Ibadurrahman

With Ramadan just around the corner and everyone preparing themselves both mentally and spiritually, I wish to share one of my favourite verses in the Quran.

Ibadurrahman…these are special groups of people mentioned in suratul furqan (25:63-77) that receive Allah’s immediate love and special mercy. I would love to be in this group because Allah says He goes out of his way to care for them.

There’s a full lecture about ibadurrahman on YouTube that was given by the famous Muslim speaker Nouman Ali Khan (NAK) who I’m lucky to have as my Arabic teacher. I’ll put the link down below for those of you that may want to watch it.

Non of the things written are in my own words, they are mainly quotes, excerpts and summaries of the 1 hour 30 mins long video. It is for those that may not have the patience to watch it but still want the knowledge or reminder. My family has seen the whole video and they loved every moment of it, even the last born was engrossed and I tell you a marathon of the harry potter series, an arsenal match and a plane ride are pretty much the only things that can get him to willingly sit in a spot for a long period.

So who are these special people? Hopefully when you are done reading about them you can qualify for at least one.

•  People who walk around on the earth with humility. These special people are humbled in the way they walk and talk. Sometimes you don’t have to say something to be arrogant the way you look at someone there’s arrogance and even the way you carry yourself. But how do you know if you’re humble? Allah gives the test in the same ayat and said it is when people who have no control over their emotions (such as obnoxious, angry, disrespectful, abusive people etc) talk to these special people and they would only reply with salam in other words, they always deal with them peacefully and in a manner that disarms. If you can’t do that, then you are disqualified from category number one. It may be that you became closer to the deen but others in your family aren’t that close in the sense that they don’t pray every salat or read the Quran. Don’t get angry at them, your anger will only take them further away from the deen. You have to have a soft heart towards people that aren’t there yet, there was a time you yourself weren’t praying five times daily. Allah softened your heart, so wait for him to soften theirs. The best example to use is Prophet Musa (Moses), Allah told him to be nice to Firaun (Pharoah). That’s Firaun! Who tried to kill Musa (As) as a child, killed thousands of babies every year and called himself God. There are so many reasons to hate Firaun and Allah tells him to be nice to him. Then what about your wife? Husband? Kids? Siblings? Cousins? Aunts and uncles? Family are the people that make you really angry and they are the ones that deserve your most soft response.
• People who spend the entire night either in sajdah (prostration) or standing in prayer. People reading this are like okay ex, give me the next category. Haha but you know whats amazing? Allah is saying he loves the people who can control their anger even more than those who spend the whole night in prayer. You would think it’s the other way round.
• People who the only thing they ask is: Allah I don’t want to see Jahannam (hellfire). So beautiful is this category all they say is take me away from Jahannam. It’s penalty is too heavy and I can’t bear it. It’s a terrible place to be for a little while or for a long time. There’s a girl from florida who had asked NAK a question: I do a lot of haram (forbidden) things but i’m not going to hell forever right? And even if I go its not going to be for a long time right? Allah loves these special people who understand and ask Him for no part in jahannam long or short time. There are some muslims who say of course I don’t want to go to jahannam forever, but I don’t know maybe I can party here and pay one weekend price there and after that back to jannah (Paradise). Allah says these are not ibadurrahman. You know the least punishment of hellfire described in the whole of the quran is mentioned in suratul anbiya. How easy is it? The person described has not tasted the fire they have only tasted a breeze. Not a hot breeze as in lafha in arabic but a cold breeze nafha as used in the Quran. When you close a door, that air that comes in or goes out, thats nafha and in this case it’s not even the whole door was open, just a teeney weeny bit and the air passed through. You know sometimes you are frying something and oil comes out and it touches you a little bit?  Yes but that’s liquid. Allah doesn’t say liquid will touch you he said air will touch you. Bear in mind that this person isn’t even inside hell, he’s still outside. Now its the only torture that this person receives and the person says “Ya wayl lana” and swears I have never ever felt any more torture in my life, I must be in the worst part of hell. Wayl, the prophet Muhammed SAW described is the worst part of hellfire, so scary that hell itself is afraid of it. And this person who isn’t even inside hell says he must be in wayl. Subhanallah. The muslim/believer/student of the Quran understand this and does not have the mentality of bani israel who said its just a few days we can handle it.
• People who spend money, when they spend money they don’t spend too much and they are not cheap either. These people are right in between. When you go shopping you say I make good money put it all in. I’ll take 3 of those. I’ll have every colour of that. What’s the biggest tv you have? Whats the most expensive car? You just want to show people how much money you have and pay pay pay. The only time a muslim gets careful about spending is when they have to give sadaqah (charity). When the charity box is going around in the masjid you say oh man…electricity bill, gas, school, the whole budget for your family comes down in front of you and you become a certified professional accountant. But then when you go to the game or electronic store and you’re buying the new gadget or movie that came out, the whole list doesn’t come down in front of you. You don’t say what about the gas? electricity? you just spend it. A lot of you are doing well financially mashallah and you say well i can afford it, but just because you can afford it doesn’t mean you should spend it. Your money has other uses such as helping a family member back home that isn’t doing very well, or getting someone out of debt. Don’t pay five times the price just cause it has a logo on the shirt. Some people like to buy at expensive stores and they like to carry the bag of the expensive store, so as their walking they like to wave/swing the bag high so people can see and be like yeah okay, this guy mhmmm. We have to be responsible spenders and we can’t be cheap either.
• People who don’t call on anyone other than Allah, people who don’t commit murder and people who don’t commit Zina (adultery/fornication). These are three different categories but i am joining them together cause they have a link. The first he opened the door to all muslims! You are special to me if you don’t call on any other person except Allah. The next they don’t kill anyone and you are like phew at least i checked that one. You have to wonder though why would Allah make this a category on its own? What’s so special about not killing someone? or Zina? Allah mentioned these 3 because for some people in the world these things are very difficult. There are some people whose whole family is mushrik and they are the only one on tawheed and for them to worship Allah alone is very difficult. There are places in America where there are gangs and this kid lives in the neighbourhood, the gang either you are with them or you’re against them. So if you are with them you go on and kill other people and if you are against them they kill you and this guy refuses to kill people; he’s risking his life by not joining them and thats special to Allah. There’s a young man of 18/19 years old in college during summer who’s hormones are raging inside him and there are girls in his class sitting who are barely dressed then one of them comes up to him and asks can you help me with the assignment? We can study at my place. It’s very hard for him but he says no cause he knows he’s being tested by Allah. Now the ayat continues whoever did any of those has come in contact with a great sin. How can a muslim call on someone other than Allah? How can a muslim kill someone? How can a muslim commit adultery? Allah says if anyone else does it he will get punished on the day of judgement but if a muslim does it, the punishment will be double for him on judgement day. At least the mushrik did not know and he did it, but the muslim knew and he still went on to do it. Allah azawajal is extremely angry at these people. So now maybe you are reading this and you’ve made some mistakes in your life that’s between you and Allah, you then come across this verse and you think oh my God, double punishment. Then shaytan comes to you and tells you man you are already going to hell anyway, you might as well just party it up but wait the verse doesn’t end there. Allah continues to say that the people who did any of these three things or all of these three things the exception is if they turn back to Allah, (became a believer again and this time was very serious about doing good things) Allah will take all their sins and convert them into good deeds if they make tawbah (repentance). Now shaytan may come to some of you and say hey look, if you do a really bad sin and then make tawbah you can take the mountain of bad deeds and turn them to a mountain of good deeds. So why don’t we just go out and do some crazy bad things cause thats a very easy way to get a huge pile of good deeds…you can’t outsmart Allah and what if you die before you are able to make the tawbah?
• People who do not witness useless company and when they pass by a useless company they leave it in a dignified way. In other words they don’t hang out until 2am smoking hookah/shisha. They don’t hang out till 3 in the morning just talking nonsense. Why not? because they already made tawbah. You know how you get to big sins? it start with small sins and they get bigger and bigger until they get to the big ones and thereafter you realise your sins are a result of your friends; the people you hang out with make it easy for you to do all those things. Now that they’ve made tawbah, Allah says these people make sure they are never sitting in a gathering of evil or falsehood and if they ever find themselves in such gatherings they find a way to leave it without participating or humiliating the other. If you are going to give them advice, give it to them in a respectful way. In our deen we have a hatred for sins not for people who do them.
• People who when they are being reminded of the ayat of their Master, they didn’t pass over them mute, deaf and blind. You’re not like its a nice speech but i’m still going to do what i want to do. Whenever these people are reminded of Allah’s words either at the mosque or at home, they pay real attention and try to change their ways and be better.

These are all the people of ibadurrahman as mentioned in Suratul Furqan (25:63-77) its not easy to be honest but may Allah make us from one of them. As we all know the blessed month of ramadan is 3-4 days away, I am super excited and pray we all get to meet and complete it.

See you in my next post ^.^

Click here for the video