Surah Al-Ahzab | Part 8 | Mufti Azeemuddin Ahmed | Weekly Tafsir

Surah Al-Ahzab | Part 8 | Weekly Tafsir

As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu. We will have a short dars, insha'Allah.

Recitation of the Verses

Sadaqallahul Azeem. Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem. May Allah make our sitting here a means of us being counted amongst those who are students of knowledge.

Introduction: The 22nd Juz

The 22nd Juz is where we are going to begin today. I translated briefly a little bit of tafsir last time of the first ayah. Let's go through the translation of the few verses that hopefully we will try to cover insha'Allah.

Allah mentions: But each and every one of you who remains devoutly obedient to Allah and His Messenger, and who does righteous deeds — to her shall We give her reward two times that of other women. Thus We have prepared for her a generous provision in the hereafter above many.

O wives of the Prophet, you are like no other category of women, if you remain God-fearing. So do not be soft in your speech with men, such that one in whose heart there is a sickness should become desirous. Rather speak a forthright word. Moreover, abide reverently in your homes. Nor shall you flaunt your beauty and adornment like the flaunting of women in the former times of ignorance. Rather duly establish the salah, and give zakah charity, and obey the commands of Allah and His Messenger. And Allah intends by this only to remove all traces of defilement from you, O the people of the Prophet's household, and to purify you in spirit with a virtuous purification.

Context: The Wives of the Prophet and Their Choices

So Allah in the last ayah of the 21st Juz mentioned that the wives of the Prophet — if you want to ask the Prophet for what he doesn't have, you have an option: either you choose him, or you choose the dunya. And he was told to tell them, live with me in the means I have, and remain patient. If that's not acceptable to you, then I will give you some gifts and send you off. If you remain patient and you want Allah and His Messenger, then Allah has prepared a great reward for you.

And then: O wives of the Prophet, whoever from amongst you comes through with an evil action, with a sinful deed, then the sins will be multiplied. And this is not hard for Allah to do.

The Principle: Higher Station Means Higher Expectations

This is something I wanted to spend a few minutes on, my dear brothers. There is a well-known saying:

The good deeds of the pious are regarded as the sins of those who are super close to Allah.

Meaning, an average person says, "Alhamdulillah, today I performed two rak'at of Tahajjud salah before I went to sleep. I'm so excited, I've achieved something great." That's good for him. But a person who is muqarrab — who has been brought close to Allah — has actually fallen in rank by only performing two rak'at before going to sleep, instead of waking up in the middle of the night and performing at least eight, the way the Prophet did. So one person is very happy that he achieved two. But for someone who is close to Allah, two is actually not acceptable.

The closer a person is to Allah, the higher the expectations. And we see that in the dunya as well. A police officer doing something wrong is regarded as a much greater crime. A person in the army committing an atrocity while in uniform is going to be punished more severely than an average person. A physician abusing his authority in the hospital is regarded as a much greater abuse of power compared to someone lower in that medical field.

So Allah has a system in the dunya and the deen as well. The closer we are to Allah, or the more knowledge we have, the greater the expectations from us.

Now, most of the time we use this rule against others. Rarely do we apply it to ourselves. People say, "You keep a beard and you're lying? How dare you do that?" So that's one sin — the lying is a big sin. But he's got that issue he's got to fix. How about we start applying this principle to ourselves? To say: I need to hold myself to a higher standard than others.

You Are the Chosen of the Chosen

The fact that any of you are sitting here on a Tuesday night tafsir — you are 1% of the 1% of the 1%. You are already the chosen of the chosen of the chosen. How many people come for salatul jama'ah on a weekday? How many people, after salatul jama'ah, perform the sunnah without leaving? How many of them perform the sunnah, their dhikr and du'a, and then wait? JazakumAllah khair for waiting today — I wasn't feeling too well. So you're waiting patiently and sitting here all the way to salatul 'Isha. And those who are listening from their homes — how many people dedicate themselves to sit and listen online, leaving everything, without any commotion, just listening to the audio? SubhanAllah, you are amongst the chosen people.

So I need to put myself, and you need to put yourself, at a higher level of accountability. To say, I can't be doing this — because Allah has gifted me with things that the majority of my relatives have not been gifted with. Not to make us proud and arrogant — no. But to feel that Allah can easily hold me accountable. Because I have exposure. I have exposure to knowledge. I have exposure to scholars. I have exposure to a good environment. What excuse can I give myself for not practicing the deen, while there are thousands who have no exposure? Who have never been to a masjid besides Eid. Who have never sat in a dars of tafsir. Who do not know the very basics of the deen. Maybe Allah will excuse them for not knowing anything. But what excuse do I have?

Usually what Shaytan does is create this environment in which people of knowledge are expected to be held to a higher standard — but we use this to attack people, instead of using it for our own benefit. To say: I need to have higher expectations for myself. Are you getting what I'm saying?

A Lesson in Madinah al-Munawwarah

One day, I was speaking to one of my teachers in Madinah al-Munawwarah — may Allah take us all there soon, to Makkah and Madinah, to Haramayn Sharifayn, for Umrah and for Hajj. Ameen, Rabbil 'Alamin. And may Allah grant all of us the reward of Hajj for simply desiring to be there and not being able to go. The Hajj season is just around the corner. A good portion of the hujjaj would already be there by now. SubhanAllah.

So, I was in Madinah and I was with one of my teachers. I was sharing with him some of my own dilemmas. And when you're sharing a dilemma, sometimes what happens? You end up becoming ungrateful to Allah in the process. So he listened to me and then said, "You're simply not focusing on the blessings of Allah." And that's so important to be reminded of — that yeah, these problems are there, but compared to the blessings you have, this is zero. And he said, "Do you realize how chosen you are? You are coming from America, from a place where people don't know the deen, and you're coming with a group. Allah gifted you with knowledge, and you're teaching this group of people how to perform Umrah and Hajj. And the fact that, although you're coming from America, you still know more about the deen than the vast majority of people present here in the masjid of the Nabi ﷺ." I never thought about it like that.

Then we went to go perform Salat al-Duha. He said, "Let's go pray in Riyadh al-Jannah before I head out to Makkah." So we got into Riyadh al-Jannah at around 11 o'clock. He started performing his Salat al-Duha. I was about to begin, and an elderly Arab man caught hold of me and started asking me questions in Arabic. After he repeated himself, I understood. We were sitting and standing in Riyadh al-Jannah — ten feet away from the Prophet, 'alayhis salatu wassalam — and this person was looking completely lost. He told me: "Where is the grave of the Prophet?"

I told him, "My respected elder, we are right here — this is it." And immediately it hit me as a manifestation of what my teacher had been telling me. SubhanAllah — you're from America, born and raised there, and here you are in the city of the Prophet, guiding a person who was born and raised in a Muslim country but literally has no idea where the grave of the Prophet, 'alayhis salatu wassalam, is. When I have been blessed to visit the grave of the Prophet, 'alayhis salatu wassalam, since I was five years old.

That was an immediate lesson Allah was teaching me: you really need to focus on the blessings you have. There's one thing about humility and humbleness — "I'm nobody, I'm nothing, I'm the worst" — that has its place. But on the flip side, we all have to think: Alhamdulillah, Allah gifted me with knowledge and experience and exposure to deen that the vast majority of my cousins do not have. It's not about being arrogant. It's not about thinking of yourself as better than others. It's instead thinking: I am expected to act better than the rest.

If you are sitting here listening to me right now, most definitely you are the top and the cream of your khandan and your relatives. And so the expectations from you have got to be higher. You can't say, "Well, she's doing that, he's doing that, my cousin did that" — what everyone is doing is not your standard. You're different.

And that's what the Qur'an is saying here to the wives of the Prophet: we have expectations from you. If you mess up, you're not going to receive one sin — the punishment will be multiplied. Because you are the wives of the Prophet. There are expectations from you. You have to be leading an extremely pure life, beyond anyone else's.

The Justice of 'Umar ibn al-Khattab

'Umar ibn al-Khattab, that amazing individual — what does he do? He calls his family when he becomes khalifah. SubhanAllah. He says:

"O people, O my family — I have stopped and prohibited the people from doing such and such. I have made the laws for the entire area where I am leading. I have prohibited people from such and such. And indeed, the people are looking at you the way a hunting predatory bird looks at its next meal — that is how the people are looking at you, my family. If you fall into that which I have asked them not to do, they will do the same. And if you stay away from it, they will also stay away. I swear by Allah, if any man from amongst my family is brought to me who did what I have asked them not to do, I will ensure that the punishment is multiplied."

لِمَكَانِهِ مِنِّي — because of the status he has with me. The fact that you're my son, my brother, my relative — I'm going to increase the punishment twofold. So no one should think that I go easy on my family. And no one should use your mistakes as a leeway to say, "Well, he's 'Umar's relative and he's doing it, so we can too."

لا إله إلا الله — this is the 'adl of 'Umar ibn al-Khattab. When you have people like him in leadership, in any position, everything comes right. That is the key thing I want all of you to make du'a for — for yourselves and for this institution of 'adl, justice. In all aspects, in every single aspect, there must be 'adl.

And if there is 'adl, the ulema say, even if there are non-Muslims leading a country, if there is justice, Allah will let them prosper. And if there are Muslims leading a country and they are oppressive, Allah will destroy them — internally, they will fall apart. What do we see today in the Muslim world? Too much abundance of resources, but no justice. And because of that, they are all internally falling apart.

High Expectations Begin at Home

I remember our ustad, Mufti Sahib — if you were given the chance to be in his khidmah, to serve him, prepare meals and the like, the expectation was that when it came to classwork, you had to be the best. There was no such thing as a B student doing his khidmah. Anyone doing his khidmah was an A-plus student. And SubhanAllah — we'd have many guests over for breakfast sometimes. You're preparing everything, then you have to clean up all the dishes, put this away, that way. Mufti Sahib would never say, "Let's go, class is at 7:45." When it was time, exactly at 7:42 or 7:43, he would pick up his book — or actually, one of the students would come every day, a few minutes before, take his book, and leave it on the desk. And he would walk out right on time. But if you got into class after him, you were in trouble. When he walked in, you had better be sitting in your spot. Don't use the excuse of cleaning dishes to miss class. Being his khadim is an added bonus — it comes with higher expectations. You have to have the best attendance, the best studies, everything top-notch.

So we need to keep these high expectations from ourselves. As people of the masjid, we have to ensure that we are living up to a high standard. And anytime we are given authority or power, we have to make sure that the hardest and highest expectations we hold are for our own relatives, our own sons, our own daughters. This is where the problem comes.

Indeed, your wealth and your children are a test. And this is what it means by a test — your son made a mistake, your grandson made a mistake. What do you do? You love them, but the rule is a rule. Are you going to bend the rule? Which happens 99% of the time.

The Story of the Makhzumi Woman

There is nothing better than the beautiful story of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, related by 'A'ishah radiallahu anha. She says: There was a lady from the Makhzumi tribe who stole. She was a rich lady from a rich family of high lineage, and she stole. Mistakes are made. So the Quraysh were very worried. They said, if you follow the rule of Islam, how can we allow this — she is a daughter of some prominent person from a big tribe. We cannot have her face the capital punishment in front of everyone. How are we going to get around this?

So they said, who is going to go speak to the Prophet and try to find a loophole — some shafa'ah, some intercession? They said, we need someone who has direct access to the Prophet, someone the Prophet really loves. And you'll recall — this whole Surah Al-Ahzab story started with the third ayah about how adopted children are not your real children. That was Zayd radiallahu anhu, whose story is yet to come. He was initially being called Zayd ibn Muhammad — super close. So Usamah is his son. Usamah was known as the beloved of the beloved of Rasulullah ﷺ. So they said, let's send Usamah.

So Usamah radiallahu anhu went and said, "Ya Rasulullah, can you please let this woman from the Makhzumi tribe go?" So the Prophet ﷺ said:

"Are you coming here, interceding on behalf of this lady in order to nullify one of the fundamental punishments ordained by Allah?"

This is not my law — this is a hadd from the hudood of Allah. The Qur'an says:

A thief, male or female, if they are caught stealing above a certain amount, then their hands need to be cut. That is straight from the Qur'an. Are you coming to ask me to change a law of Allah?

The Prophet ﷺ then stood up and gave a khutbah. He said:

"The previous nations were destroyed because when an honourable person from amongst them would steal, they would let him go. But when a weak, poor person would steal, they would ensure that the punishment was meted out." (Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 3475; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 1688)

Then the Prophet ﷺ said something super powerful — and my ustad, Maulana Shabbir, would cry when he would read this:

"I swear by Allah, if my daughter Fatimah, the daughter of Muhammad — God forbid — were to ever steal, I would ensure that her hand would be cut." (Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 3475; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 1688)

SubhanAllah. Think about this. The leader of the women of Jannah, Fatimah, the peace of his heart — he said, anyone who hurts her hurts me, anyone who hurts me has challenged Allah, and whoever challenges Allah, Allah will avenge Himself. SubhanAllah. But look at what statement he is making in the same breath: the rules are rules. Even if my own daughter were to do something like this — I cannot play around with the deen.

My beloved brothers, this is a really touchy point. But this is the reason why our system is falling. What did the Prophet ﷺ say? The previous nations were destroyed because the rules changed based on who the person was. Today, in Islamic institutions, in Islamic countries, the rules very quickly change based on who you are, how wealthy you are, how well-connected you are, which family you belong to, what resources you have. This is scary. That's why we have to ask Allah never to be put into a position in which we have to make tough decisions, and then end up failing — and our whole deen goes.

That's why the Prophet ﷺ said:

"Whoever has been made a judge among the people has been slaughtered without a knife." (Sunan Abi Dawud, Hadith 3571; Sunan al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 1325)

What does that mean? One explanation is that if you have been made a judge, you don't even realize it — you're actually gone. Silently you have been slaughtered. بِغَيْرِ سِكِّينٍ — without a knife. This is not something to be excited about. Instead, you have to be afraid that a mistake happens — that you have a soft spot for someone you should not have had, just because they are related or have done something for you — and your whole deen goes down.

That's why the Qur'an says:

Remain just, even if it means making decisions against your own relatives.

Speak the truth even if it is bitter. Follow justice even if it means it is against your own relatives. This is not easy. So we have to ask Allah, Ya Allah, make us people who are just in all situations.

My dear friends, I want you to understand what I am speaking about, because this is scary stuff. When it comes to our relatives, we may end up losing our whole akhirah. We could have a perfect life, but then the love of a son, a daughter, or a wife comes in — and that's it. That's why they call it fitnah. That's why they call it fitnah.

Only the ones who truly understand how dangerous this is will stay away from it. Otherwise most people don't even think along these lines. "Everyone's doing it" — you have a contact, why not use it and skip the line? We have to ask Allah to grant us basira, farsightedness.

If you truly fear Allah, Allah will give you furqan. What is furqan? Furqan is a special light — a special light that allows you to differentiate between right and wrong. It lives in the heart. It's like these special headlights. No one has this light except as a byproduct of taqwa in the heart. When you have those headlights on, you don't even need to ask for a fatwa. You know exactly: okay, I need to stay away from this, I need to stay away from that. And you just navigate through it. So we ask Allah to grant this nur to all of us and our loved ones.

Double the Reward: The Meaning of Qunoot

Then Allah says: whoever is consistent from amongst you in their ibadah — speaking again to the wives of the Prophet ﷺ — then Allah will give her double the reward. It's not just double the sin — if you remain consistent and steadfast and do good deeds, Allah is saying: I'm going to give you double the rewards, and I have prepared for you a great and honorable provision.

My beloved brothers and sisters — qunoot. What does qunoot mean?

To be consistent upon obedience.

All of us have our ups and downs, our highs and our lows. This is natural. Don't think you're unnatural or doing something wrong if you're going through this — it's completely normal. The Prophet ﷺ said, in a beautiful hadith:

"Every single thing has its excitement phase, and every excitement phase has its cooling-off phase." (Sunan al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 2453)

Every single thing has an excitement phase, and every excitement phase has a cooling phase. It's natural. If you get super excited to do tons of ibadah, and then after a while you feel like, "I'm just going to do my fara'id and sunnah mu'akkadah, and that's it" — you were reading three or four juz a day, and now you're just reading Surah Yasin and a few pages of Qur'an. It happens.

But the Prophet ﷺ said: the key thing is what happens when you go into the cool-off phase. When you are no longer in the excitement phase, what is your situation? That is what we will be judged by. He said: if in that cool-off phase you follow my sunnah, you are successful. But if in that cool-off phase you leave my sunnah and start falling into sin, then unfortunately that excitement and enthusiasm was of no benefit. Because what's the point of that excitement phase if a week later you're in major sin? You'd rather be in the middle ground, but ensure that you don't fall into sin.

So what is the takeaway point? The key thing is thabat — dawam 'ala al-ta'ah, continuity upon whatever we are doing. Even if it is little. 'A'ishah radiallahu anha says the Prophet ﷺ said:

"O people! Take upon yourselves from good deeds that which you can handle, for indeed Allah is not going to get tired until you all get tired. And indeed the most beloved action in the sight of Allah is that which is done consistently, even if it is small." (Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 43; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 782)

Allah will never get tired of giving rewards. You will get tired of doing good deeds before that happens. So ensure that you don't burn out. Don't do so much that for the next week or month you say, "I cannot do any ibadah." Do a little bit every day, instead of doing so much one month and nothing for the next three months.

Like I mentioned last week — this Tuesday night dars that you have. If you say it's one hour in the masjid, take it upon yourself, stick to it. No matter what happens — rain, snow, sleet — say, "This is one thing I've committed to. This is what I'm going to do for my own spiritual rectification." And take it to the next step: make a commitment to invite five or ten other brothers. You will see, insha'Allah ta'ala, how you will be a part of their own spiritual journey.

This all comes from the word qunoot — doing something continuously. Mawlana Shaykh al-Nabulusi gives a beautiful example here. He says: take a vessel, fill it up with water, and then leave it. Look at the temperature outside nowadays. What is going to happen to the water? It evaporates. So he says — you fill it up, even a hundred gallons, but if you don't make the effort to continuously add small amounts of water, sooner or later it will all be dried out. A hundred gallons added — and now not a single drop remains.

He says:

"You yourself are a container — if you do not continuously take in something, how will you ever fill up?"

What do we have to add? Iman, 'ilm, yaqeen, attributes, qualities — that is what this halaqa is about. Our tafsir halaqa is your weekly fill-up. If a person does not do the weekly fill-up, they will soon become empty. So wherever you find a gathering of 'ilm and dhikr, commit to at least once a week. And when I'm traveling, I always ask the local people to do the same — find a program in your city, drive 20, 30, 40, 50 minutes. Where there's a will, there's a way. When a person realizes that they need to fill up spiritually, Allah will make it easy.

So what is the key thing? Istiqamah — steadfastness in whatever we are doing.

O Wives of the Prophet: Do Not Soften Your Speech

Then Allah says — and this is a very important yet sensitive subject to address. We ask Allah to inspire us with the most correct way of addressing it insha'Allah.

O wives of the Prophet, you are not like any other category of women if you remain God-fearing. So do not be soft in your speech with men, such that one in whose heart there is a sickness should become desirous. Rather speak a forthright word.

First, before we even get into the explanation of this ayah — some people erroneously think this ayah is speaking only to the wives of the Prophet. The ulema explain this is called min bab al-awla — that is, from the principle of "all the more reason." If Allah is speaking to the wives of the Prophet — who are the mothers of the believers, the Ummahat al-Mu'minin, women that it is haram to marry, women held in the highest reverence — and telling even them to watch the way they speak to men, lest problems arise, then what about anyone else besides them? Min bab al-awla, obviously to a higher degree, this will apply.

It is like the Qur'an says:

Don't say "uff" to your parents. As 'Ali radiallahu anhu says, if there were a word in the Arabic language that denoted a smaller amount of disrespect than "uff," Allah would have used that. Because "uff" is not even a real word — it is an expression, the very minimum of disrespect. And Allah said even that is forbidden. So if you cannot say "uff" to them, then obviously anything above that level of disrespect is haram. So we need to clear our minds about this first of all.

The Creation of Male and Female: A Foundation of Belief

Khudhu' al-qawl — speaking in a soft, enticing manner — this is a qa'idah, a principle. Allah has created men and women, and created them with their own traits. Allah created forces in nature: water, fire, wind. He created soil, mud, all sorts of animals. And He created men and women differently. We need a whole hour, two hours on this topic.

I swear by the night when it overtakes everything. And I swear by the day when it becomes brilliantly clear. And I swear by that which He created — the male and the female. Indeed, your efforts are diverse.

The purpose of these oaths? Your efforts are diverse — you don't all work in the same manner. Some are working to build Islam, some are working to destroy it. Some are working to build societies, others to destroy them.

What is so interesting, as 'Allamah al-Sha'rawi writes, is that Allah took an oath by the day and the night. The day and the night — is there any one of them that is less powerful? Imagine the day says, "I need to be like the night." Imagine the night says, "I need to be like the day." Imagine if the night says, "We're going to take over — no more days, only nights." Or the day says, "We don't need nights anymore." It would be chaos. Allah is saying: the way He created day and night in different seasons, similarly He created male and female. They have their own perfection. There is no such thing as the night being imperfect and the day being perfect, or one season being perfect over another. Each one has its own perfection, its own strength. And there is a reason why Allah created all of that. By day you work, by night you rest. If it was 24 hours of daylight, it would be a very big problem. And the Qur'an says that:

Say: Tell me — if Allah were to make the night perpetual over you until the Day of Judgment, who is a god besides Allah who could bring you light? Do you not hear? Say: Tell me — if Allah were to make the day perpetual over you until the Day of Judgment, who is a god besides Allah who could bring you a night in which you rest? Do you not see?

SubhanAllah — I think these verses in the Qur'an are building up for an era in which we will not understand the reason why Allah created two genders. And these verses are there to say: just like the day and the night each have their essential role, so too do male and female. Because who would ever confuse the day and the night? But a time will come when there will be a group of people who say we don't need genders. And Allah says:

And We created you from male and female, and made you into peoples and tribes so that you may know one another. Indeed, the most honorable of you in the sight of Allah is the most God-fearing of you.

One of the scholars said: this is not merely akhbar — just an informational verse like "Allah created the heavens and the earth." No, this is ayatul ahkam — a verse of injunction. This is an ayah of 'aqeedah, of belief. It is giving us a judgment: Allah has created males and females. That's it. Whether you like it or not, the Creator is telling you. There is day and there is night. There are seasons. And He is the One who says: I have created male and female, and they are different. No one is better than the other in terms of gender — the most honorable is the one with the most taqwa:

If you have one Muslimah and one thousand male PhDs, MDs, and JDs who are all disbelievers — that one Muslimah is one million percent more virtuous and weightier in the eyes of Allah than all of those men. The key thing is taqwa. That is what matters with Allah.

So why does Allah repeatedly say أَفَلَا تُبْصِرُونَ — "do you not see?" — and أَفَلَا تَعْقِلُونَ — "do you not understand?" And in Surah Al-Layl, when speaking about day and night, He is also speaking about the two genders. These phrases أَفَلَا تُبْصِرُونَ and أَفَلَا تَذَكَّرُونَ are also building up to those people in a future era who will come to doubt the gender roles — who will doubt the creation of Allah in two distinct forms.

What's wrong with you? Didn't you have a mom and a dad? They were both moms or both dads? Come on. How have you forgotten 10,000 years of human history? How could it be that 10,000 years of human history — 100% of it — was in falsehood, and then all of a sudden you've been enlightened more than anyone else? This just doesn't make sense. And what makes you think you're right? If 10,000 years of people were supposedly suffering in misguidance, the next generation is simply going to say you were wrong too — until they come up with something even more problematic than this. And that's exactly what's going to happen. It's going to get worse generation by generation.

La ilaha illallah. That's why there is a du'a of the Prophet ﷺ:

"O Allah, when You decide to put a community into trial, please pull me back to You without any fitnah." We all have to make du'a: O Allah, if fitnah is coming our way, I don't want to die in a fitnah and lose my deen. This gender issue is a massive fitnah. It is not a peripheral or ancillary issue — it is hitting at 'aqeedah. It's hitting at your core belief. Because the Qur'an says they are different. The Qur'an speaks about marriage of men with women. And you have a whole group of people pushing not just that this needs to be accepted, but that it's permissible — and that you need to change your faith for that. We are getting more phone calls per month than we have ever gotten before, from people expressing what is happening at their homes at the hands of their sons and daughters. It's pretty scary. So in this era of fitnah, we have to ask Allah for protection.

The Fire of Attraction: Placed Where It Belongs

So Allah created men and women separately and created specific ways of interaction with each other. Just as different elements come together beautifully in a stove or a barbecue grill to cook your food or keep you warm — but take that same fire out of its protective place and put it out in a dry forest, and you'll have a hundred thousand acres burning, thousands of people dying every year from fires.

There is a place for that fire to work. We need fire to cook. We need fire for warmth, for energy, for all sorts of things. But you cannot have that fire roaming around freely — it will completely destroy everything you have built. So the attraction between men and women is that fire. Allah Himself put it there. If that attraction wasn't there, there would be no reproduction, no children, and human existence would have come to an end thousands of years ago. But because of that attraction, Allah has kept us going.

And if you think about it — there are so many challenges in having children, taking care of them, the cost, the difficulty, and the pain for a mother. Why in the world would anyone willingly go through that? SubhanAllah. Allah puts certain elements of love in the lady's heart to be a mother, and in the husband's heart to have a wife. All of this plays together and draws them toward marriage and children. Otherwise no one would want to have children, no one would want to be committed in a marriage.

SubhanAllah — Shaykh al-Nabulusi writes a beautiful point. He says that shahwah — including the desire for the opposite gender — is one of the greatest means to get close to Allah. Have you ever heard about that? He says:

"We climb towards Allah through these shahwat — sometimes through sabr, and sometimes through shukr."

You eat food? الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ الَّذِي أَطْعَمَنَا وَسَقَانَا وَجَعَلَنَا مُسْلِمِينَ — All praise be to Allah who fed us and gave us to drink and made us Muslims. And if you don't eat — the Prophet ﷺ said: then I am fasting. The Prophet ﷺ said he loved to eat and he loved to fast — so that he could be grateful on the days he was eating, and patient on the days he was fasting.

So when a person's need is fulfilled, he does shukr — Alhamdulillah, I have a wife, I have kids. Yes, there is difficulty, but now at least I am protected from sin. On the other hand, a person who is not yet married — he is doing sabr. And through the sabr of that difficulty he is going through, as he searches for a spouse and strives to stay away from haram, he will gain closeness to Allah like no other person — simply through his sabr, his difficulty, and his resilience in not falling into haram.

So if you think about it — this is not a musibah. This is an asset. Shahwah is what? An asset. Through it you can actually reach Allah. Just change the perspective about it.

So Allah created this attraction — but if this fire is not placed in its proper place, which is marriage, and is placed anywhere else, the entire institution will fall apart. Allah created men and women with their respective roles. If everyone fulfills their role, we progress. If we try to swap and copy each other's roles — which is happening now — then the world will fall apart.

Shaykh al-Nabulusi mentions a beautiful point. He says: while the mother is moving the crib with her right hand, she says:

"She is moving the entire world with her left hand."

The movement of that child with her right hand — that child is tomorrow going to be a leader. And if it wasn't for the love of the mother he received as a young baby, he would never reach his potential. So the mother is not just "raising kids at home." Rather, she is:

The director of the world — behind the scenes.

Behind every great man, they say, there is a strong woman. Every single leader in the world came from a mother. Even Rasulullah ﷺ had his beloved mother Aminah. No one can say they came without a mother. So Allah gave the mother that position. Allah put the love of being a mother into a female's heart, and the love of females into a male's heart. The Qur'an says:

Beautified for people is the love of that which they desire — of women, and sons, and heaped-up sums of gold and silver, and fine branded horses, and cattle, and tilled land. That is the enjoyment of worldly life.

So Allah created each one with something. Now, the male has greater physical strength than the female — and we're trying to deny that nowadays. Allah created them differently. Hence, you do not find too many blacksmiths, bricklayers, sanitary engineers, or front-line fighters who are women. It was always men at the front lines. But now they are pushing to have women on the front lines as well. So how do you balance this? If men are so physically strong, they might end up oppressing all the women. So Allah gave women what we can call soft power. And that is Allah putting the attraction toward women into the hearts of men. So although she may not have the physical strength in most cases to overpower him, Allah put the attraction toward her in his heart. That will abate him and hold him back from outright oppression — or rather, he will man up and use his physical strength to earn, in order to be worthy of her. That was the whole courtship process up to the early 1900s — you would go and request the hand of a girl in marriage, and the father would conduct a full interview. A man would man up to be worthy of being accepted.

When the world wars took place and women entered the workforce because the men were away dying in battle — everything changed. The entire honor system that was there — that you were someone men had to be worthy of to approach — was dismantled. And so the roles became confused. Allah gave women this soft power. Who uses this soft power? Look at the example of Asiyah — the wife of Fir'awn. He's killing everyone left and right. But at the end of the day, she's his wife. And she says, "Please don't kill Musa. Perhaps he will be of benefit to us, and we can adopt him as a son." And Fir'awn, as powerful and tyrannical as he is, listens to his wife. That is the soft power I am speaking about.

Look at how Allah allowed Asiyah to use her soft power to save the entire ummah. Had she not interceded on behalf of Musa, and had Allah not inspired her to do that, Musa would certainly have been killed. If Musa was killed, where would Bani Isra'il be? Their dunya got saved, their akhirah got saved — by one lady, using her soft power.

That is the power women have. Women can use their soft power to literally change the course of history. You don't need to be at the forefront. You don't have to be at the front to be making a real change in this world. If a wife were to just say to her husband — "You look so handsome, mashallah, but you growing out your beard would make you look like my prophet, and that would make me even more happy" — no Mawlana's or Mufti's bayan will motivate him the way his wife's words will. If the wife encourages her husband — "Mashallah, you're spending so much on me, but how about you also go spend in the house of Allah, so you and I both can enjoy the never-ending rewards in the akhirah" — the world would be a different place.

As long as everyone sticks to their positions, the fort will be protected. As one Bedouin was asked, what is the role of a husband and wife? He said:

"The husband serves the wife outside the house, and the wife serves the husband inside the house."

They are both out there serving each other, but they have different places where they serve. So this fire — as long as it is powerful and placed within the marital relationship — is needed and good. But if you take it out of its proper place, it will destroy everything. And the start of it is not even looking at someone. What the Qur'an is speaking about is even the voice — hearing it can lead to so many issues.

And this is not speaking to a 2021 crowd — it was speaking to the era of the Sahaba and the era of Rasulullah ﷺ. But even there, there were hypocrites. Allah says: don't speak in a soft, enticing tone, otherwise that person who has marad — a sickness in his heart — will begin to have wrong desires. Desire for who? Your mother. She is the wife of your Prophet. She is held in the highest station. How can you think about that? But it doesn't make a difference when Shaytan and the nafs come. When they want to start a fire, they can start a fire anywhere.

As Shaykh al-Nabulusi says: Shaytan has a sixth sense that none of us have — super sharp, that you cannot miss. It grabs you. He sees the ability to create a spark. He knows, "Okay, this guy's got that weakness." You don't need a massive fire — you just put one match to a pile of oil and it flares up. So that attraction is already in the man. By a woman asking a simple question beyond what's necessary — "How's the family? How are you doing? You're looking nice today" — khalas, done deal. Shaytan has the sixth sense — he knows exactly how to create that fire. So you are dealing with a very massive test from Allah.

And that's why the Qur'an speaks about this. This is a lengthy topic, and insha'Allah we will continue it soon.

Closing Announcements

Next week I will be traveling, so insha'Allah there will be a substitute for the dars. After that will be Eid, so there will be no dars then either. I will meet you all insha'Allah two to three weeks from now. You can listen to the recordings in the meantime insha'Allah.

We ask Allah to protect us all from falling to our temptations. May He give us the strength not to fall to them. May He allow us to have that level of basira — farsightedness — to keep ourselves free from falling to these temptations.

O Allah, heal our sick and the sick among the Muslims. Remove the suffering, O Lord of mankind — there is no cure except Your cure, a cure that leaves no illness behind.

Was-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu.