Ramadan With The Quran – Day 16

Nouman Ali Khan

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Channel: Nouman Ali Khan

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Episode Notes

Surah Ash-Shams

In this talk, Ustadh Nouman offers deep insight into an oath Allah makes in ayat 7-8 of Surah Ash-Shams. Here Allah swears by the human nafs, the self, that He created in perfect proportions. Ustadh explains how it is this nafs that Allah inspired within every human being which distinguishes us from other creatures, and that He has given it the capacity to both destroy or protect and save itself. In the context of the previous oaths comparing night and day, these powerful ayat are a metaphor for the tug-of-war between good and evil, light and darkness within ourselves; between our material and spiritual needs. Allah has created this cycle so we can navigate the trials of life, knowing that like the moon, our hearts too go through phases. This constant struggle to purify our souls is the natural order of things.

2017-06-11 – Ramadan 2017

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well enough suwama Sawalha and then he takes an oath in the seventh Ayah This is where the subject is kind of changing and I swear by a you know every single look at it like that I swear by every single person, every single individual, or let's keep the proprietary term because the Quranic concept, I swear by that knifes itself the self, I swear by every single self, while Mr. Sawalha and how brilliantly it was evened out, meaning how brilliantly Allah evened out every person he put finishing touches on every person and balance them. So now we've talked about a number of things and in the seventh ayah, we're talking about a person who's been made balanced, we're gonna dig deep

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into that inshallah tada in a little bit, for I'll have Maha fujimura hahahahaha. And thus he inspired and the word ill harm I'm translating as inspired. Let me tell you a little bit about the word Ilham. lahab in Arabic actually means albula the fatten to swallow something whole. I don't have a means to shove something inside something to stick something inside you. It's using this word and Maha Maha foodora. Allah azza wa jal is saying that Allah put something inside us that was otherwise not there. That's what he's saying. Inside the knifes something wasn't there, there is an animal existence that we have, that did not contain what Allah put inside it otherwise, so let me

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tell you, you know, we human beings in evolution theory, we human beings are just the most evolved creature on the planet. That's all we are. So an ant has a brain, we have a brain.

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You know, a dog has legs, we have legs, we just have more advanced legs, and they build shelter, we build shelter, we just build more advanced shelter. They have emotions, we have 1000 times more complex emotions, but it's still, you could say an updated version of a monkey or an updated version of you know, a chicken or whatever else. In other words, we are essentially more advanced versions of more primitive creatures on the planet. That's all we are. There's nothing more to us. Okay, so that's that's what the conclusion is. That's the conclusion that is reached when you you know, subscribe to the theory that we are just made of this earth. There's nothing more to us a line this

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is saying, and I'm swearing by the fact that there's something inside you called enough's and inside of that knifes unless stuck something in it, I'll put something in it. In other words, he didn't put that in any animal. He only put that into human being. This is what's going to make you different from everybody else. What is that thing that Allah put inside us that makes us different from everybody else, he says for Allah Maha Fujiwara ha ha ha ha. He put he inspired inside of that knifes. Its capacity to explode. Its capacity to be, you can call it impulsive. fudger actually means the explosion of light, or when a waterfall explodes. This is in Fiji Roma.

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When rocks explode and water comes out that's in Fiji, when the light explodes in the morning. That's called a time of budget. When somebody explodes and does whatever they feel like doing, they're impulsive, they can't control themselves. They're called a faggio. Allah says Allah inspired or empowered the human being to do whatever, be reckless and do whatever he wants. And at the same time, what the law and he inspired the human being, to actually protect itself to meaning to destroy the enough's to explode enough for JIRA or its its capacity to explode. And it also inspired it with its capacity to protect itself to save itself to rescue itself. I'll take you back to what I said

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about the rule before. The rule has something Allah azza wa jal gave us and that was in the company of Allah. The room used to be in the company of Allah and now it's inside of us. So we have been our something inside of us is actually very deeply connected and close with Allah Himself. So kind of with Allah, that's a gift Allah gave to us. And that's why he says Holy Roman, Omri Robbie, it's from the decision of my rub this room that's inside of us. Now that rule has certain inclinations a little bit on the side but think about this for a second. The rule a lot because it's in the company of Allah. What do we know many things about Allah, for instance, we know in the La Jolla, Milan you

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have will Jamal, Allah is beautiful. He loves beautiful things. In the law, even a law even a law himself is good and pure. He doesn't accept anything else except unless it's good and pure. Right? You heard these descriptions of a law before now think about this. There's a monkey one beauty for the house it lives in does an ant want you know to decorate itself the insides of its residents. Doesn't want to dress better, doesn't want to eat more delicious food, doesn't want more purified drink. It doesn't a dog will just lick off of the ground whatever. A person you hand them a glass of water and it's a little bit dirty. What do we do?

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Just get a new glass. I need clean water. Alliance pure. He loves that which is pure. He puts the right hand side the human being to this day the human being when he dresses he wants to dress clean. When he eats he wants to eat clean when he sleeps. He wants to sleep clean.

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And on top of all of this, we are in pursuit of beauty. We want beautiful housing, we want beautiful clothes, we want beauty in life. We want to listen to beautiful things. We want to save beautiful things. We want to be in beautiful environments, what other creature cares? Nobody else cares. From the point of evolution, there shouldn't be any desire for beauty should just be survive. That should be good enough. Why do you need these additional things? And on top of that, not just do we do we want something to be beautiful? We want we want to discover more. We want to learn more, we crave wisdom, Allah Himself is wise. Human beings are desperate for wisdom. There are people who do a PhD

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go and do another PhD, they do another PhD. Right? Why are they studying? So why are they learning so much? What pleasure do they get from it? There's a craving inside of them for knowledge for wisdom, where does that come from? this right hand side then was given to them by Allah who is Al Hakim who is allowed him He is the wise he's the knowledgeable he inspires these qualities inside human beings and human beings act accordingly. Human beings act in a way no other creature acts you can explain this stuff. Allies loving, forgiving and loving. Lions forgive.

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You know birds forgive. Human beings demonstrate the qualities Allah azza wa jal inspired them with because of his closeness to them, you know, the names of Allah actually inspire qualities inside human beings. In any case, now, let's come back to the knifes and what makes the knifes so powerful. Allah says it has two capacities inside this neph sets between the body and the soul. It's the driver between the two, the body is pulling at it and saying to it, hey, I want I want I want I want, I want to eat whatever I want. I want to do whatever I want. I want to look at whatever I want, I want to talk to whoever I want. And the soul is saying do his thing, stop, stop, stop

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control yourself. balance, not this not that it's putting stops on it, you know, and this knifes has the capacity to do both. Now, before I go on

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to the the response to the oath, I will share with you what's happened so far in these ayat, we've talked about a lot of Iraq now. So let's try to tie all of them together. Before we move any further. We talked about the sun and how brilliant it is. And then the lead describe that the moon is actually submissive to the sun. In that Allaha the moon submits to the sun and it follows it humbly. It's as if the in this picture, the day is more powerful than the night isn't it? Because the sun is brilliant, and the moon is following. And then in the next image when the hottie the agenda, the day is you know the day has brought out the full glory of the sun, the sun is powerful

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again. But this time the night is more powerful. When they lead I have shot the night covered it up. So in the first two images, it was like Allah gave the day, the dominant position. And in the next two images will give the night the dominant position. And it's a lot of describing this constant struggle. What's the laughing lady with the heart, the conflict between night and day, sometimes days winning night is winning days winning night is winning. And that's actually it resembles the struggle going inside of a person going on inside of a person. inside of us. There's light and there's darkness just like there's night and day. And the light inside of us is pulling us and the

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darkness inside of us is pulling us to and sometimes the darkness is winning. And then the light is winning and then the darkness is winning and then the light is winning. And what's beautiful about it is even when you are in darkness, what's still in the sky, the moon is still there, whose light is still being reflected off the sun. So even when you fall into darkness, there's still a remnant of light left inside of you in Africa hula Mia Katya raha he's in the depths of darkness, he has not that he cannot even see his hand he says he almost can't see it had his hand in the depths of all darknesses human beings will still have some conscience left, some goodness inside them left. And

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that's actually kind of projecting the image of the night of the moon that still follows the sun even though there's no sign of the Sun left, but there still is light left. And the moon goes through phases, right. So sometimes the mind left inside you the conscience left inside you is so weak. It's like either kind of Oh, Julian khadim. It's barely visible like the new moon. But then it gets, you know, brighter and brighter and brighter, and then the day comes again and then your struggle comes again. So these struggles against our temptations against our weaknesses. This is a human struggle that's always going to be there. That's the natural order of things. This is what a

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lot wanted. But just like he created a balance between the night and the day. He says this knifes was made balanced. It doesn't tip entirely this way. It doesn't tip entirely this way. He inspired it to have both inclinations and inspired it. Remarkable. First you say Allah made it unlimited attracted to the wrong side and the right side. And then Allah would have said and he balanced the two out when he mentioned the balance first, when I've seen what Massawa is first, then for Allah Maha foodora taqwa, as if our ability to control ourselves actually is more powerful, to keep balances more powerful. And then he mentioned the two tendencies that we have inside of ourselves.

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Then the next old was Mr. Evil Nirvana when out of the womb Ah ha ha. The sky and he swears by the sky and how brilliantly he late raised it up and the earth how beautiful

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He laid it down. Now we're talking about high and low, up and down. And that's actually beautifully the composite of the human being part of us was made from the sky, and it came from a very high place. And part of it is, the body is made from the earth, from the lowest of the earth, and the dirt that's on the earth, and a lot. So just just like there's a balance between the sky and the earth, and they feed one another. The sky feeds the earth and the earth flourishes, the earth flourishes, the water vapor rises up to the sky, then it comes back, there's a constant back and forth between the sky and the earth. There's a constant back and forth between our body and our

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soul, our spiritual needs and our material needs, they go hand in hand, our religion doesn't just serve our spirit. Our religion doesn't just want us to pray and worship and fast and that's all it wants. No, religion wants us to get married. Our religion wants us to have a good life to eat well to dress well the profit slice I don't love perfume, love dressing well. other good things in life. It balanced both of those things out because they need one another. That's again the imagery of the sky and the earth. Now look at what these ions have done. When you go outside today or tomorrow. You look at the night sky, your your view of what night is what it means to you changes. No matter how

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dark your surroundings are, there's still a moon out there. There's still some good in you. People may not see good in you anymore. A lot knows they're still good in you. And you know what that good will come full bloom, you are going to be in a better state again, which is going to be like day, but that day will also come to an end you'll have other trials, other challenges, you'll be enveloped in darkness again, and that's okay, because this is a cycle of lies that we have created so you can navigate the trials of life.