بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

Allah says in the Qur’an:

And judge, [O Muhammad], between them by what Allah has revealed and do not follow their inclinations and beware of them, lest they tempt you away from some of what Allah has revealed to you. And if they turn away – then know that Allah only intends to afflict them with some of their [own] sins. And indeed, many among the people are corrupt.

[5:49]

In this ayah, Allah orders the prophet (ﷺ) to judge by which Allah has sent down and He warns him not follow the whims of those who have come to him for knowledge. What does this mean exactly?

People simply want to take the word of Allah but use their feelings to bend Allah’s laws to their whims, to fit what is comfortable for them. For these individuals it makes their feelings are above the word of Allah.

This is not to say that Islam does not care about people’s feelings. There are many occasions in the Qur’an where Allah send down revelation to sooth the hearts of the believers.

The job of the shaytan is essentially to take everything beautiful and make it ugly, while taking that which is ugly and making it beautiful and we see it around us today. Islamic clothing is an example; in most of the West, the khimar is looked down upon while wearing revealing clothes is the norm.

The deen of Allah came to protect us from the harm we can do to ourselves. Take children for example – they have uncontrollable desires. There could be a child that wants ice-cream all the time – if the parents fulfils their desire, it would harm them.

Just like children, human beings in general can act like they care about only what they want to do – “let me be happy”. When we do that we cause harm to ourselves. What Allah is saying is that our feelings could be the biggest danger to ourselves. He says:

But as for he who feared the position of his Lord and prevented the soul from [unlawful] inclination,

[79:40]

Allah talks of those who stop their whims from dictating their actions. So when Allah tells the prophet (ﷺ) to not bend His judgement to the people’s feelings, He is basically telling him that the people’s feeling are already taken into consideration; after all, Allah created us.

What is best for the human being is already there even if they may not subjectively like it. He knows what is better for us since He knows us personally better than we know ourselves. Allah says:

Say, “Would you acquaint Allah with your religion while Allah knows whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth, and Allah is Knowing of all things?”

[49:16]

Sometimes we hear something Allah wants us to do or stay away from and our immediate response is a counter – “it doesn’t feel like it’s good for me” or “it’s too constricting”.

So Allah talks about the people’s whims then He warns the prophet to watch out for them, to be careful of the ones who ask him – why?

They come with the mentality that “we want this religion to fit in with the majority’s opinion”. They want to interpret it differently to fit into their own comfort zone.

Then the warning comes: “they might put you into trial through some of Allah’s revelation”. In other words, they might start picking and choosing – this is the fitna caused by many people and we see it everywhere today.

People pick and choose which parts of the Qur’an and Sunnah are comfortable to follow, then proceed to bend other parts. We essentially become consumers in the deen, choosing what we want out of Islam just as we choose what to purchase from the market.

Then people come up with the greatest scam – we will ignore the word of Allah when it comes to certain halal or haram, but we will go to Umrah every year, or we will donate some money to charity etc. This is merely to satisfy their conscience – “at least I am doing something for islam” – while at the same we ignore the core aspects of the religion. Allah says:

If you avoid the major sins which you are forbidden, We will remove from you your lesser sins and admit you to a noble entrance [into Paradise].

[4:31]

Instead of following Allah’s notion in this ayah, we do the smaller good deeds while holding on to major sins. Then we say, at least we’re doing these good things, Allah will forgive those other major sins – this is the great lie we tell ourselves.

We do not decide what the priorities are in Islam. This attitude redefines what the religion is – the fact that Allah is the master and we are the slaves and we submit our wills to Him. He decides what is halal and haram – we do not make this decision on our own terms.

So what is the consequence if we hold this corrupted approach?

Allah says that He intends to strike these people with calamity because of some of the sins they commit. Meaning that this is not something that only affects someone in the next life – there will be problems coming our way in this dunya when we knowingly compromise Allah’s words.

These problems can come in any form – a “mousiba” (calamity) is not just a physical issue like death or illness, but emotional too. Meaning it could be depression, anxiety, not being able to sleep, never feeling content in life etc. Then we look into medicine and therapy and other forms for a cure which is perfectly reasonable in Islam to do, but if Allah takes away the peace in our hearts because we keep disobeying Him, only He can put it back.

It is He who sent down tranquillity into the hearts of the believers that they would increase in faith along with their [present] faith…

[48:4]

He sent His own tranquillity upon the hearts of the believers so the peace will only come when we tell ourselves that we are not going to play with His words anymore.

We must acknowledge our attitude towards Allah’s word and fix the mentality we have towards His rulings.

We must take what He has given us sincerely and leave that which He has made forbidden for us.

Allah ends by stating that many human beings are corrupt, He mentions “nas”. This is to tell us that this is not a specific group of people but humanity as a whole. Human beings tend to know something is wrong but they want to do it anyway.

Allah then asks a rhetorical question in the next ayah, which we must ponder over ourselves.

Then is it the judgement of [the time of] ignorance they desire? But who is better than Allah in judgement for a people who are certain [in faith].

[5:50]

“Jahl” has a few descriptions; one of the meanings is the inability to control ones whims and feelings – whatever it is that people of jahl feel, they just follow it – to be impulsive.

So are we following the jahileen? Or are we following the best of judgements which is Allah’s word?

It is one or the other brothers and sisters.

May Allah make us of those who truly follow His way.

Allah knows best.

بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

Blind following has been an issue throughout the ages. There are many places in the Qur’an that mention different nations and this mentality towards the religion. Allah highlights where blind following can lead:

Say, “Not equal are the evil and the good, although the abundance of evil might impress you.” So fear Allah, O you of understanding, that you may be successful.

[5:100]

We can see around us that many practices in and out of Islam are a result of being deceived by the number of people that carry them out. People tend to see the majority performing an action and suddenly it becomes the right thing to do. There are many stories in history pertaining to this, one that comes to mind is of a practice that was done in North Africa.

It all started with one person who decided one day that he was going to visit a random man’s grave who apparently was a Muslim scholar and make tawaf (circumambulate) around it. It then became a habit of his, every time he was going through the area he would do the tawaf then continue his journey.

Others from the village then blindly followed without knowing what they were doing or why, until it became widespread. After a while someone decided to dig up the grave and it turned out that not only were the people committing a form of treachery against Allah by doing tawaf around a grave but that the grave belonged to a dog.

Allah teaches us in this ayah that no matter how abundant or widespread an act might be, evil will always be evil. He teaches us that we must be weary of the fact that when bad things come in plenty they may not look so bad – people get desensitised to them. This is why keeping the religion in its pure form is so important.

Sometimes we include cultural practices within Islam which are variations in what the religion teaches us. These variations become so common and widespread that everyone in that culture starts doing it, to the point when the only proof as to why they do it is simply “everybody does it” – this becomes the only line of reasoning.

“Although the abundance of evil may impress you” – meaning simply that these people just follow everybody else.

Allah then adds beautifully: “So fear Allah, O you of understanding, that you may be successful” – those of understanding are those who are clear thinkers, unbiased people. These people do not take sides or blind follow for the sake of being part of the group. These are the people who do not cave into peer pressure, they think for themselves, they look at the proof not at the number of people who are carrying out the actions.

The surah continues:

O you who have believed, do not ask about things which, if they are shown to you, will distress you. But if you ask about them while the Qur’an is being revealed, they will be shown to you. Allah has pardoned that which is past; and Allah is Forgiving and Forbearing.

[5:101]

A conversation with the prophet (ﷺ) was narrated around the time this ayah was released. He said to the people: “O people, Allah has enjoined Hajj on you, so perform Hajj.” A man said: “Is it every year, O Messenger of Allah?” He remained silent until (the man) said it three times.

Then the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said: “If I said yes it would be obligatory and you would not be able to do it.” Then he said: “Be content what I leave with you, for those who came before you were destroyed because they asked too many questions and argued with their Prophets. If I tell you to do something then do as much of it as you can, and if I tell you not to do something then abstain from it.” [Muslim]

A story in the Qur’an that pertains to this topic is of the cow in the 2nd surah when the Israelites were told by Musa to slaughter a cow. Slaughtering a cow was the only detail given but they kept asking for more and more details making their own lives more difficult, to the point where the description was so specific that only one cow fit. If they had followed the first commandment, it would have been any cow but due to their persistence their lives were made a lot more difficult.

This ayah is not talking about searching for answers in the religion like how to carry out certain actions or whether something is permissible but rather it’s about going too deep. There are certain aspects of life that Allah has left out, things that He has not told us about. For example most of what is in the unseen. We have very limited narrations of what the unseen is like and that is due to our limited minds. Just as our eyes and ears have limits as to what we can see and hear, our minds have a limit as to what we can think.

Allah has made very clear what we need to know in this life to succeed.

Another aspect that is in line with this teaching is the notion of asking about something with a preconceived idea that we have no intention of changing based on truth. For example – we want to know if some sort of act is haram or not. We read something of one renowned scholar talking about a hadith or ayah from the Qur’an or gives a fatwa based on a ruling that says it is in fact impermissible, we didn’t like reading it.

Thus we search and ask another scholar – who says the same thing. Then we ask a local imam who agrees with the scholars, none of this is what we want. Then we move on to ask a relative or friend who has no qualifications or barely a connection with Islam and says the act is perfectly fine or “not that bad”, and with this we conclude that there is a “difference of opinion”, therefore it cannot be finalised as haram.

If we are to ask about things let us be genuine with ourselves – whatever verdict Islam has to offer we accept. Sometimes we are given answers that we are sincerely not convinced of, that’s a separate issue. Sincerity as in we go in asking a question with the mindset that whatever convincing answer there is from the deen we will place our desires to the side and submit.

Then if when we get an answer we feel that it’s not enough, we search some more for a deeper understanding. Allah calls us “the people of understanding”, so if something is not being understood it should be looked into further, thus why real scholarship is so important especially with fiqh matters – for what is haram or halal we look into what the people of knowledge have to say.

This of course only comes with pure intentions and we all know if we are being genuine. Whenever we have pure intentions Allah will guide us to the correct understanding of His deen.

May Allah give us all a clear understanding of His deen and guide those who are blind followers.

Allah knows best.

بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ

Allah says in the Qur’an:

Indeed, Allah orders justice and good conduct and giving to relatives and forbids immorality and bad conduct and rebellion. He admonishes you that perhaps you will be reminded.

[16:90]

This ayah is commonly mentioned when concluding the khutbah on Fridays yet for the most part it is usually just used as a cue to get up for prayer and the true essence of the beautiful ayah is lost. Let us explore what Allah is really telling us.

There are 3 things Allah orders us to stick with, along with 3 things we need to avoid.

He first commands justice and excellence. Justice is the bare minimum expected of any human being, Muslim or non-Muslim. When a person lives by justice it’s not necessarily an accomplishment – it just means they’re not a criminal. He then tells us to excel past that towards excellence. Both are mentioned which covers the entire spectrum of good deeds, big and small.

After this, Allah refers to giving to relatives. Interestingly, this act is part of justice towards the family – someone who gives towards relatives is performing an act of justice yet Allah says this separately. This tells us that there will be some people who simply cover their normal duties towards relatives and there will be those who go above and beyond – the people of excellence.

We usually associate justice with court cases or justice of country leaders upon their nations but Allah specifically mentions family. In Islam, justice starts with the relatives. There cannot be justice or excellence in a society unless it is first given to individual families. So the foundation of a society succeeding is the relationship between families and within families it starts on an individual level.

So what is the direct threat to this foundation?

Allah mentions “fahsha'” – shamelessness of which the worst form is zina. On one hand we have nikkah (marriage) – a structured concept of family, role and rights of man and woman, responsibilities towards spouse and children. Then the opposite is the chaotic concept – shamelessness – which destroys the family structure through obscenity.

Fahsha’ covers all types of shamelessness or obscenity. It could be obscene speech, obscene movies, obscene friends etc. The difference between fahsha’ and “munkar” is that munkar is something that is mutually agreed to be evil such as stealing or murder. Allah warns us about both then mentions “baghyi” which translates to rebellion – when this is mentioned in the Qur’an, it usually means rebellion against Allah. It could be said that fahsha’ and munkar is or leads to rebellion against Allah.

The ayah ends with “ya’ithukoum la’alakoum tathakaroun” – Allah warns us so that we may remember; ironically most of us start getting up for prayer at this statement (for those who were asleep throughout the lecture wake up from their nap). Interestingly Allah says “perhaps” we may remember through these warnings meaning it will take effort from us to take advantage of this reminder, it won’t just happen.

The few words in this verse are the essence of the entire range of Islamic teachings thus why many khateebs mention this verse in the Friday gatherings. It is for us to take this reminder and work on it every day of our lives in order for us to succeed.

May Allah make us of those who are just, those who excel in Islam and in our families while staying away from shameful acts, evil deeds and rebellion against Him.

Allah knows best.