 Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Raheem Wa Salatu wa Salamu ala Sayyidina Muhammad Wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa salim Ya Rabbana lakal hamdu kama yin bagil lijalali wa jihika wazim Bismihtanik Allahumma fta halina ftu halalifin ya Rahman ar-Raheem Meen, Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Raheem We start today, we continue insha'Allah with our Tefs year of juzl 30th juzl and today insha'Allah we will be doing Surat al Fajr and some other suras. Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Raheem Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala starts the Surah with an oath and we've seen previously what it means to start with an oath and I will just mention one more thing today that when an ayah starts with a waw most of the time this is the waw of oath we call it wawul qasam So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is swearing by al Fajr wa al Fajr So what is so important about al Fajr, the dawn the breaking light in the morning when it advances this is a blessed time and we know that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala swears with blessed things with magnificent things So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is swearing with al Fajr and we know that everything at that time has a special taste Let's take Quran When we read Quran at Fajr Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says You feel the beauty of the Quran Now no one is disturbing you You are alone with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala at this blessed time and you are remembering Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala You are reading his words, you are worshipping him So everything at this time of al Fajr, at the time of the Fajr all the worship has a special touch to your heart So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is swearing by time now by al Fajr By al Fajr By al Fajr are the first 10 days of Dhul-Hijjah which will start tomorrow So what's the importance of these 10 days of Dhul-Hijjah? The 10th day of Dhul-Hijjah is Yawmul-A'id So it's A'id Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says Ma min aya min al-A'malu s-salihu a'habbu ila Allahi fi hinna min haadihi al-ayyam min haadihi al-ayyam al-ashf fa'akfiru fi hinna min at-tahleeli wa at-tahmeedi wa at-takbir So there are no days in which righteous deeds are more beloved to Allah than these days The days of al-ashr The 10 days of Dhul-Hijjah And Sayyidina Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam says There are certain days and certain times in your life that has special breezes So use them and don't lose the great benefit in them The deeds of these days are way much more beloved to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala than if they were done in other days And we know that, as I just mentioned, that Yawm-u'arafa is the night the day when Sayyidina Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will forgive people on the day of Arafa And shaytan was not seen most humiliated except on the day of Arafa And of course we all fast this day, the day before Eid Because of the amazing rewards that we will get of fasting So, wa-l-fajr, wa-layali-n-ashr, wa-l-shaf'i, wa-l-watar And Allah is also swearing by the even and the odd What does this mean? If we take the day of Nahar, the day of sacrifice is the 10th day of Da'ashr It's an even number The day of Arafa is on the 9th, which is an odd number This is one of the explanations Another explanation is that prayer itself, when we pray, some of the prayers are odd Such as Maghrib, Watar, and others are shafa' or even Which are the Fajr, Zuhr, Asr, Aisha, so these are the shafa' or wa-l-watar, the even and the odd Wa-l-layali-n-ashr And Allah is also swearing by the night when it passes, when it goes away And when the morning comes So what's he swearing about? For those who have intellect and sound reasoning, isn't that the oath enough to convince them To worship Allah SWT and to obey him Now Allah SWT in the ayahs after is going to mention the destruction of the people of Aad, Thamud, and Fir'aun So he says Haven't you seen how your Lord dealt with Aad? The people of Aad were very strong They were tall people, they were rebellious, they were disobedient, they were arrogant They were deniers of Allah's messengers Allah destroyed them And made them legends to be spoken of And exemplary lessons of warning So no matter how strong you are, if you are not obeying Allah SWT, punishment, that's the result So how did Allah SWT destroy them? So for Aad, Allah SWT destroyed them with severe wind that were imposed on them 7 nights and 8 days in succession So the people were overthrown And they were hollow trunks, as if they were hollow trunks of dates palms, how hollow the trunk will be So these are how they were So Iran was the name they built, it was on pillars This is another clarification of their city, it has pillars So Iran is their city and Aad were the strongest people of their time They were the mightiest people in their time So Iran is the name they built in the country The light of which of this city was not created in land It was a city in mountains So Allah moves to another example about the people who disbelieved With the mood of those who brought the stone with the water The water is the water of the city And those people, the mood are the people of Qawum Saleh, alaihi salam What did they do? And the mood who cut the rocks in the valley They made pockets in the mountains and they made them as their houses They huge, great houses in the mountains Again, they were not believers and they were destroyed In Surah Al Haqq Allah SWT says about them The loud cry was their punishment They were destroyed with it A third example is about Firaoun and Firaoun And Firaoun with the autad What's the autad? The autad might be the armies who enforced Firaoun's commands for him This is one of the explanations of the word autad And also they said autad are the used, Firaoun used to nail people on pigs to kill them And this is what he did to his wife to punish her when he knew that she was a believer So what are these three examples? Those people who were in the country and who were in Al-Fasad Who in land did transgress beyond bounds? They rebelled, they were arrogant They went about making corruption in the land So they harmed people So your Lord pardoned them different kinds of severe torment Remember that whoever is going up one day will go down Even if nature, if you are going up the road, you are up the hill, then on the summit, then you will go down So everything will go up, will go down again So they thought that they are undefeated No, Allah defeated them He, Allah SWT, who created them, he watched over them He knows whatever they do He is not negligent to what they do So no one will escape his punishment He will bring them all before him and he will judge them with justice As for man, when his Lord tries him by giving him honor and bounties Then he says, my Lord has honored me So when someone would have wealth, good wife, amazing children, successful jobs Then he would say, Allah is giving me this because he loves me So he gets arrogant, he gets proud of himself So this is wealth and honor But when he tries, when Allah SWT tries a person, tries him By straightening his means of life, by restricting his provision He says, the person says, my Lord has humiliated me So my Lord prevented me from having a good life So his sustenance is low, his provision is low So he starts to do some illegal actions to get some reason But, Sayyidina Muhammad SAW says عجبا لأمر المؤمن إن أصابه شر صبر وإن أصابه خير شكر It's a wonder of the believer If he gets something not good He would show patience But if he gets something good Then he would thank Allah SWT And in both cases he thanks Allah SWT He thanks Allah SWT not for the good things only But also for the bad things Because he knows he thanks him that the bad thing was not in his faith It was not in his عقيدة, in his Eman But to interveal things So he thanks Allah SWT And when he gets something good He thanks Allah SWT Because he remembers Allah SWT Says وَلَا اِنْ شَكَرْتُمْ لَأَزِيبَنَّكُمْ Whenever you make sugar I will increase you in rewards and in bounties So actually life is nothing but a test Each and every one of us is tested differently Health, wealth, death Different tests كَلَّا بَلَّا تُقْرِمُونَ الْيَتِينَ No, it's not It's not as what a person thinks Look, someone, Allah gave him Allah gave him a lot But What does he do? He doesn't fulfill the rights of Allah in the money In the wealth he has Allah gives the believer a non-believer And he prevents the believer a non-believer So, if one is wealthy He should thank Allah SWT But if he is poor He should practice patience to Allah SWT He should thank Allah SWT And he should remember not to be of the category كَلَّا بَلَّا تُقْرِمُونَ الْيَتِينَ So he gave him Allah gave him wealth But he doesn't give charity So you do not treat Well, كَلَّا بَلَّا تُقْرِمُونَ الْيَتِينَ You are not good You do not treat the orphans With kindness and generosity You deprive them of their rights You forget that The guardians of the orphans And I will be like these These two in paradise And he puts his two fingers together In the middle of the index You put them together So you who get the health The wealth, the everything You do not treat the orphans In kindness and generosity ولا تحابون على طعم المسكين And you do not encourage one another To feed the needy, the poor So if Allah gives you wealth And you do not fulfill his right In this wealth You do not give You do not feed people So is this wealth that you have Aniyama? Is it something that's good for you? Or is it a test that you failed? So in these two ayahs We have a command from Allah SWT To be good to the orphans And to feed the poor And to be good with the needy people And you consume inheritance With lawful Whether lawful or forbidden Unlawful So you do not give the money Of inheritance to those who deserve it You get your share And the share of others Whether you deserve it or not And you love wealth With immense love But did you perform Did you give Did you apply the right of Allah SWT In that wealth? No When the earth and the mountains Will be flattened They will be leveled And they will be made even And the creatures will rise From their graves And stand before the Lord And when you Lord come And the angels also come Lined up in rows Up on rows Hell on that day is brought within sight Hell will be Dragged by Angels Hell will be dragged by 70,000 drains 70,000 brittles Each brittle, each rain Will be dragged by 70,000 angels Imagine So what will happen? On that day Man will remember You will remember I did not pray, I did not do good I was not a good wife I was not a good husband I was not a good son or daughter I wasn't a good daughter-in-law I wasn't a good father-in-law But what good to him Will be their members He will say Would I have provided Good deeds for this life He feels sorry Sorry that he missed doing more good deeds He feels sorry for The act of disobedience he performed Fa yawma idil la yawad dibu aadabahu aad On that day, none will punish As he will punish As Allah will punish This fear of punishment And none will bind As he will bind There is no one Who is more severely punished And bound than those Punished by al-Zabaniyah The angels of hell Well Allah swt will calm our hearts And he says Oh tranquil soul Come back to you Lord Well pleased And well pleasing I would take a moment here And talk about the levels of the soul The first one is al-Amaratubisu The bad soul that will always Will always order A person to do bad things Then we have another level Al-Nafsul la yawama Which we can say the conscious The conscious which is always alert Why did you do that? Why did you do that? Why did you say that? Then we have al-Nafsul mulhama The al-Nafsul mulhama Wants to raise Wants to get The relation with Allah to be stronger Then we have al-Nafsul mutma Inna, the tranquil soul Then we have al-Nafsul radia The pleased soul Then we have al-Nafsul murdiya Then the soul which Allah is pleased with And the highest rank is al-Nafsul kamila It knew the reality Knew Allah swt the real reality Of Allah swt Knew the Felt the light of getting connected to Allah swt So surrendered to Allah swt completely So Allah swt is calling al-Nafsul mutma inna The tranquil soul Ya ayyatu al-Nafsul mutma inna Come back to you, Lord Fad khuli fi ibadih Enter amongst my servants Wad khuli jinnati And enter my paradise This will be said At the time of death And again on the day of judgment We know that the starting point of the day of judgment is death When a person dies he knows where he will be On the day of judgment So we move on insha'Allah to Surat al-Balad Allah swt starts with an oath again La'uqsimu bi hadal balad I swear by this city, Mecca So what is Mecca? Why Allah swt is swearing with this place? It's the city that Ibrahim alayhi salam Brought his wife and his second child too And left them there without any support But he knows Allah is there for them How he had built the house And he proclaimed to people to visit it This is Mecca How this city became a religious and commercial center for Arabia This is Mecca It's an important place That Allah is swearing with Wa antahillum bi hadal balad You are resident of this sacred city So time will come As will become lawful for you to fight And kill the enemies of the true faith This is a sacred city And it will stay sacred And you will free it from those who transgress in it Wa wa alidin wa ma walad Allah is also swearing by the begotten And that which he begot And I swear by the father and the children he begot The father here is Adam alayhi salam So Allah is swearing by the mother of towns Mecca And by the dwellers therein Who is Adam and his children What is Allah swearing about? We created man in toil In hardship In difficulty His mother bears him with hardship And she delivers him in hardship And life is awful of tests It's not a place for enjoyment Man was not created here to enjoy himself And to live the life of ease and comfort No He thinks that None can overcome him Does man who is exposed to such hardship Live in the illusion that there is no superior power To seize and suppress him He says I have wasted wealth in abundance And the word ahlak to hear Al ihlak al imthaq bil mahasi So he spends but illowfully He spends a lot of money on his desires He is proud Does he think that none sees him? No one is watching him? Does he think that Allah does not see him? Of what he did? Well nobody saw him So he does so and so He is alone He doesn't know his deed He doesn't know what he is doing He doesn't know who he is disobeying He doesn't know that Allah is overwatching him He doesn't know that Allah has assigned angels Guardians to calculate and to record Register his deed for him Then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala reminds him Of the ni'am Of the good things that he has given him Allah is reminding man of these pounties Heaven to be not made for him two eyes So he can see with them If someone just gives you some big amount of money Millions of money You will keep thanking that man And you will keep remembering him And you will keep mentioning him Allah is giving you Two eyes A tongue and two lips So doesn't he deserve to be thanked? Shouldn't you fulfill the rights of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala To your eyes? A believer should not look at something That Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala prohibited him Of looking at He should not say something That Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala ordered him not to say it Should not gossip Should not say bad things Should not hurt people And shone him the two ways The good and the evil We have opened before him The highways of good and evil So he chooses Whichever he wants to follow Will he be grateful Or will he be a non-believer? Falaqtahama Al-Aqaba Yet he has not attempted to pass Through the steep path The sharp path Will he not traverse upon the path Which contains salvation and good The two paths The virtue path Which leads to the heights But this path is tawqsum and steep It is hard As man has to go against the desires of the self And the temptations of the shaitan But there is another path Which is easy It descends down Each sin makes the following sin easier and bigger Once someone commits the first sin without repenting Then he keeps rolling down automatically Shaitan will whisper from man to commit sins The first sin that he will make It will be so difficult to make it He makes it and he does not fear Allah And he does not repent He does not ask for forgiveness He does not do staghfar Then it will be easy to follow in other sins What do you know about this steep path? So this hard path So it's freeing a neck Something difficult, it's not easy Muhammad SAW says Whoever frees a believing slave Allah SWT will free for every limb Of that slave one of his limbs from fire Sayyidna Omar says Sayyiduna Ataqa Sayyidana And he means Sayyidna Abu Bakr Freed, Sayyidna Bilal Both are our masters So او اطعامون في يوم انذي مسغبة Or giving food in a day of famine In a day of hunger In a day of starvation During war time After war People will be devastated People will be so poor Some very high rich people will become poor يتيمن ذا مقربة So he should feed He should give He should be good to an orphan Who is related ذا مقربة What does this relation mean? Muhammad SAW says اقربون اولا بالمعروف If you want to give charity Give it to your related people To your relatives He also says اصدقتوا على المسكين صدقة وعلى ذي الرحم ثنتان صدقت وصلة Charity given to the poor person Is counted as one charity While if it's given to a relative It's counted as two It's counted as charity And connecting the ties The ties of kinship So if you want to give صدقة وزقا Just look into your family Before you give the صدقة To someone who is far To someone who is to a stranger اول مسكين ان ذا متربة And give and be good To a poor person A miserable person Who is clinging to the dirt A person who is poor Who has no house or anything To protect him against the dirt ثم كان من الذين آمن Along with these beautiful characteristics He was a believer in his heart Seeking the reward of Allah Seeking the reward only From Allah SWT وتواصل بالصبر وتواصل بالمرحنة So he was a believer And he was He recommended people Who are believers Recommend one another to be patient And recommend one another To merciful compassion To merciful actions He was from the believers Who did righteous deeds And be merciful to other people There are a lot of narrations By saying the Muhammad SAW To talk about being merciful to others He says The merciful people Will be treated with mercy Be merciful to those who are on earth And he who is above the heavens Will be merciful to you In another narration He says Allah will not be merciful With whoever is not merciful With people Because those good people They are the people of the right hand They are the winners Who will get their records With their right hands But Those who disbelieved in our revelation Those who denied Are the people of the left hand Those are the losers Who will get their records With their left hands They shall have fire Enveloping them It will be sealed over them And there will be no way For them to avoid it Nor they will have any way out The torment will not end It will not even decrease It's The doors will be closed And there will be no escape There will not be any way out May Allah SWT make us the winners Who received the records in their right hand Whom Allah SWT is pleased with And they are pleased with the bounties That Allah has prepared for them In surah to shams There is something That calls for attention At the end of each of the ayahs Of this surah And it's the haa at the end So when we listen to surah to shams This haa attracts our attention With the sun and the moon And the sun and the moon And the night and the night Will the ayahs end with haa At the end Till there is haa This haa calls for our attention And it tells us that there is a secret To each of Allah's creation Which we are going to read about With shamsi wadhuha again Allah is swearing Allah is giving an oath By the sun and its light Its brightness Walqamari idha talaha And by the moon as it follows the sun Walnahaari idha jallaaha And by the day when it illuminates Wallayli idha yaghshaha And by the night when it covers up the sun Wa samayi wama banaaha And by the heaven and its constructor Allah has raised the skies And perfected it Nothing is holding the skies in place To Allah is swearing also by the skies Wal-arli wama ta-haa And by the earth And who spreads it And by what Allah has created In the earth Wa nafsin wama sabwaha And he created The soul He created He created and he proportioned Everything that he has created He created the soul And that was on the correct nature So Sayyidina Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam says Each child, each infant is born Upon the right nature Fitrah But his parents make him a Jew As a rastray But the first creation Is on fitrah On the correct nature On the right nature Fa al-hamaha fujuraha wa taqwaha Allah showed the nafs Allah showed people It's good and it's evil So Allah is swearing Fa al-hamaha fujuraha wa taqwaha Indeed, he succeeds Who purifies himself Who purifies himself by obedience to Allah By being obedient to Allah So he will be successful He cleanses himself from the lowly And despicable characteristics So he is successful Fa al-hamaha fujuraha wa taqwaha So this is the other thing that Allah has sworn to That he fails Who suppressed it He's a loser who spends his time disobeying Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala So we ask Allah Allah ma'ati nafs-i taqwaha Antawali yuha wa ma'ulaha Wa khayyum man zikka'a O Allah, give my soul, it's good You are the guardian and the master You are the best to purify it Now Allah is going to give us examples An example about the people of Sayyidna Saleh Thamud He says Thamud denied through their transgression So what happened to Thamud? The people of Thamud challenged their prophet Saleh He sent a sign, a miracle To show that he is a truthful messenger That he is truthful That he is not just claiming to be a prophet So he asked Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala And Allah answered his call And he said There will be a shikamel coming out of this mountain So you will not harm this shikamel It will graze wherever it wants It will drink from the water one day And the whole tribe will drink the other day So he told them that this is a blessed shikamel But what did they do? They did not listen And they assigned one of their leaders whose name was Qudar ibn Saleh And he was the most stretched He rose up and he wanted to kill And he killed that shikamel They called their companion And he took a sword and killed her He killed this shikamel And he said The messenger warned them Don't do anything bad to it This is a sign from Allah But they did not listen So they denied him And they killed this shikamel And they said Okay Bring the scourge They challenged him So he said Okay There will be You will have three more days to enjoy your lives But then you will have the punishment So he made the punishment descend upon them And Allah destroyed them all And he destroyed them We just mentioned that He destroyed them With a loud cry And Allah swt He feared not the consequences Any king, any ruler He would think of the consequences of any action He wants to take against his people Allah swt Allah's power is supreme He will not think of anything He will give the order and no one will question Allah In surah al-layl Allah is also swearing He is swearing to the diversity of mankind in their efforts By the night as it envelops When it comes Everything becomes dark It comes with darkness When the day comes And by the day as it appears During night Life will come down And during the day Life will go back Life will start again And by him Allah created male and female We have created you in pairs This is what he says in surah al-nab'a وخلقناكم أزواجة وما خلق ذكرة والأنثة The male and the female So Allah is swearing إنَّ سعيكم لشتَّة Certainly your efforts and deeds are in diverse The actions of people are not the same They differ Some people do good, some people do bad Some people are good, some people are evil فأما من أعطى والتقا As for him who gives And fears Allah SWT In his actions He has taqwa in his heart وصدق بالحصنة And believes in the compensation For that He believes in good And he believes that the reward will be From Allah SWT To him we shall facilitate the path of goodness So this person has taqwa in his heart When you have taqwa When you fear Allah SWT When you know that he is overwatching Then you will feel ashamed of doing something bad Of doing something evil You don't want Allah to be upset with you But he who refrains from spending For the sake of Allah He who is greedy He who is stingy Who doesn't want his wealth to decrease Or if he spends He spends to gain reputation Or to obtain some benefits and gains He thinks He thinks that he is self-sufficient He doesn't need the reward from Allah He just wants the fame وَكَذَّبَ بالحصنة And he denies goodness He denies the compensation That Allah has prepared for him For those who give فَسَنْ يَسْتِرُهُ لِلْعُسْرَهُ We will make smooth for him The path to evil وَبَانْ يُغْمَي عَنْهُ مَالُهُ إِذَا تَرُدَّهُ And what will his wealth avail him When he perishes لَنْ تُغْنِي عَنْهُمْ أَمْوَالُهُ مُلَا أُولَادُهُ مِنَ اللَّهِ شَيْئَا When he dies What good will their wealth and children do for them? Nothing They will not veil them From the punishment of Allah No one will help him when he is in fire إِدْنَ عَلَيْنَا لَلْهُدَا Truly, it's for us to gain guidance To give guidance To give guidance so people will gain it You do not إنَّ كَلَا تَهْدِ مَنْ أَحْبَفُ لَكِنَّ اللَّهِ يَهْدِ مَنْ يَشَاءِ If you want to guide someone And you love that person But if Allah doesn't want the hidaya for him Then he will not be guided They are guided This is why we keep repeating in our du'as اللهم هدِنا في من هدية Allah, make us of the people whom you guided إنَّ علينا للهُدَة وإنَّ لنا للآخرة والأولى And indeed, ours is the hereafter And this world also It's both belong to Allah SWT The one who is in complete control of that فَأَنْ بَرْتُكُمْ نَارَنْ تَلَظَّهُ Therefore I have warned you Of a blazing fire Blazing fire And Sayyidina Muhammad SAW says in one of the narrations إنَّ أَهْوَنَ أَهْلِ النَّارِ عَذَابًا يَوْمَا القِيَامًا رَجُلٌ يُوضَعُ فِي أَخْمَثِ قَدَمَيْهِ جَمْرَتَانِ يَغْلِ مِنْ هُمَا دِماغُوا So the easiest The lightest punishment Of the people of fire On the day of judgment Will be a man Whom two calls have been placed On the bottom of his feet That will cause his brain to boil فَأَنْ دَرْتُكُمْ نَارَنْ تَلَظَّهُ لا يَصْطَعَ إِلَّ الْأَشْقَةَ None shall enter this fire Save the most stretched الذي كنتَّبَ وَتَولَّهُ Who denied and who turned away إنَّ محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم Says Everyone will enter Paradise except Who denies So they asked Ya Allah Who are those people Who refused to enter Jannah And say the Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم Says Whoever obeys me will enter Paradise And whoever disobeys me Then he has refused And he will enter Paradise Who gave him wealth and wealth And no one has the right to have it Except the face of his Lord And the face of his Lord This are The most deserving of the A person of the Ummah Is Sayyidina Abu Bakr Whom these ayas are Honoring him He will enter Paradise The righteous, pure, most biased person Will be saved from fire الذي يؤتي ماله يتزكّ He who gives his wealth For self purification His intention is to purify Allah SWT To purify his money It's not for pure reputation It's not for fame It's sincere intention And he will receive no favor from anyone For which he has to return the word Except to seek the face of his Lord This is his intention Just to gain the blessings Of Allah SWT He does everything for the sake of Allah To get rewarded from him And not from any other person Not for any other reason He does everything in obedience To Allah SWT Hoping to attain the blessing Of seeing Allah SWT In Paradise And he will surely be well pleased Of bounties That Allah has prepared for him Ya Allah Make our intentions pure All pure for your sake Ya Allah Make us of the winners whom you love And whom you will be pleased of And may Allah SWT And may Allah SWT And may peace, mercy and blessings of Allah SWT