Road to Return | How to Come Back from Sin
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Ep. 12: No Good Without Evil | Road to Return
Sometimes when we witness evil acts in this world, it's easy to ask why God allows such things to happen. But evil comes not from God, but from the very choices human beings make.
Sh. Yahya Ibrahim describes the nature of evil and how we can both protect ourselves from it and see it as an opportunity to come closer to Allah.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Evil is real. Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la asks us in the last two chapters of the Qur'an to worship him and to ask for his protection. Qul a'udhu, say, I seek protection, refuge, a shield from Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. Qul a'udhu bi-rabbi al-falaq, he is the Lord of the daybreak. And qul a'udhu bi-rabbi al-naas, say, I ask protection with the Lord of humanity. Each of those two surahs asks for protection from two different things. The first surah from the physical things and the physical dangers, the second one from the invisible dangers and the whispering of the shaitaan. Yuwaswisu fee sadoori al-naas, minal jinnati wal-naas. Both of them show us that it is important for us to recognize that evil does exist in the world. And that makes us want to then ask a question that other people might challenge us as Muslims and say, well, if Allah is there, why does he allow evil to exist? Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, khaliqu kulli shayt, is the creator of all things. And the things that Allah has created, many of them he has given the ability to choose to do good and to choose to do evil. And therefore, minal jinnati wal-naas, from the evil that is brought by jinn and mankind, that the evil is not made by Allah, but by the choices that human beings make. And therefore, when you see that suffering is found in the world and the environment and climate change and war, and you see that there is hunger and famine, it's not because Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la intends this for mankind.
Rather, Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la has given us the intellect, al-bayan, the ability to speak and negotiate so that we can solve those problems. wa laa tufsidoo fil-ardi ba'da islaahiha And Allah warns, do not cause corruption in the earth when I have made it balanced and in harmony for you. ataakum min kulli shay'in min kulli maa saaltumoo Allah says, I gave you from everything that you would ever seek to ask of me, so that you can live with each other equitably, fairly, justly, but you have caused corruption. dhaahara al-fasadoo fil-barri wal-bahri bimaa kasabat aydi al-naas Fasad and evil, which is another word that describes sin, evil and corruption has spread in the ocean and the seas and the air and everything around us on this earth. bimaa kasabat aydi al-naas As a consequence of the dealings of mankind, of the actions of the hands of man. And therefore Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la always in the Quran, when evil is mentioned, that those who have knowledge, they refer it to themselves or the actions of others and not to Allah. And therefore, whenever we speak about evil, it's important as a part of our belief to know that nothing in the world, nothing in the creation of Allah is created more evil than good. Nothing in the world is even created or in the realm of the creation of Allah that is even equal in good and evil. Even the shaytan has more good in the creation of the devil than there was in the evil consequence of his existence. Because the shaytan that you and I combat in proving our love for Allah, it diminishes him and diminishes the evil that is wrecked in the world. There is more good that is experienced in the world in its totality than there is evil and sinfulness and wretchedness.
And we pray that Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la allows us to be callers to good, rejecters of evil. ya'muroona bilma'roof We invite people to what is good. wayanhawnaAAani almunkar And we forbid evil for what is being done. wayu'minoona billa wa tu'minoona billa And you have a belief in Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. We hope bi-idhnillahi ta'ala that our belief in Allah is one of the things that protects us from doing evil by following the shari'ah, the path of a good life, as-sirat al-mustaqeem that was led for us by the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. So why does evil exist? Well, it allows us to understand why, what is actually good. Unless I experienced being unwell, I didn't value how important good health was. Unless I experienced a financial downturn and not having always the amount of money that I want, I wouldn't, and you wouldn't appreciate the good things that we already have with us. If we didn't see other people suffering, we wouldn't appreciate our place and they wouldn't appreciate their place and compare to those who suffer more than them. And therefore, good and bad in life are in harmony and are in the two sides of the same coin. But there is always more good in the creation of Allah than there is evil. And that's a part of our belief as Muslims. Evil also is given to a person as an opportunity for them to show obedience to Allah. So when Allah allows evil to be done and you reject it and you turn away from it and you take opportunity to be obedient to Allah, that is a great way of honoring the magnificence of Allah and of elevating yourself and status in this life and the next. And to do so, to be from those who push back against evil, we have to push back against those four enemies that we spoke about. Our inner dialogue to ourself and our soul asking for evil,
the enemy outside us, the shaytan, human and jinn, to be a person who doesn't put so much value on the dunya that we seek it at the expense of our akhira and that we're not people who lose self-control and know that we are in charge of our own place in time with Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. One of the most important steps, of course, is identifying how the shaytan, who is a clear enemy to us, seeks to attack us. And that will be our next discussion insha'Allah, the shaytan's attack against mankind.
Welcome back!
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