[0:00]Last time in this Surah Rahman series, human beings actually need recognition from each other. We doesn't matter how how you pretend you don't. You you do. You need your dad to be able to you want to hear your dad say I love you. Or I'm proud of you, son. You need it. You need your teacher to be able to say good job on the homework. Right? Your your your boss to be able to say that was a great job on the project. Thank you. Or you want to hear a thank you. You want to hear a I, you know, you exist. I see you. You know, what happens to people in they're in a stadium. They're going and the athlete just goes Like that. And he just pointed randomly at the the Pepsi vending machine. But the guy in the the stand he's like You know, he just got recognized. His life has changed. You know, he pointed at me, you know. There's a human need for recognition. And Allah separates himself from that. And he says actually I don't have that. You do. I don't have the need for recognition. That's that's that's one of the things that makes you mortal. That's one of the things that makes you. The doesn't have it, you have it. And it's actually Allah's Rahmah that he allowed himself to be recognized. He allowed himself to be recognized.
[2:14]Sanlakum Ayyuha thaqalan, we shall free ourselves up for you all of you. Uh both you two heavy loads, Thaqalan, you two heavy loads. Let's dig into this ayah and first understand the word freeing yourselves up. Al-fara lil shai' al-khuluw 'amma yashgul 'anhu. Fara means to uh be empty of other things or to to relieve yourself of other things that were preoccupying you. Wa huwa tamtheel lil-i'tina' bi-shai'. And it's used as an analogy when you become focused on one thing. Qawlu Abi Bakr al-Siddiq libnihi 'Abd al-Rahman: 'Ifrig ila adyafaka'. Abu Bakr al-Siddiq gave advice to his son using a phrase, 'Free yourself for your guests.' In other words, he was giving him advice that when your guests come over, make them feel like they have your full attention. Right? So, 'ufrigh li-adyāfika.' Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala la yashghuluh sha'nun 'an sha'nin fa-ju'ila intiha' al-shu'un al-mushar ilayha bi-qawlihi Ta'ala: 'Kullu yawmin huwa fi sha'n.' Yawm al-Qiyamah ila wahid huwa jaza' al-mukallifin. And then finally, I'll read this and translate both. Wallahu Ta'ala laysa lahu shughl. Ay yafrughu minhu. Innamal ma'na sanqisidu li-mujazatikum wa muhasabatikum. Scholars got a little bit troubled by the phrase, 'We'll free ourselves up for you' because it sounds like I'm busy with something, I'm gonna stop doing that, and I'll free myself up. Right? And that sounds inappropriate for Allah. Right? To to free himself up for something. As if something else was preoccupying him. Because when when you're preoccupied with something, it means you're unable to do other things, until you free yourself up. How can that that that seems like a limitation. How can you attribute a limitation to Allah Subhanallah? This is where we learn the difference. There's a very important feature of the Quran. The Quran uses humor. The Quran uses sarcasm. The Quran expresses emotion. And we cannot look at the Quran all the time literally. We can't. Allah, for example, will say hearts became hard like like rocks. Right? You cannot look at that literally. Allah Allah says the the sun was sinking into muddy water. The sun was not sinking into muddy water. That's how it looked. Like the the, you know, I love watching the sun drown into the Pacific coast, right? The west coast. The sun is not drowning into the coast. That's how it looks. This is the language of literature, not the language of science. So the same way, this is the language, this is literary and emotional language. Allah is saying he'll free our himself up to to give us a pretty scary hint. Right now he described everyone is in need of him. And by extension, what he didn't say, which is understood, is everything is in need of him. The sun and the moon are following a precise measurement because Allah is putting it that way. The stars and the and the the tree are doing sajda because Allah is making them do that and keeping them in place. Now imagine Allah is essentially telling the human being, threatening the human being and saying, human being and jinn and saying, All these this universe that you think is preoccupying me, how about I stop maintaining it? How about I allow it to fall apart?
[5:31]Let it collapse. Let it do what it's meant to do all along, because actually it's its essence is destruction, and the only thing holding it in place is Allah. So when he decides to not hold it in place anymore, maybe then you'll realize, oh, wow, Allah is letting that go. So now I am the sole focus of his attention. So this is actually sarcastic language. It's not speaking about Allah's focus, it's speaking about how we think about Allah in incorrect ways, human beings and jins, and it's responding to that. Then the word . Every great thing that is competed for is . Any large quantity, any large, you know, volume of things is called a , like for example, you know, , the Prophet is leaving two heavy things, the Book of Allah and his legacy behind, right? So that's the word is used in that way.
[6:33]But let's actually understand the word in some other ways. You know, human beings and jins start thinking that they are such a massive population. That I I want you to visualize this. You know, when police try to arrest a rioting crowd of like a thousand people, 5,000 people, 10,000 people, how many people can they arrest? A few hundred, a few dozen. What happens to most people? They run away, and because they run scattered in every direction. There's too big of a crowd for you to be able to catch all of them. Like, you know, if the kids were misbehaving in the playground and the principal walked in, all the kids dispersed, the only one that gets caught is the one he could reach and grab on to, right? So you'll see these scenes all the time. The police come and they beat down somebody while everybody else is running. So they just catch whoever they can catch, right? So, the idea that we're such a large population that chances are enough of us will escape. Not all of us are going to get caught because of just the sheer volume of humanity. And Allah says, yeah, you think you're such a heavy population? Let's see. Let's see how how well you escape when I free myself up for you. So this is . The other meaning of , which is heaviness, Perhaps is a reference to the burden of sins and disobedience and rebellion that each human being has been carrying on themselves. Right? And as a result of it, they have actually burdened the earth. The earth feels like it's overburdened with the sins of this creation, the human being, inspired by the shayatin, right? And so when Allah says in , and the earth discharges its burdens, That the earth will spit out its burdens. And part of those burdens is it's carrying these sinful souls that it rejects, because the earth was designed to be in obedience to Allah, and it allowed for these disobedient souls to live on it. It spits them out on Judgment Day. It it regurgitates them. It doesn't want to keep them inside. Allah allowed them to be Allah allowed the earth to relieve itself of this mutation, this impurity that's inside it, these dirty souls, right? So could actually be referring to the sinful burdened souls of both jins and human beings. These these people, these populations that have a lot to pay for, because they've they've they've burdened themselves.
[8:55]It's also interesting this imagery of weight and lightness, like Allah says in Surah An-Nisa, he says Allah wants to lighten your burden, which means Allah is giving you rules that make life easier, but also means that on Judgment Day you won't have a heavy burden to carry. When if you if you obey Allah, right? But now with this word, I think we should we should understand that these words are not for all of humanity and all of jinn. These words are now for those that are to be threatened on Judgment Day. Those are the ones being talked to. Another really important subtlety inside this ayah is you will notice and is not used what's used? So you would expect here We will free ourselves up for both of you. You two heavy populations. However, he says we will free ourselves for all of you. is all of you, it's not the pair, it's the plural. So why switch from the pair to the plural? Because on Judgment Day, right now, jins and humans are two separate groups.
[10:02]But when Judgment Day starts, those same shayatin that were coming and whispering to me, and and if I listened to them, they became my partners in crime. Judgment Day happens, and that same jinn that was messing with me my whole life, That same shaytan, he's going to be like, yeah, me too. Hey, who are you? Uh my I'm. I've been with you a long time, bro. Let's just, listen, I don't want to anything to do with you right now. I know I've been you my whole life, but I'm just going to try to run. So they're trying to get away from each other. But they're going to be raised together. We these people, these devils are invisible to us now. They won't be on Judgment Day. And so we we are now together. And the captures together. So even though you're two heavy populations of humans and jins, now you're bound together, because you you work with each other. You did this together. So this is talking about people who listen to the shayatin. Who did evil things, They suggest alluring words to one another. They're the ones that inspired each other. This is the population that's being talked about, okay? So which of the favors of your Lord would you deny? Now this this ayah, what other wonders of your master are you still going to be in denial of? Are you still going to dismiss? Is actually taken on a new flavor. You see in the previous ayats, you know, just ponder your creation. Just ponder what Allah has made in this world. Just ponder that your death is coming. Now realize that Allah will free himself up, and you think you're just walking around denying him? A time is coming where you're not going to have that freedom. He's going to he's going to put his full attention on you. And when that happens, there's an announcement being made. This Surah is the opening scene of Judgment Day. There are other places in the Quran where there are episode two, episode three, episode four of Judgment Day, other phases. Because Judgment Day is a long day. But this Surah is the opening chapter. Like what happens in the very, very beginning, right? And there are there are other Surahs that have this this opening scene, different aspects of that opening scene. This is one of them. So an announcement is heard. Jinn and mankind, if you can pass beyond the regions of heaven and earth, then do so: you will not pass without Our authority.
[12:32]This is this is, I mean, this is my own translation of the ayah, but let's let's dig into some things here. Who was addressed here first, human beings or jinn? Which is unusual, because the primary address of this Surah so far has only been human beings. So the context has switched just a little bit. Why? Well, this is one of the two ayats in the Quran that are about a challenge. Where jins and human beings are challenged. One of those challenges happens in this world, and the other is happening in the opening scene of Judgment Day here, okay? So one of them is in Surah al-Isra, Surah number 17, and the other one is here. So let's talk about that one for a second. Allah says, Say, 'O Prophet, 'If all humans and jinn were to come together to produce the equivalent of this Quran, they could not produce its equal, no matter how they supported each other.' Tell them, if human beings and jins were gathered to produce the likes or the equivalent of this Quran, they will not be producing anything equivalent to it. Even if they were to back up one another. Allah already told us jins back up human beings for all kinds of projects. Here's a project. You can back up each other all you want. You're not getting anywhere close. What is that project? The production of something like the Quran. If you were paying attention, there Allah mentioned human beings first, and the jinn. Here, this is the second challenge. Judgment Day comes. Hey, if you think you can escape, Go ahead. That's the second challenge. The first challenge was make something like the Quran. That was in this life. The second challenge is, go ahead and escape on Judgment Day if you can. That's what the announcement. And this announcement the jinn are mentioned first. What's remarkable is producing something like the Quran. The Quran is . Isn't it? Who was taught? Jins or human beings? We learned that in this Surah, didn't we? So who's more capable of that challenge? Of producing if there was if there was someone ready to accept that challenge of producing the likes of the Quran, it would be the one who has, and who's that? Human beings, so human beings were mentioned there first. Between the ability to escape, if you compare the ability to escape between jins and human beings, who's more capable of escape? Jins are way more capable of escape than we are. So jins are mentioned first. Here. Is a remarkable precision in the Quran down to the word level, right? And what's really also interesting here is Allah mentions you know, if you can if you can pierce through the peripheries of the skies and the earth. Skies are mentioned first, earth is mentioned second. Jins are mentioned first, humans are mentioned second, because jins are much more capable of escaping into the skies, and human beings are going to be running around trying to escape somewhere into the earth, right? So there's a correspondence between jinn and ins and the samawat wal-ard inside the ayah. So you see something about how the ayah is organized. Now, let's dig into some some words. brief comment on . comes from . Arabs here know, non-Arabs might also know what means? 10. means a large family, a family of nearly 10 or 10 or more. Ma'shar means groups of 10, 10 and 10 and 10, meaning people that come in legions, people that come in groups, right? So actually even though all of jins and all of criminal human beings are gathered together, they're they're actual bunches. They're clicks, they're posses that are showing up. They're each one of them, you know? Because they were not not everyone knew everyone, right? So certain a group of people, certain social group that knew each other. So now that's . We don't this is not that important. But now let's go to . The word is used for nostrils, earlobes,
[16:30]Any place skin pores, anything that has an opening is . And it's used for an arrow that if somebody shot an arrow to like a shot an animal and the arrow went inside the body and came out of the other side, but only the tip of it came out of the other side and pierced through the other side. So you the arrow is basically inside the body and the tip of it is sticking out of the other end. That's actually called . Okay? So and it's also used for a pathway between mountains, that's also also called a . So all of what that all means is piercing through, like a pathway that pierces through the mountains or pores in which through which you can pierce into the body. That openings or the arrow that pierces through the body, right? So this word is being used now to describe Basically what you can call crossing the border. Piercing through the border. And the the word for border now that's being used, I'll come back to that one, is from the word , which is a drop, like . Like the word . But it also means rows of things. So the visualization here of is like, you know, like uh security posts? So you have borders and you have like a tower, and then you have a fence, then you have another tower, then you have a fence, you have another tower, and each one of those towers is a Qatar. And there's a row of them. Rows of trees are also called Ahtar. You know, the rows of camels that are lined together are also called Ahtar, right? So, the point is, this is this is on the peripheries of the the skies and the earth. The image here is that of, hey, that looks like it's not a guarded post. Maybe we can escape from that side. Oh, maybe that one's a little bit abandoned. Maybe we can go over there, right? Many countries have border crossing issues, right? And where do people cross the border from? Where they are most there's the most vast opening. Right? There's large amounts of landscape, like Arizona, for example, right? So there's a more possibility of border crossing that can happen there. There are parts of Europe where people are crossing, you know, crossing by way of sea, because there's large, large area to cover, so they can get through and pierce through the border, right? So the idea is if you can penetrate through and escape from this, go ahead and do so. Now, some people have looked at this ayah and they created a new interesting problem, because, you know, the moon landing, Which some say never happened, and how could it happen? Because the Quran says it's impossible. Because Allah said, "You're not going to be able to do it." Oh, my God, they landed in the moon. These have made a fake video about the moon landing. And these satellites that are in space and all of that, these are all fake, because Allah says, "You're not going to be able to cross." Easy solution to that problem, ladies and gentlemen, is that the skies, how many are there? There are seven skies, and the first sky is decorated with stars. Allah says the first sky is decorated with stars. And the stars, the farthest of them are about 14 billion light-years away from us. Right? So um we're no, I mean, even if you made it to the moon, you haven't even made it past like the front porch. Like you, you're still you're still, you know, you're basically still like in the in the stoop. Right? So the is a distance, you haven't even crossed the world already. So no need to panic. The the second the second thing is, uh, this isn't talking about right now. Allah says, "We will we will free ourselves up for you." The context of the surah is important. When he frees himself up for us, everyone's dead, and, you know, every he's busy all the time. Oh, you think he's that busy? He shall free himself up for you. And now he says, "Escape if you want." What is this scene describing? This life? This is Judgment Day. This is Judgment Day. We have to be mindful of context. Mindful of context. The there are so many times people quote an ayah of the Quran and say stuff and make memes about it. And I read that stuff, and I'm like, can you just read the surah a little bit? Can you read a little bit? Can you read the rest of the ayah sometimes? Even the rest of the ayah. Before you put this, and people are like, "Masha'Allah. Masha'Allah. Alhamdulillah." You know, I It's just the the the level of ignorance and disregard of the context of the Quran. And what Allah is saying. Let's let's which is why we have to look at a surah as a unified entity. And you have to respect the boundaries of a surah. And you have to look at a surah like, I I always invite my students, when you're about to study a new surah, think of it as you're entering into a new palace, a new world. You know, and you're going to you know, observe all of its walls, all of its decor, all of its designs, all of its alleyways, all of the ways that the colors come together, right? You're just you're in awe of this incredible, majestic, divine palace, right? Treat a surah that way. Now, not take one brick from here and say, I know exactly what this is about. Wait, hold on. It's a part of a building. It's part of something larger, right? So that's the attitude we should have towards studying surahs of the Quran. And there's one thing I'm hoping with the with this lecture series, like going around and doing these surahs. I could have been doing this at home. Like I could have just turned a camera on and talked about Surah Rahman. I'm cool with that. But one of the reasons I'm doing this is because I feel, this is my own feeling, the study of the Quran is actually the only orphan subject in Islamic studies nowadays. Like we're studying everything else. I'm taking a fiqh class. I'm studying sirah. I'm studying this. That's all great. Wonderful. But you know, the whole thing, Islam, kind of emanates from where? From the Quran. That's the core of our religion. Like everything else is the offshoot. Everything else supplements this. And what's happened is now we only study Quran when one ayah comes up and we want to use it as a dalil for something or the other. Right? It's a reference it's a reference book. The Quran became a reference book. Evidences for my my real subject. But nobody says, okay, let's study Surah Al-Qamar. Let's study Surah Al-An'am. No, no, no, which ayah? Just tell me the ayah. What what's the subject of the ayah? Bro, the subject is Surah Allah gave us these divine gifts, each one of them, from the heavens. And we believe the we believe in their perfection. We believe in their endless wisdom. Then how come we don't commit ourselves to dedicated study of them? And my my belief is it's not just a job for Islamic universities or scholars, but this needs to become accessible to the Muslim public. Like people should just be more and more educated about surahs of the Quran. And one surah at a time. Let's, you know, take one divine gift at a time and give it some time. So I'm really happy you guys are getting to do this with me. Because I'm hoping this becomes part of a lifestyle for you, you know, that you're just on a journey, one surah at a time, and you're taking some time trying to understand what Allah is saying, you know? And as you're doing that, maybe you're even making attempts to memorize that surah. So even if it takes you six months, a year, it doesn't matter. But by the end of that, you have a deep relationship with at least one surah, one gift from Allah you have inside your heart, you know? Uh so that's that's just a uh on a on a side note. But anyway, And he mentioned angels will descend on Judgment Day. Like when your Lord comes with the angels, rank upon rank. Then they will have the entire creation surrounded. When the jins and human beings will see them, they'll try and run. They won't find anywhere to go except angels have already got it covered.
[27:04]This is actually the the meaning that he described.
