Qur'an 30 for 30
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Juz' 13 with Dr. Khalil Abdur-Rashid
Sh. Omar Suleiman and Sh. Abdullah Oduro, joined by special guest Dr. Khalil Abdur-Rashid, explore gems from the 13th Juz' of the Holy Quran.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Dr. Khalil Abdur-Rashid, Shaykh Dr. Khalil Abdur-Rashid, who's left us in Dallas some time ago. And we miss him dearly down here, but is now at Harvard University, alhamdulillah. As a chaplain up there and also teaches at the Divinity School and alhamdulillah, we benefit from him often. So welcome to the show tonight, Shaykh. JazakAllah khair, alhamdulillah. As-salamu alaykum, brothers and sisters. Wa alaikum salam. So inshallah, Tariq, before I get into the juz, I just wanted to point to two things for everyone that's benefiting and that's been keeping up with the series. InshaAllah ta'ala, next week on the 20th day of Ramadan, which I know we were losing time, May 13th inshaAllah ta'ala, from 3 p.m. Eastern inshaAllah ta'ala to 8 p.m. Eastern, we're gonna have a finish strong telethon where we're gonna have various speakers coming on, inshaAllah ta'ala, keeping you engaged throughout the day, inshaAllah ta'ala, getting us prepared for the 21st night, which will be that night. So again, just mark the calendar inshaAllah ta'ala for May 13th inshaAllah, 3 p.m. Eastern onwards. It's gonna be an all day thing, and then we'll end with a du'a. And some of you have asked about how you can donate over the last 10 nights. And alhamdulillah, if you click on the donate button now, inshaAllah ta'ala, the Ramadan donate button, you'll see the option to donate now or to split your donation over the last 10 nights with the Nabi ta'ala. So I know many of you supported us that way last year, and we appreciate everyone that has been supporting this project and other projects throughout. So please do inshaAllah ta'ala, if you wanna get in there early and make the niyah sadiqa inshaAllah, that truthful niyah, and get it in, then you can click the button right under the link, inshaAllah, and it will take you to the page, and you can see the 10 nights donation button as well. Wa jazakumullahu khayran. And we'll go ahead and get started inshaAllah ta'ala. So we're on Juz 13. We had a beautiful lesson on Surah Yusuf last night, thinking about Yusuf alayhi salam, and the change of fortune, and all of the things that he went through,
and the way that Yusuf alayhi salam is the subtle bushra, the subtle glad tidings that Allah talks about in Surah Hud, that then comes out and perfects the legacy, carries forth the blessing of his father, his grandfather, and his great-grandfather, Ibrahim alayhi salam. And the 13th Juz actually, subhanAllah, starts with the turning point in Yusuf's life. So verse 53 to the end, which is Yusuf alayhi salam being appointed as the king's cabinet minister. And then you start to see Yusuf alayhi salam showing superiority in his akhlaq, superiority in his character. This is something very beautiful, because the first example, which is where Yusuf's brothers come to Egypt to get food and grain, and Yusuf asks them to bring Bin Yamin, his younger brother, Yusuf alayhi salam demonstrates a superior level of compassion. And then you have Yaqub alayhi salam demonstrating a superior level of patience. And then you have Yusuf alayhi salam demonstrating superior forgiveness, right? A superior level of forgiveness. And then you have Yaqub alayhi salam demonstrating a superior level of hope. Two things between the father and the son that show these akhlaq, these beautiful qualities that transition down from Ibrahim alayhi salam. These were qualities of Ibrahim alayhi salam. Sabrun jameel, beautiful patience was the quality of Ibrahim alayhi salam. Forgiveness was the quality of Ibrahim alayhi salam. Seeing beauty even in the people that harm you. Think of Ibrahim alayhi salam and how he spoke to his father and still had that level of love and compassion towards his father. And think of the way that Yusuf alayhi salam approaches his brothers as well. And so these akhlaq, these beautiful noble qualities that transition through the Abrahamic line, both in lineage as well as in the way that it was taught and the way that it was inherited. If you go to the end of the surah, in the previous surah, the good news was the basheer,
the one that gives the good news, is the angel telling Ibrahim alayhi salam and Sarah about the two blessings, Isaac, Ishaq and Ya'qub, Jacob. So there's a basheer, the one giving the glad tidings is an angel, giving the glad tidings of Ishaq and Ya'qub. Here, the good news, the same word is actually used, the basheer, but it's not an angel, of course. The basheer, the one who's giving the glad tidings is speaking to Ya'qub alayhi salam. And what's the glad tidings he's giving to Jacob? That both of his sons, Yusuf alayhi salam and bin Yamin are alive. So SubhanAllah, two glad tidings are given to Ya'qub in a very similar fashion as his grandfather is given the glad tidings of his father and then him. And there's a beautiful narration that Mujahid rahimahullah narrates, that when the basheer came to Ya'qub, when the one who gave the glad tidings to Jacob came to him to tell him that his son was still alive and that his son had actually ascended, Ya'qub alayhi salam said, kayfa taraqta yusuf? He said, how did you leave him? In what state was he? Qala taraqtuhu azeezan ala misr He said, I left him and he was the minister over Egypt. He said, laisa an hadha asaluk He said, that's not what I'm asking you. I'm not asking you about his financial state, I'm not asking you about his wealth. That's not the goal of life for us. That's not why we're here. He said, taraqtuhu ala ayyidin What religion did you leave him on? He said, taraqtuhu ala deen al-Islam He said, I left him in a state of Islam, in a state of submission to the oneness of Allah. Qala Ya'qub, Ya'qub alayhi salam He said, al-am tammatin ni'mah Now the blessing has been complete. Remember, liyutimma ni'matahu alayka wa kama atammaha ala abawayk That the blessing would be complete. The blessing is complete, that the deen, that Yusuf alayhi salam, through all of the trauma that he had been through, that Ya'qub was not yet fully aware of in terms of all of the twists and turns that would take place in his life.
But the beautiful thing here is that Ya'qub alayhi salam said, was his Islam intact through whatever he went through over these last two decades where he was absent from me? Was his faith intact? And Allah tells us, right? In Surah al-Bakhara wa wasa biha Ibrahimo banihi wa Ya'qub ya baniya inna Allaha istafa lakum uddeen fala tamutunna illa wa antum muslimoon am kuntum shuhada idh hadhira Ya'qub al-mawt idh qala li banihi ma ta'buduna min ba'di qalu na'budu ilaaha ka wa ilaaha abaika Ibrahima wa Isma'ila wa Ishaq ilaaha wa ahida wa nahnu lahu muslimoon Allah gives us the story of the death of Ibrahim in Surah al-Bakhara, giving the inheritance of Islam to his children. And then his children saying to their children, stay upon faith. And then Ya'qub alayhi salam saying to his children, Jacob saying to his children, don't die except as a Muslim. And how does Surah Yusuf end? Yusuf alayhi salam turning to Allah and saying, tawaffani musliman wa alhikni bis salihin Allow me to die. This is verse 101. Cause me to die as a Muslim and join me with the righteous. Remember the scariest ayah of the previous Surah, Surah Hud was fa istaghnim kama umirt to stay firm upon the religion, to stay firm upon this path. And here you have this desire for Yusuf alayhi salam to stay firm, Ya'qub to see his son firm. And Ibrahim alayhi salam in Surah al-Shu'ara, by the way, Surah al-Shu'ara verse 78 to 83, Ibrahim ends his dua, rabbi habili hukman wa alhikni bis salihin That allow me to follow in the path of the righteous. And Surah Ra'd, there's a, the verse of Surah Ra'd, so remember last night I said that, if you notice there's something in the first ayah, it wasn't huruf al-muqatta'at, it wasn't the alif la'mim or the alif la'mra. Every one of these Surahs starts off with a verse about the Quran.
Allah declaring the greatness of the Quran. So we'll see how long this carries because it carried with the two previous Surahs and it's gonna carry through all of the Surahs in this just as well. A verse extolling the virtues of the Quran. Verse 24 of Surah Ra'd, Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la talks about the people who enter Jannah because of the patience that they had and the angels entering upon them saying, salamun alaykum bima sabartum, fani'ma uqbadar You know, peace be onto you for the patience that you had and what a beautiful abode this is. SubhanAllah, we just heard about sabrun jameel, the beautiful patience of Ya'qub Alayhi Salam, and now you have the reward of Jannah that's being elaborated on in Surah Ra'd. Some of the scholars say that Allah mentions the reward and glory in dunya in Surah Yusuf, but the reward of Jannah is what's elaborated on in Surah Ra'd. So it's like the Jannah of this world, or rather the glory of this world is nothing in comparison to the glory of the hereafter. And the true Jannah of this world is in the dhikr of Allah, is in the remembrance of Allah, and in the yaqeen. I'm not just plugging that by the way. Verse 28 inshAllah of this verse. Finally, Surah Ibrahim, and it always comes back to Ibrahim Alayhi Salam. Abraham, where Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la says, wa-ifta-adhana rabbukum la-inshakartum la-azeedanakum wa-la-inkafartum inna-adhabi la-shadeed Verse seven, and remember when your Lord proclaimed, if you are grateful, I will surely increase you in favor, but if you deny, indeed, my punishment is severe. And I wanna end with this one ayah, and then I'll pass it off to Shaykh Abdullah inshAllah. Surah Hud was about having istiqamah, was about being firm, right? Surah Yusuf is the story of two people that maintain firmness in their faith, despite all sorts of trials and tribulations, things that could have uprooted faith in most normal people, only increased the faith of Ya'qub and Yusuf, and they drew closer to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. In this Surah, Surah Ibrahim,
the verse which describes the rootedness of faith is verse 24, anam tara kayfa dharaballahu mathalan karimatan tayyibatan kashajaratin tayyiba asluha thabit wa far'uha fissama Have you not considered how Allah presents an example, a good word, like a good tree, whose root is firmly fixed, firmly fixed in the heart, and its branches are high in the sky, always producing fruit. This shows you that the Muslim lives between shukr and sabr, and it's no, between gratitude and patience, and it's no, Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, secret that in this juz, you have the most famous verse about shukr, the most famous verse about gratitude, and the most famous verse about patience, both together, because that's how these people lived their lives. Ibrahim Alayhi Salaam, his descendants, all lived their lives between patience and gratitude, and they had istiqama, firmness, because la ilaha illallah was a firmly rooted tree in their hearts, and that's the tree that we're called to plant in our hearts as well. And with that, inshAllah, I'll pass to Sheikh Abdullah to talk about another verse about ni'mah, inshAllah, about blessing and gratitude, and so that will help. JazakumAllahu khayran. Bismillahi wa salatu wa salamu ala rasoolillahi wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa man wala rabbish rahli sadri wa yasir li amri wa hlul aqadatan min lisani yafqahum qawli ya rabbal alameen So as he mentioned, mashaAllah, the Sheikh alluded to, actually mentioned the ni'm, or how the verses mentioned blessings, and acknowledgement of the blessings. And then even in the chapter of Ibrahim, which he mentioned, which is one of my favorite surahs, Allah's surah, very beautiful, how the verse of shukr. And shukr comes with knowing the blessings that are upon you and others than you. Recognizing that Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la has placed his blessing on you, or other than you. Recognizing, acknowledging that, and doing something about it. From that is gratitude. Now the gratitude can be through your actions, through your tongue, but it's very, very important because in the verse he mentioned earlier,
where he says, if you were to be thankful, then I would increase you. When he talks about increasing, he doesn't mention in what? He doesn't mention the maf'udun bihi. He doesn't mention the object of that which he will increase you in. Rather, he leaves it blank. Just as we say, Allahu Akbar, and then it's blank. Huwa Akbar min kulli shay. He's greater than anything you can imagine and fathom, and that which you can't even fathom and imagine. The verse that I want to talk about here is, in the chapter of Ibrahim, where Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, SubhanAllah, he mentions just a snippet of certain things that we take for granted sometimes, and we remember them, but even within our remembrance of those objects, it will never, ever, ever amount to the amount of gratitude that he deserves. As Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la says in verse number 32, and these verses, roughly 31 through 34, talk about shukr and being gratitious and mentioning the objects that you should be gratitious upon. He says after, Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la says, a portion of the verse. So Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la says, Allah is the one that created the heavens and the earth. Wa anzala minassama'i ma'an fa akhraji bihi minath-thamarati rizqan lakum. He created the heavens and the earth, and then he causes water to descend down from the heavens. Minassama'i ma'an fa akhraji bihi minath-thamarati rizqan lakum. And from that water that soaks into the ground, agriculture comes forth. Thamarat, fruits, or that which is of agriculture, rizqan lakum. Why? As a means of provision for you. As he mentions in another verse in the Quran, huwa allathee khalaqa lakum maa fil ardi jamee'an. He has created everything on this earth for you to indulge upon, to embark upon, to use, but in a manner that is befitting to his majesty. So then he says here, that's the first thing he says. He says, rizqan lakum.
wasakhara lakum alfulka litajriya fil bahri bi amri. And then he has made for you, he has made for you the ships to sail through the sea with his honor, with his permission, bi amri. wasakhara lakum al-anhar. And then he has made for you the rivers. So notice here how he says, sakhara lakum, sakhara lakum. He has made, really it's actually subjugated for you. Subjugated for you, these ships that you will go on the sea by his order and his divine wisdom. And if you notice, he says, bi amri, because when you are in the sea, you have no ultimate control over which direction you will ultimately go if the wind is going profusely and you cannot control that. So there has to be a level of tawakkul. So when seen, that Allah says, he does all of this for you, subjugated it for you. You know, as Allah says in the chapter of Hajarat, la yaskhar qawmun min qawmin. People should not belittle or scold one another. Because when you do that, it is as though you are subjugating them to what you are saying about them. You are making them lesser than you. So when Allah subjugates it, it's a reminder that he has ultimate control over it. And then he says, subhanAllah, wasakhara lakum al-shamsa wal-qamara da'ibain. And then Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la says, and he has subjugated for you the sun and the moon in a continuous orbit, da'ibain. Means continuous, it's always moving. As Allah talks about the people of Fir'aun, he says, kadab bi-aali Fir'auna wal-laleen min qabreen. Da'bi means that which is continuous, that which they continuously did, it was their norm. So when Allah says here, sakhara lakum al-shamsa wal-qamara da'ibain, he's made the sun and the moon, is that which will continuously swim and flow. It will never turn off, it will always be there. wasakhara lakum al-layla wal-nahaar. And he has subjugated for you the night and the day. That which emanates from the sun is that which we know is the daytime. And that which emanates, or we see when the sun leaves,
we see that the nighttime is here, and a strong sign of that is the moon. And also the moon is that which we determine the beginning of the month, and we determine with the lunar calendar. Then Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la says, wa ataakum min kulli ma sa'altumoo. And then he just gets to the point. It's like SubhanAllah, you see all of these things, you just make an analogy of any other form of creation, anything that you can imagine, and know that Allah has subjugated it to his majesty. And when Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la concludes with these small examples, he says, wa ataakum min kulli ma sa'altumoo. He's given you everything that you've asked for. But the beautiful verse here, SubhanAllah, where it really hits home, wa in ta'uddu ni'mata Allahi la tuhsuha. Allah Akbar. SubhanAllah. He said, if you were to try to count or enumerate the blessing of Allah, and I'm saying blessing on purpose, the blessing of Allah, you would not be able to encompass them. There's some benefits here, and then we will conclude. He says, if you were to try to, ta'uddu, and ta'uddu comes from adit, which means number. So if you were to try to enumerate the blessing of Allah, and I know it's translated, it can be as blessings of Allah. We want to stop here for a minute. Because when he says ni'ma is singular, ni'm is plural. But then he says ni'ma to Allah. Some scholars say when you have it in the possessive form, mudhaaf mudhaaf ilay, that means a plurality. Ni'ma to Allah in this particular context, when in terms of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. Another understanding of this is within that blessing are blessings. You look at your child, you say, well, mashallah, my child is a blessing. Okay, but let's just ponder over your child. The fact that they're healthy, the fact that they have characteristics of you, and another characteristic of your older brother,
and of your grandmother. You look at your child sometimes, you look at your brother and say, you got that from mom, you got that from dad. You look at yourself, and you look at the blessing that Allah has given you. And you say, which in every anatomical structure of your body, your eye, your nose, your ear, every single thing, that one anatomical structure, your eye, for instance, within it are blessings. The retina, the cones and rods within the retina that distinguish color. The nerves that is the optic nerve that connects to the eye. So all of this is a blessing of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. That's why he says after that, you would not be able to encompass it. And notice here, he says, if you try to enumerate, ta'uddu, he doesn't say, you will not be able to enumerate it. La tu'addiduha, he said, la tu'hsuha. You would not be able to encompass it. And the word ihsa is used in Arabic for surveys, because you're going to be counting or checking a lot of people. So if you were to try to count grains of rice in a bag, you would start to enumerate one, two, three, 51 to 100%, you're going to stop and say, I can't do this, it's too many. So when we look at Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la's blessings, that is what he is meaning in this verse when he says, if you were to try to enumerate the blessings of Allah, you would not be able to count them. And then he concludes, letting you know your reality and remind you, inna al-insana la dhaloomun kafaar. And mankind verily is someone that is oppressive or someone that is unjust and ungrateful, unjust to him or herself, because they may take the right of Allah and put it in its improper place by committing a sin and being negligent of the ni'ma that is in front of them, the blessings that are in front of them, and they are kafaar because they are ungrateful. They associate that blessing with something of a created thing, another human being, or they may attribute it to themselves. So we ask Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la to make us attentive of his blessings and allow that attention to those blessings
to serve as a motivation to increase us in our thankfulness. Jazakumullah khair. Jazakumullah khair. So SubhanAllah, Allah starts with blessings that you don't even consider. Blessings usually things that are around you. And then Allah gives you blessings that you know about and says, try to count the blessings within that one blessing and you'll still fail. Allah Akbar. And I really appreciate how you elaborated on, you know, the wording, dhaloomun kafaar, that we're transgressing and there's an ingratitude in how we attribute and misplace those blessings. And one of the greatest blessings is dhikr. And Allah mentions that dhikr increases our capacity of gratitude. wa la in shakartum la azeedannakum So Sheikh Khalil, Dr. Khalil, if you can take us away inshallah. Jazakumullah khair, Sheikh Omar. Thank you so much, Sheikh Abdullah, for that inspiring and ameek darus. BarakAllahu feekum. May Allah increase your insight and your family as well, increase you in blessing and blessings and insights. Dear brothers and sisters, good evening. As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu. Bismillahir rahmanir rahim. I just thought I would share some reflections on one verse in Surat al-Ra'd, Chapter 13, that we're discussing here, verse 28. And verse 28 is a verse that we see quite commonly around, you know, in people's homes and pictures and calligraphy and quoted on some marketing material, etc. But it's very, very, very critical, very important to not commodify this verse, to not take it for granted, but to internalize it profoundly and to be people who anchor ourselves in this. So, al-ladheena a'minu allahu ta'ala says, astaidhu billah, those who have faith and not people who are interested in just lip service.
The people who are interested in saying one thing and doing another, those people who really have faith and people not only who have faith, but are striving to keep their faith, striving to maintain their faith, striving to hold on to what it is, despite the turbulence and the storms that are around them. That's why one of the deeper meanings of Surat al-Ra'd is allowing us to invoke the storms in our environment, the stormy days that we have, the turbulences in our lives that still are full of you know, the days and the nights that have ups and downs that are pregnant with khawf and tamaa, with fear and hope. Throughout all of those things, when we're trying to hold fast to our faith and trying to make meaning of the events that are around us that we face, al-ladheena a'minu, we still affirm our belief, but then what happens is because the body is shaken by the stress, because the body is shaken by the pandemic, because the body is shaken by the economic situation, the body is shaken by crisis, the body is shaken by loss, the body experiences turmoil. Because the body is fragile, the qalb becomes fragile too. The heart becomes fragile because the heart is an extension of the body, the body is the extension of the heart. The heart is just internal. So when the body feels the shock, the heart takes it too. But Allah says something quite interesting here with al-ladheena a'minu, listen, people of faith, not ya ayyuha al-ladheena a'minu, he's talking about al-ladheena a'minu, those who have faith. Those who have faith, wa tatma'innu quloobuhum bi dhikri Allah, not only those that have faith, but those whose hearts find peace in the remembrance of God. In the remembrance of Allah Ta'ala. In the remembrance of Allah Ta'ala.
Those people that choose that because it's tough to make meaning of external turbulence, of external situations sometimes because we don't have the hikmah, we don't have the long vision, all we have is what happens to us. It's very hard to make meaning and to find peace when you're in a state of conflict. When you're in a state of conflict. And so Allah Ta'ala says don't search for peace outside. Don't search for peace in the environment. Don't try to anchor yourself in things that are full of change. Allah Ta'ala doesn't change. Don't anchor yourself in meanings that are external, but use the external to draw you into a deeper understanding. So, wa tatma'innu quloobuhum bi dhikri Allah. And they choose, choose is my word I'm inserting here, but the meaning is, and their hearts find peace in the remembrance of Allah, not peace in the rise in the employment rate. Not finding peace, you know, in different political commentators or in different social things or on Twitter or on this so that they don't find peace in the soundbites. They don't find peace in all kinds of things in the sales. No, they find peace in the remembrance of Allah and then Allah Ta'ala says, because there's a dot, dot, dot there. So those who believe and who find whose hearts find peace in the remembrance of Allah, what comes after that? Allah doesn't have to mention it because ala bi dhikri Allahi tatma'innu quloobuhum. It's enough that truly, certainly, undoubtedly, assuredly, in the remembrance of Allah, do hearts find peace. That's enough. This is really deep. We tend to be oftentimes when we understand the term dhikr, or we remember, or we think about the term dhikr, what readily
comes to mind as a first meaning, dear brothers and sisters, is dhikr with the tongue, with the lisan. The rudimentary, the normal routine dhikr that we do after the salat and things of this nature. That's part of the practice of the Prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam when we have to keep and hold firm to that. But that is not the extent. That's not the end point. That is not the only goal. The dhikr must enter from the tongue and take root in the heart. What good is it to mention Allah's name by tongue after the prayer and then right up when we get up and walk away, we forget Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. We're supposed to continually invoke Allah, recognize Allah, be conscious and mindful of Allah as we go through the world, as we enter turbulence in the world, as we go have our ups and our downs, whether we're in salah or in between salah. We are supposed to do everything in all of our actions and our inactions, what are called our harakat and our sakinat. Everything we do and everything we don't do, whether it's going into the bathroom before we eat, before we wash our hands, when we go into the shopping mall, when we get into the car, when we drive, everything is with the remembrance of Allah. The dhikr with the tongue is just a momentary, dhikr with the tongue is just a muqaddimah, it's an introduction, it's a shirk, it's a practice to get us into the routine and habit of our hearts and our minds being automatically programmed to be conscious of and aware of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And the biggest, one of the biggest spiritual crimes of the believer, male or female, is that they forget the one who never forgets them. We forget Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So one of the, that's one of the biggest crimes. So one of the ways, one of the instruments,
one of the ways that out of Allah's rahmah, out of his generosity, out of his fadl, out of his lutf, one of the ways that Allah helps us and gives us crutches to remember him is to remind us of our bounties that he's given us. That's the whole point of thinking about, as Shaykh Abdullah beautifully articulated, the ni'mah. That's the whole point because we tend to be concrete creatures. That's why idolatry was a big problem. Right. We tend to be materialistic people. We tend to prefer concrete things that we can see. So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, in his infinite wisdom, allows us to think about the blessings we have in front of us, draw to our minds that in reality they're innumerable, as Shaykh Abdullah pointed out. Even in one blessing, it contains a microcosm of blessings that blows your mind. And if that's the case with the material blessing, what is it with the Rabb of the blessing? What is the case with the Lord of the blessing? And so, if our environment and our cosmos is full of material blessings like a car and a house and children and family, and immaterial blessings like oxygen and proper temperatures and the proper balance of food and etc. And then spiritual blessings like Iman and Hidayah and the Quran. And we can't count these, even if we were to look at just one and we show gratitude and that those blessings give us a sense of peace. Those blessings give us a sense of stability. Then how is it with the Lord of blessings? So this, brothers and sisters, is the verse that tells us where and how to anchor our ourselves when we find ourselves in Ra'd, in a sense of anxiety.
In a sense of when we find ourselves in stormy moments, in a climate that where we find ourselves uprooted, picked up and tossed from east to west. And we are confused and we are disrupted from the things that anchor us. How do we anchor us spiritually when we can't physically, we can't seem at least to physically anchor ourselves? It's bizikri of Allah Ta'ala. That Iman constantly. And you start by remembering Allah. We start, I'm not talking to you, I'm talking with you. We start remembering Allah Ta'ala first by remembering the ni'm of Allah Ta'ala, the blessings of Allah Ta'ala. That's why, you know, to invoke Surah Taha, we're not there yet, but وَمَا تِلْكَ بِيَمِينِكِ يَا مُوسَىٰ What's in your right hand, Musa? Allah knows what's in it. It's a ni'm of Allah Ta'ala. It's my staff. I lean on that thing. I lean on it. I use it for this and that and carry my bag and etc. You want to walk my walk? You want to be part of the NBA? Take that ni'm that you rely on, that you lean on, that you're comfortable with. That's not your rab. Throw it away. You know, let only my remembrance comfort you. Lean on that for a while. Because if you fall too in love with your ni'm, it will become the snake that you never envisioned. It will become the crutch that breaks your leg. So this is the true hustle of this verse. One of the meetings I wanted to remind myself and all of you brothers,
let's not become slaves of tongue dhikr. Let us use the tongue dhikr to remind ourselves that we are really supposed to be slaves of Allah Ta'ala and never forget Allah Ta'ala internally. That tongue dhikr is not enough. That's just the key in the ignition. We got to ignite something deeper in ourselves so that we never forget Allah. For some of us like myself, it's hard to continue the dhikr after the salah. But it should be part of the routine. That's the point. But take glad tidings as I conclude. Take glad tidings in the moments when you remember Allah. And in those moments you remember Allah, ask Allah to allow you to never forget Allah. And that will be the next blessing and then the next blessing. Alhamdulilah Rabbil Alameen. Assalamualaikum. Beautiful, beautiful reflections. May Allah reward you. And SubhanAllah just tied in so beautifully because he talks about the storm. Yusuf Alayhi Salaam in the storm. And Sheikh Abdullah talked about gratitude and increasing your perspective by paying attention to the things that are around you. And that will help put in perspective your trials. And I think just to bring it back inshaAllah, hopefully to connect these two things. If the heart is settled, even if everything else is crazy, as crazy as the storm of Yusuf Alayhi Salaam, if the heart is settled, then the heart can anchor a person. And the only way to anchor the heart is with the dhikr of Allah SubhanAllah, is the remembrance of Allah. Kalimatun tayyibatun, right? As Allah talks about in Surah Ibrahim, a good word, la ilaha illallah. And Imam Taymiyyah rahimullah said that dhikr to the heart is like oxygen, right? It is what water is to the fish, it's oxygen to the heart.
So SubhanAllah, you can't anchor your external unless you anchor your internal and you can't anchor the internal without the remembrance of Allah. And JazakAllah khair for giving us a lot to think about as to how to go deeper. May Allah SubhanAllah reward you and reward you as well, Sheikh Abdullah. So to remind everyone inshaAllah ta'ala, next week, bi-idhnillahi ta'ala, we will, on May 13th, which will be the 20th day of Ramadan, from 3pm Eastern to 8pm Eastern inshaAllah ta'ala, we'll have programming to get everyone ready for the last 10 nights inshaAllah ta'ala. And those that would wish to put in their donation inshaAllah, that would be split across the 10 nights. You can click on our website, the link is in the description inshaAllah ta'ala, and we'll give you that option to break your donation up over 10 nights. So please support all the wonderful work that's being done out there through different ways. May Allah bless you, Sheikh Khalid. I hope we get to see you again soon inshaAllah ta'ala. Keep it in your dark inshaAllah. May Allah bless all of you. As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.
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