Ala Salaam - Faith

Dear brothers and sisters, today I would like to talk about a very misunderstood topic that presented Allah in a very bad image to some. And to some, misled them in life to miss out on opportunities and to improve their life. This topic is fate, Al-Qadr.

And couple of the main reasons why we misunderstood, what is fate? How does it work? What is Al-Qadr, خيره وشره, good and bad, how does it work for us? One is we always think that Allah will always punish us for any mistake that you do and anything that happens is because Allah is trying to test you to see if you're gonna be patient or not. We confused that with lack of planning, with not taking الأسباب. So you don't study natural results, you fail.

Then you say, it's Al-Qadr, I will be patient, it's from Allah. No, Allah never told you not to study. You can't find a job.

I've tried my brother, I've tried. It's been a year now, every day I'm looking, I can't find anything, Allah is testing me. Allah is not testing you.

You are the main problem. Go back to the drawing board and see what's wrong with your planning. Why can't you find a job even though others do? So it's the easy way out to blame Allah on these things that we do shortchange ourselves before anybody else.

And then we say, I am patient. It's Allah testing me, Allah is not testing you. In fact, you're probably committing a sin by sitting back doing nothing and blaming Allah on everything bad that happens to you.

So for that, we're gonna put one rule, one law. You need to live and die by this law. There is nothing comes from Allah except good.

Period, that's Allah. So anything comes and happen to you and you have nothing to do with it, it's completely out of your hand, it must be good. Even if you perceive it as difficulty.

Confusing Inconvenience with Lack of Mercy

And that's the second problem. We confuse inconvenience with lack of mercy. You get fired from your job.

Somebody dies, you get sick. What do you do? Why Allah is doing this to me? Where is Allah's mercy? Why these people are suffering? Why those people are suffering? Where is Allah's mercy? It has nothing to do with Allah's mercy or not. Here is the analogy I'm gonna give you and remember that.

Think of life as a gym. You go exercise. In that gym, there is a trainer.

So you walk in, they evaluate you. Say, okay, I need a special trainer. So they evaluate you.

Say, you got a weak arm. So I'm gonna put you on this and this and this device to strengthen you. Or he'll tell you, you got a weak core muscles, weak legs.

I'm gonna put you on different devices. Now, if the person who is doing core muscles and leg exercises, and it's hard, it's not easy. It's a very hard, why? Because that's where his weakness is.

And what the trainer is trying to do is trying to improve the weakness. Hence, it's inconvenient for you. You're working hard, but you can't come and say to the guy who's only strengthening his arm, well, why I don't have the same this guy has? So you don't need that.

So what happens to you is not to punish you, is not to test you, it's to strengthen you. But because it's inconvenient, we blamed it on Allah as lack of mercy, even though it is the culmination of mercy that he's trying to strengthen you.

The Story of Musa and the Righteous Servant

This concept, Allah explained it in full to us in Surah Al-Kahf.

The story that we only take out of it, and I read a lot on the internet and stop people saying Al-Khidr, Allah called them Al-'Abd as-Salih, never called them Al-Khidr. We get stuff from Israelites, and we just start concocting stories around who Al-'Abd as-Salih is. And some people tell you, he lives till today, even though the Quran is very clear:

Who is Al-'Abd as-Salih? If he's human, he must die.

So, instead of learning from the story of Musa with Al-'Abd as-Salih, we concocted the stories and forgot what fate is, and Allah very clearly spelled it out.

The First Incident: The Ship

The first incident, Musa with Al-'Abd as-Salih, he pokes a hole in a ship, but then later they find out:

To the poor people, to Musa, how could you do that? How could you poke a hole in a ship? This is livelihood for these people, poor people. But then he realized the wisdom behind the incident in his life.

He saw the wisdom right behind it.

The Second Incident: The Youth

The second incident, killing of the youth. And if your kid asks you, how could a man come and kill a kid? Allah never said that.

You need to understand that in the day of judgment, some of the stuff we do here materializes. Allah says:

How Allah is going to ask Al-'Ahd? You and me agree on something to do. In the day of judgment, that's something you and I agreed on comes alive.

And Allah ask him, did both of these people did good on the promise that they made or not? He's asking the promise. In this life, other things happen too. Fate, what is fate? Allah materializes fate for Musa.

He says, learn from fate. And fate teaches Musa as a human. He kills the youth.

Think of it as a car passing by, they killed the youth, hit the youth, he died. Now, he told him that the youth, if he grew older, he would be the most evil, would be horrible to his parents who were very good people. So what happens? What does Allah do? He takes the youth.

He was five or six years old. He takes him. He goes to Jannah.

The parents, he replaces them with another child. And because of their patience, at the day of judgment, they go to Jannah. Who won? What is the mercy here? Who is more merciful? They all won.

It's a win-win situation. Then if that youth grew older, would they ever know the wisdom behind it? Never. The day of judgment.

The Third Incident: The Wall

The third story is the children who had good parents. And what happened? He takes care of a problem before they even ask Allah for it. You didn't even know to ask.

But Allah took care of the problem for you. When you grow old, maybe 20 years, then you'll figure out and understand the wisdom. This is how faith works.

The Butterfly Analogy

You need to understand that difficulties in this life is meant to strengthen you. And Allah knows how much difficulty each of us needs. A man, metaphorically, metaphoric story, beautiful, but brings it home, sees a butterfly trying to get out of its cocoon, struggling so hard, can't get out, struggling.

He feels bad for the butterfly. He cuts the cocoon a little bit so that makes it easy on the butterfly to get out. The butterfly gets out, tries to fly, could not, falls down, dies.

Who was more merciful on that butterfly? Allah, who made the cocoon hard for the butterfly so that it exercises its wing muscles so when it comes out, it flies. Or the man who did not like the inconvenience that the butterfly was in and cut the cocoon for the butterfly and killed the butterfly in the process. It is how we perceive things.

Allah does not give you any bad. There is nothing bad comes from Allah. Memorize this.

When you go through hardship, go back to the drawing board. It has nothing to do with Allah. Or Allah has given it to you to strengthen you, to strengthen your back.

The Path to Leadership

Shaykh Muhammad al-Ghazali, رحمة الله عليه, one time he was telling us a story. He said, his teacher at Al-Azhar asked him a question. He says, in Surah An-Naml, Allah says:

He said, son, why did Allah bring all these scenarios together? When you're in desperate need, who answers you? Allah says, Allah, أَمَّن يُجِيبُ الْمُضْطَرَّ إِذَا دَعَاهُ وَيَكْشِفُ السُّوءَ. And then when you go through hardship, who removes it away from you? It's Allah.

But then, when you become a master, وَيَجْعَلُكُمْ خُلَفَاءَ الْأَرْضِ, you become a leader, a president, a king. He says, why all these three put together? Shaykh Ghazali said, I sat thinking for a while, I couldn't figure it out. So I told him, I don't know why.

He says, son, there is nobody on this earth reaches high levels without going through the first two phases. Has a lot of need to ask Allah to help him with and go through hardships. Do you think the president of United States sleeps when he's running for his political career? They, day in and day out, they're working hard and Allah reward them for that.

And not to do with anything else. This is the law of life. Understand faith correctly.

Conclusion

Don't blame Allah for things He has nothing to do with. Nothing comes from Allah except good. So when you're hit with something, no, remember the gym.

Somebody's trying to make you exercise. There's something wrong with you. And somebody's sending you an opportunity.

You are the person who makes it a misfortune or makes it an opportunity. It is not Allah, it's you. Do not blame Allah for things He doesn't do.

Understand faith correctly. I ask Allah to open our eyes.