Surah Al Asar-The Current Crisis and Life's Purpose

Khutbah by Nouman Ali Khan - March 20, 2020

Opening Praise and Salutations

اَلْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ، اَلْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ خَالِقِ الْوُجُوْدِ مِنَ الْعَدَمِ، وَجَاعِلِ النُّوْرِ مِنَ الظَّلَامِ، وَمُخْرِجِ الصَّبْرِ مِنَ الْأَلَمِ، وَمُلْقِي التَّوْبَةِ عَلَى النَّدَمِ، فَنَشْكُرُهُ عَلَى الْمَصَائِبِ كَمَا نَشْكُرُهُ عَلَى النِّعَمِ، وَنُصَلِّيْ عَلَى رَسُوْلِهِ الْأَكْرَمِ بِشَرَفِ الْأَشَمِّ وَالنُّوْرِ الْأَتَمِّ، وَالْكِتَابِ الْمُحْكَمِ، وَخَاتَمِ النَّبِيِّيْنَ وَالرُّسُلِ سَيِّدِ وَلَدِ آدَمَ، الَّذِيْ بَشَّرَ بِهِ عِيْسَى ابْنُ مَرْيَمَ، وَدَعَا لِبِعْثَتِهِ إِبْرَاهِيْمُ عَلَيْهِ السَّلَامُ

اَلْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ، اَلْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ، اَلْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ

Introduction to Surah Al-Asr

So the reminder of a surah that the Sahaba used to recite to each other, it's narrated every time they met each other, they wouldn't leave each other's company without reciting this to each other. Many consider this, and I would agree, a summary of the entire Qur'an. And it's a short surah that everybody's memorized and we recite it all the time in Suratul Asr.

"[By time, Indeed, mankind is in loss, Except for those who have believed and done righteous deeds and advised each other to truth and advised each other to patience.]"

The Current Crisis and Life's Purpose

As we go through this coronavirus situation and the uncertainty of it unfolds before us and every day brings new questions, I thought it was good to take a step back and look at the fundamental purpose for our lives. People are concerned about their health and their safety and it's not just health and safety that's affected. People's jobs are affected.

Lots of people are losing their jobs because they are part of, for example, the industries that are social by nature like the retail industry or the travel industry. So there are lots of people in any of those positions that are no longer employed and so they're going through all kinds of difficult trials and they're losing financially. Some people are losing health.

Some people are losing safety. What's also important to note is when the economy collapses like that, and may Allah preserve the economy for all cities and all communities, but if it does collapse like that and lots of jobs are lost at the same time, then you can get a lot of crime and scary situations can occur in different parts of the world. So this isn't just about health, it's actually about society being impacted by a disease.

And it's not just hospitals and doctors and people that are sick that are affected, but actually every part of society gets affected as a result.

Understanding the Urgency of Time (Al-Asr)

But I wanted to take a step back and just remind myself for myself and really for all of you, this one statement that Allah has made in the Quran, this entire surah is actually one sentence, which is pretty amazing. It's a whole surah, three ayaat, but those three ayaat come together and only make one short sentence.

And that sentence is wal-asr. Allah says, I swear by time, but the word He used for time is the word He used that comes from aseer. Aseer means juice in Arabic.

When you squeeze a fruit and it drips out, that's aseer. Mu'sirat are clouds that crash against each other and when they squeeze against each other it starts raining. That's the word mu'sirat.

Asr actually means time that's dripping away, that's slipping away, that's squeezing out. No matter what you do, it's going to drip out, it's going to release. So by the use of that word suggests, and by the way, it's when the day is running out of light as if it's dripping out of the light that's left, that's asr time, right? So because it's about the time where light is about to run out.

So time as it's about to run out is what Allah swears by. And that's important because that's Allah reminding you and me that what He's about to say is pretty urgent. It has to do with something that you and I don't have a lot of time to figure out.

The Reality of Human Loss

Imagine that somebody is telling you something at asr time and you only have so much day time left before you got to get it done, right? So it's at the tail end of a day that someone's telling you that you have this much time left before darkness sets in, right? And light is kind of the imagery of life and darkness is the imagery of death. So as if we are in the asr of our lives, we're on the tail end of the little bit of life that we have left and before it runs out, before we're put in the ground, we have very little time to figure out how not to be a failure. And so He says, I swear by time that's running out

- every single human being without any doubt whatsoever has drowned in loss.

We're all losing. And of course the first thing we're losing is time. You know some of you kids and you guys like watching game shows or whatever where there's a timer and you got to get something done quickly and before the buzzer hits, you got to get it done, otherwise you'll lose, right? So sports and games are all about time that's very limited and you have to accomplish a lot in that limited time, break a record, beat a score, whatever it may be.

It's kind of like that in this life. It's this little bit of time we think, you know, because a lot of kids are off of school right now. So you might think, you know, we got a lot of time on our hands.

We don't know what to do with all this time, right? We're free. But Allah is painting a very different picture. For every single human being, He's reminding you and He's reminding me that we actually don't have much time at all.

We don't have much time at all. And when we're going to go in front of Him and He's going to ask us, the angels are going to ask us, how long were you living here? And people, even people who lived 80 years, 100 years, they lived their entire lives, they were children, then they became adults, then they became parents, then they became grandparents and great-grandparents and they can remember, you know, the olden days. Even people like that are going to say, you know, I think it was a day.

I think I lived here for one day, I think. That's how, when they look back, they'll realize how short that time was. So it's like we don't realize how short it is now, but we will then.

The State of Drowning and the Need to Wake Up

We have very, very little time. And in that time, the first thing we have to realize is

- Every single human being is drowned in a state of loss. Every one of us is drowning.

And the imagery I gave so many years ago that people turned into an animation was someone literally drowning. And they're asleep and they don't even know that they're drowning. And the first thing you have to do to save that person, or that person needs to do to save themselves is wake up.

Because if in their dream, everything is good, and they're having the time of their life, but when they, you know, and when they wake up, they realize they're drowning, it's a completely different reality. Their view of reality changes completely. Because of what they see around them, whether they believe it or not.

The First Condition: Faith (Iman)

What Allah says, the first condition to save ourselves, the first condition, if we realize time is running out, what do I have to do to save myself? What do I have to do to not be a loser? Well

- The only exception to people who are not drowned in loss are people who actually believe, who actually have iman.

So the first belief is that we are drowning, that this is a state of emergency, that we don't have a lot of time left. That's the first belief.

But beyond that, what is the difference between, you know,

- Allah says, the people who know, could they be the same as the people who don't know? They can't be the same. So what is the difference between someone who believes and someone who doesn't believe?

How Faith Changes Our Perspective

Well, the easy way to think about that is, if you have glasses, and they have a tint on them, like they have a green tint on them, when you put green tint glasses on, everything looks green. When you put blue tint glasses on, everything looks blue.

So your view of reality changes based on the tints that you're wearing, based on the lenses that you're wearing, right? So the same way, you know, when you have the lens of iman on, then your view of reality changes. Everybody else sees one thing, you see something else entirely. And actually one of the ways to describe it is almost like x-ray vision.

X-ray vision means you can see through things, right? You don't just see what's on the surface, you can see through it. That's what iman does. Iman doesn't just let me and you see what's on the surface, what do I see in front of me? The good or the bad behind it, I can see that too.

The harm and the benefit of it, I can see that. That's the lens of iman, that's what iman does. So iman, faith changes the way that I understand reality.

Nobody else will understand it the same way. Somebody else can think making a lot of money is successful, and they believe that. But when you look at that same money from the lens of iman, whether that money came from halal places or haram places, it'll change completely.

So this person is super happy that they got a nice car with that money, or they bought a beautiful house with that money, and they think they've reached success. And you're looking at that same house, that same car, that same bank account, and you're thinking that's a failure. Because you're looking at it from faith, no, that was wrong, the way that money was made was wrong.

So we're looking at the same thing, but our perception completely changes because of iman. And Allah is telling us in this surah that the first loss, the greatest loss a human being can have is that they no longer look at reality from the point of view of iman. That they don't look at it for what it really is.

The Prophet's Dua for Seeing Truth

You know the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) used to make this dua, it's a very famous dua.

- He said, O Allah, show us the truth as truth and provide us the courage, and provide us the strength to follow it. And show us the false thing as the false thing, and provide us the courage to stay away from it.

Because the reality is a lot of times the truth looks like falsehood and the falsehood looks like truth. But when you have the worldview of iman, then your definitions completely change. And the first thing that changes with that is what's coming next.

Protecting Our Faith Above All

And this is all again, how do we save ourselves? First thing is are we looking at everything around us, even ourselves, from the point of view of iman and what's best for our iman? What is that you and I have to preserve? More than me and you having to preserve our finances, more than you and me having to preserve our health, or our emotional well-being, more on top of, and all of those things are important, but on top of all of that is how am I doing something that will preserve or destroy or hurt my iman? Like iman is what you have to protect more than anything else. If that's protected, everything else will be fine. If that's not safe, everything else doesn't matter.

You can actually have a situation in life where everything else seems okay, but inside your heart, iman isn't, you can't feel it anymore. You don't see things that way anymore. That actually means nothing is okay, it's just a facade, it's just fake.

And it'll crumble sooner or later. You're living in pretend, I'm living in pretend. And when that reality hits, then it's gonna be what just happened.

You know, that's really the loss of people if they can't see truth for what it is. If I can't see for what it is, if you can't see for what it is, that's when we've really lost.

Responding to Trials Through the Lens of Faith

You know, a lot of times in times of fitna, in times of trial like we are going through now, it's easy to look at things like everybody else looks at them.

And that would be our loss. We have to look at any trial from the lens of iman. And first and foremost, iman is many things, like believing in Allah.

Okay, it's not just believing in God. Allah has many names. Each name has an effect on me, each name.

If Allah's name is Ar-Raziq, Allah is the provider, then no matter how bad things are looking, I will never lose sight of the fact that Allah is the provider. If Allah is the guardian, if Allah is the protecting friend, Al-Wali, Al-Wali, Al-Mawla. If He's those things, then no matter how unsafe anybody else feels, I'm not gonna lose my sense of safety because I know Allah is there and He's the ultimate protector.

So every one of Allah's names changes the way we respond while everybody else can be in a state of hysteria, we can stay calm because we have iman.

The Second Condition: Righteous Actions

And because you have that, the way you act changes, that's the next step. The way you act is different than everybody else because you see things differently than everybody else.

You see, if you saw a fire, and you're too close to it, you would act, you would take a step back, right, because you don't wanna get burned. So because you understand that's real, you're gonna take a step back. But if you don't think that's fire, and you think that's actually something else, something like