Why Did Allah Choose Muhammad?

Thank you for joining us tonight in our second installation of the great book about our prophet and messenger muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam his days his time his actions his words his era this era of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam is the most significant era of the history of this great earth the history of the entirety of the world and humanity from the beginning of adam alaihissalam all the way to the end of time the greatest era was the era of the prophet muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam when we look at the quran and how allah subhanahu wa ta'ala drew our attention to this era we notice that allah subhanahu wa allah swears in the quran by things that he wishes to draw our attention to with regards to the magnitude of these objects or these things allah subhanahu wa ta'ala swears by himself swears by the stars and the moon and the sun and he is also sworn by the life of the prophet he is the only prophet the only human being in all of the quran that allah i swear by your life and this is in order to draw our attention to the great magnitude of the life of the prophet muhammed he swears by time itself the scholars of islam have differed with regards to what is meant by time is it meant is what is meant by the elephant lamb here well some say what is meant is i swear by this era meaning the era in which this verse was revealed and that is the lifetime and era of the prophet muhammad and so it's important for us to understand and learn and most importantly follow the way and tradition of the prophet muhammad and that's what this book is about this book is completely dedicated to this subject we are going to begin now with actually going through the book and reading it the book is extremely dense it's been comprised into about usually five volumes and we mentioned that throughout time many volumes have been independently released and published as independent books such as the medicine of the prophet the medicine of the prophet that many people are accustomed to seeing reading it's a very popular book it's authored by ibn kayim it is actually the fourth volume of zed and so we are going to begin with this book however we are going to summarize it a lot we are not going to obviously go through every single page and every single statement and many or a lot of the statements are issues of linguistic and great linguistics and grammar and eloquence and things which are not well served when translated into english and so we are going to go with a very summarized approach very concise and our brevity and abridgement of this book will revolve around the essence of the book and that is the prophet muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam begins this book with discussing the issue or the topic of allah subhanahu wa ta'ala choosing of his creation that he subhanahu wa ta'ala is the only creator and then he subhanahu wa just as he is the only creator he is the only one rightful to choose to elevate of his creation to favoritize of his creation whom he chooses subhanahu then speaks about what the criteria for such a choice is that yes allah chooses whom he wills yet his will is dictated subhanahu by his wisdom and we will discuss that after this goes into discussing the importance and the necessity of every human being to know the prophet.

[Arabic recitation]

And his sunnah and his way and his tradition this is very important these are the three main topics we are going to discuss today insha'allah or i should say tonight he begins with a verse which is in surat al-qasas it is the 68th verse of surat al-qasas.

[Silence]

In this verse that which translates to and and in this verse he is addressing the prophet muhammad he says to him that which means and your lord he is the one who creates whatever he chooses to create whatever he wills to create and he likewise chooses and selects of this creation what he chooses it is not for they meaning the creation of allah to have a portion in making this decision and this choice rather above and high above is allah subhanahu wa ta'ala of any notion of polytheism or anything that they ascribe unto he which is unbefitting based on this verse that just as allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is the only creator likewise he is the only one who has the right to choose of that creation what will be elevated what will be given a greater precedence and importance than others this is a choice which is completely to the discretion of allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala now this verse in order for us to totally understand it this verse was revealed as a response to the antagonists of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam many of them had said why why if if you are truly a messenger why is god why is allah subhanahu wa ta'ala choosing you why didn't he choose someone of greater societal status why wasn't it fulan or fulan why wasn't it this guy or that guy or this tribe or that tribe and allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala says in response to this and your lord is the one who creates that which he wills and he is the one who chooses it is to his discretion not to theirs they have no portion of that choice and those decisions which are made just as he is the only one who has created he is the only one rightful to choose subhanahu this is the 124 verse of the sixth chapter of the quran allah subhanahu wa says that which translates to and allah is better knowing and all knowledgeable of where he should place his message meaning in the heart of which man and also on the tongue of which man who will be the messenger and this verse as well was a response to some of the antagonists of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam who said why isn't it that just every single one of us receives a message why doesn't every one of us receive the message as he.

[Arabic recitation]

Receives the message allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said in response to this allah knows best where to place his message also in this spirit in surah verse number 31 says.

[Silence]

Which translates to and they addressing the antagonists of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam his opponents and they say why wasn't this quran if it is from allah revealed to another man of the great two communities someone of higher societal status allah subhanahu wa ta'ala then rhetorically asks and says are they the ones to whom discretion belongs with regards to how the mercy of your lord will be distributed is that to their discretion are they the ones who have the right to decide where the mercy of your lord shall be placed he says subhanahu wa'ta'ala we are the ones who have decided and divided up their bounty in the life of this world and it is we who raise them in stations and we have elevated some over others and so these verses articulate to us that true the choice of discretion as to who will receive a message who is the one who will receive this enlightenment this belongs only to allah subhanahu wa this is a choice reserved for allah as he is the only one who has created he is the only one who has right to articulate to that creation what he chooses and choose of them whomever he wills and so allah subhanahu wa ta'ala also alludes to the fact that for us to try to intervene or interfere with that choice which is solely to the discretion of allah for us to assume a position of interference with the distribution of that message is a type of shirk for us to say it shouldn't have been this way rather it should have been this way allah should have done it this way or allah should have chosen this person as opposed to this one this is a type of and that is why allah concludes this verse by saying far above and high is allah from all that which they ascribe to him of subhanahu so he goes now to describe to us what the criteria of that choice is the criteria of that choice is the wisdom of allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala allah's wisdom allah's knowledge that is what his will is dictated by subhana he does not have to ask anyone he does not have to seek anyone's approval he does not have to appease anyone rather this discretion is to allah and he subhanahu wa is the one who chooses and that choice is based on his wisdom and his knowledge subhanahu wata'ala and it is of course not based on their knowledge and honestly something we have to understand about this world we have to understand something about our choices as human beings i want everybody to really think with me about his or her choices i can think about my choices and i can say with certainty that i disagree with myself last week what i believed or what i thought about a particular issue whatever issue it is i very well may disagree with it this week and more so last year i disagree with things that i did or said or positions that i may have held or choices that i made last year and this year being that i have grown that i have attained more wisdom more knowledge more information more experience i disagree with myself how much more so does my adult self disagree with my adolescent self very much so things with that were a big deal when i was a little kid have no have no importance or significance today to my adult self to my mature self and so it's important for us to understand that allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is not subject to this trial and error he is not subject to mistakes his knowledge is perfect and encompassing our knowledge is deficient it's preceded by ignorance and our knowledge is followed by forgetfulness and much of our knowledge is.