When Allah Moved the Earth for Repentance
The Story of the Man Who Killed a Hundred People: Divine Mercy and Genuine Repentance
Summary
This lecture discusses the famous hadith of the man who killed a hundred people and sought repentance. The speaker explains the debate between the angels of mercy and punishment over the man's soul, focusing on the meaning of 'never doing good' in Islamic narrations. The lecture emphasizes that this phrase refers to deeds of no significance, not literal complete evil. The speaker highlights the moment when an angel appears as a human to judge between the two groups, illustrating the honored position of humans in creation and their potential for good. The conclusion focuses on Allah's mercy, describing how Allah literally changed the earth's topography to bring the man closer to the land of righteousness, and emphasizing Allah's generosity in responding to sincere repentance.
Note: This transcript was generated using YouTube's automatic captioning, with AI-assisted cleanup for readability. It may contain inaccuracies due to background noise, audio quality, or limitations of the transcription software — particularly during Arabic recitation. Listener discretion is advised; please refer to the original video for precise wording.
Alhamdulillah.
[Silence]
Continuing in the narration of in the chapter of repentance of the end of the story that we have been reading for the past couple of mornings with regards to the story of the man who killed a hundred people, took a hundred lives. One of which we are sure was a Muslim life. One of which we are sure was for all intents and purposes a righteous man. However, he wished to repent and he was directed to go and leave his land and go to a land of where there are people of righteousness there and be part of their community. And on his way when he reached the exact middle of the way, he passed away. And so the angels of mercy and the angels of punishment both came and began to debate as to who is more rightful to this man's soul. So the angels of mercy argued that they had more of a right to him because he came with respect to his state of being. Now that he came with his heart filled with contrition and came with the intention of turning over a new leaf. And the angels of punishment argued with respect to his past that he has never done anything of good in his life. What does this mean? We hear this often in narrations of the prophet sallall.aii wasallam. He's never done anything good. Well, obviously he did the bare minimum of good. He was Muslim or he wouldn't have been eligible for paradise. Obviously he saidahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahillah he sought out people of knowledge of the revelations of Allah. He took their advice and so forth. So what does this mean? Is it even possible to imagine a person a human being who has never done a single good thing in his life? Is that possible? I mean evenl even is he not affectionate towards his children or do some good somewhere somehow in his life? The answer is yes. There is no person who is entirely evil. There is no person who is entirely good. what is meant by this is nothing worth mentioning. Nothing out of the ordinary. He has not put forth for himself anything worth mentioning. This is what is intended by this statement.
[Silence]
And so an angel then came in the image of a human being and they agreed agreed to his judgment. They made him a judge between the two groups, the two factions here, the angels of mercy and the angels of punishment. Which what does this mean? Why why is the prophet telling us that an angel came in the in the form of a man? Why didn't he come in the form of an angel? This tells us the position the human being holds in the angels. They the the angels look up to the human being. They find the human being as worthy of it of their admiration because of his potential and because of the gifts that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has bestowed upon him. They have continued to look up to the human being since the first human being when they fell in prostration to him. So this is an honor for the human being. forana.
[Silence]
For.
[Silence]
Multiple The prophet sallallah.aii alaihi wasallam then tells us that the judge between them this angel in the form of a human being came and his judgment was measure the distance between him and each of the two lands and whichever of the two lands he is closest to he is to that land he will be considered of considered of its people and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala then caused the land of evil to distance and he caused the land of good to come in closer to him and they found him to be a handspan closer to the land of righteousness and so he was considered of its people and the angels of mercy were the ones that took him. If a person has a good intention, if a person repents earnestly and cleans his heart and honestly reaches out to Allah and places his cheeks on the threshold of Allah's of the door to Allah's mercy. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will change the shape of the earth in order to accommodate him and have mercy upon him. He will literally this is not a figurative thing when they explain these narrations. This is a literal distance. He literally made the evil place stretch further away and made the place of goodness stretch in closer towards him. He literally changed the topography of the earth. moved the whole earth around with all of its mountains and all of its grandeur in order to accommodate this poor soul that had otherwise proven to be nothing but a nuisance to society. However, he reached out to Allah and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is far more generous than his servant. And the prophet sallallah.aii wasallam tells us that Allah himself said, "If my servant reaches out to me a handspan, I reach out to him a cubit. And if he reaches out to me a cubit, I reach out to him an arm's length. And if he comes to me walking, I come to him running. Subhanahu wa ta'ala.