholars, they say that of the benefits of that
is that in the chest of every person is the potential of a living heart. Allah did not create a human being that has the sense and the comprehension and the faculties to be guided except that there's the potential of guidance there. And so the niche is there. The place of that heart is there. The chamber of the chest is there. And then it is this precious glass, this precious covering that exists. And then within it is this very special lamp. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala talks about this lamp, this precious misbah, which is the heart of the believer that has in it a zayt. It has in it an oil that already exists that if the fire were to touch it, then you would see light upon light. But the zayt already, the oil already has light. And this is where I want to stop for a moment. You know, the Prophet ﷺ talked about the different types of hearts. We elaborated a little bit on that last week when we were talking about how Allah ﷻ gives life to a dead heart. And when the Prophet ﷺ talked about in one hadith, qalb al mu'min, the heart of the believer, the Prophet ﷺ said, qalb al ajrad, a heart that is full, feehi mithlu siraj yazhar, that it has in it this radiating lamp. It has in it this radiating lamp, subhanAllah. Every time I see Siraj Wahaj, I love that name, right? Imam Siraj, right? Siraj is a radiating lamp, subhanAllah. So the Prophet ﷺ described the heart of the believer as a full heart. Full of what? Full of the dhikr of Allah ﷻ, full of the pursuit of truth, full of ibadat al qulub, the worship of the heart, looking for Allah ﷻ, desiring good. And so that is a heart that is ready to receive guidance.
It is looking for nasiha, it's looking for advice, it's looking for admonition, it's looking for a healthy environment, it's looking for Allah, it's in pursuit of Allah ﷻ. The heart is ready to receive. And so what is Allah ﷻ talking about here? Many of the scholars, they say that the zayt, the oil here, is the fitrah, is that pure, pure, pure. Pure pursuit of Allah ﷻ, that natural disposition to Allah. Meaning this is a person who already has, they've opened their hearts to truth. So they're the opposite of, wa qalu qulubuna ghulf, bal la'nahum Allahu bi-kufrihim. They said that our hearts are covered, our hearts are protected from guidance. They're opposite of, falamma zaghu, azaag Allahu quluba. When they turned away, Allah turned their hearts away. These are people whose hearts are ready for guidance because they are actively seeking the origin, they're seeking the fitrah. The fitrah is zayt, it's like an oil and Allah says this oil is so powerful that it could guide even without the fire touching it. It would radiate even without the fire touching it. Who do I think of by the way? I think of, if any of you watched the first series or you heard his story elsewhere, the story of Zayd ibn Amr ibn Nufayl, wadiAllahu ta'ala anhu. You know a man who did not live to see the wahi of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, the revelation of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, but who was so in touch with his fitrah, so in touch with the natural pursuit of truth that he was looking for the God of Abraham, the God of Ibrahim Alayhi Salaam. Knew that there is no way that these idols were divine, knew that there was only one God, kana yata hannath, who would worship in an Abrahamic way, who went around the world looking for that one God, who looked for it in the Torah and in the Injil, who by nature
of being in touch with his fitrah, you know, rejected the sacrifice to the idols before the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam received revelation, rejected the burial of young girls alive before, waitha al maooda tu su'ilat bi aitha bin qutilat, before the verse came down. His fitrah was not comfortable with what he was seeing. And so the heart, if it is sound, if it is in pursuit of guidance, subhanAllah, then it will be guided naturally towards ways of good. And then the revelation comes and it's like the fire hitting the zayt, right? yakadu zaytuha yudhi, walaw lam tamsas hu naar, and then that revelation comes and you see subhanAllah nurun ala nur, light upon light, the light of revelation upon the light of fitrah, the light of natural faith, that disposition, the people that want truth. You want to know what nurun ala nur looks like? Look at Umar radiAllahu anhu when Islam hits him, right? And what was he like? What we talked about last week, right? wa kana maytan fa ahyaynahum waja'alna lahum nuran. He was dead and we gave him life and by which he was given a light to navigate with and to guide others through that light. Nurun ala nur, so the light hits the light and then you see an inspired individual, you see a person that loves this truth, that loves the Quran. That's why Uthman radiAllahu anhu, he mentioned that if the heart was healthy, that if a person is in a good place with their heart, then that person would never become tired from the recitation of the Quran, for example. That when the hearts are right, then they are oriented towards Allah, then what comes from Allah of the guidance from the Quran and then from the sunnah of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam, which is also divine guidance, right? In action, the heart is looking for those things.
So Allah gives you this special heart that if it is good, everything else is good. It lights up everything around, it lights up, it gives life to your limbs to act in accordance with that guidance, light to your tongue, right? To speak in accordance with that guidance, light to your ears to hear in accordance with that guidance. So the heart is given life through that nur of Allah's guidance, through that nur of revelation and you see an entirely different person, subhanAllah, as if a person came back from the dead and now has life. And I want you to imagine subhanAllah, if you were to live in that generation of the companions of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam, who saw the darkest of Jahiliyya and then the peak of the light of Islam and the presence of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wasalam and what that had led to in their lives and how it had transformed them, subhanAllah. The last thing I'll say as a fa'idah here, as a benefit here inshaAllah ta'ala, is when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is talking about this nur, we were talking about how on the day of judgment the believers have light on their hands, light in front of them, light all around them, right? And the believers tell the hypocrites, go back, and kindle your light in that life once again. What is inaccessible to the people is the heart. Taqwa ha'huna, taqwa is here, piety is here, right? True guidance is here. A person could front with their sadaqah, they could front with their going to the masjid more often, they could front with so much, they could front, they could put on this image, right? But what's here? And there is no way that a heart of light will have dark action, right? Or will have actions that are to the opposite of that, right? Uninspired actions. But a person could portray light and have none of it here.
And so what is the light that you have here, right? How are you receiving that guidance? To then act upon it with good, and to then inspire the world around you as well with that good. We ask Allah to make our fitrah sound, to make our pursuit from our heart sound, and then to allow us to receive revelation through the most sound ways, and then to act in the most sound ways, and then to inspire in accordance with the most sound way of the Prophet ﷺ, the sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ. Allahumma ameen. And with that inshallah ta'ala I'll hand it off to Dr. Ismail. Jazakumullahu khair, bismillah wa salatu wa salamu ala rasool Allah wa ala aali wa sahbih wa anwal wa laa. Jazakumullahu khair Dr. Umar. SubhanAllah, a couple of things that came to my mind. The first is that this idea of Allahu nuru s-sama'ati wal-ardul-layl. SubhanAllah, every human being depends on the sun. Every plant depends on the sun. And it is only by the sun, the nur of the sun, that we actually are able to see the world physically with our eyes. So Allah's nur through the sun that he gives us illuminates the physical world. And this ayah reminds me that the same way the nur of wahi is what illuminates the metaphysical world for us. We cannot see anything from the spiritual world without accepting that nur of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And of course he's a source of both. One of the benefits I see from this ayah is to think about that parable of the glass that Allah gives in this ayah. That it's a glass and that glass has the lamp inside of it. And so one of the things that I found to be a beautiful explanation about this was that a glass, what's unique about it is that it has, it's what's covering the nur. And the glass is both firm, it's solid, and also it's transparent. And it's transparent in that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is telling us that we need to have clean hearts, a clean covering around our hearts to allow the nur to go inside.
And it also needs to be clean in order for the nur within our hearts to emanate outside and to change society and to help and guide others. But this point of firmness as well in one of the tafasir was mentioned that Allah mentions that there's a glass around this light because if there's not glass around the lamp that's burning the wind can blow at it and it could turn off that lamp. And so I think about this in regards to how our light could be diminished if we don't have that covering around it. And I'm reminded of that statement of Ibn Taymiyyah rahimullah that he told Ibn Qayyim where he said that do not let your heart be a sponge for every doubt and every kind of allegation that it absorbs them like one after another. He said instead make your heart like a solid glass. And that's literally what this ayah is saying. Make your heart, you know, it's got to be a solid glass so that way anything that is from, that which is doubtful or ambiguous, it just glides over the surface but it never settles inside of that heart. So thus the heart sees the doubts from the outside but never allows them inside. And so that is one aspect that I thought was amazing that we be careful about what kind of barriers do we put around the nur in our life. You mentioned this earlier. What are we listening to? So practical things. We don't want that fire of iman to be blown out because it can at any moment in time if we don't respect it and we don't continue to feed it with the proper fuel. So what are our eyes, do we ever lift that glass by exposing our eyes to things that we shouldn't or our ears by listening to things we shouldn't or our tongues. Surah an-Nur, Dr. Tasneem you mentioned this beautifully. The whole surah is about people who spoke inappropriately and how that is a huge impediment to the nur of Allah coming into our hearts and that nur of Allah will never come out of our hearts if our tongues are not conscious of what they say. So they're just some of the things I think about that just protecting, take that analogy of glass very seriously. Polish it with dhikr of Allah. Polish it by being conscious of what you read, what you watch, what you listen to, what you
touch, what you eat. Because of course we know as Allah says in the same surah, وَمَلَّمْ يَعْلِ اللَّهُ لَهُ نُورٌ فَمَا لَهُ مِن نُّورٍ Because if Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala does not give us that nur, does not give us that light then we will have absolutely no light anywhere to find. I'll close with one last point and that is Tasneem you brought this point of in surah Nur, its commands, its prohibitions, its ahkam, its fara'id, its la la la and people often think that nur is all about just spirituality. And of course it's part of it but following the laws of Islam is the most obvious direct way of following the nur of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And I'm reminded of the statement of al-Izz ibn Abdus Salam, the great scholar. This is probably my favorite statement I've heard any faqih say, scholar. He said that every command that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala sends to us in the revelation is either good for us in this life, the next life, or in both lives. And every prohibition of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is either bad for us in this life, or the next life, or in both lives. And so that really is the nur that we're trying to encapsulate in our life. I ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to illuminate our hearts and to protect them from ever having the light extinguished. Subhanallah rabbika rabbal izzati wa alami yusufoon, wa salamun ala al mursaleen, walhamdulillah rabbil alamin. Alhamdulillah, barakAllah fikir shaykh. Ustad Tasneem, I'll hand it back to you. Have anything you'd like to share? I know I talk too long, I guess. I hope you didn't shorten your comments because of me. No, no, no. Alhamdulillah. I just want to add, I think, what it's one practical reality is in the ayat that follow immediately after this, you know, quite lengthy ayat, almost half a page, it essentially talks about where that nur manifests. So the ayah that follows the parable says, fee buyootin adheenallahu an yunfa'awu thkira. So in, you know, the houses of worship, in the homes of worship, where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's name is raised and praised and talking about, okay, this is the location. And one of my favorite ayat to write afterwards, rijalun la tulheein tijaratun wala bay'un an dhikrillah.
That these are people, those who have nur in their hearts, those who really have that nur, la tulheein tijaratun, they are not distracted by anything. It doesn't matter if they've got money in the stocks, they've got, you know, business to go to, they have school, they have things, nothing is going to stop them from that dhikr Allah, from iqamah al-salah, from ita'u al-zakah, from praying and giving your zakah and doing what, number one, your obligations, so following the laws, but also an dhikr Allah, just remembering Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, remembering that, who is, you know, the purpose really of our lives and all of this stuff, and our source of guidance. And I think there's honestly, there's just so much I could say about this specific ayah, but one sort of practical takeaway that I always think about reading this is that there's so many, like the whole concept of FOMO, like the fear of missing out, is so like, you know, it's like, so contrary to what, you know, is expected of us, right? Because so many times we put aside our, you know, school obligations, our life obligations, all of these different things, and almost always at the very bottom of the list is our religious obligations in order to, you know, watch a movie with friends, go hang out, do things that, you know, if we can just, you know, train ourselves and create that willpower in us, that no distraction, nothing that comes up, no text message, no social media invite, no whatever it is that says, hey, you want to come hang out, you want to do these things, things that don't, again, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, tijaratun wala bay'a, trade, selling, things that are halal, they're permissible for us, but even that, like we set limits to even what's permissible, so we're never distracted from our ultimate goal of our salah, of our ita, and so one thing that, you know, and this explains why I was canceling people, I tried to like, you know, really, even if I have nothing else to do, that it's okay to, you know, hold back on certain activities to trade, really for that, just training that
willpower to say, you know, no, for when that time comes up, you know salah's going to come at the time that movie's playing or you're going out to dinner or whatever it is, or that you want to start memorizing the Quran, and everyone always, you know, asks me like, how, you know, how can you consistently memorize the Quran? It's mind-boggling to people that you just have to choose one certain time of day and be consistent with it, because we let all of our other worldly priorities always come at, you know, something else comes up, a meeting comes up, school comes up, we're going to always fill in those gaps of time in order to pursue other things. All this goes to say is that you want to be among those, that true nude in your heart is that you have that willpower to not get distracted, to have that focus and really keep your eyes on the prize. And so hopefully that's something that you can remind yourself next time you get an invite to hang out. So it sounded like you said you cancel people. You cancel on people or you cancel people? We'll have another episode about cancel culture, right? Dr. Uthman, anything else you want to share? I just want the idea that popped into my mind, which was this idea that, you know, Allah who knows, I think today we live in an age of, in America, a lot of Islamophobia. There's a lot of fear that, you know, all this negative speech about Islam, like what will it do? You know, how will it impact the image of Islam? And I'm reminded by that verse, Allah says, that just to give the parable that Allah is truly the light of the heavens and the earth. Like nobody ever worries that the sun is not going to rise because someone tried to cover it unless you watch the Simpsons and Mr. Burns put up that thing to cover up the sun. Right. But even that, like, you know, it's, you cannot fathom, no one can cover the light of the sun. Right. And no one can cover the nur of wahi. No Fox news, you know, no Islamophobes. And that should give us a sense of peace and a sense of tranquility that Allah will preserve
this faith and its nur will manifest through every single house, through every single city. And that should give us a tremendous amount of confidence and comfort. And so I'll close with that. JazakAllah Khair. JazakAllah Khair. And, you know, one last thing, SubhanAllah, Allah removes them from darknesses to light. Allah did not say anwar, Allah said nur. So it's only one light, but many forms of darkness. And so there are many forms of darkness, whether they present themselves in the way of distraction or in the way of sin or in the way of alternative paths or suggested paths to happiness and joy and fulfillment. But there's only one nur of guidance and that's the nur of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. So we ask Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala to grant us that nur. We ask Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala to bestow that nur in our hearts, to bestow it in our actions, to allow our hearts to be fit always for guidance, to be in pursuit of guidance and to make us amongst those that are guided and guiding at all times and are on the day of judgment amongst those with a light in their hearts, a light in front of them, a light stretching far in front of them until we reach that ultimate abode of Jannat al-Firdos in the presence of the one whom Allah sent a slight through Muhammad Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Allahumma ameen. JazakumAllahu khayran for a beautiful episode. I enjoyed both of your reflections and inshallah ta'ala we'll see you all next week for a Quranic or last episode of Quranic parables next week inshallah. But please do tune in tomorrow inshallah ta'ala as the keeping connected with the Quran program continues. So inshallah ta'ala that's going to be going on Monday through Friday for the next two weeks inshallah. JazakumAllahu khayran. Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.
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