Ep.9 All You Have to Do is Acknowledge Allah | Dhul Hijjah | Dr. Omar Suleiman & Sh. Ali Hammuda

In this episode of The Book of Heart Softeners, we reflect on the most fundamental truth Allah asks of us: to acknowledge Him alone. Every human being was created with an innate recognition of their Creator, yet many spend their lives suppressing that reality. As Arafah arrives, this episode examines what it means to renew our covenant with Allah through sincerity, gratitude, and remembrance. What do we truly want most? And does the direction of our lives reflect it?

Join Sh. Omar Suleiman and Sh. Ali Hammuda as they praise the mercy of a Lord who asks so little from us compared to all that He gives.

https://yaqeeninstitute.org

NOTE: Only vocals were used in the making of the soundtrack.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Life is a creation. Death is a creation. So that thing that lurks in the corridors of every hospital and terrorizes people on the battlefield, visits people in their car crashes. May Allah protect you and your family. That idea of death appears on Yom al Qiyamah in other narrations. The description is kehiy atti kepshin allah. Death will be brought in the form of a black and white speckled ram.

SPEAKER_02 0:35

That this is not a moment. This is now who you are. This is the life that you've constructed for yourself. This is what you are going to live in and live with forever now. The Prophet said that when the people of paradise have entered into paradise, and the people of the fire have entered into the fire, death will be brought between them and placed between the fire and paradise. And then it will be slaughtered. And then it will be called out, O people of paradise, there is no more death. And O people of the fire, there is no more death. And so as a result of that, those who have entered into paradise will be increased in their joy. And those who have entered into hellfire will be increased in their grief. SubhanAllah, there's this concept of, you know, you only get one chance to get this right in this journey. There is no turning back. At this point now, the consequence is there, and there is no turning back. But Shaykh Ali, just take us through the vivid imagery of this and what this means for us.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

Alhamdulillah Sulatu Aslam ala Rasulillahi wa ala alhi wasahbihi wanwala. A question that we will all be wrestling with at some point or another in our lives. Is one of two, let's begin with the first. What does forever actually mean? When you think about something that is continual on and on and on with no hope of it ending or you emerging from the situation that you're in, what does that actually look like in reality? When we say forever or chulud, eternity, this is not a pain that eventually numbs, or a love that begins to fade, or a difficulty that slowly disappears, or a prison sentence, but with parole. That's not forever. Forever is the idea of a door being locked from the inside out, with no hope of that door ever opening again. Today, our understanding or how we engage with death is more of an experience. And you see from our wording how we talk about death, it's almost like it's an abstract idea that takes us by surprise. So somebody dies and it was just an unexpected moment. So death is an unexpected moment. Or death is a tragedy, or death is something that came early, or death is something that separated me from a person that I love. That's how we engage with death today. But on Yom al-Qiyama, as what Sheikh Omar just read for us, this idea of death, which is abstract in our minds to some extent, is given a living form. So death as we know it today, or as we should know it today, is actually one of Allah's creations. We're not talking about the angel of death whom we all accept and are familiar with. We're talking about death itself. Al-maut is a creation of Allah. That's how Allah speaks about it in the Quran. What does he say? Aladi khalakal ma'utah aliabluakum. He was the one who created death and life. Life is a creation, death is a creation. So that thing that lurks in the corridors of every hospital and terrorizes people on the battlefield and visits people in their car crashes. May Allah protect you and your family. That idea of death appears on Yom al-Qayyamah in other narrations. The description is death will be brought in the form of a black and white speckled ram. And it will be situated on a fence between paradise and hell. And an announcement will be made to the people of Jannah. They will crane their necks when they are called, and they will look, they will be asked, Do you know this? And they will say, Yes, this is death. At this moment, the people of Jannah have been situated with their spouses and they're drinking from their wine and they're seeing pleasures that no mind could ever fathom. But there's something in the heart that lingers, that itches at them. Will I be ever in a situation where I will be out of this? Will I be, will it will this continue forever? Is this a call where everything is going to come to a grinding halt? Do you know this? And they will say, Yes, this is this is death. And then the second announcement, Ya Ahlanari, O people of the fire, the other narration says, they will crane their necks and they will look. And at this point, the screams of the people of hell would be echoing and all throughout the universe, having experienced pain that no words could really capture. When there is a hope in their heart, maybe this is the announcement, maybe this is the relief, maybe this is the news that we will be exiting, maybe it will all come to our end. Do you recognize this? And they will look and they will say, Yes, that is death. And then it will be slaughtered. What has been slaughtered, brothers? Death has been slaughtered. And then it will be said, Ya ahl aljannati huludun fala mout, O people of paradise, it is now eternity, no more death. And O people of hell, this is eternity. There will be no more death. The fear of disappearing from Jannah, Alhamdulillah, will disappear from their hearts. They all celebrate. And the hope of ever emerging from the hellfire and this horror, this nightmare of coming to an end, that will also disappear from their hearts. And that is why the Prophet recited the ayah from the Quran, which confirms this meeting after he mentioned this hadith and he recited and warned people of the day of regret. That is the moment of regret. Warn the people of the day of regret. But now they are in a state of heedlessness. He narrates on the authority of Abu Saeed that the Prophet he said, Al-Hayata Walbaqah. He said, if it wasn't for the fact that Allah has decreed that the people of paradise will live forever, at that moment of the announcement, they would have died from happiness. And if it wasn't for the fact that Allah had decreed for the people of hell that they will endure and live forever, at that moment they would have died from misery.

SPEAKER_02 8:46

SubhanAllah Shaykh, there is this idea that you want to know that what you're working for is real and worth it. That you're investing in something that's real. And this is the promise of Allah. Wa'dullah. The promise of Allah means that the one that is working for an unseen reward knows that the unseen reward is greater than anything else that he sees right now. Wahadullah. When you say the promise of Allah, the oppressor should shiver and know that the unseen punishment that awaits you will make any pleasure that you derive from your oppression not worth it. Wahadullah. And there are so many times in the Quran that you come across an ayah that has the opposite effect on people based on their circumstances. Don't think Allah is unaware of what the oppressors do. The oppressed hears that and finds relief. The oppressor should hear that and find fear. That I will be caught. I will be compensated, I will be caught. And so the fact that the single act of death being killed has such an opposite effect on people. That there are two things that will happen in this moment on the day of judgment that will make it all worth it. Number one, the intensity, the intensity of the experience. I don't know if any of you have ever had like a cold plunge, right? The intensity of the experience. So when the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam says that on the day of judgment, the person who had the most difficult life will be dipped into paradise one time and asked, Harra'a buqsan kat, have you ever seen any hardship? Have you ever seen any misery? And that one plunge into paradise, that dip. I don't even know what hardship is anymore. I don't even know what sadness is anymore. The intensity of the plunge, the intensity of the experience will make it all worth it. The heat of this world will all go away. On the other hand, the Prophet said that a person who has a very easy life, but they'll be dipped into hellfire one time. Have you ever seen any happiness? I don't even know what happiness is. I don't even know what joy is. So the intensity of the experience and the longevity of the experience, that this is not a moment. This is now who you are. This is the life that you've constructed for yourself. This is what you are going to live in and live with forever now. And so temporary choices become permanent realities. Temporary life becomes eternal life. And that's something that you're starting to grapple with as you're entering into that new dimension that this is forever. And there are moments in the initial phases here where you're wondering. That feeling is there. In fact, Allah tells us about this moment in the Quran where someone actually realizes. Verily, this is success. Like this is it. This is for real and this is forever. Temporary choices become permanent realities. You only get one chance to get this right. That is a serious reality. And so temporary joy becomes permanent and regret becomes eternal. And this is where we have to ask ourselves where do we want to find ourselves on that day? You know, they say that the key to success in the future is being able to envision it in the presence to the point that you can work for it as if it is the presence, right? You can see it play out. This is where I want to be in 10 years. I can see myself in 10 years in this place. I've already played it out, like in a sense of worldly victory. It's like Nurud-Din, Zengi Rahimallah Ta'ala, having a menbar that he built for Mazd al-Aqsa, even as the crusaders are demolishing the Muslim world. The one that Salah Din Rahimallah will put back in Mazdul-Aqsa, may Allah Azza liberate it once again. Like you have envisioned it. Like one Shaykh uh told me, he said, I told my kids, pick out the outfit that you will wear for the day that Mazr al-Aqsah is liberated for our celebration. You got your Aksa Thub ready, you have your your your moment ready for that. Like I can envision that future so vividly that makes me work for it in the present in a very inspired way. So temporary choices become permanent realities. Shaykh, I have to ask you a doubt that comes to people's minds, eternal punishment, right? We are between Allah's mercy and Allah's justice. When Allah talks about His grace, Jazah and the Rabbi Ka'aqa and Saba, that verily it is a reward from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and it is expanse, it is far beyond anything that you deserved. When Allah talks about punishment, jaza'a and wifaqah, it is exact punishment. So you are between the mercy and the justice of Allah on the day of judgment. How do we deal with the concept of justice from this hadith?

SPEAKER_01 14:22

Yeah, so the um common question is to really reframe it, is the idea of an infinite punishment as a consequence of a finite sin. So this person will say, I disobeyed Allah Almighty for X number of years. It can be quantified. How does that necessarily tally up with an eternal punishment? Surely I should be punished according to the duration that I rebelled against my Lord. That would seem to be just or fair. First of all, let's frame this or answer this under several subheadings. The first of them could be that justice, according to the Quranic narrative, cuts both ways. It's a door that swings in both directions. But we focus on one more than the other. So in the case of hell, yes, the Quran speaks at least in three places, Khalid nafiha abadah, they will stay in it forever. And the Quran says, They will stay in it so long as the heavens and the earth endure. That's an Arabic expression to say it's lit ta'abid, it is forever. But hold on a minute, is it just the punishment of the sinners that stays forever? Or is it also those who do good? Paradise is also forever. So the consequence of our morality is not hinged purely upon an eternal punishment. It stands on equal footing. There is also an eternal reward. So why is it, just before we get into any other answer, that we will focus on the question of why should they suffer forever, instead of the question of why should I enjoy paradise forever? Yeah, because the latter suits us. It's great to be in paradise forever for our part-time worship. But the other one, it's a little bit more difficult to understand. So that's the first thing. It's a door that swings both ways, and eternity stands on equal footing. That's number one. The second is that there is the concept of the gravity of a crime over the duration of the crime itself. In every courtroom in the world today, no one will say that a person's punishment should equate to the duration of the crime. Right? So a murder that may take 45 seconds, no man will ever say, no, judge will ever say that you should be in prison for 45 seconds because that was the duration of the crime. But rather, he would look at the gravity of what had happened. And if that crime necessitated, for example, the taking away of a soul, then we have no qualms with this person spending the rest of his life in prison. And many people would also have no qualms with this person being executed for his crime. That's a permanent consequence, a permanent worldly consequence. He's lost his life forever. For what? For a crime that may have costed him one second of his life. So now when you look at shirk and you assess it through this lens of gravity, ah, shirk is not just an innocent misunderstanding. Shirk is a rebellion against your own design. Shirk is to go against the creator of the heavens and the earth, the consequence of which ripple beyond imagination. So of course, the gravity of this cannot be compared to any other crime. That's framing number two. Gravity of a duration. The third is the aspect of warning that precedes accountability. It's not like we've been caught by surprise. Allah has codified it in the Quran. This is what you expect. So you may see it as harsh, but is it unjust? The answer is no. And I'll give you a worldly example. Imagine if there is a country that says, if you're caught speeding, you're going to be charged 10,000 pounds or $10,000. Okay? Is that harsh? Yes, it's harsh. Is it unjust? You cannot argue that it's unjust because this is for the welfare of community, and more importantly, you've been warned, you've been told, don't speed. Now, if a person now speeds and he's within a country that says there is no penalty for speeding, and so the officer stops him and he takes from him fifty pence, fifty cents. Is it harsh? No. But is it unjust? Yes. Why? Because it wasn't codified. It wasn't mentioned. No one was forewarned. And that is why Allah sent messengers all throughout the generations to warn people. We would never punish a people, Allah said, till we first send them a messenger to communicate the law. So no one can claim that they were caught of God. And then you have the fourth framing, which is Allah Almighty knows that the state of that person, had he been given many lives, he would commit the same sin and choose the kufr or shirk again and again and again. So yes, he may have rebelled against Allah Almighty for 70 years, a hundred years, but Allah knows that this is not just a temporal behavior, that's a state of being that he has become. So should he have lived for another thousand years or a million years, it would be the same outcome. And the Quran says this explicitly. If they were returned to the life of this world, they would go back to their original crimes. So this is not a person's crime per se that are being punished, it's a state, a person, a being that he has become, and there was no hope in this individual. And finally, I will say, Sheikh Ulmar, is this. In light of what has happened in Ghazza, sometimes there are certain shocks that happen to our system that really return the rhythm of life back to our fitrah, our natural disposition. Sometimes we overcomplicate things and we over-intellectualize things, and we meet with people with corrupt ideas, or we read or watch things that we should have not watched, or simply Tulul Ahmed a long time, and our hearts become rusty, and what used to be yesterday an assumption now becomes a doubt. Then guess what happens? Now that the Fatfitrah, the natural disposition has changed, then a shocking event happens like us. And a genocide of a horrific scale, a community live streaming, they're killing, and we have seen death by every conceivable way. And all of a sudden, the heart wakes up again and it finds its rhythm and all of the rust disappears, and what used to be an over-sophisticated concept now becomes very understandable, and all of a sudden nobody is asking about why the criminals should be punished forever. In fact, when we see the type of behavior that was exacted on our brothers and sisters there in Ghazda, we say there isn't a punishment sufficient for them, except eternity in help. So I hope with these five points, this can give us some perspective, some type of balance as for how to understand and to submit and to accept and be pleased with the messaging of this hadith, Khunood eternity is a reality.

SPEAKER_02 21:51

I will only say Shaykh to that beautiful framing, similar to what we said last time, where you find yourself unable. Come up with an answer, resort back to the names of Allah, resort back to the attributes of Allah. You will not be more just than He who named Himself Al-Adr, Justice. You will not have more mercy than Al-Rahnan, the most merciful. And so all you have to do is to say, no one will be in hellfire except someone who deserves to be in hellfire. Period. And that should suffice me. No one will go there for any moment longer than they deserve to be there. And the one who is making that judgment is far more just and wise than I am. And so I can only hope to exert myself to where I don't find myself in that category. And that's it. And alhamdulillah. When you do that, you remove from yourself so many of these things that can disturb and bother. Because Allah did not task us with individual judgments. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gave us consistent rules and then a roadmap to success within those consistent rules. So may Allah grant us eternal success.

SPEAKER_00 23:14

Are there any cases of hadith where despite being out of time, the people of Jahannam are still saved and join the people of Jannah?

SPEAKER_02 23:23

There are multiple ayat and hadith and sayings that confirm the idea that there will be some people that go to hellfire for a period of time and then come into paradise. And we will talk about one very specific example, inshaAllah ta' in the next hadith. But that's the idea of Allah's mercy surpassing his wrath. No one goes to Jannah and then comes out. Many people go to Jahannam and then come out. Right? So that's Allah's mercy surpassing his wrath. There are people that will spend a time in hellfire and then they will come in paradise. Now, when they enter into paradise, at that point, just like the person that took the cold plunge, the paradise plunge, they'll forget all of the pain that they had in hellfire. Right? But the question is, do you really want to go to hellfire even for one day? Or even for a moment? Don't have this laxadaisical attitude towards Jahannam. They said we'll only go to hell for a few days. That attitude is a terrible attitude. And we know that when we usually downplay a consequence, what happens? We end up taking a greater share of it, even in a worldly sense, right? What's the worst that could happen? It happens and it's usually more. So if you approach it and say, I don't want to enter hellfire even for a moment, and then you have Isnald in Allah, a good assumption of Allah, and then you strive to please him and you seek forgiveness for your shortcomings, then we have hope that Allah Azwajal will enter us into paradise without any form of punishment, without any form of accountability. And the Prophet said, Whoever asks Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for Jannah three times, Jannah says, Oh Allah, enter him into me. And whoever asks Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for protection from the fire three times, the fire, that creature, what would make that creature that cranes its neck out on the day of judgment, that huffs and puffs and roars and stalks its occupants, say, Oh Allah, don't enter him into me. Antakan Allah. Allah is the one who made us speak. Allah would cause that vicious hellfire to say, Oh Allah, don't enter him into me. So we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for Janatul Firidos. We ask Allah for Janatul Firidos. We ask Allah for Janatul Firidos without any form of accountability and any form of punishment. We ask Allah to protect us from the fire. We ask him to protect us from the fire. We ask him to protect us from the fire. Allah Ameen.