When Allah Chooses You | Sh. Yousef Wahb | Juz 17 Qur’an 30 for 30 S7 | Ramadan Series

When Allah Chooses You

Allah chooses. When you say people have been chosen for divine mission and people have been chosen for test and trial, like the people of Gaza have been chosen for the moment, it changes the entire idea of like Allah chose you. Allah does not put a person in a situation more than they can bear.

That can be a test at times, like this situation seems unbearable, but it's my responsibility to try to find a way to deal with it in a way that's pleasing to Allah, regardless of what side of the screen that I'm on. Why doesn't Allah just take out all those oppressors at once? We have the flood, we have the wind, we have all these different natural punishment. The test here is for us to see the idea of responses, to the oppression that is happening in the world, to see how you're going to resist that, not to sit and wait for the divine intervention.

As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh everyone. Welcome back to Quran 30 for 30. We are now on Juz 17.

May Allah allow us to take full advantage of these last two middle days of Ramadan and grant us strength into the last ten. We want to remind you all to please do donate to Yaqeen, be a part of this work and support the work that we're doing here and also to make du'a for us and to let us know how you're benefiting from Quran 30 for 30, from the Ramadan series, from everything else that's coming out.

We're joined by Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen Sheikh Yusuf Wahab who's been such a large part of directing our Quranic work. You know we're blessed to have him with us even though he tried to escape Quran 30 for 30. He didn't want to do it. We forced him, we're like get on a plane man, come down here.

Al-Latif: The Subtle One

So Sheikh Yusuf, you know before we get started we like to ask our guests, right now in this moment, what's the name of Allah that you feel most attached to, that you've been calling on or that you feel like you've been contemplating on most these days?

The first one in general and actually the first one that came to my mind right now is اللطيف (Al-Latif). I think that of course with all the events and the situations we've been going through, some of them are individual, are personal and some of them are also collective at the level of the Ummah.

I think seeing the lutf of Allah in the way Allah controls the Qadar. Some of the scholars mentioned about one of the dimensions of the word لطيف is that you see that how Allah runs things with their opposites. So like you see the opposite of what you would expect to be a kind of a natural event to happen and the lutf of Allah lies sometimes in the opposites of what we expect.

So that's a beautiful angle that some scholars mentioned about how to reflect on the - you can't really make out what is actually going on in your life. That's one way of looking at the - so it looks like there isn't really like a direct English equivalent but I would say just the subtle control and running of the world affairs by Allah.

The Mockery of the Oppressors

So last Juz we talked about the nervousness of the journey, people getting prepared, how Allah was with them the entire time, the merciful teacher. Allah guiding them through the journey throughout the way.

Interestingly enough Juz 17 it turns immediately to the mockery on the other side. So it's like if you were to watch these scenes play out from one vantage point you're watching it play out from the vantage point primarily in Juz 16 of the prophets as they're getting ready, of these people as they're being facilitated towards the next part of their journey. Musa's preparation before he goes to speak to Firaun.

This one subhanAllah this Juz switches quite a bit to the other side of it, the vantage point of those that received the revelation with mockery that like yeah whatever they didn't take the message or the messengers seriously because they felt like they had a sense of invincibility and immunity.

The time of judgment is coming closer and people are turning away further like with heedlessness.

Every time a new reminder comes to them from their lord they listen to it وهم يلعبون like they're joking about like oh what's the next thing that this Prophet said oh now Musa you have this to say oh this is your next miracle. You can think of the graduation of the mockery of the Prophet like oh what's he saying now and this becomes sort of their bedtime stories or what they're saying as they're drinking their wine and they're sitting in their living rooms and their dens like oh now he's claiming this ha ha ha.

So the mockery is growing and the sense of invincibility that they have especially from the perspective of zulm of their transgression also is paralleling that mockery. SubhanAllah like in every single story that we had in the past juz there's always a tyrant on the other side like it's not like Allah was testing prophets with natural disasters, Allah was testing them with people whether it's the Firaun on the outside or the father Firaun in the case of Ibrahim like your father who's your tyrant like it's a person it's a people that are testing you that are mocking you and those are harder tests to deal with and to see through.

So here like they're just growing in their sense of okay we mocked him one time we beat him one time and nothing happened to us so that means we can take it a step further we can escalate because we're not being destroyed and you can see that in our oppressors today may Allah destroy them as he destroyed the ones that we are speaking about here in the past.

Allah Chooses Both Angels and People

Obviously you then you go into Surat Al-Hajj this concept of Allah choosing people, choosing angels, choosing prophets, choosing people, choosing communities. Allah chooses people. You know in Surat Maryam some of the scholars mentioned that مخلِص versus مخلَص is that he's chosen that he was chosen.

And here Allah mentions in verse 75 that Allah chooses both messengers from the angels as well as from the people. إن الله سميع بصير - Allah is all hearing all seeing.

And then finally in verse 78 Allah mentions strive for the cause of Allah in the way he deserves. He is the one who chose you. So he chose angels he chose messengers from the angels messengers from the people being the prophets and then he chose communities. Allah did not place hardship for you in this. This is the way of your forefather Ibrahim. It is he who named you Muslims.

By the way Sheikh Yusuf, tafsir wise is that Allah that named the Muslims Muslims or is it Ibrahim that's being referred to here?

The pronoun can be understood to refer to either of them but there is the attribute to the father of the prophets. The tafsir I mean and this is what I know it as well that Ibrahim alayhi as-salaam that he's the one who named you Muslims but it could also be Allah the one who named you Muslims. At the end of the day we're chosen, we're named, we're identified and Allah we pray that he finds us worthy to be of those that stand behind our Prophet on the day of judgment and those that get to be of his companions and those that stand and extend his light in this world.

Being Chosen for Test and Honor

The point is Allah chooses. So when you say people have been chosen for divine mission and people have been chosen for test and trial like the people of Gaza have been chosen for the moment, it changes the entire idea of like Allah chose you to do this and that turns what otherwise could seem like humiliating and hard to honorable and honoring like wait this is Allah choosing us in a certain way.

You know it's interesting you mentioned they're chosen that choosing quote unquote can be simultaneous and we talk about right now what Allah has chosen the people in Gaza. It's choosing - Allah has chosen other people to see how they will respond to that whether it's on a community level state level what are you going to do. It's subhanAllah it's amazing that Allah will choose these people or this person that everyone knows about but it's also a test for you at the moment to see how you will respond to that.

How will you respond to the fact that Allah has chosen that person for that? Will you be someone that is not pleased with - you mentioned earlier the qadar and understanding the lutf of Allah and these little subtleties in that choice with that person or those people? How do we respond to Allah's choice in that regard in the manifestation of that name Allah being the little subtleties and when he does that and for us to ponder over that and why he did so? But most importantly to look at ourselves and say okay what am I supposed to do in this moment? How can I rise to the occasion?

(Hadith Qudsi - Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 7405)

How can I have - you know the Prophet mentioned in a hadith qudsi "I am as my servant thinks of me" so how do we think about Allah in these particular occasions and how do we think of ourselves? And knowing that Allah put us in the situation individually or collectively - Allah does not put a person in a situation more than they can bear.

So that can be a test at times like look this situation seems unbearable but it's my responsibility to try to find a way to deal with it in a way that's pleasing to Allah regardless of what side of the screen that I'm on and I think that's important as well.

Different Forms of Resistance

And subhanAllah responses can take different forms and shapes as well. So when we look at the juz Surat Al-Anbiya and Surat Al-Hajj, so we understand that the order of revelation is different. The order we have in the mushaf Al-Anbiya first and Surat Al-Hajj. One way of looking at it is that it presents different forms of resistance against these different kind of systemic oppressions and tyranny and transgression.

In Surat Al-Anbiya one way of looking at these things at this angle, in Surat Al-Anbiya it gives you the perils the historical perils this is what the experiences of the prophets have been. Then when you come to Surat Al-Hajj you have now different forms of resistance. One by hijrah by doing immigration - it's actually a form of resistance against the batil against the falsehood for the sake of protecting yourself protecting your identity protecting your faith.

It talks about jihad. I know this is the first time Muslims are being allowed to defend themselves and to initiate combat after they move to Medina and Surat Al-Hajj in particular is interesting because we have massive debate about whether it's Medina or Mecca. This debate has never been settled because you have different opinions. You have opinion that it's entirely Meccan except for a few verses Medina, another opinion that is exactly the opposite entirely Medina but a few verses are Meccan. The common opinion is that it has both and more interestingly we can't even identify definitively which part is Meccan which part is Medina because the arrangement of the verses that happen towards the end of the life of the Prophet put it in this very particular manner.

And add to that complexity is that it's named Al-Hajj but it happened towards the end of Meccan time early Medina so you have that very crucial transition. And that's why hijrah is not just an incidental episode in the life of the Prophet it's a form of resistance. It's actually a topic of the books of jihad in our tradition that this is one way of resisting the oppression and the tyranny that we encounter.

And subhanAllah I think that that's actually one of the beautiful things to take from it being named Surat Al-Hajj is that it's at a time when hajj seemed least likely. You're on your way out of Mecca or you just got kicked out of Mecca and Allah reveals a surah named Surat Al-Hajj which seems impossible. You can't even do umrah right now you're out of Mecca.

And I think that that has a lot of resonance these days like how are you talking about Masjid Al-Aqsa and inshallah ta'ala we're going to pray in Masjid Al-Aqsa as liberators once again in a free Al-Aqsa? It's all falling apart and this is not in our ethos that Allah will provide a pathway to victory and that's one of the wisdoms and one of the beautiful elements of the naming of this of the surah.

Allah as Ar-Razzaq - The Provider

So Sheikh Yusuf I want to come to you on that note. In Surat Al-Hajj verse 58 Allah mentions those who migrate in the cause of Allah and then they are martyred or they die and Allah mentions that Allah will indeed grant them a good provision and surely Allah is the best provider. The way that I think about this is firstly you've been chosen to commit a noble task and if you're penalized in the capacity of doing something noble then surely the one who commanded you is also going to provide for you. So how does this verse resonate - Allah being the one who provides? How does this verse resonate with the context of the juz?

So this is we were just talking about immigration from Mecca to Medina and the concept of migrating from a place of oppression a place where the Prophet alayhi salatu wassalam and the sahaba couldn't actually establish the deen and didn't have any kind of religious freedom and now they move to Medina. Immigration is not easy it's specifically immigration for the sake of the deen of course we're not talking about economic immigration. This perspective that was a specific form of immigration that's why the Prophet alayhi salatu wassalam said there are different types of immigration but when we use this word here we mean the prophetic immigration and it wasn't the only time that happened that stayed in our tradition to be immigration in parallel situations.

When you look at the name of Allah the next seven consecutive verses all conclude with pairs of names of Allah that they all respond to different episodes of the journey of the immigration and really they're looking at immigration to be a challenging moment physically even emotionally. You know when the Prophet alayhi salatu wassalam first received revelation he went to say to Khadija she comforted him she took him to Waraqah and then Waraqah told him what was going to happen. He told him like this is going to be new to the people people are going to fight you people are going to oppose you a lot and he mentioned all what is going to happen. What was the only thing that the Prophet commented on? The only thing he said - like how big the news he's receiving is but the only comment he made: "Are they actually going to drive me out?" And the scholars picked on that. He said like if you've been forced if you've been displaced if you've been forced to leave your homeland that's most difficult.

He didn't say oh they're gonna fight me or they're gonna oppose that they didn't like that I'm gonna be a prophet - he was still alayhi salatu wassalam internalizing the first revelation experience but he really focused on that. So it comes with a lot of sacrifice and that's why all of these names seven ayat - that's 14 names - and then with the name of Ar-Razzaq corresponds somehow to the idea of the help of Allah coming to the immigration. And as I mentioned earlier immigration is a form of resistance and that explains how the scholars understood it.

When you open in any Islamic legal manual a chapter on jihad for example one interesting and unique aspect about how Imam Ash-Shafi'i for example or the Shafi'i school dealt with this topic - two main things they started the chapters of jihad with: one immigration that's in the chapter of jihad immigration from the state of Mecca and it gives you a brief seerah and the introduction of jihad topics. And then the second topic is فرض الكفاية it's communal obligations and then they go on long tangents of what that means what are the examples - things that have nothing to do with jihad by the way but it resembles these two: resembles that sometimes you need to fight on an individual level and sometimes we need collectively to preserve the integrity of our community. That could be an actual jihad that could be an actual self-defense but that also could be immigration by just resisting the system by okay I'm leaving this place I'm going to another place where I can actually establish myself. Doing all of that requires the help of Allah.

He didn't say he's Ar-Razzaq said he's the best provider and of course scholars of tafsir would say there's no comparison here. خير is better or superlative form - there's no comparison so the scholars understood it to be absolute and they gave multiple beautiful reflections. But one of the best reflections in my reading at least they gave was: people can be means Allah uses to give us stuff but this is not actually rizq. So if you're giving me something you're just passing on the rizq that you receive to me. It's like we are actually a kind of a chain of passing on pieces of rizq but we're not actually providers. The actual originator of what rizq is is Allah. This is the خيرية here this is the idea of Allah being the best provider.

But this is not the only thing he promised those who are doing immigration. He also - he's going to grant them the pleasant entry he's going to enter them into a pleasant space in this life and in the hereafter. He knows - عليم - he knows what you've been through and what you might be also going through in the future after your immigration because not only again it's not only about even though the ayat about jihad because he mentions the two scenarios: some people are going to be martyred but some people are going to die and there is equation here - not just for the reward we can still argue that the shaheed gets more reward than the person who just dies but this person has a very high noble status with Allah because both are going to be given a rizq from Allah and they're going to be admitted to a pleasant entry. Allah knows because that needs حلم from Allah as you mentioned that you're not going to be accountable for things that are beyond your capability. Allah is still going to be there and then the rest of the names of course as I mentioned seven ayat everyone talks about different aspects of the power of Allah the qadr of Allah the love of Allah for the rest of the ayat afterwards.

Permission to Fight Back

There's a particular type of mindset when the believers are picking up and leaving everything that they knew behind and knowing that Allah will provide for them. But there's another thing when you fight back those that oppress you and you know that Allah will provide for you victory and in Surat Al-Hajj in verse 39 of course the permission that you were alluding to - that permission has been given to fight back because they have been wronged and verily Allah is truly most capable of helping them prevail.

And at the end of the next verse subhanAllah the same thing and Allah will certainly help those who stand up for him and verily Allah is truly powerful and almighty. So it's subhanAllah it's in the same verse that Allah is giving you permission to fight for yourself Allah saying and by the way he is capable of giving you victory and then the second verse where Allah says and Allah will help those who help themselves and verily Allah is all endowed with strength and almighty. It both comes back to you have to do your part and let Allah do his.

It's showing you that when you help the deen of Allah helping is really helping yourself. We have to understand that when the Prophet says for example preserve Allah and Allah preserve you but it's really preserving the deen of Allah in your practice and the way that you turn to Allah that's how you're going to help the deen. But Allah is free and sufficient from any need from anyone or anything but it's really how are you going to help the deen of Allah by your implementation? You're standing up for your religion you're standing up against people that are oppressing you or others that have the same belief or even those that have been oppressed in a general fashion. How are you going to do that in a way that is befitting to you and your faith and in result Allah will assist you whether individually or collectively? So it's that reminder to stand firm in your faith and this is a general principle as well.

Different Forms of Resistance Throughout Time

When we zoom out again to look at the entire juz one question that might come to mind is that when we think of the previous ummahs before the ummah of the Prophet and look at the prophets, the idea of collective punishment that roots out the tyrants and the oppressors - that's something that Allah has done a lot of the previous nations as the Quran mentions but for us he didn't promise that. He promised victory and then as you mentioned he will enable you he will facilitate you but he's going to go through rounds. You will lose some rounds you will lose some battles but you might win some battles. It's going to be back and forth until the end of time.

Allah out of his wisdom he decided that this ummah will not be granted that facilitation of collective punishment for their enemies. That's why people say when we think of all this oppression that is happening why doesn't Allah just take out all those oppressors at once? We have the flood we have the wind we have all these different natural punishments that Allah have caused all of these previous nations. Almost most of them in the Quran are about the punishment and the Quran gives really almost graphic images of how that punishment was collective and it just takes everybody.

But for us he said no you have these forms of resistance. Sometimes you need to relocate sometimes you need to have a new start after you migrate sometimes you need to push back sometimes you need to do jihad. Something you have all these forms and they will be with you until the end of time. It's something - the test here is for us to see that you have responses to the oppression that is happening in the world, to see how you're going to resist that, not to sit and wait for the divine intervention to just finish. The final scene will be under judgment that is something that you keep trying your best and Allah will support whoever he wishes to support and he's going to continue in these rounds at the end of time.

Don't Abdicate Your Responsibility

Amazing insights. I think you know again it's like don't abdicate your own responsibility. It's just like Allah is he's the one who provides that doesn't mean that you don't go seek out your own rizq. Like the greatest example of that - he's one of these people in this verse right? He gets to Medina and an Ansari is telling him you can have everything I've got you covered. He says I don't need any of this just show me the marketplace and I'll figure it out. And he knows Allah is the one that's going to be at the end of the day who's going to provide but he's going to do his part.

And the same thing when it comes to victory we have to do our best we have to do our part we don't abdicate our responsibility and just wait for Allah to make it happen. Allah is giving us and we hope choosing us by using us to be part of the means of that victory.

May Allah choose us for that which is khair and may Allah enable us to do that which is right. Barak Allah for joining us inshallah we'll see you all tomorrow.