Ala Salaam - Allah is the Merciful

Assalamu Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuhu

There is a big dilemma when it comes to understanding Islam. As someone stated it to me, a young man. He told me, I don't know, I sit to this Shaykh, I hear things and I sit to another Shaykh and I hear other things.

I don't know what to do, I don't know what am I supposed to do, why am I here? And I think that question is warranted. Because as simple as how the Qur'an made it clear to us to answer all these questions. We as human made it so complex, you can fill stadiums with books about Islam.

What are they talking about? If Islam is all that complex, then what would a person who doesn't know how to read or write do? How does he understand Islam? How does he become a good Muslim? Or a good person? So today, I would like to strip all these away. And go down to the basics. Why are you here? And what is requested from you? What is your task? What is my task? Simple.

The Trust We Carry

It echoes everywhere in the Qur'an. We're here because we chose to carry the amanah, the trust. Which is the freedom to choose, yes or no.

So we could not stay in alamul amr that we used to be in. That's why in this dunya we say, إِنَّا لِلَّهِ وَإِنَّا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعُونَ We don't say, ذَاهِبُونَ From Allah and to Allah, we don't say, we're going. We say, we return.

That means we were there before. We are going back home. Simple as that.

Allah's Overwhelming Generosity

Be comfortable. You're not going to hell because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala like to punish people. In fact, we portrayed Allah in a way that completely different than he portrayed himself.

The one who created you, who made earth so accommodating. Earth, between the earth and the sun, 92 million miles. Did not move an inch back or inch forward for over 7 billion years.

Who kept it that way and for who? If you know that in this whole, just the nebula that we live in, over 400 million suns. The least of them is 50 million size bigger than our sun. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala states, وَبِالنَّجْمِ هُمْ يَهْتَدُونَ He created stars that far away by millions of light years away from us, just to guide us at night.

He created a moon to light your night. He made earth, وَهُوَ الَّذِي جَعَلَ الْأَرْضَ ذَلُولًا فَامْشُوا فِي مَنَاكِبِهَا He made earth so easy for us to imagine if all earth was like mountains. Ask yourself this question, Why did Allah or what did we do to deserve all this generosity from Allah? We didn't even know what to ask Him before we were created.

He made all of this for us. What did we do? The answer is nothing. That is Allah, the merciful.

Your Simple Task

So, what is your task? Your task is to make earth prosper using the mannerism of the Qur'an. That's it. Wherever you are in any place, make sure you leave that place, if not better than when you found it, at least the same.

Don't destroy it, don't ruin it. It can go to the littlest thing to the biggest thing. That's why Rasulullah ﷺ teaches us, even when you use a river to make wudu, don't waste water.

When he is asked, who is the most beloved of the people in the sight of Allah? He said, the most useful to others. This is it. Now, you come to the salah and the siyam and all the rituals, and you wanna read, Al-Muhalla li Ibn Hanbal or Al-Umm li Shafi'i, it's up to you.

But that's not your purpose. All your salah and the rituals, you learn it in half hour, we're done. What is the rest of the Qur'an talk about? That's why the insistence of the Qur'an all the time, that you are human, you're not angels.

And when they ask Rasulullah ﷺ, why doesn't Allah send us angels? And Allah tell him, because you are human. If you were angels, I would have sent an angel. But you are human.

And I'm sending him to guide you. He is human like you. And human make mistakes.

The True Portrait of the Righteous

So if you ask anybody, what comes to mind if I ask you, who are the righteous people? The Muttaqi, Al-Muttaqeen. Immediately you'll think of a person who's wearing white, white beard, white turban, white clothes, and like angel-like person. But Allah paints a complete different picture of who are the righteous people.

Who are the people that were granted to carry the book to the day of judgment. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in Al-Imran states:

Hurry to a mercy, to a forgiveness from Allah, from your Lord, مِن رَبِّكُمْ. Watch how Allah talk to us.

Allah doesn't use the word Allah here. He use the word رَبِّكُمْ. To show us the love.

I'm your Lord. I take care of you. So run toward the forgiveness of Rabbikum, of your Lord.

وَجَنَّةٍ عَرْضُهَا السَّمَاوَاتُ وَالْأَرْضُ I don't know why many of the Mufassireen tell us عَرْض means the width. The universe is circular, does not have width. It has diameter.

عَرْض here does not mean width. عَرْض here means it looks like it. The way it's showing, the Jannah would look the same.

You'll see it like the stars in the sky. You'll see a lot of things like that, like how you live, to make it close to our head. What do these people do?

Those who spend charity, who have control of themselves, and those who forgive people.

These are متقين. That's it? He stops? No. Then, he comes to the human side of things, and he says:

And those who will commit, if they commit shameful deeds, المتقين, the righteous commit shameful deeds, like Zina? Yes.

And they are still متقين. Why? Because, when they do the shameful deeds, they remember Allah right away. And they repent.

وَلَمْ يُصِرُّوا عَلَى مَا فَعْلُوا They do not persist on what they did. وَهُمْ يَعْلَمُونَ These are the people that Allah said:

These are the people, who even though they commit fahisha, but they repent to Allah right away, they will have forgiveness from Allah, and they will have Jannat, with rivers running under it, and this is the best of the deeds that people do. No complications.

Simple. Very simple. We complicate things.

The Chosen Ones

Then Allah tells us that He has chosen us.

We have granted the book, the last book, the Qur'an. الَّذِينَ اصْطَفَيْنَا مِنْ عِبَادِنَا Those of our servants whom we are chosen.

You are chosen by Allah. Then you say, so what happens to those who commit sins? Sins, and Allah says, yes. الَّذِينَ اصْطَفَيْنَا مِنْ عِبَادِنَا Then He categorized those chosen ones.

فَمِنْهُمْ The first type, ظَالِمٌ لِّنَفْسِهِ Transgresses against himself. Commits sins. That's the first category of those who are chosen by Allah.

وَمِنْهُمْ مُقْتَصِدٌ And some of them take the middle course. وَمِنْهُمْ سَابِقٌ بِالْخَيْرَاتِ بِإِذْنِ اللَّهِ And some of them, they are ahead of everyone else by the will and the grace of Allah. These are the chosen ones, yes.

Simple. They're human. Allah knows that we make mistake.

And Rasulullah ﷺ stated that if you don't make mistake, Allah would have took you away and brought people who make mistake and ask forgiveness so that He forgives them. And Allah forgives everything. There is no line where Allah does not forgive.

The only thing if you die associating partners with Allah, that will not be forgiven. Everything else below that is forgiven. So don't make it tight on people.

Don't make Islam so hard on people. Don't make Allah looks like He is a harsh God, wants to punish anyone who would sneeze wrong or scratch his head in the wrong way. Allah is so generous.

So merciful. Rasulullah ﷺ said even Satan himself in the day of judgment, he would think that Allah would forgive him.

أما بعد

Take It Easy

All I want to tell you brothers and sisters, take it easy.

Allah said A lot of people try to scare you from death. Try to make it so horrible experience even though nobody tried it. Whoever tried it never came back to tell us.

And they can't. And even a hadith Rasulullah ﷺ the Sahih Minha tells us that when you die and you're a good person, your soul comes out like a drop of water out of a cup, like flows. Allah is not in the business of pranking you or me.

He's not in a business to scare you then tell you, Oh no, no, that's okay, don't worry, I got you. The first thing the angels come down on us, the first thing they say to you, do not fear, do not be sad, do not fear, do not be saddened. The Jannah that Allah promised you is there.

So in the day of judgment, even though you read about the horrible things, it's a horrible day, it's a horrible events. But those who said RabbunAllah, Allah is our Lord, and they just tried their best to go straight. They will be surrounded by a wall of light.

Read it in Surah Al-Hadeed, that Allah puts Surah You will not be subjected to any of these things. Why? Because there is no fear, there is no sadness. The second your soul, you start seeing the other world, you see the angels, you have no fear.

So deal with Allah as such, He's kind, He's merciful. There is no one more kind and merciful than Allah. Look around you in the universe, this is His gift to us before we even ask Him.