Why Allah Chose 19 Angels: Divine Strategy Revealed

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Verse number 31. In this verse, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala teaches us about the reasons that he mentions particular and specific details that would seem at first glance to be out of place. But Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has very strategically mentioned particular details. And this one detail that he mentions in a verse here or there will act as an agent to help those who are already believers and to further impede those who are already disbelievers. As we will hear in this verse, for.

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Menithdu.

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Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says he told us in the verse before it verse number 30 that the hellfire has 19 19 angels that are commissioned as the gatekeepers and those that run and regulate the hellfire and its people. 19 all of these 19 work under the command of Malik Alisam. Malik is the name of the angel that is the chief gatekeeper of the hellfire. Do we know the name of the chief gatekeeper of paradise? The name of the chief gatekeeper of paradise is as is mentioned in some narrations of the prophet Sam and Sah Muslim excuse me in Bkari in the chapter regarding the interpretation of dreams the prophet sallall.aii mentions a very long narration in which he says he said last night two men came to me in my dream in my sleep in a vision and they woke me up and they said to me come with us. And it's a very long narration, but the prophet sallallah.aii wasallam was shown many things in this experience. And one of the things that he said he saw was a man who was very stern in his facial expression. He was very stern and harsh and he was you know he was inflaming the hellfire and he was circling around it and monitoring it and tending to it. And at the end of the narration, we find out that these two men that came to him were Gibl and Mikimatam. And he tells us that this man that you saw that was so stern and very angry and very harsh, that is Malik, the gatekeeper and chief gatekeeper of the hellfire. And so his name is Malik. However, under him work many angels. And 19 of these angels report to Malik Alam. And under these 19, there could be millions of other angels that work. However, these 19 are the chief gatekeepers of the hellfire. Now Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala mentioned this number 19. Why this number? Why is this number so important? We've learned elsewhere in the Quran that the gates of hell are seven and 19 does not divide you know completely and and equally on the seven gates of hell. And we don't have a narration of the prophet sallall.aii wasallam or other verses of the Quran that explain to us exactly why it is 19 or how they are divided and how their workload is divided. We don't know that exactly. We don't know which angels tend to which layer or which gate of the hellfire. But what we know is they are 19. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala mentioned this number and he mentioned this description of hell for a number of reasons. He explains to us those some of those wisdoms and some of those reasons in verse number 31. He says subhanahua and we have not appointed to be the gatekeepers of the hellfire except angels. So we know that angels are the agents which Allah has placed and commissioned with regulating the hellfire. And this is a response to Abu Jah and others of the mushri who started to mock the prophet sallall.aii when Allah revealed the earlier verse of 19. And so when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said about the hellfire and others said meaning I will take care of them 19 men I can handle 10 of them myself you guys handle the rest in different narrations and we will push past them and we can overtake the hellfire itself. This is what they said. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said as a rebuttal that these are not just regular men. These are angels that have been designed and commissioned by Allah to regulate the hellfire and subject to incredible torture. the people who are there and the damned souls that are handed over to them. He says, he said, "And we have not made their number of 19 and mention this detail except as to act as an impediment to the disbelievers. those who have already chosen to disbelieve this number and this seemingly out ofplace detail. It will only act as a justification for those who have already chosen disbelief to become more extent in their disbelief. And another reason we have made their number 19. And we have commissioned them as angels and mention this detail in the Quran so as to act as a reinforcement and an evidence for the people of the book that the Quran is truly from Allah and is given to his messenger Muhammad sallall.aii wasallam. Why is that? Because in the previous books Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala mentioned this detail in the or the he gave to Misam and why did Allah mention this detail to Benny is benu is are known for asking a lot of questions and details that are not beneficial to them. Right? So Ben is the people of Misam that were with him, the people of Isa, when Allah would send down a verse speaking about something or inform him of something, they would ask a lot of petty questions as Allah is mentioned through the Quran. So for instance, Allah will mention a story of one of the prophets, the story of Adamisam and the tree and that he ate from the fruit of the tree that was forbidden. Instead of them looking at the lesson behind that, which is eating from the tree, the action, what they were prohibited, what the moral of the story is, they will want their minds go to. Well, what kind of tree was it? What kind of fruit was it? Was it just one tree or was it a type of tree that was all through the paradise? Right. Misam had a staff. They would ask what kind what kind of wood was it made out of? How long was it? What was the shape of his staff? The people of the cave. How many were there? Was it six or seven or eight or nine? And they had a dog. What breed was that dog? Or was it a mud? Was it a mixture? Did it have a pure book bloodline? How tall was this one? How tall was was Jalut? and how big was Talut? Right? These kinds of questions that not only have nothing to do with the with the story really, but they detract from the moral of the story. They detract from the moral of the story. Why does this matter? It has nothing to do with the benefit that is taken from this story. They're just asking questions a child unfettered and his mind wandering to the most obscure and unnecessary things. And this is how they dealt not only with stories but they dealt this way also with their own messengers with their own prophets. And they dealt this way even with commands that were given to them. So when Musam said Allah commands that you slaughter a cow. What did they do? They didn't say, "Okay, grab the nearest cow and slaughter that cow." No. If they did that, it would have been fine. That's exactly what was asked of them. Instead, what what kind of how old is this cow? Is it an older cow or a younger cow? Male or female? What color is the cow? Matter of fact, what does the cow do? Is it a working cow or is it a cow for milk? Or is it what kind of cow is it? Right? And so they're asking these questions and why is this disobedience? Because it articulates that number one, they're not taking it seriously. And number two, they don't want to do it. If they wanted to do it, they would do it immediately. But they don't want to do it. So because they don't want to do it, they start to ask these detracting questions. Right? I want to give you an example. Imagine for instance that you told your son or your daughter, "Go get me a glass of water." And you know he's laying down on his back or he's sitting on a chair or playing a video game. We say, "Go get me a glass of water, boy." And he says, "What kind of glass? Do you want it in plastic or glass?" And give me a glass of water and a glass. How full do you want it? You want it all the way full, a quarter full, half, a quarter? Do you want cold water or hot water? Do you want the water to be this or that? Do you want me to do this with it or that with it? What kind What color glass do you want? We have different colors, right? and continues to ask you these questions while he's playing his video game, what would you understand from this kind of exchange, he doesn't want to do it. Obviously, he doesn't want to do it. He wants you to finally say, "Okay, you know what? Forget about it." Right? And this is exactly the attitude that Benu is took with Misam and their subsequent messengers. And so it's not surprising that we would have such an obscure detail 19 being the gatekeepers of the hellfire because Benu is were known to ask about these kinds of things. And so it is in their books but that is also an anchor for this book. It bolsters this book because that is a very obscure detail and Muhammad sallall.aii alaihi wasallam has no way of knowing that if he is not a prophet and a messenger because not even all of the scholars of Benny is perhaps know that particular detail. And so when Allah mentions this in the Quran, this now is an evidence that he is not speaking from himself. This is actually the Quran that was revealed to him by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and that he is in fact a messenger. And so the Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says here.

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And we have only made their number known as 19 to act as an impediment, a further impediment for the one who has already chosen to disbelieve. Why? Because when he hears that he'll say, "What kind of a silly number is that? What does that even mean? Why 19? What's the point of that?" Right? This is clearly just ramblings from Muhammad. So now this this statement, it acts as a further impediment for the disbelievers because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala wants to separate truth from falsehood. He doesn't want the disbeliever and the believer to be very close and equal. He wants the disbeliever to continue to be further in his disbelief just he desires of the believer to be more excellent in his belief. And so he will send down a verse or a chapter of the Quran that will act as an impediment for the disbeliever and simultaneously an evidence for the people of the book and simultaneously a reason for the true believers to be increased in their faith. He says him.

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Wow.

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And also we have made their number known so as to increase those who already believe in their belief. He says, And we have made their number known in order that the people of the book and the believers are in order for them to become secure in their faith and have no doubts as to the origins of the Quran. He says,.

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He says, "And we have made their number known in order that those who have sickness and disease in their hearts and the disbelievers in order for them to be increased in their confusion and say to themselves, "What is Allah trying to get at by saying these things?" Meaning, if this is if this book is truly from Allah, why would he mention stuff this? And why would he use these as the as his parables as opposed to other more significant issues? And this is deeply rooted in the belief of the of the mushri prior to Islam which we will expound upon tomorrow night inshallah every night Sunday Wednesday those four days we are continuing in taps of the Quran according to the order of revelation. So right now we are in the verse number 31 of surah which is the 74th chapter of the Quran. It will behoove you all to at least read these verses every night. five or six verses that we are going to speak about every night before you come to or even better that you read along even if only on your phones as we go through these verses because this knowledge will only stick if you have already memorized these verses or are able to see them. Otherwise, it's kind of disconnected and just in the air. In order for you to be able to follow along properly and understand and keep the knowledge that you gain every night, it will behoove you all to follow along and read these verses. Even try to memorize them before. If you could imagine memorizing 10 or 12 verses every week, within a few years you will have memorized the entirety of the Quran. If a person amongst us memorized one verse a day, one verse, just one, one verse a day, within 10 years, every one of us would be a of the Quran. And I know that many of us have been Muslim for far longer than 10 years. And so this is the thing that even water dripping onto stone will carve it out. I'll mention this one thing and we will end with this. One of the scholars of hadith and this story was mentioned by Ibar and others in his book Fatal and elsewhere. He was a student of hadith and he was studying for months and months with his teacher. He was unable to keep up with his peers and he was unable after this time he spent to you know to organize the knowledge in his head and to retain the knowledge he was learning. He felt he had a weak memory. He felt he couldn't keep up with his peers and so he was with his sheh for many months and he decided to give up. He said I I'm just not cut out for this. I'm going to go and learn some trade or something and I am going to end this journey of every day going to seek knowledge and I'm unable to retain it and after all this hard work I haven't reached anywhere. And so as he left on his way, he passed by a kind of waterfall coming down off of a mountain. And he saw that there was water that was dripping from above onto another slab of rock. And this slab of rock that was being the water was dripping onto had carved out into the rock where this drip was dropping down every day. And he saw this and he noticed that this must have been going on for years. Maybe this has been going on for 50 years, a hundred years, maybe more where this every minute this one drop of water and it has been able to carve out this stone. He says, He bech.

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He said to himself, "This water as soft and gentle as it is and this stone as hard as it is, because of the time it has been able to carve out this stone, knowledge is not more gentle. gentle than this water and my heart is not more hard than this stone. And he went back and he really rolled his sleeves up and every time he would start to feel those emotions of of boredom or those emotions of giving up again, he would remember what he saw that day. And he continued to study and he became one of the major of the which are mentioned and referred to even to this day. We tried to always keep these talks except for Saturday down to 20 minutes between 17 and 20 minutes. In the morning we have 10 minutes. So if you join us for the morning and for the evening, you will have spent half an hour collectively in the knowledge of the Quran and the Sunnah in the morning in the evening. sometimes we go a little bit over like we did tonight. However, keep in mind that knowledge is earned slowly and over time and you have to put in the work. You have to concentrate. You have to think. You have to go out of your way to learn. I'm trying as hard as I can to spoon feed as best as I can. But there has to be reciprocity. The more you take it seriously, the more knowledge will give you of itself. Alhamdulillah.