 بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم قلت أن إبن عطا إلا أسكندلي who was a great mystic, he was a great scholar Egyptian scholar he experienced a bit of a spiritual crisis during a time in his life and spiritual crises are something that are quite common actually and it affects a lot of people and sometimes they're minor, just a few issues or even one issue that bothers people and sometimes they're major right one of my colleagues told me recently that he spent three or four hours on the phone one time convincing a Hafid of the Quran that the book that he had spent five years memorizing was the كلامة الله سبحانه وتعالى hours speaking to this Hafid, a person who had memorized the Quran so memorization of the Quran, حفظ of Quran obviously is extremely important and there's a lot of barakah and doing that and we have to do that but we have to engage substantively with the Quran even more أفلا يتدبرون القرآن الله سبحانه وتعالى tells us in the Quran do they not have to dabbur do they not try to penetrate the meanings of the Quran to have real engagement, deep engagement with the Quran the Quran is an ocean إمام غزالي رحيله الله تعالى he says in his جواهر القرآن he likens the Quran to a Bahar to an ocean and he says that obviously the entire Quran is a revelation from Allah سبحانه وتعالى so it has the مقام of a revelation of a tanzil from Allah سبحانه وتعالى but he divides the ayats of the Quran into different levels of exaltedness and he says that he says don't be content with walking on the shore and just receiving basic meanings of the Quran basic meanings that we even get in translation right, that we need to plunge into the ocean of the Quran we need to plunge into the لغة, the Arabic language and he actually says that the waves of the ocean that crash on the shore these are the Arabic ayat of the Quran so he says we need to get into a vessel a boat of some sort and go out into the ocean and negotiate these waves this is difficult learning Arabic is difficult people try to learn Arabic and it's like a wave that takes them and smashes them on the shore but you have to keep trying and this is not to belittle reading the Quran and translation and getting something from it obviously people have converted reading the translation of the Quran there was a brother years ago who told me that he went to a bookstore I think it was a Barnes and Nobles or something these are dinosaurs now but he went to one of these bookstores and he was a Christian at the time and his intention was to go to this bookstore and purchase the Quran so he can read it and he can refute it and he went there and he opened the Quran and he looked at the table of contents and he saw Surat Maryam or is this Mary so he started to read it and he said his tears were falling on the pages right this is obviously someone who's reading the Quran in a translation but we have to penetrate the meanings of the Quran so Imam Al-Ghazadi says the Quran is like an ocean and then he says you get to the islands and you find what he calls musk meanings and these are the meanings that are analogous to the Ahkam of the Quran the illegal injunctions of the Quran and people sometimes they have this warped idea about what the Quran is even many Muslims they think the Quran is this book of statutes these do's and don'ts like what we see in for example the covenant code in the Torah or something or the code of Hammurabi or something like that no, the Quran is very different there are only about 600 ayat of the Quran that have legal injunctions that have Ahkam only about 600 ayat there are over 700 ayat in the Quran that command us to reflect and to use our intellects to use reason this Kitab this revelation requires our Aqal deep penetrating analysis to understand what this book is saying it's not a simplistic book it is not a simplistic book by any means by any stretch of the imagination and Ulama have spent years and decades trying to understand what is this book trying to tell us and if classified a different ayat some of the ayat of the Quran are khas meaning they're specific they're only for a specific time and place some of the ayat are Aam they're more general some of the ayat of the Quran are Muqiyyad they're conditional upon certain shulut conditions some of the ayat of the Quran they're Muqlaq they're absolute this takes deep scholarship الله سبحانه وتعالى says ألف لا مراء إن أنزلناه قرآن عربياً ألف لا مراء تلك أياته Kitab المبين إن أنزلناه قرآن عربياً لألكم تاقلون that these are the verses of a book of a clarifying book verily we sent it down as an Arabic Quran in order for you to intellect to use intellect as a verb in order for you to use your intellect right it's our intellect interacting with the with the نقل the نص the text of the Quran this is how we derive meaning from the Quran it's not a simplistic text and then Imam al-Ghazali says the highest type of ayat of the Quran he calls them pearl meanings and these are ayat of the Quran that deal with the سرات المستقيم and the greatest exemplar of the straight path is the Holy Prophet Muhammad صلى الله عليه و سلم he is the سرات المستقيم according to many of the exigents and then you have the Ruby verses he calls them of the Quran and these are ayat of the Quran that deal with these are theological verses that deal with the essence the character the essence the attributes and the actions of Allah سبحانه وتعالى this is an extremely deep book that requires deep analysis so anyway إبن عتع العسكنددي he was having some sort of and by the way إبن إمام الغزادي he had a personal crisis إبن إمام الغزادي حجت الإسلام and his personal crisis actually was you know at one point he was teaching a class he was a professor at the نظامية in نشابور and at one point he got out of the class and he couldn't even open his mouth he couldn't make a sound he couldn't lecture anymore because he had this tension within himself هل أفعل ذلك مع سنسرتي for الله سبحانه وتعالى أو هل هذا من مجموعة so he went on a 10 year long sojourn right and eventually he came out of this personal crisis he was having and he said it wasn't some sort of logical argumentation that took me out of this but it was a light it was a نور that Allah سبحانه وتعالى had cast into my heart this doesn't mean that he became a total mystic and an esotericist and things like that no he can actually continued to teach he came back to the نظامية and he was teaching علم الكلام he was teaching dialectical theology and he said the purpose of that was for ردود for basically for formulating refutations of heretical theological positions but he said experience is also extremely important so إبن أتعالا سكنددي he went to his teacher أبو العباس المرسي who was a great saint from Morocco who later moved to Egypt and he said that the answer from his teacher felt like the like the weight of the earth being lifted from his shoulders so he said علم الكلام he said that he said that the human being is in four states in four conditions and sometimes you're in all four of these conditions at the same time but one sort of takes precedence he said that these four conditions he said the first one is in a state of blessing you should recognize that you're in a state of blessing in a state of نعمة and that we are inundated with the نعمة of الله سبحانه وتعالى if you just look at your health you have health you have masha'Allah you have wealth you have your families you have as our خاتب said today شخمزة may Allah preserve him you have opposable thumbs you stand upright you have fingernails you have toes these are all نعمة of الله سبحانه وتعالى that we don't even think about so he says this is the first state to recognize that you're in a state of blessing and the response to that is شكر this should engender a state of شكر within us a state of gratitude and شكر is one of the greatest of the theological virtues so you have cardinal virtues أمهات الفضائل as Imam Al-Ghazali calls them in St. Thomas Aquinas they're the same virtues actually come from Aristotle but unlike the Catholics who have three theological virtues Imam Ghazali نموارت up to 19 or 20 theological virtues and one of the greatest theological virtues is شكر is gratitude because Allah سبحانه وتعالى mentions shكر in the Quran many many times in شكرتنا زيدانكم Allah سبحانه وتعالى says in the Quran if you are grateful indeed I will increase you and there's a lot of emphasis grammatically in this statement that if you are grateful we will increase you and Allah سبحانه وتعالى here he doesn't give a تميس or a specifying element of some sort like in another ayah he says رب يزدني علماء oh my lord that he's telling us to make this prayer oh my lord increase me in knowledge increase me with respect to knowledge إن شكرتم لأزيدانكم if you are grateful I will increase you presumably in all good things so شكر is extremely important to be the شاكر and to be the شكور and شكور is the intensive form أفلا أكونه عبدًا شكورة the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said شلاء الله not be a grateful servant the شكور is the one who is thankful to Allah سبحانه وتعالى even in a time of loss or deprivation because he knows he's wise enough to know that Allah سبحانه وتعالى may be depriving him of something that might actually harm him so this takes spiritual discipline Allah سبحانه وتعالى says have regard for me that I might have regard for you be grateful to me and do not disbelieve now this is interesting in this ayah this famous ayah that we all know that Allah سبحانه وتعالى is juxtaposing شكر with كفور that these are antithetical these are opposites in other words another way of saying in gratitude that Arabic is kufr the kafir is the one who is ungrateful to Allah سبحانه وتعالى so this is the first state we find ourselves in we find ourselves in a state of blessing كورة أبو العباسة المرسي this is his advice to his student ابن أتعالى السكندري and then he says the second state that we find ourselves in is tribulation بلا and everyone's in a state in some degree of tribulation it's part of life in the dunya dunya means the low world everyone's in a state of tribulation and the response to tribulation is صبر is patience and this is another great theological virtue that is all over the Quran إسبرو وصابرو be patient and enjoy patience إن الله مع الصابرين الله سبحانه وتعالى says in the Quran Allah is with the patient الله سبحانه وتعالى says in the Quran indeed we will try you with something of loss of hunger and fear and loss of wealth and loss of lives and the loss of the fruits of your labor وبشد الصابرين but give patience to those who are patient so this is the second state and then he said obedience to recognize that you are in a state of obedience and the response the response to that is not to gain this type of sanctimony is holier than thou attitude but to witness the توفيق الله سبحانه وتعالى in your life that you make that connection that the reason why you have توفيق in your life the reason why you have health you have a job you have a family the reason why things are working out for you is directly correlated to your obedience to الله سبحانه وتعالى and we've seen this many many many times people who enter in a state of disobedience to الله سبحانه وتعالى their lives are falling apart and they wonder why and that leads us to the fourth state which is a state of معصية a state of disobedience and the response to that is توبة to make توبة to recognize one is in a state of disobedience and to make توبة and توبة is a beautiful thing توبة is a great thing الله سبحانه وتعالى is a تواب he's the one who's always forgiving and the Prophet ﷺ he said اتاقب من ذنبه كما لا ذنب الله او كما قال عليه الصلاة والسلام the one who makes توبة is like the one who did not have a sin against him the Prophet ﷺ says in a beautiful حديث in بخاري he says that the similitude of the joy that الله سبحانه وتعالى experiences when a sinner makes توبة and this is a joy that is that is beyond human comprehension at least it commits that he's shakeless there's nothing like الله سبحانه وتعالى but he says it's analogous to a man who is in the desert with his conveyance and he's traveling through the desert and he dismounts from his conveyance and his conveyance bolts away from him and now he's walking in the desert the hot desert knowing he's going to die and agonizing death and he's about to collapse and he sees his conveyance under the shade of a tree and he falls to his knees and he grabs the reins and he looks up at the heavens and he says يا الله أنت عبد وانا ربك and he says Oh Allah You are my slave and I am your Lord he was so overjoy so delirious in rapturous ecstasy that he lost control of his speech it's called a شطحية Theopathic utterance that is outwardly wrong because he's delirious with joy This is a Hadith the Prophet ﷺ الله سبحانه وتعالى is more overjoyed ليس كمثل he's shaped in no anthropomorphic way more overjoyed when a sinner makes toba then that man is at that moment So toba a great theological virtue Now just to say a few things about ليلة القدر الله سبحانه وتعالى says in the Qur'an إنّا أنزلناه في ليلة القدر and Qari Omar may Allah preserve him he told us at the beginning of the prayer that this ayah indicates the Inzal of the Qur'an the descent of the Qur'an from the guarded tablet لوح المحوذ to the Sam'a'ud Dunya تبيت العزة which is the celestial Ka'ba in the first heaven or sky that's called the Inzal the entire Qur'an was brought down and then from there to the Sam'a'ud Dunya the Qur'an was revealed piecemeal it's called تنزيل there is an Inzal of the entire Qur'an descending and then a piecemeal revelation coming from the Sam'a'ud Dunya through the angelic agency or mediation of جبيل عليه السلام sometimes through direct discourse from Allah سبحانه وتعالى to the heart of the Prophet Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم this is called the تنزيل and if you look at the story of the initial revelation that came to him this is very interesting there is an agnostic Jewish woman she's by ethnicity Jewish but she identifies as agnostic who actually wrote a seerah of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم her name is Hazelton that's her last name the text is called it's called the story of Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم and she focuses on the humanity or examines the sort of psychology of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم it's a good text and she mentions something interesting and this is obviously mentioned by many many traditional scholars before her but the way she frames it is quite interesting and she's famous because she's done a lot of TED talks about the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم but it's interesting if you look at the story of the initial revelation so the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم around 35 years old or so he starts experiencing what our mother Aisha said أرؤية صاديقا true dreams the dream of a Prophet is the Haq when a Prophet dreams that's truth and if you see a Prophet in a dream that's also truth especially if you see the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم من رعاني في المنامي فقد رأى الحق in another tradition من رعاني في المنامي فقد رعاني فإن الشيطان لا يتمثل ب whoever sees me in a dream has indeed seen me الشيطان cannot imitate me so the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم he sees true dreams and he starts losing interest in the Tijara he goes he seeks khala seclusion in جبل النور غار حراق he goes for تحنوث which has a root meaning of fleeing from idolatry the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم was never an idolater he always worshipped الله سبحانه وتعالى and there were actually a group of of meccans a group of Quraish and Mecca that identified as Khunafa as Mano Theus they rejected the idolatry or the henno theism a type of polytheism of the Quraish and Mecca and they worshiped the God of Ibrahim عليه السلام so the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم would go to this cave now we know the story that جبل عليه السلام he came to the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم and he said to him إقرا إفعل أمر this is an imperative and the Prophet said ما أنا بقاري إقرا means read and he said I'm not a reader I'm not a reciter this happened three times we know the story now it's interesting that's pointed out here in this seerah is that the reaction of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم the reaction of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم after this initial revelation that the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم did not storm out of the cave and flow down the mountain you know with his chest puffed up and a halo around his head no this is not how he came out the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم he was in a state of fear and he goes to his wife خديجة الكبرى and he says زمي لوني زمي لوني cover me cover me he says ما لي what happened to me لقد خشيتوا على نفسي I'm afraid for myself and Hazleton points out here something interesting about the psychology the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم he says these are not the confessions of a deceiver this is not someone who's trying to pull the wool over your eyes this is someone who's being very sincere he doesn't know what happened to him he fears for himself he wants to know he asks his wife and his wife says to him الله would never ever debase and humiliate you and she starts naming his virtues but then she says I'm not a scholar though let's go to a scholar so they follow the proper protocol and they go to ورقب نوفل who has a Christian relative who is a Christian the Hadith says كان الرجل تنصر يقروا أرنجيلة بالعربية that ورقب نوفل he converted to Christianity and used to read the injil in Arabic and he listens to the story of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم and it's a Christian that says to him that confirms his story لقد جاءك أن نموس أكبر كما جاء إلى موسى this is his diagnosis of what happened a Christian scholar that indeed the great نموس نموس is probably from the Greek nomos meaning the law of God or pinuma the holy spirit of God the great spirit of God has come upon you just as it came to موسى عليه السلام so the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم his message is something that took the world and lifted it up and this is something that we have to be cognizant of now something that's very commonly done today is people like to go to certain hadith of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم certain one liners here and there and wrench them out of context right and then try to claim that the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم عود بالله he advocates violence and this is interesting you have extremists that identifies Muslims who are doing this and you also have hardcore anti-Muslim Islamophobes who are doing this they're quoting the same hadith and they have the same conclusions that this religion is teaching this type of violence it's very very interesting two people who are diametrically opposed to each other yet using the same methodology right at ijtizah their mithages is segmenting the hadith of the Prophet and the Qur'an and taking things out of its siyaq out of the context of the Qur'an just to give you an idea of what I'm talking about without even looking at context if I took a statement in English like I did not see that and just you know you see that in print you have no idea how the speaker intoned that statement which word did he emphasize because it makes a difference if I say I did not see that and I emphasize the first word I did not see that meaning what you saw that or he saw that what if I emphasize another word I did not see that this suggests a context that somebody is claiming that I did see something and say no I did not see that what if I emphasize another word I did not see that I heard that or I did not see that I saw this this is just looking at intonation and an emphasis but looking at context is a whole different ball game this takes deep deep scholarship a hadith that is quoted all the time by both sides in this interesting dynamic is a hadith there is a sound hadith in Bukhari it's in the Arba'een of Imam An-Naui which the Prophet ﷺ said أمرت أن أقاتل الناسة حتى يشهد ألا إله إلا الله وأن محمد رسول الله now the first thing you do when you hear or read a hadith like this is you have to check it against the normative ethos of the Prophet ﷺ they agreed upon ethos or khuluk of the Prophet ﷺ what is the overarching character virtue character of the Prophet ﷺ virtue trait of the Prophet ﷺ it's رحمة the Prophet ﷺ he said إنما بُإثْدُ مُعَلِّمًا I was sent as a teacher أنا لبيُّ الرحمة I am the Prophet of Mercy إنما رحمة المُهدى I am a gifted mercy so it's interesting if you look at this hadith that I was commanded to fight right I was commanded to fight the people until they submit that there's no God but Allah and that Muhammad ﷺ is the messenger of God the Urlama say it's not as simplistic as it sounds not nearly that even the word أنناس use in this hadith أنناس which is translated as humanity it can be it has different meanings أنناس can mean humanity at large right so أعود برب الناس ناس can also mean a group of people a specific group of people إنما تفعلوا ولا تفعلوا فتقوا النار التي بقودها أنناسوا والهجارة produce a sura like unto this and if you cannot and you will not then fear the fire whose fuel is man and stones humanity and stones not everyone all of humanity is in the fire this is obvious or a nas can refer to one individual one individual there is a verse in the Quran that says that after the context says after the مجاهدين return غزوة بضر there was one man الذين قال لهم الناس إن الناس قد جمع لكم فخشوهم that there was nas but the Urlama say this was really just one person named نوعين ومسؤولة الأشجع who said indeed the people are gathering against you so Allah ﷺ in the Quran uses the word أنناس humanity the people to denote one person so this takes a lot of this takes deep analysis and then أميتوا أن أقاتلة أقاتلة is form 3 verb form 3 is not form 1 which indicates an associative or engagement that I have an order to fight a specific group of people all of the Urlama most of the Urlama say are champion Urlama they say that this refers only to the Mushnikين and this is engaging with them because they have been engaged with وقاتلوا في صديد الله الذي يقاتلونكم ونتعددوا إن الله لا يهبوا المعتدين and fight those who are fighting you but don't be extreme Allah does not love the extremist so this is very very important that the hadith can be confusing and you know I get emails all the time from Muslim youth quoting this and that حديث or quoting this and that verse in the Quran the verses of the Quran they are extremely deep and they require incredible analysis and people don't understand that there's different types of ways of approaching the Quranic ayat and there are different shurud of the Quran the ahkam of the Quran they require certain conditions to be fulfilled before they can be enacted they have different mawani'a they have different preventatives that can prevent them from being enacted so it's important for us to engage in that type of Qadabbur with the Quran may Allah Subhanahu و تعالى give us the Tawfiq to have higher understandings of the Quran may Allah Subhanahu و تعالى give us the Tawfiq to understand the normative ethos of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ he's the one who said أحب للناس ما تحب للنفسي here he uses the word nas أحب للناس love for humanity what you love for yourself so here in this hadith love for humanity what you love for yourself the meaning of humanity here cannot be the same as أمين أنقات للناس I have in order to fight to people love for humanity do you love to be aggressed upon do you love to be fought against it doesn't make any sense that's obviously not the meaning love for humanity what you love for yourself what do you love for yourself you love for yourself to have a family to be in safety and security to have a job to have the good things of the dunya to have the good things of al-akhra especially this is what we should love for for other people as well this is the normative teaching of the Prophet ﷺ سلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته سلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته