Abdul Rahman Chao 919

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.

We praise Allah. We seek His assistance and we seek His forgiveness.

And we seek refuge in Allah from the evil that resides in our souls and from the evil that results from our sins. Whomsoever Allah guides, none shall misguide. And whoever Allah allows to be led astray, none shall guide them back to the straight path.

I bear witness that there is no God worthy of worship except Allah. And I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and messenger. Allah tells us in the Quran, O you who believe, be God-conscious.

Fear Allah as He deserves to be feared, and do not die except as Muslims. O mankind, fear your Lord who has created you from a soul, and from it its mate, and from it both many men and many women. And fear Allah by the rights that you ask of one another, and by the wombs that bore you, verily Allah is ever watchful over you.

O you who believe, fear Allah. Be God-conscious and speak the truth. He will render your deeds righteous and He will forgive your sins.

And whoever obeys Allah and His messenger, has indeed achieved a great victory. Verily the best speech is the speech of Allah, and the best guidance is the guidance of Muhammad. And the worst affairs is that which is of innovation, for all of that religious heresy is misguidance, and all that leads to hell.

The Parable of the Good Word

Brothers and sisters, the Quran employs multiple literary styles to convey its universal message. And from these styles is the narrative form of parables. المثل We have many parables in the Quran, but what is the meaning of a parable? A parable is a story to convey a moral or a lesson.

And the Quran is full of parables. For example, the parable of the mosquito, the parable of the dog, the parable of the fire kindler, flies, the spider. But there is one parable that we would like to explore today that is both simple and powerful.

And it is the parable of the good word in comparison to that of a blessed tree. Allah tells us in Surah Ibrahim:

Allah says to us and to the people, have you considered, have you not considered, in other words, have you not seen how Allah presents a parable, an example in which He has made a good word, a blessed word, like that of a blessed tree. Its root is firmly planted and affixed in the ground, obviously, and its canopy, its branches, its leaves are outstretched high in the sky.

Here, Allah is comparing a good word, and the ulema of tafsir, they have said that it could be any good word, a good word that you say to someone, something nice that you say to someone, whether it is a greeting or a dua, but the scholars of tafsir, the majority of them interpret this phrase, a good word, كلمة طيبة, as the كلمة لا إله إلا الله محمد رسول الله.

So the كلمة طيبة is the كلمة of Islam, the testimony of faith, that there is no God worthy of worship except Allah, and that Muhammad is His Prophet and Messenger. And the reason why Allah called it كلمة طيبة, because if you think about it, it is the best statement to exist in this universe.

In fact, Musa one time asked, Oh Allah, teach me a dua, specifically for me, that I can call on to You using it. And Allah said to him, Say لا إله إلا الله, there is no God worthy of worship except Allah. So Musa said, but all of your creations say it.

So Allah replied, Ya Musa or Moses, if you were to put all of the heavens and everything in it, and the earth and whatever is contained in between, on one side of the scale, and you were to put لا إله إلا الله on the other side, لرجحت لا إله إلا الله. لا إله إلا الله would have outweighed all of the universe and the creation, to show you how important this statement is.

Characteristics of the Tree of Faith

كشجرة طيبة, like a good tree. A good word, لا إله إلا الله, is like a good tree. And some of the scholars said that it's actually a metaphor for the believer. And some scholars said that it is perhaps a metaphor for the date palm tree, that we'll get to inshallah.

Now what are the descriptions and the characteristics of this tree, the tree of faith, the tree of لا إله إلا الله. First, its roots are deep in the ground. And in the same way, your belief in لا إله إلا الله, should be deeply rooted in your heart, in your conscience, in your very fiber of existence.

وَفَرْعُهَا فِي السَّمَاءِ And its branches are outstretched high in the sky. This refers to the proof of your faith. In other words, your good deeds, your actions.

So, Islam is not just something that you just utter on your tongue, and you claim, yes, I'm Muslim. But you have to follow it up with actions, and we'll talk about that.

تُؤْتِي أُكُلَهَا كُلَّ حِينٍ From time to time, it doesn't actually mean all the time, but it gives off a lot of fruit, with the permission of Allah.

So in other words, putting this all together, this verse is saying, that the believer should embody the characteristics of لا إله إلا الله. That it should be deeply rooted in his heart, affirmed on his tongue, and manifested in clear actions.

Nourishing the Tree of Faith

Brothers and sisters, in order to understand this parable, we need to, allow me to stretch your mind a little bit today. And obviously, what I'm going to say, Allah knows better, and knows best. For any tree to grow, you need to give it water and sunlight. And so as we mentioned in this tafsir, that for the branches and leaves that are outstretched towards the sky, since they represent our actions, then what are our actions based on? Two things, pure intentions and knowledge.

So when you water the plant, you have to give it clean water. If you're giving it polluted water, don't expect to eat from that tree. I remember when I was overseas, they have the public trees, that are planted along the street.

And what was really interesting was, obviously they didn't have sprinkler systems. Inshallah one day. They had this big truck, and on it, it says, ماء غير صالح للشرب. Water that is not fit for drinking. And they would go, and they would water these date palms, all over Medina with it. And yes, when summer came, and you saw those dates, I'm not touching them.

So this water that you give the tree, it has to be pure, like your intention. Your intention has to be pure. So if this water is filled with chemicals, and insincerity, or showing off, it's going to reflect, brothers and sisters.

Additionally, every tree, every plant needs sunlight. And this sunlight can represent, علم, knowledge. Worshipping Allah with knowledge.

Understanding that you are worshipping Allah, based on, not on what you were told, what you heard, or what your culture taught you, but based on clear proofs from the Quran, and clear proofs from the hadith of the Prophet. Allah tells us in the Quran:

Allah says, then know that there is no god worthy of worship except Allah. In other words, you need to know the conditions of لا إله إلا الله. You need to know what are the aspects of Islam that you need to practice. And here it says, وَاسْتَغْفِرْ لِذَنْبِكَ And then seek forgiveness for your sins. So the fact that Allah placed knowledge before action, is to teach us the importance of knowledge.

Whenever we look in the Quran, brothers and sisters, the Quran is full of examples where it says, الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَعَمِلُوا الصَّالِحَاتِ Those who believe and they do good deeds. And we, as a religion, as a community, we are not a group of people who simply say, Brother, it is in the heart. You know, it's just inside my heart. I don't do anything about it. Some people like to say, I'm spiritual but I don't pray. To me, I don't know what that means.

I'm spiritual but I don't pray. I'm spiritual but I don't pray. I don't fast. I don't do anything. This is not the way of the Prophet.

Now that you have this tree of faith, what can you do to sort of give it a push? You can give it fertilizers. And this can be in the form of extra good deeds. And for any person who grows fruit trees in their backyard, you will know that there's going to be pests, there's going to be fungus, there's going to be diseases, there's going to be a storm.

And you have to protect this tree from all sorts of damage. Similarly, your faith. You have to know what things affect your faith. What are the things that you do that might bring your iman down? What are the things that you do that bring your iman up?

And finally, brothers and sisters, this tree obviously is going to bear fruit. And so when Allah says, تُؤْتِي أُكُلَهَا كُلَّ حِينٍ It gives off its fruits at all these different times. What does He say? بِإِذْنِ رَبِّهَا With the permission of its Lord.

In other words, when you do all these good deeds, and you have a pure intention based on knowledge, any fruit tree requires pollination. And that is all by the tawfiq of Allah. And that is why on the Day of Judgment, you will taste the sweetness of these fruits of iman.

The Prophet says:

(Sahih Muslim, Book 1, Hadith 34)

That person shall taste the sweetness of faith whoever is pleased with Allah as his Lord, and with Islam as his religion, and with Muhammad as his Prophet.

The Parable of the Date Palm Tree

Now that we've talked about how the kalima, لا إله إلا الله, is like that of a tree, or in some explanations, they say it is like that of a believer, and how the believer should embody لا إله إلا الله. We want to take a look at a follow-up parable that the Prophet gave, and these are interconnected and interrelated.

The Prophet as narrated by Ibn Umar, the son of Umar ibn al-Khattab, Abdullah ibn Umar:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 72)

We were sitting with the Prophet along with the other companions. Someone came and gave the Prophet a heart of the palm. جُمَّارِ النَّخْلِ is the heart of the palm. You might be wondering what is the heart of the palm. The heart of the palm is the inside of the palm tree. It's for the young palm tree that you can eat.

Think of it as an artichoke but for palm trees. It's the inside. It's very soft and it's very healthy.

So the Prophet has in front of him this heart of the palm that he's going to eat. And then he says, there is a tree in which its blessings is like that of a blessed believer. And then the Prophet asked his companions, what tree is that? What tree resembles that of a believer?

So the Prophet in various narrations he started giving clues. He didn't just give the answer away. In a narration, he said:

The Prophet says, that this tree is verdant. And its leaves don't fall with the season. So it's non-deciduous. It's an evergreen tree. And its leaves don't fall if you go and shake the tree either.

And in another narration, the Prophet echoed the verse in the Quran, تُؤْتِي أُكُلُهَا كُلَّ حِينٍ It brings its fruits out throughout the season with the permission of its Lord.

The Companions' Response

So what happened? The companions started thinking. All the companions think, what tree is this? So you have to understand, these are the people of Medina. So they see palm trees in front of them all over the place. And they're not thinking about it. So they're thinking, maybe it's a tree in the desert. Maybe it's some special tree in the desert that's very rare and exotic.

Abdullah bin Umar, who was narrating this hadith said, I surmise that it was the date palm tree. But because I was the youngest among all the companions of Prophet sitting there, I felt embarrassed to speak while they had stayed silent.

Abu Bakr was quiet, his own father Umar was quiet. And then no one answered. So the Prophet said, the example of this tree to that of a good believer is like that of a date palm tree.

After this halaqa was over, Abdullah bin Umar was walking out with his father and he said, I knew it was the nakhla. I knew it was the date palm tree. I was gonna say it, but I decided not to.

So Umar bin Khattab, as you know, is very straightforward. He says, I wish you had said it. I wish you had said it in front of the Prophet.

Wisdom of the Teaching Method

In this hadith, brothers and sisters, the Prophet is using a parable to teach his companions of how a believer is like that of a date palm tree. And although he could have given the answer right away, he wanted them to think. What is most interesting is despite that the Prophet having the heart of a palm in front of him, ready for consumption, no one made the connection among the companions who were from Medina. They didn't realize that he was talking about the date palm tree that's in front of him.

In fact, the masjid of the Prophet is full of pillars made from date palm trees, but they didn't think about it. So there is perhaps some wisdom why the Prophet likened that believer to that of a tree.

We find in the Quran many verses talking about paradise filled with trees. Even the tree itself, nakhla, date palm, is mentioned in the Quran more than 20 times. We find in the sunnah that the Prophet used to give khutbah next to a date palm tree. And when he moved and they built for him a minbar, the date palm tree, one of the miracles of the Prophet was that the date palm tree started crying. And the Prophet had to hug it and comfort it.

Similarities Between the Date Palm and the Believer

And so there are many scholars who have written like Ibn Qayyim, many scholars who have written extensively on the similarities between the date palm tree and the believer.

Firstly, the Prophet says that it's like the date palm. Why? Because if you look at the date palm, it is very strong. Its leaves always remain green, regardless if it's summer or winter. No matter how much you try to shake this tree, it stays firm.

And that is the way of the believer in his or her faith. It is deeply rooted. It is upright. It is strong. The believer stays steadfast through difficulty and ease. That's why the Prophet tells us in a hadith, how strange is the affair of the believer if something good happens to them, they are thankful, and if something bad happens to them, they are patient.

The date palm tree is also beneficial, brothers and sisters, in many ways. The Prophet said in a narration:

The Prophet says, whatever you take from this tree is going to benefit you. So for those of you who know about date palm trees from overseas, you will know that every single part of the date palm tree is beneficial.

You can use its leaves to braid into baskets, to make into ropes. You can use its trunks for building buildings. Its date fruit, obviously we all eat it during Ramadan. And as we said, the heart of the palm. And even the date pit that you just throw on the ground after you're done eating it, even those things are of benefit. When you grind them up, you can give them to the livestock for them to eat.

The date palm tree provides a home for animals. And even if you went and you kick the tree, it will drop sweet dates for you.

The dates that are coming from the date palm tree, brothers and sisters, is what? It can be eaten when it's raw. It can be eaten when it's half ripe. It can be eaten when it's ripe. And even when the date fruit itself is solid hard and dried up, you can still eat it some other time.

In the same way, you look at the example of the believer. The believer is multi-talented, beneficial in every way. Helping others, selflessness, giving knowledge on to others, giving money to others, helping people, encouraging other people.

And that's why the Prophet says, the best people in the eyes of Allah are the people that are the most beneficial.

The date palm also bears fruit every season. And it yields a lot of dates, like 200 kilos for example. And that's why the Prophet described it as, تُؤْتِي أُكُلَهَا كُلَّ حِينٍ It gives its fruits throughout all its time and season بِإِذْنِ رَبِّهَا with the permission of its Lord.

And in the same way, brothers and sisters, the believer is constantly yielding good deeds. Whether it is extra fasting, whether it is extra tahajjud, whether it is helping the poor, the good believer is productive like this tree.

Finally, brothers and sisters, not every date palm tree out there is of the same variety. Some of them are very expensive. You get half a kilo of ajwa dates for example. It's not the same as if you get rotara or something like that. It's not the same. You have different quality of dates.

Some dates are stickier, some of them are juicier, some are drier. Some have not so much of a sweet taste. They have different qualities and level. But they are all good. And in the same way is like the believer. Not every believer here is equal in iman. But they are all good.

The Prophet says:

(Sahih Muslim, Book 33, Hadith 6441)

The believer that is strong is more beloved to Allah than the weak believer. And in all of those scenarios, they are all good.

Conclusion

We ask Allah to give us firm iman and faith in our hearts. We ask Allah that He gives us the tawfiq to manifest our faith in actions. We ask Allah to help all of those around the world who are in need.