Complimentary Post By: AmatulWadood
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
الحمد لله وحده
Allah سبحانه وتعالى says in the Qur’an,
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُواْ إِذَا ضَرَبْتُمْ فِي سَبِيلِ اللّهِ فَتَبَيَّنُواْ وَلاَ تَقُولُواْ لِمَنْ أَلْقَى إِلَيْكُمُ السَّلاَمَ لَسْتَ مُؤْمِنًا تَبْتَغُونَ عَرَضَ الْحَيَاةِ الدُّنْيَا فَعِندَ اللّهِ مَغَانِمُ كَثِيرَةٌ كَذَلِكَ كُنتُم مِّن قَبْلُ فَمَنَّ اللّهُ عَلَيْكُمْ فَتَبَيَّنُواْ إِنَّ اللّهَ كَانَ بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ خَبِيرًا
O you who have believed, when you go forth in the cause of Allaah, investigate; and do not say to one who gives you [a greeting of] peace, “you are not a believer,” aspiring for the goods of worldly life; for with Allaah are many acquisitions.
You [yourselves] were like that before, then Allaah conferred His favor upon you, so investigate.
Indeed Allaah is ever, with what you do, Acquainted.
[Suratul Nisaa: 94]
Allaah is addressing the believers who accepted Islam at the time of the Prophet (صلى الله عليه و سلم) but did not declare their faith openly. Since one could not tell who was a Muslim or not, the way to recognize a believer was by the greetings of Salaam.
Now, fast forward to our times…what do we learn from this verse? There was a period of jahiliyyah in our lives, which has now passed. If it wasn’t for the ‘mannAllaah‘, we would have been lost in the darkness of ignorance, confused and misguided. And Allaah <سبحانه وتعالى says: “And He Misleads thereby only those who are the rebellious, disobedient to Allaah” – Surah Baqarah: 26
There are many guidelines in this ayah. I’d like to point out to a few:
1) Before you think bad of someone, remind yourself of your past. What were you? Weren’t you created from a nutfah yourself? And then reflect on the Beautiful Attributes Allaah calls himself by – Al-Khabeer (All-Knower). This should give us a chill. Allaah سبحانه وتعالى is informing us that He is the All-Knower – that He Knows what you have done in your past and continue to do, and will do in the future. He Knows what we conceal, and what we show, and what lies deep within our hearts.
2) We also learn that we should not base our decisions on mere opinions. Allaah <سبحانه وتعالى commands the believers in this ayah to ‘bayyen‘ – investigate before taking an action against anyone. Think through the times where you held a negative opinion about someone based on a little of what you saw of them? Did you go further and confirm with them or you were quick in judging them?
3) Taqwa is not in the length of your beard, or in the layers of cloth you wear. The prophet (صلى الله عليه و سلم) said, “Taqwa is here,” and he pointed to his chest. [Muslim (16/120, 121)]
4) When Usama b. Zayd, (رضى الله عنهم), killed a man (another incident) though he had confessed that there is no deity of being worshiped but Allah, claiming that the man had said so out of fear of weapon, the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him observed: “Did you tear his heart in order to find out whether it had professed that or not?” (Reported by Muslim)
Allah’s Messenger ( صلى الله عليه و سلم) also said, “I have not been ordered (by Allah) to search the hearts of the people or cut open their bellies.” (Reported by Al-Bukhari and Muslim)
Verily, your Lord knows better, who (among men) has gone astray from His Path, and He knows better those who are guided.
[Surah Qalam: 7]
And Allah سبحانه وتعالى knows best! O Turner of Hearts, make our hearts firm upon your deen, unite our hearts, beautify our hearts with taqwa and emaan and bless us with husn ath-thann (good thoughts) about our brothers and sisters. Ameen.
with permission to edit and modify by AmatulWadood. JazahAllaahu khayr for contributing -)
Jazaakum Allahu Khayran! And Allahumma Ameen.
wa iyyaki sister. Welcome to the blog :)
MashaAllah. See, this is the type of thing I was hoping to see in the newsletter ;)
Awesome blog, I can’t believe I only discovered it now!
jazakillaahu khayr Safia for your kind comments :)
The above post was contributed by my friend, AmatulWudood. She took the course online. You should ask her to write something, inshaAllaah :)
Alhamdulillah, there are so many ayaat like this one in the Qur’an that have so many lessons for us to learn from, in fact every single ayah has a lesson for us even if directed to the Prophet sal Allahu alayhi wa sallam just like Ustadh Qadhi mentioned…if only we sought to learn and read the Qur’an for more than barakah, we would be able to extract them and understand…We should ask ourselves what that dusty Qur’an on the shelf will say in front of Allah ta’ala on the day of jugdment…