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The Untwisted Truth and the Straight Path | Daily Reminders

July 16, 2020Dr. Omar Suleiman

The path of the Almighty and innately Praiseworthy cannot be twisted. We must be careful to not seek to twist it out of our own inability to abide by it.

Transcript

This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings.
I want to remind everyone about the Dhul Hijjah campaign, inshallah, as it's coming up next week. Please do go ahead and follow along the virtues of the Dhul Hijjah series as well as the series that we're going to be doing specifically about the du'as of Ibrahim, which is going to start on the first of Dhul Hijjah next week. So please do follow along with that series, inshallah, also. And if you'd like to opt in, or automate your sadaqah for those blessed 10 days, then please do so, inshallah ta'ala, at the link below. Now we spoke about a person who, number one, has these traits of loving the world too much, and then we talked about yasuddoona an sabilillah, that turns people away from the path of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And then Allah mentions wayabghoonaha a'iwaja, and then they twist the truth, yabghoonaha, meaning it, they twist it, and they make it crooked. Now obviously there are two ways to understand this, two things that we can extract from this. Yabghoonaha a'iwaja would mean that the enemies of Islam twist Islam so that they can make it less appealing. So they misrepresent it in a way that it would take something so straight and so beautiful and make it look ugly. And then there are those that twist it, and twist it in a way that they make it more comfortable, so they water it down to where it no longer has the elements that are challenging, it
no longer has the elements that cause discomfort, that require meaningful commitment in life. So twisting it from the inside or twisting it from the outside. So twisting it from the outside for the purpose of misportrayal and really feeding that, yasuddoona an sabidillah, turning people away from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, or twisting it, meaning not following it properly, the way that the hypocrites would. So twisting it in accordance with one's desires and really diluting it to a point that it's no longer uncomfortable or no longer requires commitment, it no longer threatens some of the things of hubb ad-dunya that you have, the love of this world that you might have, that we're serving and are serving as obstacles to the faith. And obviously it should be very clear that when we're talking about standards here, that never should a person who is falling short of the standard, alter the standard to be more comfortable. Instead, they should exert themselves more, recognize the mercy of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, that Allah does not expect us to be perfect, but Allah expects us to recognize perfection properly. Now we're talking about this path, it's really beautiful that the way that the surah started off with was sirat al-aziz al-hamid, that this is the path of Allah al-aziz al-hamid, of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, the almighty and the innately praiseworthy. And what that means is that this is a path that cannot be twisted, that cannot be changed, that all that have tried to misportray it, failed in their plot, all that have tried to innovate and cause it to deviate and make it crooked from the inside have failed. The deen will be preserved by al-aziz al-hamid until the day of judgment. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow us to recognize that truth and to be upon that truth.
And so one of the critiques is that they want Allah's guidance to follow their guidance, Allah's guidance is supreme and Allah's guidance is the straight path and it cannot be crooked. Also when you're talking about standards, you know Allah tells us about those that were oppressing the messenger salallahu alayhi wa sallam, وَدُّوا لَوْ تُدْهِنُوا فَيُدْهِنُونَ They wish that you would compromise and they would readily compromise. The compromise would have to alter your theology, they don't care about their theology, they care about what their theology gives them in terms of access to power and in terms of ability to oppress. And so you worship our idols for a day, we'll worship your God for a day. You know what, you worship our idols one day of the year, that's where they got to. We'll worship Allah the rest of the year. Because they needed the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam to acknowledge or validate their idols just to the extent that it gave them the access and the power to be able to do the things that they wanted to do. And so they are not a people of standard, they're not a people of integrity, the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam is the opposite of that. No matter what comes in terms of suffering in this dunya for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and anticipating the reward in the hereafter, it's worth it. For them, no matter what allows them to access the dunya in the way that they seek to do so in an unhealthy way and gives them power and access and privilege, then they'll take it because يَسْتَحِبُّونَ الْحَيَاةَ الدُّنْيَا عَلَى الْآخِرَةَ Which is the opposite of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam. And so they would be comfortable with a customized fate that's diluted to a point that it's no longer threatening to their interests, it's no longer uncomfortable to them, it no longer asks them to commit in a way that would challenge themselves and really call on them to make meaningful change in their lives. And subhanAllah with Ibrahim alayhi salam, you know you go back to the call that he made to his father, and I spoke about this in the webinar by the way, the coherence of Ibrahim
alayhi salam's call, that he was drilling the same points over and over and over again in his da'wah, whether he's talking to his father or whether he's talking to his people, whether he's talking about the worship of the idols or he's talking about the worship of the objects of the earth or he's talking about you know, worshipping the moon, the stars and the sun, he has a remarkable consistency with his message. And one of the things that he says to his father, أَهْدِكَ صِرَاطًا سَوِيَّةً I will guide you to a straight path. سَوِيَّةً means it's a path without defects. SubhanAllah it's a perfect path, it's a path without defect. And so it's important for us to always recognize that path, even if we're falling short again of the goals and of the ideals, but to recognize the straightness of that path and to straighten ourselves up rather than make the path crooked so that it fits our crookedness. This is a pure path and it must remain pure and when we are impure we seek to shed those impurities so that we can be worthy of being upon that path and that's why when we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for guidance, اِهْدِنَا الصِرَاطَ الْمُسْتَقِيمِ to guide us to the straight path. We're not asking Allah just to guide us to it, we're asking Allah to guide us to it, to guide us on it, to guide us to the destination of that straight path which is his pleasure bi-idhni Allahi ta'ala and his paradise bi-idhni Allahi ta'ala. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow us to attain Jannatul Firdaus and be amongst those that he's pleased with. Allahumma ameen. JazakumAllahu khayran wa salamualikoum wa rahmatollahi wa barakatoh
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