In The Name of Allah , The Most Gracious, The Most Merciful.
And Peace and Prayer Be Upon our Master The Most Noble Prophet Muhammad. We praise Allah, thank Him, seek His help and His guidance and forgiveness. And we seek refuge with Allah from the wickedness of our souls and sinfulness of our deeds. "He whom Allah guides, he is the rightly-guided; but he whom He sends astray, for him you will find no guiding advocate".
Today’s topic is called: ‘Towards a new birth’. First I will tell you about the first birth in the history of mankind, namely Adam and Eve’s birth. How did Allah create Adam and Eve? How did they enter Paradise? How did the devil lead them astray? Why and how does the devil plot against us as he plotted against Adam and Eve? How did they both get expelled from paradise? How was their repent? I will tell you how Repentance is the real moment of rebirth for every one of us.
The story of Adam and Eve is an example and a lesson teaching us all how we should start our lives in a right way? The story is mentioned in the Qur’an 25 times, the reason for this repetition is to show us that it occurs a lot in our lives. The repetition mainly aims at teaching us and drawing our attention towards an important fact. At first, Allah created the heavens, earth, seas, rivers, air, water, animals, birds, angels, jinn, in other words, the whole universe has been set up for honouring and receiving the offspring of Adam. From here we get to realize that the dearest creature for Allah, the Almighty, is the human being. Allah says in the Holy Qur’an what can be translated as, “By the Sun and its (glorious) splendor; By the Moon as it follows after; By the Day as it shows up (the Sun's) glory; By the Night as it conceals it; By the Firmament and its (wonderful) structure; By the Earth and its (wide) expanse; By the Soul, and the proportion and order given to it; And its enlightenment as to its wrong and its right;” (TMQ, 92:1-8) (1). We notice that Allah talks about the sun, moon, day, night as phenomena passing around us, but when Allah began talking about the human being He continued talking about him till the end of the Surah. Notice how important the human being is for Allah? Notice how dear we are to Allah. The whole universe has been created and prepared for the sake of Man, before he was even created to honour him, so how could you disobey Allah after all that? I will give you an example, a teacher enters a classroom and reads the names of a few students, and then when he reaches the name of a certain student he stops looks at the student and says: “You are more distinguished than all the others.”
The Prophet (PBUH) says, ‘when Allah finished with the creation of heavens and earth, He created a door, to the West, with a width equivalent to a 70-year-walk. This door was left open. The prophet says: ‘Do you know what this door is? It is the door of repentance; Allah has created it before He created Adam.’. How outstanding is the generosity of Allah the Almighty! The door of repentance was opened before we even sinned. Why don’t we repent to Allah? Have you heard how wide the door is? It means that no matter how plenty our sins are, we will still be able to be admitted from that door. Allah created it to the West side so that we would repent as quickly as possible, thus never go to bed before you repent for the sins you’ve made during the day because once the sun rises from the West we will not be able to repent as the door of repentance will be closed and the Day of Judgment will be due. Have you seen how precious we are to Allah? How dear we are to Him?
The Prophet says, “Before the creation of Adam, Allah created a hundred mercies, He left for us one mercy on earth and saved the 99 so that no creature would go to Hellfire except the one who really deserves it.’ This one who is going to be thrown into Hellfire might have made a major sin (Kabira) and did not repent afterwards; or he might be someone who has been unmindful about Allah. People can be divided into three types: dissolute sinners, obedient believers, and those unmindful of Allah who do not establish their priorities according to Allah; like when you ask one of them about the most important thing in his life he would reply saying ‘my wife, or children’ then in the end he says Allah.
When the unmindful make a sin he repents and asks for Allah’s forgiveness. That is why Satan neither wants the unmindful to sin nor to be obedient, he wants them to stay unmindful to the extent that when one of them thinks of making a sin the devil tries to stop him because he does not want him to repent afterwards but wants him always to stay unmindful of Allah. Some people think that so long as they do not make any major sins that they are obedient to Allah, the same goes with the unmindful. Do you know that the repentance of the sinner is easier than that of the unmindful of Allah? The sinner sometimes feels suffocated and disgusted by his sin; but the unmindful always sees himself as very good and that he does nothing wrong… that is why the repentance of a sinner is easier than that of the unmindful.
When Allah created the universe before he created Adam, He wrote a book which He kept under His throne, in the book the following is written, ‘My mercy precedes My wrath’, how merciful is Allah the Almighty! The world population is about six and half billion, how are they??!! Four billion are non-believers or having a problem with their belief in Allah, the rest only Allah knows how they are, now compare the way Allah has received you and the way you replied on Him.
Now we come to Adam’s creation when Allah said to Adam “Be” and he was. Adam’s creation happened gradually, why? So that you would realize that you have no One but Allah and realize the greatness of Allah and His power. It has been pointed out in many verses that Adam was created from dust, and in some verses from mud, or clay, or molded mud, or pottery clay. In other words he has been created from all those substances, and such is Adam’s composition. Do you know how is pottery made? We have been made exactly like pottery. Do you know the difference between us and the pottery-made vials? It is Allah’s blow which put the soul inside us; which means that we all belong to Allah so how can we ever disobey Him?
Allah the Almighty says what can be translated as, “The similitude of Jesus before God is as that of Adam; he created him from dust” (TMQ, 3:59), in another verse Allah says what can be translated as, “He created man from sounding clay like unto pottery, (TMQ, 55:14) and also says what can be translated as, “Them have We created out of a sticky clay.” (TMQ, 37:11) Therefore Adam’s origin is dust. The Prophet says, ‘Adam has been created from a handful of dust taken from all genres of dust on earth, so, the offspring of Adam varied according to the genre of dust they were made from’. You see, there are places where sand is white and delicate, places where the land is black and stony; there is yellow sand and red sand. The offspring of Adam and the color of their skin resemble the sand they were created from. Besides, the type of land affects their qualities; you may find those created from a sandy soil are easy going; others created from stony soil, strong and fierce; others created from a fertile soil which when irrigated brings good harvest, those are hard working people; and others created from a barren soil, they are futile as the land they came from. The real miracle is that dust spoke; our brains’ origin is dust, is there a bigger miracle than that? That is why you find the West bewildered, with all its development and progress and invading space etc.., they still wonder, how could dust speak? How could our brain be created from dust?
When we add water to dust what happens? It changes into clay. When we leave the clay to dry it gets sticky, doesn’t it? At this point we were shaped by Allah’s gentle Hands. Allah the Almighty says what can be translated as, “(God) said: O Iblis (Satan). What prevents thee from prostrating thyself to one whom I have created with My hands?” “Has there not been over Man a long period of Time, when he was nothing (not even) worth mentioned?” (TMQ, 38:75-76) So it is unacceptable that we say to Allah that we need to be convinced first before we worship Him, how could we ever say that while we have been created by His own hands? Such ways of dealing with Allah is totally unacceptable.
Then Allah blew the soul into Adam. Allah says what can be translated as, “When I have fashioned him (in due proportion) and breathed into him of My spirit, fall ye down in obeisance unto him.” (TMQ, 15:29). What does “breathed into him of My spirit” mean? It means that we are extremely pure, clean and chaste. So for Allah’ sake do not soil such purity with sins, have you ever seen someone spitting or emptying his trash can in the middle of his house. So for Allah’s sake never do drugs and soil the purity of the soul Allah bestowed upon you; and for girls, do not ever wear indecent clothes and hang out with boys, don’t soil your chastity.
Thus, the notion of the human being is that he is a creature who is extremely clean, pure, and chaste. But the West says that the human being is a thinking animal, that man is originally an ape, so which do you feel honors you more? The blow of spirit into your body or what they say? Allah the Almighty says what can be translated as, “We have honored the sons of Adam” (TMQ, 17:70), thus how could you believe that what they say is the truth? Why haven’t we been created from a substance like iron for example, and would have thus been strong? Or rubber so that we wont be broken? Why have we been created from water and dust? Because they are the purest elements in the universe.
All sane creatures have been created from only one element; angels are created from light, jinn from fire; the only sane creature created from two elements is the human being. The two elements are as follows: An outer layer called the body, inside which there is the soul, both elements came from two different places; the body came from the earth’s dust, while the soul came from a divine blow from heavens; see? Each element hungers for the place where it came from; the body hungers after worldly things, while the soul hungers after Allah the Almighty. Besides, each one of them survives on its special food; the body’s food is eating, drinking, hanging out, and having relationships with people; while the soul’s food is Salat (praying), attending Islamic lessons, and all acts of worship and good deeds. Thus, be ware of feeding only one element which is the body, and forgetting about the soul because if you do not feed them both of you will collapse and die. Just like the stomach feels hungry, the soul feels hungry as well. He who prays all day without eating, will surely die because he only fed his soul and neglected his body, and vise versa, he who feeds his body and neglects his soul will also die but slowly because the soul came from Allah thus it dies slowly, while the body came from the earth, that is why it withers quickly.
Feeding only the body leaves you a prey to depression, that is why you see the people in the West are so tired, it is because of the staunching materialistic life they are immersed in; the more materialistic life gets, the more the soul collapses. Then, when you try to read Qur’an you find it so hard, this is because it is trying to get into your heart but unfortunately it finds it stuffed with songs and desires, and when it tries to get into your brain, it finds it busy with work problems, your wife and kids etc…Then the Qur’an leaves you and your soul yearns for it…If the soul had a voice you would have heard it screaming out for help. You might, for instance, find two persons praying beside each other but the difference between their Salat is like the difference between heavens and earth, why? Because the first feeds his soul while the other feeds only his body.
What do you think of a man who uses his refrigerator as a closet? Or he who fills his car with juice instead of gas? The same is for the human being’s structure; if he did not take care of himself he would collapse. I hope all of us would understand their structure and treat it in a right way. There is a Surah in the Qur’an which warn those who live to feed their bodies only. Allah the Almighty says what can be translated as, “The mutual rivalry for piling up (the good things of this world) diverts you (from the more serious things), Until ye visit the graves. But nay, ye soon shall know (the reality). Again, ye soon shall know! Nay, were ye to know with certainty of mind, (ye would beware!) Ye shall certainly see Hell fire! Again, ye shall see it with certainty of sight! Then, shall ye be questioned that Day about the joy (ye indulged in!)” (TMQ, 102:1-8).
Piling up good things in this world off course does not mean having children only, but also everything which man is obsessed with in this world like money for example. This Surah attacks the over-obsession of man with piling up the worldly things but it doesn’t attack reproducing as we are asked to establish some balance. For example a girl who spends two hours talking with her friend on the phone is asked after she finishes to read as much Qur’an as she could; or when we buy new clothes we should give up old clothes to other people as charity. The human being is neither an angel nor an animal, he stands in the middle. The animal lives to feed its body and its desires, while angels live on spirituality; the human being is located amidst them both. The more spiritual man gets, the closer he gets to Allah even more than angels, and the more he lives for his body and its base desires, the closer he gets to the low level of animals.
Allah says in a Hadith Qudsi, ‘Oh! Son of Adam, I have created you with My hands and you were raised depending on my grace which I have bestowed upon you; then you sin and disobey Me; and when you repent and come back to Me, I accept you. Where else would you find a God like Me, the Merciful and forgiving?’
Now we come to the creation of Eve, the Prophet (PBUH) says, ‘when Adam was in paradise he felt lonely (he felt something was still missing in his life), and while he was sleeping Allah created Eve from his rib. When he woke up and saw her he asked her, ‘what are you?’ she replied, ‘a female’, he asked, ‘what is your name?’ she said, ‘Eve (Hawwa’)”, he asked, ‘why were you created?’ she answered, ‘in order that you might dwell with me (in love and serenity)’. She is the symbol of peacefulness, stability, and tranquility. The name Hawwa’ (as mentioned in the Qur’an for “Eve”) comes from the word Hayah (which means “life” in Arabic)
Let’s see together how the West treated the woman? Life in the West is built on the matter, thus if the woman there wanted to live for her real role in life as a mother, she wont find a place for herself, she won’t be able to live, that is why she will have to work for her living. Islam did not prohibit work for women, but it conditioned that her job should not negatively affect her real role in life and priorities as a wife and a mother. In order to be able to live, the woman in the West had to work as a train or taxi driver, she started to lose her femininity, and they started to make use of her body as a means for propagating goods and commodities. See how Islam honored women?
If we considered Eve’s creation we would notice that she had been created while Adam was sleeping so that he would not feel any pain and thus hate her; pain for Adam makes him hate, but pain for Eve increases her love; that is why Allah made her the one who gives birth to the children not Adam. The Prophet says, ‘Act kindly towards women, for a woman is created from a bent rib. If you attempt to straighten her, you will break her, and to break her means to divorce her. So act kindly towards women.’ Such was also the last commandment the prophet said to the Muslims before his death. The woman was created from a bent rib made that way to protect the heart. Thus, when the man tries to straighten her he fails, like when he tells her, ‘think and use your brain, don’t be driven by your emotions’, or tells her, ‘enough tenderness and cuddling’, all that is contradictory to the nature of the woman, she has been created from something that is near to the heart, how could she be asked to stay away from it (or forget about it)?
After Allah has created Adam and Eve, Satan started to plot against them. Satan told Allah the Almighty what can be translated as, “(God) said: Be thou Among those who have respite. He said: Because thou Hast thrown me out of the Way I will Lie in wait for them On Thy Straight Way: Then will I assault them From before them and behind them, From Their right and their left: Nor wilt Thou find, In most of them, Gratitude (for Thy mercies).” (TMQ, 17:16-17). Allah did curse him, but he said what can be translated as, “i will take of thy servants a portion marked off;”, “He said, seest thou? this is the one whom thou hast honored above me if thou wilt but respite me to the day of judgment, I will surely bring his descendants under my sway all but a few” (TMQ, 17:62); Satan meant by “under my sway” is that he shall drive them the way man drives a horse by bridling its jaw, this is exactly how Satan wants to do with us; do you want this to happen to you? Do you want to be driven like cattle? Do you agree on that? This is exactly like when Satan whispers to a girl to wear indecent clothes which shows most of her body or whispers to her to do other sins etc.. Allah says about him what can be translated as, “And on them did Satan prove true his idea, and they followed him, all but a Party that believed.” (TMQ, 34:20). This means that Satan proved true his idea concerning the offspring of Adam…
(1)TMQ=Translation of the Meaning of the Qur'an. This translation is for the realized meaning, so far, of the stated (Surah:Ayah) of the Qur'an. Reading the translated meaning of the Qur'an can never replace reading it in Arabic, the language in which it was revealed.
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