Transcription
Foreign. Foreign. Last lesson, we took the name of Allah, the One who takes things from zero, from nothing, and He looks after them and nourishes and cultivates them until they reach their completion; and the One who is the Master, the One who is the Lord, the One who is obeyed. And today, we are going to take a pair of names of Allah. These two names of Allah are debated to be the greatest names of Allah. We said in our first lesson that the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam said that there is a name of Allah, the greatest name of Allah. Whoever calls Allah with this name, with pure certainty and from the bottom of the heart, they will never be turned away.
Now, this is like the Prophet tells us that there is a name of Allah, such a special name, but He doesn't tell us which one it is. The scholars had many opinions about which name it is, the greatest name of Allah. One of the opinions of the scholars is that the name of Allah, the greatest name of Allah, is actually two names. On the Hadith that the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam was once hearing somebody else making Dua, somebody else supplicating to Allah, and He said, “And whoever wants to learn how to speak to Allah using His names, take notes.” Foreign.
“O Allah, I ask You because You deserve all praise. There’s none worthy of my love or devotion but You. Al-Mann, You constantly give Your favors to me. You formed the heavens and the Earth from nothing, the One of honor and generosity. O Allah, the Ever-Living, the Caretaker, the Maintainer of everything.” Now imagine, he has used one, two, three, four, five, six, seven names of Allah in the opening of his Dua, just to introduce, just to open up his conversation with Allah when he’s made this Dua. The Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam said that this man has called upon Allah with the greatest of Allah’s names, the one which if he is asked, He will never turn you away. Foreign. Foreign. Elephant. Love me Allah.
When he heard these verses, he said that is the greatest name of Allah. This is the previous narration that I mentioned about the man who was making Dua, is not in those collections, rather it is in… it was mentioned in… So these two names, they have a great importance, and we’ll have to understand and dig deep and understand why it is that they are so important. But it is enough that they were mentioned in the greatest verse in the Quran. Which verse was that? The number one verse in the whole Quran, and in the opening of that verse, Allah calls Himself… So let us understand and look at what is the meaning of… and “Hayy” comes from the root in Arabic to be alive, the Living. And so Allah is the Living; He is the Ever-Living; He Never Dies. That’s why in the Quran, when Allah calls Himself, He adds to it another description: He is the Alive and He never dies. You might think this is obvious, but actually it’s not obvious. And do you imagine there is a day in which people forgot about this? The companions of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, they forgot about this, or or they were confused on a certain day, and they were reminded by this verse. Who knows? Who can tell me? There was a day in which the Prophet’s companions, they were lost, they were confused, and someone had to remind them that Allah lives forever. Yes, the day the Prophet sallallahu alaihi died.
You see, when I tell you human beings are alive, but the only thing is one day they will come to an end. Mortality, it’s hard to face up to this as you grow older and as your beard grows gray and your hair goes gray, you start to realize more and more, “My death is coming soon; my time is coming soon.” And that realization, it hits you in the face. As a young man, as a young woman, this realization might not really resonate with you, but talk to the uncles and ask them, “How does it feel to be 50 or 60 and to know that you may only have five or ten years left? How does that feel?” It’s hard to describe. How does it feel to be in that position, to know that tomorrow I might die? But really, we should all feel this way. The day the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam passed away, the majority of the Prophet’s companions were in denial; they couldn’t accept it. This is what happens when you have shock. When you’re shocked about some things, you know, “No, it didn’t happen.” Like some people, when their favorite football team loses, for one week they’ll say, “No, some… you know, there was a… the referees got it wrong; they misinterpreted the offside; they gave the wrong red card.” They can’t accept the reality: you guys lost, finish. The day the Messenger passed away… Who knows which of the Prophet’s companions was in the most denial? He couldn’t accept it. He stood up and he said, “Whoever says Muhammad has died, what will I do? I will take his head off with this sword.” And who is the one who corrected him? How did he correct him? See, people were attached to the the body and the Persona of the Messenger, an attachment that nobody can ever imagine, more attached than we are to our mothers and fathers. The attachment was to the Messenger. However, the day He died, it was like a train hit them in the face; it’s shocking. And in this moment in time, he didn’t come up and remind them that Muhammad is just a human being; we don’t need him anymore. No, he reminded him of something greater than that. He says, “Whoever was worshipping Muhammad, know that he has passed, but whoever is in service of Allah, know that Allah is ever-living; He never passes away.”
To understand what it means for Allah to be alive, you have to understand one, why or how many people conceive when they think about God. You know, maybe in their 17th, 18th, 19th century, just the last two, three hundred years, the vast majority of the world, they stopped believing in God over the last 300 years. But how did it happen? Nobody woke up overnight and said, “There’s no God.” Slowly but surely, the first thing, the first thing they changed, they said, “God exists, but He doesn’t have anything to do with us.” It’s like today, I have a mobile phone; the manufacturer made the mobile phone; he sent it to me, and then he forgot about it; that’s it; he has nothing to do with me until something’s broken, then I might go back to him, but for the most part, he has no control over my phone. This is how they started describing God. They said, “God created the world and just left it; has nothing to do with it; He is inactive, passive.” You know, like sometimes a person puts a share, gets a share in a business; they call him a sleeping partner. So somebody has a hundred pounds; they say, “Look, I give a hundred pounds; you give a hundred pounds; 200 pounds, you go do business, but I’m not going to be active in the business; don’t call me at night asking me to come to the shop; I’m not there; I’m a sleeping partner; I’m passive; I’m not active.” This is how they started seeing Allah, that Allah is passive; He has nothing to do with us. So they stopped asking Him; they stopped speaking to Him; they stopped seeing everything in this world as coming from Allah, or for Allah, or to Allah. This was the first step to go downhill, because the moment you say Allah is passive, it’s very easy to take the next step… is alive, and what does that mean? How does the doctor tell somebody has passed away? We all know what is it that a doctor monitors to see somebody has passed away? Heartbeat. What before doctors existed and before we had the ECG diagrams? How did people used to tell, “This person is alive or this person is dead?” They used to put their hand on their chest, feel for the heartbeat, right? It’s movement, action that makes a person alive, and it’s inaction, no action, no movement, it makes a person dead. Is always active. Who can tell me there’s a verse that tells us this? Close, very close. God… see, Allah says, “Everyone in the heavens and the Earth constantly asks Allah, and every day He has something to do.” Every day, Allah is active; He’s not passive. And you know what that means? When you think about how human beings create things, they create things sometimes like a cold machine. You look at a factory, cars… human beings are not creating cars; a factory is producing them, and they’re all identical. However, when Allah creates, when He interacts with creation, everything He does is unique. This is something we learned later about Allah’s name. Every snowflake is different; every fingerprint is different; they’re not identical. Identical twins are different. I’m a twin; I have a twin sister; I’m four minutes older than her; she’s there in the sister’s side; I always remind her, “I’m four minutes older than her,” but we are so different, chalk and cheese, as this chalk and cheese, we are completely different, and we are twins. This is what the meaning of Al-Hayy: He’s always there; He’s always listening; He’s always observing; and He’s active; He creates; He intervenes. Anything you see in this world… sometimes we get used to the idea that human beings are doing things, things are doing things. This is a famous experiment; there’s a psychologist by the name of Skinner, and Skinner, he did this experiment on dogs. What he did, he was trying to see, “How can I condition the dog?” So what he would do, he would ring a bell, ding ding ding, and the moment he would ring the bell, he would give food to the dog, okay? Then the next day, he rings the bell; the moment he rings the bell, he gives food to the dog. Now what’s happening in the dog’s head? Twenty days later, when he rings the bell, what do you think the dog does? He starts to feel hungry; he starts, saliva starts to be dripping because he has linked the bell with with food. But so in the dog’s mind, bell equals food; the moment the bell goes, food; he thinks the bell is bringing the food, right? But in reality, they are not connected to each other; they have nothing to do with each other. One person is ringing the bell, and he’s deciding to give them food. It’s quite a subtle point, but this is how all the things in this world are. We see wood, and when a spark goes, we see fire, so we think wood, spark, fire; we see these things are connected; we think the wood caused the fire, but who caused the fire? Is active in every moment of the universe, making everything linked. We see an apple fall from the tree; you know which physicist first, when the apple fell on his head, he started thinking? Isaac Newton, which he thinks fall all the time, and we think these are these are rules that govern these things, right? Book falls, gravity… we don’t realize Allah applied the force to the book, not some lifeless law. Allah is active in every moment, in every space, in every time, and everywhere. Who will hide? And when we realize Allah is the Living and He is always living, that means He is always listening at all times, when everybody’s asleep and dead, He is always listening. Human beings become unreliable because they sleep, because they disappear, they have their own needs, they are deficient. So you feel like, “I don’t want to bother him; it’s 2 AM; I don’t want to bother him; it’s 2 AM; my car broke down on the motorway; I don’t want to bother him.” Allah never has a moment in which He sleeps or He’s drowsy or He’s out of service; He’s always active. You know, we all have that friend, whenever you go on WhatsApp, it says online, happy; you never sleep; always online. Allah is always active; He’s never, to use a human term for for closest, He’s never offline. Allah is always active. This is very important to understand, and this is why Allah links Him being with us, asking Him, and us relying on Him. You know, when you find out that there’s a shop that’s 24/7 or a gym that’s 24/7, you feel, “I can rely on this shop anytime I need; I can go there; it’s not going to close on me.” Allah, 24/7. Allah is available for your requests. That’s why when Allah and talks about Him being the Living, He says, “If you want, if you want to rely or trust someone, trust on the One that is always living and He never dies,” because human beings, they let you down; shops, companies, they let you down. Today, if you want to fix your broadband, how long do you have to stay on the phone listening to the music, waiting for your turn? Your number 34 in the queue, right? How long does it… you feel like, “Why did I even pick up the phone and call them?” It’s so unreliable. This is how we are used to with each other, but Allah is not like that. And this is why the Prophet sallallahu linked this name; He says, “Your Lord is always living and so generous; He is Allah; He feels shy that if you were to open your hands to Him and ask Him something, He feels shy to give you nothing in return.” Foreign.
So knowing Allah is always living, He’s always there, means we should constantly rely on Him; we should constantly trust Him; we should ask Him. Human beings may let us down, but Allah will never let us down. Human beings, us human beings are always trying to see, “How can we live forever?” Today, there’s a technology they’re trying to develop called cryogenics; basically, they think the idea is, “Can we freeze the human being so that he doesn’t decay and die? Can he live forever?” Before this, you know, seven, six, seven centuries ago, Pope Benedict, it must have been the seventh or the eighth, when he was about to die on his deathbed, he got three young children; he cut their blood, he cut their nerves, their veins, sorry, and he tried to connect their blood to his blood, thinking if a young child’s blood would go in his blood, he lived for longer. Human beings are always thinking, “How can I live? How can I live? How can I live?” Anywhere you may be, death is going to overtake you. Well, even if you hide yourself in the tallest of buildings… When you and me realize we are mortal, we are going to finish, we realize another thing: Allah has no beginning and no end. These are two other names of Allah to remember: He is the First and the Last. When the Prophet sallallahu to Allah, he would say, “O Allah, You were the First and there was none before You; You are the Last and there’s nothing after You.” Just imagine… you can’t imagine. But what that makes us realize is whoever and whatever we are relying on in this world, it’s like the dog and the bell and the food. We think the boss brings us the paycheck, my payslip, my money comes from my boss; we don’t realize the boss and the paycheck are both from Allah, because just like that dog, we connected those two things. This is Al-Hayy. The second name, now I’m going to take you on a journey in the Arabic language. Who knows what is the meaning of “Qayyum”? “Qayyum” to stand. Okay. Someone who’s standing, but also somebody who’s looking after something or someone, because if you tell me security guards… if you tell a security guard… when you come into a like a hotel or a building and you see the security guard, he’s seated, okay? However, when you see a security guard standing, walking around, who looks more alert? The one standing, right? Allah talks about the word in the Quran in the situation where He says, you know, some people, if you give them a loan, if you give them some money, you’re never going to get it back unless you… you are chasing this person; you are standing over them; “When is the money coming? When is the money coming?” This is you are standing; you’re vigilant; you’re looking after something; you’re alert. This is… now in Arabic, there are words, there are forms of words; if you want to make something frequent, if you want to exaggerate something, one of those is the form for Al-Qawwam. Who does Allah describe in the Quran? Men. Come on, guys. Come on, guys. Men, males, real men; they are Qawwam upon women; that means they are looking after them; they are maintaining them; they are protecting them; they’re taking care of them constantly. Qawwam means you are doing it constantly, frequently; yes, no break; you don’t get a break; you are Qawwam. This is the the definition of a man, masculinity. This is what masculinity is about: is stepping up, taking responsibility. You know, this is a side point, right? But a lot of the time, young men, they say, “Oh, are we ready for marriage? When, when can we get married? Why don’t we get married young, like the Sahaba used to get married when they were… then when they were young?” I say, “Habibi, look, you’re 26 years old; you still spend most of your time playing PlayStation.” Yes, the uncles, the uncles are shaking their head. Yes, these are the uncles… from age of 15, they were working in the factory floors, in the shops, and they get there… 26 years, 27-year-old young lad, and he’s playing PlayStation, and he’s saying, “Oh, I want to get married quick.” Habibi, yeah, first learn to be a Qawwam, then you become a man, then you can get married. Yes, don’t inflict any damage on a poor young lad. So Qawwam. Now let me come to the next, the next one. This is a form for your rule in Arabic that’s very rarely used, because someone who’s maintaining or looking after something, they can also fall asleep; they can also get drowsy; they can make mistakes; they can get bored; they can get negligent, right? But Qayyum, never, not even for a moment, stops taking care of what’s in his responsibility. He stood Him; He is the reason for His own existence, and everything is reliant upon Him; everything stands because of Him; everything breathes and exists because of Him; that’s what Qayyum means. If it wasn’t for Him, there was… everything would be dust, nothingness. You exist; what brought you into existence? The things around us; what made them be when they were nothing? He made everything standing, and then He looks after it constantly; is what Qayyum means. Now, interestingly, when Allah describes Himself, Himself as Qayyum in the Quran, He also… He describes the opposite. Who can tell me the next Ayah from The Young, the youngsters? Yes. Who can tell me what does “Sina” mean? Yeah, blink of an eye. I’ll tell you what is “Sina.” You know, when you’re driving on the motorway at midnight and you’re very tired and you… this happens, yeah, you just kind of you close your eyes for a moment; this is “Sina,” feeling drowsy and exhausted, and you suddenly your eyes close. May Allah protect all of us. “Nu’as” is deep sleep; “Nu’as” is deep sleep. So Allah says, “He is Hayy because… why? Why does He have to say drowsiness? Neither drowsiness nor sleep overtakes Him,” because if you go to a… you see it very commonly, you go to an establishment, a shop, an organization, a building, a security guard, you come there at 1 AM; once the security guard doing? Most likely fast asleep; fast asleep; yes, the saliva dripping down is… right chin, right side of his chin, fast asleep. Because when human beings look after things or people or anything, they get tired, right? Husbands, it’s tiring to look after the family; mothers, it’s trying to look after the kids; there are moments when you give up; there’s moments when you get exhausted, right? And that’s why sometimes we feel like we shouldn’t ask someone for a favor because we know they’ve got enough on their plate; we don’t want to bother them, so we just hold back. When Allah says He’s… He is never, for a moment, does He get drowsy; never for a moment does gravity stop working. If gravity stopped working in this room, what would have been happening to all of us? We’ll be floating like in space. Subhanallah. See, these things we don’t realize… some people, you know, you get your… you fracture your pinky finger, the smallest finger in your in your in your hand, and suddenly you realize how many things you needed this finger for: to write, to move, to hold, to grip, to cook; you need this finger for so many things, and you thought before… I thought this was such an insignificant small part of my body; I needed it so much. We can all relate when we fall ill; we feel so helpless; we didn’t realize the blessing of health. Allah, He looks after gravity, looks after you, looks after me; our heart beats; everything in this world… we think that there are some nature looking after this; no, Allah is looking after every moment, and if Allah decided for a moment, He could wipe us all out. And this is why when Allah says to Allah, prostrate, Sujud, everyone in the heavens and the Earth, whether they like or they don’t like… what does that mean? Because a disbeliever does not do Sujud to Allah, so how can Allah say everyone in the world is doing…? Who can explain to me this? Who of the scholars in the audience can explain? Allah says everybody is doing Sujud to Him, but we know so many people, they never do Sujud to Him. Yes, young man. Because the uh… including the… including the hearts and there, organs of the disbelievers… um… know how they are praising Allah. So a disbeliever may not do Sujud physically to Allah, but their whole body is subservient to Allah; Allah is controlling every atom in their body. This is now… these two words… the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam had a special, special relationship with these two names of Allah. He narrates, He says, the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, in the worst situations of his life, he would say to Allah… [Music] “…I seek Your help and Your mercy.” And in fact, one of the hardest days in the life of the Prophet sallallahu… the day of Badr… He relates, He says, “On the day of Badr, I went forward into war, and I was fighting left, right, and center, and then I came back just to check on the Prophet sallallahu… I just wanted to know how is he doing? I came to find him, and I found him in Sujud, and what is he saying in Sujud? He’s asking Allah by these two names, and he’s not saying anything else; he’s not speaking to Allah; he’s not asking Him; he just keeps saying…” He’s speechless; he’s not asking Allah for anything; he’s just calling His names. He says, “I went back and I continued fighting, and after a period of time, I came back, and he’s still prostrated, the Prophet sallallahu, and he’s still saying…” Foreign. He says that my teacher used to have such a special relationship with these two names. He said that from the Sunnah of Fajr to the prayer, the Fajr prayer in congregation, he says, “My teacher would say 40 times,” and he said, “In my experience, whoever says so many times in the morning, Allah will relieve their distress.” Now we have no Hadith or narration to support this, but is one experience that he’s sharing, and it was his opinion, the opinion of Epentemia, that this was the greatest names of Allah. Why? What is suspect? What makes these two names special? He says that Allah’s name… Allah being Living… or under this name, so many other names of Allah comes… that He is listening, that He’s hearing, that He’s active, that He’s helping, that He’s giving, that He’s taking, that His own… all of this comes under the name Al-Hayy, because if you are not alive, you cannot do anything else. Foreign. Under this name, all of Allah’s actions come. Allah maintains; He protects; He takes life; He gives life; He bursts the child; He breathes the soul; He… Allah grants the soul to the child; all of this activity that Allah is engaged in comes under the name. So it is as though these two names… Samurai is who Allah is, and this is why in the moment of distress, the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam would simply say… You. Now there’s something very interesting about the name of Allah, and that is that Allah’s name means that everybody exists only because He gave them existence, and what does that mean? That means we are in need of Allah. This is something we forget sometimes; we remember when we are ill; we remember when we’re on our deathbed; we remember when something’s going wrong, but when we’re healthy and we’re fine, we forget that we need Allah. Even now… says in his final letter, in his wasiya, he says, “Somebody in the sea holding a piece of wood and kicking and screaming is saying as much in need of Allah as you and me right now,” but at that moment in time, they are screaming and crying and begging for Allah, and you and me right now, we think we’re fine; we are independent; we’re individual; and this this idea is what has destroyed so…
Many of our lives, when we think we are not in need of Allah anymore—this is in the Quran—um, when we give human beings good times, blessings, happy times, they turn away from me, and they do their own thing. But if something bad happens to them, calamity strikes them, they are constantly making dua; they constantly feel in need of Allah.
Allah mentions in the Quran, “Yeah, O people, you are the ones in need of Allah, and Allah is the Rich, the free of need, the one full of praise, the deserving of praise. If he wants, he doesn’t need you to such an extent; if he wants, he can wipe you out and just create someone else. That’s not difficult for Allah.” Think of that for a moment. Allah doesn’t need you; he doesn’t need your salah; he doesn’t need your Quran; he doesn’t need your zikr; he doesn’t need you to be set here. He could replace you. You know, on a football team, on a football team, if you make the playing 11, what does that mean about you as a player? Sorry, they need you; they need you on the team. And if you sat on the benches, what does that mean? Yo, nobody needs you; you are replaceable. That moment in which the referee says, “Substitution,” and your name gets called up, and you have to run off the pitch, there’s a sinking feeling in your heart: “Someone could replace me.” Think of that. We are the playing eleven; we are alive. But how many creations of Allah are on the benches? Allah could have replaced us with them. What made you deserve to be alive? Why did Allah give you the chance and the opportunity to breathe when he could have given somebody else a chance instead of you? How many people die every year? How many children die? How many children die in the womb? Don’t be distracted; this is the test. How many children die without even seeing the world and breathing oxygen? But you didn’t; you made it. What makes you deserve this? We have to justify our existence; if not, Allah will replace us.
We are in constant need of Allah, and we forget this; we don’t realize this. But when we remember, we remember the One we are dependent on for every breath and every movement. When does a person realize their dependence on Allah? When they get ill. Famous example: Muhammad Ali, Cassius Clay. What did he used to call himself? The greatest. Yes. And a famous situation happened when he fell ill, and he couldn’t box for six months. When he came back, he said, “Don’t call me the greatest; God made me ill for me to realize He is the greatest.” This is what happens when we get ill; when a family member gets ill, we start to realize how much we really need Allah. Why are we waiting for those situations? Should we not be expressing our need to Allah more regularly? Should we not be begging him more regularly? Should we not be realizing that the comforts of our life could be taken away at any moment? We need Allah to maintain them as they are, to feel really… as I am a beggar in front of… I am a needy; I’m a miskeen; I’m a poor person. You know, when you’re sitting in a restaurant here around the corner—yes, there’s a whole line of restaurants—and you’re sitting in a restaurant, and somebody opens the door and says, “Can anybody give me a pound?” And sometimes you’re in the middle of eating; you think, “Why do they have to annoy me like this?” And you could never imagine a day when you’re in that situation, because it’s so embarrassing; it’s so humiliating to go into a shop full of people and ask them for one pound. Why we don’t like to feel needy; we like to give; we enjoy giving; we enjoy hosting people for dinner; we enjoy gifting things to people. We don’t like the feeling of begging, of asking, of requesting others, and that is a good thing. The Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam said to his companion, “Try not to ask anyone for anything; try your best, as much as you can, to look after yourself; don’t rely on anybody for anything.” Attention, attention! Order in the Court, please! If we lose focus by one firecracker and one conversation in the back of the Masjid, then come on, how can we continue? We need… we need ultimate focus. So Allah, we are in ultimate need of Him, and He reminds us of this only when we are in moments of illness, moments of calamity, moments of sadness; we turn to Allah.
Allah mentions in the Quran… when a group of people ride a ship and they see waves and they see a storm, they suddenly call upon Allah with full sincerity. But when they reach safety, they go back to the shirk that they used to do. Now think about that: How often is it that we… we call upon Allah in a moment of distress and difficulty, but when we’re in good times, we don’t even realize He’s there. Remember Allah in your moments of good times; remember Allah; He will be in your assistance in your difficult times. It’s the opposite. Try to remember Allah in your good times. The test of prosperity and safety and success is worse than the test of poverty, because you don’t even realize you’re being tested. You think, “I am in Allah’s VIP books because I have… I’m paying rent; I have a nice car; my family is healthy; I’m chilling; Allah is looking after me; I’m happy; I’m in Allah’s good books.” But you don’t realize… are you… are we really grateful for those favors? Are we complaining about the little things? Do we feel in need of Allah? Sometimes we have to remind ourselves and put ourselves in that situation of that person who walks into the shop and begs for a pound. We should beg Allah for every pound that we earn; we should ask Allah for every blessing that we have, because He can take it away at any moment.
When the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam loses his child… this is the thing: A woman… she is pregnant; she holds a child inside her for nine months. How often does it happen, after eight and a half months, the child dies inside the womb? Now imagine that. Or the mother delivers the child, and holding the child, the child dies in her hands. Now imagine this: She has tasted the blessing of her child’s being alive for one moment, and Allah took it away. Allah took it away straight away. Now imagine what that means for her: Nine months, all the sickness, the exhaustion, the tiredness, and she has given birth to this child, and Allah took it away. Is teaching her, and teaching you, and teaching me that He owns this child, and He gives, and He can take, and it wasn’t yours to begin with; it wasn’t yours to begin with. And you needed Allah, and that child needed Allah, and if Allah decided, He could remove His help, His assistance, His oxygen supply to that child, to you, and to me. When the Prophet sallallahu alaihi’s child passes away, and he’s found crying—and his competency of Rasulullah, even you are crying—he says, “This is a mercy Allah has placed in the hearts of His servants,” and he says a very important phrase: “To Allah belongs what He took; my son belonged to Allah; it wasn’t mine; He lent it to me; He let me borrow him, and He took him back. And to Him belongs what He gave us; everything.”
For Allah has an expiry date. Think of it this way: Everything in your life you have on lease; you don’t own; you are renting. Any time He wants, the landlord can take it back; anytime. That changes things. The clothes you are wearing, it’s borrowed; you don’t own it; Allah can take it at any moment. The electricity in this Masjid, we don’t own it; Allah can take it back. When you start to think of your life in this way—that everything I own is borrowed, it’s on loan, it’s on lease, I don’t own it—you start to look after it properly; you start to respect the caretaker, the maintainer, the landlord much more, because you know, if He wants, He can remove it at any point in time. And this is the meaning of Al-Qayyum, the One who looks after everything, but He makes it look like they’re taking care of themselves. But if you take your attention off for a second, you become ungrateful for a second; you think that this is me—this is me, my intelligence, my hard work has brought all of this—Allah will take it away, or He’ll make you miserable while you still have it. How many people, celebrities with all the funds in the world, with the biggest real estate portfolios in the world, they commit suicide out of depression? How many famous examples do we have, from Michael Jackson onwards? Why are they upset? Why are they sad? They own everything, but because they think they own it, and it’s because of their intelligence and their hard work they own it, they feel empty inside; they feel miserable. True freedom is knowing that everything is in the hands of Allah, and everything is being looked after. That true freedom that brings you happiness and fills you with light and ease is to know everything is looked after, and I don’t need to worry about this; I don’t need to be… have sleepless nights, because… is the One that makes it stand. You know, we all have stresses, and we all have worries. One day there was a group, a tribe from Yemen… and… and they were a tribe from Yemen; they were immigrants, and they had an issue that they suddenly realized they had no food and they had no sustenance, no income, and they got stressed out. They went to the Prophet sallallahu… they sent someone to the Prophet sallallahu alaihi to ask him, “O Prophet of Allah, give us something to eat; give us some food, some money.” As they arrived, the messenger arrived to the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, Allah revealed in ayah… there’s bacteria in your stomach living off your stomach acid; Allah provides for them, and He knows when they move and when they are still; everything has been recorded. And when this companion heard this verse, he said, “I don’t need to ask the Prophet sallallahu for food; Allah is looking after me. Why should I? Why… why should I stress? Yes, I’ll work hard, but I will not stress about the outcomes; Allah is in control of the outcome.” It’s such a freeing idea; it’s a liberating idea; you don’t have to stress and worry about the outcomes.
Right now we live in a climate that’s very stressful: Economic recession, rising fuel prices. Today I bought my groceries; I think I paid twice of what I used to pay for my groceries, even though I went to the cheapest supermarket possible. Everyone’s worried, but you forget about your worries; it’s freeing you when you realize Allah controls this. You know… you know many people how they find freedom is they start to build conspiracy theories: There’s a small group of people that control everything in the world, yeah, a small group of people who control everything; they coordinate the wars and the prices. When they have this conspiracy theory, it’s happy; it makes life easy for them, because they can blame someone for it. But when the real freedom is to realize Allah is the One who makes all of these things happen; He maintains them; He takes care of them; He protects them; and when He wishes, He makes them more difficult for us. A businessman or a businesswoman, every day they go into work, and they don’t know this month whether they’ll be able to pay their rent or not. It’s very difficult to be an entrepreneur. Those who are in fixed jobs with fixed salaries, life is a lot more predictable for you. Those who are working in business, ask them what happens in their mind every month; they are not sure this month will I be able to pay the rent. They have to trust Allah. The Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam said… as comes… if you really trusted Allah in your outcomes, He would have provided for you like He provides for birds. They leave in the early morning empty stomach, and they return in the evening with full stomach; they don’t know how; they don’t know why; where Allah provides. And so the name of Allah gives you a lot of reassurance that if you do the work, leave the outcome to Allah; rely upon Him; trust upon Him; ask Him; He is listening; He is alive; He doesn’t sleep; He doesn’t nap; He doesn’t have fixed hours; He is never offline. Allah is always present, and Allah is always in control. Never let someone make you think that people or objects or organizations or groups are in control; Allah controls them. You see the disbelievers, they come large armies, large groups—the Romans, the Persians, big empires—you feel, “How on Earth am I going to face up to them?” Allah says, “Don’t be deceived by these guys; don’t be fooled; they just have a short amount of time in power, and then your time will come; patience.” Don’t be deceived by people, by numbers, by armies, by politics, by governments, by MPs, by the following, the living and the death of kings and queens and emperors; all of these things, Allah is in control. And one of the names similar to Al-Qayyum is… Allah’s name in Arabic is used to describe a high place, like a hill. When it rains, all the rain starts by dropping on the hill, and then it trickles down to everything else. So if you want water, you’re going to have to sit at the bottom of the hill and wait for the water to come to you. Allah is As-Samad, meaning He is not in need of anybody, whereas everything is in need of Him. Allah… everybody is constantly needing Allah, but He is not in need of anybody at the same time. And this makes us realize this small word, As-Samad, how deep its meanings are; how much we recite the Surah, and we don’t know its meaning. Something to think about that when we teach our children, teach them Allah, teach them what it means. When the Prophet sallallahu alaihi would teach the Quran to children, to young Muslims, to his companions, he would never teach it to them without the meanings; never. This is the… how we run our madrasas, our Quran schools. We want children to learn how to read, learn how to memorize; what about the meanings? We don’t care about the meanings. The Prophet’s companion said, Hadith… the people… the Prophet’s companions who used to teach the Quran, how did they teach the Quran? When they were teach the Quran, they would teach 10 ayahs at a time, and they would teach its meanings and what actions we learn from it and what we need to do because of these ayahs, and then they would move on to the next; they would not move on from these ten verses until people knew really what it means. This is something to think about when we learn the Quran, when they teach the Quran. When we get impressed because somebody’s memorization… memorization today… many parents, “My son is half… my son is half of the Quran; he’s memorized the Quran.” Yes, great. Did the Prophet sallallahu alaihi Islam and his companions emphasize the memorization of the Quran? Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala emphasized the meanings first. Did Allah say, “No”? He said, “Why don’t they think about the meanings of the Quran?” Somebody memorizes the Quran, great; it’s a bonus. But if they have not understood it, then they have truly failed, and that is the real education of the Quran. Small tangent, but to go back… today we talked about Al-Hayy, the Living, the One who looks after everything in this world. It is close to the name Ar-Raheem, but Ar-Raheem is the One who takes from zero, and He nurtures and looks after you until you are complete. Is the One who makes everything exist, and everything is dependent on Him for every moment. Don’t forget the dog and the bell and the fruit, because we think the bell brings the food; we think our boss brings the salary. But who is behind the boss, and who is behind the salary? He is, and He doesn’t fall asleep, and He is always available. And we talked about Allah’s name, the One who is Rich beyond measure, and whom giving you does not decrease from His wealth or His kingdom, and taking from you does not increase in His kingdom or His wealth, and He is not in need of us. We just believe in Him; we go against Him; all of that will come back to us; it’s not going to harm Him; it’s not going to hurt Him. What would Allah do? What would He benefit from punishing His slaves? He wouldn’t; He doesn’t need us. We talked about As-Samad, the High and the Almighty; everyone is in need of Him, but He is not in need of anyone. And so today we have covered about five or six names of Allah. One piece of homework before you go: The dua of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam that he used to read every morning and every evening: “O Allah, the Living, the One who takes care of everything, I seek refuge in Your mercy; look after all of My Affairs, and don’t leave Me to Myself for the blink of an eye.” Memorize this dua; teach it to your children; and read it in the mornings and the evenings.