Day 59
I'm back!
TL;DR:
Be Quranic Day 59 focuses on applying lessons from the Quran to everyday life.
After a break during Ramadan, the speaker discusses how the intensity of religious practices during Ramadan, like Taraweeh prayers and Quran reading, should bolster one’s spiritual strength to maintain good deeds throughout the year.
The passage also covers a lesson from Surat al-Baqara on the importance of humility and the dangers of arrogance, exemplified by Iblis's refusal to bow to Adam, showing that true arrogance lies in denying truth and belittling others, not in appreciating one's blessings.
The message emphasises the need to appreciate and respect others' strengths and cultural diversity without succumbing to arrogance.
Welcome to day 59 of Be Quranic where we take short passages from the Quran, we extract practical lessons from it, we apply it into our lives so that we can be more Quranic.
Today is the 4th of Shawwal 1445 Hijra. Sorry for the long hiatus in the month of Ramadan, the month of Ramadan has been extremely busy for me and my family. We run our Nightly Taraweeh where I do tafsir of Suratul Ma 'idah every single night.
We also had our cafe partnering with the Muslim Women Support Center, cooking meals ensuring that the people that are facing food insecurity in Perth get to enjoy a decent Iftar. So alhamdulillah Ramadan is over.
We ask that Allah accept all our good deeds in the blessed month of Ramadan and we ask that Allah allows us to be steadfast in our good deeds, things that we have done in the month of Ramadan. We have to take some of it and apply it into our daily lives post Ramadan.
We are not expected to maintain the same level of intensity like Ramadan. That's not the whole objective of Ramadan. The idea of Ramadan is it acts like a spiritual gym where you go into the gym, you increase your load, you increase your intensity just like you're going to a physical gym.
You don't carry two kilo dumbbell, you carry as heavy as possible. You push yourself so that when you leave the gym you are stronger that things that are previously heavy for you now becomes light. So it's just like Ramadan.
You push yourself really hard in the month of Ramadan so that when you exit the month of Ramadan things that were hard previously becomes easy. Things for instance if you've not been praying for five times a day consistently.
Now post Ramadan, you can just look back, I did tarawih in the month of Ramadan. That's eight rakaat. That's 20 rakaat every single night. Surely I can pray my five daily prayers. If you find reading Quran hard post Ramadan, just remind yourself, I did that one juice every single night.
Surely I can read 10 minutes of Quran every single day post Ramadan. If you find eating halal food, consuming halal food hard outside of Ramadan, just remind yourself, I denied myself of food and water in the month of Ramadan during the day.
Surely I can strive to find halal food post Ramadan. So we would take your intensity down, but shawal must be better than shaban of the same year. So shaban the month before Ramadan, if you were not praying five times a day, and then Ramadan comes, you push yourself, you do your tarawih and all.
Now that it's after Ramadan your five daily prayers becomes easy you've done 20 17 easy so that's the whole idea behind Ramadan and next Ramadan you increase your load your intensity and then post Ramadan shawwal of next year will be better than shawwal of this year so now let's just recap where we are now at Surat al -Bakar we last stopped at ayah number 34 where Allah commanded the angels...
Allah commanded the angels to bow down to Adam and Islam this is a new creation of Allah that Allah created for earth this creation is going to be the Khalifa on earth and Allah then commanded the angels Iblis was there among the angels worshiping with the angels Iblis is not from among the angels he's from the genies but because of his accomplishment in worship and in knowledge he was invited to worship together with the angels so Allah told everyone in that audience bow down to Adam and Islam all of them bow down except for Iblis Abba was Takbarah he refused and he was arrogant and Allah said that he was from among the kafir from among these believers this ayah highlights the first sin in creation which is arrogance kibber and kibber according to our scholars is one of the three root diseases of the heart three most dangerous diseases of the heart you've got riya showing off you've got hasa jealousy and you've got kibber arrogance and of all these three some of our scholars say arguably kibber is the most dangerous because Rasul sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said a person will not enter Jannah if he has in his heart a mastered seed weight of arrogance Kibir or arrogance is the reason why Iblis was expelled from Jannah and he will enter Jahannam in Yawmul Qiyamah.
Kibir took him from the height worshipping with the angels to the lowest creature of Allah and this is what arrogance does to you. Now question what is arrogance? Rasul SallAllahu A 'alayhi Wasallam was once asked by a companion said when he heard this the dangers of arrogance he was worried.
He said that I like nice clothes, I like nice horses. Is that arrogance? The Prophet said no that's not arrogance. Arrogance is when you are denying the truth and you're looking down upon others. So Iblis was just doing that.
The truth that comes from Allah, Allah commanded him directly. bow down to Adam, he refused. And what's the reason of his refusal? He said, An -Akhayram minhu, I am better than him. You created me from fire and you created him from clay.
So he denied the truths from Allah and he is looking down upon Prophet Adam, Alayhi Salaam. On what basis is he looking down? He's looking down on the basis of his physical makeup. He was created by Allah from fire.
We are created by Allah from clay. We were not involved in that decision -making that we're going to be human beings, human beings are going to be made out of clay or genes are going to be made out of fire.
That is the soul discretion and decision of Allah. So who are we to take pride in that? Who are we to be arrogant about what Allah decided for us and Allah made us what we are. And also nationalism. When you're proud of where you were born, you don't get a choice where you were born.
That was a decision made by Allah. Now don't get me wrong, loving your country is something that is important in our deen. That is a statement. Some people think that it is hadith but it is not from the hadith of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam.
But Imam As -Sakhawi said the meaning is true when you reflect in the life of the Prophet and the Sahaba. Loving your nation is from the iman, is part of iman. Yes, but it is not to the point that you look down upon other countries.
You can love your country without looking down upon other country. You can love your culture without looking down upon other cultures. You can love your nasi lemak and don't look down upon biryani. You can love your biryani and don't look down on nasi goreng.
The culture, we are allowed to love our culture. We are encouraged to love our country but don't look down. upon others. This is the problem of arrogance. When you think that I'm better than you because where I'm born, because of my country, because of this and that.
Rasulullah Alayhi Wasallam once saw a companion walking into the masjid and this companion he was charismatic and the rest of the companions were in awe of him and Rasulullah Alayhi Wasallam said I see the slap of shaytan on his face.
So when he came to the Prophet, the Prophet asked him when you entered the masjid, did you see, did you see anyone in this masjid that is better than you? And the man said no I don't see anyone that is sitting with you that is better than me.
And the Prophet said this is arrogance. When you think that everyone else is beneath you. Our mission to rid ourselves from arrogance. We spoke on day 58 about the different reactions of humility when you see different types of people.
But one thing that we need to do today is when we look at others, try and find the beauty, the strength of others. Don't look down upon other people. Each person is created differently by Allah. Different strength, different abilities.
So look at the strength of those people. Find beauty in everything and humble ourselves. Be like a bee. Wherever a bee goes, it would look for flower and suck honey. Don't be like a fly. No matter where a fly goes, it will find the dirtiest, smelliest item to sit on it.
It can be in a garden of flowers. It will find a cow dung and sit there. Don't look for ugliness. Don't look for people's weaknesses. Just to look down upon others. Find people's strength and beauty in other people around you.