Keeping Connected with the Qur'an
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The Principles of Luqman | Qur'anic Reflections Episode 3
Tune in with Dr. Omar Suleiman, Sh. Abdullah Oduro, and Mufti Abdul Rahman Waheed for the third episode of Qur'anic Reflections "The Principles of Luqman".
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Alright. Assalamualaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh everyone. Bismillah walhamdulillah wa salatu wassalamu ala rasulullah wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa man walah. I want to welcome you back to Qur'anic Reflections. I have of course with me Sheikh Abdullah Aduro, alhamdulillah, and none other than the master of turbans, Mufti Abdurrahman Waheed, alhamdulillah, who was a fan favorite of Qur'an 30 for 30, I guess. So alhamdulillah, we're blessed to have Mufti Sahib back, alhamdulillah, with us. And he's joining us actually, and he didn't ask me to say this, but he's joining us from the incredible new site of Miftah in Michigan. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to make it Miftah ul-khayr, an opening of good for the entire ummah, the entire community here in North America in particular. A wonderful facility, alhamdulillah, that's being built out. And we're blessed to have him with us, alhamdulillah. So tonight insha'Allah ta'ala we're going to be reflecting on really a phenomenal section of the Qur'an that gives us practical advice to ourselves, and also gives us advice on how to give advice. And it is the story of Luqman al-Hakim alayhi salam, Luqman speaking to his son. And before I hand it off to Mufti Abdurrahman insha'Allah, I just think the story of Luqman in very brief makes so much sense for us to understand today insha'Allah ta'ala. And that is that Luqman al-Hakim, contrary to what people might think, is actually not a nabi, not a prophet according to the majority of the ulama. But he was a man who rose to become a legend amongst the Arabs that was quoted frequently even in the time of jahliyya. And the Prophet ﷺ reminded people that Luqman al-Hakim was a monotheist. And in fact, they used to pass around the amthal of Luqman al-Hakim.
So people used to write down, they used to pass around the principles of Luqman al-Hakim as principles of wisdom. And so Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala calls him to our attention and to the attention of the Arabs that this man that you admire for his wisdom was not a fool like you all in his aqeedah. He was a man who believed in one God and who had that as central to his wisdom. Luqman al-Hakim, according to most of the mufassireen, starting with Ibn Abbas ﷺ, he was an Abyssinian man who was enslaved, brought to the Arabs in the land of Palestine. So if you read actually Tanwir al-Ghabash by Imam Ibn al-Jawzi, rahim Allah, which talks about black history in Islam, he has even a narration while it doesn't meet the standards of hadith of Luqman al-Hakim meeting Dawud alayhi salam. So living in the area of Palestine about a thousand years before the Prophet ﷺ, and his name is Luqman al-Hakim for a reason, the wise. So he's basically a legend. He was a man that was enslaved, but because of his wisdom he was freed and taken as a sage of sorts to the Arabs, even to be quoted a thousand years later in the time of the Prophet ﷺ. And Anas ﷺ has a narration from the Prophet ﷺ, in short, there's a weakness in the narration, but it's a beautiful narration, that Luqman al-Hakim was quoted to have said, that silence is wisdom and very few people practice this wisdom. So it's kind of a theme of Luqman that he wouldn't speak unless he had to speak. And when he spoke, he spoke in parables and he spoke great wisdom, and that was something that he was admired for. Malik has a narration that someone said to Luqman al-Hakim,
recognizing his position in society, his peculiar position in society, so he said to Luqman, you know, how did you, ma balagha bik ma nara? What caused you to reach what you reached? And what he meant by that is al-fadl, he meant his virtue and his status in society. So Luqman al-Hakim said, sidq al-hadith wa ada al-amana wa tarku ma la ya'nini. He said, truthful speech, fulfilling my amanat, fulfilling my trust, and abandoning that which doesn't concern me. There's so many beautiful lessons and wisdoms that we have from him, but what greater wisdom than the wisdom that we take from his advice to his son that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala called to our attention in the Quran. So inshallah ta'ala I'm going to hand it off to Mufti Abdurrahman to give us an overview of those verses, and then of course to Sheikh Abdullah inshallah ta'ala, and let's reflect together on the advice of Luqman al-Hakim alayhi salam to his son. Jazakallah khair Sheikh Omar, Dr. Saab, Allah reward you for the introduction, and jazakallah khair for inviting me back on this Yaqeen platform, this blessed and sacred platform of Yaqeen. I'm honored to be here. Next time, just be honest with your audience, because many of your audience, they already start, they believe that I am the character from the Yusuf series, so the one who played Yusuf alayhi salam. Just tell them I am that person, because right now we're just introducing me as Mufti Saab, but just let them know it's me, it's the same guy, even though I don't know his name. But nonetheless, we chose... You have to be careful of those baseballs. People don't know you like that, man. You gotta be careful of yourself. I know, I know, but I just want to be honest with them. I'm not making this up. So we're starting off on these few verses in the chapter of Luqman, surah number 31,
and the verses I'm going to reflect over are verse number 13 and 14. And the reason why I find these verses so important is because a lot of times in our life, we're finding ourselves giving advice to others, as parents to our children, as mentors, to those who look up to us, as employers to our employees, as an older brother to our younger siblings. We're always faced with those situations, and the fact that Allah ﷻ captured this moment, that tells us how valuable this moment is. How many times do parents have a conversation with their children? So many times. But this is probably Luqman ﷺ having a candid conversation with his child, and next thing you know, this is captured in the Qur'an. That tells us how valuable this is. Many personalities are mentioned in the Qur'an, but a lot of times they're just mentioned in passing, not by their name, but just by... إذ يقول لي صاحبه... صاحب... Or if you look in... رجل يسعى... in surah Yasin, just a man came running. When Allah ﷻ takes a person's name and then mentions the story, that means there's a lot of value to be taken from these verses. And that's why I thank Yaqeen for doing these reflections, even after Ramadan, and imparting this knowledge to our audience who's watching. Now here, Luqman ﷺ, he starts off. The first... And what's important is the sequence of the wisdom as well. How it starts. The sequence is very important to understand. We cannot miss out on the sequence. The first thing he says... وَإِذْ قَالَ لُّقْمَانُ لِإِبْنِهِ وَهُوَ يَعِظُهُ يَا بُنَيَّ لَا تُشْرِكْ بِاللَّهِ إِنَّ الشِّرْكَ لَظُلْمٌ عَظِيمٌ He says, Oh my son, do not associate partners with Allah, because verily associating partners with Allah is a great injustice. So now of course, this is the fundamental part of our deen. The fact that we do not associate partners with Tawheed, we do not associate partners with Allah. Ibn Qayyim ﷺ mentioned something beautiful. He says, There's no way that prophets came to this world just to break physical idols, but they also came to this world to break those idols that we have in our hearts. The idol of the love of dunya,
the idol of animosity, jealousy, desires. Now, here Luqman ﷺ is talking about the fundamental thing, that understanding the value, the status of Allah in your life. And this is the first thing parents need to impart to their children. A lot of times, the impression that children get is, My parents can do everything. I want something, my parents will get it for me. I'm sick, my parents are going to help me. I need something, they'll get it for me. But I remember as a child, I'm not saying, May Allah help, I'm not saying my parents were the best parents, but I remember as a child when we were growing up, my father would always come into the room before we sleep, and we never knew Urdu, right? We spoke English, my father's a physician, my mother's a physician, so we never really spoke Urdu growing up. But he would always, every single time before we would sleep, he would make us sing this lullaby in Urdu. And, you know, it was, that was the only Urdu sentence I knew, but it was just something so powerful. It says, دور دور جائنگے، کلمے کو پھلائنگے، ابو بھی جائنگے، امی بھی جائنگی، پیسے ہو تو جائنگے، پیسے نا ہو تو جائنگے، بوکے ہو تو جائنگے، کھانا ہو تو جائنگے، سردی ہو تو جائنگے، گرمی ہو تو جائنگے. Like, basically it means that we will travel all over the world, spreading the kalimah, لا اله الا الله. It doesn't matter if it's cold, if it's warm, if we have food, if we don't have food, if we're hungry or not. This is all, this is our purpose of our life. And I remember when we used to sleep at night, this was, these were the final statements we used to sing and we used to try to sing with a good voice. I remember living in that studio apartment. There was nothing there, but there was two of us. My father's still trying to finish his medical school program at Michigan State University, but we used to always sing this. Someone, whenever someone used to ask us when we were kids, what are you going to do when you grow older? And we would say, دور دور جائنگے، گرمی کو پلائنگے. It was like the biggest thing in the world. We're going to go all over the world and spread the tawheed of Allah. Like how Allama Iqbal in Shikwa, he says, دی آذان کبھی یورب کے قلیسہوں میں،
کبھی افريقا کتبتے ہو سحراؤں میں، شان عامكم من جشتی تجاها دارون کی، کل ما پرتتی هم چاو من تلوارون کی. He says, look, we traveled the world. The Prophet left us, but we knew what we had to do. We knew the status of Allah in our hearts. We traveled the world, we gave adhan in churches. We went in the deserts of Africa, scorching heat. That didn't stop us from spreading the la ilaha illallah and the tawheed of Allah in our hearts. And he says, we spread the kalima under the shades of swords. He's talking about Rabi' ibn Amr, how he was walking under the shades of the swords. I mean, this was the parenting that we received. Like look, the one that's the most important in your life is Allah. Because if we teach our children the dependency that they have on Allah, then when they become independent of us, they will not stop talking to us. The moment our children learn that they're independent of their parents, that's when it's the moment of the truth. The thing that hurts the most is, I don't need you anymore. That statement, whether it's directly or indirectly, when we hear that or we feel that, it's the worst moment of a parent's life. May Allah save us from that. So if we teach them that we are faqih, like even if you look at the linguistic miracles, ghani comes right before this ayah. Ghani means independent. And we are faqih. The opposite of ghani is faqih. We are completely dependent on Allah. And we teach our children that. Look, you need something? Ask Allah. You're sick? Look, we'll make dua to Allah. This is a dua. And it may seem so cliche, but really it has such a powerful imprinting on our children's heart. So here Luqman is saying, first thing first, this is the most important thing. If we cannot settle this, if our children have this in their heart, even if they go away from us in college campuses, they'll be completely fine. Imam Shafi'i's mother taught him this at a young age. Never lie. It doesn't matter what happens. Never lie. And Imam Shafi'i, once he was traveling and his caravan got looted, and the head looter was asking each person if they have something, and they were all lying that we don't have any money in our pocket. When he asked Imam Shafi'i, do you have something? He said, yes, I have some money in my pocket.
He was intrigued by this, and he was shocked that this young man would answer in the truth. He said, you don't have to tell me that you have something. He said, well, I made a promise to my mother that I will never lie. And he says to him, and I don't have much time to say the Arabic, so he says to Imam Shafi'i, he says, well, you know, you're keeping the covenant of your mother in her absence. And it is more Allah's covenant with me has more right for me to abide and keep in his absence. From today onwards, I will never steal again. The fact that this man, even though he was not with his mother, there was no, you know, keep my location on so I know where my child is, make sure there's a curfew. No, they put that in their hearts at an early age. For the rest of their life, they rest assured that everything is fine. When Asma bint Abi Bakr Al-Anhu was 100 years old, and Abdullah bin Zubair Al-Anhu was leaving the room about to get martyred by Hajjaj bin Yusuf, and he, you know, he hugs his mother, blind lady, hugs her for the last time. And he says, ikhtarib minni li atashammama ra'ihatak, you know, come close to me so I can smell you for the last time. And Abdullah bin Zubair says to his mother, he says, ya ummah, kooni ala thiqa, you know, my mother, I know I'm going to die right now, no one can see me again, but you know what, keep your head high. Ibn bnaki lam yata'ammad inti'ana munkarin faqattu, wa maa amila bi fahisha tanqattu, wa lam yaghdur fee amanin qattu, wa lam yakun indahu shayin aathir min al-radha Allahi al-azza wa jalqattu, wa laa akulu dhalika taskita li nafsi, wala kini qultuhu li idkhla aza'an qalbik. He said, oh my mother, I'm hugging you for the last time, but remember, you did a great job taking care of me and upholding me when I was a child, and because of that, in my life, I've never intentionally done something wrong. I never hurt anyone's feelings in my life. I never lied in my life. I never even hurt a non-Muslim's, I never broke even a non-Muslim's heart in my life. I understood the value of humanity. I upheld justice wherever it was. And he says, I'm not saying this so that I could be written in record books that this guy was a great person,
but I'm saying it so that you feel confident and happy that when your son leaves this world, you raised a beautiful child. Imagine our child can say that to us. Sometimes we are afraid to even open their phones because we're going to be shocked at what we see. So the first thing is this. Iqbal says, you know, if we don't take these idols out of our hearts, if we don't teach ourselves and our children that we got to get all this stuff out of our heart, the status of Allah is a central part of our heart, what's going to happen is, مَن جَسَرْ بَسَجْدَةَ هُوَ كَبِيْتُ زَمِينٍ سِيْعَانِ لَقِي سَدَاءٍ تَرَى دِلْتُهَا سَنَمْ عَشَنَةٌ تُجِتْ يَا مِلِلِقَ نَمَازْ مِنْ He says, I did sajda once, I kept on doing sajda, kept on prostrating in front of Allah, but I could not feel the beauty of Iman, the sweetness of Iman, the sweetness of the ibadah. And finally, metaphorically, he's saying that I heard a noise from the ground up saying to me, that your heart is full of idols, what are you going to get from this salah? How are you going to feel the sweetness of this salah? You got to get that out first. So that's the first thing Luqman is saying to his son. And I hope I have a few more minutes. Next part, now listen to this, and this intrigued me until I found this in tafsir, so I didn't want to quote this until I found this in tafsir. The entire, all the verses, the mukhatib, the one who's speaking is Luqman, and the mukhatib, the one who's hearing is his son. The entire sequence, except for this verse right here, verse number 14 and 15. It switches, it switches, you know, scenes. Now the mukhatib is Allah. Allah is speaking, and the mukhatib is all of us. It's very interesting, I used to always think, why is that the case? All of a sudden it's wawasayna al-insan, and we have commanded. And in tafasir it says, beautiful, in tafasir it says, if you did your job by making sure your children, yourself, you know Allah's rights upon you, you know the status of Allah, you teach your children the status of Allah in their lives, Allah says, then I will take responsibility for them to obey you. That's my responsibility now.
Wawasayna, he doesn't say Luqman said to his son to take care of your parents, but Allah says, I said to the child to be dutiful to their parents. That's beautiful, right? The fact that if this can happen, then Allah will take responsibility for us, for our children to be dutiful to us for the rest of our lives. The fact is, if our children don't see that in our lives, you know, just a 12 year old child, committed, Muslim child, committed suicide in our local community. And when I'm sitting with this Muslim, I'm sitting with the father and mother, and mother is regretting over what happened. Sheikh Umar, I honestly, when I went to their house, it was as if I was in New Zealand again, sitting with the family who lost their child. But the only difference was, there was a guilt trip among those people who did not become shaheed in Christ Church that I wish I was shaheed. This was the guilt trip that I wish I did more. I wish, the mother is saying that I wish I stood with my son on Laytul Qadr, I was too tired. And you know, the fact that I wish we did more for this child. This is what the next verse is, Allah is changing up scenes and saying, if you teach your children this, then I will make sure your children will be obedient to you, respectful to you. And then under this ayah, Allah SWT then starts talking about, you know, how much pain our mothers went through. When we look at our children, yes, even when they're getting married, I'm not going to go into the daisy culture, but we're looking at spiritual stability. It means financial stability. I mean, spiritual stability is more important than financial stability, right? Sheikh Umar, Alhamdulillah, you're married, you have children. But for example, hypothetically speaking, you know, our daisy culture, you have to have certain requirements. Munda, Munda means man, like the guy in Punjabi, he has to be tall. MashaAllah, you hit that one. Munda has to be handsome. MashaAllah, you check that box. But Munda has to be doctor. He had the, okay, look. Your dog, DOS, what are you talking about, man? So exactly. For example, if you walked into someone's house and they said,
Mom, you know who this is? This is the Umar that they made the Umar series off of. This guy has like 10 million Facebook followers, Instagram, this, that, that. Is he a doctor? No, no, come back to me. No, but you don't know who this guy is? This is, we take, even unfortunately, even in our own culture, even religious, we take, we put so much importance on financial stability, and we just lip service about spiritual stability. The most important thing is spiritual. How many sisters and brothers are sitting there who may not have a college degree, but they're spiritual. I mean, they're uplifted. But they're not even going to be, just because he's like 5'8", and the mother's like, let's make dua for him, he gets one, two inches taller, before you get married. Brother, sister, he's already 25 years old. And then you ask why your faith in Allah gets decreased, because that's not going to happen now, right? So this is the spiritual stability. When we show our children that, that will bring something out. And then finally I'll say, as far as children are concerned, the next ayah, inshallah, Sheikh Abdullah will talk about this, the next verse is talking about how Allah commands us children to be dutiful to our parents. There's so much can be said about this. Next time you look at your mother's face and her hands, and you see those wrinkles on her forehead and her hands, know that those wrinkles came from taking care of you, raising us. How disrespectful is it that we think of creative ways to become viral on TikTok by doing ridiculous pranks, right, and recording them, but we can't think of creative ways to bring a smile to our mother's face? We can't think of creative ways to bring a smile to our father's face? I mean, this is the injustice at its highest level, right? I mean, the fact that we come to our homes, Allah is saying, no, I'm commanding you to be good to your parents. You know that one poem about that child who comes to the Prophet ﷺ, and he says, my father did this, my father, he's complaining about his father. And the Prophet ﷺ sends somebody to call that person, and says, you know what, call the father here because the son is complaining. I got to hear both sides of the story.
And the father travels to the Masjid Nabawi while he's traveling there, they're Arab, so that he thought of a poem in his heart. And when he got there, the Prophet ﷺ was divinely told by Allah that before you speak to him, ask him to recite that couplet that he was thinking about on his way here. And the Prophet ﷺ says to him, recite those couplets that you were thinking about. And he was shocked that how did you know about it? It was just in my heart. He says, no, before you have a conversation, you have to recite those couplets. Anas says, I don't even have time to translate the whole poem, but he's just saying in his heart what parents nowadays would say, I took care of you, I cried for you, the days you were sick, I was restless all night. And then when I raised you and you became independent, and now you could give back to me, you put it in a ball and you throw it right back in my face as if I never did anything for you. If you could not take care of me as a parent, at least you could have taken care of me as a neighbor and just given me the rights of a neighbor. The Prophet ﷺ cried when he heard this poem. And he says, leave from here. You and your wealth all belongs to your father. So as children, we have a responsibility. These are our parents. We cannot walk into our parents' homes with our phones in our hands. You know, when the Prophet ﷺ was asked, what is the sign of the Day of Judgment? He says, the sign of the Day of Judgment is when people will be more worried about making friends outside their home and not worry about making their father. فَأَدْنَا صَدِيقَهُ أَقْصَى أَبَاهُ Doing more things to get Facebook likes and Instagram followers, but doing nothing to
make your father closer to you. So I end with this, inshallah, the next part where Luqman ﷺ is talking about the rest of the advice and the aspect of shukr about towards our parents and towards Allah. Inshallah, Shaykh Abdullah al-Duru can take it from here, inshallah. Jazakum Allah khayran. Bismillah wa salatu wa salamu ala Rasool Allah wa ala alihi wa sahbihi man wala amma ba'd. Just to touch on briefly, an important point that the Shaykh alluded to and was talking about, and I think it's an important point for all of us to remember, the whole concept of shukr and gratitude. When we look at the concept of worship in and of itself, of worshipping Allah, you know, we see people that are coming into Islam, people that have been Muslim for a while and they may face some spiritual crisis, may feel that they're not worthy, may feel that they're not good enough to be in front of Allah. I remember I spoke at this law school one time and it was talking about sharia, and then the question was asked, how can we as Muslims have the audacity, you know, it was them asking, how can we have the audacity to practice this religion when there's so much filth and dirt in our hearts? I said, no, that's exactly the time for you to try to practice the sharia. Sharia meaning trying to pray five times a day, trying your level best, as long as Allah knows that you're trying and the motive behind you trying is just saying, oh God, I want to say thank you. I want to show my gratitude towards you. And that's why it's important, as the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said in a hadith that has some maqal in it as far as its level of authenticity, but we see in the meaning that it is very comprehensive and true. When the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, مَنْ لَمْ يَشْكُرِ النَّاسِ لَمْ يَشْكُرُ اللَّهِ The person that doesn't show gratitude towards mankind is not showing gratitude towards Allah. When one shows gratitude towards a person that has done ihsan to them, towards someone that has done good to them, this is a manifestation and a sign of your gratitude towards Allah because we recognize that Allah has predestined that to happen to us. So whatever happens in front of you, it is a test for you to see how you will react towards that person
that has done ihsan to you, towards the person that wasn't even good to you. I was speaking to a convert group a week ago and I was saying many of us may, even as Muslims, many of us may not even know who our fathers or mothers are and may have met them later in our lives. But in Islam, we understand within this verse that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala was saying after Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala was saying وَوَسَّيْنَا الْإِنسَانَ بِوَالِدَيْهِ حَمَلَتُ أُمُهُ وَهْنًا عَلَى وَهْنٍ And we have enjoined on man to be dutiful to his parents. His mother bore him weakness upon weakness. وَهْنًا عَلَى وَهْنٍ And then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala continues on to say after Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala وَفِي صَلَهُ فِي عَيْمَيْنَا أَنِشْكُرْ لِي وَلِي وَالِدَيْكَ إِلَيَّ الْمَصِيرِ Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is mentioning that the mother carried him وَهْنًا عَلَى وَهْنٍ weakness upon weakness and then when she bore him that it would be weaning in two years to give thanks to me. Now Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is mentioning as the Shaykh mentioned that Allah is mentioning this. That we have admonished or given mankind this advice. So when we look at ourselves and we may not even know who our fathers are may have met them later because of something that may have happened between our parents they may be divorced, they may be separated. COVID may have been something that was a test for you because you may not have saw your father or mother or relative within the past couple of weeks or months doing something that shows a form of gratitude and I always tell people to take the opportunity to just get a pencil and write a letter. Write a letter and let your emotions flow let them spill out being respectful as much as you can towards the one that took their time to raise you or towards the one that did not but you want to say oh Allah I thank you for bringing me here that I'm trying my level best to show gratitude towards you by trying my best to acknowledge my feelings to the one that I felt has neglected me. So when showing thanks to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is when you're trying to do your best
to implement the Sharia. You're trying to do your best to just practice Islam. You're trying your level best to be a good Muslim and if we notice in this verse in verse number 14 when he mentions after the struggle of the mother he says Countlessly throughout the Quran we see Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala orders you to worship him and then he says In numerous verses Allah orders you to be good to your parents after he orders you to worship Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala so here he says To show gratefulness to me meaning Allah This is important because in the previous verses where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala mentions in the Quran the verse before the verse that he was mentioning when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is talking about the gratitude when he says And we have given Luqman the hikmah. We have given him the wisdom. And this is what he's saying to show gratefulness to Allah. So as a sign of wisdom proclamation to the people to be gratuitous to Allah is a sign of someone that is applying the knowledge of their life by having wisdom when telling the people this statement. Then continuing on it says whoever gives gratefulness and whoever shows gratefulness then verily that is for itself because when you are showing gratefulness to Allah it is good for you. It is good for your own soul because it is in essence an action of obedience an action of the heart of obedience that is exemplified through the actions and shukr is so comprehensive because any action of worship that you do if you have the correct intention it is saying Oh Allah thank you for giving me these eyes to see I'm going to use them in a way that's beneficial for me and for others Oh Allah thank you for these hands, these feet
Oh Allah thank you for giving me this appliance or this whatever has been given to me or what I have earned is ultimately what you have given me from a faculty of hearing and seeing or from objects that you have given me. So this gratefulness and I will conclude here is in the beautiful verse is where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala mentions in the chapter of Ibrahim when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is talking mentioning what Musa says to his people where he says after A'udhu Billahi Minash Shaitanir Rajeem and when your Lord proclaimed and if you were to be gretitious if you were to be thankful so firstly he's saying here it's a conditional sentence if you were to be the one that says thank you if you were to be the one that does actions that you are showing Allah saying thank you Allah says he uses the form in Arabic by putting the laam in front of the verb that verily I will surely increase you increase you in what? he leaves that blank to show you that whatever he increases you in is up to him and the amount is up to him and how he does it is up to him but it's important for you to just know and to trust that when you show thankfulness to Allah he will increase you he will increase you in your intellectual capacity to show you and thanking him more and that's what Ibn Rajah mentions the beautiful principle or the connection the connection with Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala when one's Iman increases they do actions of gratefulness and when they think about that they're grateful what do they do? another action of gratefulness when they think about that well I prayed Fajr today yesterday I didn't even pray it I prayed it today and because of that what can I do to show Allah more gratitude? oh I talked to someone about Islam today oh I opened the door for this woman today she looked at me and she said thank you
and that made me happy because when I opened the door I was thinking to be righteous to someone's mother and that's very very important how Allah says that I will increase you and does not mention the object of increase and then Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala mentions the contrast here and if you were to be someone ungrateful for verily my punishment is very harsh here he uses kafartum throughout the Quran we see Allah uses shukr the contrast of it is kufr and kufr here is not disbelief rather it is ungratefulness it is more of a generic term even though kufr does mean disbelief because voluntary disbelief is somewhat a sign of ungratefulness to Allah you recognize that he's giving you all this and you do this as Sheikh Mufti mentioned earlier when you say oh no I don't acknowledge you as my father or mother I don't acknowledge you as my father you've done nothing for me and you've raised him all of your life so when seeing here the importance of gratitude is something that Allah gives you, he gives you something to see how you're going to act with it being gratuitous towards Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is a means of worshipping him more and being a better Muslim being a better person, being a thankful person because you do not know when Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala will take you as we were recording, as we were speaking about which verse to talk about Mufti mentioned this what happened that he mentioned may Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala have mercy upon her or him who is 12 years old and that decided to do what was done, may Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala bless the parents and the community with patience and may he reward the parents for any good that they have done to make that a means of expiation may Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala have mercy on all of us Insha'Allah even last week myself, I wake up in the morning and then we get a call and it's a call from a close, close family friend that their 13 year old daughter did not wake up from her sleep
the father went to go and see the 13 year old daughter to wake her up because that whole day she was asleep he woke her up around 5pm the previous day to eat, she ate went back to sleep, in the morning he tries to wake her up, he sees that her body is cold the sister that's 10 years 10 years old comes in and sees her sister, her best friend body cold and she's not moving they take her to the hospital, we immediately rush there SubhanAllah, it was a scene that I'll never forget, you know, burying the daughter seeing the community members and then SubhanAllah, days after that when I return back to Dallas I get a call from my wife because she stays there that the mother who was pregnant had a miscarriage, the stress that she was going through from her daughter that passed away, not wanting to eat so to realize this brothers and sisters fathers and mothers sons and daughters, whom of which we all are whom of which we all are to show gratitude towards your parents and parents show gratitude towards Allah by showing gratitude to your children being thankful for their presence telling them that you love them every now and then showing them that, look, I thank you for giving me advice, you indirectly gave me advice, thank you for asking me this question, I made a mistake you know, we show gratitude towards our children even, and that is showing gratitude towards Ar-Razzaq the one that has provided you with your child who is a direct, direct manifestation of you and sign of you, so may Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala make us degratitious and make us thankful and when we recognize that thankfulness may He make us of those that increase in our worship of Him, JazakAllah Khairan JazakAllah Khair Sheikh and I do want to I think to pick up off of that, just I know it's not intended at all but it's an important point that when we're talking about the 12 year old may Allah have mercy on her or him, that when the mother expresses regret about that sometimes you do everything right as a parent and SubhanAllah things happen
and that's not what a person might blame themselves in, you know when Allah Azawajal tells us in Surat Al-Ahqaf you know Allah tells us about righteous parents speaking to their child and trying to tell their child to believe and their child responds negatively, so sometimes you do do everything right but SubhanAllah you're still tested in certain ways and of course this child was very young, may Allah have mercy on this child and may Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala allow the parents to be comforted may Allah have mercy on the child that passed away in Houston as well and make it easy for the family, may Allah Azawajal comfort them all and this reminds us that there are so many real issues in the community that we often become disconnected from and not to take that turn altogether but it's important for us to recognize that especially as people of knowledge or people that are in some sort of pastoral capacity that we often talk above these issues and these are issues that are very important to people so we pray that Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala bring comfort and ease and healing and I think by the way I mean just to say that is I think one of the blessed results of our interdisciplinary approaches, research on Fridays we have Quranic healing in the trauma series where we actually have mental health specialists to sort of help us integrate our understandings of faith with some of those things that really show themselves through the science of mental health and emotional health with that being said I'll just share one more reflection which is when I was doing the class on Ibadur Rahman the servants of the most merciful Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala mentions Ibadur Rahman and one of the first descriptions is الذين يمشون على الأرض هون وإذا خاطبهم الجاهلون قالوا السلام those who tread the earth lightly when they are approached by
the ignorant they simply say salam they say peace and here Luqman is also speaking to his son and he says وَقْصِدْ فِي مَشِكَ be moderate with your pace watch the way that you walk وَغْضُدْ مِنْ زَلْطِيخَ and watch your salt, watch your voice lower your voice, don't be like الحمير, don't be like a donkey and it's braying in the way that you speak and I think there is an inherent connection that we often miss between humility and gratitude just as there is an inherent connection between pride and arrogant behavior and you know we see it boastfulness and you know the prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam when he talks about a person who was dragging his iza dragging his garment out of pride right, and condemning that and you hear about this in many ways right you know in the behavior of shaytan that manifests itself, that he becomes disconnected from shukr, he becomes disconnected from gratitude and hence he displays a great sense of pride right, and the opposite of that which is that a humble heart is a grateful heart because a grateful heart becomes more connected to the source of blessings and that is Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and not us and when you realize that Allah is the source of those blessings you do not feel a sense of pride for the acquisition of those blessings, instead you feel a great sense of humility for the bestowal of those blessings upon you and that humbles your behavior you act with a certain sense of humility and grace with everyone because you realize the grace that was shown to you, and just as the prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam said that you cannot separate shukr to Allah from shukr to the people you know if you insert and of course we are not adding to the words of the prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam but some of the layers of what the prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam said, Allah is most entitled to your gratitude and then your parents obviously Allah azawajal puts them in an elevated category and then your family in general and then the community, right you cannot
you cannot be grateful to Allah and be arrogant with the people, ungrateful with the people, and I think a layer of that as well is that you cannot show gratitude to those on the outside of your home but be a complete jerk on the inside of your home, I mean really it's as simple as that, there are people that are oppressors in their homes and just courteous charmers on the outside of their home may Allah protect us and allow us to have consistent gratitude through our spiritual and social lives, through our family lives and our community lives and so it's important for us to really realize that every time we have a methodology of adab and tarbiyah in the Qur'an, of mannerisms in the Qur'an, it gives us a holistic approach to life and it connects worship to family to community, and that's when Allah Azawajal tells us what Ibadur Rahman are, who the servants of the most merciful are, and when Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala gives us the story of Luqman al-Hakim with his son the principles of Luqman al-Hakim and the tarbiyah that he's giving to his son which is certainly praiseworthy because it is praised by Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala the most praiseworthy himself and so it's important for us to really I think try to translate that into our lives and the greatest way to be a parent is to be an example you know, Luqman al-Hakim when he tells his son these things, his son can observe all of these things in him and that's actually very important you can't just tell your children respect your mom but then you disrespect your wife you can't tell your children respect your grandparents but then you disrespect your parents, you can't tell your children go pray and then they see you lacking with your prayer you can't tell your children don't lie but they can sense the dishonesty because kids have these great senses as they start to grow up you've got to be an example of that as well and I think that's the point
Luqman al-Hakim had a high station and he's giving his child lessons on how to achieve that high station as well and he reached that high station with his elevated character and he's giving his son a methodology for how to have an elevated character so we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to give us all of that and we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to forgive us for our shortcomings we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to make us examples of guidance for our children and to make us examples for the community around us and for the people around us and to allow us to follow the greatest example of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam in every element of our lives, Allahumma ameen it was sobering but it was refreshing as always it's never a dull moment with Mufti Abbas You get everything from something about his turban to something about Yusuf alayhi as-salam to Iqbal al-Shafi'i, and then he makes you cry, so it's never a dull moment with the Mufti sahib, but we're happy to have you, alhamdulillah. And Sheikh Abdullah as always, JazakumAllahu khayran for your wonderful insights. And inshallah ta'ala we'll see everyone next week for Qur'anic reflections as well. And of course, continue on for this last week and a half of keeping connected with the Qur'an as a campaign, but we pray Allah always make us from Ahlul Qur'an, you know, beyond this month as well. Allahumma ameen. JazakumAllahu khayran. Alhamdulillah wa barakatu.
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