God Given Wisdom – Nouman Ali Khan

الحمد لله
الحمد لله خالق الوجود من عدم، و جاعل النور من الظلم
و مخرج الصبر من الألم
و ملقي التوبة على الندم
فنشكره على المصائب كما نشكره على النعم

ونصلي على رسوله الأكرم
ذي الشرف الأشم و النور الأتم
والكتاب المحكم
وكمال النبين والخاتم
سيد ولد آدم الذي بشر به عيسى بن مريم
و دعا لبعثته إبراهيم عليه السلام
حين كان يرفع قواعد بيت الله المحرم

فصلى الله عليه وسلم وعلى أتباعه خير الأمم
الذين بارك الله بهم كافة الناس
العرب منهم و العجم

والحمد لله الذي لم يتخذ ولدا
ولم يكن له شريك في الملك
ولم يكن له ولي من الذل وكبّره تكبيرا

والحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ الَّذِي أَنزَلَ عَلَىٰ عَبْدِهِ الْكِتَابَ
وَلَمْ يَجْعَل لَّهُ عِوَجًا

والحمد لله الذي نحمده ونستعينه ونستغفره
ونؤمن به ونتوكل عليه
ونعوذ بالله من شرور أنفسنا
ومن سيئات أعمالنا
من يهده الله فلا مضل له
ومن يضلل فلا هادي له

ونشهد ألا إله إلا الله وحده لا شريك له
ونشهد أن محمدا عبده ورسوله
أرسله الله تعالى بالهدى ودين الحق
ليظهره على الدين كله وكفى بالله شهيدا

فصلى الله عليه وسلم تسليما كثيرا كثيرا
أما بعد

فإن أصدق الحديث كتاب الله
وخير الهدي هدي محمد وصلى الله عليه وسلم
و إن شر الأمور محدثاتها
وإن كل محدثة بدعة
وكل بدعة ضلالة
وكل ضلالة في النار

قال الله عز وجل في كتابه الكريم
بعد أن أقول أعوذ بالله من الشيطان الرجيم

وَلَقَدْ آتَيْنَا لُقْمَانَ الْحِكْمَةَ أَنِ اشْكُرْ لِلَّهِ
(QS. 31:12) وَمَن يَشْكُرْ فَإِنَّمَا يَشْكُرُ لِنَفْسِهِ ۖ
(QS. 31:12) وَمَن كَفَرَ فَإِنَّ اللَّهَ غَنِيٌّ حَمِيدٌ

رب اشرح لي صدري و يسر لي أمري
و احلل عقدة من لساني يفقه قولي

اللهم ثبتنا عند الموت بلا إله إلا الله

اللهم اجعلنا من الذين آمنوا وعملوا الصالحات
وتواصوا بالحق وتواصوا بالصبر

آمين يا رب العالمين

Luqman is not a Prophet

My intention for the next few weeks is to go through, remind myself actually, and remind all of you of the passage in the Qur’an that is about Luqman (رَضِيَ اللهُ عَنْهُ) and how Allah talks about advice that Allah gave him, and the wisdom that Allah taught him, and the advice that he passed on to his son.

It should be noted that this person has never been mentioned anywhere else in the Qur’an except in Surah Luqman. And it’s a pretty amazing honor that Allah took this individual. And the surah was actually coined by name. Sahabah would remember this surah by the name of this person that’s mentioned in it.

It’s almost consensus that this individual is not a prophet. Like this is someone that Allah (عَزَّ وَجَلَّ) give wisdom to but he’s not considered a prophet by most scholarships. So this is the individual we’re talking about.

(QS. 31:12) وَلَقَدۡ ءَاتَيۡنَا لُقۡمَٰنَ ٱلۡحِكۡمَةَ

In this passage Allah takes certain individuals and He chooses them to be prophets. And there are some individuals that Allah just allows them to have wisdom, and Allah gives them special gifts that they say things that profoundly impact people, and Allah considers him one such person.

And of all the things, if Allah says He granted this person wisdom, he must have had a lot of wisdom in his business dealings. He must have had a lot of wisdom, in you know, in the advice he gave to his community, the way he carried himself in every aspect of his life, there must have been some kind of wisdom.

But what Allah does is He highlights one part of the wisdom of his life, the wisdom that applied to all parts of his life, He chose to focus in on one of them. And that’s how did he decide to talk to his own son, and what kind of advice did he give to his child, right? And so that’s pretty unique that you have this conversation happening between father and son about the religion, and this man who has wisdom is now teaching his son.

This is also important, just so those of you who are not so familiar with this stuff, this is a person who is before the time of the Prophet (ﷺ). He is not someone at the time of the Prophet (ﷺ), but someone before the Prophet’s time. But this is how Allah introduces us to him.

And this is also important, as someone who reads the Qur’an for the first time, Allah knew that the Qur’an is going to spread in every society around the world, right? And there are going to be people that accept Shahada and they are going to start reading the Quran or trying to understand the Quran.

And when they do they’re going to come across this ayah. And many of the Sahabah even coming across this may not know who Luqman is. Not everybody’s supposed to know necessarily who Luqman is. And some say that he was famous and many people knew, but it’s also possible that many people didn’t know. And especially as Islam spread, it’s expected that a lot of people won’t know who this person is.

How Allah’s Introduce Luqman

So usually when you introduce someone, then you want to give some biographical information, right? Where do they live? You know, how old were they? What kind of family did they have? What did they accomplish in their life? What kind of society did they live in, etc. You want some this… some of this background information.

But Allah the best teacher of all teachers.

(QS. 55:2) عَلَّمَ الْقُرْآنَ

The One who taught us the Quran decided that the only background information, the only profile you need on Luqman (رَضِيَ اللهُ عَنْهُ) is captured inside one ayah. So like, all we’re going to get from Allah is this one ayah. This is ayah number 12 of surah Luqman. And this is all you’re going to get about who Luqman is or what Allah wants you to know about him before He gets into the account of him talking to his son.

So, from this you learn, you know, we… when we introduce somebody, right? If I’m invited somewhere to speak or something like that, and they’re going to introduce me. They’re going to start going through, you know… things I’ve done, or maybe awards that I may have received, or whatever, right? Those kinds of accomplishments and some things like that. They make a list of them.

If I invite somebody, I’ll say what degrees they earned, and where they studied, and you know, what they’ve done, and what they’ve written, what they’ve published, etc. Accomplishments.

This is Allah introducing someone. And the way Allah will introduce him is profound because now we’re learning. You know, when you and I hear people being introduced, we value their credentials, we value, you know, their accomplishments, we value what they’ve been able to build, we value what they’ve been able to do.

What is Allah’s value in a person, right? That’s.. that’s… The things I just mentioned are how we value each other, how society values, human beings value each other in a society. This ayah is teaching us how a human being is valued by Allah So look at how Allah talks about him.

He says, وَلَقَدۡ ءَاتَيۡنَا لُقۡمَٰنَ ٱلۡحِكۡمَةَ

“We certainly gave Luqman… We granted Luqman wisdom.”

Like the first thing, you know what? Luqman, is that Allah gave him the special gift of wisdom. He says in another place in the Quran.

يُؤۡتِي ٱلۡحِكۡمَةَ مَن يَشَآءُۚ
وَمَن يُؤۡتَ ٱلۡحِكۡمَةَ فَقَدۡ أُوتِيَ خَيۡرٗا كَثِيرٗاۗ
(QS. 2:269) وَمَا يَذَّكَّرُ إِلَّآ أُوْلُواْ ٱلۡأَلۡبَٰبِ

“He gives wisdom to whoever He wants. And whoever has been given wisdom has been given an incredibly abundant good.”

A massive good has been given to them.

“And no one will make an effort to remember except people that have sound thinking you know, deep thinking.”

Luqman Has Wisdom

And so in this ayah, He says, “Luqman, what you need to know about him is what makes him special. What makes him remarkable is that I gave him wisdom.”

Now, when you and I think of wisdom, we think of somebody who’s going to say pretty deep things that we’re going to make memes out of. Right?

We think of epic quotes. We think of profound, philosophical insights. You know, we think of people that speak in very poetic language. So we associate wisdom with philosophy, we associate wisdom with very profound reading, or someone, you know, very scholarly and well-read, etc. They possess wisdom.

Or we think of wisdom as something that comes with a lot of experience and old age. So senior will have a lot of wisdom because they’ve seen life, they’ve seen things in their life. So we benefit from their experience and their insight, and therefore, their wisdom.

But before I go on to define that wisdom, according to Allah, the Arabic definition of wisdom is important for everybody to know. Wisdom is not an abstract thing in classical Arabic.

It’s not some like, “Oh, somebody dropping epic quotes as wise, or somebody very old is wise.”

It’s actually, العِلْمُ النَّافِعُ وَالْعَمَلُ بِهِ

It’s a very straightforward definition classically.

“It’s knowledge that is a benefit and that is acted upon.”

It’s two parts, beneficial knowledge, that you act on.

So if you have both of those ingredients, then you’re considered wise. That’s pretty basic and it’s actually also very powerful because beneficial. Let’s take it, take the most easy example so you guys can make sense of this, right?

So, the basic knowledge that a child has is fire burns. Yeah? And they act on it by not touching the barbecue grill, right? So they have beneficial knowledge and they act on it. It’s also possible that a kid knows fire burns, but they don’t act very wisely and go too far close to it or touch it, etc, right?

So you can have beneficial knowledge and not act on it. You can also act without having beneficial knowledge. You can have one or the other. So being knowledgeable is not the same as being wise and acting is not necessarily the same as acting wisely.

Wisdom in the Arabic Sense

But wisdom in… in the Arabic sense and the classical Arabic sense actually from the way that it was used, is when you have knowledge that is actually meaningful and beneficial.

So first of all, it gives direction to what kinds of things you should learn. You know, we’re living in clearly the information age. How much time are you going to waste acquiring knowledge of things that mean nothing?

Reading thousands and thousands of meaningless comments on any video that you’re watching, or any meme, or any post, or whatever. That is just opinions and really adds nothing to your life in any significant way at all. Right? Or mine.

So, where do we draw the line for meaningful knowledge?

First of all: العِلْمُ النَّافِعُ

“Beneficial knowledge.”

How is this making me better? Is it making me better at work? Is it broadening my horizon? Is it helping me understand the society better? How is the things that I’m exposing myself to beneficial to me? How is what I’m consuming as knowledge beneficial to me?

And then, the next part come kind of flows logically. Now that it is beneficial, how am I going to put it to work? How am I going to use this knowledge? What purpose will this knowledge serve? What purpose will this learning serve?

So, العِلْمُ النَّافِعُ وَالْعَمَلُ بِهِ

This is the definition.

Allah says He gave him wisdom. And what does wisdom mean? That when he learns something, he’s purposeful in learning something, and when he does learn it, he puts it to use, right? Then he takes all of that wisdom, which wisdom may have to do with every aspect of his life.

But He limits it to this one principle, like it says if all wisdom has been reduced to one seed. Like a giant tree, but its origin is one seed. And everything, every fruit from that tree, every leave from that tree, every branch from that tree, every part of that tree is a by product. Its origin is that one seed. And what’s that one seed?

(QS. 31:12) أَنِ ٱشۡكُرۡ لِلَّهِۚ

“Be grateful to Allah.”

“We gave Luqman wisdom…”

Quote, “Be grateful to Allah.”

This is where Arabic grammar becomes profound, like it’s profoundly important to study. Allah didn’t say… for those of you that are familiar with Arabic.

Allah Gives Wisdom to be Grateful to Him

(QS. 31:12) وَلَقَدۡ ءَاتَيۡنَا لُقۡمَٰنَ ٱلۡحِكۡمَةَ أَنِ ٱشۡكُرۡ لِلَّهِۚ

“Allah gave him wisdom to be grateful to Allah.”

That would be a good translation.

“To be grateful to Allah.”

Like, “I gave you wisdom to do this, this, this.”

Right?

That would have been the fi’il mudhari (فِعْلُ المُضَارِع). That would have been the… you know… dhamiir ghaib (الضَمِيرُ الغَائِبُ). But this is the fi’il amr (فِعْلُ الْأَمْرِ). This is the commanding form.

What does that mean? Allah gave him wisdom that he actually has a conversation with himself in any given moment.

How do I make this situation something that I think about it in a way that will make me grateful to Allah? Like his most… the most beneficial part of his knowledge is that he commands, he understands that he needs to instruct himself, needs to to even tell himself, and he understands this is what Allah wants for him that he needs to instruct himself, “How am I going to be grateful in this situation?”

This just happened, it’s not just, I’ll say, “Alhamdulillah.”

It’s not to thank Allah by word, but actually, what is going to be make me grateful about the circumstances, which is a profound way of thinking.

Because what that does is. obviously in life, you and I are faced with positive and negative situations. We’re faced with anxiety causing situations, stressful situations, depressing situations, hopeless situations. We’re faced with fearful situations where… uncertain situations.

There are lots of situations that have negativity all around them. And the wisdom that this man has been given is…

Yes, there’s negativity.
Yes, there’s fear.
Yes, there’s anxiety.
Yes, there’s depression.
Yes, there’s cause for concern.
All of those things.

But in all of this, I must think about what it is that I must be grateful for right now.

Not blind to the situation, not blinding yourself to the situation and saying, “Alhamdulillah it’s okay.”

“It’s flooding and I’m drowning, Alhamdulillah.”

No. Not like that. You’re not crazy..

But even though there is negativity surrounding you, “Well, I haven’t drown yet, Alhamdulillah.”

“Well, there is… there is a little bit of a rise over there.”

“There may be a plank of wood I can hold onto. Alhamdulillah.”

“Oh, you know what? It’s, I think the rain slow down a little bit. Alhamdulillah.”

Like you are looking for opportunities to make the most of a difficult situation. And that cannot happen, if you, if you give up, if you succumb to the negative.

And the ultimate wisdom is Allah would never leave you abandoned.

(QS. 93:3) مَا وَدَّعَكَ رَبُّكَ وَمَا قَلَىٰ

Like He told the Prophet himself (ﷺ), right?

So, because Allah would never leave you abandoned. The instruction from the wisdom that Luqman has is: I’m going to find a way to think positively, and you can’t be grateful to a Allah if you don’t think positive.

“And I’m going to look for opportunities, and for each of those opportunities, I will be grateful.”

This, this is the ultimate wisdom that Luqman has. Given any situation, how do you find the silver lining, how do you find the opportunity? Every crisis presents, represents an opportunity. Every failure represents a path to success. That’s, this got his mindset and that, all of that, the root of it, be grateful to Allah.

And that’s why Allah didn’t just say to be grateful, He said, “Be grateful!”

Like the commanding form. as if he… he understands that Allah is compelling him, encouraging him, instructing him, and therefore he’s instructing himself to be grateful. Like you said… What that means is sometimes you really got to tell yourself to do that. Because it doesn’t come naturally. You know?

Those of you that exercise, or play, or something, you’re tired. And you have to literally tell yourself, “Come on! Let’s go!”

Well, you have to self-talk sometimes.

And he has this wisdom that he can propel himself into a grateful state even in the middle of a negative crisis.

(QS. 31:12) أَنِ ٱشۡكُرۡ لِلَّهِ ۚ

And then Allah says,

وَمَن يَشۡكُرۡ فَإِنَّمَا يَشۡكُرُ لِنَفۡسِهِۦ

“And whoever continues to be grateful…”

So He… He said Luqman had this thousands of years ago.

You’re like, “That’s great for Luqman.”

“What about me?”

So, you know, from there immediately, Allah says, “I’m not telling you this so you learn something about a great man who lived thousands of years ago.”

Even before the ayah is complete, Allah says, “And whoever is going to be grateful…”

Meaning, He’s talking about you and me.

“By the way, I’m talking about him, so I can talk about you.”

That’s what Allah does, immediately. There is an اِلْتِفَات to you and me.

“We gave Luqman wisdom, be grateful to Allah. And whoever is going to be grateful…”

And the present tense form, the mudhari form, what that means is something that occurs over and over again. So you don’t get to say, “But I was grateful last year and nothing changed.”

That’s وَمَنْ شَكَرَ, this is وَمَن يَشۡكُرۡ

Meaning, whoever is going to continually push themselves into a state of gratitude. Whoever’s going to constantly pick themselves up and be grateful over and over and over again. Find the opportunity over and over again. Never succumb, never be submissive and surrender to a situation, ever. Always look for the positive.

Whoever can do that, and then thank Allah for that positive that they found, that it was there.

A Person Who is Grateful is Only Doing So for Their Own Benefit

And so when they do that, when a person does that, what does Allah say?

(QS. 31:12) فَإِنَّمَا يَشۡكُرُ لِنَفۡسِهِۦ

Then he’s only doing… So a person who is going to be grateful is only doing so for their own benefit.

“He’s only being grateful for himself.”

Meaning the beneficiary of gratitude is you. And the harm of not developing a positive mindset, the harm you’re only harming yourself, the harm comes on you. You know, thanking Allah doesn’t increase Allah’s kingdom. Thanking Allah doesn’t make Allah (عَزَّ وَجَلَّ) more honored than He already is.

You can thank me and I’ll feel better. Our student can comes, “Thank you, Ustadh, I really appreciate it.”

And I’ll say, “I’ll make dua for you.”

And I appreciate that I got acknowledged.

A child can come to mom and say, “Thank you for dinner.”

And the mom will feel acknowledge, feel better, feel more valued.

You can thanks someone and they feel valued. Allah does not need to be more valued, He’s beyond that need. Human beings, creation, have that need, that need for validation, that need to be appreciated. Allah doesn’t have that need.

So He… When He says, “Develop this positive attitude, and thank Me for whatever little opportunity you find in the middle, even in the middle of a crisis.”

“When you’re going to do that, and thank Me, you’re not thanking Me to benefit Me. You’re thanking Me to benefit yourself.”

(QS. 31:12) وَمَن يَشۡكُرۡ فَإِنَّمَا يَشۡكُرُ لِنَفۡسِهِۦ

What’s also really interesting about this ayah, there’s a تَوصِيَةٌ.

Meaning in the first phrase, Allah said, “Be grateful to Allah.”

But the second time He didn’t say, “And whoever is grateful to Allah is only grateful for themselves.”

He said, “Whoever is grateful,” but He skipped the part “to Allah”.

Now you could say that “to Allah” portion has been omitted because it’s already understood Allah just said it. Whoever’s grateful to Allah does so for himself. So that the “to Allah” part didn’t have to be said twice.

Another way of thinking about it is being grateful to Allah is actually not just being grateful to Allah. You see, Allah made this world, right?

So if you’re, if you’re walking in the hot sun and you find shade, you’re grateful to Allah but you’re also grateful that a tree is right here. You’re appreciating the tree.

And you might even appreciate the person who owns the land and says, there’s a sign there,

“If it’s hot and you’re tired, you can…”

“It’s private property, but you can get shade here.”

Now you’re grateful to Allah, but you also grateful for this person.

You had a flat tire, somebody pulled over and started helping you out. You’re grateful to Allah, but you also grateful to this person. Allah brought them to you. And Allah put it in their heart to stop their car and help, and you know… get out and help you.

So you’re grateful to Allah, but you can’t just say, “By the way, don’t be confused. I don’t do shirk. I’m not, I’m not appreciating you, I’m only appreciating Allah. But, yeah, little harder on the right tire, please.”

That doesn’t make sense.

To be grateful to Allah actually means what? You find reason to appreciate the people and the things Allah put in your life that you should appreciate.

This is why the Prophet (ﷺ) said,

[At-Tirmidzi] مَنْ لمْ يَشْكُرِ النَّاسَ لَمْ يشْكُرِ الله

“Whoever hasn’t thanked people, who’s… whoever’s is not grateful for people isn’t grateful to Allah.”

The opportunities you have, the friends you have, the family you have, you know, the people you have in your life, the people that have benefited you in this life, you should be grateful to them. All of them.

Okay. I used to say this sarcastically, but in some sense, I mean it too. A graduation ceremony when I would graduate my students, I’d say, “I am so grateful for all of you. Some of you increased me and becoming better than me as a teacher. Some of you gave me just wonderful company. You had profound insights. And some of you increased me in sabr.”

Hehehe…still grateful.

“So help me deal with certain things better. You put, you improve me in some way.”

Even hard people, you should be grateful that they came along. And you know, they caused us some damage, they caused us some cracks, but those cracks got reinforced and now were stronger because of it.

So, you know what? I’m still grateful for that situation. I’m still grateful for a terrible situation. Because Allah… Allah taught me something through it. Still a matter of gratitude. It’s still a matter of optimism. Whoever can do that, is only doing so for himself.

And then, وَمَنْ كَفَرَ

And whoever not…

“Kafara” (كَفَرَ) in Arabic could mean whoever disbelieved. Right? And usually the opposite of believing is disbelieving. Makes sense.

Believer – disbeliever, mu’min – kaafir. Right? But here in this ayah disbelieving is the opposite of being grateful. What Quran does sometimes is it takes things, Allah takes things that are not opposites but He makes them opposites.

We expect opposites to be a certain way, light and dark. We expect those kinds of opposites. You would think the opposite of grateful would be ungrateful.

And by the way, “Kufr” (كُفْر) has the meaning of ingratitude too, which we’ll get to. But it’s interesting that He used this word, as if to say, that when you are… that when you cannot develop this part of your relationship with Allah and with things around you…

What part? The part where you must find things to be grateful for constantly, compel yourself, and then you can’t really believe in Allah the way you should. Then you’re denying an aspect of Allah’s reality that is fundamental.

This is so fundamental to our belief in Allah that before anything else. In Al-Fatihah, He said, He taught us to say Alhamdulillah, as if like all the lessons will come number two.

This is lesson number one, Alhamdulillah. Get this first. If you don’t get this, everything else will be flawed, everything else will be missing something.

So our mindset is one where we’re constantly looking for praise and thanks to Allah for some and… And with that attitude Allah says, “And whoever’s going to be ungrateful…”

So this, Kafara could mean two things; Whoever’s not… not true… whoever denies faith, whoever denies, and it can also mean whoever’s ungrateful.

And the Kafara was used in the past tense, as if, “And whoever, even once becomes ungrateful, whoever even once denies. You know, this, this… this positive attitude…”

So (يَشْكُرُ) was the mudhari form and (كَفَرَ) is the madhi form which inshallah one day when I continue in my Arabic studies with some of you students, I’ll explain further.

Whoever’s Ungrateful

But now, we get to the ending part. So, whoever is grateful benefits himself.

فَإِنَّمَا يَشۡكُرُ لِنَفۡسِهِ

“He’s only doing it for himself.”

Yeah? Then you get to whoever’s ungrateful. whoever denied. I’m expecting Allah to say, “And whoever denied is going to hurt himself, whoever denied is going to get punished, whoever denied is going to face the consequences.”

Obviously, if, whoever does good will benefit from the consequences. The opposite would be, whoever does bad, will reap the harms, reap the negative consequences. It’s logical. But that’s not what Allah does.

Allah makes us even more grateful for the way He describes gratitude. He says, “And whoever has been ungrateful, or whoever were to be ungrateful…”

(QS. 31:12) فَإِنَّ ٱللَّهَ غَنِيٌّ حَمِيدٞ

“Certainly Allah is independent, Allah is not in need.”

He didn’t even talk about that person. He didn’t even talk about the consequences on that person, He took, He started talking about Himself. And there’s a mercy in that.

There’s a… there’s something scary and something beautiful in that. The scary part of that is… it is as if they fail to remember Allah and Allah chose no longer to mention them. That’s one side of it. The other side of it is they did something horrible, they did Kufr.

But Allah (عَزَّ وَجَلَّ) sees that tragedy as if maybe Allah is telling us that this person thought, “Why should I thank Allah, look at all the problems. Allah lets me have in this life, He doesn’t fix them for me!”

Or, “He just wants me to thank Him, or pray to Him all the time?”

“He needs prayer after prayer after prayer.”

“What is it? What am I getting for it?”

“What am I even getting?”

And Allah just responds to that attitude, “It’s so tragic that you think this way, it’s obvious that you’re hurting yourself, but let Me give you a reality check.

(QS. 31:12) فَإِنَّ ٱللَّهَ غَنِيٌّ

“Certainly, Allah is completely free of need.”

Allah has no need of your thanks, no need of your prayer, no need of your sajda, no need of you eating halal food, no need of you staying away from haraam. He needs none of it. He doesn’t need, even need you.

He says,

(QS. 47:38) ۚ وَإِن تَتَوَلَّوۡاْ يَسۡتَبۡدِلۡ قَوۡمًا غَيۡرَكُمۡ

“If you turn away, He’ll replace you all with other people.”

(QS. 47:38) ثُمَّ لَا يَكُونُوٓاْ أَمۡثَٰلَكُم

“They won’t be like you.”

You want to turn away? There’s the door.

(QS. 18:29) ۡۖ فَمَن شَآءَ فَلۡيُؤۡمِن وَمَن شَآءَ فَلۡيَكۡفُرۡۚ

Every… Every week those of you who recites Suratul Kahf: “Tell them the truth comes from your Master, whoever wants they can believe it, whoever wants they can deny it.”

Go ahead! You know?

(QS. 80:20) ثُمَّ ٱلسَّبِيلَ يَسَّرَهُ

“He made the road easy.”

You take… you take whichever road you want. Allah is not harmed in any way, Allah is not diminished in any way, Allah is not disgraced or dishonored in any way.

A King can get offended when you turn your back on the King and he says, “You made me look bad in front of the security staff.”

“You made me look bad in front of the fan guy.”

You know?

“How dare you turn your back on the King!”

Allah? Go ahead.

No!

“You want to turn your back?”

“You can’t reduce My kingdom, or My honor, or My glory in any way.”

You can’t… You can’t even begin to fathom what that is. And then He adds “Hamid” (حَمِيْدٌ), not even “Mahmud” (مَحْمُودٌ).

Man, that’s why you got to learn Arabic.

Hamid is called “ism shifah musyabbahah” (اِسْمُ صِفَة مُشَبَّهَة)

بِمَعْنَى اِسْمُ المَفْعُوْل

So this is a… what’s called someone who is praised, someone who is praised, someone who is thanked.

But actually, when you say someone who is praised, you think of someone who is praising them, right?

So if I say this person is well-known, that means, well known by people. So you kind of… So the idea of the people is there or if you say this person is… you know, for example, well-read, which means, well read by a lot of readers, right?

So when you say, “Allah is praised,” you’re thinking of people who do the praising, but that would be the word “Mahmud”.

When you say the word “Hamid,” it is as if to say,

“Allah is praised, and praise worthy, and thanked, and thanked worthy with no one existing.”

Even if no one existed, His praise would still be there. Even if the skies in the earth didn’t exist, He would still be praiseworthy. Even when there’s no creature left to praise Him, He still “Hamiid”.

You cannot be Mah… You can only be “Mahmud” if someone exist, but you can be “Hamiid” when no one else existing.

No one has to exist for Him to be “Hamid”.

He says, “I don’t need you to be ‘Hamid’.”

You know, there’s… there’s the name “Hamid” and there’s the word “Mahmud”, right? And of course the Prophet (ﷺ), his name is similar: Muhammad. That comes from the same origin, it’s also “ism maf’ul” (ِاسم المفعول).

But Allah (عَزَّ وَجَلَّ) is Al-Hamid (الحَمِيْدُ).

He says, “I don’t need you, and My praise, it doesn’t depend on creation.”

“Thanking Me doesn’t depend on anyone.”

“Me being thanked and Me being praised, it is free of the need of creation.”

This is the wisdom that Luqman understood, “I’m going to thank Allah not because I… not because Allah needs it or Allah wants it. I’m going to thank Allah because I need it.”

It’s actually, you would think thanking someone is for someone else.

Luqman understands wisely.

“I will thank Allah because the first beneficiary of thanking Allah will be myself.”

“And when I deny Allah, I will only be hurting myself.”

Now that’s wise, that’s profoundly wise.

And everything that he’s going to say from here on is based on that wisdom.

It’s like that seed and every other advice, cause the passage is about him, he’s going to talk to his son. Right? He’s going to give a son some advice. And every bit of the advice that he gives comes back to this one fundamental seed. It’s got that texture in it, it’s got that flavor in it.

Every time of being grateful and being positive. And finding the reason, always finding a reason
to thank Allah (عَزَّ وَجَلَّ).

Closing Dua

I pray that Allah makes us of those who constantly and continuously thank Him. And as a result of that Allah gives us more and more and more. And He keeps on giving us more reasons to thank him. And He never makes us people that are drowning inside negativity. That even when we are, that we can come back to Allah’s word.

Allah’s word can heal us and restore us, and we can go back to being in a grateful state.

بَارك الله لي و لكم في القرآن الحكيم
ونَفَعنِي و إِيَّاكُم من الآيات وَالذّكر الحكيم

الحمد لله و كفى
والصلاة و السلام على عباده الذين اصطفى
خصوصا على أفضلهم وخاتم النبيين محمد الأمين
وعلى آله وصحبه أجمعين

قال الله عز وجل في كتابه الكريم
بعد أن أقول أعوذ بالله من الشيطان الرجيم

إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ وَمَلَٰٓئِكَتَهُۥ يُصَلُّونَ عَلَى ٱلنَّبِىِّ ۚ
(QS. 33:56) يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ صَلُّواْ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلِّمُواْ تَسْلِيمًا

اللَّهُمَّ صَلِّ عَلَى مُحَمَّدٍ وَعَلَى آلِ مُحَمَّدٍ
كَمَا صَلَّيْتَ عَلَى إِبْرَاهِيمَ وَعَلَى آلِ إِبْرَاهِيمَ إِنَّكَ حَمِيدٌ مَجِيدٌ
اللَّهُمَّ بَارِكْ عَلَى مُحَمَّدٍ وَعَلَى آلِ مُحَمَّدٍ
كَمَا بَارَكْتَ عَلَى إِبْرَاهِيمَ وَعَلَى آلِ إِبْرَاهِيمَ فِي العَالَمِيْنَ إِنَّكَ حَمِيدٌ مَجِيدٌ

عِبَادَ الله، رَحِمَ كُمُ الله، اِتَّقُوا اللهَ
إنَّ اللَّهَ يَأْمُرُ بِالْعَدْلِ وَالْإِحْسَانِ وَإِيتَاءِ ذِي الْقُرْبَىٰ
وَيَنْهَىٰ عَنِ الْفَحْشَاءِ وَالْمُنكَرِ
وَلَذِكْرُ اللهِ أَكْبَرُ، واللهُ يَعْلَمُ مَا تَصْنَعُونَ

أَقِمِ الصَلَاةَ إنَّ الصَّلَاةَ كَانَتْ عَلَى المُؤْمِنِينَ كِتَابًا مَوقُوتًا