- Seminars and Lectures abroad / ٠07 America
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Whatever Allah created has two purposes:
Dear noble brother, I would like to thank those who have prepared for this conference for inviting me, and I do appreciate such invitation for it means that they think good of me, and I ask Allah to help me live up to their thinking.
Dear brother, I would like to start with the following question: Do you know O man who you are? You are the foremost creature Allah. This fact is indicated in Allah's Saying:
(Truly, We did offer Al-Amanah (the trust or moral responsibility or honesty and all the duties which Allah has ordained) to the heavens and the earth, and the mountains, but they declined to bear it and were afraid of it (i.e. afraid of Allah's Torment). But man bore it.)
Since you accepted to brear this trust (Al-Amanah), Allah has subjected to you everything in heavens and earth in order to get you know His creations and to honor you. The proof can be deduced from the following Hadith which the Prophet, peace be upon him, said when he looked to the crescent moon:
((May this moon be bringing good and guidance.))
In this concise Hadith, the Prophet, peace be upon him, made it clear that whatever Allah created has two purposes: One of them is to make man know Allah's creation and the other is to honor him. Anas bin Malik narrated that Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, said:
((May this moon be bringing good [may it bring us things we make use of] and guidance [may it guide us to Allah].))
The universe is subjected to man in order to know and to be honored:
In fact, the universe is subjected to man as he accepted to bear Al-Amanah in two ways: A subjection to make him know Allah's creations and a subjection to honor him through Allah's. The subjection to make us know Allah's blessings (through His creations) entails to believe, and the subjection to honor us entails to be grateful to Allah for His blessings. When man believes and is grateful to Allah, he fulfills the purpose of his existence, and when he fulfils this purpose, all kinds of Divine treatments stop. Allah says:
(Why should Allah punish you if you have thanked (Him) and have believed in Him.)
When man believes in Allah; in His Oneness, Existence, Perfection, Beautiful Names and Exalted Attributes and acts upon Allah's Method, he achieves the purpose of his existence. Actually, there are 7 billion people all over the world, and all of them are so keen on maintaining the safety, the perfection and the continuity of their existence. The safety of man's existence is maintained by following the orders of the Creator as He is the only Party whose orders are supposed to be obeyed. Hence, the safety of his existence is gained by obeying the Creator's Orders, and the perfection of his existence is gained by getting closer to Him.
All the beauty that is on earth is but a touch of Allah's Beauty, so when man knows Allah and connects with Him, he connects with the essence of the beauty of the universe. The believer should say "None on earth is happier than me, but the one who is more pious than me", since man was basically created to be happy. Allah says:
(Except him on whom your Lord has bestowed His Mercy (the follower of truth - Islamic Monotheism) and for that did He create them.)
He created them to make them happy.The wisdom behind trials which befall man:
Dear brother, let me refer to the car which you drive, do you know why it is manufactured? It is manufactured in order to drive it, isn't it? Hence, the purpose of manufacturing it is driving it, but what about the breaks it has? They are used to stop it, while you are driving it; the car is stopped by the breaks although it is manufactured in order to drive it. What can you deduce from this example? We deduce that man was created to be happy, but if he becomes oblivious to Allah, stops obeying Him properly or does harm to Allah's creations, Allah will draw his attention to the mistake he makes either by making him realize the mistake itself or disciplining him. This explains Allah's Saying:
(And verily, We will make them taste of the near torment (i.e. the torment in the life of this world, i.e. disasters, calamities, etc.) prior to the supreme torment (in the Hereafter), in order that they may (repent and) return (i.e. accept Islam).)
This Ayah is one of the basic Ayat about trials:(And verily, We will make them taste of the near torment (i.e. the torment in the life of this world, i.e. disasters, calamities, etc.) prior to the supreme torment (in the Hereafter), in order that they may (repent and) return (i.e. accept Islam).)
We will be pleased when we understand the purpose of each trials Allah send us (to correct the mistake we commit) and the wisdom behind it. The purpose of this trial is to correct the mistakes we make. If there is something wrong with the path which man follows, the function of the trial is to help man get rid of it. I repeat the above Ayah:
(And verily, We will make them taste of the near torment (i.e. the torment in the life of this world, i.e. disasters, calamities, etc.) prior to the supreme torment (in the Hereafter), in order that they may (repent and) return (i.e. accept Islam).)
The believer is relieved when he realizes the wisdom of trials, their functions and their purposes. Also, he will be pleased when he knows that the purpose of whatever trail Allah befalls him could be to make benefit from and so to be pleased with. It was reported in the relic:
((Whatever calamity or illness you are afflicted with is but a result of your wrongdoings, but He pardons much.))
In another relic it was reported that:
((And whatever strikes you of disaster - it is for what your hands have earned.))
((Adversities are results of sins and repentance is the way to remove them.))
This bitter truth should be preferable to you than the more comforting delusion. There is a big difference between living in delusion comfortably and living bitterly but in reality:
((Whatever calamity or illness you are afflicted with is but a result of your wrongdoings, but He pardons much.))
Also:
((And whatever strikes you of disaster - it is for what your hands have earned, but He pardons mush.))
Dear brother, one of the morals of believers is that when a trial befalls one of his brother, he should have good thought of him and say, "Well, it could be a way of promoting him in Allah's Sight." However, I urge every believer who is afflicted with a calamity to look for the reason behind it as Allah the Exalted says:
(Why should Allah punish you if you have thanked (Him) and have believed in Him)
Keep in mind the example of the car; it is manufactured to keep running, but it has breaks, which is used to stop it, and so it contradicts the purpose it is originally manufactured for. Yet, those breaks are to ensure its safety. Thus, when man is treated by Allah (through the trails and calamities which befall him) his reaction should be:
(And certainly, We shall test you with something of fear, hunger, loss of wealth, lives and fruits, but give glad tidings to As-Sabirin (the patient ones, etc.)* Who, when afflicted with calamity, say: "Truly! To Allah we belong and truly, to Him we shall return."* They are those on whom are the Salawat (i.e. blessings, etc.) (i.e. who are blessed and will be forgiven) from their Lord, and (they are those who) receive His Mercy, and it is they who are the guided-ones.)
Dear brother, one of the greatest saying of Umar, may Allah be pleased with him, about calamities, is that whenever a calamity befell him, he used to say, "Praise and thanks be to Allah three times: Praise be to Allah, because the calamity did not affect my religion [the most serious calamity is the one that has negative effect on someone's religion and causes him to deviated from Allah's Method, such as becoming indifferent to Allah's Threats of punishment and stopping to obey Him], Praise be to Allah, for it could be more serious than that and praise be to Allah, for He helps me remain patient on it."
Allah disciplines people gradually:
Dear brother, in fact Allah disciplines the believer in stages. The first stage is the clarifying guidance. It is done t through listening to the Quran, the tafsir of an Ayat, a Hadith, the tafsir of a Hadith, sermons, stories, religious issues and religious symposium. The clarifying guidance is done while you have good health, at home with your children and everything is fine with you, but you are disciplined because of a mistake you make, an improper performance of an act of worship or a kind of deviation or aggression. The Lordship of Allah, Lord of the Worlds, entails disciplining man, so He does that with the one who becomes oblivious to Allah, exceeds his limits with Him, performs his duties towards Allah improperly or does harm to Allah's creations.
In this earlier stage of disciplining Allah shows man his mistake implicitly though sending him a good man who can advise him, encouraging him to listen to a khutbah in which he can be reminded of his bad deed or letting him watch a symposium in which he can realize his mistake. This is the first stage of discipline whoever becomes heedless, exceeds his limits or falls behind in his duties; it is to make the bad deed of such a man clear enough to him through done though an implicit message sent by a friend, scholar or an Imam who delivers khutbah in the Masjid, a lesson he learns from a book he reads or a symposium he watches. This is the clarifying guidance, and the perfect reaction to it is to respond when you realize your mistake through it:
(O you who believe! Answer Allah (by obeying Him) and (His) Messenger when he calls you to that which will give you life.)
All what you are supposed to do is to answer Allah's Call to whatever gives you life, safety happiness and elevation. Accordingly, if you are called by Allah the Almighty, you must answer Him.
(O you who believe! Answer Allah (by obeying Him) and (His) Messenger when he calls you to that which will give you life.)
What happens to whoever does not answer's Allah's Call? He has to be disciplined through the second stage which is the educational discipline. For instance, Allah makes this person in trouble or sends a calamity to befall him in which someone terrifies him, makes him worried about something, surpasses him in abilities or irritates him. This stage explains:
((Adversities are results of sins and repentance is the way to remove them.))
The saying indicates a crucial fact: When man does not respond to the clarifying guidance, he is disciplined through the educational discipline. You should be disciplined, so your success lies in looking for the cause of disciplining you. It is said, "The indifference of whoever is not affected by the calamity which befalls him is more serious than the calamity itself." In this case you are the calamity itself, because you react to it negatively. It is reported in a Hadith Qudsi:
((My servants, I have made oppression unlawful for Me and unlawful for you, so do not commit oppression against one another. My servants, all of you are liable to err except one whom I guide on the right path, so seek right guidance from Me so that I should direct you to the right path. O My servants, all of you are hungry (needy) except one whom I feed.))
It is a long Hadith, and it ends as follows:((O My servants, these deeds of yours which I am recording for you I shall reward you for them, so he who finds good should praise Allah and he who finds other than that should not blame anyone but himself.))
This is where heroism lies in:
((And he who finds other than that should not blame anyone but himself.))
Man is disciplined first of all through the clarifying guidance, and then through the educational discipline and the last stage is through Allah's gradual seize in punishment, as the scholars call it generosity for the purpose of Allah's gradual seize in punishment. Allah may grant someone one of His Blessings such as profits, a house, something he aspires to having and so on, in order to be thankful to Allah. What man is expected to do when he is disciplined through the clarifying guidance is to respond to it positively, to repent when he is educationally disciplined and to be grateful when a blessing is bestowed on him, but if he neither answers Allah's Call, repent nor thanks Allah, he will be punished severely:
(So, when they forgot (the warning) with which they had been reminded, We opened to them the gates of every (pleasant) thing, until in the midst of their enjoyment in that which they were given, all of a sudden, We took them to punishment,)
Your heroic act lies in responding positively to the clarifying guidance, but if you do not, Allah forbid, you still have a chance to repent through the educational discipline, and if you do not, you have to be grateful when Allah bestows His Blessings on you (as a way of testing you to see whether you will thank Him or not), but if you are not thankful to Him, you will be destroyed.
(So, when they forgot (the warning) with which they had been reminded, We opened to them the gates of every (pleasant) thing, until in the midst of their enjoyment in that which they were given, all of a sudden, We took them to punishment, and lo! They were plunged into destruction with deep regrets and sorrows.)
Purposes of calamities:
Dear brother, calamities have different purposes according to the person they befall. For example, the calamities which befell the Prophets, peace be upon them, have the purpose of revealing their perfections. The perfections of the Noble Prophet, peace be upon him, were revealed when he travelled 80 kilometers to get to At-Ta'if on foot, and when he was disbelieved in there, made fun of, hit by the children of that city and had his feet bled. The angle of the mountains came to him and said, "O Muhammad! Order what you wish. If you like, I will cause Al-Akh-Shabain the two mountains to fall upon them." To which the Prophet, peace be upon him, said, "No, do not do that. I hope that Allah will bring forth from their progeny people who will worship Allah Alone, and none besides Him. O Allah! Guide my people, as they do not know." The perfections of the Prophets, peace be upon them are uncovered through the calamities they befell them, whereas the purpose of the calamities which befall the believers is to urge them to keep on the Right Path, to repent to Allah or to increase their reward. Hence the purpose of their calamities is to motivate and elevate them. In the following Noble Ayah, Allah says:
(And certainly, We shall test you with something of fear, hunger, loss of wealth, lives and fruits, but give glad tidings to As-Sabirin (the patient ones, etc.)* Who, when afflicted with calamity, say: "Truly! To Allah we belong and truly, to Him we shall return."* They are those on whom are the Salawat (i.e. blessings, etc.) (i.e. who are blessed and will be forgiven) from their Lord, and (they are those who) receive His Mercy, and it is they who are the guided-ones.)
As we have just said, the function of the calamities which befall the believer is to encourage him to approach Allah, to increase the acts of obedience, to get closer to Allah, to make his intention more sublime and to increase his reward. This is about the calamities of the people of faith (believers). The important fact is that:
((If Allah wants to do good to somebody, He afflicts him with trials, so if he remains patient, We favors him over sh3er, if he is grateful to Us, We draws him closer to Us…))
Regarding those who turn away from Allah, the kuffar (disbelievers) and the mushrikeen (polytheists), the purpose of the calamities which befall them is to make them stop committing sins or to destroy them; if they refuse to stop committing sins, Allah destroys them.
To summarize, the purpose of the calamities of the prophets, peace be upon them, is to reveal their perfections, the purpose of the calamities which befall the believers is to motivate and exalt them and the purpose of the calamities of the kuffar and mushrikeen is to stop them and destroy them. These are the different purposes of the calamities, and your success lies in knowing how to react properly to the calamities. Let me repeat what I said earlier, "The indifference of whoever is not affected by the calamity which befalls him is more serious than the calamity itself."
Fear of Allah is the highest wisdom:
Dear brother, Allah the Exalted says:
(Does man think that he will be left Suda [neglected without being punished or rewarded for the obligatory duties enjoined by his Lord (Allah) on him].)
You cannot do whatever you want, eat whatever you wish, take illegal money and do harm to whoever you want and escape Allah's Punishment:
(Do people think that they will be left alone because they say: "We believe," and will not be tested)
There must be punishment from Allah, so how can you be a winner? You can be a winner when you take Allah's reward and punishment into consideration. Let me be honest with you: whoever does not fear Allah's Punishment and never thinks of it is considered. There is a crucial point in the following Ayah:
(It is Allah Who has created seven heavens and of the earth the like thereof (i.e. seven). His Command descends between them (heavens and earth), that you may know that Allah has power over all things, and that Allah surrounds (comprehends) all things in (His) Knowledge)
When your relation is with a more powerful man than you, you will avoid making mistakes, because you know very well that your mistakes are recorded to be used against you and so you will be punished for them. You cannot go against this powerful man. For example, as an ordinary citizen, what do you do when you drive your car, and the light becomes red, and you know that keep driving means receiving a severe punishment? You will never think of ignoring the red light and keep driving, because you are certain that the legislator of the traffic law will punish you once he knows about the violation you commit. Hence, when you understand the following Saying of Allah the Exalted, you are supposed to watch your behavior:
(It is Allah Who has created seven heavens and of the earth the like thereof (i.e. seven). His Command descends between them (heavens and earth), that you may know that Allah has power over all things, and that Allah surrounds (comprehends) all things in (His) Knowledge)
When you understand what this means, you should reconsider your actions and behavior. Thus, your intelligence lies in taking Allah's Punishment into account before you take what is not yours, oppress other people and treat them arrogantly. That is why it is said, "Fear of Allah is the highest wisdom."Man was created weak to keep in dire need of Allah:
Allah says:
(Certainly My Plan is strong)
Undoubtedly all of you know that solidity is a highly resistant metal to the pulling power. For example, steel is the most solid metal, and this is why elevators and teleferic (ski lifts) are made from laminated steel. We've said that steel is the most solid, metal, whereas diamond is the hardest metal. As for the solidity of an element, it is extremely resistant to the pulling power, while the hardness of something is resistant to the pressuring power. Diamond is the hardest metal, while steel is the most solid one. Allah the Exalted says:
(Certainly My Plan is strong)
The Ayah indicates that man is under the control of Allah; if a drop of blood clots in the arteries of man's brain, he will become paralyzed in even one second. You are in Allah's Grasp; if any of the coronary arteries becomes narrow, you will suffer from endless physical disorders. Similarly, if a drop of blood clots somewhere in your body, it causes disorders. This is how man is weak:
(And man was created weak)
In fact, had man been created powerful, he would have dispensed with Allah, and so his life would have been miserable, but he was created weak to be in dire need of Allah, and so his life will be happy.
The dire need of Allah versus dispensing with Him:
What did the Sahabah who are the icons of mankind do in the Battle of Badr? They submitted to Allah:
(And Allah has already made you victorious at Badr, when you were a weak little force)
It means that they submitted and admitted their dire need of Him, and so they were victorious. However, those Sahabah fought with the Master of all creations and the beloved one of Allah ( Muhammed, peace be upon him) in the Battle of Hunain, and they depended on their great number forgetting about trusting in Allah, so they were defeated:
(And on the Day of Hunain (battle) when you rejoiced at your great number but it availed you naught and the earth, vast as it is, was straitened for you, then you turned back in flight.)
Let me tell you this fact: When the believer says, "I am self-reliant", Allah will absolutely discipline him, but when he trusts in Allah, Allah will be his Protector. In Badr the noble Sahabah trusted in Allah, so they were victorious, but in Hunain they rejoiced at their great number and dispensed with Allah, so they were not victorious. The issue has to do with your sincere intentions: You either trust in Allah or dispense with Him. If you trust in Him, He will be your Protector. Allah the Almighty says:
(And by the Mercy of Allah, you dealt with them gently. And had you been severe and harsh-hearted, they would have broken away from about you; so pass over (their faults), and ask (Allah's) Forgiveness for them; and consult them in the affairs.)
Allah the Exalted dispenses with punishing His slaves:
As a believer you should pay attention to the way you deal with Allah, so if you believe that your success is an effect of your own effort, you commit an act of hidden shirk The Noble Prophet, peace be upon him, said:
((The most I fear for my Ummah is the hidden Shirk. I am not saying that people worship an idol or a stone, but they are longing for a hidden lust or doing deeds which are not in the Cause of Allah.))
Dear brother, you should keep in mind that Allah the Exalted dispenses with punishing us. Almighty Allah says:
(Why should Allah punish you if you have thanked (Him) and have believed in Him. And Allah is Ever All-Appreciative (of good), All-Knowing.)
Pay attention to this example: suppose that a father has 3 children, one of them has Down syndrome (Mongolian), so he cannot depend on him, the second child is very clever and outstanding, which means that he has the perfections of Prophethood, and he does not need to be guided all the time by his father and the third child, is clever but negligent, so the father care much about him as he has excellent abilities, but he does not make use of them. Hence, when man strongly disbelieves in Allah, he will be treated in the way Allah mentions in the following Ayah:
(So, when they forgot (the warning) with which they had been reminded, We opened to them the gates of every (pleasant) thing.)
If he is a believer, but he commits a sin, he will be disciplined through calamities. The heedless person in whom there is no hope to make him get back to Allah, is like the patient who has a cancer that has spread in all parts of his body. The doctor knows that there is no hope for the patients' recovery, so if the patient asks him, " What should I eat?" The doctor will say, "You can eat whatever you wish." Unlike this patient, the one who suffers from an acute gastritis inflammation will be put on a very strict diet. If you were a patient, would you prefer to be told to eat whatever you want or to put on a strict diet? Actually it is better to be put on a strict diet, because you have the chance to recover.
Dear brother, when you feel that Allah is watching you and punishes you through afflicting you with calamities as a result of committing sins, exceeding the limits with Him or deviating from the Right Path, you should be grateful to Allah, for you are under His intensive care. Some people are under Allah's intensive care, and there is great hope for recovery. On the other hand, there are people who are not under the intensive care of Allah, and there is no hope for recovery. Thus, it was said:
((If Allah wants to do good to somebody, He afflicts him with trials, so if he remains patient, He favors him over sh3er, if he is grateful to Allah, Allah will draw him closer to Him, if he loves Allah (devote himself to obey Allah), He will love him, if he asks Allah to give him from His Bounties, He will give him and if he believes that Allah are Sufficient for him, Allah will bestow on him His Blessings.))
The world has passed through three stages:
Dear brother, the King of Al-Ghasasenah came to our master Umar, may Allah be pleased with him, after he embraced Islam, so Umar was very pleased with him, and he welcomed him warmly.
Jabalah once was performing Hajj, and while he was circumambulating the Ka'bah, a Bedouin from Fazarah tribe trod upon his garment, so it fell from his shoulders. Jabalah got angry, and he boxed the Bedouin and broke his nose although the man said that he did it unintentionally. The man hastened to the Khalifah Umar, may Allah be pleased with him, to complain about Jabalah, so Umar requested that Jabalah be summoned to trial. A contemporary poet narrated the story in verse saying:
- When he arrived, our Master Umar, may Allah be pleased with him, asked him, "Did the man tell me the truth?"
- Jabalah said, "I will never be like those who conceal the truth or deny it. I disciplined the guy and retained my right with my own hand.
- Umar said, "The guy's right has to be redeemed! Your nail is still stained with his blood! Or else he will break your nose as you did to him."
- Jabalah said, "How come, O Commander of Believers?! He is an ordinary man, and I am a king! How can you be pleased to see a star falling down?!"
- Umar said, "Desires of ignorance and insolent arrogance of Jahilliyah have no place to dwell with us after we have established a new civilization of human equality and justice. Salves are now equal to free men; the poor are equal to the rich."
- Jabalah said, "It was a mere illusion when I thought that I would be with you stronger and more honorable! I will apostatize if you force me!"
- Umar said, "The neck of an apostate is to be chopped off by sword. It is a new world that we are now building – a world wherein wrong things are set right and differences between slaves and free men are eliminated!"
Dear brother, some philosophers or may be thinkers in Algeria-North Africa, have noticed that the world has gone through three eras. The era of principles is the first one, the era of personalities is the second, and the era of objects is the last. Nowadays man's value is estimated according the things he has such as the size of his house, the model of his car and so on. This is what happens at present, as it was reported, "Man's value is estimated according to his properties." Evaluating people (preferring some people to other ones) is done according to their properties, whereas in the past it was done according to their good manners.
Calamity is a message from Allah:
Dear brother, let me illustrate to you an important issue by the following example: If a father lets his 5th grade child drop out of school, the child will be happy, and he will spend his days sleeping until 10 am, eating and going to the cinema. He thinks that he is the happiest child. However, when he grows up and becomes jobless and has no diploma, no home nor wife, he will be angry with his father and say, "Father, why did you not rebuke me when I told you that I want to drop out of school." Pay attention to the following Ayah:
(And if (We had) not (sent you to the people of Makkah) in case a calamity should seize them for (the deeds) that their hands have sent forth, they should have said: "Our Lord! Why did You not send us a Messenger.)
This means that the calamity is a message from Allah:
(And if (We had) not (sent you to the people of Makkah) in case a calamity should seize them for (the deeds) that their hands have sent forth, they should have said: "Our Lord! Why did You not send us a Messenger? We should then have followed Your Ayat (Verses of the Qur'an) and should have been among the believers.)
The believer's heroism is manifested when he thanks Allah for the calamity which befalls him, do you know why? Because Allah that Exalted knows that this believer is a good man, so He afflicts him with a calamity in order to cure him of a spiritual illness. This is how believers view the calamities which befall them.
Whatever happens is due to Allah's Great Wisdom:
I would like to mention a very delicate issue that I keep repeating as it sheds the light on the current problems of the Muslim World. Whatever has happened and will happen on earth; on all five continents since the time of Adam until the Day of Resurrection is due to Allah's Will, but what does that mean? Scholars said, "It means that Allah allowed it to happen." It is just like the doctor's cute unique child who was born 10 years after the doctor's marriage, and who suffers from an inflamed appendix (appendicitis). The doctor is amazingly attached to his child, but he allows the surgeon to put his child asleep under anesthesia, cut open his abdomen and remove the appendix.
The example it to clarify the point I would like to draw your attention to. Whatever happens is due to Allah's Will; He does not want it to happen nor does He impose it on people; He just allows it to happen. In other words, whatever Allah wills happens, and His Will is related to His limitless Wisdom which in its turn is related to the limitless good.
The above mentioned monotheistic saying (of the scholar) explains everything happens on earth: whatever happens is due to Allah's Will, but it does not mean that He wants it to happen nor does it mean He imposes it, just like the father who allows the surgeon to cut open his child's abdomen in order to remove his appendix, but this does not mean that he wishes to see his child undergo an operation. To sum up, whatever happens is due to Allah's Will and whatever Allah wills happens. Besides, Allah's Will is related to the limitless Wisdom which is related to the limitless good. This implies that there is no limitless evil on the universe, because it contradicts Allah's Existence, so the evil that exits is relative, and it is to the advantage of good. The rigorous proof is in the following Ayah:
(Verily, Fir'aun (Pharaoh) exalted himself in the land and made its people sects, weakening (oppressing) a group (i.e. Children of Israel) among them, killing their sons, and letting their females live. Verily, he was of the Mufsidun (i.e. those who commit great sins and crimes, oppressors, tyrants, etc.).)
Read the following Ayat attentively:(And We wished to do a favour to those who were weak (and oppressed) in the land, and to make them rulers and to make them the inheritors* And to establish them in the land, and We let Fir'aun (Pharaoh) and Haman and their hosts receive from them that which they feared)
These Ayat is very precise; they reveal that Allah makes the tyranny of every tyrant on earth serve His religion and the believers without making him realize this and without rewarding him for this function.
Dear brother, it is said, "When a righteous man dies, he rests from the hardships of this life, but when a dissolute man dies, the country, the people, the trees and the animals are relieved from him." A brother once asked me, "What is the connection between animals and the death of the dissolute man?" I said, "Because of him it was forbidden to import the fodder of animals was forbidden."
It is a deadly mistake to think that Allah predestined your actions:
Dear brother, a young man who drank wine brought to Khalifah Umar, when he saw him, Umar said, "Carry out al-Hadd (the punishment fixed by the Noble Qur'aan or the Sunnah of the Noble Prophet, peace be upon him) on him," but the young man said, "By Allah O Commander of the Believers, Allah decreed that I drink wine." Upon hearing this Umar said, ""Carry out Al-Hadd on him; the first time for drinking wine and the second one because he invents a lie against Allah." Then, he said, "Woe to you man, Qada' (the preordainment) of Allah never deprives you of the free will nor does it cause you any harm."Let me pay your attention to a very crucial fact: when you mistakenly think that whatever mistake you make is decreed, predestined and imposed on by Allah, you believe in the most corrupted doctrine. It is the doctrine of predestination, which cancels reward and punishment, and which makes reward and punishment, good and evil meaningless:
((Allah, the Glorified, has ordered His worshippers to act by free will and has cautioned them and refrained them (from evil). He has placed easy obligations on them and has not put heavy obligations. He gives them much (reward) in return for little (action). He is disobeyed, not because He is overpowered. He is obeyed but not under force.))
Dear brother, the most fatal mistake you make in Aqeedah is to be deluded that Allah decreed the mistakes you make. Actually, there are dangerous sayings said by common people about Aqeedah. If you wrongly think that Allah obliged His slaves to commit a sin, punishment will be pointless, and if you mistakenly believe that Allah forces His slaves to obey Him, reward becomes meaningless. Furthermore, if you think that Allah has forsaken His slaves, you doubt His Ability:
((Allah, the Glorified, has ordered His worshippers to act by free will and has cautioned them and refrained them (from evil). He has placed easy obligations on them and has not put heavy obligations. He gives them much (reward) in return for little (action). He is disobeyed, not because He is overpowered. He is obeyed but not under force.))
Dear brother, there are critical issues you should be aware of concerning the calamities which befall us. Whatever calamity befalls us, is the very effect of a wrongdoing we do. Abu Idris Al-Khawlani narrated that Abu Dharr said that the Prophet, peace be upon him, said:
(So let him who finds good praise Allah and let him who finds other than that blame no one but himself.)
As long as the heart beats, there is a chance for repentance. Allah afflicts his worshipers with hardships in order to make them return to Him and reconcile with Him:
(If a disobedient slave returns to Allah, a crier called out among the heavens and earth; congratulate that man for he has made peace with Allah.)
Whoever knows Allah and His Orders devotes himself to obey Him:
Dear brother, I have a final comment: When you get yourself acquainted with Allah, and then acts upon His Orders, you will devote yourself to obey him. Who is Allah? Consider these facts: the distance between earth and the closest flaming star is 4 light years. Do you know how far is the 4 light years is? Light travels 300.000 kilometers per second, to know how many kilometers it travels per minute, multiply this number by 60. To know how many kilometers it travels per hour, multiply it by 60, x24 per day, x365 per year and x4 for four years. Your young child can calculate the distance in two minutes using a calculator, but if you were to travel the distance by a vehicle to reach this star, when would reach there? You would arrive after 50 million light years, and when would you reach the polestar? You would be there after 4.000 light years, and when would you reach the andromeda galaxy? You would reach it after one million light years, and you would spend 24.000 million light years to reach the recently discovered galaxy! Listen to the Quran:
(So I swear by Mawaqi (setting or the mansions, etc.) of the stars (they traverse) *And verily, that is indeed a great oath, if you but know.)
If you want to be pleased in the worldly life, seek the Islamic knowledge, if you want to be pleased in the Hereafter, seek the Islamic knowledge and if you want to be pleased in both of them, seek the Islamic knowledge. You can acquire some of knowledge only when you devote all your time to it, but if you devote some of your time, you will not be able to acquire knowledge. Moreover, man is knowledgeable as long as he keeps seeking knowledge, and when he thinks that he has had enough knowledge, he is considered ignorant.
