Website: www.aaiil.uk
Holy Prophet
Muhammad — to reach brightness from a dark night
Friday
Khutba by Dr Zahid Aziz,
for Lahore
Ahmadiyya UK, 14 February 2025
|
“1 By the brightness of the day! 2
And the night when it is still! —3 Your Lord has not
forsaken you, nor is He displeased. 4 And surely the
later state is better for you than the earlier. 5 And soon
will your Lord give you so that you will be well pleased. 6
Did He not find you an orphan and give (you) shelter? 7 And
find you groping, so He showed the way? 8 And find you in
want, so He enriched you? 9 Therefore the orphan, do not
oppress. 10 And him who asks, do not rebuke. 11
And the favour of your Lord, do proclaim.” — ch. 93, Aḍ-Ḍuḥā |
وَ
الضُّحٰی ۙ﴿۱﴾ وَ الَّیۡلِ اِذَا
سَجٰی ۙ﴿۲﴾ مَا
وَدَّعَکَ
رَبُّکَ وَ
مَا قَلٰی ؕ﴿۳﴾ وَ
لَلۡاٰخِرَۃُ خَیۡرٌ
لَّکَ مِنَ
الۡاُوۡلٰی ؕ﴿۴﴾ وَ
لَسَوۡفَ یُعۡطِیۡکَ
رَبُّکَ
فَتَرۡضٰی ؕ﴿۵﴾ اَلَمۡ یَجِدۡکَ
یَتِیۡمًا
فَاٰوٰی ۪﴿۶﴾ وَ
وَجَدَکَ
ضَآلًّا
فَہَدٰی ۪﴿۷﴾ وَ
وَجَدَکَ
عَآئِلًا
فَاَغۡنٰی ؕ﴿۸﴾ فَاَمَّا الۡیَتِیۡمَ فَلَا
تَقۡہَرۡ ؕ﴿۹﴾ وَ
اَمَّا
السَّآئِلَ فَلَا
تَنۡہَرۡ ﴿ؕ۱۰﴾ وَ
اَمَّا
بِنِعۡمَۃِ
رَبِّکَ
فَحَدِّثۡ ﴿٪۱۱﴾ |
This is a complete chapter, revealed
to the Holy Prophet Muhammad very near to the start of his mission, and is
addressing him. It informs him that he will pass through difficult
circumstances which would make it look as if God has forsaken him or is displeased
with him, but his condition in the end would be better than his earlier
condition. His Lord would grant him things which would make him pleased. In
other words, his mission will be successful and he will achieve his aims.
This chapter reminds him that God has
already helped him out of his state of being an orphan, of trying to find the
right path, and of lacking resources. At the time when this chapter was
revealed, this had happened to some extent, but it was the start of a long road
ahead. By mentioning how God had already helped him to reach his present
position, this chapter makes the prophecy that, while this is just the start of
his mission with few followers and no success in sight, he will attain complete
success in the future. That success will be as apparent and clear as “the
brightness of the day”. The word for it is ḍuḥā, and
the chapter begins by using it as an oath or swearing by it: wa-ḍ-ḍuḥā.
Ḍuḥā is time of the day when the sun, after rising, is
still going upwards and has not yet reached its highest point at noon. The
second verse, “And the night when it is still!”, refers to the gloomy
circumstances in which the Holy Prophet found himself. At that time, there was
darkness for him and his mission all around, with no movement or progress. The
chapter indicates that this would be replaced by the brightness of the day.
The next verse:
“Your Lord has not forsaken
you, nor is He displeased”
provides the
Holy Prophet with the reassurance that, just because it is dark all around,
this is not because Allah has abandoned him and left him helpless, and it is
not because Allah is angry with him. Then he is given the promise: “And surely the later state is better
for you than the earlier.” Some people
take this to mean that the life after death is better than the present life in
this world. But further verses in this chapter show that this is a prophecy
that the later state of the Holy Prophet’s mission would be better than its
earlier state. One translator of the Quran into English translates it as “the
future will be better for you than the past.”
The next
verse gives the promise:
“And soon will your Lord
give you so that you will be well pleased.”
The
mention of “soon” here reinforces that it will happen in this life that God
will grant the Holy Prophet something which will please him. The only thing
which would really please the Holy Prophet is success in his mission, that
people accept the message with which God sent him. The gain of worldly riches,
or political power or fame would not be things which would please him.
Then the
next three verses, 6, 7, and 8 remind the Holy Prophet of the change in his
situation that God had already brought for him:
“Did He not find you
an orphan and give (you) shelter? And find you groping, so He showed the way?
And find you in want, so He enriched you?”
As we know when the Holy Prophet was
born his father had already died. When he was six years old his mother died.
Then two years later, his grandfather who was looking after him, also died. He
was then looked after by his paternal uncle Abu Talib. As Allah says here, the
Holy Prophet was an orphan and Allah gave him shelter. Later on, after growing
up, he had the opportunity to look after the business of a widow Khadijah. He
was very successful in handling her business and brought her much profit through
his honest dealings. This impressed Khadijah so much that she proposed marriage
to him. He now had financial and domestic security.
However, this giving of shelter to
the Holy Prophet may have another meaning as well. It is known that those
children who have no natural parents to look out for them, who go from house to
house to be cared for, easily get into bad ways. They are more likely to become
delinquent than those who grow up in stable homes. Yet the Holy Prophet, while
growing up, did not fall into any vice. Allah sheltered him in this way also,
protecting him from falling into evil ways. So much so that when he started his
mission of preaching the religion of Islam, he was able to declare to people:
“I have
lived among you a lifetime
before it (meaning before claiming to be a messenger of God). Do you not then
understand?” (10:16)
The people he was preaching the
message of Islam to, knew his entire life, but could not point out any
character flaw in him or any past wrongdoing which would make him not fit to be
a messenger of God’s word.
The next verse says that Allah found
the Holy Prophet “groping”, meaning trying to find the right way, and Allah
guided him. This refers to the Holy Prophet exerting himself mentally, as well
as spiritually through worship and prayer, to find the true guidance. He saw
that none of the religious beliefs and practices around him led their followers
to be good. Then Allah sent him revelation, with teachings about believing in
the one God, not worshipping anything or person of this world as God or as a
representative of God on earth, and doing good to all other humans and
creatures of God. Maulana Muhammad Ali has used the word “groping” as the
appropriate word to express the Holy Prophet’s quest to find the truth. The
Arabic word is ḍāll. Many other translators have used the
word “lost”, or “gone astray” or “in error”. The Maulana has pointed out that
the Holy Prophet was never in error or had gone wrong.
Then the next verse says:
“And (did He
not) find you in want, so He enriched you?”
The Holy Prophet was never interested
in any monetary riches. The previous two verses indicate that God sheltered the
Holy Prophet from falling into bad ways while being without parents and that He
granted him guidance. So this verse too means that while he was in want of
learning because of being uneducated, Allah enriched him with knowledge and
wisdom, and moreover made him a teacher. It says in the Quran to the Holy
Prophet:
“And Allah has revealed to you the Book and the
Wisdom, and taught you what you did not know, and Allah’s grace on you is very
great” (4:113).
The word for “grace” here is faḍl
and the word for “great” is ‘aẓīm. Muslims often think that faḍl
relates to material possessions. According to the Quran the great grace is to
have the Book of Allah and its knowledge, and to constantly learn what you did
not know before.
In the last three verses, 9, 10 and
11, the Holy Prophet is told that, having emerged from that earlier state of
deprivation, he must remember those earlier times and show care and concern for
those still languishing in the conditions that he was in. And he must proclaim
that the success he now attained is a favour of his Lord. He must never forget
his condition in the beginning. The first of those last three verses, verse 9,
is:
“Therefore
the orphan, do not oppress.”
He himself was once an orphan. As he
has been rescued from those circumstances, he must now support others who are
in that position, rather than become their oppressor. This teaching may seem so
obvious as to be unnecessary. Unfortunately, people easily go against it. The
Jews were oppressed and persecuted in Europe. Those who founded their own
state, Israel, then became the oppressors of others. Muslims of the Indian
subcontinent used to be maltreated by the majority community of that
subcontinent. They founded Pakistan to get their just rights. Later they became
persecutors of the minorities in their own country. In both these examples,
they cannot relate the suffering of their victims to their own earlier
suffering at the hands of others.
Verse 10 says:
“And him
who asks, do not rebuke”.
He himself was groping for guidance and
was guided by Allah. So now if someone asks him for guidance, he must not be
irritated by that person, or show annoyance, or tell him off for being ignorant
or stupid. Generally people take this as referring to beggars, to mean that if
someone begs money from you, you must not chide or scold him. That is good
also, but the meaning of this verse cannot be just limited to this situation.
We know the incident mentioned in the Quran in chapter 80, when a blind man
interrupted the Holy Prophet’s conversation with some important persons and the
Prophet frowned at this. God told the Prophet in that chapter to pay as
much regard to such people who ask as to people who consider themselves
too important to ask anyone to guide them.
The last verse, verse 11, is as
follows:
“And the
favour of your Lord, do
proclaim”.
This is in reference to verse 8 which
said: “And (did He not) find you in want, so He enriched you?” In thankfulness
for the spiritual wealth, i.e. revelation and knowledge, bestowed on him, he
must proclaim it to the world. It can also be taken in a general sense, meaning
that in regard to the favours and good things we receive from God, we must mention
them to others as a mark of thankfulness to God. This will keep us happy as
well, rather than being miserable all the time and telling people only about our
misfortunes and the problems which we suffer.
May Allah lift us and our Movement
from its dark and still night, and bring us into the success of the brightness
of the day — ameen.
Website:
www.aaiil.uk