Keeping Connected with the Qur'an
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How Allah Gives Life to Dead Hearts | Qur'anic Parables Episode 2
Tune in for the second episode of Qur'anic Parables with Dr. Omar Suleiman, Dr. Osman Umarji, and Ustadha Tesneem Alkiek.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. As-salamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh everyone. Welcome back to Parables of the Qur'an. Alhamdulillah, every night we are reflecting Monday through Friday on a different element of the Qur'an. And this is of course the first program of the week and it's one that allows us to reflect deeply on the amthal in the Qur'an, on the parables in the Qur'an, which Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gives to us. And those parables offer infinite opportunity for reflection. And inshallah ta'ala as we spoke last week about hypocrisy and sincerity and the importance of having that light kindled, today we're going to talk about what opportunity looks like to come back to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala even from a far away distance from him. And inshallah ta'ala with that I'm going to hand it off to Ustad Tasneem Al-Qeet and she'll talk about the context and the parable bint Allahi ta'ala that we'll be covering tonight. As-salamu alaikum everyone, glad to be back again this week. And I think that the parable that we're covering today is a really nice transition from the one that we discussed last week. And so to start off I want to share what we're going to be discussing. It's verse 39 in surah 41, verse 39, surah Tafasalat, and the ayah reads, وَمِنْ آيَاتِهِ أَنَّكَ تَرَى الْأَرْضَ خَاشِعَةً فِإِذَا أَنزَلْنَا عَلَيْهَا الْمَّاءَ أَهْتَزَّتْ وَرَبَتْ إِنَّ الَّذِي أَحْيَاهَا لَمُحْيِي الْمَوْتَىٰ إِنَّهُ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ قَدِيرٌ That among Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's signs, among the different ways that he demonstrates the reality of what our lives constitute, of his presence, of his creation, is that you see that the land, the earth, becomes khashia. Sometimes it's translated as still, as desolate, as something that is essentially like humbled, and in various other verses that describe the same exact situation, that the earth dies. Just as in the seasons you see that the plants and the lands, the trees, everything dies,
and then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, فَإِذَا أَنزَلْنَا عَلَيْهَا الْمَّاءَ When Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala brings down rain, brings down water from the earth, that it starts to quiver and grow, the life returns to it, to the land, to the plants, everything that we witness year in and year out with the coming of spring. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala ends his ayah by saying, you know, essentially that just as he was able to bring that dead land, those dead plants, that dead life all around us back to life, that he is going to do that with us. إِنَّ الَّذِي أَحْيَاهَا لَمُحِي الْمُوتَى The one who did that to the plants, to the life around us, is the one who's going to bring back the dead among us back to life. إِنَّهُ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ قَدِيرٍ He is capable of all things. Now, essentially, you know, there's two things I want to focus on before bringing in really the context of this ayah. Is that, number one, the first part of this ayah says what? That he's going to bring essentially something that's dead back to life. And that is actually a theme within the surah itself. That there's something that you, you know, you look around, you look, if you just take just a few minutes during the winters, as you see the, you know, throughout the fall, the trees slowly changing colors and then being stripped of their leaves. If you never saw leaves on a tree and you came to the, at that moment in life where you were able to see for the first time, and you woke up, for example, or you gained eyesight only in the winter, and you saw all of that essentially deadness around you, would you ever be able to assume that, you know, that there could be, you know, life to these trees, that there could be leaves on these trees, that they could be so full of, you know, life just a few months later? And honestly, you don't have to necessarily have not seen that life, even every winter. I ask myself, like, SubhanAllah, like, you don't appreciate the leaves, the life around you until it's gone.
And every winter, despite the fact that I know it's going to come back, it really hits you thinking, wow, this place looks dead, right? The winter, things are just dry and dead. And so just like Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala, every spring we get so excited to see the trees come to life, the plant life come, you know, to life around us, everything blossoming, that joy that brings to us, right? You see that transition. So that's one thing, right? That you, something that you wouldn't, it's hard to really grasp how Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala brings it back to life. And then the second part is that, إِنَّ الَّذِي أَحْيَاهَا لَمُحِيِي الْمَوْتَىٰ And the second part really is, I think, the transition from what we discussed last week, right? We discussed this idea of the white and darkness, guidance and misguidance amongst the disbelievers. And so this is a theme that you see throughout the hadith in the Quran that Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala says in another ayah, أَوَىٰ مَن كَانَ مَيْتَن فَأَحْيَيْنَاهُ وَجَعَلْنَا لَهُ نُورًا يَمْشِي فِي الْأَرْضِ That this contrast between life and death is the same as the person who has light, has nur. Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala says in the ayah, is the person who's, you know, the person that was walking dead on this earth, dead here meaning, you know, dead in the inside, lacking that belief. It's like the person who Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala gives that nur, gives that guidance and now becomes among those who are alive. So we have that transition here. Now that we have that nur in our lives, we're filled with light. Now to go to really put this ayah into context, it's, I'd like to speak about some of, you know, the most powerful ayahs in the surah. Where Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala essentially has a whole page dedicated to what's going to happen to the people of disbelief, those who are dead on the inside, those who don't have that nur on the Day of Judgment. And then that, and then another page to sort of transition to what it looks like on the opposite side. Those who have that nur, who are able to live their lives filled with iman, and who were really alive in that process,
with how they're going to be treated on that Day of Judgment. But really just for the sake of time to focus on the former, that as, you know, on the Day of Judgment, for those who were dead on the inside, for those who lacked that nur, for those who disbelieved, Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala says that on the Day of Judgment when He brings them back to life, inna allathee ahyaa ahla muhyi almoutaa When He brings them back to life, what happens is that on the Day of Judgment, they're standing before Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala, they're about to be, you know, to be questioned about their lives. And what happens is that their bodies, juloodihim, their bodies, their eyes, and their hearing, everything that was a part of them, starts to speak out against them. And the verses are so powerful in that Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala says, you know, is saying, is repeating the story that's going to happen, and they look, the disbelievers on the Day of Judgment, look at their hands, they look at, you know, try to look around them, and they say, li juloodihim, you know, lima shahittum AAalayna? How are you testifying against us? How is this possible that our bodies are suddenly like, just imagine, I always try to imagine this, that like, literally, your skin on your bodies, your hands, your eyes, your hearing, everything starts to come to life, just as Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala can bring anything to life. He brings them to life, and now they're going to be testifying against you. And so you have, you know, this really like powerful imagery of the Day of Judgment, where, you know, where things again, that you would never expect that Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala could bring to life, and the verse, you know, the story continues, wama kuntum tastatiroona AAayashahada AAalaykum sama'ukum walaa absarukum walaa juloodukum that, you know, essentially that you really could never have prepared for this moment,
of, you couldn't have hidden the fact, this reality that they were able to now testify against you. And Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala continues to describe, you know, how this surprise, this shock, this like, this big reveal of, I can't believe this is happening, of things that we are going to be brought to life on the Day of Judgment to work against us. Now on the flip side, when Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala then turns to talk about the believers right after this, he says in contrast that the believers are those, you know, the people with nur, the people who have life in them, in this world, are those that what? That they have istiqamah, that they are firm on this belief, that they call passionately, that they're always, you know, constantly, waman ahsanu mamman daAAa ilallah like, they're constantly calling to Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala, they're doing their best, they're, you know, forgoing, letting things that bother people, you know, if someone wronged them, they're letting it go. When they have the ability to do that, all of these beautiful qualities of the believer, in contrast to the disbeliever. So you have this context where you see that you have this disbelief, and you see what life is like when you're dead on the inside, and you don't have that nur that Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala places, and then shortly thereafter, the incredible strength of a believer who has light in them, what that looks like and how they act. And so all of that, there's so much to be said, I mean, we were just mentioning Sheikh Suleiman Hani has a whole, you know, session on just the miraculous nature and the incredible details within this surah, surah Fusilat, there's so much to be discussed. But you have, you know, again, this context where Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala is saying, this is on the Day of Judgment, just as he has the power to bring life to the plants, bring everything to life in front of you, that we will see day in and day out, year in and year out, we see this happening, we know that this is the reality, just as he's able to do that, he will bring that which is dead back to life. And Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala, again, reminds us that just as he can bring us back to life,
he can bring the plants back to life, he can bring our bodies back to life to testify against us. And on the flip side, when you do have that, when Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala gives you that nur and he brings life into you in this world, that you can really stand up with that istiqamah and call to Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala, be proud of who you are, be confident, and really fully embody what it means to have that nur. And so with that context, I'll go ahead and pass it on to Sheikh Osman to give more detail in terms of the context of the parable itself, inshallah. JazakAllah khair. Bismillah wa salatu wa salam wa rasool Allah wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa nula. JazakAllah khair, sister Tasneem, for the beautiful introduction. And that is the central core of this parable had to do with Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala proving to people the possibility of resurrection. And what's amazing is that despite the fact that this argument was posed by the people of Mecca, you know, 1400 plus years ago, that is still a problem that's prevalent today. That there's so many people who just struggle to understand the idea that a dead body can come back to life, despite the fact that Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala gives us the ability to see it happening in our own life with the plants. And Allah gives us some insight in Surah Qaf about this when he says, Itha mitna wa kunna turaba thalika rajun ba'eed. The disbelievers, they say that when we die and we turn into dust, we actually return to Allah. That's such a farfetched idea. And then Allah tells us, wa nazalna minas sama'i maa an mubaraka fa anbatna bihi jannatin wa habbal hasid. In that same Surah of Qaf, Allah actually brings that analogy from this parable. Again, he says that we have sent down from the heavens rain that is blessed, and we cause from that rain all kinds of beautiful plants and gardens and grains to grow. And then he explains, rizqa lil'ibad, two verses later, wa ahyayna bihi baldata maytak kathalika lkhurooj. That Allah causes by that rain dead land to come to life. And then he tells us, kathalika lkhurooj. And like that is the resurrection.
There's a beautiful hadith, the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said it in Sahih Muslim. It was a very long hadith about the end of time. And towards the end of the hadith, he mentions that then the trumpet, the horn will be blown, and everybody will fall dead. And then Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala will send a gentle rain, which will cause the bodies to grow once again. And then the trumpet will be blown a second time, and everyone will be standing, watching in amazement, standing before Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala on Yawmul Qiyamah. So this is the direct apparent meaning of the parable. But there's another more subtle meaning that is incredibly profound. That is about a different type of resurrection. And that is the resurrection of the heart. And so Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala, He gives us the example of how the land and the rain have a relationship in bringing life to the way that the heart and revelation have a relationship in bringing life. And so the parable is that the land is the object upon which the rain falls. And that causes the land to shake and to grow. Another opinion is to talk about the plants themselves shake when water falls upon them. And so from the metaphorical side, this parable is telling us that our hearts are the objects upon which revelation falls. So again, the land is like our heart, and the rain is like revelation. And similarly, we need revelation. Our hearts need revelation in order to grow. And of course, revelation makes our hearts grow. And there's a beautiful verse in Surah Al-Anbiya where Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala says, وَجَعَلْنَا مِنَ الْمَّاءِ كُلَّ شَيْءٍ حَيْءٍ أَفَلَا يُؤْمِنُونَ Allah says, and we have created every living thing from water. And so what I think about this parable, I think about Allah telling us that every physically living entity requires water. And every spiritually alive, every spiritually living entity requires revelation.
And so Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala is reminding us in this verse that when he says that the earth itself is khawshia, it's humbled, it is a reminder about how the earth is when there's nothing upon it. And you think about if you looked at a desert and you see absolutely nothing upon it, it is dry, it is hard. You know, it's Allah's describing it as being humble. It is nothing to be proud of, essentially, because there's nothing growing on it. And similarly, our hearts need to be incredibly humble to the notion that our ilm, our knowledge of this universe, this dunya, this life, and the akhira, the afterlife, is nothing until Allah allows revelation to penetrate into our hearts. Only once our hearts become nourished with revelation does anything meaningful grow out of them. And so the question that this parable almost poses is that, well, if Allah is giving us this parable that land requires water, well, and our hearts require revelation, then what is the nature of our hearts? What kind of land are our hearts like? Are our hearts fertile, soft, ready to absorb the revelation the way that soft, fertile land absorbs the water? Or are they hard? And of course, the more fertile they are, the better that we're going to respond to it. And I think about the month of Ramadan as that chance to nourish our hearts and to get them soft and fertile. But subhanAllah, in this ayah is also an incredible source of optimism, where Allah subhanAllah is telling us that it's not just the soft heart that is going to be resurrected with life. Even the hardest, distant hearts that are dry, they have the opportunity. So this verse is a verse of optimism to never despair, because just like that desert that you would never imagine can have life again, because it looks so dead, any of our hearts, if they ever diverge from the path of Allah, if they ever harden, that we should never despair from the mercy of Allah, that if we allow the revelation, the verses of Allah subhanAllah, the beautiful statements of the Prophet Muhammad salallahu alaihi wasalam,
the life of the Prophet Muhammad salallahu alaihi wasalam, his seerah, to inundate our hearts, then our hearts again will flourish. And so I'll close with this question, which is how often do we water our hearts? Because subhanAllah, one of the things in quarantine that we started doing, I know many people do, is they started gardening. And when you start gardening, you realize you've got to be patient. Every day you've got to water your plants. You couldn't say, well, today, I'm so tired of watering every day, I'm just going to do all the watering for the month on Monday, and then I'm done. Because it'll die if you just don't water for 29 more days. And similarly, when it comes to our hearts, we cannot just water them once in the year, which is oftentimes Ramadan. Alhamdulillah, we read a lot of Quran, and it's the springboard. It softens the soil of our hearts, but it needs a regular daily, weekly engagement with the Quran. And so I'll just close with this. I thought about that idiom that we all learn as kids. We say, an apple a day keeps a doctor away. And I thought about it from the Quranic perspective, that in order to – we have to water our hearts with the wahy in order to have the seed of iman grow. So an ayah a day keeps jahannam away, or an ayah a day makes jannah our place of stay. Wallahu alam, jazakallah khair. We'll pass it to Sheikh Omar for some practical examples we can take from this. How did you become a poet, man? I didn't – Allahu Akbar, spoken word Saturday with Dr. Othman Omarji coming up. Allah bless you, jazakallah khair to both of you for the wonderful context and summary. I think a few things to mention. One of them is that the ayah, a'lamu anna allaha yuhayil arda ba'da mawtiha. It's a common theme in the Quran, right, that know that Allah gives life to dead earth, you know, through the rain, through the water that he sends down, and it comes after the section of Surah Al-Hadeed that we were talking about, which paints the scene of the hypocrites getting left behind, right? And the hypocrites are getting left behind, and they don't have any light, and what do the believers say to them?
Go back, fal tamisu noora, and find your light there, right? Kindle your light there. Now the fact that you're reading this verse means you're still alive, and you have a chance to kindle your light instead of your fire, and you don't have to be doomed to that fate. So even after you read those verses, and if you feel a great sense of guilt and a great sense of regret and remorse, and say, you know what, I need to start making my light rather than killing my fire, right away Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la says, a'lamu anna allaha yuhayil arda ba'da mawtiha. Know that you do have a chance because even dead earth is given life. And so the placement of this verse in the different parts of the Quran, always a call to redemption. And so one of the things that Sheikh Shankiti Rahim Allah Ta'ala Muhammad Amin Shankiti mentioned, that every time Allah mentions a'lamu in the Quran, know, the word know, the next verse has action in it, right? So the connection of ilm to amal, you can't just stop at a place of realization and awareness, you have to quickly translate that into action while your heart is soft, while you're in a place of connection to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. Let me now take the steps to connect back to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. So, i'lamu, know, and then inna al-musaddeqina wal-musaddeqati wa-aqribu allaha qardun hasana. In different parts in the Quran, and different qa'at by the way, which is a different story that gives some richer meaning, but Allah calls you to sadaqa and to salah at night and dhikr, and all of these different types of good deeds that bring you back to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. Dhunnun Rahim Allah Ta'ala, one of the great sages, he said that, you know, what this is really talking about is your spiritual pulse. So, if you still feel bad when you sin, then that's a sign of a sick heart, not a dead heart. Okay, so a dead heart lacks the spiritual pulse, where it does not feel any sense of pain or anything in the presence of the ma'asiyah,
the forms of disobedience, the various forms of disobedience to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. So, it's a spiritual pulse. So, he said that your heart is not dead if you still feel bad, right? If guilt is still there, if regret is still there, that's a sign that your spiritual heart is beating, it's just sick. But he said that the next point of that is that just like a sick body, a person who's sick cannot recover. A sick heart cannot enjoy the taste of food. A sick heart cannot enjoy the sweetness of its ibadah, the sweetness of worship. So, it's a spectrum, right, between a living heart that is healthy, spiritually healthy, and a heart that is dead. The presence of an opportunity to resuscitate that heart, though, is throughout the Qur'an, and actually, Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, reflecting with Sheikh Yasir Fahmi on that, and Sheikh Abdullah Aduru when speaking about Surah Al-Ma'idah, right, just the presence of a verse of redemption, even after the scariest ayats, constantly, that, well, you can come back, this is not to doom you, unless you're Abu Lahab, you know, and there's a surah revealed that says, Tabat yada Abi Lahab an-Wattab, and even the scholars say, by the way, that that was a miracle from Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, because if Abu Lahab wanted to undermine the entire message of Islam, he could have become Muslim, and then it would have been like, wait, what do we do now, because that surah came down very early, but he didn't do that, his fate was sealed, Allah Azza wa Jal knew that this is a heart that will not come back to him, but we have not had surahs revealed about us by name, the presence of an opportunity to redeem ourselves is there as long as we're alive, and you have a chance to cling back to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, and Umar bin Khattab, the one who many of the scholars say this verse was about, the one who was dead, and we gave him life, and we gave him a light by which he could navigate himself and amongst the people,
and a light that he could navigate for the people, provide navigation and guidance to the people, and that's the point, when a man says about Umar, that the donkey of Khattab, the donkey of his father will become Muslim before him, the donkey of his father will become Muslim before him, that means Umar has no chance at a spiritual pulse, he is dead spiritually, and just like that donkey cannot be revived to a place where it has a spiritual life, Umar radiAllahu anhu has no chance of having a spiritual life, and subhanAllah not only was he given spiritual life, but he gives spiritual life to so many other people, through his example radiAllahu ta'ala anhu, he becomes an inspiring example of a heart that is pure, and a heart that is connected to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, and a heart that is healthy, and the last thing I will share is subhanAllah, one of my mashaikh, shaykh Abul Abid, radiAllahu ta'ala, he talked about the hadith, I believe it's a Muslim Imam Ahmed, it's a long hadith which is connected to this method, in the Quran, where the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam gave the example of water falling upon all these different types of lands, so the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam mentioned a rock type surface, a solid surface, pops it on the top and it doesn't do any benefit to the surface, nor to anyone around it, and then the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam of course gave us this example of a part of the surface that is bowl shaped, and so it could contain the water, but it could not absorb the water, and so other people will benefit from it, or other animals will benefit from it, but the land itself does not benefit, it holds the water, but other people come and they take from the water, or other animals come and take from the water, but that land does not benefit, and finally the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam gave that example of the soil, a fertile land that absorbs the water, the water disappears momentarily, you don't see it,
and then it comes back out in the form of various crops and various forms of vegetation that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has decreed, and what he said about that, and there's so many benefits to that method as well, which elaborates on the method in the Quran, that there is only one type of benefit that exists in the bowl shaped surface, which is water, but on the other side of that, what comes out of the soil, sometimes it's a guessing game, what's going to come out, what types of crops, what types of vegetation, but there's so much more benefit that will come out in terms of the different types of vegetation, the different types of fruits and vegetables that come out of the soil, depending upon what seeds were nurtured and nourished within that soil, and so the various types of benefits that exist, and also the long-term versus short-term benefit that exists, because if it's just water in a surface, people come and they scoop that water up and that's it, but this will be long-term, and then finally the third benefit that he mentioned, was that the water seeps into the soil and the process of generating that vegetation, of producing what is to come out of that, is not seen to anyone else, once it's in the soil and it's working, it's barakah, it's a blessing that Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala has given, to then eventually give fruit or vegetable or whatever it is that Allah has planned to come out of that soil, no one else sees it, it's working under the surface, and he likened that to secret ibadah, to secret forms of worship, which is what we were talking about last week, so this idea of that strong generation of spiritual potential that has to take place away from anyone else's sight, and that directly connects to what we were talking about last week with the generation of true light,
the light that you don't really want to benefit from until the Day of Judgment, not necessarily here, so that nourishment has to take place behind the scenes, that secret connection that you develop to Allah, the secret ibadah, the secret tawbah and istighfar, it's just like the water working under the surface, and for us that's behind the curtains, behind closed doors, working what needs to be worked in order to produce that vegetation, to produce that benefit for all of mankind, so we ask Allah to give us those hearts that are like the fertile soil that are given life, and that are alive themselves and give life to everything that's around them, Allahuma Ameen. So I'll pass it back to you all for reflections inshaAllah. JazakAllah khair Sheikh Umar, one of the things that you just mentioned that I thought was amazing was this idea of doing things in secret, which means both you do things in the day and of course you do things at night, which is often the time where people don't see what we do, and I think what ties this parable in beautifully is that Allah previously mentioned in the mathil before that wa min ayatihi and from his signs that he created the night and the day and the sun and the moon, and part of actually the land coming to life and plants growing is both getting the nur of the sun and actually getting the light of the moon, so there's actually something called lunar gardening, and that there's stuff that happens to plants in the darkness of the night that we would never see, and so when we think about even inundating ourselves with wahy and acting upon the revelation, there's a way to act upon it in the day with the type of activities we engage in, especially I think in today's climate there's so many things we have to be doing outwardly to change society, but there's also things at night privately with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, whether it be sadaqah, whether it be extra worship, dua, dhikr, that we just have to make sure that 24-7 day or night, whether it's the sun hitting us or the moon hitting us, that we're allowing wahy to change our behavior. Wallahu a'lam. That's beautiful.
JazakAllah khair. I just want to add a concluding point for something you guys both raised in terms of the optimism that this ayah really invokes, because when I think about it, when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says that he can bring anything that is completely dead back to life, it's sort of a reminder that even if you're at your lowest point right now, if you're at your lowest point in your iman, in something in this life, something that you're asking Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for help for, knowing that just like that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala can take you from zero to a hundred, is really like a powerful force to motivate you to just ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, and honestly it's those du'as that you kind of ask for and you're like, I don't really know what's happening, and then you see it really unfolding before your eyes, and there are certain things in life that really will just jump speed your iman from zero to a hundred, and it's when you ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, and right before your eyes, you're granted, as Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala promises, he's going to answer our du'a, right? Whether it's now, it's at the most appropriate time, or in a way we couldn't imagine, it's going to be answered. And so really it's this, hopefully, this really optimistic idea that even when you're going through ups and downs, when you're at your down, knowing that it's not that, you know, you have to have, you're thinking now months or years ahead, I'm not going to do this person until another ten years, I really need to get this right first, and I have to fix everything about my life, whatever, all of these different things that we make this change into a process and something that we dread, or whatever it is, knowing that it could be, you know, an hour, a day, a moment, well, I can flip, turn our situation, turn our iman into, you know, the strongest of iman, and so something that we should constantly ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, just as you bring, you know, life to the dead, bring my heart, bring light, bring nur and bring life to my heart. SubhanAllah, the parable comes back when you say that, Tasneem, to me,
in terms of like the literal nature of like rain causes the earth to shake, like physically, and that's like now, like considered from some of the scholars, we'll talk about this being one of the scientific miracles in the Quran, but like this idea that even a little bit of rainfall makes the earth shake, and so for us to never be little, like even a little bit of exposure to wahi, whether it be one verse here, you know, one lecture there, one khatira, what five minute video, whatever little you can give to absorbing the guidance of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, it might be that little portion that shakes your faith in the right direction. It's what propels you into action and propels you into a state of living in a state of nur, and so again, like you mentioned, like it's not this all or none, I got to either like go hardcore and be memorized in the Quran every day, it can even be that little bit that awakens us at any moment in time. It's telling that, very briefly, it's telling that it slowly quivers and grows, so like every reminder that kind of just makes you get that sense of quivering of, wow, that really hit me, that is a sign of growth. Yes, subhanAllah, the fact that you look at لو أنزلنا هذا القرآن على جبل رأيته خاشعة Allah talks about the potential of the Quran, that if it was to be revealed to mountains, it would shake those mountains, and then the verses in surah al-Baqarah وَإِنَّ مِنَ الْحِجَارَةِ لَمَا يَتَفَجَّرُ مِنْهُ الْأَنْهَارُ وَإِنَّ مِنْهَا لَمَا يَشَّقَقُ فَيَخْرُجُ مِنْهُ الْمَاءُ وَإِنَّ مِنْهَا لَمَا يَهْبِطُ مِنْ خَشْيَةِ اللَّهِ The way that different stones, that sometimes our hearts can be beyond stones in terms of how hard they are, but they can also be stronger than mountains in what they're able to bear, if they're able to internalize the Quran properly, and the heart shakes, then the heart can produce. It will not collapse. SubhanAllah.
And so I feel like it's powerful that there's that constant interaction of water and different surfaces that are being likened to the heart. Zakirullah, any final thoughts? Actually what I'd like to do, when I see these amthar in the Quran, they literally make me visualize them, and I think that's a practice that would be beneficial when all of us read them, we try to visualize them. So I found this beautiful video, I'd love to share it, just to kind of give us some insight into how when rain falls upon land, plants grow, and how we can maybe think about this every time we read a verse, every time we read a hadith, every time you do something where you expose yourself to revelation, how your heart may grow in very slow, systematic ways. So I just want to briefly share it, it's a beautiful little time-lapse video about nature, but I think it encapsulates this parable so beautifully, so let me very quickly share that, and then I'll let you guys go, give me a second. Can you do spoken word while you're pulling it up? Here we go. Can you see my screen now? Yes. All right. So this process took months for that to grow, or weeks at least, but that's of course time-lapse, but the idea that our hearts can grow if we're cognizant and aware, even if we don't see it happening in real time, wallahu anhu. May Allah bless you. May Allah reward you with good. All right, so inshallah ta'ala with that, go ahead and conclude, and remind you all to please click on the link that our brilliant creative team, alhamdulillah, has put these parables into animated GIFs, inshallah ta'ala,
so please do check them out at the link, inshallah, and share. And tomorrow, inshallah ta'ala, you can tune in to Miracles of the Quran with our beloved sheikhs, Muhammad al-Shinawi and Sheikh Suleiman Hani, inshallah ta'ala, on all the yaqeen platforms, and we'll look forward to seeing you all again, inshallah ta'ala, on Monday, next Monday, inshallah ta'ala, for the parables of the Quran, and of course every night of the week nights, inshallah ta'ala, for another element of reflection on the Quran. Jazakum Allah khayran to both Dr. Uthman and soon-to-be Dr. Tasneem. May Da'ashi finish her PhD soon, inshallah ta'ala. So someone's da'a out there is going to get her over that hump, inshallah. So make da'a for her to finish her PhD as soon as possible, and we're blessed to have you both reflecting with us tonight. Jazakum Allah khayran, everyone. Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.
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