Recognizing the Wisdom of Allah(SWT) -Mufti Azeemuddin | Islamic Reminder | Jummah Khutbah
By Mufti Azeemuddin | 2026-06-04T08:23:39.532556+00:00 | Topic: Allah
أما بعد، قال الله سبحانه وتعالى بعد أن أعوذ بالله من الشيطان الرجيم:
وقال تعالى:
صدق الله العظيم
Respected elders, brothers, mothers and sisters and students السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته
Allah is Al-Hakeem - The All-Wise
Allah سبحانه وتعالى from amongst His names is Al-Hakeem. Allah سبحانه وتعالى is wise. So Allah سبحانه وتعالى just like as He is powerful and He is merciful and He is kind, similarly Allah سبحانه وتعالى is wise. And Allah's wisdom is something that we are not all capable of understanding.
Understanding Wisdom Through Human Experience
We are many students sitting here. You see how many times you tell your parents something that you want, you tell your teachers something you want and they'll say no. And a person will say "but I think why not? I want this, this is what I like, this is beneficial for me." But your parents will tell you that "this is harmful for you, you're not going to understand that." They'll tell you, they'll say "when you grow up you'll understand."
And the righteous and the good children will say to their parents "okay, I thought it was beneficial for me but if you're saying it's harmful, I'll accept that." And the kids who are very stubborn will say "no, no," they'll start whining, they'll start crying and they'll say that at all cost "I want this, I want this" no matter what it is.
Maybe as we grow older, as like an older sibling, we'll understand the wisdom of his parents better than a younger sibling. So if you have a 10 year old, you'll understand when his mom and dad say no to a 5 year old. A 5 year old will understand possibly why a mother or father is saying no to his 2 year old brother or sister.
So as we grow older we start slowly trying to understand what is the wisdom behind what our parents are asking us to do and not to do. But at the end of the day, the father and the mother and the human beings children - we're all human, we're all makhluq, we're all the creation of Allah.
There'll be a time when every son and daughter will one day become the father themselves, they'll become a parent themselves, they'll become a mother themselves and they will again ask their children not to do something or to do something. They will reach, pretty much by the time they reach 40 years old, they may be very well at the same level of wisdom that their father and mother had when they were at 40. Why not? Maybe even more so. It is possible to catch up, it is possible to reach that level because at the end we're all humans and we can compete with one another in that.
Allah's Infinite Wisdom
But when it comes to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, just like Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has no boundaries, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has no coordinates. There's no latitude and longitude for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. You cannot box in Allah. You can't say he's confined to a space. You can't say "where is he? Is he here? Is he there?" These type of questions are irrelevant to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. He's above and beyond that because Allah created time and Allah created space and Allah created earth and moon and everything else in between.
So we cannot ask this type of question: "Is Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala sitting here? Is Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala sitting there?" These questions do not apply to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. It is like a person, as they say, trying to fit a square inside a triangle or a triangle inside a square - it just doesn't happen.
So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, as he is infinite and endless and boundaryless, his attributes are also way beyond us. And one of Allah's attributes like I told you is Al-Hakeem - he's wise. We can never appreciate and get a true understanding of Allah's wisdom. We can possibly get a small peek inside it, but we will never be able to truly understand why Allah does what he does.
Submitting to Allah's Will
Brothers and sisters, students, it's so important for us to understand this because many times, maybe even everyday, something happens in your life and you find yourself asking the question "why? Why did this happen?" If I do something which you may directly ask me "why did you do that?" and I can give you an explanation if I would like to. If you do something, your parents do something, your elders do something, you can ask.
But Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala - obviously there is no place for us to ask "Ya Allah, why?" Instead, asking Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that type of question is outright disrespectful because it's as though we are doubting his wisdom. Instead, we are taught to do tafweed - to completely submit ourselves to Allah's will and say "Ya Allah, you know best. I do not know the wisdom behind this. I can possibly guess the wisdom but I don't know the reality of it."
The Story of Musa and Khidr
And one great story that explains this is the story of Musa and Khidr from Surah Al-Kahf, where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tells us that Nabi Musa, who was a very knowledgeable of course prophet, one day was with his community and they asked him "Oh Musa, who is the most knowledgeable person amongst the people?" And he responded by saying "I am," because he was the prophet of Allah.
He had so many occasions spoken to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. He had received the holy book Taurah from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. His brother was a prophet. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gave deliverance to Bani Israel through him. Allah defeated the armies of Firaun through him. So he said "I am the most knowledgeable person" because based on his understanding he was.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala then informed him that "Oh Musa, there is another servant of mine who has knowledge that you don't have, and I would like you now to go visit him and stay with him and learn from him." So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala shares and narrates that story in Surah Al-Kahf:
A teacher and student - Musa and his nephew Yusha - they go on a trip to go find Khidr and to spend some time with him. And the story is definitely amazing, it's interesting and it's long, but I'm going to simply gloss over it just to focus on one point of wisdom of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
The Conditions of Learning
Musa and Yusha eventually, after a long hard journey, find Khidr and he requests his company and he says:
"Oh Khidr, may I spend time with you and may I follow with you so that you may teach me from that which Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has taught you?"
He is the principal of the school of Khidr's school, so he has a right to put in any rules that he wishes. And he says "you're a prophet with all due respect, but you're enrolling in my school. If you enroll with my school, you're gonna follow my rules. And the rule is that you will remain silent, you will not ask questions, you have no right to ask questions. If you can do this, then you may follow me and come with me and enjoy my school."
So the scholars have actually written and spoken so much about the rules of an institution and the rules of the etiquettes of a student and a teacher, extrapolated and extracted from the story of Musa and Khidr. I remember when I was studying abroad, one of the first days - orientation day school - we had one day Mawlana Tariq Jameel Sahib, whose institution I studied for a year, he came to visit the school on the first day. He gathered all the students and he spoke for about two, two and a half hours just on the story of Musa and Khidr, extracting the lessons from there for a student and a teacher and the rules of an institution and a madrasa. And then of course later on in our final year when I was in South Africa under Mufti Ghayasuddin Haq, our Ustadh Bukhari, he spoke extensively as well. So this story is definitely very amazing.
Briefly again, he says "if you remain silent I will let you accompany me."
The First Test - The Ship
First stop: they board a ship. Musa and Khidr board a ship and they were for free were able to make the journey. The people on the ship knew who these people were - Musa and Khidr - and they let them go. They said "we don't need to charge you, you are righteous, pious people."
So as Khidr was deboarding, he made a hole in a plank, took out a plank from the boat. So Musa saw that - we heard when someone is nice to you, you have to be nice to them. These people allowed us to board the ship and didn't even charge us. Why would you take out a plank and make a hole in their ship, in their boat? So he asked Khidr "why did you do that?"
And Khidr responds by saying "didn't I tell you not to ask me?" And he actually said at the very beginning:
"Oh Musa, how are you so quickly willing to sign on the line here without even knowing what's gonna happen in this journey? You say I won't ask, but trust me - and I'm explaining this in my words - trust me you're gonna see things that are just gonna startle you big time. Are you sure you're gonna be able to keep yourself quiet and not ask? How do you give this guarantee that 'no, I'll be with you and I'll remain silent'? Just watch what's gonna happen."
And sure enough, he couldn't handle it. He saw the breaking of a plank and he spoke up and he said "Khidr, what is this?" So he said "didn't I tell you?" He said "I'm sorry":
"Please do not take me to task for what I have genuinely forgotten. I forgot what I had agreed upon."
The Second Test - The Young Man
Then they found - they walked, they went to a - they found a group of children playing and they found a boy there:
He found a child there amongst other kids. Khidr brought that child to one side and took the life of this child, killed him just like that - killed a child.
So Musa is seeing an innocent boy in front of his eyes being killed. He's shocked and he says:
"You have actually killed an innocent soul just like that. This is horrible, this is a very terrible sin you are doing." He's telling who?
The Story of Musa and Khidr: Understanding Allah's Hidden Wisdom
Khidr رضي الله عنه he says, "Okay this is it! If you ask me one more time, you're out." So Musa عليه السلام says, "Okay, one more time I will not inshallah ask you again."
They went to a village, they went to a town. When they went to that town and they asked for people to give them food and allow them to stay - there was no hotel business, they would stay at someone's home. At least for three days people would be willing to accommodate guests. So when they stayed there, they asked them, "Can you please give us a place to stay?" فَأَبَوْا أَن يُضَيِّفُوهُمَا - they refused to give them a place to stay.
فَوَجَدَ فِيهَا جِدَارًا - and then he found, Khidr said, "Oh there's a wall here about to fall down. How about you roll up your sleeves and help me out here?" So Nabi Musa rolls up his sleeves and is rebuilding this wall. After so much hard toiling of efforts, Musa عليه السلام looks at Khidr and says, "At least can we charge them a few dollars with that which we can buy ourselves some lunch? Because they haven't provided lunch, dinner, a place to stay - nothing - even though it's expected that they're supposed to. Can you please ask them for money?"
And Khidr said, "Not only no, but this is the third strike - you're out! You should not have asked me this." So he said هَـٰذَا فِرَاقُ بَيْنِي وَبَيْنِكَ - "The time has come for separating between us. You go your way, I go my way." However, سَأُنَبِّئُكَ بِتَأْوِيلِ مَا لَمْ تَسْتَطِع عَّلَيْهِ صَبْرًا - "I will inform you of those things which you could not remain silent and keep quiet and just watch what I was doing. You kept on asking questions. I'll tell you why I did what I did."
The Hidden Wisdom Behind Each Action
And he explained to him. He said, "Well, the first - the ship - كَانَتْ لِمَسَاكِينَ - it belonged to a group of poor people. يَعْمَلُونَ فِي الْبَحْرِ - they used to toil and work hard at the seas, transferring and ferrying people across. وَكَانَ وَرَاءَهُم مَّلِكٌ يَأْخُذُ كُلَّ سَفِينَةٍ غَصْبًا - and there was a tyrant ruler who would look at every passing ship and boat, and if he saw it good for him and he saw it was in good shape, that tyrant would just usurp it, take it away. So I made this hole here so that when his agents of the king see this boat, they will not like it because they'll find a fault in it. They don't want to worry about fixing anything. And these young men, of course, they know how to fix their ship, so they'll just have to spend a little bit of time fixing their ship, but at least they'll have their ship. Got it?"
He said, "What about that child?" He says, "This child looks innocent, but he would grow up to become a disbeliever - not only a disbeliever who would be disobedient to Allah and disobedient to his parents and would bring a lot of misery to his parents. So Allah asked me to take his life away. Now, apparently the parents will cry - of course they're obviously gonna cry when they lose a child - but it's probably good for both. Meaning, the child loses his life at a young age, inshallah he doesn't get an opportunity to sin whatever he was intended to sin. And then number two, Allah سبحانه وتعالى replaced him with a much more righteous, pious child for the parents so that they don't have to suffer at the hands of this kid."
And the third one he says was that these people did not host us and they were not nice people. However, underneath this wall was some treasure that was left behind by the parents of these orphans. Father and elders died and left behind innocent children, orphans, and they had no one to look after them. Now you tell me, if these people are not giving us food for one day, when this wall falls over and below it a treasure chest is found, do you think they will retain that and save it for these orphans? Of course not! Allah سبحانه وتعالى out of His mercy for these innocent orphans and out of the piousness and the righteousness of the parents and grandparents of these orphans, Allah ordered us to rebuild this wall to ensure that these treasures remain preserved until they grow up and they figure out that their money lies underneath here.
The Lesson for Us: Trusting Allah's Wisdom
Now Musa عليه السلام, my brothers and sisters, was a very honorable prophet - one of the top from the categories of the prophets, the five top prophets - but his jurisdiction was different. He was a prophet who received revelation, and Khidr was privy and he had knowledge to those things that are hidden from Nabi Musa.
Now I want to tell you this: that if Nabi Musa, who is the most honorable, top-notch prophet, he has no idea why this child is being killed, he doesn't know why this ship is being broken, he doesn't know why this wall is being rebuilt without a fee, and he is so perplexed that he had to keep on asking even though he said he wouldn't - because according to his knowledge what's happening is wrong. You're not supposed to do any of these things. So that's why he was forced to speak up. As a prophet, he can't allow these type of things to happen.
So I want to ask you, as adults and young children sitting here: is it really right and sensible for us to demand that we're going to understand why things happen in the world? Why a certain horrible school shooting happens? Why does an earthquake knock out a masjid or innocent people? Why does a disease strike an already poverty-stricken country in the world and wipes out even thousands of people? Why do difficult things and horrible things happen in the world?
We will definitely never know the answer to all of them. We can speculate, we can think, we can come up with possibilities, but remember: you and I are not meant to understand those things because we are creation and Allah is Creator. And there is absolutely no similarity between creation and Creator.
Allah is Al-Hakeem - The Wise
Just have trust that Allah is Al-Hakeem - He's Wise - and behind every action of His there must be some wisdom. There's gotta be! It's like these three stories that I shared with you - there's wisdom behind all three of them. But even Nabi Musa didn't understand that until he was informed.
And interestingly, the Prophet عليه الصلاة والسلام is reported to have said, "I wish Musa عليه السلام was a little bit more patient so we could have learned even more about these inner workings." (Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 74)
So when if this is the statement of the Prophet عليه الصلاة والسلام, we have to also rest content that everything that's happening in the world is happening with the permission of Allah, with the wisdom of Allah - no matter how horrible it seems, how despicable it may sound, no matter how hurtful it is to us in our lives. There's gotta be a hidden plan of Allah سبحانه وتعالى. Trust Him for that.
The Danger of Questioning Allah's Wisdom
If we do not trust Allah سبحانه وتعالى in this, my brothers, then there's chances that a person can lose his or her faith. A person can begin to question the very existence of Allah. And that is happening every day all around us today because of this issue that I just mentioned - about not trusting Allah's wisdom and constantly questioning and objecting: "Why does this happen? Why does that happen?" when they don't realize that you and I are not God. We're creation of Allah. We're not in the position of leadership. We're not a Rabb, we're not a Lord. Stop demanding to have those rights!
Understanding Our Place in Creation
All of you who work in IT and corporate - how many levels of access are there? How many levels of security clearances are there? As soon as you walk in, you're a human. You're a top-level VP and the president of the company - you're all human. They all have to eat and drink, they all have to relieve themselves in the bathroom, they all have to brush their teeth every single day. No matter how amazing they may look, they have to take showers. They're all human. Yet there's such a big difference in security clearances. There's such a big difference in how much information he has and how much information you have.
How can we expect that we have the same information that Allah عز وجل has? Doesn't make sense, does it?
So we have to trust in Allah سبحانه وتعالى's wisdom and His decisions and rest assured that He knows what's happening. You and I have to simply do what we're told to do.
The Lesson from Parenting
We need to remind ourselves the same lesson we teach our kids every day: "Your mom and dad know what they're doing, just listen to them." We have to tell ourselves - maybe as a father I actually may make mistakes, but I expect my kids to trust me because I'm a few years older. That's my Lord! I have to repeat this lesson to myself: that let my Lord handle affairs for myself and the whole world. He knows what He's doing. Let me just do what He's asked me to do and everything will be fine.
I pray to Almighty Allah that He grants us the level of tawakkul and reliance upon Him as is required, the level of yaqeen and conviction in Him, His attributes that is required, and saves us from ever questioning and doubting His existence, His wisdom and His actions. آمين يا رب العالمين.
Kindly perform the sunnah.