no doubt Allah is the one who loves those who fight in his path in row Rose Allah added a new qualification it's not enough that you want to fight it's not enough that your intentions are good it's not enough that you're brave that's not enough if you truly mean what you say you will show me discipline alhamdulillah mam I'm dedicating today's to the opening ayat of and it's a Surah I myself and my colleagues happen to be studying we've spent the last Almost couple of months trying to understand the message of the s and there are some takeaways from the beginning of the Surah that I thought should be wider spread at least inshallah so I pray that I'm able to do some justice to the wisdom that is encapsulated in these ayat the first thing I'd like all of you to know is that almost by consensus this Surah seems to has have been revealed after so the Muslims were engaged in the Battle of uhud many of you if not all of you are familiar with the losses that we suffer at and the kind of faltering in the discipline of the Muslims that led to the chaos that ensued in which the prophet himself sallallah alaihi wasallam was injured severely at one point he was even rumored to have been killed uh 70 of the most important Companions of the Prophet Salli wasallam were martyred their bodies were later mutilated by the enemy and so it was all kinds of disaster that took place at and is of course the second major military engagement of the Muslims after bad so bad is the first and is the second and this Surah is coming after so it's a commentary to the Muslims in that state and it's remarkable that the opening of this Surah describes not the Believers but it describes the skies and the Earth everything in whatever is in the skies and whatever is in the earth continues to declare Allah Perfection it it always has and it always will in a sense declare Allah's Perfection and he's the ultimate Authority the all wise just a quick note about that human beings have their ups and downs in this world we have some days where we're closer to Allah some days we're not so much some days we do better at obeying Allah other days not so much some moments we have good deeds other moments we have bad deeds and failures we have our ups and downs and Allah Begins by saying you can have your ups and downs here on this planet but the rest of Allah's creation is in continuous T of Allah there's no faltering anywhere else no no one else has fallen short in this T in fact every time you hear Tas in the Quran you should remind yourself of the first historical mention of Tas the first historical mention of T is the Angels themselves who were questioning the creation of the human being and they couldn't understand when they exist already and they already do T the Angels understood something the entire Skies the Earth and especially also the Angels constantly do this me they declare God's Perfection they in complete surrender to Allah what could be the purpose of creating something and giving them so much responsibility and a position of Honor when they have such potential for failure and terrible Deeds what would be the point so every time this be is mentioned it's almost as if the criticism of the Angels is echoed again you know and Allah said he knows he told them he know something we don't that they don't know and in any case that's T and the other thing you should know about t in the Quran is that it's used many places as an expression for the Salah itself when Allah says for example many places in the Quran that it's not just talking about it's actually talking about prayer it's actually talking about Sal so Salah and are actually closely related to each other they're very very closely related to each other in fact the ultimate form of is actually our prayer who actually the Salah in any case Allah then opens theah with these two names of his Allah is the ultimate Authority even though there are people in this world who fail to recognize or refuse to recognize that Authority they don't see the point in it there are others who even if they recognize his authority when Allah gives a command there's somebody who might say okay fine Allah said it but I don't know why said it it doesn't make any sense to me I don't see the point in it let me put this another way I don't see the wisdom behind it why should I follow this I don't see the wisdom in it I don't see the logic in it I don't see the point of it and Allah explains that he's not just the authority he's also a he's the owner of all wisdom so when he exercises his authority and when he gives a commandment then there is wisdom behind it now there are narrations surrounding the revelation of the Surah and one of them is is that somebody came and asked the prophet sallallah alaihi wasallam among the sahaba some new sahabi came and asked what's the best thing I could do which which Deeds are the best most beloved to Allah and Allah revealed fighting and they some people didn't like that he revealed that right why would we why would fighting be the best thing to Allah give me some Vicor to do so give me something else to why are you talking about fighting and they couldn't understand the logic behind that and it's as if Allah's response to that entire thought process is already in the first Ayah all of the rest of creation recognize Allah's ultimate Authority and his wisdom which is what makes them do this be continuously anyway it's as if Allah is saying he doesn't need yours it's as if Allah is saying whether you do it or not we change nothing you're you're a lot smaller than the rest of Allah's creation and you cannot take away anything from the of or from the of or from the of Allah by your little question that that's not going to happen then the other side this is I keep saying this is after and Allah says this is the second ay those of you who believe why do you say things that you don't do why do you say things that you don't do and this phrase why do you say things that you don't do is open-ended like what did I say that I didn't do Allah didn't specify if you compare this to Allah specifies exactly what the said exactly he quoted them exactly what they said if you go to other places in the Quran exactly what people say Allah quotes it he tells you exactly what they said in this Surah it's as if Allah left it purposely ambiguous he didn't say why do you say something you don't do why do you why do you say what you don't do so the each person listening would have a different answer to that question because they they'd have to ask themselves what is it that I said and what is it that I didn't do you understand and even if you have this narration that some people asked about what's the best deed and the fighting is the best deed and all of that what I need you to understand is when the Quran was spreading that R meaning that one person who came and asked not everybody knew about that everybody knew about the Surah but not everybody knew about the question behind the Surah and you this is an important lesson in the understanding of the Quran even if you find a story behind the revelation of an Ayah that doesn't mean even at the time of of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam everybody was thinking about this Ayah because of that question that question was one individual two individuals it didn't happen in front of the entire city of Medina but the Quran was recited memorized and spread quickly without that background story you understand so what do we learn from that Allah uses an incident or somebody comes and asks a question which is a small question but Allah gives an answer that doesn't just benefit that one person Allah gives an answer that benefits many questions and gives many answers so it's actually a mistake to reduce the Ayah to what incident that would be a mistake in any case Allah says why do you say what you don't do if you connect this to what Allah just said before everything does t everything how does a how does a Believer do T the believer says Subhan Allah in fact even saying is a form of in fact muhm wasallam is a completion of our and I'll tell you quickly why before the coming of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam the two religions of the book were Judaism and Christianity the two religions of the book means means that you you you cleanse your concept of God from anything that is not suitable for God that's what this means now you have a pure concept of God that you don't adulterate that concept with any other corruption in it we know that Christians glorify God but the Quran comes along it and says you may be glorifying God but you're certainly violating T because your concept of God has been corrupted the Jews had their own version of commemorating God but certainly one thing missing from that commemoration was that be now the Christians did it in their faith in their faith they made Jesus divine and all of that that's a violation of TB the Jewish people did it in a very different way even though there are some AA issues there too but practically they said yes God gives laws but sometimes they're not the best laws we can change them so they violated you understand so the what existed in the world is some concept of God but it wasn't the the the Allah that is and the Quran came and revealed to the Believers the true meaning of Subhan Allah the true meaning of but once you say that once any believer said that that statement itself was a promise and that's this is where I want you to stay with me that statement itself to accept that there's no God except Allah to accept that Muhammad is his messenger sallallah alaihi wasallam this was actually a promise at the time let's first talk about that time what was that promise now that I've accepted him as the messenger I understand that he is the final messenger I understand this is the last mission of guidance given to this man and these 23 years that we call them these 23 years of the right these are the most important 23 years in the entire history of humanity and for the entire future of humanity and now that I've accept I'm in I'm in the proximity of this man Muhammad s alai wasam his burden has now been shared with me I am now a part of his mission I don't just get to say that and say Okay I accept it and sit back this statement comes with a very heavy burden that is now fallen on my shoulders now when a burden comes on the of course the sahaba knew this and this is why they stayed with the prophet Sall alaihi wasallam through thick and thin they migrated with the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam new new sahaba accepted Islam and financially sacrificed in Madina in bad we we we put our lives on the line so the Muslims know this they know what it means to go through difficulty in order to understand the next part of this I really want you to understand one more thing about Medina that will help one more thing about the city of Medina I want you to understand that the population of Medina the Muslim population of Medina is actually three different populations if you understand that your understanding of the Quran that was revealed in Medina will become a lot easier there are three populations in Medina and of course this Surah was revealed in Medina so this will help us the first population in Medina are what Allah calls the best of the best the first and the foremost most whether they are from the migrants of Makkah or they are from the an this is the first category of Believers these are the people that are the best of us these are the ETC ET you know them the second category is on the opposite extreme Allah calls them the MAF the Hypocrites these are of two kinds well some of them except Islam for the wrong reasons they accepted Islam because Islam is winning might as well join the winning party that's one reason the other is they accepted Islam because they thought it was nice but once they accepted it they realized this is a pretty heavy burden then they're like I don't want to do all this work I mean I like the Islam I like the to thing I like the vior thing but this he wants War you want me to go to war you want me to give up what how much of my money you want me to what bring these guests and have them live in my house come on what is this I thought you just give me let me just pray five times that's good for me don't give me these other requirements so they thef were of this category right either they they accepted Islam for the wrong reasons or once they accepted Islam they only liked some parts of Islam they were uncomfortable with other parts of Islam and they complained about it and even tried to sabotage it so there's the True Believers and the Hypocrites but there's a third category in the middle you can basically call them the regular Muslims they they came into Islam for good reason they want to learn more and they haven't matured in their religion yet you can think of it like a new Muslim hasn't quite learned everything yet and these people in the middle there you can think of them as the majority and this majority is being inspired by the first group they're being inspired by the first group and they're sometimes also being influenced by the second group sometimes when they sit in the company of ab Bak sik or Omar or when they sit in that company their IM goes up and they feel inspired when they sit in the company of Abdullah who says why do we have to go to war everything was fine we could just be here and get along with everyone shouldn't Islam be about peace with everybody they sit there and I mean guess that makes kind of that kind of makes sense we sh up PE two so now they're kind of being pulled on two sides you understand and this is the population of Medina when the Quran in Medina came and said it actually included all three but most directly it's actually targeting the middle population and it's targeting the middle population to tell them be like the and avoid being like the Hypocrites you understand this is why Allah will say something like yeah you have those of you who have faith have faith what how does that make any sense it makes sense because those of you who have come into Faith now demonstrate real Faith Like These people or those of you who claim to have faith don't be like the ones who caused M pain who caused M pain thef of M caused M pain so so don't be like the in the time of Muhammad that's what they're being told so now Allah is telling the this middle population and I that's important to note because actually I consider myself and most of us we give benefit of the doubt we belong kind of in the middle sometimes we are inspired by those that are doing better than us other times we're influenced by people that are doing much less than us and they want to pull us we're we're kind of being pulled in both directions and these suras are are talking to the people that are pulling in both directions and to them Allah is saying why are you saying things you don't do why are you saying things you don't some of that I want you to know one at least one story about this it's really cool before this Surah came after I keep repeating so it gets drilled in your head but before before the prophet sallallahu wasam took a survey and he wanted to know the opinions on where we should fight and the prophet own opinion was we should fight from inside the city we know the city we know the terrain we can break up the larger forces CU they won't be able to take us headon they're going to have to go through the streets and the alleys and we can set up traps and corners and have strategic Advantage because we know the terrain and they don't know the terrain so if we make this into an urban War as opposed to a war on the battlefield we will have strategic Advantage some new Muslims had come into Islam after bad now did not take place in the city bad took place on the battlefield so they came into Islam after bad and they were all man I missed out you guys fought in bad and the sh of B are in J and some of the new Muslims some of the younger men they're like no no no we're not afraid of the enemy we'll go out in the we'll go out in the field and face the enemy why do we have to hide hide in our homes and rooftops Etc we'll go out and face the enemy and you know face to face go out in the and that that was their they were inspired so they gave that suggestion to the prophet even though the prophet's own suggestion was to stay inside the cityam then listened to them acknowledged their sentiment and they went out into and he doubled his armor by the way which was an indication that he knew something bad is coming something's coming now we all know what happened in after Allah revealed Al IM also and Allah talked to those young men those people who were so fired up to go face the enemy and he said to them you were the same people that were wishing for death before you met with it you saw a death coming at you at the battlefield for the first time and then you were just standing there staring at it as if to say staring at it paralyzed what happened it was so easy to make those comments you were fired up in the moment but when it came time you're not that person you know there are there are people that you know now it's easy it's even easier now even though I'm going to relate this directly to now to become a keyboard Warrior brother we have to fight the kuf are you tapping this from the battlefield did you did you take pause from the the the the Warfare and just make sure you upload encouragement to the rest of the um easy to talk easy to say now with that in mind just just because you're inspired cuz you heard inspirational stories and you want to repeat those stories saying that stuff is something else doing that stuff is something else yeah you get inspired by those who've done amazing things and then start talking big but talking big is not the same as doing big it's truly dis it's massively disgusting to Allah that you say things that you don't do there's lots to say here but it's one thing that Scholars talk about here is it's bad when you don't do something that you're to but it's much worse when you say you're going to do it and then don't do it when you're talking big that's that's disgusting in the sight of Allah and the word disgusted is m is a practice of the ancient Arabs and before Islam a man would have you know many wives the the the father would have many wives and he would divorce some of his extra wives or the father would die and the son would marry his stepmothers and this was considered disgusting but they did it anyway this was called Mak Allah used uses that word that's how disturbing it is that things come out of your mouth that have nothing to do with action so then the question then becomes by the end of as I reach the end of this what is the action we got to take what's the action and the action comes in the fourth Ayah where Allah does talk about fighting but he gives a prerequisite It's actually an incredible Ayah my entire intention to share this H with you was this no doubt Allah is the one who loves those who fight in his path in Rose rose Allah added a new qualification it's not enough that you want to fight it's not enough that your intentions are good it's not enough that you're brave that's not enough if you truly mean what you say you will show me discipline Lov those who fight in they have to show the what happened at what happened at some people left their position they weren't s they weren't Allah is saying your intentions even if they're good are not enough you need to demonstrate the highest form of discipline you have to demonstrate the highest form of discipline now here's this is Food For Thought for you cuz we only have a you know 5 minutes and I'll be done if the Muslims were not a military they were not an organized army with years of training and Military exercises and if you know anything about the military they have they the there's training for years you wake up at a certain time you eat at a certain time you dress your sergeant walks you all stand up there's a there's a Code you have to follow and it gets drilled in your head that regiment gets drilled in your head year after year after year after year so you're ready for the real thing so when you're when you're you know your Battalion Commander your Lieutenant whoever says go then you just go immediately there's there's no gap between the issue of the command and the execution cuz that's life and death and it cannot happen unless you have the highest form of discipline now the question is if the Muslims 2 days before two days before they're not a an organized military you think they could in two days become they could just become an organized military they can't and then Allah gave it an analogy he said it is as if they are a wall that is cemented together with melted copper or melted lead now I want you to know this this is one of the most incredible analogies in the Quran you cannot become that because it takes time to pour the lead it takes time to get all the bricks it takes time to size all the bricks or even you know to Chisel them to make them the right size to fit where they're going to fit to build the foundation to put the wall how tall should the wall be how thick should it be if it's too thin and you build it too tall it's going to tip over if you put it too heavy of a stone too high up it's going to crack the other ones if there's a small Gap you can't put a big Stone there you have to put a small Stone there what is this one analogy that they are a they're a building that is Le it together is actually saying you are not in a position to fight until you as a community become completely and utterly disciplined like the walls in a building the or the bricks in a building until that happens you're not ready that's don't even talk big first show me bu then we'll talk that's that's the idea and the thing I want you to just as I leave you I want you to think about this the analogy of a building that's been let it together that Allah gave there's a brick at the bottom of the wall there's a brick at the top of the wall those two bricks are not connected to each other they have no connection to each other the brick at the bottom of the wall is connected to the bricks that are on the side of it on the bottom of it all around it isn't it so it has to play its role down here that one has to play its role up there so if you truly want to be part of a unified wall you need to demonstrate unity in your locality you can't say I over here need to be United with those over there how come we're not United and you're a wiggly piece of the wall down here you understand what a Muslims complain We complain the um is not United we're not United with the Muslims in Africa and the Muslims in IND are you United with the Muslims in gaitherburg you United with the Muslims inside this Hall you United with the Muslims you grew up with or your friends like in your family when when Allah says like understand the analogy there's something very profound being given here if you can't demonstrate that kind of discipline in at the most localized level if the brick is not doing its job if the lead is not doing its job then the building's going to collapse then there is no building when he says Allah loves he didn't just say Allah loves those who fight fighting is a later problem the building is the first problem that building that's ready to stand in front of a storm it's not going to collapse and so the last minute I'll tell you every part of a building plays a role there's a brick that gets to be on top there's a brick that has to to be on the bottom and there's a brick that's in the foundation or there's pieces of the building that are in the foundation nobody even sees it we're standing on it people see the building and say wow this is a nice wall ahow and the foundation gets upset man everybody steps on me and nobody gives me credit nobody walks over me and says it's pretty nice Foundation 20 ft deep I need some credit too you know what maybe if I got out of of the bottom and I popped up a little bit people would notice me and then I'd get some nition around here do you understand what I'm saying instead of someone understanding their role and appreciating their role you know what happens what happens in the corporate office if you're in a department and you want your department to succeed it's a different attitude but if you're in a department and you just care about the promotion there are two things that you can do either you can exceed Excel so much that you'll just move up naturally or you sabotage your leader so that he gets fired or she gets fir so you can take their job so you're you're a brick but you're actually Shifty you're you're not happy where you are you don't want to get cemented here you're like I could do better I need to go somewhere else I need to move somewhere else this ay gave the sahaba a very clear understanding that no role is insignificant think think about even War think about even war in a war there's the battle there's the people that are making the Weaponry there's the people that are supplying the the food there's the people that are working in the the the hospital to remedy the soldiers there are people that are setting up the camps the people that are taking care of the animals all these different roles are being played the logistics are as much a part of a military operation as the battlefield in fact the logistics are maybe 80% that's 80% of what's going on and the logistics are not glorified but they're part of a larger operation the Muslims were being told to think stop acting like you need to be the hero understand you have to work together and build something together you have to build a building together and this this is a sense that the Muslims were given right after the chaos of because in we showed that we still don't have the discipline that is needed overall we need to build that discipline and so Allah gave us that that profound message and that the the the implications of that message carry on until the day of judgment Allah make us disciplined families disciplined communities mayel allow us each of our communities to become an example of so that we can we can be given higher and higher responsibilities by Allah and we're able to carry them alikum everyone there are almost 50,000 students around the world that are interested on top of the students we have in studying the Quran and its meanings and being able to learn that and share that with family and friends and they need sponsorships which is not very expensive so if you can help sponsor students on Bay TV please do so and visit our sponsorship page I appreciate it so much and pray that Allah gives our mission success and we're able to share the meanings of the Quran and the beauty of it the world over