One House, Many Angles: Understanding the Prophets

Speaking of the Quran here. that the Quran is descri bed with these two descriptions. The first description is that it is a remembrance. The second description is that it is blessed. Remembrance, what it is, what is it a remembrance of scholars of Islam tell us that the Quran is referred to as remembrance Because it reminds the person of what is innately instilled of disposition when a person is born. The football. What a person is born upon. Knowing that Allah is one. Knowing that there cannot be more than one. Knowing that one plus one equals two. Knowing that the religion be that only Allah should be worshiped alone without any partners. This Quran taps back into that original disposition disposition, excuse me, that we were born upon. prophet mentions The narration collected by Bukhari, a Muslim. He said, every child is born upon this disposition, the original and it is the parents of the child that then distort this disposition and dilute it and veer the child off into Christianity, Judaism, etcetera. So, when a poor person is born, they are born knowing these these original things that they were created by Allah, loan without any partners, that's only Allah is worthy of worship, that there is only one creator, etcetera. and it is their parents who subsequently distort and defile this fitra. and so, this Quran refers back to that this Quran is a remembrance because it reminds us of where we originally came from. Our original disposition. It ties back into our original state of being. our original state of being is the worship of Allah alone without any partners. The veneration of truth the dispraise of falsehood, these kinds of qualities. It is a reminder and a remembrance of that. He also described it as being blessed. What does that mean? Blessed. Mubarak. This is taken from a root word in the Arabic language. Which is comprised of three letters. Bah, rah, ka, calf, and these letters articulate immensity and they articulate remnants. They articulate immensity and they articulate remnants. But when we say a broke or Ramadan Mubarak, right? We say these things. What this articulates in the Arabic language is an abundance of good that is remnant. That remains. This is why the Arabs would refer to a lake as a Bitica. Dedicate because it is a lot of good water that is remnant. It stays there. Likewise, they refer to a camel when it sits, when it lays down, they call this action because it is much good that is remnant and stable. Oh Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala describes this Quran as Mubarak. As a book which has been made blessed. Has been made an abundance of remnant good. That Allah has sent down to us. How then may we reject such a gift from Allah. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala after mentioning all of this introduction. The past 50 verses of this chapter. The first 50 verses are all essentially an introduction. And all essentially the principles and the foundations of religion and Islam. And call of all the prophets and messengers. This is all we've been dealing with in the first fifty verses of this chapter. Now, the chapter is going to take a different turn. Now, the chapter is going to go into examples of the prophet's legacy and the messenger's legacy and we're going to have a very specific amount of prophets that are mentioned. We have prophets and messengers who have different journeys. Some of them were sent to people who fundamentally disbelieved in them. Meaning, people that worshiped idols that they were sent to. We have a group. We have prophets that were sent to a people that worshiped the same creator and they are Muslim but they came as revivers of of that religion. We have other prophets that may not have been sent to anyone. We have prophets whom their people became Muslim. We have prophets whom their people did not. We have prophets who were sent to people whom their was disturbed and distorted. the people of Lut that will be mentioned this chapter So, not only does Allah mention the most important and critical prophets and messengers and a bit of their story, but he mentions a very specific group of prophets and messengers. Each of which represents a very unique aspect of what the prophets and messengers came to teach their people. Right? if you could imagine with me here that each one of these prophets that we are going to mention in this chapter, we're going to have Ibrahim, Luut, Noor, Dawood, Suleiman, a Europe, known Zacharia, Yahia, all of their, all of them are mentioned. Now, before we mention them, imagine with me that each one of these prophets and messengers, represents different aspects of prophethood, right? So, every one of these prophets and messengers came with everything else that the prophets and messengers before him and after him came with, essentially. But some of them came with more pronounced aspects than others. So, for instance, all of the prophets and messengers came with worship Allah alone without any partners. But Ibrahim Alaihi Salam, that was more pronounced in his life than the other aspects. All of the prophets and messengers came with the the announcement of sexual perversion that damages the fitra. However, and his prophethood is more pronounced in that aspect, right? All of the prophets and messengers, saved all of the messengers were saved from their people's attempts to harm them, to kill them. However, Noah Alaihi Salam, that aspect of his life was more pronounced than other prophets. Do you get where I'm going at here with this? What I mean is that, everyone of these prophets and messengers has an element of what was mentioned in another prophet and messenger. In this chapter However, Tahid is mentioned, we think of Ibrahim because that was more pronounced in his legacy. When we think about being saved from saved and delivered by Allah, we think of all the messengers were but Noah Alaihi Salam, that is more pronounced and more personified in his life, right? When we think about dealing with a damaged fitr and sexual perversion We think of because he dealt with that the most. Other prophets and messengers, all of them dealt with that to some degree. But that issue was more pronounced in his, in his legacy, etcetera. So all of these prophets, all of their stories that we are going to read here, all of these stories, really describe one prophethood. They all describe one prophethood. They all describe another angle of of prophethood. That they all have. The prophet he mentions this very clearly in Sahih Al Bukhari. He says, the parable, the example of me and the prophets who have preceded me is that of a mason who built a palace. And left one brick unlaid. The whole palace is built. Everything is done but there's just one missing brick. He said and so people would come and marvel at how wondrous this palace was and great this palace was and they would each say, this palace is perfect essentially if the mason would only lay that final brick. So, he said, I am that final brick. There is no profit after me. What does this mean? Well, if we look at the nature of a building, we see that. if If one wall of the building consists of bricks, that is all part of the same building but it's a different part of the same building. One is on the east side, one is on the left, on the west side. If we were to have, for instance, four or five people go outside of the masjid right now. And each person described to us what they see. Right? Would they not all be describing the same building? Yeah, but they're they descriptions would be very different, right? Because they're describing different aspects of the same building. Likewise, if we told them turn around and describe the neighborhood, would they not all describe the same neighborhood? Yes, but they're going, their descriptions are going to vary because they're looking at the neighborhood from a different angle. This is essentially prophethood, messengership. They're all describing the same house, the same temple of worship, the same masjid of Allah, the same house of Allah. Just some of them happened to be on the corner. of the Masjid. Some may be on the west wall, some may be on the eastern wall. So, their description while all of it being part of the same building, their description might be more pronounced at one part of the building than another. And likewise, all of the elements that we are going to see. And these prophets and messengers, we are going to find in the prophet Muhammad And we are going to find a bit of everyone's story in the story of the prophet.

[Arabic recitation]