Overview of Life in a few Ayat

Overview of Life in a Few Ayat

Introduction: The Comprehensive Nature of Allah's Words

In today's brief khutbah, I'd like to share with you an important reminder, something that's always relevant to every Muslim, something that never becomes overstated, something that you and I need as much of as we need the oxygen that we breathe. In this particular ayah that I'd like to share with you from Surah Al-Hadeed, Allah basically takes a few words and draws a snapshot of my entire life. I mean, this is part of the eloquence and the comprehensive nature of Allah's words.

That He says very few things, but they capture very big lessons. And in these few words, Allah has basically drawn a comprehensive image, a comprehensive illustration of our entire life. And He begins with the words:

"Know"

And this is Allah, in the imperative form, telling us to, you know, in the English expression we'd say, know, but maybe you had better come to know. You had better realize:

"Know that the life of this world is but"

Worldly life amounts to nothing more than, and then He goes on. So whatever He's about to say, that's all this worldly life is worth. That's all we're up to in this life.

Stage One: Childhood - The Age of Play

And He says the first thing (لَعِبٌ - la'ibun) (Quran 57:20). Which is curious, because we all know when you're children, and those of you that have children like myself, what is the most important thing to a child, a baby? Besides eating and sleeping, they want to be played with. Tickled.

They want to be carried, thrown around. That's what they want to do. It's playing, that's the most important thing to them. Their world revolves around playing. لَعِبٌ. But our children, they grow older, and as they grow older, you saw this with your own eyes, your children don't just want to play anymore, they want you to tell them a story.

Stage Two: Youth - The Age of Entertainment

They want to sing along with you. They want to watch cartoons or something. They want to be entertained. This urge not just to play, but to entertain oneself comes and takes hold inside oneself. So Allah says (لَعِبٌ وَلَهْوٌ - la'ibun wa lahwun) (Quran 57:20). Entertainment.

He adds, first He says games. Just play. And then He says entertainment.

Stage Three: Adolescence - The Age of Beautification

And then we get past that stage too. This confused state between adulthood and childhood. These years where you're in between. And you're just discovering that you're turning into an adult. This is a name mostly ascribed to the teenage years. Especially in our culture, you'll notice something.

And this is probably true of cultures around the world. At that young age, a man and a woman is very obsessed with how they look. They're very obsessed with their appearance. And the beautification of the things around them. They're obsessed with that. You have young men and women come to the masjid, and they'll check themselves out in every reflection of every car in the parking lot before they get in here.

They're going to make sure their hair is the way they want it to be. They're going to spend 45 minutes in front of a mirror before they come out of the bathroom and go to school. They're going to make sure their t-shirt matches their jeans or something. Are they wearing the right brand of clothes before they walk into their high school? There's this obsession with beautification. There's this obsession with being trendy. Or being looked at as someone worthy of being looked at.

And one's worth starts being determined by how they look. And so children at this age, they start going through depression if they think they look ugly or they have freckles or something. They start going through depression.

Allah says, (لَعِبٌ وَلَهْوٌ وَزِينَةٌ - la'ibun wa lahwun wa zinatun) (Quran 57:20) Beautification. And this is a stage in life. But you know, you get over that too, you move on.

Stage Four: Young Adulthood - The Age of Competition and Boasting

We don't stay in that stage. We mature and we get past it. And once you get past it, you know, in our times, you get into college, you want to graduate in a good program, you want to get a decent job, you want to be in a competitive field, and so on and so forth.

Now in this stage of life, basically what takes over is this urge to prove yourself. You know, when you graduate from college, your diploma, it could sit inside a shelf in your storage closet. But where does it go? You hang it up on the wall. Anybody that comes over, look what I accomplished. Look at my new idea for my job. The car even comes with it.

You want to see my new, you know, look at my, you know, my transcript. Look at this award I got. Look at the picture I took with the dean of the school. There's this urge to show everybody else what you have accomplished. There's this urge that you, your accomplishments shouldn't be left to yourself. So Allah says (وَتَفَاخُرٌ بَيْنَكُمْ - wa tafakhurun baynakum) (Quran 57:20) An urge to basically compete and to show off essentially.

To one another. This is an urge we have inside of us to prove ourselves almost. We feel like we're worth nothing if we haven't accomplished certain tasks in the worldly sense. Otherwise, what are we worth?

What are we worth in this society if we don't have a respectable job or a good degree or something like that? So (وَتَفَاخُرٌ بَيْنَكُمْ - wa tafakhurun baynakum) This takes over.

Stage Five: Mature Adulthood - The Age of Wealth and Children

But even that stage passes, you're not concerned with showing yourself off to anybody anymore. You get married, you have children, and those of you that are married and have children, one of the things that you can share with me is this bug that gets planted into our heads.

So every waking moment there are two things that are constantly running in your mind. It's either the money or the kids. Two things. How much balance is left? How much did we spend on the bills this week? Right? Every morning before you get into the car and you recite your du'a for traveling, you make sure you look and check, see how much did the stocks fall this morning. You're concerned about money. It's something that's obsessed with you.

And on the other hand, where are the kids gonna go to school? Where are they gonna go to college? How am I gonna pay for their marriage? How are we gonna live in a rental house for so long? We gotta buy a home. I have to think about my children's future. These two things almost invade your mind.

So Allah adds in the culmination, in this final stage, (وَتَكَاثُرُ فِي الْأَمْوَالِ وَالْأَوْلَادِ - wa takathurun fil-amwali wal-awladi) (Quran 57:20) This mutually shared sentiment that we all have to gain plenty, to have stability in two things, in terms of money, in terms of assets, and in terms of children. We wanna have this safety net. We don't even know if we're gonna live to see the next day, let alone the next hour.

But we wanna make sure we have savings that'll last us 20 years. Or that we can think 50 years in advance. We want to have that sense of stability. It takes over our minds. And this is basically one race to another. When a child is running after games and play, and then after entertainment, and then after beautification, and then to prove himself, and then to gain stability and savings.

Universal Human Desires Across Life Stages

Those of you that are younger in the audience, you're like, I don't care about saving money. Wait till you get to be 30. Wait till you get to be 40, then we'll talk. Those of you that are younger, you say, well, I don't care about buying a home, or living in an apartment. It doesn't matter to me. But when you get to a certain age, what does everybody want? Across this world, you don't even speak their language.

What do you want with your money? I wanna buy a house. I wanna stay in somewhere permanent. I wanna have permanent residence. That's a shared sentiment in humanity. And Allah, in His infinite mercy, what does He offer believers? He offers them a home. He offers them somewhere they can stay. And they can stay permanently. SubhanAllah.

The Weakness of the Seeker and the Sought

In another place, again a similar ayah, before we come to the conclusion of this ayah. In another place in Surah Al-Hajj, Allah, at the end of a passage, a profound passage, which is an ayah in and of itself, He gives us an axiom, a principle in life. And because of the shortage of time, I'd like to share just the last part of that ayah. Though the entire ayah is profound.

Allah concludes the ayah saying (ضَعْفَ الطَّالِبُ وَالْمَطْلُوبٌ - dha'f ut-talibi wal-matlub) (Quran 22:73). He says ضَعُفَ الطَّالِبُ وَالْمَطْلُبُ. It's a short statement.

And the rough English translation would be, the seeker and the sought are inherently weak. The seeker and the sought are inherently weak. This sounds difficult. Sounds like SAT English. So I'll try and simplify it for you and myself. Essentially what the ayah is telling us is, in this world, everybody is seeking something.

Everybody is running after something. Everybody is obsessed with something. They want something really bad. And those who are running after stuff, they are weak. And whatever they're running after, is also weak, is also flawed.

Practical Examples of Worldly Weakness

Let me think about this. Just practical experience. Your children, they see an ad on TV. Some new movie comes up. Some new video game comes up. Some new video game entertainment system comes up. Something comes up. They're bothering you at Eid. Can I get that for Eid? Can you get that for me? Please, I got good grades. Can you help me buy it? Can we go to the video game store now? Can we get to the toy store now? Are you gonna buy me those shoes now? Etc., etc.

They really want it. They can't sleep at night. They're thinking about that new game. They're thinking about whatever, you know, game system they're interested in. And when you get it for them, how about you get it for them? And they're really happy. How long does it last that they're still obsessed with that same game? Or those same shoes? Or that same television? Whatever it was.

It lasts a week, two weeks, and they move on to the next thing. Another movie came up. And this happens to adults. You and I, you know, we're saving up some money to get a car. And you've been looking at the website every few hours. You check out the 3D view. You check out the different color matching of the interiors. Right, you know, every last statistic, a useless statistic by the way, there is to know about this car. And you finally get it.

You finally get it. You're really happy. How long before the next model comes out and you say, Oh my goodness, they curved the tail lights a little differently. That's amazing. I have to get that one. I feel insecure in mine now.

SubhanAllah, we move from one to the next, to the next. You know when you were living with a roommate in college? This is a good life. And then you said, when you got an apartment, you said, wow, this is big. But soon after you said, an apartment is not gonna cut it, I gotta get a house. And once you

get a house, you go to your friend's house and their house is nicer. And your wife says, did you see their curtains? Did you see their backyard? You say, yeah. You gotta start thinking. You know. So you start comparing.

There's always something more. There's always the next car, there's always the next house. There's always the next thing. So we are weak because every time we find, we look for something that will satisfy us, it disappoints us. And something else comes and we run after that. And that disappoints us too. And then we run after the next thing and it disappoints us too. And this is the state of humanity. It should not be the state of the believers.

The Believers' Different Approach

The believers are above these things. Allah, in that ayah, He didn't begin with (يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا - ya ayyuhallatheena amanu) By the way, He said, اعْلَمُوا This is a problem for human beings. But the believers are a step above as the ayah continues.

And you know the very next ayah, Allah, interestingly enough, He says (وَمَا قَدَرُوا اللَّهَ حَقَّ قَدْرِهِ إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَقَوِيٌّ عَزِيزٌ - wa ma qadarullaha haqqa qadrihi innallaha laqawiyyun 'azeez) (Quran 22:74) The previous ayah mentions what? Weakness. Weakness of whom? The human being. And the next ayah mentions strength.

But whose strength? Whose power? Allah. It's a direct lesson. They didn't appreciate Allah like He deserves to be appreciated. Because if we run after the pleasure of Allah, if that is the thing that makes me lose my sleep at night, if that's the thing I'm running after, then wallahi, I become strong. Because I'm running after the one who is the source of all strength. You run after anything else in life, and you are as weak as that thing is.

Two Contrasting Examples

I'll give you a couple of practical examples. I had a chance, we'll compare a non-Muslim with a Muslim scenario, in a contemporary time. You know, in abnormal psychology, I was a student of abnormal psychology, and we studied the case of this young man who's brilliant.

He did his PhD in psychology at NYU. And back in the days when he did his PhD, he typed up his entire thesis, left it at the front desk, walked away, and the secretary or the administration, they lost his thesis. They lost his PhD thesis. He didn't even have a copy. Nothing. So his years of work has now basically been washed away.

There's nothing there. So what happens to this person? You see, he was seeking something. He was seeking that credential. He was seeking finally that he will earn that title. That's what he was seeking. And because he was seeking other than Allah, he was weak.

And you know what happened to him? He collapsed mentally. He goes around the campus, even today, it's been decades, he goes around NYU campus and he tells people, don't go here. They'll steal your thesis. It's a rip-off school. And every few weeks, they have to take him into Bellevue. He lost his sanity. Because he lost that which he was after.

Compare this to another scenario. By the grace of Allah, I had the opportunity to visit New Orleans after Katrina. And you know, there's a big Muslim community in New Orleans. Even one of the masajids was completely crushed. Anyway, I had the chance to meet a gentleman who's a car dealer.

This Muslim brother, he didn't want to deal with any sort of Riba. So he bought all his luxury cars, cash. Alhamdulillah. And his lot was on the water. So when the storm came, the only car that survived is the Lexus that he escaped in. Everything else was gone. Everything else was gone. I mean, if you're in business, and if your sales are going down by 10%, by 20% in a month, you start getting depression. And you start having high blood pressure.

And you need to go see a doctor. You start slipping out. And this person lost basically everything. And he delivers pizza in the Lexus that he escaped in now. Yet there's a smile on his face. There's a smile on his face.

Why? Because that's not what he was after. He says to me, you know, I'm grateful to Allah because I used to go to sleep thinking about the numbers. Thinking about how many sales, how much money. Now I go to sleep making dhikr of Allah. This is a gift of Allah to me. And that's a believer. That's a believer. So there's a difference in attitude.

The Parable of Rain and Crops

And so now we turn to the last portion of the ayah that I started with.

Allah takes all of that, subhanahu wa ta'ala, and He gives it an analogy. He wants us to understand worldly life through a parable. It's a profound statement.

Allah azza wa jalla says (كَمَثَلِ غَيْثِ أَعْجَبَ الْكُفَّارَ نَبَاتُهُ - kamathali ghaythin a'jabal kuffara nabatuhu) (Quran 57:20) It's like heavy rain. You know, really pouring rain. You know the farmer who planted the seed, but at the time that the farmer is planting the seed one at a time, going all over the field in the burning sun, does he see the fruit of his labor at that time? No.

But he's hopeful that eventually what's gonna happen? It's gonna rain. And now finally at the end of the year, I'm gonna get to see my work come through. So Allah describes this farmer and uses the word kufar because that's the element of farming when you're planting the seed.

So he's ready to see the fruit of his labor come out. (أَعْجَبَ الْكُفَّارَ نَبَاتُهُ - a'jabal kuffara nabatuhu) He's impressed. He loves the fact that now the crop is coming out.

Then Allah mentions even better (ثُمَّ يَهِيجُ - thumma yahiju) (Quran 57:20) Then it matures. And you know, farming 101, when your crop matures, what are you supposed to do? Harvest. You cut it. You take advantage of it. But Allah azza wa jalla mentions something strange. He says (فَتَرَاهُ مُصْفَرًّا - fatarahu musfarran) (Quran 57:20) This farmer who was happy that his crop is about to mature, the next thing Allah tells him, says, that crop turned yellow.

You will see it turn yellow. (ثُمَّ يَكُونُ حُطَامًا - thumma yakunu hutaman) (Quran 57:20) (فَتَرَاهُ مُصْفَرًّا ثُمَّ يَكُونُ حُطَامًا - fatarahu musfarran thumma yakunu hutaman) That will turn into debris. He had all of his expectations in that farm and yet that farm is allowed to turn to debris. Nothingness. The thing that he aspired towards is gone.

The Two Endings: Punishment or Forgiveness

And then Allah says (وَفِي الْآخِرَةِ عَذَابٌ شَدِيدٌ - wa fil-akhirati 'adhabun shadeed) (Quran 57:20) And in the end, there are only two things. Severe punishment. (وَمَغْفِرَةٌ مِّنَ اللَّهِ وَرِضْوَانٌ - wa maghfiratun minallahi wa ridwanun) (Quran 57:20) Forgiveness from Allah and contentment. And great contentment.

May Allah azza wa jalla make us worthy of His forgiveness. May Allah be pleased with us. And then he concludes and we conclude (وَمَا الْحَيَاةُ الدُّنْيَا إِلَّا مَتَاعُ الْغُرُورِ - wa mal-hayatud-dunya illa mata'ul-ghurur) (Quran 57:20) What is worldly life? Except means by which, you know, people are deceived. Means of deception. That's all worldly life amounts to.

Clarification on Material Possessions

And please don't take my statements the wrong way. I'm not saying you shouldn't have a nice job, or a nice house, or a nice car, or nice clothes. I'm not saying any of that. But if those are the things that are in your heart, not just in your bank. If those are the things that are in your heart, not just in your pocket, then you've got a serious problem. And you can have that serious problem even if you have nothing in your pocket. And there's dunya in your heart.

And you can be the wealthiest man in the world, but dunya is not in your heart. This is not the only thing you're running after. You realize there's something more. There's something more.

Warning About the Punishment of Hypocrites

I leave you with a warning that Allah revealed about those who are declared hypocrites. And may Allah protect us from hypocrisy. But one of the punishments on the hypocrites that Allah mentions in Surah Tawbah deals with this subject. Allah says (فَلَا تُعْجِبْكَ أَمْوَالُهُمْ وَلَا أَوْلَادُهُمْ - fala tu'jibka amwaluhum wa la awladuhum) (Quran 9:55) Don't allow their money or their children, the accomplishments of their children even, right? Don't let that deceive you. Don't be impressed with it. Don't be impressed with it.

(إِنَّمَا يُرِيدُ اللَّهُ لِيُعَذِّبَهُم بِهَا - innama yureedullahu liyu'adhibahum biha) (Quran 9:55) Allah only intends to punish them with it. Allah only intends to punish them by means of their wealth, by means of their children.

Contemporary Examples of This Warning

It's a shocking statement. I travel across the country, subhanAllah, small towns and big towns. I've seen 60 communities, Muslim communities all over the country. One of the most common things I see is a parent comes to me and says, Brother, can you talk to my teenage son? Can you talk to my college-going daughter? They're really not listening to me anymore. They've rebelled. I don't know what to do with them.

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