Elaborating on the theme of a Qur’anic verse identified at the beginning of the sermon (13:23), Hazrat Saheb (aba) notes that the true believers perform their social obligations and do all the services that they render only for the sake of God’s countenance: they do not do charity or other good deeds for selfish reasons, or out of pride or religious ostentation. Needy believers endure hardships caused by restricted means of livelihood, or other emotional deprivations, and yet they do not incline to evil and bad deeds, remaining steadfast in faith, in goodness and in fact, they also race to do good in their own way. Diligent in the performance of devotional prayer at prescribed times; disciplining the self and its inclinations in this temporary world; being mindful of the reckoning before the Lord on the Day of Judgement, true believers are hopeful of the enduring rewards of God’s pleasure and blessings in the Hereafter.
Read the Friday Sermon Below:
“And those who endure patiently, seeking their Lord’s
countenance, and establish the prayers and spend of what We provide them,
secretly and publicly, and who repel an evil deed with a good deed; for those
is the Ultimate Abode.”
(Surah Ar-Raad 13: 23)
Before mentioning the establishment of Salat
(prayer), there is not the mention of reading the Book, but another subject. Here
Allah is saying: The people who adopt patience and seek the Pleasure of Allah,
they establish the Salat. And from what Allah has granted them, they
spend secretly as well as openly.
Here also secretly has been mentioned before openly.
This is thus a well-established proof that there is nothing wrong in their
intention when they spend. People who are in the dark, they close their eyes,
and throw away their money [in vain things]. Such are the ignorant people,
except for those who have great intentions and they have the certainty that
Allah is watching them. For the latter, Allah says that they will receive the ultimate
abode as a reward. This means there is an abode after this temporal world. So, when
mention is being made of the final abode, this in fact refers to their future.
So the difference that there is in the reward, in fact
at the very beginning of the verse, we have understood this. In fact, when we mention
the people who adopt Sabr (patience), it means that in this world there
are also some people who hardly have a roof over their heads, who hardly get
the temporary riches of this world, and cannot buy good clothes for themselves,
neither clothes nor blankets, but in spite of the fact that they do not have
all this, they take patience and do not steal from the provisions of Allah on
earth. It means that they are deprived of certain Nihmat (benefits) such
as bed, laundry and other necessities, but despite this they do not try to acquire
their necessities by wrong means and thus attract the wrath of Allah. They
rather adopt patience. They only seek the pleasure of Allah. If they win the
Pleasure of Allah, then they don’t mind if they don’t receive those temporal
things – which are temporary. So, for this kind of people, their reward is the
final abode or home; it is such a home that has all the necessities, all the
comforts that will last as long as Allah wants it to last, where nothing will
be missing.
The Quran says that it is then that their wishes will
be fulfilled, in such a way that there is no distance between their wishes and
the fulfilment of their wishes. On one hand, they had a desire and on the other
hand, their desires have been fulfilled and are being fulfilled. They are
people whose establishment of Salat (prayer) has a connection with Sabr
(patience). In the Quran (Al-Baqara 2: 46), Allah has linked Salat with Sabr.
He says: “Wasta-innu bis Sabri was Salat.” [Seek help through
patience (Sabr) and prayer (Salat)]. So they don’t only make use of
patience but through prayer also they also make efforts to eradicate their
shortcomings and seek the pleasure of Allah.
Now concerning their spending in the path of Allah, despite
their poverty and their difficult situations, they continue to spend in the
path of Allah. Despite the dearth or lack of money to acquire the basic
necessities of life, they don’t go about seeking to acquire them through
illicit means. On the contrary, from the little they have acquired through
licit means, they spend it in the path of Allah. That is why Allah has made two
promises for those kinds of people. But before mentioning them, there is the
mention of another one of their quality, i.e. they want to replace evil with
good or they desire to shun evil and keep it at a distance by doing good deeds
– they want to spread goodness.
This subject has a link with their own being as well as
with their environment. It means that to make up for their shortcomings, to
make up for the lack of amenities and funds that they cannot afford and which
they thus cannot spend in the way of Allah, they find another way to help the
cause of Allah, and that other way is to propagate good and keep evil away; in
this way they seek the pleasure of Allah. When mentioning the same subject,
Hazrat Muhammad (pbuh) said that if you have nothing to spend in the way of
Allah, then a good word also will be counted as a spending (in the cause of
Allah). One should at least say good words if he does not have anything to
spend in the path of Allah. The act of keeping evil away and propagating good
is a natural desire which comes to those kinds of people to make up for the
lack of financial spending – finance that they don’t have to help the Cause of
Allah. There are many people like this who would have been happy to spend in
the way of Allah, but they have nothing to give. So to compensate the lack in
finance, they do Khidmat (Service), serving the Deen of Islam;
they serve Islam to fill that deprivation. And all the time they are foremost
in the service of Islam and they make great efforts to seek by any means the
pleasure of Allah.
Then Allah says that for these people is the final or
ultimate [pleasing] abode. The word “Uqbad-daar” that is used here means
that it may be that those people do not get that reward in this world itself
[but in the hereafter]. And Sabr (patience) has a double connection with
this subject. Many times a person, despite being deprived of all favours, all
necessities, lives a quiet life, a peaceful life just to gain the pleasure of
Allah. And he obtains this as a result of his patience. If he does not have
patience, then he can neither get this tranquillity (peacefulness), and there
is no guarantee that he will do good deeds.
Now if there is a person who does not even know what
is called the Pleasure of Allah, he is not aware of this, then how will he be
able to comfort himself about this deprivation (of not knowing the Pleasure of
Allah)? If there is no patience, then the poor would have been all the time a
source of danger for society. The level of his demands, of his desires begins
with small things [which he seeks], and it reaches up to great expectations of
acquiring more and more. A rich person will not even have the desire to steal
something if he finds it on the ground. If he is really rich and he finds some items
on the ground such as a handkerchief, pen and even a photo-camera or video-cam
etc., he is not even interested with this and even if he finds those things,
even then he would not make an evil intent to steal it. But on the contrary, if
he is a poor man, sometimes [due to his poverty and growing desires] he becomes
so wicked as to steals small things that people would not have expected him to
steal (as they are insignificant objects). They would not expect him, despite
his poverty to do such a crime. [So, patience helps the poor to focus on
helping the cause of Allah and other people despite their poverty – they are
unlike those who are not patient and falls prey to the evils and dangers of
poverty].
So instead of preventing himself from taking something
that doesn’t belong to him, and therefore doing a good deed, but instead of
that, when he doesn’t take patience and goes to commit a crime like stealing,
then this deed becomes a dark spot on the weight of his deeds, and it becomes
an opportunity for other people to humiliate him.
So, sometimes in poverty there are certain
obligations. That’s why Allah has linked this with the subject that there are
certain people who have certain requests that sometimes force them to leave
certain goods and plunge into certain evils. But here for the good believers
who are poor, they do the opposite. They ward off evil and spread goodness. So,
their poverty makes them even more beautiful. And this is the same goodness
that they propagate in society. Even though they have almost no money, but despite
this they give good advice and say good words to try to reform people and many
times this advice has much more [positive] effect than the advice given by rich
people.
Nowadays, there are also these kinds of people who are
poor, but spiritually rich. They are able to do good deeds and say good words.
It’s the image of this kind of people that is mentioned here. It in fact means
that it is not necessary and mandatory that you earn a reward for every good
deed, for what you spend in the path of Allah in this temporal world. There are
people whom Allah tests on patience and they will surely keep their faith strong
on patience. They are the ones who will win the final reward. That is, after
their death, all their desires and wishes that they did not yet achieve will be
granted to them, and Allah will give them a life of peace and tranquillity. All
of this is a boon. Now, besides the Jamaat Ul Sahih Al Islam, is there another
Jamaat that has a close link with this subject? Unfortunately, no one else! [That
is, it is through the Jamaat Ul Sahih Al Islam that this knowledge and
implementation of it will be perfected, Insha-Allah]. People like to snatch
the wealth of others. Nowadays, every organisation and political system, every
economic system and every society in the world, are studying and looking for
ways and means to extract money from others. Courts have also been established
for the same objective; same for the police force. The army also is doing the
same work. But to give up your right and spend for others and to spend on
others when you are yourselves in difficulty, this is what is required of you,
where you only have the pleasure of Allah in sight and you continue to spend on
good works.
This subject is very rich [in knowledge]. Insha-Allah,
I will come back on this subject again, next week. May Allah help us all to reflect
upon it, and to give value to spending in the way of Allah, not to please
people [as a show], but only for the Pleasure of Allah. Think that if Allah is
pleased with your deeds, then what the world thinks is worthless. It is the
pleasure of Allah that a true believer seeks; he seeks to please Allah and keeps
up the hope to see His countenance one day. Insha-Allah, Ameen.