Surat Luqman, Qur’an 31: Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV

The Prophet ﷺ  (peace be upon him) said in a hadith recorded in Bukhari, related by Uthman ibn Affan:

“.خيركم من تعلم القرآن و علمه”

“The best of you is the one who learns the Qur’an and teaches it.”

The word  تَعَلَّمَ  ta`allam is in a form which means takalluf (effort/exertion), meaning that the person struggled to learn the Qur’an, that their learning the Qur’an required effort and difficulty. Similarly, yesterday we talked about nations before us that struggled to carry the Torah. Allah subhanahu wa ta`ala (exalted is He) uses the word hummilu at-Torah (they struggled to carry it).

خيركم khayrukum means the best of the Muslims. This shows that the success, honor, respect and glory of this Ummah is with the book of Allah (swt). That’s why I encourage our brothers and sisters who become Muslim that, after learning prayer and other basics of Islam, they should focus on the Qur’an. Find someone who can teach you the Qur’an. I meet Muslim brothers who tell me all the bad things about a particular scholar. I ask the brother if he can read Surah Fatiha. I find that he cannot even read the Qur’an properly, but he was able to speak about a scholar of Islam. What kind of Islam is this? When the Companions of the Prophet ﷺ  became Muslim, the first thing they concentrated on was Qur’an and how to pray. Alhamdullilah (praise be to God), I thank my teacher in Oklahoma. He was a large man from Senegal. When I became Muslim he grabbed me and he said, “Listen, learn the Qur’an and learn Arabic. Don’t waste your time with groups.” I remember he told me some stories about Senegal that I want to share with you.

First he said: “In my town in Senegal (St. Louis, which is next to Mauritania) if someone amongst the people of knowledge wants to get married he must first memorize the Qur’an, pray taraweeh with the Qur’an and also memorize the Mu’wattah of Imam Maalik.” Of course this is difficult for us today—we have difficulty memorizing the 40 Hadith of Imam Nawawi, but this criteria shows us the level of their study.

Then, my teacher told me that he finished learning the 10 major qiraat (recitations) of the Qur’an and he learned that from his sister. He said, “My father considered the Qur’an to be a simple pre-requisite that had to be done, and so he didn’t teach it to me. My father was busy teaching usool al fiqh (philosophy of Islamic Law), lugha (language), hadith (traditions of the Prophet ﷺ ) etc. My father told me that for the examination to get the real ijaazah (certification) we would be given empty notebooks. Then we had to write from Surat Al-Fatiha to Surat An-Nas in two weeks. Every day you had to write a certain amount of Qur’an, which would then be given to the Sheikh. They read what you write and if you made even one mistake, you don’t get an ijaazah. Just one mistake. I asked my teacher, “Where is your book in which you wrote the Quran?” He said, “No, we don’t keep it. It is a gift for our Sheikh.”

The third story he told me is about his grandfather who was the Mufti of Senegal. He said one day a group of youth came to his grandfather and told him they wanted to study the philosophy of Islamic Law. He said, “No.” They asked, “Why?” He asked them, “How much Qur’an have you memorized?” They replied, “We’ve memorized twelve ajzaa (parts).” He said, “Start with Qur’an. Forget usool al-fiqh.”

The Qur’an is very important, and we should not neglect it. If you have the time and the resources of people available to teach you,,then you will be asked by Allah (swt) why you didn’t study and make the effort to learn. One of my teachers, Sh. Muhammed Al Mahdi from Al-Jazaair in Egypt, started to teach five subjects every day after Fajr. I stopped going to this class of his, and one day he came to me and said, “I’m going to bear witness against you on the Day of Judgment that you didn’t come to class.” Then, I started to come to class!

How many of us want to be the chosen people of Allah (swt)? The Prophet ﷺ  said,

“.أهل القرآن أهل الله و خاصته”

“The people of the Qur’an are the people of Allah (swt) and His chosen people.”

 This is the final article in the Surat Al-Fatiha Series. 

The sixth trick of Shaytan – if he can’t make you fall into any of the previous traps and he knows that you’re going to do good – is to make you choose to do the good that has lesser reward.

For example, the students are going to organize a rally on campus one morning where they will have seminars about Iraq and the condition of the Muslim world, as well as civil and human rights in North America. You say to yourself, “It sounds good, but I have to pray my tahhajjud (early morning prayer). And if I pray my tahhajud I will have to sleep in the morning, so I won’t be able to go.” Both are good, but which one is better? Which one do you all think is the better reward?

[Audience]: Praying.

No. The rally. Imam Ahmed ibn Hanbal said, “Tahajjud is for myself. But the actions of the ummah (the Muslim community) are for everyone. So I would rather do what’s going to help the most number of people than help myself.”

This is something that many Muslims, especially here in the US, tend to neglect because we’re very individualistic. We’re stuck on “mine”. However, even while making du`a’ in Surah Fatiha (Qur’an 1), we don’t say, “guide me”; rather we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta`ala (exalted is He) to “guide us”. So, the actions which can benefit the masses of the Muslims earn more reward than the actions which benefit one’s self alone.

We learn the same lesson in the story of the great scholar Fudayl ibn Iyyad. During a time of jihad, Abdullah ibn Mubaraak was defending the Muslims from an attack and Fudayl had gone to Makkah to worship Allah (swt). Abdullah ibn Mubaraak wrote Fudayl a poem in which he said, “O Worshipper of the Two Houses! While you are busy in the night wetting your beard with your tears, we are busy in the day and the night wetting our beards with the blood of the shuhadaa (the martyrs).” When Fudayl read this, he started crying, realizing his selfishness.

The Prophet ﷺ (peace be upon him) said that if you stroke the head of an orphan the hairs you touch will be a reward for you with Allah (swt). Why? Because when you help an orphan you’re helping more people than just yourself.

Shaytan tries to get us to fall into the acts of lesser rewards. How can we protect ourselves from this? The answer is learning and gaining knowledge. We don’t have to become scholars, but we need knowledge enough to make good choices, to be good Muslims and to help others.

Another way to remedy this is found in the famous hadith (narration) of Umar radiAllahu `anhu (may God be pleased with him). Umar (ra)’s daughter’s name was Hafsa. She was first married to someone named Khunays (ra). Khunays suffered an injury in the battle of Badr and he died of his wounds. She was 19 years old. After Hafsa finished her i’dah (waiting period), Umar (ra) went to find her a good husband. He went first to Uthman ibn Affan (ra) and asked, “Would you be interested in marrying my daughter?” Uthman (ra) declined, and Umar (ra) got mad. Then he went to Abu Bakr (ra) and said, “Would you like to marry my daughter?” Abu Bakr (ra) also declined. So, Umar (ra) got really upset. He went to complain to the Prophet ﷺ.

The question is, why did Umar (ra) get upset? Some people may say it’s because of the honor of his daughter. This is not the main reason. The main reason he got mad (sisters take note) is because he lost good men. Umar (ra) was looking for a good man to marry his daughter. Someone who would be good to his daughter, take care of her, and love her. Someone whom he knew was a good person. So, when Umar (ra) lost good men, of course he got mad. He didn’t get mad just because this was his daughter, Hafsa. He was mad because he wanted to give his daughter not to someone who was making six digits and driving a Lexus, but to someone who had good akhlaq (character and behavior) and iman (faith).

You see, we often misunderstand the hadith of the Prophet ﷺ  where he said, “Marry a woman for four reasons…” This also means, “Marry a man for four reasons…” Unfortunately no one tells the sisters this, so they sometimes think men get to choose but they don’t.

The four reasons the Prophet ﷺ  mentioned were beauty, wealth, family and deen (religion). The Prophet ﷺ then said, “Choose the one with religion, may you be blessed.”

Many people think that this hadith means that a person must only marry a person who is religious, and everything else doesn’t matter. This is not the correct understanding of this hadith. It means if you can find a woman/man who is religious that’s good. If you find a man who is religious and handsome, that’s better. If you find a woman who is religious and beautiful you have two out of four good qualities. And if you find someone with all four qualities, you’ve hit the jackpot! That’s why the Prophet ﷺ  didn’t marry anyone when he was married to Kahdijah (ra). She was beautiful, she came from a good family, she was wealthy, and she had deen. She was the epitome of the complete woman.

So, Umar (ra) wanted his daughter to marry a good man, and he approached two good men. The question is, isn’t Abu Bakr (ra) better than Uthman (ra)? What is our belief about Abu Bakr (ra)? Our belief about him is that the Prophet ﷺ said, “The greatest person after the prophets is Abu Bakr.”

So why did Umar (ra) go to Uthman (ra) first?  Because, as the Prophet ﷺ said, “If Umar goes this way, Shaytan goes that way (i.e. the opposite way)”. Let’s look at this situation.

Abu Bakr had three wives, one of them named Umm Rumman (the mother of Aisha (ra) and Abdul Rahman (ra)). Of her the Prophet ﷺ once said, “Whoever wants to see a woman from the women of Paradise, let them look at Umm Rumman.” Abu Bakr had two other wives as well.

However, Uthaman’s wife (who was one of the Prophet’s ﷺ  daughters) had just died. He had no wives at the time. So, if priorities were weighed between Uthman (ra) and Abu Bakr (ra) in terms of marriage, Uthman would take the priority. This is the wisdom of Umar (ra). Umar (ra) used priorities when choosing to do good. This is why in fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) we have something called fiqh al-awliyaat (the fiqh of priorities).

Ibn Qayyim Al Jawzziya mentions that there’s one question that can help you to always choose to do the right thing. He posed this question to us and I will pose the question to you now.  What is the best form of worship?

[Audience]: Prayer

No, he said prayer is wrong.

[Audience]: Serving people.

Good try, but no. Serving people is wrong.

[Audience]: Da`wah (inviting to Islam)

No, wrong.

[Audience]: Dhikr (remembrance of Allah (swt))

No.

[Audience]: Follow the Qur’an and Sunnah.

Well, I can’t say no to that because it’s a general umbrella answer, so we’ll disqualify that one. What else?

[Audience]: Seeking knowledge?

No.

[Audience]: Fasting?

No, not fasting. You all give up?

Ibn Qayyim Al Jawziyya said that the best act of worship is “time and place”. What will bring the most benefit and reward according to its time and place is what you should do. For example, salah (prayer). In salah are we allowed to talk? No? Then how come if the sisters can’t hear, someone can say, “Allahu Akbar (God is Greater)!” after the Imam? What changed? The time and place.

What if someone says, “Let’s go and put posters up around campus for this event.” But it’s time for salah. Both are good, but which takes precedence because of time? Salah. If food is served should you pray or eat? Eat, according to the Prophet ﷺ.

What if someone says, “Let’s go to the masjid and increase our iman,” but at that moment people are putting up posters for an event about Iraq, or Palestine, or something in America that will benefit people? In that case the posters take precedence because of the time we are living in.

The same applies for when a college student chooses a degree. Muslims in the liberal arts department of campuses have been put on the endangered species list. Unfortunately some parents believe they are allowed to force their children to be what they want their children to be. This has no basis in Islam. Parents can guide and advise their children, but they cannot force them. We can’t have Muslims concentrating only on one field, like law for example. We can’t only have people who do corporate law because they want to get paid well. How many of us want to be civil rights attorneys? This is a need Muslims have these days. We need Muslim lawyers and Muslim social workers. We need to choose majors that allow us to best serve the ummah (community) according to the time and place.

An All Out Attack

The last thing Shaytan does, if he can’t get you to fall into any of the first six traps, is an all out attack with jinn. This doesn’t mean that you’ll be sitting in your room and all of a sudden you see some strange creatures coming to get you. One of the ways he can use the jinn against you is that the jinn can go to others and cause them not to like you. They will say bad things about you, and you’ll be attacked because you’re on the truth. People will be speaking badly of you, trying to cause you to waver from the deen. This is why we find that people often say bad things about the great scholars in the Muslim world. They’re at that last level. That’s why we should be careful about what we say about other Islamic workers and scholars.

What will save you from this? The saying of the Prophet ﷺ  where he said, “Islam began as something strange, and it will end as something strange, so give good news to the strangers.”

It’s strange nowadays to dress correctly and not show your belly-button. It’s strange to not drive large metal objects through your nose and tongue (although according to the Hanafi madhab (school of thought), sisters can put a piercing in their nose). To have a beard, as was the Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ, is strange these days.

Let’s close now by answering the question we posed earlier. We learned that Shaytan said he will attack from the right, left, back and front, but he will not attack from the top. Why not?

[Audience] Because Allah (swt) is above us.

This is a good point. The sister is saying that Allah (swt) is above us, which is why Shaytan cannot attack us from the top. We understand this as Muslims to mean that Allah (swt) is Majestic. This is what we mean when we say Allah (swt) is above us; He is above us in a manner that suits Him. Good attempt, masha’Allah (through Allah’s will). Does anyone have another answer?

[Audience] Guidance comes from above.

Masha’Allah. That’s a good answer also.  Let’s read the answer that was turned in:

“Given that the devil attacks man from the left, the right, from behind, and from the front, and also given that the noor/light/guidance is singular, it is my guess that Allah (swt) has left us only on one path to reach guidance, and that is from the top, or through our minds.”

So, the writer is saying that the top is where our intellect is, and so, through our intellect we will reach the straight path. Very good, well thought out argument. It continues:

“In life we’re given an endless amount of choices every day, and although choices might seem like a good thing they truly only help to confuse even the most decisive and knowledgeable of men/women. Allah (swt) has left only one pathway open for us: it is through the mind that man gains knowledge and has the freewill to make both good and bad decisions. Man has the opportunity to go left, go right, go backwards and/or forwards where the devil waits for him. Or he can choose the correct path, the only righteous path which will, insha’Allah, lead him to God.

The mind here represents the knowledge and understanding of Islam. It also represents the ability to choose one’s own destiny by the choices one makes.”

So this writer is saying that because the intellect is the only way to God, Iblees doesn’t come from the top. Does anyone have any comment/constructive criticism for this response?

[Audience] Intellect can lead one astray.

Yes, that’s true. Look at, for example, the story of Khidr and Musa. When Khidr killed that boy, one’s intellect would say that is haraam (unlawful). Relying completely on the intellect can lead people astray. Another example we mentioned is the story of Adam (as) when Iblees told him and his wife that the only reason that Allah (swt) forbade them from eating from the tree was because they would become angels and live forever. This is an intellectual argument, and Adam (as) fell for it.

The intellect is one of the greatest gifts Allah (swt) gave human beings, but the intellect has to be guided by revelation. Sometimes we might find some things in Islam that if we try to rationalize, they don’t fit our rationalization. This is why we submit to Allah (swt).

This is a good answer, but it needs to be moderated a little bit to say that the intellect will guide us to Allah (swt) if we stick to the way that Allah (swt) sent us. Can we say that Karl Marx was smart? Most definitely. People can be intellectuals, but the question is, where does that intellect take us?”

Minor Sins

The fourth attack of Shaytan (Satan) is to get us to commit minor sins. Here you get to see how sneaky Shaytan really is. If Shaytan can’t get someone to be a kaafir (disbeliever), and he can’t get someone to do bid`ah (innovation in the religion), and he can’t get someone to commit major sins, then the next step is minor sins. Minor sins are called as-saghaair. An example would be having envy towards someone, or having a problem with someone and not trying to fix it.

Now, someone may be listening right now and thinking, “Well I’m all right; I don’t commit big sins, only minor sins.” This is how Shaytan gets you. The Prophet ﷺ (peace be upon him) gave an example of the saghaair when he said, in an authentic hadith (narration), that there was a group of people who went to the desert where they wanted to make a fire. Each of them found little pieces of wood, which they collected together, and thus they were able to make the fire. The Prophet ﷺ said that this is how minor sins work. They keep throwing the minor sin on the pile until it becomes a major sin. That’s why the scholars said that if someone persists in committing a minor sin it will become a major sin over time.

Wasting Time

The fifth attack of Shaytan, if he doesn’t succeed in the other traps, is that he gets people to fall into what is called al-mubaahat, permissible things.  For example, chatting online with someone of the same sex. Not with the opposite sex, because when you chat with the opposite sex then this is khalwa (seclusion).  According to the scholars you are alone with that person, and one can fall into a relationship very easily. Let me give you a proof of this. Last week, when you went home maybe you were chatting online with someone of the opposite gender. As you were chatting, suddenly your mother or father walked into the room and asked what you are doing. What do you say? “Oh, I’m just checking the score of the last basketball game.” If you don’t think it’s that bad then print out the conversation and let your parents read it.

The Prophet ﷺ defined sin as something that you don’t want people to know about, something that embarrasses you. He said, البر حسن الخلق. Righteousness is good behavior.

How many brothers and sisters pray, fast, and dress properly, but are rude and mean to others? We have to have the complete package, not one or the other. How many sisters who don’t wear hijab have told me that when they come to the masjid the other sisters put them down? She is trying to take a step to get closer to Allah subhanahu wa ta`ala (exalted is He) and people look at her like she has a virus. On the other hand, we also can’t say we have good behavior and nothing else.

So, in our example let’s say you are chatting with someone of the same gender, which is permissible. But you’re talking about nothing for five or six hours. Talking is permissible, but in this case it’s a waste of time.

The same is true for video games—as long as it’s not Tomb Raider. For those of you who don’t know, Tomb Raider is a video game where a scantily dressed woman is the main character. But Muslims will play this game and say, “Oh, it’s only a video game.”

Another example is Vice City. I was talking about this video game in the khutbah (sermon). When it came out, I was warning parents about it and the kids were really mad at me. In this game there is a man who is living the life of an ex-convict who is a drug dealer. He takes over the neighborhood by selling his drugs. Along the way (not to offend anyone here) he pulls over and engages in a relationship with a prostitute. But the brothers who were playing the game said, “But you can’t see anything, the car just shakes.” SubhanAllah (glory be to God)! Such behavior is very offensive. Not only is it representative of the completely anti-intellectual climate which is now permeating the United States, but do you realize why most women are forced into prostitution? Poverty and drug addiction.

I was an educator, and I did my practicum in the worst school that I could think of because I wanted to make a difference in society as a university student. There were children there who were the children of prostitutes. Imagine the cognitive disorders they have. Imagine the type of exploitation they are exposed to every night. Imagine the impact left on them from seeing their mothers and fathers committing acts of prostitution. Yet, we’ve made it a game, for fun. The social ramifications of prostitution on people are outstanding. If you want to understand prostitution, look at Fir`oun (Pharoah). Why did Fir`oun say that he would kill the men and let the women live? What were those women going to do? Become prostitutes. This is indicative of what we call a Fir`ounic society. But now it’s become a game, it became fun. It’s like those of us who grew up with Star Wars, playing with lasers and so forth. Because of movies, magazines and books we’re used to seeing guns and lasers blow up things without ever seeing the results; therefore, the war in Iraq right now has no real impact on the American mind. But when people actually see the pictures of the outcome, they’re shocked.

Shaytan tries to get us to waste our time with these kinds of things that have no benefit and no reward, according to the fiqh (jurisprudence). Another example is shopping. Masha’Allah, nowadays our sisters and brothers have a new bid`ah: qiyaam an-nahar (standing in the day). You know in Islam we have qiyyamul layl where we stand in the night and pray. You’ll find them standing in the mall, rushing to 75% off sales. If you went to the same person and suggested that they stand in the night and pray they would say, “Oh, it’s too difficult. I can’t do it.” But for nine or ten hours a day in the mall they don’t mind. Why? Because they see the immediate rewards and benefits of their shopping.

Imam Al Ghazaali mentioned a beautiful poem in which a man says, “I am asleep in the night and I can hear the weak pigeons crying on the weak branch. Am I not stronger than pigeons that I can get up and cry in front of Allah (swt)?” How can the Muslims be the leaders of the world when they can’t even push a 3.5oz blanket off their bodies to stand and ask Allah (swt) for His help and guidance?

I’m sure all of us, myself first, are guilty of wasting time. This is a big trick of Shaytan because if you’re doing something and you’re not getting rewarded or punished, then Shaytan is winning. We take a lesson from this that as Muslims we have to be proactive; we can’t not be in park. We should not be neutral and doing nothing.

Last time we talked about the protection that Surat Al-Faatiha provides us from Shaytan (Satan). We also discussed the long story in the seventh chapter of the Qur’an in which Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala (exalted is He) orders the angels and Iblees (Satan) to prostrate to Adam `alayhi sallatu wa salaam (may God send His peace and blessings on him). The Devil refuses. Allah (swt) then asks Shaytan what stopped him from making the sujood (prostration) to Adam. Shaytan explains that he is better than Adam (as) because Shaytan’s essence is fire (he was a jinn) while Adam’s is clay. We then discussed the attack of Shaytan from the right, left, front and back, and Shaytan says very few people will be grateful to Allah (swt).  Next, we discussed the three doors which Shaytan uses to get to us and we explained that no one should feel secure from the plans of the Devil.

Today, we will discuss the seven habits of highly destructive individuals. These are the seven steps that Shaytan uses to get to us, and they become activated once Shaytan gets through one of three doors: anger, desire, or negligence.

Before we begin, I wanted to discuss some additional notes about negligence. Allah (swt) says in the Qur’an:

“And We have certainly created for Hell many of the jinn and mankind. They have hearts with which they do not understand, they have eyes with which they do not see, and they have ears with which they do not hear. Those are like cattle; rather, they are more astray. It is they who are the heedless.”(Qur’an 7:179)

It can be said about the Muslim who chronically misses Fajr (pre-dawn prayer) out of negligence that he is more astray than cattle. My grandfather was a farmer from Tonkawa, Oklahoma. He used to raise and herd cattle. Allah (swt) says the negligent are more astray than cattle—what time do cattle wake up? The crack of dawn. Shortly before the rising of the sun, cows will be up mooing. Subhan’Allah  (glory be to God) we see that the cow is more guided than this Muslim, because that Muslim prays his Fajr at 8:30 a.m. whereas the cow has the ability to wake up at the crack of dawn. That’s why Allah (swt) says they are even more astray than cattle.

Allah (swt) mentioned the quality of these people who are going to be in Hellfire is negligence. If you go to many Muslim countries, when do people say they’re going to make Hajj? Tomorrow? No. They say, “When I’m 70,” or “After I retire.” This is negligence.

When Shaytan enters through one of these three doors he attempts to destroy you. That’s why in the Qur’an in many places Allah (swt) says, “O you who have believed, enter into Islam completely [and perfectly] and do not follow the footsteps of Satan. Indeed, he is to you a clear enemy.” (Qur’an 2:208)

Allah (swt) says that Shaytan has khutwaat (steps). The word is plural, showing that Shaytan has levels that he works on. Shaytan doesn’t just come with one or two strategies, but he comes with a multiplicity of ways to wipe you out, and he has your playbook. He knows how to beat you, as the Prophet ﷺ (peace be upon him) warned us.

One day while the Prophet ﷺ was in ‘itikaaf (extended period of prayer) at the masjid he was walking his wife Saffiyyah radi Allahu `anha (may Allah be please with her) home. Someone saw them and the Prophet ﷺ said, “This is Saffiyah!” They were surprised and they said, “Ya Rasool Allah (Oh Messenger of Allah)! We would never think that you had a girlfriend or something like that.” The Prophet ﷺ responded and said, “Yes, but Shaytan travels through people like blood through the body.”

In another hadith (narration) the Prophet ﷺ said that any time the sons of Adam have a child, Shaytan has a child. This child knows you. You have a Shaytan which is specifically assigned to you and he knows your weaknesses and how to play on them. We know the famous hadith of the Prophet ﷺ when he said, “When the month of Ramadan comes the doors of Paradise are open and the doors of Hellfire are closed and the devils are chained.” According to Ibn Hajr, this is all the devils except one: the devil that is specifically assigned to you. Even in the month of Ramadan he hangs out with you. If you don’t mention Allah’s (swt) name he will hang out with you more and more. That will be discuss at the end, insha’Allah (if God wills).

According to Ibn Qayyim, Shaytan uses seven strategies to wipe you out, and they are ranked according to your ability to defend yourself. They are:

1. To make someone a kaafir (someone who is given the message and he rejects it).
2. To make someone commit al bid’ah (innovation).
3. To make someone commit major sins.
4. To make someone commit minor sins.
5. Wasting time doing things that are permissible.
6. To choose to do the lesser of two good deeds.
7. An all out attack.

To make you a rejecter: The first goal of the devil is to make you a kaafir (a rejecter).

First of all, why do we say rejecter, not disbeliever? A kaafir is someone who was given the message and he rejected it. That’s why we don’t say every non-Muslim in America or in the world are kuffaar (rejecters). Only the people who have been given the message and rejected it are called kuffaar. The word kafara means to reject, to cover up. That’s why in classical Arabic a farmer is called a kaafir (don’t try this with your Arab friends though!).  Allah (swt) gives an example of the life of this world and says, “. . . like the example of a rain whose [resulting] plant growth pleases the farmers . . .” (Qur’an 57:20). The word used for “farmers” in this verse is kuffaar, because a farmer is someone who covers things up, he buries seeds in the ground. Similarly a rejecter is someone who covers up his fitrah (natural human disposition towards virtue, knowledge, and the oneness of God) when the message is given to him, and denies/rejects the faith.

So, the goal of Shaytan is to make us commit shirk (associate partners with Allah (swt)) or to become kaafir. Why do you think the devil starts there? What does belief entail, if someone believes in Allah (swt) correctly? Their deeds will be accepted by Allah (swt) and they will go to Paradise. Allah (swt) says in the Qur’an “. . . Indeed, Allah only accepts from the righteous [who fear Him],” (Qur’an 5:27). Taqwa (God consciousness) is linked with belief. Someone who doesn’t believe in Allah (swt) is losing time in this life. If someone disbelieves in Allah (swt) it’s a one way ticket to Hellfire. That’s why this is the ultimate goal of Shaytan.

One lesson we can take from this is that Shaytan prioritizes. How many of us have priorities in our life? Whenever the scholars begin a book of fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) they always begin with purification, because if you’re not purified you cannot do anything. They’re trying to teach us, even by the way they organize the book itself, to prioritize.

Shaytan can attempt to make us disbelievers in a number of ways:

1. Intellectually. Someone may become so convinced in their own intelligence that they decide, “I don’t believe in this. Islam doesn’t make any sense. This ruling doesn’t make sense.”
2. Through doubts, as was mentioned previously.
3. Through desires. Imam Ghazaali mentioned that if someone sins a lot they will start to justify the sin. For example, it’s your first day of college and, as one brother told me, the most difficult day to keep your iman (faith) is a hot day. You’re walking down the campus and suddenly you see something you shouldn’t see and you say, “ASTAGHFIRALLAH (I seek Allah’s (swt) forgiveness)!” Then you walk a few more blocks and you see it again and this time you say, “Hmm . . . AstaghfirAllah.” Then after you go across the entire campus you start to say, “Masha’Allah (Allah has willed it)! SubhanAllah (Glory be to Allah)!” This is because the iman (faith) is going down due to desires.

You can be safe from this attack by following the way of the Prophets, starting from Nuh (as). We don’t say that Adam (as) was a Messenger, we believe he was a Prophet. Messengers reform people, but Adam’s (as) family was born on fitrah (natural disposition to righteousness). His family was born as Muslims. The first reformer as a Messenger was Nuh (as), as is mentioned in the Qur’an. So in order to protect ourselves we should follow this line of prophetic teaching which came to us with what we call tawaatur (continuous narration). Prophet after prophet after prophet came and the message was the same. If we find someone who comes later on saying something different than what this large body of Messengers and Prophets said we should be careful of it. This is the way to make sure our belief, our understanding of life, our cognitive outlook, and our physical application in life are sound.

To commit bid’ah:

If Shaytan doesn’t succeed in making someone a disbeliever or a polytheist, he tries to make them commit al bid’ah (innovation).

We hear the word bid’ah a lot, sometimes it’s used correctly and sometimes it’s not. We can learn from the hadith of Aisha (ra). Aisha (ra) related over 2,000 ahadtih on behalf of the Prophet ﷺ. She narrated that the Prophet ﷺ said, “Whoever invents something new in this religion that’s not from it will have it rejected.” The ‘ulema (scholars) say that this hadith along with another hadith make up Islam in its entirety. The first hadith has to do with the interior aspects of the Muslim and this hadith from Aisha (ra) has to do with the exterior. The hadith that has to do with the interior is, “Actions are by intentions.”

The word bid’ah comes from the word ba-da-‘ah  بدع. Does anyone know one of the names of Allah (swt) that came from this same root? Al Badee’. Allah (swt) says He is Badee`ul as-samaawaati wa al ardh (Originator of the heavens and the earth). This shows that badee` is a word that can only be applied to Allah (swt). According to Einstein, matter is neither created nor destroyed. This is true in the realm of human beings, but Allah (swt) says, “Everyone on the earth will perish,” (Qur’an 55:26), so we believe that everything will be destroyed by Allah (swt). The laws of physics apply to us but not to the Creator of the laws of physics. Badee` means the One who created matter from nothing. There was no usage of elements to create something else, it was created from absolutely nothing.

If you understand the term al-Badee` then you can understand the verse, “Nor is there to Him any equivalent,” (Qur’an 112:4). There is nothing like Allah (swt) because we, as human beings, may create but it is not really creating. It is a manipulative creation. For example, now we’re cloning goats. They did not create the goat from absolutely nothing; rather they used something that already existed. But, as is mentioned in the Qur’an, “His command is only when He intends a thing that He says to it, “Be” and it is,” (Qur’an 36:82). Allah (swt) creates from nothing. That’s why we say that Allah (swt) is not like anything else.

So, the word bid`ah means someone brings something into Islam that has no basis in shariah (Islamic jurisprudence). An example of this is the dhikr beads (prayer beads). Some people say the dhikr beads are a bid`ah. But, if we go to the authentic texts of the time of the Prophet ﷺ, we find that the Companions of the Prophet ﷺ used to make tasbeeh (glorifying Allah (swt)) with stones, according to a sound narration. So, is the use of dhikr beads founded on some source in shariah? Yes, because we found proof in shariah that the Companions of the Prophet ﷺ used to use a bead-like substance to do tasbeeh. That’s why Sh. Ibn Uthaymeen from Saudi Arabia said that to use tasbeeh is supported by shariah.

Now what if I said that next week instead of having class, we will meet at the top of a tall building. Then we will jump off the building and yell, “Ya Latif (Oh, the Most Subtle),” as loudly as we can, and we’ll do this every week until we die? This has no foundation in shariah. This would be a bid`ah. It’s very easy to understand this concept, but unfortunately we split our mosques and study circles because of this issue of bid’ah.

Why is it Shaytan’s goal to cause people to commit bid’ah?  Ibn Qayyam says that this is because when somebody is committing bid’ah they are assuming that they are doing something good. So, when you approach them and say, “SubhanAllah, brother. Jumping off a building and yelling ‘Ya Latif!’ is not good.” The person will respond, “Don’t you want to worship Allah?” This is the trick of Shaytan, to cause someone to think they are doing something good, so that when they are advised they reject the advice.

It’s also important to remember that when we are giving advice, we should do so gently. We shouldn’t come to someone and yell, “This is bid’ah, brother! This is haraam (forbidden)! You’ve left the sunnah (the teachings of the Prophet ﷺ)!” Rather we should approach them gently: “I love you so much. You are my brother/sister. I’d like to talk to you about this issue.” People would be much more apt to accept such advice. I remember one time there was a brother who was praying and in his salah (prayer) he did not do some of the sunnan (practices of the Prophet ﷺ) of the salah. Now, we know that the sunnan do not negate anyone’s salah, since they are not the arkaan (necessary components) of salah, for example raising the hands from rukoo (bowing). Afterwards one brother stood up and said, “Wallahi akhi (I swear by Allah, brother), your prayer is not according to the sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ !” And the brother who was praying responded, “And your way of advising me is not from the sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ either.”  This shows that sometimes when we advise people harshly when it’s not needed we push them even further into doing something that’s incorrect.

Ibn Qayyim continues to say that when a person who is doing bid`ah thinks he is doing something right, this is a very dangerous situation. It’s like Pandora’s box. A person falls further and further into their incorrect practice and has no idea that they are making bid`ah, in the meantime rejecting any advice they receive. We can protect ourselves from this by sticking to the Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ. The Prophet ﷺ said, “Anything that will bring you closer to Allah (swt), I have taught to you, and anything that will take you away from Allah (swt), I have warned you about.” (Tirmidhi). Unfortunately, especially overseas in some places where people are not very literate, we find the king of bid`ah minting money from the people. I remember a man who was selling lemons and he was telling the people that he was a wali (a friend of Allah (swt)). It is from our belief that we believe in the awliyaa (friends) of Allah (swt). But this man was telling people, “I am a wali, and I am selling lemons. And there is a hadith of the Prophet ﷺ where he says that whoever buys lemons will go to Paradise.”

Now you might ask him, “Where did you hear this hadith?”

He will say, “Well, you see, I was given a dream, and in that dream I was told this hadith. I’m actually the only narrator of this hadith.”

Then you might say, “Well, are you sure the Prophet ﷺ said we should buy lemons, not oranges?”

“Yes, I’m sure he said lemons.”

“And, conveniently, you happen to be selling lemons.”

“Yes. And, I should also tell you something special. If I blow on a lemon for you, I have to raise the price because I have a blessed breath.”

Unfortunately, despite all of this, people will buy from such a person. I remember one of my teachers saw such a person and recognized the man to be a former classmate of his. He approached him and asked him what he was doing. The man said, “I am minting money.” Clearly, he was admitting this was something that’s not at all found in the shariah.

Another example is the famous email of Ahmed the janitor in the Prophet’s ﷺ mosque. According to the email, one day this janitor in the Prophet’s ﷺ mosque was sweeping when suddenly the Prophet ﷺ appeared in front of him, and brother Ahmed was completely in shock. The Prophet ﷺ told our dear respected friend, the Companion of the Broom, that he’d been chosen. “Indeed,” he was told, “you are a blessed janitor. No one wears rubber gloves the way you do. So I have chosen you to be my next khalifah (caliph), and I have given you the authority to change some aspects of shariah, and you are now the leader of the Muslims. They must obey you, or they will be cursed.”

Well, Ahmed happened to have his laptop with him, as he was sweeping the Prophet ﷺ ’s masjid. And it had a satellite connection! At that moment Ahmed wrote an email. He had already memorized the email addresses of every major Muslim email group in the world, so he sent the email everywhere, with a warning at the end of it that if you don’t resend this email you will be cursed by Allah (swt). It was even said that there was one brother who had an IT job in Santa Clara. He failed to forward this email, and now he’s jobless.

Sheikh Yusef Qaradawi received this email, so he called the masjid in Madinah to investigate. He said, “I need to ask you a very important question.”

They responded, “Oh, yes, Sheikh Qaradawi! Is it about a fatwa? Do you have some important issue?”

“No, actually I wanted to know, is there a janitor that works there named Ahmed?”

“No, Sheikh there is not.”

“Can you look through the records, even going to the time of the Ottoman empire, and see if there’s ever been a janitor working there named Ahmed?”

“No, Sheikh.”

Yet, people continued to forward this email, and the issue of Ahmed became a bid`ah. People may not be praying, but they were more afraid of this email than the consequences of neglecting salah. People who have girlfriends or boyfriends, or people going to the club, were more afraid of the fabricated janitorial existence of a person named Ahmed than they were of the existence of Allah (swt). Shaytan is very deceptive, so much so that he can convince someone to contribute to this bid`ah.

The way to be safe from bid`ah, as we mentioned earlier, is to stick to the Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ. The Prophet ﷺ said, “تركت فيكم أمرين لن تضلوا ما تمسكتم بهما : كتاب الله وسنتي” “I am leaving you two things, whoever holds fast to them will never go astray: the book of Allah and my Sunnah.” This is related by Imam Maalik in his Mu’atah. Notice at the end of Surat Al-Faatiha we say, “Guide us to the straight path; The path of those upon whom You have bestowed favor, not of those who have evoked [Your] anger or of those who are astray,” (Qur’an 1:6-7). In this hadith the Prophet ﷺ talks about going astray, and he uses the word lan. Lan in Arabic is different from “no”. It means “never, ever, ever”. The Prophet ﷺ says you will never, ever be lost or astray if you hold fast to the Qur’an and the Sunnah.

To commit major sins:

The third trick of Shaytan in trying to destroy us is to get us to commit major sins. Major sins are called al-kabaair in Arabic. There’s a book written in Arabic by Imam Al-Thahabi called, “The Major Sins.” Read that book, especially if you feel that you are about to commit haram (something unlawful). It will wake you up.

What is a major sin, and how do we differentiate a major sin from a minor sin?

A major sin is any sin which is clearly mentioned in the Qur’an as being haraam, or any sin that Allah (swt) or the Prophet ﷺ linked to a punishment, such as the hellfire, lashes or being stoned. The greatest of all sins is shirk (associating partners with Allah (swt)). Some other examples of major sins are adultery, lying, disrespect to one’s parents, not praying, not praying on time, or not fasting in Ramadan without an excuse. There’s an innumerable amount of major sins. If someone here is thinking, “Wow, I commit all of these things, what am I going to do?” remember what Allah (swt) said in a famous hadith:

“O sons of Adam, if you were to sin, and your sins were to be stacked between the heavens and the earth, and you didn’t associate partners with Me and you asked for My forgiveness, I will forgive you.”

From this hadith we can take a few lessons. First, we now understand why the first thing Shaytan tries to make us do is associate partners with Allah (swt), because look at the condition Allah (swt) places in the hadith. Secondly, why does Allah (swt) call us “O sons of Adam” not “O human beings”? Because the first person to sin then repent and be forgiven was Adam (as), so Allah (swt) wants to remind us of this. This is the beauty of the speech of Allah (swt) and the Prophet ﷺ. A person hearing this hadith should think, “SubhanAllah, Allah forgave Adam (as) so if He wills, He can forgive me also.”

In discussing major sins, we should go to the hadith of isra wal miraaj (the night journey and the ascension) where the Prophet ﷺ described some of the punishments in al-barzakh (the time between death and judgment), not in the aakhirah (the hereafter). The Prophet ﷺ said, “I was with two angels and Jibreel (as). I saw some people in a big pit of fire. They were completely naked, and the fire would blaze while their bodies were on top of it and they would be screaming. I asked Jibreel, ‘Who are these people?’ and he replied, ‘These are the people of fornication.’ Then I saw a person in the middle of a river made of blood. This person was trying to get out of the river and come to the shore. As he was coming he would be hit in the face with stones, and it was the blood coming from his head that had made this river of blood. I asked Jibreel who the man was and he said, ‘The person of ribaa (interest).’ Then I saw a person who was sitting and a large stone was dropped on his head. The stone would return and his head would come back to normal. As soon as his head returned to normal, the stone would be dropped on his head once again. I asked Jibreel who he was and he said, ‘This is the person who has the Qur’an and doesn’t pray with it in the night.’ Then I saw some people whose lips and tongues were being cut with scissors, and as soon as their lips and tongues were cut they would come back to normal. I asked who those people were, and Jibreel said, ‘They are the people who backbite.’”

We find that in this long hadith in Sahih Bukhaari many of the major sins are mentioned. The major sins are those sins which can be linked with punishment. We learn that if Shaytan cannot get us to be a kaafir (someone who denies the truth) then he attempts to get us into punishment.

(c) Rehan Shaikh

By Fuseina Mohamad

Reflections of a student from the Bayyinah Dream Program

“Ustadh Nouman, about this speech, how long should it be? Mine is four minutes.”

Ustadh shook his head and leaned on the pool cue. “No. Three minutes, max.”

“But…”

“Three minutes, Fuseina. Three minutes. ”

I’d been giving Ustadh Nouman Ali Khan grief for the past ten months and hoped to get away with one last request. Three minutes may seem long for a graduation speech but how does one summarize ten life-changing months in three fleeting minutes?

I turned to leave with this question in my head. The familiar sound of pool balls cracking against each other echoed in my thoughts as the game I had interrupted resumed.

Why Dream

I am a first-generation Ghanaian-American who spent most of my life in Saudi Arabia and Ghana before moving back to the United States 11 years ago. During the course of my stay in the States first as a college student then as an employee at a Fortune 500 company, I somehow became distant from the Qur’an. The little Arabic I had learnt as a second language had faded from my memory.

Alhamdulillah (praise be to God) I faced a personal challenge that forced me to acknowledge that my heart was quickly accumulating layers of dust. I desperately needed a light, and I resolved to find one.

Allah subahanahu wa ta’ala (Glorified is He) says in the Qur’an:

وَيَزِيدُ اللَّهُ الَّذِينَ اهْتَدَوْا هُدًى ۗ وَالْبَاقِيَاتُ الصَّالِحَاتُ خَيْرٌ عِندَ رَبِّكَ ثَوَابًا وَخَيْرٌ مَّرَدًّا

“And Allah increases those who were guided, in guidance, and the enduring good deeds are better to your Lord for reward and better for recourse.” (19:76)

I see the proof of His promise in my journey to Bayyinah. The path that led me here spanned about 3 years.

In my search for knowledge, I became addicted to Islamic conferences, seminars and lectures, hungry for any understanding of Allah’s conversation with me in His Book. Imam Siraj Wahhaj became a favorite speaker of mine. His grandfatherly personality coupled with his real talk penetrated my conscience. Despite working a full time job while obtaining a Master’s degree, I would often drop everything to attend his lectures.

It was during one such conference that I was taught the importance of the Arabic language. Before Imam Siraj spoke another Imam was invited to the podium. I sighed. It was close to midnight on a Sunday. I faced a two and a half hour drive home and work at 7 the next morning. “Please,” I prayed silently, “hurry up.”

He didn’t, alhamdulillah.

The Imam’s captivating words shook me. He spoke of the challenges of post-modernity in the American society and demanded that Muslims raise the bar for seeking knowledge in America. As a convert, he had memorized the Qur’an and spoke Arabic with enviable fluency.

“Who IS that?” I whispered to my friend as the Imam took his seat.

“That’s Imam Suhaib Webb,” she responded. “He’s a convert. I think he’s studying at Al Azhar. ”

I was floored. A convert, hafidh (one who has memorized the Qur’an) and student at one of Islam’s oldest and most prestigious universities?

“What’s your excuse?” I scolded myself. A deep sense of guilt and urgency struck me. I wanted to understand the Qur’an and its key had just been handed to me. But where could I learn Arabic in America?

A few months later the answer presented itself at another conference. Again Imam Siraj was scheduled to speak, but was unable to attend due to health reasons. I stayed anyway, hoping to benefit from the other scholars and speakers.

I accidentally wandered into a youth session. I felt it rude to leave when the speech started, so I remained, trapped in a crowd of teenagers. I had never heard of the brother speaking, but his speech was good. His approach was friendly and open. “Good advice for kids,” I thought.  “Who is this guy?”

The conference program answered with his name: Nouman Ali Khan from the Bayyinah Institute.

I watched a couple of the brother’s YouTube lectures and decided that he seemed to know what he was talking about. I signed up for Bayyinah’s Divine Speech Seminar the next month.

Divine speech is not a class. It’s a journey to and through the beauty, depth and power of Allah’s Book. ((Bayyinah’s Divine Speech course is no longer available live, but can be viewed online at Bayyinah.tv))  The book that Br. Nouman shared with us that weekend was a book I’d never read before.

As the class came to a close I found myself in tears, grateful that Allah (swt) had allowed me to discover His Book. I swore that I wouldn’t lose it and prayed, “Allah, just let me understand this Book. I just want to understand these words.”

Br. Nouman leaned on the edge of the table and waited for silence. “I want to tell you guys about the Dream program…” He explained the idea: a 10-month Arabic immersion program in Texas, focusing on Qur’anic Arabic and understanding the Qur’an. SubhanAllah (Glory to God)—the power of du’a` (supplication)! “I’m going to do that,” I resolved.

Because I had two years of school left I was unable to join the first batch of Dream students. Alhamdulillah this was a blessing because I needed the time to plan. The next two years were spent saving, budgeting, memorizing Qur’an and pursuing local Islamic and Arabic classes. I reasoned that if was going to Dream I had to be prepared.

Living the Dream

The Bayyinah Dream sisters’ first party was held the Saturday before classes started. After a summer of emailing each other, finding housing, and figuring out roommates, we felt it would be good to put faces to names before serious work began on Monday.

Most of us came from outside Texas: California, Arizona, Illinois, Louisiana, Ohio, Maryland and New York. For us, Irving was a different world. Over homemade rice, cookies, and summer fruit salad we marveled at the sheer size of the local masjid (mosque), commented on the Texas drought, and complained about the Texas heat. We peppered our TAs, students of the first Dream batch, with questions about the program and the teachers, especially Ustadh Nouman. Though they answered our questions every answer was suffixed with “…but you guys will find out on Monday.”

The Dream curriculum and schedule is ambitious for a 10-month program: four days of full-time class with a test every Friday, Saturdays off, followed by Sunday Qur’an Day.
The Dream program provides a solid foundation in Arabic grammar (nahwu), morphology (sarf), grammatical analysis (irab), and then continues with conversation, reading, studying and memorizing Arabic expressions, and other specialized topics such as tafseer (exegesis of Qur’an), media Arabic, hadith (narrations of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ) studies, balaagha (rhetoric), seerah (biography of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ), tajweed (proper recitation of Qur’an) and towards the end, a little fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence).

But what’s impossible to capture in an essay is the love that we found at Dream. We didn’t have a campus, we had a home. We weren’t classmates, we were brothers and sisters.

When the going got tough, we would encourage each other, tutor each other, and feed each other. We planned lunch hour potlucks to celebrate class milestones, student accomplishments, birthdays, or just because. Future Dream students, especially sisters, should be warned of the Bayyinah 15.

Weekends were booked with horseback riding, shopping, kayaking, and road trips. We attended events, lectures, and classes at the local masaajid, especially the Islamic Center of Irving. The Irving Muslim community is one of the most welcoming communities I have lived in. The Muslims in Irving embraced us; their families became our families and their homes, our homes.

Don’t get me wrong; we studied hard as well. Study groups remained on campus after class to prepare readings for the next day. Class breaks would find groups of students reviewing Qur’an or quizzing each other for an upcoming test. The Islamic Center library and musallah (prayer area) were often occupied by Dream students. Late-night study groups gathered often for cookies and chai.

In class, our teachers established the same balance. They worked us hard and when the class seemed stressed or tired Ustadh Nouman would share a Qur’an gem with us or let us watch Kung Fu Panda in Arabic. Module endings were commemorated with lunch from Fadi’s or barbecues at Grapevine Lake.

As a class we bonded and we showed our teachers love the best way we knew how. We played pranks on Ustadh Nouman, baked a truck-shaped cake for Sheikh Abdul Nasir Janga and hounded Imam Zia in his office and on Facebook. Our teachers were our mentors and advisors. They pushed us to succeed, patiently putting up with the grief we would inevitably give them.

I particularly remember one tafseer class where I felt extreme sympathy for Ustadh Nouman. He was substituting for Imam Zia, our regular tafseer instructor. A few minutes into the class a silent panic settled over the students. We were supposed to read two pages of tafseer each day in preparation for class discussion, but at Ustadh ‘s rate we would quickly exceed our page limit before the class ended.

“We need to slow him down,” I said urgently to my partner in crime. She nodded and the whispered directive spread throughout the class. Brothers and sisters are separated by a barrier, so either a text message got sent to the brothers or they came to the same conclusion on their own. Soon I raise my hand.

“Ustadh, I have a question, if you don’t mind. Why is this word used in this ayah (verse) instead of a similar word?”

Ustadh Nouman paused, thought, then patiently answered.

Another hand rose. “Ustadh, there’s a similar ayah in another Surah (chapter of Qur’an) what’s the benefit of this wording here?”

“Ustadh, can it be argued that this sentence structure provides more emphasis than the expected sentence structure?”

“Ustadh, do you mind re-explaining that answer?”

Finally Ustadh Nouman looked at us suspiciously and asked “Do you guys ask Imam Zia this many questions?”

The bell for tafseer class rang soon after and we exchanged guilty grins with each other. We had been taught a wonderful Arabic expression the first week of class:

لا تترد في السؤل فالسؤال نصف العلم

“Do not hesitate in asking questions because questions are half of knowledge.”

We took this to heart and on rare occasions took advantage of it. May Allah forgive us (Everyone say, “Ameen!”). Our teachers were models of kindness and patience and we owe them our deepest gratitude.

We had been taught at the beginning of the year that a student of knowledge trusts his/her teacher and it is that trust that carries the student whose lack of experience and knowledge prevents him/her from understanding the teacher’s grand vision.

When Ustadh Nouman instituted the Arabic-only policy on campus we joked that campus was going to be extremely quiet. At first, it was. We would sneak English comments to each other, abruptly ending conversations when Ustadh Nouman walked by. But he persisted, reminding, encouraging, and threatening us.

“Anyone caught speaking English on campus will be sent home,” he warned.

We still spoke English but when Ustadh entered the room instead of falling silent we found ourselves quickly switching to Arabic. Eventually our halting Arabic exchanges evolved into entire conversations.

I personally believe that Ustadh was secretly proud of us when we would whine in Arabic for less homework, earlier breaks, and postponed tests. He would refuse to compromise, refuting our suggestions, thus forcing our pleas to become more creative, more eloquent, and more convincing. I remember once we attempted to persuade the Ustadh to cancel an Arabic class in lieu of Sunday Qur’an Day.

“No!” he staunchly refused, “I want you guys to learn some Arabic.”

“Ustadh,” one of the sisters responded, “there’s no better Arabic than the Qur’an!”

“Nice try,” Ustadh laughed. “But we’re still doing Arabic. We’ll do Qur’an on Sunday.”

The Qur’an came alive on Sundays. The Arabic concepts that I struggled to grasp during the week shone like diamonds on every page, treasures whose value I finally understood.

More importantly for the first time, I heard the Qur’an as conversation. During the week we studied the Qur’an, drowning in the grammar, sentence structure, and the tafseer with its varying points of view. On Sundays we surfaced from the depths of the sea of academics to simply appreciate the Qur’an. Sundays reminded me why I had left everything and come to Dream in the first place. ((Qur’an Day (formally called Qur’an Cover to Cover) is also available on Bayyinah.tv))

We visited my favorite surah (chapter), Maryam, on our last Qur’an Day. When we came to ayah 76, I looked back to our first day of class where, overwhelmed by the ambitious curriculum, I’d slowly penned the words of this ayah into the margins of my notebook—reassurance that I could not only survive, but excel, in the next ten months. I returned to Qur’an Day grateful for the reminder of how far I had come and fully aware of how much further I had yet to travel.

When I stepped in front of the microphone on graduation night, the nervousness I expected never materialized. Rather I felt completely comfortable—as if I was speaking to the closest members of my family. For four minutes I spoke in Arabic of our journey together and our upcoming responsibilities to the Ummah (Muslim community). I told inside jokes to remind myself and my brothers and sisters how much grief we had given our teachers and asked Allah (swt) to allow us to reunite in Jannah (Paradise).

My delivery wasn’t perfect by any means. Anything that seems impressive was simply a testament to the unending love and support of my family, classmates, and teachers, and to the extreme mercy and blessings of Allah (swt) who allowed me the opportunity to take this step towards understanding His book. I pray that the Most Merciful allows all of us to draw closer to Him, to drown in the beauty of His words. I pray that every day He allows us to be amazed by the Qur’an, and I pray that on the day when it counts the most He will allow the Qur’an to be a proof for us and not against us.

I’d like to add a note of thanks to all my teachers, especially Ustadh Bashir Ansari who offered corrections and suggestions for the speech.

We go now to the statement of Ibn Abbas radi Allahu `anhu (may Allah be pleased with him). He explains that when Iblees (the Devil) said he will come to you from your front (Qur’an 7:17) this means Iblees will cause you to doubt the hereafter. When Iblees comes to you from the back, he will cause you to have hope in the dunya (worldly life). Dunya comes from the word adnaa which has two meanings: something close and also something debased and low. What philosophy can be used to describe the fact that Iblees is coming to people to make them doubt in the hereafter and also to give them hope in this life? It’s called materialism. Iblees’s goal is to make people absolute materialists.

SubhanAllah (glory be to God), a brother can wait for five months for a new pair of sneakers, but he can’t pray qiyaamul layl (praying during the night) once in five months.  We know that during the last third of the night Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala (exalted is he) comes to the lowest heaven and says: “Who is making du`a’ [supplication] so that I can answer? Who’s seeking My forgiveness so I can forgive them? Who is asking so I can give them?” SubhanAllah, which appointment is greater? I remember when I was in Oklahoma and the PS2 came out, some of the youth that I used to teach in the masjid went and camped out. The same guys who went and camped in front of Best Buy were unable to camp out one night for Allah (swt). Are we really soldiers of Allah (swt) if we can stand all night in front of Best Buy to get a PS2 but we can’t stand up in the night and pray in front of Allah (swt)? Absolute materialism. This is the goal of Iblees.

Ibn Abbas continues to say that the attack from the right is to cause people to have doubt in regards to their religion, to make problems in the religion, and to give you a hard time and cause you to question the religion. The way to cure doubts is to ask someone who knows, or read and study.

The last thing that Ibn Abbas mentioned is the attack from the left: falling into sins. Maybe most of us thought that falling into sins would be number one, but it’s the last. The previous three are all sins, but they can lead you to kufr (disbelief). The last one would lead you to ‘asee (disobedience to Allah) and if Iblees can make someone a disbeliever, he has won.

Now, let’s discuss the three doors of Iblees. According to Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, Iblees comes to you from three doors. These three doors are like entrances. This isn’t where Iblees does his dirty work, but this is how he slides in under the radar. The three doors of Iblees are:

1) Babul Ghadab: The door of anger

Subhan’Allah, how many times have I heard as an Imam that a brother knocked the teeth out of his wife’s mouth because he was angry? When you ask him, “What happened to you? Why are you treating your wife like that?” He’ll say, “Oh, subhanAllah, man, I was angry, and she just pushed me to the point where I had to hit her.” Anger is not an excuse. And also on the other hand we have some brothers who become mentally depressed because the wife is always nagging and insulting him. The core element to a lot of marital problems is either misunderstanding of the deen (religion) or anger.

How many of us have stopped talking to a friend on campus because of anger? Maybe a sister thinks, “Oh, that girl thinks she’s better than us now that she has the nice jilbab (dress) from Eygpt.” Or a brother thinks, “Oh, that guy memorized two juz (portions) of the Qur’an—now he won’t talk to us because he thinks he’s so religious.” All of these thoughts come from anger.

And what about how we act with our parents? How many of us just go off on our parents? All of this is attributed to anger.

What is the remedy for anger? In Sahih Muslim the Prophet ﷺ (peace be upon him) taught us how to deal with anger. One time, one of the companions of the Prophet ﷺ got angry. The Prophet ﷺ told him to say something. The man refused to say it and he got even angrier. The Prophet ﷺ said, “I swear by Allah (swt), I know some words that, if he said them, his anger would leave him.”

What were the words? Authoo billahi min as-shaytan ar-rajeem (I seek protection with Allah from Satan, the accursed one). Why is this the first thing the Prophet ﷺ taught us about anger? Because anger is a door of Shaytan.

2) The Door of Desires

What is the greatness of Paradise? In one narration it is reported that Allah (swt) made Paradise and told Jibreel (the angel Gabriel) to fly for three thousand years. So Jibreel took a journey for three thousand years and then he came back. Allah (swt) asked him, “What did you think?” Jibreel responded, “I can’t believe it.” Allah (swt) told Jibreel to go for another three thousand years and then after that another three thousand years. When Jibreel finally came back Allah (swt) told him, “Do you know what you just saw? Part of the paradise of Abu Bakr (ra).”

In another authentic hadith (narration from the Prophet ﷺ) we learn about the last person to come out of Hellfire. He will be washed and all of the burns will come off of him. Then Allah (swt) will ask him, “What do you want?” This man will see a nice tree and he will say, “Oh Allah, can you put me under that tree?” Allah (swt) will say, “Yes, but you have to swear you will not ask Me for anything else.” The man will say, “I swear by Allah (swt) I will not ask for anything else,” so Allah (swt) will put him under the tree.

The man will be sitting under the tree and then he will see a tree with a river under it. He’ll say, “Oh Allah, can you put me over there by the river?” Allah (swt) will ask, “Yes, but you have to swear that you won’t ask Me for anything else.” He will swear by Allah (swt) that he will not ask for anything else, and Allah (swt) will put him there.

Then the man will see one of the doors of Paradise.  He’ll say, “Oh Allah, can you put me by that door?” Allah (swt) will say, “Yes, but you must swear that you will never ask Me for anything else again.” The man will swear by Allah (swt) that he will not ask for anything else again. Imagine, this man is saying wallahi (I swear by Allah) to Allah (swt) Himself, and he’s lying! So Allah (swt) will put him by that door.

Then the man will see some curtains. He will say, “Oh Allah can you put me by those curtains so that I can look inside and see the people of Paradise?” Allah (swt) will say, “Yes, but you must swear you will never ask Me for anything else after this.” The man will swear. So Allah (swt) will allow him to look through the curtains at Paradise. The man will see Paradise and he will say, “Oh Allah, put me in Paradise!”  Allah (swt) will put him in Paradise and then He will come to the man while he is in Paradise and He will ask him, “Are you satisfied? Are you happy? Do you need anything else?”

The man will say, “Wallahi I can’t ask for anything else.”

Allah (swt) will respond, “This is for you and ten times its equal.” This hadith is found at the end of the book Riyaad as-Saleeheen.

The ulema (scholars) ask, why does Allah (swt) allow him to say wallahi (I swear by Allah) even though he’s lying? It’s because Allah (swt) knows that none of us can be patient with Paradise. If you see Paradise you’re going to want it.

As related by Bukhari and Muslim, after Allah (swt) created Paradise He told Jibreel to go and look at it and then asked him what he thought. Jibreel said, “Wallahi anyone who hears about it is going to want to go there.” Then Allah (swt) surrounded Paradise with something and He told Jibreel to go and look at it again. Jibreel came back and told Allah (swt), “I don’t think anyone can make it to Paradise.” Then Allah (swt) made the Hellfire and told Jibreel to go and look at it. Jibreel saw it and came back. Allah (swt) asked him, “What do you think?” Jibreel replied, “Wallahi, anyone that hears about it will not want to go there.” Then Allah (swt) surrounded it with something and told Jibreel to go and look at it. When Jibreel came back and Allah (swt) asked him what he thought, Jibreel said, “Wallahi, no one can escape it.”

What did Allah (swt) surround Paradise with? Hard work. Waking up at 4:30 in the morning, making wudu (ablutions) and praying 2 rak’ah (units of prayer) and giving that sadaqah (charity) from your eye that you owe to Allah (swt). Being nice to your friends and forgiving your brothers and sisters who did wrong to you. Being active in the MSA, attending different programs, involving yourself in anything positive. Speaking out against injustice. Waking up and studying for your finals, not coming in unprepared and hoping Allah (swt) will help you.

What did Allah (swt) surround Hellfire with? Shahawaat (Desires), the Door of Shaytan. Ease, recreation, vacation, chillin’ like a villain. All of this surrounds the Hellfire.

3) The Door of Ghaflah (Negligence)

For people your age (college students) this door of Shaytan is the most dangerous. Shaytan messes with you in areas of negligence. For example, if you go overseas—when does everyone say they’re going to make Hajj (the pilgrimage to Mecca)? When they’re 70 years old. How does someone know they’re going to reach 70 years? This is negligence. Look at the example of this sahaabi (companion of the Prophet ﷺ). He was sitting with some dates and he asked the Prophet ﷺ, “Oh Prophet of Allah, if I stop eating these dates, join the battle and become a shaheed (martyr) where will I be?” The Prophet ﷺ answered, “Paradise.” The man threw down his dates and he went.

How about us? Are we negligent when it comes to our opportunity to obey Allah (swt)? Or do we say: Oh, I’ll start to pray after I get married. I’ll start to do this when I finish high school.

Do it now. SubhanAllah, with Nike, we “just do it”. But with Islam we take it slowly, step by step.

So these are the three doors that Shaytan uses to get inside you.

Surat Al-Fatiha Series: Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI | Part VII | Part VIII | Part IX | Part X | Part XI | Part XII | Part XIII | Part XIV| Part XV | Part XVI | Part XVII | Part XVIII | Part XIX | Part XX | Part XXI | Part XXII | Part XXIII | Part XXIV | Part XXV

Iblees told  Allah (swt) his plan:

[Shaytan] said, “Because You have put me in error, I will surely sit in wait for them on Your straight path. Then I will come to them from before them and from behind them and on their right and on their left, and You will not find most of them grateful [to You].” (Qur’an 7:16-17)

When Shaytan blamed Allah by saying, “Because You have put me error,” this was a mistake in his belief in the qadr (decree) of Allah (swt). If done on purpose, a mistake in `aqidah (belief) is kufr (disbelief in Allah). There’s a hadith (record of the words of the Prophet ﷺ, peace be upon him) that mentions this in Sahih Bukhari:

In the time of Bani Israel (the people of Israel), a man lived with a roommate who didn’t pray. When he encouraged his roommate to pray, the roommate just said he didn’t feel like praying. The man went back later and tried to encourage his roommate again but received the same response. Finally, the third time the man came to his roommate and said, “If you don’t pray, Allah (swt) will never forgive you.”

The Prophet ﷺ (peace be upon him) said that Allah (swt) will resurrect these two people and will bring forward the one who didn’t pray and ask him, “Why didn’t you pray?” The man will say, “Wallahi (I swear by Allah), I loved You but I was weak. I believed in You but I was weak.” Allah (swt) will say, “I forgive you.” Then Allah (swt) will bring forward the righteous man who was advising his friend and ask, “Why did you tell him I wouldn’t forgive him?” Why does Allah (swt) ask him that? Because in our belief anyone who dies believing in Allah (swt) and the Prophet ﷺ  as the last Prophet insha’Allah (God willing) will go to Paradise (although some later than others). Allah (swt) can forgive any sin except shirk (associating partners with Him) for whomever He wants (Qur’an 4:116); this is part of our `aqidah (belief). We also know that if someone repents from shirk, Allah (swt) will forgive it. So, saying that Allah (swt) will never forgive someone is a mistake in our belief.

When Iblees said Allah (swt) misguided him, this was a mistake in his belief because he attributed misguidance to Allah (swt). We don’t find misguidance amongst the names or attributes of Allah (swt). Allah (swt) doesn’t misguide people; human beings choose to be misguided. Like Allah (swt) says in the Qur’an, “…and when they deviated, Allah caused their hearts to deviate,” (Qur’an 61:5).

So, Iblees gives us his plan. Have anyone of you heard of the repo-man? The repo-man is a person who comes and takes your car if you don’t make your car payment. Subhan’Allah (glory be to God) when I was in college, I received credit card offers all the time, with very high credit limits. Now that I’m married with children and a job, alhamdullilah (praise be to Allah), I haven’t gotten one credit card offer. Why is that? Because they want to catch you when you’re young; because they know that most college students can’t control their desires. College students tend to spend money that they can’t pay the bill for when it comes. People will come to your house and take your iPod, your laptop, and the best of whatever they can find. So the job of the repo-man is to take the most valuable commodity you have. Shaytan works the same way.

Iblees is coming for us, and when he comes to us, he’s coming to take the most valuable commodity we have. We might be worried that Iblees is coming to take our Lexus, or our PS3, or our concert ticket. But Shaytan is not interested in taking all that. He will come to take our Islam. How many of us feel that we’re lucky to be Muslim? When we hear this, we should think, subhan’Allah, my treasure is my deen (faith). If you want to know how valuable Islam is, go to Surah Al ‘Araf (Qur’an 7). Even when the people enter Paradise, they realize their greatest blessing is Islam and they say:  “Praise to Allah, who has guided us to this; and we would never have been guided if Allah had not guided us,” (Qur’an 7:43).

How many of us have felt this value for our deen, knowing that Iblees, the “repo-man”, wants this most valuable of things from us? That’s why when you’re sitting in a philosophy class and you start having doubts remember that Iblees’s primary target is your faith.

How do people treat the most valuable commodity that they have, like the Mona Lisa? How many of you have been to the Louvre before? If you visit museums, you see the “priceless antiquities” have lasers and other security devices. If you cross the wrong line, helicopters and police come after you. Do we protect our Islam the way these priceless commodities have been protected?  Do we protect our Islam knowing that this enemy is constantly trying to take it from us? This is a very important point, because in the ayah (verse) Shaytan uses two forms of emphasis (laam at-tawkeed and nun at-tawkeed) to say, “Wallahi I will definitely take them off the straight path!”

What is the remedy for this in Surah Al Fatiha? “Ihdina as-siraat al-mustaqeem (guide us to the straight path),” (Qur’an 1:6) That’s why  Allah (swt) made it an obligation to read Surah Al Fatiha at least seventeen times a day, because we have an enemy coming after us at all times, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. That’s why we need this du`a’. Now when we say it, we should feel as if we need to say this to protect ourselves.

Then Shaytan continued. He said: “Then I will come to them from before them and from behind them and on their right and on their left, and You will not find most of them grateful [to You].” (Qur’an 7:17)

Now, maybe after hearing this, some of us will still think, “Hey, I’ve got Norton Anti-Virus, I’m good. Shaytan can’t get me.” As I said earlier, this is the person who Shaytan got. Abdullah ibn Masood radi Allahu `anhu (may Allah be pleased with him) related a hadith related by Imam Ahmed with a strong isnad (chain of narration). He said, “One day we were sitting with the Prophet ﷺ and he drew a straight line. He said, “This is the way of Allah (swt).” Then the Prophet ﷺ drew lines perpendicular to this straight line and he said, “On every one of these lines is a Shaytan calling you to his path.” So there’s a Shaytan calling Muslims to get high, calling Muslims to hang out with the opposite gender, calling Muslims to commit acts of homosexuality. On every one of these ways there’s a Shaytan telling you that communism or secularism or nationalism is better than Islam. These are the things that you will hear in your universities. Shaytan will work on you in every way that you can think of, especially in concepts (i.e. how you think about life). Suhban’Allah, the Prophet ﷺ pointed at the first straight line that he drew and he read this verse from Surah Al An`am, “And this is My path, which is straight, so follow it; and do not follow [other] ways, for you will be separated from His way. This has He instructed you that you may become righteous.” (Qur’an 6:153)

When we go to the Qur’an we notice something interesting. Whenever Allah (swt) uses the word “darkness”, or words that symbolize misguidance, He uses those words in the plural form. But, whenever He uses words to symbolize guidance, like “light”, He uses those words only in the singular form. For example, Allah (swt) says, “Allah is the protector of those who believe. He brings them out from darknesses into the light. And those who disbelieve – their allies are Taghut. They take them out of the light into the darknesses. Those are the companions of the Fire; they will abide eternally therein,” (Qur’an 2:257).

Another example is in the sixth chapter of the Qur’an where Allah (swt) says, “And is one who was dead and We gave him life and made for him light by which to walk among the people like one who is steeped in darknesses, never to emerge therefrom? Thus it has been made pleasing to the disbelievers that which they were doing,” (Qur’an 6:122). This verse was sent when `Umar (ra) accepted Islam. Why does Allah (swt) use light in the singular and darkness in the plural? Because Allah (swt) wants to show us that guidance can only be obtained by traversing siratul mustaqeem (the straight path) and there’s only one straight path: “Say, ‘Indeed, the guidance of Allah is the [only] guidance; and we have been commanded to submit to the Lord of the worlds,’” (Qur’an 6:71).

However, the ways to be misguided are innumerable.

Surat Al-Fatiha Series: Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI | Part VII | Part VIII | Part IX| Part X | Part XI | Part XII | Part XIII | Part XIV | Part XV | Part XVI | Part XVII | Part XVIII | Part XIX | Part XX | Part XXI | Part XXII | Part XXIII | Part XXIV | Part XXV

The riddle that I give you is going to answer a very important point: al-`ibadah (worship of Allah). What is the correct concept of al-`ibadah? In order to get the correct concept of worship in Islam we have to go to the revelation of Surat al-Fatiha: The Opening (Qur’an, 1).

If we go to the major books of the mufasiroon (scholars of tafsir or interpretation) we find something interesting. The majority of the salaf (the old scholars) held that al-Fatiha was sent in Makkah. There are two types of revelation: makki (surahs that were sent before the Prophet ﷺ migrated to Medina) and madani (surahs that were sent after the Prophet’s ﷺ migration). The Makkan period was thirteen years, and the Madani period was ten years.

The majority of scholars said that al-Fatiha was sent in the Makkan period of Prophethood, and they based this on a verse found in the fifteenth chapter of the Qur’an (Surat al-Hijr) where Allah (swt) says, “And We have certainly given you, [O Muhammad], seven of the often repeated [verses] and the great Qur’an” (15:87).

The seven often repeated verses are al-Fatiha because we know from some of the hadith (reports of the sayings and actions of the Prophet ﷺ) that we mentioned previously that the Prophet ﷺ said al-Fatiha is the seven often repeated verses. Since this verse and this surah (i.e. Al Hijr) were sent in Makkah, many scholars said this means Al-Fatiha was sent in Makkah. But then we find a hadith related by Imam Muslim on behalf of Ibn Abbas in which Ibn Abbas narrates: “One day Jibreel was sitting with the Prophet ﷺ and Jibreel heard the sound of a door in the heavens. So he raised his head and saw an angel coming. Then Jibreel said to the Prophet ﷺ, ‘This door is a door that was never opened before until today. And this angel is an angel who never came before.’ The angel came to Jibreel and the Prophet ﷺ and gave salaams (greetings of peace) to them. Then he said to the Prophet ﷺ, ‘I give you the good news of two lights that are given to you that were never given to any prophet before you: the Opening of the Book (i.e. Surat al-Fatiha) and the last verses of Surat al-Baqarah.’”

How does this hadith indicate Surat al-Fatiha was revealed during the Madani period?  Because Surat al-Baqarah (Qur’an, 2) was revealed in Madinah. Subhan’Allah (glory be to Allah) this is why you can respect the scholars. They catch these little points.

Surat al-Baqarah was sent in Madinah; it’s madani according to the majority of scholars. You can’t find any scholar that says al-Baqarah was sent in Makkah. So now we have this issue. The verse of Surat al-Hijr which was revealed in Makkah as agreed on by the scholars. Then we have this hadith related by Ibn Abbas radi allahu `anhu (may Allah be pleased with him) from Imam Muslim that al-Fatiha was sent along with the end of Surat al-Baqarah.

One lesson we can take from this is – how do you value something? What is one of the means we use to measure the value of something?

Audience: It’s cost.

Cost, ok, that’s true. But we’re going to throw that one out because [sometimes] our minds are very materialistic. But look at how it’s sent to you. For example, let’s say you get a normal letter. You will say, “Alhamdulillah (All praise be to Allah.)” If it comes second-class, “Alhamdulillah!” If it comes first class, “ALHAMDULILLAH!” But if it comes overnight, “Alhamdulillah hamdan katheeran tayiban mubarakn feeh (All praise is for Allah – abundant, good and blessed praise)!”

So how, brothers and sisters, did Allah (swt) send you al-Fatiha?  Look at how the Prophet ﷺ is being told that al-Fatiha is a light to show you the way. So how did you get al-Fatiha? When you read al-Fatiha in your salah (prayer), do you feel that this is something special that Allah gave you? What about when you stand the night and pray your qiyam al-layl (night prayer) and no one can see you and you’re crying in front of Allah (swt)?

And, by the way, this crying is a sadaqah (charity). Maybe someone says, “I don’t have any money, I’m in college, I’m broke. I’m just barely even. What can I give to Allah?” At least you can give the tear in the night.

So, subhan’Allah, when you stand in the night and you’re reading, “Alhamdullilahi rabil `alameen (all praise is due to Allah the Master of the worlds),” did you think about how it was sent to you?

The `ulema’ (scholars) started to discuss. We have strong proof that al-Fatiha was sent in Makkah. We have a strong proof that al-Fatiha was sent in Madinah. So they started to discuss. There was a great scholar by the name of Ibn Atiyah. Ibn Atiyah was from Andalus (Spain). Imam Al Qurtubi, who was also one of the great mufasiroon took a lot of his tafsir from Ibn Atiyah.  The `ulema said that Ibn Atiyah was like Az-Zamakhshari in his control of the Arabic language and in balagha (eloquence) but Ibn Atiyah was not mu’tazila, he was from ahli Sunna waj-jammah, he was ash`ari from the people of the sunnah. Ibn Atiyah made a strong study of this and the answer to this riddle about al-Fatiha is going to give us the correct understanding of `ibadah. The answer will show us the wisdom of Allah (swt). According to most scholars, especially contemporary scholars, Al-Fatiha has the distinction of being sent twice. It’s amazing. Once in Makkah and once in Madinah.

But the question is why? That was the riddle I gave you.

If we want to get this answer we have to look at one of the biggest things which is plaguing the Muslims: the misunderstanding of `ibadah. For example, many people think `ibadah is only salah (prayer). Usually if I give a speech to non-Muslims and I say, “I’m going to say the word worship, tell me what you see.” They say, “The white picket fence and the nice white church house and the man with the suit on.” For the Muslims it’s a guy with a big stick who’s really mad in the masjid (mosque). As Imam Hassan al-Banna (may Allah have mercy on him) mentioned, the downfall of the Muslims was brought by their thinking that `ibadah was only in the masjid. Imam al-Ghazzali wrote Ihya Uloom Ad-Deen (Reviving the Teachings of the Religion) which we are going to use a lot next week. The reason it is it called ihya, the reviver (the root coming from the word life in Arabic) is to get the people out of this way of thinking (in his time especially they were very materialistic) and also to let them see that Islam is your life. It applies to every aspect of your life.

So this misunderstanding of worship is due to a major, major misunderstanding on the part of Muslims. Usually when you read a book they define worship as the five pillars of Islam: shahada (declaration of faith), salah (prayers), zakah (obligatory charity), sawm (fasting in the month of Ramadan) and hajj (pilgrimage to Makkah). But Sheikh Abdul Karim Zaidan mentioned something interesting in his book Al-Mufassal, a very good book about the fiqh of a woman, about eleven volumes. Sheikh Abdul Karim Zaidan lives in Yemen now, and he’s originally from Iraq. He said that many Muslims think that `ibadah only means the five pillars because this is the definition used by the scholars of fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence). For example, we have the word nahu. What does nahu mean?

Audience: Grammar.

No, nahu does not mean grammar. It means grammar to the grammarian, but in Arabic it means “like this.” Why do they call grammar nahu? That’s a long story, you’ll get it another time, insha’ Allah (Allah willing).

But to the grammarian, nahu means grammar.

What about the word rafu’? What does rafu’ mean? Raise (for example, raise your voice). But in nahu, rafu’ means a word that has a damma (one of three short vowels used in Arabic), or something that represents a damma.

Similarly in our Islamic sciences different scientists use terms differently. So according to the scholars of fiqh, `ibadah means the five pillars. But when most Muslims read they don’t know that so when they read that they think, “Oh, this is `ibadah.”

But as Sheikh Abdul Karim Zaidan mentioned, those scholars know that `ibadah is comprehensive.  But since it’s not good in prose to always repeat, in their science they just said `ibadah for simplicity.  They didn’t continuously say, “`Ibadah, it means more than what we mean, but here we mean this.” No, because they figure the person who is reading understands that.

Did everyone catch this point? Let’s go over it one more time.

When the scholars of Islamic jurisprudence use the word `ibadah within the framework of their science they regulate it to only the five pillars of Islam because that’s what their science pertains to. For example, a scholar who deals with inheritance might say, “The best `ibadah (act of worship) in this matter is…” What does he mean when he says worship? He means inheritance, but he doesn’t want to elaborate because he figures the reader knows that (this is why it’s important to learn from a Sheikh).

Most Muslims have taken the definition of `ibadah given to us by the fuqaha’ (the scholars of Islamic jurisprudence). That’s why, for example, you can go to different Muslim places and find someone who prays, but when it comes to interactions with each other they might not be very good.