Which of Your Lord's Favors Will You Deny - Surah Ar-Rahman

Last time in this Surah Ar-Rahman series. You know, if you eat a Snickers and you take the wrapper and throw it into the earth, what's it gonna do? It's gonna poison the earth. It's gonna poison the ocean.

You take an orange peel that Allah made, Allah has given candy, and you take the orange peel and you throw it on the earth, what's it gonna do? It's gonna feed and nourish the earth. You know, not to mention it has medicinal qualities, other usages, even the peel has usages. And the idea of the peel, it's protected from bugs, it's protected from disease.

You don't have to wash it because it's already been secured by Allah as a washed thing, right? الْأَكْمَامُ. Like, he didn't have to do that. He could have fed me like he feeds the horse.

But he put it in such a beautiful way on a tree and he hung it like a gift for me to unwrap. To help you follow along and reflect more deeply, we've created a companion workbook for this series. Download it at bayyinah.com forward slash rahman.

Once again, everybody, أَسْ سَلَٰمُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللَّهِ وَبَرَكَاتُهُ. We're going to try to pick up where we left off. We reached the conclusion of ayah number 12 yesterday.

We're gonna start from 13 onwards. My hope today, if we can get there, is to reach hopefully ayah number 25. That's one coherent subject in the three sessions that we're gonna have together.

But this session, I think we're gonna dedicate, if not most of it, then all of it, to this ayah.

Because this ayah is going to come up over and over again. So it's better to just focus on it, understand its role as a pillar of this surah because it keeps recurring over and over again.

Understand some things about it and some key vocabulary and subject matter in it. And that will help us see its placement as the surah continues. One thing that the first thing that comes about when you read this ayah is that the word رَبِّكُمَا in رَبِّكُمَا is the second person pronoun, which means both of you.

Both of you. And so far, what we saw was He created the human being. He didn't say He created you.

He said He created the human being. And He said that He put things on the earth for all kinds of creatures. What I'm trying to get at is everything was in the third person.

There was nothing in the second person. Allah wasn't talking to us. He was talking about us.

He was talking about the world but He wasn't addressing us directly. So even when He talked about the earth and said فِيهَا فَاكِهَةٌ وَالنَّخْلُ ذَاتُ الْأَكْمَامُ He didn't say وَالنَّخْلُ ذَاتُ الْأَكْمَامُ لَكُمْ Like that's for you. He didn't add the you in that conversation.

And all of a sudden, we're going from the third person to the second person. So this is an important thing, a feature in the Qur'an called التِّفَاتْ and an easy way to understand that in English is transition. Transitions happen from past tense to present tense, present tense to past tense, third person to second person, second person to third person, first person to third person.

All kinds of transitions happen in the Qur'an. Sometimes transitions happen in subject. Like in the early part of the surah, we saw there was a transition from the creation of the human being to the order of the cosmos, right? That was an التِّفَاتْ also.

So there's different kinds of التِّفَاتْ in the Qur'an. Those of you that are interested in the subject of التِّفَاتْ, there's a really nice paper by Professor Abdul Halim from Oxford University. You can search it.

I'm pretty sure you can find it, التِّفَاتْ in the Qur'an. You can spell it in English and you can find a really nice paper on the subject to give you an idea of one of the things as you're reading the Qur'an as anybody, even if you're reading the Qur'an in English translation, even if it's a terrible English translation, one thing you cannot get away from is the constant التِّفَاتْ, the switch that happens. And you should understand some things about why that switch is happening.

What's the point of it, right? And what do we learn from it? So here, because we're dealing with one particular kind of التِّفَاتْ, I'll tell you what it does. The third person is far away. He, she, they.

That's far away. The second person, you, is by comparison closer. So we're going from far to close.

This is called تَقْرِيبْ, bringing close. Now what's the point of bringing close? Let's ask that question. If I was, and I give the same example whenever this kind of التِّفَاتْ happens, as a reminder, as a teaching reminder, if I'm upset with my class, I'm a teacher, I'm upset with all of my students because they didn't prepare well for the assignment and everybody failed.

And two people even cheated on the assignment, right? And I walk into the class and I say, you know, students should be responsible. I would think students would be grateful that they have the opportunity to learn something. And I'm saying students, students, students.

And I'm using this word and I'm using they. And is that the second person or the third person? I'm talking, they're right there, but I'm using they. You expect that I would be using what? You should be responsible.

You should be this. You should be this. But when I'm saying students, then it's almost as if I'm expressing how upset I am, right? And an easier example, even that's not from a classroom is sometimes siblings, like, you know, sisters, two sisters have a fight with each other and they're both sitting next to each other at dinner and they have to behave because the parents are there.

And one of them has the salt over here and the other one wants it. So can someone pass me the salt? And then the other says, someone should figure out how to get it themselves if someone wants it. Like they're all, they're summoning each other.

Some people think they don't have to have any manners. Oh yeah, well, some people think they can say whatever they want. And everyone's like, someone, someone, someone.

So the idea is you're, if someone's right in front of you and you're using the he, there's a direct, there's actually a distance that's being created. But then if you switch over to you, then it can have different effects. And one of the effects, if I take you back inside the classroom and I say some students or students think they don't have to work hard and they can just pass.

Are these really students that I'm talk about? And then there were two that cheated, right? So I say, Zainab, sorry Zainab, Kareem, can I talk to you for a minute? If I did that, I started with third person. But when I said Zainab, Kareem, what did I switch over to? I switched over to second person. And at that moment, Zainab and Kareem remembered the day of judgment.

Right? In that moment, their life flashed before their eyes because now they're being singled out from the entire crowd because I went shockingly from the third person to the second person. Here you have Allah talking about the skies, He's talking about the earth and fruits and you know, vegetation and all of it. And then He says, and which آلَاءِ, I'm not translating آلَاءِ yet, which آلَاءِ of your master are you going to dismiss? Like He just, He switches over to the you.

So there's a shock factor here. Now what happens in our cultures, Muslim cultures around the world, there are some surahs that are associated with, they're like the feel-good surahs. Right? And Surah Ar-Rahman is one of those feel-good surahs.

Right? So, everyone's like, فَبِأَيِّ آلَاءِ رَبِّكُمَا تُكَذِّبَانِ And you're like, I love that recitation. I love the surah from the sheikh. And I love listening.

Can you hear the words for a moment just a second? Like, how much more are you going to be dismissive? What more are you going to undermine? What more are you going to call a lie? What more? Oh my God! And, if you actually study the language of the surah, and the repetition in the surah, what becomes very clear is that Allah is actually extremely, extremely angry with some people. You don't say these words. تُكَذِّبَانِ is not a kind word.

It's a very scathing criticism. And I'm reminding you, in the previous surah, nations were destroyed because they did this act. كَذَّبُوا بِآيَاتِنَا كُلًّا

عَادْ. ثَمُودْ. The nation of لُوط.

You know? The nation of نُوح, all before them, and فِرْعَوْنْ. تَكْذِيبْ was used for all of them. You know? And in the beginning, when they denied the Prophet, Allah says,

So this is the crime. This is a great crime. And so that crime... And by the way, this is the crime against the messengers in history. The crime against the messengers is تَكْذِيبْ.

We're going to dig into that word. We're going to really understand what does that mean. They use the English word, belied, or some English translation used, denied.

Right? First of all, belied, I don't think most of you have ever used that word in your life. So it kind of just misses the point of translation. And deny is more like إِنْكَارْ in Arabic.

And it can also be كُفْرْ in Arabic. Denial. So تَكْذِيبْ is a little bit... Something else is going on inside the word تَكْذِيبْ.

So we're going to have to look at that. Okay? So the other thing of course here is that the word آلَاءِ is a unique term in the Quran, rarely used. It's used in surah an-Najm.

Right? And here you're seeing فَبِأَيِّ آلَاءِ رَبِّكُمَا تُكَذِّبَانِ multiple times. It's almost as though that ayah got us ready because it's coming. Right? Two surahs ago.

It was a little hint dropped. And now we're seeing that word echo again from what was left in surah an-Najm. In any case, what we're going to do now is first look at the word lying.

Because كَذَبَ or كَذَبَ in Arabic is lying. It's really interesting that the Arabic word كَذَبَ, what it has to do with. Remember I told you about secondary meanings? Right? So the secondary meanings behind the word lying.

Listen to this. كَذَبَ الْحَرُّ انْكَسَرَ When the temperature is really hot and finally it breaks and it cools off a little bit, they say the heat has done كَذَبَ. Meaning it broke.

It got weaker. The heat less, its intensity went down. كَذَبَ الْعَيْنُ If you saw something and you thought you saw it, but actually your eye deceived you, they say your عَيْنْ did كَذَبَ.

كَذَبَ السَّيْرُ إِذَا لَمْ يَجِدْ كَذَبَ الْوَحْشِيُّ جَرَىٰ شَوْطًا Like if an animal, like a camel, that's supposed to move smoothly, is kind of like really limping or not moving well, then it's doing كَذَبَ. If a wild animal is in the woods that is supposed to prance, but it stops every two seconds and checks back, is there something coming after me? And it's interrupted in its movement, so it doesn't have straightforward movement, that's actually called كَذَبَ also. وَثُمَّ وَقَفَ لِيَنْظُرَ مَا وَرَاءَهُ وَكَذَبَ الْقَوْمُ السُّرَىٰ لَمْ يَقْطِعُوا عَلَيْهِ When people used to go for journeys and they couldn't go on anymore, they got too exhausted, or their stamina and their supplies and their energy broke, they can't move forward, then they say that this nation has done كَذَبَ.

So before we talk about it has to do with lying, it seems to have something to do with not having enough strength, or your stamina breaking, or the intensity lessening. This is why they say مَا كَذَّبَ مَنْ ثَنَىٰ وَمَا جَبُنَا وَحَمَلَ They say someone who was brave and did not get scared and didn't break their commitment is someone who didn't do تَكْذِيبْ. And someone who carried their responsibility didn't do تَكْذِيبْ.

So this is something, if you really want to take a picture, this would be the picture one. Okay. So the decline in intensity, inability, losing toughness, cowardice, misconception, and looking for convenience.

These are the meanings behind the word lying. And it gives you a really interesting insight before even Islam, how the ancient Arabs used to think about lying. Like what was in their mind when they, why does somebody lie? When somebody lies, when they look for, when they're weak.

One don't have the stamina to stand by the truth. And when they're calling someone a liar, they're saying that person is weak. That person doesn't have something strong to stand on.

Right. So it's also lying is associated with convenience. I'm going to lie because that's the easier thing to do.

I don't have the energy to tell the truth. I don't have what it takes to deal with the consequences of telling the truth. So this is kind of behind the story of lying.

Now, what are some good words in English? Maybe not one word, but what might be some good words that we can use to get the idea across of what تَكْذِيبْ means. It's not كَذَبَ, it's كَذَّبَ. To call someone a كَاذِبْ.

To consider someone a كَاذِبْ. Here would be some of the meanings. You can invalidate someone.

You can discredit someone. So let's, I want you to know what I mean by each of these. Invalidate means I, hey, this guy says he's a doctor.

He's not. Or this guy says, or this one says they have proof for this. They don't.

They're making it up. So I'm invalidating their argument and I'm invalidating them. Discrediting means this person is not the kind of person you should be listening to.

So this is discrediting. Undermining is, yeah, they're saying a lot of things, but I mean, seriously, you're going to listen to this person? You know, this is a weak person to listen to. Their arguments are weak.

They themselves stand in a weak position. Negate is someone who, I don't even want to hear what you have to say. I'm going to just negate them altogether.

Downplay is the idea of just underestimating somebody. That's also a form of تَكْذِيبْ because you consider it weak. Consider them weak.

Impune is a rarely used word. I know you guys aren't used to big words, but I know there's a lot of young people here, and I'd rather you develop more vocabulary than emojis. So here's a word you can use and impress others.

Impune, right? So the thing is, when people learn a new word, they start using it everywhere. Even when it doesn't fit. Like, pass me the tomatoes.

Can you stop impugning? Like, no, stop it. Don't use it everywhere. Use it in the right place.

So impugn means to attack something as false, and that's definitely within the meanings of تَكْذِيبْ. So when you impugn the defendant's character, you attack them like in court, right? They go after the witness, and they say, well, if we can character assassinate them, they're not a reliable witness. That's the meaning of impugning.

All of this is inside تُكَذِّبَانِ. So what is Allah asking? What آلَاءِ, again, I haven't translated آلَاءِ yet, what آلَاءِ of your Rabb are you going to invalidate? Are you going to discredit? Are you going to undermine? How many more آلَاءِ of your Rabb are you going to negate and downplay and accuse to be false? All of that is inside تُكَذِّبَانِ. And this is actually capturing the attitude and the opinions and the campaigns of the enemies of the Prophet and the larger community in Makkah at the time.

Now, we're left with the word آلَاءِ, which in most translations, I'm going to ask you guys, in most translations, what do they say آلَاءِ means? Signs, blessings, favors. Favors is probably a very common one. How many more favors of your master will you deny? Here's an interesting, I won't read all of the Arabic here.

I'll give you the gist of it, okay? There are some bones in the body on which the entire body rests, okay? So if those bones get injured, you basically can't function, right? Look, for example, your spine, right? A spinal injury is a deadly injury, right? A neck injury can be a deadly injury. But an injury to your elbow, you can survive. An injury to your wrist, you can survive, right? So the hips, the hip bones are actually called إِلْيَة.

Because if a hip injury can actually can turn into a lower spine injury or if your hips have misaligned or you've broken them or something that you can't even walk anymore. Similarly, إِلْيَة is used for the plausible thumb. The muscle here is called إِلْيَة in Arabic.

Why? Because interestingly, I found this out when I was in Dallas talking about آلَاءِ because I was teaching Surah Al-Najm there and I was discussing the same word. فَبِأَيِّ آلَاءِ رَبِّكَ تَتَمَارَىٰ So I met with some doctors afterwards who heard me explain and they said, you know, this muscle right here, it distinguishes human beings from all other species. Because of this muscle, we can move our thumb in 360 degrees.

We can't do that with other fingers in that way. This is what gave us the ability to grab things and to make tools and to tighten. Imagine having to tighten a screw without your thumb.

Imagine writing something without your thumb. Right? Pretty much all of the wondrous things human beings have been able to do is because of the plausible thumb. And this muscle that distinguishes us from even apes and anybody else, it's actually this إِلْيَة.

Similarly, إِلْيَة, the singular, is used for the calf muscle. And our calves are different from all the other species because we're able to stand upright. We have this ability to move and function in a way that other species don't because of these unique parts of our body.

And they're associated with إِلْيَة. So that's one of the first origin meanings of the word, parts of us that make us capable of unique function. Right? The parts of us that make us capable of unique function are آلَاءِ.

Now, this is a note from an amazing scholar, Hamiduddin Farahi. Hamiduddin Farahi is an Indian scholar, rahimahullah, died in the early part of the last century. And he wrote predominantly, he wrote 45 books and he only wrote them in Arabic.

I think two of them, I think he wrote in Persian also and one paper in English also. But he predominantly wrote in Arabic. And for those of you that are versed in the Arabic language, you should look him up.

And you should read his stuff. You will really enjoy it. His books are absolutely incredible.

Really remarkable work. And every one of them is a masterpiece of Arabic literature. Hamiduddin Al Farahi.

Al Farahi. Okay? Hamiduddin Al Farahi. So you might have noticed when I give khutbah, I use Arabic that's a little bit different and off standard.

الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ خَالِقِ الْوُجُودِ مِنَ الْعَدَمِ وَجَاعِلِ النُّورِ مِنَ الظُّلَامِ. When I use that, that's actually one of the, that's one of the intros to one of his books. That's just how he praised Allah.

Right? So he just had this unique, really poetic way of praising Allah. I really liked one of them. So, or one or two of them.

So I memorized them. But anyway, so he was a scholar that was working quite a bit, quite extensively on the Qur'an. And he wanted to reinvestigate certain words of the Arabic language that are in the Qur'an where he wasn't satisfied with what the Mufassirun had said.

Like the Mufassirun had an opinion and what happens sometimes in our tafsirs is there's an opinion that that opinion becomes popular then later tafsirs assume that that's already been figured out so they don't reinvestigate it. And that just gets carried on, passed on, passed on, passed on. And then it reaches us and he says, no, I want to reinvestigate.

So he looked into the word آلَاءِ. And I'm really glad that he did. This is one of the few words that he actually did a lot of investigation into.

He was able to write a commentary on nine surahs before he passed away. And he wrote several other books. But the few things he did write about are very valuable.

So this is a small piece of what he wrote on this word. أَجْمَعُوا عَلَىٰ أَنَّ مَعْنَاهُ النِّعَمِ It seems like they all agreed that the meaning of this word is blessings or favors, right? وَلَكِنَّ الْقُرْآنَ وَأَشْعَرُ الْعَرَبِ يَأْبَاهُ However, the Qur'an itself and Arabic poetry, classical Arabic poetry, seem to reject that idea. So he's saying the Qur'an seems to go against that idea.

Now, let me just, I'll add my own two cents here. Why would he say that the Qur'an rejects that idea? You remember the things Allah was talking about right before? Allah was talking about fruits. You remember? Okay, so Allah was talking about the fruits.

He was talking about how they have covers and beautiful colors. Allah was talking about grain, right? Palm trees, dates, grain, and the grain has wonderful smell. All of these things Allah was talking about.

Okay, which we should be grateful for. Why should a jinn be grateful for oranges? Why should, because jinns are going to come up, right? Why should they be grateful for bread? Are they eating bread? Because we'd have a shortage if they were eating bread, right? They're not eating fruits. They're not eating bread.

They're not eating dates. They're not, what a great palm tree. That's not what they're doing.

So why would they be impressed with all of these things and consider them blessings? Who are they blessings for? According to clearly the context of the surah, who are all these things blessings for? Us, also. Allah says, He taught the Quran, created the human being, gave the human being بَيَانْ, and Quran itself is بَيَانْ. So the Quran is directed towards who? Us, why should they be grateful? It's a logical question, right? And so if the meaning is, how many blessings will you be in denial of? The jinn could turn around and say, how is that a blessing for me? I don't like watermelon.

I mean, I see people eat it. I don't like it. I don't know what they eat, but I'm pretty sure it's not watermelon, right? So, but if you, then what does it mean? And that's what he's gonna try to explore.

بِمَا رَوَاهُ الطَّبَرِيُّ أَنَّهُ قَالَ الْآلَاءُ الْقُدْرَةِ Interesting. He says, according to al-Tabari, which is a classical mufassir, one of the earliest, he says that actually, آلَاءِ means capability, power. Now this is interesting because I just gave you the dictionary meaning of آلَاءِ, right? And what did it have to do with? The parts of our body that give us unique capabilities, right? This gives us unique capability, the calf muscle, the hip, the thumb, the plausible thumb, gives us unique capabilities.

And he's saying that آلَاءِ may refer to Allah's unique capabilities, unique acts. Then he says, الظَّاهِرُ أَنَّ مَعْنَاهُ الْفِعَالِ الْعَجِيبِ What's obvious is, what it refers to is God's wondrous acts. You know what you call an act of God in common English? That would be آلَاءِ.

How many acts of God are you going to be in denial of? How many acts of God are you going to underplay? So that can... And by the way, acts of God, for the most part, are favors. So he says, لَمَّا كَانَ غَالِبُ فِعَالِهِ تَعَالَىٰ الرَّحْمَةِ ظَنُّوا أَنَّ الْآلَاءَ هِيَ النِّعَمِ He said, because Allah's acts are essentially blessings most of the time, we confuse the term acts of God with what term? Blessings. And so we just started assuming that all of it means blessings.

But actually, أَصْلُ شُؤُونُهُ الْعَجِيبِ Things that he does that are marvelous, wondrous, divine, that only he can do. Those are the kinds of things that are آلَاءِ. Now this changes the perspective on what I was... The question I asked, well, why would jinns be impressed with oranges? Remember that question? Let's go back to that question.

Well, jinns, even if they're not enjoying the foods that we eat, jinns have been around. And jinns have access to more places and more habitats than human beings. You know, there are places that are uninhabitable, or human beings have not yet fully explored the depths of the Amazon, for example, or the bottom of the ocean, and the species, and there may be caves and underground tunnels, and all these places that human beings have no way of getting to, but jinns can get there.

There are places inside of a mountain that we can't get to, but they can get there. You know that, right? So they... When Allah says, وَالْأَرْضَ وَضَعَهَا لِلْأَنَامِ That He made the earth accessible and made it for all kinds of creatures. You know who has a much better understanding of all kinds of creatures, even better than like the nature documentaries we make? The jinns have way better perspective, first-hand perspective, on all of the species here.

Plus, on top of that, they have access to beyond this earth, because they travel around, right? So they have, from what Allah tells us, they have more access and more view of the universe than we do. And they have more view of the planet than we do. They have more understanding of the planet than we do.

In fact, it also seems like they are multilingual too. It seems like they understand every human language too. And I get that from what Allah says in Surah Al-Ahqaf.

Some jinns were passing by, the Prophet ﷺ was reciting the Qur'an, and they stopped, and they said, shh, listen, listen, listen. And when they heard it, they said, we've heard a book that was revealed after Musa. Wait, a book after Musa? Musa was not given a book in Arabia, right? And Musa was not given a book in Arabic.

Why do they know about a book given to Musa, which is ancient Egypt thousands of years ago? And they're familiar with that. And they can see a connection with a revelation that's in a different language to what's being given in the Qur'an. So, they've been around the block.

Right, they've been around the block. Now, why would this tie into what I'm saying? They see that Allah has done something for humans on this planet that He has not done for any other species. And they also see that God has decided to speak to human beings in a way that He has not spoken to any other creature.

In fact, when the Qur'an started coming down, the skies got locked down. The skies were locked. The jinns are used to going to hang out.

Like some of you guys are like, you want to go to the shisha spot? You want to go to the shore? The jinns are like, you want to go to the moon this weekend? You know, that's what they do. So, they hang out in the skies. And what happened was, when the Qur'an was coming down for 23 years, the sky was locked down.

And they were in a quarantine on Earth. They couldn't go into the sky. Every time they tried to go, they got shot down.

And they're like, what's happening? Why are we under house arrest? Why are we stuck on Earth? And while they were stuck on Earth, now there's more of them hanging out on Earth because they don't get to have their intergalactic holidays. And that's when they hear, some of them hear the Prophet ﷺ reciting Qur'an. And then in Surah Al-Jinn, they're like, oh, that's why the sky is locked down.

This is coming down. You know when a president is coming to a city, and they shut down certain roads, right, and there's all kinds of traffic jams because there's a presidential motorcade passing through, right? The highways of the universe were shut down because Jibreel was bringing Qur'an down to the Prophet ﷺ. And nobody has access. Sorry, road closed.

Sky closed. And they didn't, why is the sky being closed? Why is everything closing in on the Earth? Is the Earth about to be destroyed? أَشَرُّ أُرِيدَ بِمَنْ فِي الْأَرْضِ Is there some harm that's intended for this world? We had no idea. أَمْ أَرَادَ بِهِمْ رَبُّهُمْ رَشَدًا Or did God intend some kind of special guidance that's coming for them? Oh, now we know it was the special guidance.

It was the Qur'an. So even though the Qur'an wasn't for them, were they still in awe of an act of God? Did they see آلَاءِ of their Rabb? Yeah. Do they get to see, when we appreciate the order and the organization of the cosmos, sitting here, developing tools with which we can look into the universe, do the jinn have more direct access to appreciate the order of the heavens and the cosmos? Oh yeah.

Oh yeah. And can they compare how we eat to how every other species eats, and how we live to how every other species lives? Do they not see that something special is being done for human beings? They can. So then, with this framework, now the word آلَاءِ makes complete sense for human beings and for jinn.

Even if it's not a favor for them, it's something for them to be in awe of what's being done for human beings. Right? And this is actually, it plays into something else too. Why are they so special? I mean, all this for these dirt creatures? Why for them? You know? I mean, we can, we don't even need a space suit, we don't even need to spend billions of dollars to go up into space.

We can go wherever we want, and we don't get this kind of privilege. So they might get some kind of an inferiority complex, right? Wait a second, wait a second. The jinns might get an inferiority complex.

That sounds like the story of Adam alayhis salaam. Right? Because Adam alayhis salaam was given superiority, and now on this planet, human beings have been given what? Superiority. Who's building on this earth? Who's developing on this earth? Right? Remember I told you there's an undertone of the story of Adam alayhis salaam in the surah? Now the jinns, the ones that follow Iblis, they hate human beings.

They hate that we get this privilege. They hate it. Because they constantly see themselves in comparison.

And they can't stop the privilege from coming, so one of the things they can do is, well, if I can just prove that these guys are a bunch of losers, and they're unworthy of the gifts that they've been given, then I think we're going to be in a good place. So our campaign is not to fight them and to destroy them. Our campaign is going to be to make them just like us, so we can show God these people didn't deserve it.

And how can you do that? Well, you can do that when you say, before Allah, Allah creates the most magnificent creature, the human being. Then he puts the رُوحْ inside that creature. And then Iblis comes along and says, what's the big deal? سَجْدَةْ for this? It was just dirt.

I'm not impressed, Allah. All the angels might be, I'm not impressed. And he wants the human being to develop that attitude, I'm not impressed.

The planet, I'm not impressed. Fruits, so what? The sun and the moon, big deal. Oh, the universe? Quran? I mean, seriously? This attitude is actually a carbon copy of what Iblis had towards human beings.

And he wants that attitude for human beings to have towards Allah. And you know what, one of the ways to describe that attitude is تَكْذِيبْ. It's undermining something, dismissing something, you know, being condescending towards something.

And so you, something wondrous Allah is doing and you're just like, so what? Big deal. This is within the meanings of the word, I don't know what I did. الْحَكِيمْ, فِي كِتَابِ الْأُصُولِ عَنْ نُقِيتْ ابْنِ عَامِرْ فِي حَدِيثٍ طَوِيلْ.

There's actually a hadith, a long hadith, our subject isn't this hadith, but it's interesting that in that hadith, أُنَبِّئُكَ بِمِثْلِ ذَلِكَ مِنْ آلَاءِ اللَّهِ The Prophet ﷺ is reported to have said, I will tell you of something like that from the آلَاءِ of Allah. The same word, آلَاءِ رَبِّكُمَا The word آلَاءِ occurring in this hadith. And it's occurring for Allah, he says, the Prophet ﷺ is gonna describe in this long hadith how you walk by a place and it's dry, and then it rains and it turns green the next time you walk by completely.

And this is one of the آلَاءِ of Allah. This is not a blessing of Allah here, it's one of the wondrous acts of Allah helping you understand resurrection. Right? So that's actually what's being talked about.

And so the word آلَاءِ is used in that way. فَنَقَلَ السُّيُوطِيُّ فِي الدُّرِّ الْمَنْثُورِ فَخَطَّ الْفَرَاهِيُّ رَحِمَهُ اللَّهُ تَحْتَ كَلِمَةِ الْآلَاءِ فِي الْمَوْضِعَيْنِ وَعَلَّقَ عَلَىٰ هَامِشْ So basically Farahi wrote in his commentary on this book, كَلِمَةِ الْآلَاءِ بِمَعْنَىٰ عَجَائِبِ الْقُدْرَةِ وَالْخَلْقِ is wondrous things in Allah's capability and wondrous things that he's created. Things that we should be in awe of.

Things that we should be impressed by as an act of God. The attitude that I can maybe compare this to is if you guys are watching a really exciting game, like it's either a UFC fight or it's an NBA final or it's some game and then somebody just makes a Hail Mary shot or somebody just makes a crazy half-court something or cuts through four people and dunks with 0.3 seconds left. What happens to the crowd? And what does the commentator say? It's a miracle! Like, سُبْحَانَ اللَّهِ You know, like in football when there's a goal that happens, you know, like the guy that just does mud on the goal سُبْحَانَ اللَّهِ That attitude towards the acts of Allah, the wondrous acts, that's actually the question that's being asked here.

Now there's some other examples of, this is just to hammer in the point that آلَاءِ does not just mean blessings. It actually means amazing acts. These are excerpts from Arabic poetry where the word آلَاءِ is being used.

You know, some poet says, my tribe is so amazing and he lists like a few things and says, I'm not even going to list their full آلَاءِ I'm not even going to list all the other amazing things about them. Right? A young man's being praised and Allah, then they say that he's got such an amazing character and he's got such amazing آلَاءِ, wonderful qualities. Right? So, this is just to give you an idea.

Coming up next time in this Surah Ar-Rahman series, This earth, because everything on this earth rejects creativity. It's just survival. Everything else is about survival, human beings.

We're about creativity because our رُوحْ was endowed to us by the one that is the most creative of all, Allah. And the most beautiful of Allah. إِنَّ اللَّهَ جَمِيلٌ يُحِبُّ الْجَمَالَ And He put in us a sense of beauty.

And when He entices us towards Jannah, He describes the beauty of Jannah.