Divine Control Over Oceans and Civilizations

The Meeting of Two Seas

Last time in this Surah Ar-Rahman series, they met in a place where two seas meet, right? And they both represent two different seas of knowledge of Allah that aren't actually supposed to meet. And even when Musa got a little taste of that sea, he couldn't digest it. He couldn't take it.

Imagine like creatures that are meant to be in certain kinds of water, and you put them in the other water, they can't live in that kind of water, right? So that imagery is also مجمع البحرين, isn't it? And here he says, he brought two seas, and he clashed them together. To help you follow along and reflect more deeply, we've created a companion workbook for this series. Download it at bayyinah.com/rahman

So, so far we've seen two worlds that are colliding into each other, but for the most part Allah has put a barrier between them, and that is the world of the jinn and the world of the human beings, among the other meanings that were found in these ayahs.

The Truth About Jinn Possession

So a question that commonly arises is, what do we then understand about jinn possession? This might sound controversial to some of you, but I have to be honest about what I have come to understand, believe, and really hold to be true. I do not believe that jinn possession exists. And I don't believe that because of the overwhelming evidence in the Qur'an and in the Sunnah that goes against that idea.

So let me explain. The strongest jinn is who? The strongest evil jinn is Iblis. And Allah says to Iblis when he was throwing him on the earth:

My servants, you will have no authority over them. You will have no control over them. On Judgment Day, when we are being hauled, criminals are being hauled into hellfire, and the devil comes, and they say, this is your fault, he's just gonna say, listen, I just suggested to you. He didn't say, sorry, I possessed you, bro.

He says, I just made suggestions. You listened. You know, you can't yell at me, I can't yell at you, which means you were entirely responsible.

The idea of a possession is a person is no longer responsible for the choices they're making. They're no longer responsible for the acts that they're doing. They're no longer in control over their own body. If that was the case, how come they can be also questioned on Judgment Day about every choice that they made?

And if by the way, let me put it even in simpler terms, the whisper of shaytan and the possession of shaytan, which one do you think is a bigger problem? No, if in reality, if shaytan took over someone, or shaytan was trying to suggest something to someone, which one do you think is a more serious emergency? Clearly, possession would be a serious emergency. And there's a surah, entire surah, dedicated to seek refuge from the whisper of the shaytan, Surah An-Nas. Is there any surah about not getting possessed by the shaytan? So the greatest calamity that can happen between us and shaytan is what? The whisper, and that's been addressed in the Qur'an.

The idea that human beings will be taken over by the shaytan is actually something the Qur'an refutes over and over again. Now, can somebody be bothered by the jinn? Yeah, they can be bothered by وسواس. Can there be anxiety or panic attacks because the شياطين are bothering someone and they need protection from the excessive... I would call that extreme وسواس. I wouldn't call that possession.

Possession is this notion that I think existed in other religious traditions and then somehow mutated into what we think is happening with our tradition. And when people say, no, no, you don't know. I saw this person, they started speaking Greek and they threw three people and they were like... No, just no. Then this is the same as the YouTube videos you watch of like the preacher who says, I'm gonna get rid of your devil. And then the whole church goes, you know, like he does a hadookah and everybody just, you know... Come on.

This deen, Allah gave this deen to people that should think. أَفَلَا تَعْقِلُونَ Don't you become people of thought, right? This is a religion that wants you to explore the truth of the universe, the oceans, you know, a ponder, people of بيان. And then we become... You know what other religions have? Other religions have superstitions, evil demons, bad omens, bad luck. They have these things. Islam came to give us a religion that actually does justice to our mind, our heart, and our soul. And it doesn't make us superstitious people.

Consumer Religion vs True Islam

And what did we do over a few centuries? Well, I miss the old religion stuff, superstitious hokey pokey stuff. Then what do we turn the religion into? The Hindu goes up a mountain to his temple or whatever. And then he says, give me something that I can do a chant of and then my uncle will love me again, right? Or whatever.

And then the Muslim comes to the imam, can you tell me an ayah that I can recite and what time? And then if this happens, then my husband will no longer be an abusive person anymore because I... just tell me what dua I need to make. Like other religions use their scripture or their spiritual chants as a way of prescriptions for solving their life's problems.

Did the Quran... if Allah wanted your problems to be solved in this way, I'm pretty sure Allah would have given Yaqub some chant, some dhikr to do that Yusuf would come right back. I'm pretty sure that would have happened. I'm pretty sure if there's something you can say that can change another person or solve all your issues, that Ibrahim would not have had a tough life. I'm pretty sure Nuh wouldn't have been struggling for 950 years and nobody... his own son is not listening. He's not coming and saying, يا الله give me some dua that I can change my son. Give me some prescription that can... you know.

You know what this is? This is turning your deen into a wish list, okay? My wish of how I wish the world to be, how I wish my mother to be, how I wish my wife to be, my child to be, my son to be, my daughter to be. Islam is... it didn't come to grant us our wish list. That's other religions. That's other religions.

That's Christianity or actually more recent Christianity. That's evangelical Christianity. That's like Joel Osteen type stuff. I've been to Joel Osteen program just to see what he does. What does he do? I just wanted to see. It's like this year the Lord's going to take care of you. You're going to get that promotion. Jesus is going to get your divorce filed. And the lawyers are not going to take your home. You know, you're going to get that job. You're going to... And everybody's like, Yes, he is. Yes, he is. This year. That's us. Everybody signed up between this Christmas and next Christmas. All of our dunya problems will be solved. Not one word about the akhirah. Not one word about our purpose. The only thing being discussed is what issues do you have and how the Lord's going to solve your issues. Right? Consumer religion is what I call that. Consumer religion.

What have we done with Islam? We've turned Islam into consumer religion. And when somebody's having a hard time, then somebody's going through a psychological issue. Somebody's going through a traumatic issue. Oh, jinn. Jinn. We slapped out on everything.

And how come jinns are only in Egypt and Pakistan? How come there are no jinns in China? There's no jinns in New Jersey. There's no jinns in Florida. The only jinns are just when you go there. The jinns don't know how to cross the sea. You know? How come they don't get no jinns? French people don't have any jinns? You know? But the moment you become Muslim, jinn problems. You know? So we've developed this kind of superstition. And we've superimposed it onto our religion.

Is there such a thing as a وسواس coming from شياطين? Yes. Is there such a thing as possession? No. We don't have to live in fear of the شياطين. We don't have to live in fear of them. Ayub didn't say a jinn has taken over me. What did he say? A jinn has? He's touched me means he's hurting me. How? He's hurting me by saying things, passing negative anxiety thoughts to me in my weakest moments. And I can spot that he's doing that. This is what Allah has trained us to do and how to deal with the شياطين.

The Divine Ships and Civilization

He alone owns the sailing ships. الجواري is the one that sails, the one that moves, some جارية، جرى يجري, to flow, the flowing ones. But the وَلَهُ الْجَوَارِ is actually an اختصاص. He is the only one who owns vessels, large ships.

المنشآت, the elevated ones. منشآت has a few meanings. إنشاء in Arabic also means to create. So منشآت اسم مفعول would mean the ones that have been invented, and created, and developed as if Allah inspired the invention of large sea vessels. He inspired it. Like in the story of Nuh, Allah actually revealed to Nuh, how to put the boards and the nails together:

Craft the ship under our watch. We boarded him on to something made up of planks and nails. So the nails and the planks were being, the architectural schematics of the ship were being given to Nuh by revelation. Allah wanted us to be able to develop the technology that we can travel in the seas.

Allah's Exclusive Ownership of the Seas

And He says He alone owns them. What does that mean? Actually, I was talking to a general recently, and I told him, one of the things the Qur'an seems to be saying is that when people are out at sea, they can taste death every moment. And he said, no one knows that more than a sailor. Nobody knows that more than a sailor.

You're on the sea, you're out on sea, at any day or any time at night, what can happen? Anytime. There could be a storm, there could be an unseen rock mass right under the surface of the water that scrapes and tears through your entire ship. There could be a whale that torpedoes into your boat. All kinds of things can happen. And the storm, the waves of a storm, doesn't matter how large your vessel is, it can flip it if it wants to, you know. Water has an unleashed kind of power.

Allah says He alone owns the sailing ships. The exclusive ownership of Allah is being mentioned because human beings recognize that they are no longer in control. Nevermore do they recognize that except when they're out on sea. They realize how fragile life is. They're inside the jaws of death when they're out at sea.

You know, وَلَهُ الْجَوَارِ الْمُنْشَآتُ And yet the منشآت means elevated. منشآت also means invented, created. But then there's another reading of this ayah, المنشئات, which I thought was fascinating. المنشئات. المنشئات means the ones that create. The ones that create. Ships that create. Ships that give rise, to give rise.

Ships That Build Civilizations

And I started wondering about that. Like we're sitting here right now in the United States of America. This continent was conquered and taken over and an entire civilization formed and a society formed and one of the greatest nations in the world formed. How? By way of what? Sea travel. Sea travel. We're here because of sea travel. We're sitting here right now because of sea travel.

And what happened with those ships? They brought about the birth of a new civilization. المنشئات. The ones that create new things. Sea travel has created civilizations around the world. These جواري. And He alone owns them. In other words, Allah takes ownership of the development of the entire civilization of the planet.

There are ancient ruins around the world that temples, you know, pyramids, you know, those kinds of things. And you'll find in many of them, the mythology of a great flood and somebody came by sea and taught them how to build. Right? And 10,000 year old temple. Somebody taught them how to build. And where did they come from? Where did they come to give them civilization? They came from the sea. الجواري المنشئات. SubhanAllah. It's such an incredible comment on pretty much all of human history in a very small phrase.

Not just the sea vessels that you see. But then He adds something else. كالأعلام. You see these things in the... Look at the irony. The pearl, and the coral gem, these tiny little things are at the bottom. And these massive vessels are where? On top. When Allah decides something will sink, it will sink. No matter how small. And when Allah decides something will float, it will float no matter how big. Allah gave us the ability to figure out how buoyancy works. And now we can take advantage of that and travel in the seas.

And by the way, He owns the seas. And you say, no, He doesn't own them. The United States Navy owns them. Or the Russian Navy owns them. Really? Because when Allah decides that it's high tide, you park yourself down. You're like, oh, can't go yet. Can't go yet. Because He owns when you move. When the winds...

Actually, when I was studying Surah Dhariyat, Surah Dhariyat opens with a mention of the winds. Yeah, so I studied the winds a little bit with my team when we were studying that surah. Winds are actually determined. They actually have... There are highways of winds in the world. And actually sea travel in the world is only possible because the winds are predictable for the most part.

Climates and a pollen and dust particle are only traveling. They're traveling across the oceans because of the winds. This entire system is... Without that system, no sea travel can happen. If you don't understand the winds, you cannot get from one port to another across the continents. You can't do it.

So, وَلَهُ الْجَوَارِ الْمُنْشَآتُ فِي الْبَحْرِ Then He says, كَالْأَعْلَامِ Like mountains. Like mountains. الْأَعْلَامِ Mountains. But أعلام means something else too. It can mean symbols of a nation. Like if you go to a civilization, you see pillars or columns that signify the Egyptian Empire or they signify the Roman Empire. Those are the أعلام of that nation.

And that's why later on, the word أعلام started getting used in classical Arabic also for flags. So even now, أعلام is used for a flag, right? So أعلام was used for mountains because they are landmarks. No matter how you look at it, it's a landmark.

Ships so big that when you see them from a distance, is that land? And you get close and it's actually a ship, right? But the other meaning of it is like flags themselves. When a vessel is traveling, it's not just a vessel that's traveling, it's an entire nation that's traveling, right? It's an entire country that's traveling. And it's a symbol of their pride that they have these naval vessels where they have. And all of that is entirely under Allah's control.

From Individual to Collective

He took us from this dive to get a couple of pearls. He started with that. But then he got to the real business. What's the real business? The trade and the empire building that has happened on earth since the beginning of recorded history. And that is happening by way of الجواري المنشآت. You see that? So we go from something very small to something very large. And civilizational.

The same thing happened on the earth. Do you notice? First he mentioned, Oh, you know, فِيهَا فَاكِهَةٌ They have fruits. Okay, fruits. And then he gets to crop. الْحَبُّ ذُو الْعَصْفِ And when you talk about crop, you're actually talking about the building of entire human civilizations. Crop determined what civilizations are gonna be formed and how big they're going to be. In fact, so many wars happened because of fertile land. Right? Wars are overseas and wars are over land to build empires.

So it's an incredible thing that's happening in this surah. We go from something very small to something very big. Then we go from something very small, then we go to something very big again. Right?

So, وَلَهُ الْجَوَارِ الْمُنْشَآتُ فِي الْبَحْرِ كَالْأَعْلَامِ فَبِأَيِّ آلَاءِ رَبِّكُمَا تُكَذِّبَانِ By the way, in these words you also notice individual life, personal, like, a pearl is something a person can buy and enjoy. And then how interconnected that is to something that's much bigger than you. It's much bigger than me. You know what that is? Sea trade. That's an international thing. That's a multinational thing. That's a global thing. That's a governmental thing. It's so much bigger than me.

But actually that pearl that I might buy from the store could not have happened if this entire system wasn't in place. Right? I'm eating this fruit. But that fruit that I'm eating had to have happened from the grain and the crop and the plants and the systems that were put in place so the fruit can reach me, that can come to me. And Allah has connected that smallest individual experience to the large system that He allowed to be created where those two things can work with each other.

It's mind-blowing how in just these few ayat Allah has described the entire personal life of a human being and their existence and the collective interdependence that we have on each other and the dependence we have on the environment that Allah created for us. We cannot function without Allah surrendering these oceans to His will so we can manipulate them and travel across them. We can't do anything on our own. SubhanAllah.

Transition to Mortality

And so now that we get to here, this is the end of the discussion of this life. Like he's done describing this world now. So what we're going to start doing tomorrow is life is gonna end. كُلُّ مَنْ عَلَيْهَا فَانٍ Everybody's meant to die. Everybody on this planet is on the verge of death. That's the conversation starting tomorrow.

And inshaAllah, my hope tomorrow is not only will we finish this section, every time we finish a section, I want to show you how it's organized. So we talked about a lot of subjects so far but I didn't discuss how it's all organized, right? And that's part of my study of the Quran is every time we finish a section, I want to be able to give you a picture, okay, this is how Allah organized His teachings, right? So you have a picture in your head and you can say, okay, this organization of thought is actually something you really appreciate about a teacher, right?

The teachers that have the most organized thought are the ones whose lessons you remember the most, right? So Allah has His own organization of thought in each surah. And so that's one of the things we're gonna have to do also as we move forward is to appreciate the organization of thought.

From my estimation, we've actually nearly completed three sections of this surah. Actually, three sections. So I'll give you kind of a structural overview of all three sections when we get to that conclusion and then move forward from there.

So thank you so much for your patience. جزاكم الله خيراً. السلام عليكم ورحمة الله تعالى وبركاته.

Coming up next time in this Surah Ar-Rahman series. Why does God want me to pray to Him so much? I've even heard some atheists say, God is so egotistical, He wants me to keep praying to Him. He just wants me to keep thanking Him. What kind of person wants me to keep thanking Him all the time? Anybody who does that is very self-centered and egotistical and all of... Why does He need that? Why does He need this kind of validation all the time?