Surah Al-Qasas: Seeking The Objective | Divine Reminders with Mufti Abdul Wahab Waheed

Surah Al-Qasas: Seeking The Objective

Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem. Alhamdulillah wa salli ya Rasulil Kareem. Amma ba'ad.

MashaAllah, the Qur'an recited — completed the recitation of Surah An-Naml, which we spoke about yesterday, and completed the recitation of Surah Al-Qasas today. So we'll speak about Surah Al-Qasas. Surah Al-Qasas is, by the definition of the name, a surah in which Allah discusses stories of the prophets.

And at the core of this, Allah discusses the story of Musa عليه السلام. Therefore, when Allah starts off Surah Al-Qasas, He actually says that we will give you the story of Musa and Fir'aun in this specific surah, so you can understand it properly. And you can also be able to identify where the falls were for Fir'aun and his nation, Qarun, and how we protected Musa عليه السلام and his believers.

We will not go through the entire story of Musa عليه السلام. But I will skim over the majority of the story and focus on two points.

The Story of Musa in Surah Al-Qasas

Allah, from the beginning — this in Surah Al-Qasas is the best chronological order of the story of Musa عليه السلام. This surah — the story comes in Surah Taha, it comes 15 times in the Qur'an, so it comes multiple times. But in Surah Al-Qasas, it comes chronologically. It comes in a manner where you can follow: this is what happened first, this is what happened second.

So Allah explains that Musa عليه السلام was born at a time where Fir'aun and his people were killing male children. And when his mother got scared, Allah said: Put him inside the box, put him inside the river, and don't be scared. We'll bring him back to you, and we're going to make him amongst the prophets. Despite her not being a prophet herself, Allah inspired her. And we find that to be true now — we're going to be inspired by Allah. If we put our trust into Allah, Allah would create a means out of the difficulty for us.

This child goes to the palace of Fir'aun. Asiya, the wife of Fir'aun, sees this child, and the love of this child seeps into her heart. And she says, perhaps this child can be the coolness of both of our eyes. She said, maybe we can benefit from this kid, or we can adopt the kid. Fir'aun was not for this — he still wanted to kill the kid — but through his wife's appeal and request, he kept him.

And after some time, the sister of Musa عليه السلام was sent by his mother to find out where this child went. And she went, and she saw that he ended up in the lap of the pharaoh himself. Rather than getting away from Fir'aun, he ended up going straight to Fir'aun. And in this story, Allah shows us that it doesn't matter how many enemies we may have, it doesn't matter what's going on — if Allah wants something to happen, He will make it happen in front of your face, and the person can't do anything about it.

Like, it's happening in front of the person who is trying to kill all of these children so that a prophet doesn't come and take over his community. And Allah sends the kid to his palace. Number one, the kid is put inside of a box and he can't breathe. He's put inside of the river. We don't know where the river is going to go. Number two, the king — the pharaoh himself — picks him up. And there's a death sentence written on this kid. But still, Allah creates a way out for this child where the mother comes and becomes the nurse for him. Because Musa عليه السلام would not take from any other nurse. And Fir'aun actually pays her for this.

Musa Leaves Egypt

As time goes on, he was raised in the palace of Fir'aun. And he gets into a tussle where he hits someone, and by accident when he hits that person, the person passes away. And the next day, the same thing happens. Now, the person who sought his help the first day goes ahead and tells everyone else. So what happened was the first day, this man was arguing with someone else. The person from his tribe said:

He asked him for help. And when he asked him for help, Musa عليه السلام just hit the other guy, and he died. It wasn't intentional, neither was it planned. It just happened to be that it was one hit. He just fell down and he passed away. And Musa made du'a of maghfirullah — forgive me, this was not something that I wanted to do.

The next day, the same person who had been arguing before was getting into a tussle again. And he asked Musa again, can you help me? Now Musa says, hey man, I'm going to hit you today. Now this man — the one that sought help both days — gets scared. And he says, are you going to do what you did to the other person yesterday? When you killed the other person, are you going to kill me too? And now everyone found out that Musa عليه السلام was the one who killed that man. People are looking for him, and he will get in trouble.

So one of his friends comes to him and says:

The people in the palace are trying to kill you. It's best that you leave this city. So he leaves. And when he leaves, he continues to travel and move forward out of fear that something may happen to him.

Musa Arrives at Madyan

Finally he reaches the land of Madyan, the land of Shu'ayb عليه السلام. And when he gets there, he sees this well. The people are huddled around the well trying to get water. And there are two women all the way in the back who cannot get water. And when everyone else gets their water, they actually put the lid on top of the well so the women now can't even get water. They're stuck because they can't uncover the well.

So when he sees this, he says:

What's wrong? What's going on? How come you're not getting the water? They said: We've come here and we can't get the water until everyone else gets theirs. And before Musa عليه السلام could even ask why their brother or husband or father is not there, they themselves said: وَأَبُونَا شَيْخٌ كَبِيرٌ — he can't come here. It already answered the question.

That's how it should be when we're having discussions with the opposite gender — the discussion is permissible, but we should not create talk where it is not necessary.

Nonetheless, he goes:

He goes and he lifts that lid — which normally it would take ten people to lift — and he gives them water. And as he gives them water, they continue to move on and they leave. They don't really say, "Okay, thank you so much, mashaAllah you're so strong and so helpful." They just leave. They continue their journey back to their house.

The First Key Lesson: Making Du'a for the Objective

This is one of the points I wanted to discuss today. Where Musa عليه السلام — after doing this — went under a tree and he is literally what we would call a fugitive and homeless right now. You can't be in a more vulnerable situation. You have nowhere to be. You have no money. You have no means of income. You have nothing going on. And also you're scared — you're running away from something, afraid you're going to get punished for it.

He makes this one du'a. And the du'a that he makes is manifested in so many different ways through the acceptance of Allah. He makes one small du'a. He says:

What a powerful du'a. He says: Oh Allah, I am a poor person for whatever you choose to send my way. Meaning, I'm a faqeer. I'm so poor that anything good that you send to me will be sufficient for me. Send me anything. I'm not asking for a Mercedes — give me any car. I'm okay. Give me any job. Give me any shelter.

رَبِّ إِنِّي لِمَا أَنزَلْتَ إِلَيَّ مِنْ خَيْرٍ فَقِيرٌ — whatever you send down upon me from goodness, I'm a needy person towards it. I won't be picky. Whatever you send my way, I'll accept it. Just send me whatever you have in store for me.

And when he made this du'a — sometimes we choose to make very specific duas. Nothing's wrong with that. But at times, our duas can be for the objective and not for the source. The objective is to be happy. The source is this job. Oh Allah, give me happiness — may it come from this job or may it come from another job. Oh Allah, give me peace — may it be from purchasing this house or purchasing another house. We make du'a for the source. We should learn how to make du'a for the objective. Because many a time, the source is given to the person but the objective that they wanted that thing for is not fulfilled. They don't get the objective.

So Musa عليه السلام over here makes du'a for the objective. Oh Allah, whatever you give me, I'm a poor person for it. And now, because of this du'a, he is given three things — the three things that we require while living in life:

Number one, he is given a wife. Allah gets him married to the daughter of Shu'ayb عليه السلام. Number two, he is given a home to live in — where he is living with an elderly prophet, Shu'ayb, in most narrations. Number three, he is also given a job.

All he did was one act of kindness. Normally what happens in life, our acts of kindness are incentivized — we want to do something because there's an incentive in it. But if we do things without incentives, they create the best results in the courts of Allah and also in this world. It's not that they did good to me so I did good back to them, or I did good to them so everyone should know about it. No. I do it because that's my duty in this life.

(Al-Mu'jam al-Awsat lil-Tabarani, Hadith 6026; also reported in Al-Mustadrak 'ala al-Sahihayn of al-Hakim)

The greatest of people are the ones that benefit the most people. And that's what Musa عليه السلام did. He just helped people for the sake of helping. And he did not ask them — he had a full right to ask them: hey, I just helped you out, hook it up, give me something. No. He helped them and he turned towards Allah.

And that is also a means of our du'a being accepted — that we make our du'a after helping someone else. Like Zakariyya عليه السلام helped out Maryam عليها السلام, and then he made his du'a. When you give sadaqah, then you make your du'a. When you help a servant of Allah and then you turn towards Allah, Allah loves that. Because you just helped someone that He loves. And now He'll help you. So it's like a shortcut to having your du'a accepted.

This is why when a person makes du'a for someone behind their back, the angels reply and say: you get whatever you make du'a for the other person.

(Sahih Muslim, Book 48, Hadith 94)

So: number one, he helped someone. Number two, he made a du'a directly to Allah. And he was given the three things that we require in life. A family — without a family we're lonely. A house — or else he's homeless. And a job — without that he's jobless. One du'a gave him all three. Because he made du'a for the objective, not the source. He didn't say, Oh Allah, I helped people out so help me. He said: Oh Allah, whatever you have in store for me, I'm okay with it. Not that I'll be picky with whatever you give me. Whatever you give me, I'll accept it. Because I'm faqeer for You.

We are poor in the eyes of Allah.

The Second Key Lesson: The Destruction of Qarun

Then time went on, and of course Musa عليه السلام went back to Fir'aun as a prophet with Harun عليه السلام and gave him da'wah. And Allah freed him from Fir'aun through the journey of the sea, where the sea was split open for them.

Qarun was another individual that Allah speaks about in this surah. He was destroyed. And the reason for him being destroyed was — he was actually from the family, or from the people of Musa, from Bani Israel. But one of the mistakes that he made was:

He said: I have been given whatever I have in life because of my own effort, my own knowledge. And Allah did not like that. Whatever we have is not because of our own effort or our own knowledge — it is because Allah allowed us to have it.

The earth sunk open and swallowed him — because of an accusation he threw at Musa عليه السلام that he had an illicit relationship with somebody else, which was completely false. So Allah told Musa عليه السلام that the earth is at your command — whatever you want it to do, it will do. And he told the earth to swallow Qarun.

So what led to that was the fact that he was arrogant over what he had. But Allah's blessings should not become a source of arrogance — they should be a source of more gratitude. Why more gratitude? Because we know we couldn't do it on our own. We know it was someone else that did it for us, so let's not act like it was us.

Yes, we have to make effort. Without effort, we can't get anything. Our effort is us planting the seeds, and our duas are Allah watering the seeds for us.

Summary of the Two Lessons

Those are the two points I wanted to discuss. Number one, the du'a of Musa عليه السلام — and the importance of making du'a for the objective, not the source. And the importance of helping people without an incentive, because that is a means of having your du'a accepted. Number two, why Qarun was destroyed — because he attributed his blessings to himself, and because of his arrogance.

May Allah bless all of us and allow us to benefit from these reminders. Hopefully we see you all today at 6pm and at 9:30pm with Shaykh Abdullah at the masjid. JazakAllah khair.

Q&A: The Difference Between Sibghah and Sunnah

There was a question asked: What is the difference between Sunnah and Sibghah?

Sibghah — صِبْغَةَ اللَّهِ — is the deen. It's our religion. It's our shari'ah. And Sunnah is our Prophet's implementation of that shari'ah — his manhaj, his method.

Every Prophet had their own manhaj. Every Prophet had their own processes that they utilized. But Sibghah of Allah is the religion of Allah. It never changed. It's the religion of Allah. And our Prophets were given that same religion, and they implemented it in their own ways. That's where Sunnah comes from.

So in order to have our deeds accepted, we have to have the Sibghah — which is iman in Allah — and we also have to have the Sunnah, which is the process the Prophet taught us how to follow. We can't just have iman in Allah and pray Salah because we have to know how to pray Salah. And that's where we find the Sunnah of the Prophet coming to teach us how to pray. We don't find out how to pray from the Qur'an. We find out how to pray from the Sunnah — from the ahadith, from the prophetic narrations.

So that is the connection between those two words. Hope that makes sense inshaaAllah. JazakAllah khair.

Assalamu alaykum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.