This Ramadan, MuslimMatters is pleased to host the Institute Of Knowledge‘s daily Ramadan series: Ramadan Reflections. Through this series, each day we will spend time connecting with the Qur’an on a deeper, more spiritual, uplifting level.

Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3, Episode 4, Episode 5, Episode 6, Episode 7, Episode 8, Episode 9, Episode 10

Transcript

We begin by praising Allah Subh’anaHu Wa Ta-A’la, acknowledge that He is the only one worthy and deserving of all praise and thanks, and we ask Him to shower His most complete and abundant blessings and protection upon His noble Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, upon his noble family, upon His shining companions, and upon all of those that follow them until the end of time. And we ask Allah to include us from among them. We ask Allah to teach us what will benefit us, to benefit us through what He has taught us, and to increase us in knowledge and accepted actions. Ameen.  

 Today’s episode will be on a short passage from the 11th juz’ Of the Qur’an. Surah At-Tawbah is the 9th chapter chronologically that we find in the Qur’an. It starts in the 10th juz’ and extends well into the 11th. And a significant portion of this chapter deals with the Battle of Tabuk. This is a battle that took place in the 9th year after the migration of the Prophet ﷺ from Mecca to Al-Madinah. This was the last battle that the Prophet ﷺ himself participated in. And the books of Sirah call this a battle, a ghazwa. But, there was actually no fighting or warfare that took place in it. The Prophet ﷺ and the companions went out to meet the enemy, the Banu Asfar, which was to eventually become the Byzantine Empire. But they did not actually encounter them on the battlefield. And so, despite this battle not actually resulting in a battle, this incident is still so rich and replete with stories and events for us to learn from. Surah At-Tawbah is a long surah, and because much of it deals with the Battle of Tabuk. We learned that this was an incredibly significant event in the life of the Prophet ﷺ. 

 The Battle of Tabuk is particularly known for its expose of the munafiqoon, the hypocrites. And Surah At-Tawbah makes this expose abundantly clear. In just one of many passages, which is the passage that we will be looking at today. From verses 94 to 96, Allah describes three characteristics of the hypocrites. Number one, they make flimsy excuses to get out of acts of worship. Number two, they hate accountability and try to avoid it as much as possible. And number three, they lie in order to please others and get themselves out of trouble. Allah says,  

  يَعْتَذِرُونَ إِلَيْكُمْ إِذَا رَجَعْتُمْ إِلَيْهِمْ  

“When you return to them (to Medina,) O Prophet and companions. they make excuses to you.” (Quran 9:94). 

 So, the Battle of Tabuk was mandatory on every able-bodied male who had the means to go. It was a battle that was anticipated to be extremely difficult and burdensome. The journey was long; the weather was at its most extreme; the crops were about to be harvested; and the enemy was extremely formidable. And yet, everyone who had the means to go had to go. And the companions did not hesitate in the face of how difficult this battle was to be. They jumped at the opportunity and did whatever they could to prepare the army.  

 But the hypocrites, on the other hand, they had no passion or zeal to seize this amazing opportunity to earn reward and Jannah. So, a hefty number of them of the hypocrites simply did not go. They blatantly and outrightly disobeyed Allah and his Messenger. So after the battle was over, when the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and the companions came back, the hypocrites scrambled to try and come up with whatever excuses they can for why they did not go. They rushed to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam with the most flimsy and pathetic of excuses for why they did not attend and did not fulfill this command.  

 For us, what we can learn from this is that making excuses in order to justify to ourselves not engaging in a particular act of worship or obedience is the characteristic of the worst of mankind, the hypocrites. These are people who are promised the worst of punishments in the hereafter. If we ever find ourselves presented with an opportunity to get closer to Allah and then we come up with an excuse, even if that excuse is presented to no one other than our own brain and our own psyche, and we come up with that excuse just so that we can feel justified and not engaging in that act of worship. 

 We really must think about what we’re doing, what we are engaging in. For example, I had a really long day at work today so I’m not going to go to the masjid tonight. Or,  money is really tight this month so I’m not going to donate to this person who needs help. Or, I have a million and one things to do so I’m not going to visit this community member who is sick. Whatever it is, whatever example you can think of and notice, perhaps in your own life, if the thought or chance to do something good is presented to us and we choose not to do it – simply choosing not to do it is one thing, but then justifying and making an excuse for not doing it is a whole other hypocritical (nifaq) trait that we all want to avoid.  

 And this is not to say that there are not totally valid, justifiable reasons for not doing certain acts of worship. Of course, there are. Maybe it really was a long day at work and you just cannot bring yourself to pray in congregation that night. It happens to everybody, even the best of us. We just want to make sure that we are using our life circumstances as springboards into being creative with our good deeds instead of excuses for not doing those good deeds. So maybe, for example, I’m committing myself to attending the masjid three times a week, no matter what, which allows me plenty of time to take a break when I need it, when I do have that long, hard day at work. 

 Or money is tight this month. So, I’m going to give something small that will still help this person without compromising. My ability to take care of my responsibilities. Or maybe I am justifiably very busy this weekend. So I’m going to make adjustments during my week so I can visit that sick community member at that time. We can see how making an excuse, which is what the hypocrites did, is so different than just making things work, which is what a sincere believer would do. An excuse just cuts off the opportunity to get good deeds. This is my excuse. This is why I’m not going to do that good deed. Whereas being creative and making things work allows us to create a valid way of doing that good deed, while at the same time validating our completely justifiable circumstances but still demonstrating to Allah that we are sincere in our desire to get closer to Him. 

 In the next verse, Allah says,  

سَيَحْلِفُونَ بِاللَّهِ لَكُمْ إِذَا انْقَلَبَتُمْ إِلَيْهِمْ لِتُعْرِضُوا عَنْهُمْ  

When you return, they will swear to you by Allah so that you may leave them alone. (Quran 94:9)  

This is the second quality. When you return to them, O Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, they swear by Allah asking you to leave them alone. The hypocrites knew that what they did is wrong, but they don’t want to be bothered about it. They don’t want to acknowledge and take responsibility for their actions. They don’t want to make up for and compensate for their disobedience. 

 Rather, they just want to be left alone. Don’t bother me. Don’t ask me. I don’t want to engage in the fact that I did something wrong. They hate accountability. They hate being told that what they did was bad. They hate being told this is how to make it right. They just want to make their flimsy excuse and then move on as if nothing ever happened. The book is closed. They want to move on to a next chapter. This, again, is a quality of the hypocrites that we want to try our best to stay far away from.  

 Everybody does bad things, sincere and insincere people alike. But what makes a person sincere is their full acknowledgement of their wrongdoing and their desire to make things better and their passion to make things right.  

 When it comes to our mistakes and the things that we might do that are not correct, we want to strike a balance. We do not want to dwell on our sins so intensely that it causes us to spiral into despair. But at the same time, we also do not want to ignore and block out our bad behaviors either. We want to strike that middle course of taking full responsibility for whatever wrong it was that we did, not blaming others, not playing the victim card, not justifying. No, Ya Allah, I take full responsibility and acknowledge that I did something wrong. But at the same time, I am going to use this opportunity, this mistake, this sin, this bad deed as an opportunity to grow. 

 I’m going to reflect on the circumstances that made me behave in this way, and I’m going to do whatever I can to try my best to not to do it again. We can see that a sincere person uses their mistakes as an opportunity to get better, to grow, whereas an insincere person just can’t be bothered about their wrongdoing. Lastly, in this passage, Allah says, يَحْلِفُونَ لَكُمْ لِي تَرْضَوْا عَنْهُمْ They swear by Allah so that you will be pleased with them. The hypocrites had no concept of the sanctity of Allah’s name and swearing by it. They took his divine name and swore up and down by their lies. They were lying through their teeth and they were fully aware and conscious and they knew it. But still, they were taking Allah’s name and swearing by it. And they did engage in all of this blasphemy just to avoid getting in trouble in this world. They were willing to do something so terrible, which is lie and then swear to Allah by that lie, just to avoid dealing with any worldly consequences. Telling the truth is not always an easy thing to do. Sometimes it can result in very unideal situations for us in this world. For example, if a child takes a cookie from the cookie jar and the parent asks who took it, it can be very tempting to lie. 

 Right. I don’t know. The little brother took it. The dog ate it, whatever. It’s tempting to lie because it will get us out of trouble and dealing with any consequences in this world. Saying things like ‘I’m the one who did it,’ but I’m going to tell my parents someone else did it, people do that so that they don’t get in trouble. And this is obviously a silly example, and children are not held accountable for their actions. But it helps us illustrate how sometimes people are willing to do what is wrong. A wrong that may impact them eternally just to gain some temporary benefit. This type of mindset demonstrates a complete indifference and lack of care in regard to the permanence of the hereafter, and the utter delusion regarding the extremely temporary nature of this life. 

 It simply does not make any sense for a person to compromise something eternal for the sake of something temporary. And this is exactly what the hypocrites did. Furthermore, this quality totally flips who is most worthy of being pleased. It also does not make sense to please a human being at the cost of displeasing Allah. We must avoid this characteristic at all costs. It is a key defining quality of the hypocrites to completely neglect the hereafter and to completely neglect Allah just so that they can gain some benefit in this life and gain some favor with people of this world. Honesty is the best policy, even if it leads to strange looks, uncomfortable conversations, or even adverse worldly consequences. 

 We cannot be people that are willing to disobey Allah just to please others. We cannot be people that are willing to gain a temporary benefit or avoid a temporary consequence at the expense of compromising our eternal abode in the hereafter.  

 To conclude, Juz 11 Surah At-Tawbah verses 94 to 96, Allah describes three characteristics of the hypocrites. Number one, they make flimsy excuses to get out of acts of worship. Number two, they hate and avoid accountability. And number three, they lie to please others and get themselves out of trouble. These are qualities that we should all familiarize ourselves with so that we can do our best to rid ourselves of these tendencies and avoid them at all costs in future circumstances.  

 We ask Allah to help us to do so. We ask Allah to help us engage with the Quran, learn from the Quran, and make this Ramadan a truly transformative opportunity to allow us to deepen our relationship with the Quran and grow in ways that we have not before. Ameen.  

سُبْحَانَ اللَّهِ وَبِحَمْدِهِ. سُبْحَانَكَ اللَّهُمَّ وَبِحَمْدِكَ. نَشْهَدُ أَنْ لَا إِلٰهَ إِلَّا أَنتَ نَسْتَغْفِرُكَ وَنَتُوبُ إِلَيْكَ. وَصَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ عَلَى خَيْرِ خَلْقِكَ مُحَمَّدٍ وَالْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ. السَّلاَمُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللَّهِ وَبَرَكَاتُهُ.