Recognizing Allah (SWT) | Mufti Abdul Wahab Waheed

Recognizing Allah

How many people recognize Allah? They don't believe in Allah. The recognition was there that there is an Allah, but there wasn't an acceptance of Allah's commands and therefore there wasn't an acceptance of His power. Similarly, like my father would always say — in Urdu he would say — Iblis denied one sajdah and he became Iblis.

How many sajdahs do we deny on a daily basis? How many salats do we miss? How many salats do we miss in a month? Qurtubi says that there is not a single spot on this earth where Iblis did not do sajdah. He did sajdah everywhere. He was such an abid.

But one sajdah he denied, and then he didn't rectify his wrong. He didn't seek tawbah. Allah said, that's it. So we're allowed to miss things as long as we recognize that we missed it and we've got to fix it.

But it's important to recognize that just because we're comfortable where we are doesn't mean that we're always going to be here. This is why a business that feels like they're comfortable will find a competitor to beat them. You can never feel comfortable with your relationship with Allah.

There has to be progress. There have to be things that we're always adding. So we retain what we have, but we also add certain things in our life that can continue building our relationship with Allah.

The Story of Iblis and His Enmity Toward Mankind

So that's who Iblis was. Iblis couldn't just accept the fact that Adam is better than him. And that's where we get to the story of Musa (alayhi al-salam). It's similar to this.

He was from the jinn — Allah clarified:

He disobeyed the command of his Lord. "Will you take such a person and his accomplices and his friends as your friends? Would you take him and his progeny as your friends? He is someone that disobeyed me."

"And he is your enemy." "What a horrible substitute that these oppressors make." Meaning that you have Allah on one side and we have the purity of our deen. And then we have Iblis and his accomplices, his children — whatever we wish to call them. Would you take this, or would you take that?

Shaytan's Greatest Weapon: The Fear of Poverty

And why is Allah using this as an example after speaking about wealth? Because one of the things that Shaytan will always use to make us compromise is:

(Quran 2:268)

One of Shaytan's strongest tools that he uses against people is to make them afraid of poverty. And that's not something which is easy to manage. How am I going to serve my family? He makes people fear poverty. And because we fear poverty, we will do certain things that we shouldn't do. So Allah says: Look, he is going to come for you and he is going to make you fear that you won't have anything left.

Don't take his side. That is a horrible substitute for Allah.

Allah Alone Witnessed the Creation of the Heavens and Earth

Then Allah continues and He says:

"I did not make them a witness of when I created the heavens and the earth." Meaning, those people that you associate with Allah — they weren't there when Allah created all of this. They were created. Everything is a creation of Allah. How can you put His creation at His level?

"They did not create themselves." They didn't just — boom — Big Bang theory. I mean, all that stuff is interesting, but where did that come from? Allah speaks about these things in the Quran. Does Allah speak about where everything came from? Yes, He does. Things didn't just come about.

The Meaning of عَضُد — True Support

Allah is saying: "I will never take a person who is misguided as عَضُدًا." The translation here is assistants. I will never take — and Shaytan is misguided, right? — I will never take someone like that as my assistant.

عَضُد in Arabic also refers to the part of the limb that connects the shoulder and the arm. It is one of the strongest tendons or muscles of the body that keeps the arm and the shoulder attached. عَضُد — it's a support system. When we say "arm", we mean: you have my hand with you, you have my support with you. That's what عَضُد means.

I don't need people like that to support my religion. So when we say that we want to include certain things or compromise certain things so we can get more support — we don't need مُضِلِّينَ عَضُدًا. We don't need people — or we don't need ourselves — to be that way. Allah doesn't even need us if we choose to become like that. That type of support Allah is saying is not needed by Him.

We have enough things, enough people that can support us. Allah can take support from an ant. He can take support from a dog, as we learned.

Taking Advice Without Depending on the Misguided

مُضِلّ is a person who is misguided. Let's not think of them as people who are supporting our religion. They are misguided.

Yes, there is benefit — there is benefit everywhere. It is said: Take advice even if it is written on a wall. It's advice you take if it's good. But we do not make our strength and our religion dependent upon people who are misguided.