The Amazing Affair Of The Believer: Contentment In Allah's Decree

The Amazing Affair of the Believer: Contentment in Allah's Decree

All praises for Allah, the one to whom belongs all glory and total supremacy, in whose hands is dominion and sovereignty, and to whom are the noble names and qualities. He is the omniscient, therefore He hears everything, both what is proclaimed in public and what is hidden in secrecy. And He is the omnipotent, and nothing in the heavens or earth can hinder His entity, and to Him we go back to on the Day of Decree.

And may salutations be sent upon the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, the final Prophet and the greatest Prophet, who was sent to a people drowned in immorality, but He reminded them of their mortality, and He raised them to a higher level of spirituality, and taught us the way to achieve paradisiacal harmony.

أَمَّا بَعْدُ

The Constant Flux of Life

As humans, we live in a life where conditions are constantly ebbing and flowing. We live with frequent flux of circumstance.

Some days are good and we're happy. Some days things go our way and we're happy for that. And other days things don't go so well, or we have bad days or bad circumstances. And on those days we feel worse. Life is almost in a way a machine. Some days it feels like it works well, and we're happy on those days, that feels good. Other days the machine sputters, it's not too good, it's not too bad. So we don't feel — we're just in the middle. But then some days things just feel really terrible. Something bad happened. Like a job offer didn't get accepted, or a school that you wanted to enroll to didn't accept the enrollment letter. Or something bad happened in the family, or you lost a loved one.

As humans, things like this really hurt. And when things like this happen, it can be hard not to lose heart. It can be hard not to feel despondent.

But as Muslims, Allah has also landed us with a higher level of understanding, with a higher level of belief. Allah has taught us that the things that happen to us — the good things and the bad things — they're not just mere serendipities, they're not just mere flukes of the universe or things that happen by chance. Instead, the good things that happen to us and the bad things are divinely orchestrated and divinely architected by Allah.

Nothing Afflicts Except by Allah's Permission

Allah says in the Qur'an, the ayah that was recited in the khutbah:

That nothing afflicts a person, whether it's good or bad, except with the permission of Allah. Does that mean that — نَعُوذُ بِاللَّهِ مِن ذَٰلِكَ — that Allah is some sort of evil deity that just wants to see us suffer? Of course not. And we can get this from the ayah itself. That right after saying this — that nothing afflicts a person except because of Allah's permission — Allah says:

And whoever believes in Allah, Allah will guide their heart. Now why juxtapose this idea of fate and decree — that everything in this universe is predestined, meaning the good things and the bad things — and then bring right after it a premise or a concept of believing in Allah? It teaches us that no matter what happens to us in our lives, whether it's a good day, a bad day, or just a day in between, that we have an opportunity in all of those situations to believe in Allah. An opportunity to better ourselves. An opportunity to be the believers Allah wants us to be.

الرِّضَا بِالْقَضَاءِ — Contentment in Fate

And this is something I wanted to highlight today. In Arabic, it's called الرِّضَا بِالْقَضَاءِ. In English, you can translate it as contentment in fate, or contentment in whatever's been predestined for you. And essentially, it's the idea or the expression that no matter what is happening to me in my life — whether it's good things happening to me right now, or I'm going through a bout of sadness, or I feel depressed, or things aren't going my way right now — الرِّضَا بِالْقَضَاءِ, contentment, is this idea that no matter what's happening, I know that it's from Allah. And Allah is giving it to me as an opportunity to better myself in front of Him.

And this idea of contentment, of unshakable belief in Allah's plan, is something that the Sahaba رضي الله عنهم أجمعين, and Rasulullah ﷺ, and the salaf as-salihin, our pious predecessors — they all had it down; it was firm in their hearts.

The Sahaba's Unshakable Belief in Battle

There's an ayah that is truly beautiful — it really exposes this idea and gives a practical example of where it happened. The Sahaba with Rasulullah ﷺ, we know that they participated in many battles. But a lot of times those battles didn't always look the best; the odds were stacked against them.

What defined the Sahaba? They were the kind of people that on days when the munafiqoon would come to them and tell them, "The people are gathered against you, the world is against you, the odds are completely stacked, the odds do not look ever in your favor" — and we can stop right here before we continue the ayah and think about that in our own circumstance, where sometimes we feel like the world is against us, we just feel depressed, we feel sad just because things aren't going our way. And that's not something wrong; it's human to feel that way, to feel sad, to feel down when bad things happen.

But then what does a believer and a mu'min do in those scenarios? It's what the Sahaba did. When they were told by the munafiqoon that the people are completely against you, when Rasulullah ﷺ was told that everyone's against you — فَاخْشَوْهُمْ — so fear them, just succumb to them, give in to them, there's no point in trying to fight for Allah — no. It was the Sahaba who said حَسْبُنَا اللَّهُ وَنِعْمَ الْوَكِيلُ — and it only increased their faith.

Why? Because whenever anything happened to them, it wasn't this idea that Allah is with me on one day, but when something bad happens, "Oh, my Lord must have abandoned me." No — فَزَادَهُمْ إِيمَانًا — that it increases them in iman. وَقَالُوا حَسْبُنَا اللَّهُ وَنِعْمَ الْوَكِيلُ — and they say, "We only need Allah, sufficient for us is our Lord, and what a beautiful guardian."

And what happened as a result of that unshakable contentment and belief in Allah's plan? The very next ayah:

So they returned home with blessing from Allah, and with grace from Allah, and no evil touched them. In battle you lose people, in battle you lose loved ones. But Allah says no evil touched them. Why? Because they realized that no matter what situation they were going through, it was their unshakable belief in Allah that turned any situation they were in into a good situation. There's no bad situation for them.

لَّمْ يَمَسَّسْهُمْ سُوءٌ وَاتَّبَعُوا رِضْوَانَ اللَّهِ — there it is again, the same word: رِضَا بِالْقَضَاءِ and رِضْوَان. They attained the pleasure of Allah. So when they had unshakable certainty in Allah's belief, Allah gave them His unshakable pleasure — His happiness. And what could be better than the pleasure of Allah?

So this idea of contentment in Allah's plan, no matter what's happening — it's not something that exists in a vacuum. It's reciprocated by the very One who is asked for it in the first place. And what is the ridwan of Allah except Jannah? Except blessings in this world and the next. بِنِعْمَةٍ مِّنَ اللَّهِ is right there in the ayah. And that is truly beautiful.

Al-Qamah's Explanation of the Ayah

In fact, for this very ayah — مَا أَصَابَ مِن مُّصِيبَةٍ إِلَّا بِإِذْنِ اللَّهِ — Al-Qamah, the great scholar of Kufa and one of the students of Ibn Mas'ud رضي الله عنه — صَاحِبُ النَّعْلَيْن, the person who would carry the sandals of Rasulullah ﷺ — his student was Al-Qamah. And when Al-Qamah was teaching this ayah to his students, he told them that what this ayah means, وَمَن يُؤْمِن بِاللَّهِ يَهْدِ قَلْبَهُ, is:

(Reported by Al-Qamah, student of Ibn Mas'ud رضي الله عنه — cited in Tafsir Ibn Kathir, Surah At-Taghabun 64:11)

It's the affliction that a person is afflicted with, but he recognizes that it's from Allah. It didn't just happen. It wasn't just another bad day. But it was Allah giving him an opportunity to better himself. فَيُسَلِّمُ لَهَا — so he accepts it. وَيَرْضَى — and he is content in it. Again, رَضِيَ بِالْقَضَاءِ. وَيَرْضَى — he's content.

Contentment is the name of the game. And that's what every believer really wants to have in their hearts.

Nothing Will Afflict Us Except What Allah Has Written

And Allah demonstrates this in another verse in the Qur'an, where He tells Rasulullah ﷺ and the Sahaba:

Say: nothing will afflict us except what Allah has already written for us. But does that make it a bad thing? No. Why? Because the ayah continues — the Sahaba continue to say: هُوَ مَوْلَانَا — He is our protector. That doesn't mean that Allah wants to see us suffer. On the contrary, it means that Allah is our protector, because He is with us at every moment of our lives.

Muslims are not deists who believe that Allah created the universe and sat back and just watched it play. No — Allah, every moment of our lives, every waking moment of our lives, every breathing moment of our lives, is giving us an opportunity to better ourselves based on the circumstances He has given us. And that is the true contentment that every believer should strive to have in themselves.

And when you have that kind of contentment in yourself, when we together strive as a community to inculcate that contentment within ourselves, then every situation — whether it looks good or whether it looks bad — becomes the best scenario for us.

The Hadith of the Amazing Affair of the Believer

What did Rasulullah ﷺ say? The wording is from Sahih Muslim:

(Sahih Muslim, Book 55, Hadith 2999)

Rasulullah ﷺ is just amazed at the idea of a believer. عَجَبًا — how wonderful is the affair of a believer! إِنَّ أَمْرَهُ كُلَّهُ لَهُ خَيْرٌ — that every single circumstance he is in, it is good every single time. And why is that? Rasulullah ﷺ explains. First he says, وَلَيْسَ ذَٰلِكَ لِأَحَدٍ إِلَّا لِلْمُؤْمِنِ — but that circumstance that every situation is good for you, that exists only for believers. It doesn't exist for people who don't believe in Allah.

The hadith says: إِنْ أَصَابَتْهُ سَرَّاءُ — that if a good circumstance afflicts him, meaning that he's going through a good time right now, he's not going through many tough times, his life is good — but what happens then? شَكَرَ فَكَانَ خَيْرًا لَهُ — in those cases he is thankful to his Lord, and that is good for him. That's a good scenario. وَإِنْ أَصَابَتْهُ ضَرَّاءُ — but when something harmful happens to him, when something bad happens to him, maybe there's a death in the family, maybe he lost someone he loved, maybe he didn't get that job offer he really wanted, maybe he didn't get accepted into that school he really wanted to, maybe there was an opportunity that turned out to be a dead end — all these are ضَرَّاء; they're harmful because they make us feel bad. But صَبَرَ فَكَانَ خَيْرًا لَهُ — in those cases he is patient, and that is good for him.

And so we see that no matter what happens, a believer in every single circumstance has the optimism of faith to carry him through it. The contentment of faith. رِضَا بِالْقَضَاءِ. And that's something that people who don't believe in Allah simply don't have.

The Danger of Life Without Belief

When a person doesn't believe in good or bad as actual concepts, or he doesn't believe that Allah wants to give him opportunities to make him a better person — then what happens to him? He becomes a nihilist. He becomes a person who thinks that life has no meaning. He becomes a depressed person. He becomes a suicidal person. Why? Because he sees there's no meaning in my life, there's no meaning in my death. That's what happens when you don't have Allah in your life.

But Allah is reiterating to us time and time and time again that your Lord has not abandoned you. Your Lord is with you. Your Lord is with you at every moment in your life, whether it's a bad circumstance or it's a good circumstance. Your Lord is there to see you become the best version of yourself. How? وَمَن يُؤْمِن بِاللَّهِ يَهْدِ قَلْبَهُ — having the contentment of belief in your heart. That is how we attain the contentment in Allah's decree — through belief. And Allah guides our hearts as a result.

The Hadith of Anas — A Unique Narration

There's a book written by Ibn Abi Dunya — he was a very great and amazing scholar who lived in the same time as Imam Bukhari. And he actually has a specific collection of hadith called الرِّضَا عَنِ الْقَضَاءِ — having contentment in fate, in decree. And the first hadith in there is truly an amazing hadith.

It's a hadith where Anas رضي الله عنه says to his students:

(Ibn Abi Dunya, Kitab al-Rida 'an Allah bi-Qada'ihi)

That: "I'm going to tell you a hadith right now that no one is going to tell you after me." Now that's a big thing from Anas رضي الله عنه — خَادِمُ رَسُولِ اللَّهِ ﷺ — a hadith you're going to get from him and no one else. What could it possibly be?

He says: one time we were at an arusa — a wedding or a joyous occasion — with Rasulullah ﷺ. And while they were there, the Prophet ﷺ suddenly started laughing full-heartedly, smiling. Then he asked the Sahaba:

They said, "Please tell us, ya Rasulullah, we want to know." He said: "I was just thinking about the believer — that Allah does not give him anything except that it is good for him."

And that is the ridha that every believer has. No matter what circumstance we're going through — if it's the best of circumstances, we have رِضَا عَنِ الْقَضَاءِ; we're happy in Allah's decree, and we have shukr to Allah. And if it's a bad circumstance, then we have sabr and we have رِضَا عَنِ الْقَضَاءِ.

It doesn't mean that we have to act happy when, for example, someone passes away. No — it's natural to feel sad. But it means that we don't hate Allah and we don't hate our lives as a result. Instead, we realize that these are opportunities to become better people.

The Warning: Those Who Are Ungrateful in Good Times

Because Allah also warns us of people who don't use those opportunities to become better people. It's an ayah that comes multiple times in the Qur'an:

There are so many different ayahs in the Qur'an that talk about people who, when they're in good circumstances, everything is happy. But the moment a single affliction hits them, they act like no good ever came to them in their entire life. They become despondent, they become hopeless, they become ungrateful to Allah. And the opposite is also there — that when they're going through hardship, they become the best worshippers: they're making du'a to Allah at night, they're making du'a every moment of their life, they're doing dhikr and adhkar and salah like they've never done before. But the moment Allah accepts their du'a and removes it — مَرَّ كَأَن لَّمْ يَدْعُنَا إِلَىٰ ضُرٍّ مَّسَّهُ — he acts like he never once ever called upon us. Like nothing ever bad ever happened to him.

So both yin and yang are there, both circumstances are there, both extremes are there. But we are the ummah mutawassita — a moderate nation. One that realizes that no matter what circumstance we are in — like Rasulullah ﷺ smiled when he told it to his Sahaba — that every circumstance we are in is the best of circumstances.

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And once again we make du'a for the horrible things that are happening in Palestine and all across the world. For any believers who are going through bad circumstances in their life, we use this as an opportunity and ask Allah that He makes the best out of it in this world and the next.

لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ