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Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Why did Iblees tell Allah all of this? Because he knew that Allah's promise is the truth. When Allah
told Iblees he was from those given respite he also knew that Allah
doesn't break His promise. How about us when we make du`a' (supplication)? Do we feel that Allah
doesn't break His promise to us? Are we as confident in our du`a' as Iblees, who is the enemy of Allah
? How is it possible that Iblees can be more confident in his du`a' than us?
Iblees told Allah
his plan:
[Shaytan] said,
|
|
"Because You have put me in error, I will surely sit in wait for them on
Your straight path. Then I will come to them from before them and from
behind them and on their right and on their left, and You will not find
most of them grateful [to You]." (Qur'an
7:16-17) |
When Shaytan blamed
Allah by saying, "Because You have put me error," this was a mistake in
his belief in the qadr (decree) of Allah
.
If done on purpose, a mistake in `aqidah (belief) is kufr (disbelief in
Allah). There's a hadith (record of the words of the Prophet
) that mentions this in Sahih Bukhari:
In the time of Bani Israel (the people of
Israel), a man lived with a roommate who didn't pray. When he encouraged his
roommate to pray, the roommate just said he didn't feel like praying. The man
went back later and tried to encourage his roommate again but received the same
response. Finally, the third time the man came to his roommate and said,
"If you don't pray, Allah
will never forgive you."
The Prophet
said that Allah
will resurrect these two people and will bring forward the one who
didn't pray and ask him, "Why didn't you pray?" The man will say,
"Wallahi (I swear by Allah), I loved You but I was weak. I believed in
You but I was weak." Allah
will say, "I forgive you." Then Allah
will bring forward the righteous man who was advising his friend and
ask, "Why did you tell him I wouldn't forgive him?" Why does Allah
ask him that? Because in our belief anyone who dies believing in Allah
and the Prophet
as the last Prophet insha'Allah (God willing) will go to Paradise (although some later than others). Allah
can forgive any sin except shirk (associating partners with Him) for whomever He wants (Qur'an
4:116); this is part of our `aqidah (belief). We also know that if someone repents from shirk, Allah
will forgive it. So, saying that Allah
will never forgive someone is a mistake in our belief.
When Iblees said Allah
misguided him, this was a mistake in his belief because he attributed misguidance to Allah
. We don't find misguidance amongst the names or attributes of Allah
. Allah
doesn't misguide people; human beings choose to be misguided. Like Allah
says in the Qur'an, "...and when they deviated, Allah caused their hearts to deviate," (Qur'an
61:5).
So, Iblees gives us his
plan. Have anyone of you heard of the repo-man? The repo-man is a
person who comes and takes your car if you don't make your car payment.
Subhan'Allah (glory be to God) when I was in college, I received credit
card offers all the time, with very high credit limits. Now that I'm
married with children and a job, alhamdullilah (praise be to Allah), I
haven't gotten one credit card offer. Why is that? Because they want to
catch you when you're young; because they know that most college
students can't control their desires. College students tend to spend
money that they can't pay the bill for when it comes. People will come
to your house and take your iPod, your laptop, and the best of whatever
they can find. So the job of the repo-man is to take the most valuable
commodity you have. Shaytan works the same way.
Iblees is coming for
us, and when he comes to us, he's coming to take the most valuable
commodity we have. We might be worried that Iblees is coming to take our
Lexus, or our PS3, or our concert ticket. But Shaytan is not interested
in taking all that. He will come to take our Islam. How many of us feel
that we're lucky to be Muslim? When we hear this, we should think,
subhan'Allah, my treasure is my deen (faith). If you want to know how
valuable Islam is, go to Surah Al 'Araf (Qur'an 7). Even when the people
enter Paradise, they realize their greatest blessing is Islam and they
say:
|
"Praise to Allah, who has guided us to this; and we would never have been guided if Allah had not guided us," (Qur'an
7:43). |
How many of us have
felt this value for our deen, knowing that Iblees, the "repo-man", wants
this most valuable of things from us? That's why when you're sitting in
a philosophy class and you start having doubts remember that Iblees's
primary target is your faith.
How do people treat the
most valuable commodity that they have, like the Mona Lisa? How many of
you have been to the Louvre before? If you visit museums, you see the
"priceless antiquities" have lasers and other security devices. If you
cross the wrong line, helicopters and police come after you. Do we
protect our Islam the way these priceless commodities have been
protected? Do we protect our Islam knowing that this enemy is
constantly trying to take it from us? This is a very important point,
because in the ayah (verse) Shaytan uses two forms of emphasis (laam
at-tawkeed and nun at-tawkeed) to say, "Wallahi I will definitely take
them off the straight path!"
What is the remedy for this in Surah Al Fatiha?
|
"Ihdina as-siraat al-mustaqeem (guide us to the straight path)," (Qur'an
1:6) |
That's why Allah
made it an obligation to read Surah Al Fatiha at least seventeen times a
day, because we have an enemy coming after us at all times, 24 hours a
day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. That's why we need this du`a'. Now
when we say it, we should feel as if we need to say this to protect
ourselves.
Then Shaytan continued. He said:
|
"Then I will come to them from before them and from behind them and on
their right and on their left, and You will not find most of them
grateful [to You]." (Qur'an
7:17) |
Now, maybe after
hearing this, some of us will still think, "Hey, I've got Norton
Anti-Virus, I'm good. Shaytan can't get me." As I said earlier, this is
the person who Shaytan got. Abdullah ibn Masood radi Allahu `anhu (may
Allah be pleased with him) related a hadith related by Imam Ahmed with a
strong isnad (chain of narration). He said, "One day we were sitting
with the Prophet
and he drew a straight line. He said, "This is the way of Allah ." Then the Prophet
drew lines perpendicular to this straight line and he said, "On every
one of these lines is a Shaytan calling you to his path." So there's a
Shaytan calling Muslims to get high, calling Muslims to hang out with
the opposite gender, calling Muslims to commit acts of homosexuality. On
every one of these ways there's a Shaytan telling you that communism or
secularism or nationalism is better than Islam. These are the things
that you will hear in your universities. Shaytan will work on you in
every way that you can think of, especially in concepts (i.e. how you
think about life). Suhban'Allah, the Prophet
pointed at the first straight line that he drew and he read this verse from Surah Al An`am,
|
"And this is My path, which is straight, so follow it; and do not follow
[other] ways, for you will be separated from His way. This has He
instructed you that you may become righteous." (Qur'an
6:153) |
When we go to the Qur'an we notice something interesting. Whenever Allah
uses the word "darkness", or words that symbolize misguidance, He uses
those words in the plural form. But, whenever He uses words to symbolize
guidance, like "light", He uses those words only in the singular form.
For example, Allah
says,
|
"Allah is the protector of those who believe. He brings them out from
darknesses into the light. And those who disbelieve - their allies are
Taghut. They take them out of the light into the darknesses. Those are
the companions of the Fire; they will abide eternally therein," (Qur'an
2:257) |
Another example is in the sixth chapter of the Qur'an where Allah
says,
|
"And is one who was dead and We gave him life and made for him light by
which to walk among the people like one who is steeped in darknesses,
never to emerge
there from? Thus it has been made pleasing to the disbelievers
that which they were doing," (Qur'an
6:122) |
This verse was sent when `Umar
accepted Islam. Why does Allah
use light in the singular and darkness in the plural? Because Allah
wants to show us that guidance can only be obtained by traversing
siratul mustaqeem (the straight path) and there's only one straight
path:
|
"Say, 'Indeed, the guidance of Allah is the [only] guidance; and we have
been commanded to submit to the Lord of the worlds,'" (Qur'an
6:71) |
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