 Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim, as-salamu ala ala Sayyidina Muhammadin wa-na alihi wa-sahlihi jama'in. Subhanakala al-malana illa ma alamtana illa ka anta al-alim al-haqim wa-la shawro wa-na quwwata illa billah illa al-alim. As-salamu alaikum wa-rahmatullahi wa-barakatuh. So inshaAllah, we're continuing. This is our second week, Kitab al-Shifa. We're going to actually continue here with the first chapter. There's very important points that Qadi Ayyad makes in this chapter, so we'll stick with it. InshaAllah ta'ala we only did the first section last week, which was nine pages, and the first chapter is about thirty pages. So those who want to follow along in the English translation, this is page ten, part one, chapter one, section two. Section two is called, Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala describing him, salallahu alayhi salam, as a witness, and the praise and honor entailed by that. So Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala, Qadi Ayyad, he begins by quoting a verse from Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. This is an exquisitely beautiful ayah from the Quran, which is in Surat al-Ahzab, verses number forty-five and forty-six. Ya ayyuha nabiyyu inna rasallanaka shahidan wa-mubashiran wa-nadiraa wa-da'iyyan ila Allahi b-iithani wa-sirajamuniraa, O Prophet, we have sent you as a witness, a bringer of good news and a warner calling to Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala with his permission and as a light giving lamp. So Qadi Ayyad he says in this ayah Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala endows his Prophet with all the ranks of nobility and every praiseworthy quality. He made him a witness over his community by the fact that he has conveyed the message to them. One of the duties of a Prophet is called tabligh. He has to convey the message. That is one of the special qualities he is a bringer of good news to the people who obey him, a warner to the people who rebel against him. He calls for the oneness of Allah to worship him, he is a light giving lamp by which people are guided to the truth. One thing to notice here from a linguistic standpoint, according to Muslim philologists, all of these titles of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam and these two ayas, they are all indefinite nouns called ism nakira. And according to rhetoric, the ism nakira denotes a degree of greatness that is outside of our frames of reference. For example Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala says That the kufar from the Ahlul Kitab and from the mushrikin, they will not break away from their kufar until Al Bayna, that's a definite article. What is Al Bayna? Rasulun min Allah yatulu suhufa mutahra. A messenger from God, not the messenger of God, like what a messenger from God who recites purified scriptures. So shahidan wa mubashiran wa nathiran wa da'iyan wa sirajan muniran, these are all indefinite nouns. In this ayah, Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala refers to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam as a siraj. This word is used four times in the entire Quran, if you have a concordance you can look this up three times, it's explicitly talking about the sun, the shumps. And here the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam is called siraj, and then this noun is qualified I'm still having throat issues, so I need to drink warm beverages, I'm not contagious, insha'Allah it's not corona. This noun is qualified by the adjective munir, munir is a form for active participle issam fa'il, which is related to the word nur, and it means something that spreads light. That emanates light and illuminates those around him, so just as the sun illuminates those in its orbit, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam illuminates those in his orbit, the Sahaba, and any who come into contact with him. Atay ibn Yesar said, I met Abdullah ibn Amr al-Aas and said describe the messenger of Allah to me. He replied certainly by Allah, some of the characteristics by which he is subscribed in the Qur'an can also be found in the taura, now in hadith or statements from the salaf where the word taura is mentioned even in the Qur'an, the taura doesn't necessarily mean the first five books of the Christian Bible, the Pentateuch, the books of Moses. The word taura amongst the bani Israel is a very loose term. In fact taura could signify the whole of their corpus of sacred literature, so taura could mean a Jewish sacred text of some sort, not necessarily the first five books of Moses anyway. So it says according to Abdullah ibn Amr al-Aas, there is a description of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam in some sacred Jewish text, a prophet we have sent you as a witness, a bringer of good news and a warner and a refuge for the unlettered. You are my slave and my messenger. I have called you the one whom people rely, one who is neither coarse nor vulgar and who neither shouts in the markets, nor repays evil with evil, but rather pardons and forgives. Allah will not take him back to himself until the crooked community has been straightened out by him. And they say, there is no God but Allah, through him blind eyes, deaf ears and covered hearts, will be opened. Something similar is reported from Abdullah ibn sallam and Ka'ab al-Ahbar, both of these are scholars of Bani Israel who converted to Islam. Abdullah ibn sallam is a celebrated sahabi and Ka'ab al-Ahbar is a tabi'i. This is, it seems like to me, this is a commentary, a paraphrase and a commentary of a passage in the Hebrew Bible, which is called Isaiah chapter 42, in the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible. It's also found in the Christian Bible. I believe that Isaiah chapter 42 is a clear Muhammadan typology, a foreshadowing of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam. Let's just give you a few highlights from that chapter in the Bible. The Hebrew says, hen abdi if maqbo, behold my abd, my servant. So we're going to have a description of someone whose primary title is abd, and of course the primary title of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam in the Quran is abd, subhanal adhi asrabi abdihi, alhamdulillah al adhi anzala al abdihi al kitaba, tabaraka al adhi naszala al furqana al abdihi, and so forth, fa awha ila abdihi ma awha. This is his primary title, behold my servant whom I uphold. The Hebrew of Isaiah 42 continues, bikhiri ratsa nafshi, in whom my soul delights. Then it says, nafati ruhi alayhi, I have put my ruh upon him. The speaker is obviously God here, and he's saying that I have put my ruh upon this abd, my spirit of inspiration, my spirit of guidance, my spirit of revelation, mishpat le goyim yotsi. So bring judgment or law in order to the goyim, goyim is a Hebrew word meaning Gentiles, non-Jews. The word in Arabic for goi, which is the singular of goyim, is ummi, ummi. So the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam is called a nabil ummi in the Quran. This has different meanings, the unlettered prophet or the Gentile prophet. This is one of the meanings of nabil ummi, the Gentile prophet, the prophet that was prophesized, the non-Jewish Gentile prophet, the universal messenger. And then it says, interestingly, again, Isaiah 42, leu yashmi'a bichu tkolo in the Hebrew, which means he will not raise his voice in the marketplace. And our mother Aisha, she described the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam, exactly with these words, le sachaban fil aswaq, he doesn't raise his voice in the marketplace. And this is an indication, this is a way of saying that the Prophet s character was very mild, mild-mannered sallallahu alayhi sallam. This is how he's actually described by Sayyidina Ali in the famous hadith in the Shema'il of Imam At-Tirmidhi, sahlul khuluqi leyinul janibi, that he's easygoing, mild-mannered. This is how he's described in the Torah, in this passage, in this sacred Hebrew Jewish text. And then it goes on to say in Isaiah 42, it calls this abd birit aam, birit means mithaq, and aam means aam, general, universal, a universal covenant. This abd, this prophet, this unlettered prophet, this gentile prophet, is alamiyah, right? Wa ma arsalna ke illa rahmatan lila alamin, qulya ayyuha nas, inni rasulullahi ilaykum jami'an. And then it says, orgoyin, he is orgoyin in Hebrew. If I were to translate that into Arabic, it would be, nurul umi'in. He is nurul umi'in, he is the light of the gentiles, he is the light of the unlettered. And then it goes on to talk about how the Kedarrites are going to adopt this prophet's message. The Kedarrites are descendants of someone named Qaidar, Qaidar, according to Ibn Hisham, is one of the sons of Isma'il, alayhi salam, and Ibn Hisham, he traces the prophet's ancestry, sallallahu alayhi salam, all the way back to Qaidar, or Kedarr, in fact, in Hebrew. A very popular way of saying Arabic is to say, laishan qaidar, the tongue, lisan of qaidar. And then Qadi Iyyad, he quotes the ayah, the famous ayah in the Qur'an, al-Ladhi na yattabi'un al-Rasul, al-Nabi al-Ummi, al-Ladhi yajidunahum, aqtuban, a'induhum fi torati wal-Injil. Those who follow the messenger, the unlettered prophet, the Gentile prophet, Nabi al-Ummi also means the motherly prophet, like the nurturing prophet, whom they find mentioned in the Torah and in the Injil, and in the Gospel, commanding them to the right, forbidding them from wrong, making lawful for them the good things and making unlawful for them the foul things, relieving from them their burdens and the fetters that are on them. Those who believe in him and aid him and help him and follow the light which has been sent down to him, they are the prosperous. This is Surah Tula'araf, Surah 7, verse 157. There's a famous Jewish scholar who became a Muslim, he's a 12th century Jewish scholar, his name was Shamu El-Ben-Yahuda al-Maghribi, a lot of people don't know about him. He was actually the son of a Moroccan rabbi, and he converted to Islam based on a dream he had. And then he wrote this incredible book called Ifham al-Yahud, The Confounding of the Jews, in which he argues against Judaism and for Islam, and he argues for the messiahship of Isa al-Islam. It's a very interesting book, and there's an autobiographical element in his book, The Confounding of the Jews, by Shamu El-Ben-Yahuda al-Maghribi. So he tells us how he became a Muslim. He said that he was sleeping, he had a dream. In his dream he sees this very old man sitting under a tree, so he approaches the man, and the man identifies himself as the prophet Samuel. This is a prophet in the Old Testament. He might be mentioned in the Qur'an indirectly, as a Nabi Ba'da Musa, a prophet after Moses, peace be upon him. So then Shamu El, the prophet Samuel, begins to quote something from the Torah to Shamu El-Ben-Yahuda al-Maghribi. And he quotes to him Deuteronomy 1818. This is a famous passage in the Hebrew Bible that says, Navi akim lahem nikara vachayp so on and so forth. That God is the speaker, and he says, I'm going to raise up a prophet from the brethren of the Israelites who's going to be like Moses, a prophet like Moses. And I shall put my words into this prophet's mouth, and whatever he says is only by command. So then Shamu El, he says to the prophet Samuel, that's you, right? We were taught that that prophet is you. And then he said that the prophet Samuel became angry, and stood up and walked away from him. And then he said he woke up suddenly. And then he said he fell back asleep, and it was just before Fajr. There's a Hadith of the prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, astakurroia bil-ashaar. The most true dreams are just before Fajr, during the time of Suhur. So he says he fell asleep again, and he said he woke up. He had another dream. He's walking down a corridor into a courtyard, and a man passes him. And the man says to him, Ateer Rasulallah. Obey the messenger of God. And he comes into the courtyard, and he sees the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. And he said the prophet was very busy. He was preparing for a ghozwa, a military expedition. So Shamu El, he goes right up to the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and he says he takes the prophet's hand, and he says ashadu ala ilaha illallah wa ashadu annaka rasulullah. And he took great pride that the prophet himself took his shahada in his dream. Now he couldn't actually voice, he couldn't admit that he'd become Muslim because there was a dangerous situation for him. His father was a rabbi. But years later he did. But he made it a point in his autobiography that I was able to say annaka. And I bear witness that you are the messenger of God rather than Muhammadur Rasulullah. A very interesting text. Anyway, the dominant opinion is that, or a strong opinion is that many of the descriptions of the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam have been lifted from the Torah and the Gospel, and that the text has been corrupted as tahrifun nas. Imam al-Razi doesn't necessarily agree with this and says if you look hard enough you'll find that there are in fact descriptions of him, but it takes a sort of more sophisticated analysis. And then Qadi Ayyadi mentions this beautiful ayah from Surah al-Imran, verse 159. This iconic ayah, which sort of demonstrates the description of the prophet we've been talking about. The verse begins. If you know something about Arabic you know this ma is ma az-za'idah, so it is part of the incredible mercy from Allah that you are lenient with them. If you had been harsh, if you had been harsh or hard hearted you would have seen men scatter from your presence. So pardon them and ask forgiveness for them. In the Ulama say, pardon them means that if people transgress against you personally just forgive them. If people transgress against the hudud of Allah then ask Allah to forgive them. Make istighfar for them. And consult them in the affair and this means the political affairs. The Ulama ask a question here. Why would the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam whose speech is wahi and who has ismah, why would he consult people about political affairs? So Imam al-Razi says he's doing this to simply set a precedent, right? Because he's the last prophet. Muslim leaders who come after him are no prophets. They could make mistakes. So he's setting a precedent that you have to conduct your affairs through a shura, through a mutual consultation of some sort to ensure that a tyranny doesn't arise. Wallahu alam. As Samarkand said, Allah's reminding them that he made his messenger merciful to the believers, compassionate and lenient. If he had been harsh and severe in speech they would have left him. However, Allah made him magnanimous, easygoing, cheerful, kind and gentle. One of the names of the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam according to Imam al-Suyuti is at the hack, the smiling prophet, the laughing prophet, easygoing. He's able to diffuse situations even with some humor he can diffuse situations, right? One of my favorite examples, Hadith and Bukhari, very famous Hadith, the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam is walking in Medina. His city is the head of state with Aisha and a group of Yehud and there was some animosity between them during this time between the Muslims and the Yehud. A group of Yehud pass him by and one of them says, Assamu alaykum and the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam immediately responds, Wa alaykum. And so, Assamu alaykum means may death be upon you, right? This is interesting, this is a good principle. The prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam he said that the mu'min is mutawadir, but he's not the valil. There's a difference. The mu'min is humble, but he's never humiliated. The Muslim does not humiliate himself. The Muslim has self-respect. The Muslim is not a doormat. So very quickly he's wa alaykum and then Aisha thought that the prophet didn't hear them correctly, right? She thought that the prophet heard, Assalamu alaykum. So she turns around and she says, Wa alaykum, wa la'natullah, wa qadabullah alaykum and death be upon you and the anger and wrath of God and the curse of God and the prophet said, Mahalan, Mahalan, like take it easy. Take it easy. Inna allaha yuhibbu al-rifq, he said. That's what he told her. Inna allaha yuhibbu al-rifq. Fil amri kulli, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala loves gentleness in all affairs. He's the head of state in Medina. People get angry now because they're in a grocery store or something and somebody says, oh, look at this Muslim camel jockey or whatnot. The prophet's in Medina. I mean, obviously things like that should be addressed, but this is what you should expect. But in Medina, in his own city, when he's the head of state, this is happening to him. And look at his response. Man yuhram al-rifq, yuhram al-khayr, this hadith in Muslim. Whoever is deprived of gentleness is deprived of good. So Aisha said, didn't you hear what they said? And he said, didn't you hear what I said? Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, so continuing. Qadir Iyyad, he quotes this verse, al-Baqarah 143. Wa qadarika ja'alina kum umatan wassata. Thus we have made you a middle community so that you, the prophet, would be a, sorry, that you, the Muslims, would be witnesses against people and so that the messenger would be a witness against you. Abur-Hassan al-Qabbi said in this ayah, Allah makes it clear the excellence of our prophet and the excellence of his community. The umma wassata, the middle nation. This is verse 143 of 286, right in the middle of al-Baqarah. So with respect to theology, I might have mentioned this here last time, or maybe it was the other masjid. Imam al-Razi says that with respect to theology, we are, we do not practice what's known as tashbih, which is a Christian practice, the practice of the mujessima, the anthropomorphous, the Christians, they put Allah in His creation. They believe in incarnationalist theology that God dwells within His creation. Or the other extreme, Jewish theology, ta'atil, also mu'atazili theology, that God is so transcendent that they started to deny that He even has attributes. With respect to Christology, the Jewish position, with respect to Isa, the Jewish position is that He is a human non-divine false prophet. The Christian position is that He is a human divine prophet. Divine, right? So this is based on a doctrine or dogma they have called hypostatic union. That Isa, is a human being with two natures. He's 100% God and 100% man. The Muslim position is that He was a human non-divine prophet. So the essence is human, the particular is prophet, that's the what and the who of Islamic Christology. With respect to the practical aspect, the most virtuous lifestyle for Catholic Christians is to join a religious order and take vows of chastity and poverty. So to be poor and celibate is the most virtuous type of lifestyle. For Protestants, one is saved by faith alone. This is a doctrine called solafide. Ultimately, good works do not factor in at all, at all when it comes to one's salvation. So this leads to a type of antinomianism. This is one of those fancy words that academics use. Antinomianism means a rejection of sharia. People who reject a sharia, there's nothing to ground them. So they start making claims. For Jews, at least the Orthodox and conservative, the most virtuous life is where one or a person tries to complete all of the 613 commandments mentioned in the Torah, a project that could take several lifetimes. So a lot of people don't know this, but Orthodox Jews believe in reincarnation. It's a traditional Orthodox belief. It's called Gil-Gul-Han-Nesh-Shama in Hebrew. In other words, the Jewish sharia, the halakah of Bani Israel, it is so vast, it's so cumbersome, right? That it takes several lifetimes and you have to do all the commandments. In Islam, there's a balance. According to the Hadith of Gabriel, Islam, iman, and ihsan, Islam in this context means outward submission. Iman, meaning an inward submission, inward belief, and then ihsan is the relational aspect. And if there's deficiency in good deeds, then there's purification and the grave. There's adhab al-qabr. There's a hard hesab or hard reckoning on the Yom al-Qiyamah. There's even, according to the Sunni tradition, some of the muwahidun, some of the monotheists that were lax in their prayer and things like that, there's a purification in jahannam, and they'll come out of that eventually. So good works means something. Ultimately, we're saved by grace. Man qala la ilaha illallah bi siddqin dakhalal jannah, eventually, insha'Allah ta'ala. So it's a middle way, the Quran says eat and drink, but not to excess. The Prophet said, Anni kaha sunnati fa man raqiba an sunnati fa lisa minni, marriage is my my normative practice. Whoever turns away from my practice is not from me. So these are all sort of the aspects of the umma wassata, ummatan wassata. Allah says in another ayah, in this, the messenger is a witness against you and you are witnesses against the people. And then he quotes this famous verse, verse 41 from An-Nisa. Fa qayfa idha jitna min kulli umatin bi shahid wa jitna bika alaha ula i shahid. How will it be when we bring a witness from every community and we bring you as a witness against these? And the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam, he had Abdullah i bin Mas'ud recite this ayah and when he got to this surah and when he got to this ayah, the Prophet began to weep according to the hadith. So he means balanced and good, balanced community, balance is always seen as something that's good. This is trans historical, transcendental, even if you go to Eastern philosophy, the way of the Buddha is the middle way. If you go to Confucius, the middle way, Ancient Greek philosophy, Plato said, mayde agan in Greek, which means never in excess. He's talking about good things, not bad things. Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala says, he quotes this other ayah here from surah Yunus, ayah number two. Wa basher illa dina manu anna lahum, qadama sitqin in the rabbihim. Give good news to those who believe that they have a sure footing with their Lord. Qatada hasan al basri zaid ibn aslam, these are champions of the tabi'een. They said the sure footing, the qadama sitqin mentioned in this ayah, surah Yunus, ayah number two, chapter 10, verse two, is the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi sallam. Abu Sa'id al khudri, who's a Sahabi, said the same thing. Sahalat to study said, it's the pre-ordained mercy which Allah placed in Muhammad Sallallahu alayhi sallam. Sahalat to study is a third century scholar from Persia, so you know he's really smart. There's another verse here, I skipped over it last week, but verse 256 of al-Baqarah, this is right after ayah two al-Kursi, where Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala says, whoever believes in Allah has taken hold of the firmest handle, al-Urwatu al-Wuthqa, al-Urwatu al-Wuthqa. Abdul Rahman As-Sulami said, this is the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi sallam. So he is sure footing and a firm handhold. So you can think of an analogy, imagine a parable, imagine you have to climb the face of a steep mountain and you have a friend at the top of the mountain who throws down to you a safety cable, he says, tie this around your waist. So you tie the safety cable around your waist and then your friend tells you exactly where to put your feet in your hands, put your hand here, put your foot here, put your hand here. So in this parable, your friend at the top is Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala, it's only a parable, wa lillahi l-mati l-ila'a'ala. The goal is to reach him, he throws down to you a lifeline, a safety cable, hablullah, this is the analogy used. wa'atasimu bihabili l-lahi jami'an wa la tafarrahu, hold on tightly, all of you to the cable extension, the safety line, the safety rope, the safety cable, however you want to say it, that Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala extends down for you. And then the hand holds and the foot holds, qadama siddqin ar-ulwatu l-wuthqa, these are the sunnah. These are the sunnah. Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala, and of course the steep hill represents the dunya. How do we get through the dunya and meet our friend at the top as it were? Yes, we have the Quran and sunnah. hablullah qadama siddqin ar-ulwatu l-wuthqa. There are some who tie the rope around their waist and they reject the foot holds and the hand holds. So I don't need this, I'll find my own way. So they start climbing and they slip, and then the rope catches them from falling. They climb some more and they slip and the rope catches them and they almost get to the top, the rope snaps and they fall and they're doomed because there's no separating the Quran from sunnah. It's an illogical position. The Quran says atti'u Allah wa ati'u Rasul. Obey Allah, obey Allah, which means obey the Quran and obey the Rasul. What is that, sunnah? It's an illogical position. Does it make any sense? It's like someone says, I only follow the Quran and I drink alcohol. You only follow the Quran? Really? Section three now. Let's see what we're doing on time. It's halfway there. Any questions? Clarifying questions? Everything's okay? All right, section three, concerning Allah's kindness and gentleness to him. So Qadi Iyad, he quotes this ayah, which is ayah 43 of At-Tawbah, 943. Allah has pardoned you. Why did you give them leave before it was clear to you which of them spoke the truth? And you knew the liars. So the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, is being admonished here, is reprimanded here by Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, and this happens a few times, a couple of times in the Quran. Samarqandi said that one of the people of knowledge said, Allah has protected, the meaning of Allah has pardoned you. He said, Allah has protected you sound of heart. Why did you then give them leave? He says, if the Prophet had first been addressed with the words, why did you give them leave? If that was the beginning of the ayah, lima adinta lahum, he says, his heart might have burst out of terror at these words. A direct reprimand from Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. However, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala informed him first of pardon by his mercy so that his heart would remain calm. And only then did he say to him, lima adinta lahum. Why did you give them leave? So the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he gave some men permission to stay behind and not go out for the tabooq expedition. So his point here is that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala began the reprimand to his Habib by saying, I've already forgiven you, but why did you give them leave? And this is different. If Allah would have said, ghafara allahu lak, ghafara, right? The ghafara according to Imam al-Ghazali. This is one of the names of al-Ghafir, al-Ghafur, al-Ghaffar. Ghafara means to conceal something according to Imam al-Ghazali in its etymology. To conceal it, but it's still kind of there. But al-Ghafur, Allah is the effacer, al-Ghafara allahu lak, erased it completely. See, Imam al-Ghazali says this is more effectual. This is more soothing to the heart that here, Allah began al-Ghafara allahu lak. It's completely gone, but why did you give them leave? This shows the high station with Allah, says Qadir Yad, which is not hidden from anyone with the least intelligence. It shows the honor by which he holds his Prophet and his kindness to him. And if the whole of it were known, the heart would burst. The same applies to the words. We know that what they say grieves you. Qadir, na'lamu innahu layahzunuka aladiyakulun. We know that what they say grieves you, gives you huzun. So innahum la yukadhibunaka wa lakinna dhalimina bi aayatillahi yajhadun. It is not you they call a liar, but the evil doers, it is the signs of Allah, the ayatullah that they deny. So what is the ayah saying? The mushriqin did not doubt the sincerity of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam. Imam al-Tabari, Imam al-Zamakhshari, they mentioned that they nicknamed him as sadiq al-ameen. That was their name for him. It's not a name given in the Quran or hadith, although he's called Ameen and sadiq in sacred texts as well. But this is before the bi'athah. They claimed that the Prophet was sort of sincerely deluded, but this was also just an excuse. This is not accurate as well, because the ayah said, lakinna dhalimina bi aayatillahi yajhadun. They have juhud in Arabic. The verb yajhadun comes from the word juhud, kufr juhud, is to know something is true in your heart, but you just can't bring yourself to acknowledge it with the tongue. You hold a belief in the qalb, but it's not gonna manifest on the tongue. Why? Out of arrogance, or some sort of ulterior motive, desire, or out of spite. People who just can't admit they're wrong about something. Ali said that Abu Jahl told the Prophet, we do not call you a liar. We say that what you have brought is a lie. So Allah revealed this ayah. It is also related that the Prophet was distressed when his people cried, lies against him. So Jibril alaihi salam came to him and said, why are you distressed? He said, my people have called me a liar. Jibril said, they know that you are telling the truth. Then Allah sent down this ayah. So this was very shocking to the Prophet sallallahu alaihi sallam. These people who always loved him and trusted him and gave him these lofty titles, just suddenly accusing him of being a liar. I don't know if I can give an adequate analogy. You know who Galileo was? Is it an Italian astronomer from the 17th century? He gets no Galileo. Galileo probably had a 200 IQ and he was a Catholic. And so he was a genius. Everyone knew he was a genius. Imagine like he goes to some of his colleagues and he says, you know, I think it's heliocentrism. I think the earth is going around the sun. And they say, what are you stupid? Imagine how that would hit him. How can I be stupid? I'm gonna live. You've called me a genius, my whole life. And now I'm suddenly stupid. It doesn't make any sense. You just don't like what I'm saying because there's something about your doctrine that it doesn't sit well with you. It's like the allegory in the caves that Plato gives in the Republic. These people sitting in a cave looking at shadows on the wall, one man gets up and he sees the actual forms, the reality of what's casting the shadows. So he goes back to the people and he says, this is fake. This is a reflection. Reality's outside. And they say, shut up and sit down. You don't know what you're talking about. They start beating him. So he sits down. But now he's blind. You can't see the shadows anymore. People just get, they get comfortable in their ways. All right, so Imam al-Tabari says, the real reason why they rejected the Quran is because of their moral stubbornness. They did not want to be moral people. They enjoyed their hedonistic lifestyles. So the Prophet's theocentrism, but God at the center is moral principles would compromise their positions of power and influence and pleasure. So most of the mushadikin actually respected the Prophet sallallahu alaihi sallam. They respected him, but they could not accept his message. Conversely, most of the bani Israel and Yathrib in Medina to Manawara, they respected his message. It's tohi, but they can't accept the man. Because he's not Jewish. He's Arab. There was a prevalent belief amongst them. I mean, systematic Jewish theology wasn't born for another 400 years. Apparently there was a belief that there are no Gentile prophets. The hadith says that many of the Jews in Medina did believe he was a prophet. Bukhari says that there's a hadith, relates a hadith, that they would sneeze in his presence on purpose. See him walk by. Hachu. And then the Prophet said, yalhamukum allah. He said, I mean, because they thought he was a prophet, but he's for the Arabs. He's not for us. This type of thing. Oh, by the way, that verse, we know that what they say grieves you is not you, they call a liar, but the evil doers. That's surah tul an'am, chapter six, verse 33. Now on page 14. Then Allah consoles him. This is the second full paragraph. Then Allah consoles him and makes him rejoiced by what he says about those before and the promise of his help to come. So Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala tells the Prophet peace be upon him and the next ayah, ayah 34, surah tul an'am, wa laqad kuthibat rusulun min qablika. Messengers before you will be lied. Fa'sabaru ala ma kuthibu. They endured patiently that they were called liars. Wa'udhu, and they suffered. Hatta atahum nasruna. Until our help came to them. Then Qadi I'iyadi mentions among the things that are mentioned about his special qualities, of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam, is that Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala addresses the other prophets by their actual first names, the Ism-e-Alam, ya Adam, ya Nuh, ya Ibrahim, ya Musa, ya Dawood, ya Isa ibn Maryam, ya Zakaria, ya Yahya. But he never says ya Muhammad in the Quran. That Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala uses the title of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam, ya ayyuha al rasul, ya ayyuha nabiyu, ya ayyuha al muzzamil, ya ayyuha al muddathir. Section four concerning Allah swearing by His imminent, by His immense worth. Allah quotes the ayah 72 suratu al-hijr, la amruka, la amruka, innuhum la fee sakratihim ya'amahun. By your life, Allah takes an oath by the life of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam. They are wandering about in their drunkenness. And Ibn Abbas said, I have not heard that Allah made an oath by the life of any other person. Allah did not create, originate, or make any soul. That He honored more than the soul of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam. Allah says, yaasin mal Quran al haqeem. What surah is this? Yes, I think that's good. The commentators disagree about the meaning of yaasin, saying different things about it. Abu Muhammad Maki related that the Prophet said, I have 10 names with my Lord. I think this hadith is in the shama'il as well. He mentioned tahaa and yaasin. So these are from the ayat mutashabihaat. These are obscure verses that are not definitively established in their meanings. There are 29 Suwar of the Quran that begin with these muqatta'at, as they're called. These disjointed letters, alif lamim, alif lamra, haamim, yaasin, alif, noon, kathaya, ainsaat. So Allah knows. Some of the ulema engaged in a ta'weel. Ta'weel is like an esoteric exegesis. But all of them say Allah knows. Nobody really knows. But that's the thing about a scholar, you say. Nobody knows. Well, maybe it means this. Allah knows. Abdurrahman As-Sulami said, Ja'far Al-Sadiq, who was a great imam of Ahlu Sunnah wa Al-Jama'a, by the way. Ja'far Al-Sadiq is the sixth imam of the Shia. But we claim him as a Sunni imam. He was the teacher of Malik Ibn Anas and Abu Hanifa. He's the great, great, great grandson of the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, Marja'far Al-Sadiq. He said the meaning of yaasin is yaa Sayyid, addressing the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. Here's a popular book that some of our brother-in-love called Kitab al-Tohid, by Mohamed Abdul Wahhab. Very popular book, where he says that calling the Prophet Sayyid is not preferable. He quotes a hadith of Abu Dawood. But he classifies it as weak. But he says nonetheless, he quotes a hadith that a waft, a delegation from Bani Amr came to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, and they said, Anta Sayyiduna, you are our Sayyid. And the Prophet said, Sayyid Allah, Allah is the Sayyid. Then he continued, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, don't let Shaytan provoke you. In other words, be careful about exaggerating my status. This is not a prohibition against calling him Sayyid. He is a Sayyid. In fact, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he said, Inna Ibn Hadda Sayyidun. Who is he talking about? Imam Hassan, his grandson. How can Imam Hassan be a Sayyid, but the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is not Sayyid, or it's not preferable to call him Sayyid. The Prophet said in a hadith that is absolutely sound. Bukhariyn Tirmidhi, Anas Sayyidu Walili Adam, Walaa Fakhar, I am the master of the children of Adam. And it's not a boast, this is the truth. Allah Subhanahu Wa'Ta'ala says in the Quran, about Yahya Alaihi Wasallam. The Maqam of Yahya is not the Maqam of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. Yahya is not even from the Ulul Azimina Al-Rusul. Anallahu Yubashiruka Bi-Yahya Musaddiqan Bi-Kalimatin Min Allahi Wa Sayyidan Wa Hasura, that Yahya is called Sayyid. So if you know your Aqidah, then it is preferable to refer to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam as Sayyid, because this is a reality. If you don't know Aqidah, using terms for Allah and for the Prophet then, right? Like the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he said, don't write down the hadith initially. So that's not confused with the Quran. But when you become familiar with the Quran, you become familiar with the hadith, then start recording things, record my hadith. This is why when you make da'wah to someone, you shouldn't be talking about jinn in your first da'wah attempt, right? You should talk about tohi, where you start giving exposition of the shari'ah and things like that. You're gonna lose people. Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says, alif, laa meem, laa likal kitab, laa raiwafi. Ibn Abba said that these letters are oaths, qasam, which Allah swears. He and other people have said various things. Sahala Tustali said, alif is Allah. Laam is Jibril, and meem is Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. Section five, concerning Allah's oath to confirm his place with him. So here Qadi Iyad, he quotes the entire surah, ad-duhah. The translation says surah 94, but that's incorrect. Surah 93, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says, and Imam al-Suyti, by the way, he says about the surah. Surah 93, ad-duhah, as well as al-inshirah, the surah that follows after it. Imam al-Suyti says in the itqan that this is one of three or four times in which the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam received a surah through interior locution without angelic mediation. That this surah was placed directly into his heart, directly by Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, without the mediation of Jibril, alaihi salam. ad-duhah wa l-laili idha saja, ma wada aqarabuka wa ma qala. She translates, your Lord has, so by the four noon and the night when it is still, your Lord has neither forsaken you nor hates you. So the Arabic doesn't say you. qala, na qala ka, right? Even though qala is a fi'il muta'adi, generally requires a direct object, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala doesn't give a direct object because Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala would never hint that he hates the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. Why would Allah say this? Your Lord has not forsaken you, nor does he hate, and it's understood you, but he doesn't say that. It's because, according to the tafsir, asbabun nuzul, that it was a break in the revelation for a few days or months, there's a difference of opinion. Some of the mushrikin were making fun of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, and they say things like, inna rabbahu wa da'ahu wa qalaahu, his Lord has forsaken him and he hates him. ma wada aqarabuka wa ma qala, wa l-l'akhiratu khairu l-laka min al-uula. What is later is better than what is former. Literally what it says. The afterlife is better than a dunya, but the Arabic doesn't say dunya. khairu min al-dunya, uula, it could mean dunya. The afterlife is better than the dunya for you. Or you can take it to mean, what comes later is better than what's happening now. There's gonna be madina later. That's better. There's still gonna be problems of madina, that's life. But it's gonna be better than now. O la sofa yurutika rabbuka fatarudha. And sofa, sofa is used in Arabic for distant future. It's gonna take some time, but eventually your Lord will give you something and immediately you're going to be pleased. But you have to go through some trials. According to Abu Nu'im, Imam Ad-Dailami, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, lan arudha wa wahidun min ummatifinna. I will never be pleased while one person from my umma is in the fire when this ayah was revealed. That, o la sofa yurutika rabbuka fatarudha. Soon will your Lord give you something and you'll be pleased. What will the Lord give him? Qawthar al shafa'a, make him head of state in madina. All of these things come in the future. And then Allah Subhanahu Wa'Ta'Ala, is that the Allah? And then Allah Subhanahu Wa'Ta'Ala, he gives us three rhetorical questions. He gives the Prophet three rhetorical questions as reminders of past blessings. And this is a good way of dealing with depression. The Prophet was a little bit down during this time. And psychologists say that a good way of coming out of depression is just remind yourself of the blessings in your life. Sit down and just think about the blessings. What's happened in the past? alam yajidika yateeman fa'awa. Did he not find you an orphan and give you shelter? His father died before he was born. His mother died when he was six. His grandfather died when he was eight. Abu Talib raised him. Abu Talib was the means by which Allah sheltered his Prophet. And the Prophet returned the favor by the way. When Abu Talib was much older, he had some financial issues and he couldn't take care of all of his sons. So the Prophet said, give me one. He said, take Ali. Say, Ali was raised in the Ahl al-Bait of the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. The house of the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. Wa wajadakal da'alan fahadah. This is a bad translation that she made here. Did he not find you misguided? That's a terrible translation. Da'alan here does not mean misguided. It means to be searching for something, wandering. Is it right then? Oh, shalom. That's good. I have an old edition. Any questions? It signifies a type of greatness in that object itself. And this is something that the pre-Islamic Arabs, the Shua'ara, the poets would have recognized. So the Quran is not poetry, but it is poetic. So Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is appealing to the initial audience of the Quran. And so the initial audience are seven century Arabs that are extremely gifted in poetry. Now the interesting thing about the Quran is according to Imam Bakilani, it doesn't fit any of the meters of Jahl-i poetry. This is what Bakilani considers to be sort of an element of the erjas of the Quran, element of the sort of inimitability of the Quran, is that it's just unclassifiable. The Arabs didn't know what to do with it. But pre-Islamic era poetry had these types of oath statements, oath clusters as they're called. So it appealed to their sort of tastes and they knew that if Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is taking an oath by something, then that thing must be great. So Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala only takes oaths by great things in the Quran and we can only take oaths by Allah. If Allah, if we don't take oaths by anything else. I just wanna finish this part right here, inshallah. Yes, oh, go ahead, no, no, go ahead. Yeah, go ahead. Repeat the question. Just comparing the afflux that the Prophet asked for compared to the afflux that, or not that the Prophet asked for but that was given to the Prophet that we eat. Yeah, so according to our prophetology, a prophet is, any prophet is incapable of consciously disobeying Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala but they can make errors in judgment. So this was a slip in the judgment of the prophets of Allah because he's not all knowing, he doesn't. He's not infallible in that sense that Allah is perfect, right? Prophets can make errors in judgment. Yunus A.S., according to his judgment, these people in Nineveh, they're not gonna believe in the Taukhid. So he said to himself, let me go to a different city for the Da'wah but he didn't take permission from Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. So Allah dealt with him harshly because the higher the maqam, the more that's expected from you, right? That's why sometimes you have someone who has a lot of knowledge, might even be a hafiz of Quran who is really not doing what he's supposed to be doing and things go really bad in his life, really bad because there's a high expectation from this person, right? As far as us, we commit, you know, kabahir sin. So when we ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala for Afwah, we're asking for Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala to completely efface all of those sins. Whereas with the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, all those minor sort of slips of errors and judgments are effaced. So one of the favorite du'a's of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is Allahumma inna ka'afu wa tuhibu al-afwa, fa'afu anna. Right, this is one of his most favorite du'a's, especially during the month of Ramadan. Insha'Allah ta'ala make du'a, call on the name al-na'afu, that on the day of qiyamah, these things that we do are completely just erased from the record, there's no trace of them. That's what it means. Do you want to start with me? Any other question from the sister side? Yeah, I just wanted to make that comment. So it's been corrected, wandering, instead of misguided. Wa wajarika la al-anfahada, that the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam was searching for a shari'a, a revealed law. He never strayed from Tau'id and he was never immoral even by the standards of the shari'a, even before the shari'a. He was from the Hunafa, he was from the Abrahamic Monotheists who were still around in Mecca at the time. He never worshiped idols. Wa wajarika al-anfahadna, did he not find you needy and enrich you? So Imam al-Baghawah here says that this is a reference to our mother, Khadija tul-Kubra, that Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala is reminding the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam of the blessing of a good and supportive wife that she was his first disciple, that she encouraged him. There's a hadith in Abu Dawood that we're told that years after the death of Khadija when the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam was living in Medina, a necklace once owned by Khadija was brought to Medina in order to ransom one of the captives at Badr. And Aisha says when the Prophet sa'ad, raqalaha rqatan shadeedatan, that he had this like intense sensitivity and tenderness towards just an object from his first wife. He had remembered how much he had. That's the Islamah. We'll continue next week in short.