Website: www.aaiil.uk

Burden on the soul and how to handle it

Friday Khutba by Dr Zahid Aziz, for Lahore Ahmadiyya UK, 23 August 2024

“Allah does not impose on any soul a duty beyond its ability. To its benefit is what (good) it earns, and to its detriment is what (evil) it works. Our Lord, do not punish us if we forget or make a mistake. Our Lord, do not lay on us a burden as You did lay on those before us. Our Lord, do not impose on us what we have not the strength to bear. And pardon us! And grant us protection! And have mercy on us! You are our Patron, so grant us victory over the disbelieving people.” — ch. 2, Al-Baqarah, v. 286.

لَا یُکَلِّفُ اللّٰہُ نَفۡسًا اِلَّا وُسۡعَہَا ؕ لَہَا مَا کَسَبَتۡ وَ عَلَیۡہَا مَا اکۡتَسَبَتۡ ؕ رَبَّنَا لَا تُؤَاخِذۡنَاۤ اِنۡ نَّسِیۡنَاۤ اَوۡ اَخۡطَاۡنَا ۚ رَبَّنَا وَ لَا تَحۡمِلۡ عَلَیۡنَاۤ اِصۡرًا کَمَا حَمَلۡتَہٗ عَلَی الَّذِیۡنَ مِنۡ قَبۡلِنَا ۚ رَبَّنَا وَ لَا تُحَمِّلۡنَا مَا لَا طَاقَۃَ لَنَا بِہٖ ۚ وَ اعۡفُ عَنَّا ٝ وَ اغۡفِرۡ لَنَا ٝ وَ ارۡحَمۡنَا ٝ اَنۡتَ مَوۡلٰىنَا فَانۡصُرۡنَا عَلَی الۡقَوۡمِ الۡکٰفِرِیۡنَ ﴿۲۸۶﴾

This verse, with these prayers, was covered in last week’s Khutba, but I would like to take a further look at it. This chapter largely deals with the existing Jewish and Christian beliefs and why Islam came for their reform. Christians believe that the law given to Moses, which was later elaborated upon by Jewish religious scholars, placed an unbearable burden on its followers, and Jesus came to lift that burden. Jesus came among the Jews, the Bani Isra’il, and said to their religious scholars:

“And you, the experts in the law, how bad for you that you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them” (Luke 11:46).

The meaning is that they make such rules for people, or interpret religious rules for them, in a way that makes it hard for people to act upon them. It is rather like when a Muslim asks an Islamic scholar a question such as “I have missed so many prayers in my life”, or “I have missed fasts for so many years”, “how can I make up for it,” they tell them to do things which are just not practical for anyone to do.

Jesus also said about his own teachings that he had come with: “The burden that I ask you to accept is easy; the load I give you to carry is light” (Matthew, 11:30). A Christian website says about this: “He isn’t speaking here of physical burdens. Rather, it was the heavy burden of the system of works that the Jewish religious scholars laid on the backs of the people that Jesus was offering to relieve.”

There were several hundred commandments that the Jews had to follow in their religion. This was a heavy burden on them. Added to that was the burden of guilt which a person felt when he could not carry out a command to the fullest extent. We, as Muslims, also have that experience, that someone claiming to be a very so-called proper Muslim finds fault with, for example, our prayer or dress, saying that we did not comply with some rule or regulation. We start feeling guilty at the failure in us that he has pointed out.

Jesus said that he had come to remove the burden of the Jewish law from people. But the way in which Christians think that he removed it is also wrong. Let me quote from a Christian website which answers questions about the Christian religion: “What makes Jesus’ burden light is that in Jesus’ own active obedience (i.e., His perfect fulfillment of the Law of God), He carried the burden that we were meant to carry. His perfect obedience is applied (imputed) to us through faith, just as His righteousness was exchanged for our sin at the cross” (https://www.gotquestions.org/yoke-easy-burden-light.html).

What they are saying is that Jesus obeyed God fully and perfectly, and if we believe in that, then it is as if he has done it on our behalf. Similarly, he was righteous, but he took upon himself our sins and suffered punishment for them on the cross. That website goes on to express a Christian belief in these words:

“The life lived by faith is a much easier burden to carry than the heavy and burdensome yoke of self-righteousness under which some continually strive to make themselves acceptable to God through works.”

What this is saying is that trying to get closer to God, to make God accept you, by doing actual, practical acts of worship and good deeds, is a heavy burden which doesn’t lead anywhere because no one can do it perfectly. But if you just believe that Jesus has done all this on your behalf, you will be accepted by God.

In relation to this concept that a person cannot reach God by his acts of worship and good deeds, the Christian website mentioned above says: “Salvation by works appeals to man’s pride and his desire to be in control. … when man creates a religion it would involve some type of salvation by works. … That is exactly why biblical Christianity is so different from all other religions — it is the only religion that teaches salvation is a gift of God and not of works.” I will deal with this later.

The Quran in this verse tells us that the two views, Jewish and Christian, were both wrong. Religious duties should not become a burden in the way that they had become in the Jewish religion. When there is such a heavy burden, then people try to find false excuses or some legal loophole to avoid it. This leads them to try doing the same when the burden is actually there for a good reason for their moral development. There is a whole field of study relating to the use of loopholes by Rabbis to allow Jews to do things which are otherwise forbidden to them, for example during the Sabbath on Saturday.

There is a book, entitled Circumventing the Law, published by a US university which says that it “probes the logic of the Rabbis behind the use of loopholes, the legal phenomenon of finding and using gaps within law to achieve otherwise illegal outcomes.” In Islam, scholars have introduced the concept of hīlah, which suggests ways of avoiding the law, for example relating to paying Zakat, or in matters of marriage, for your personal interest. In the Sahih Bukhari collection of Hadith, there is a book entitled the book of Ḥīl, and a translator of Bukhari into English has translated that as the Book of Tricks. It mentions various tricks that Muslims were using to get round Islamic teachings, for example, avoiding Zakat.

This verse of Sūrah Baqarah begins by declaring that any unbearable burden of religious duties could not have come from God. In fact, the burden arises because of how religious scholars introduce rules in extension of the rules from God and His messengers, and it also arises because of our own guilt at our failings to follow religious duties perfectly. Then the verse mentions what the Christian church calls “works”. As I mentioned above, the Christian church teaches that religious duties and good deeds have no role in taking a person nearer to God. This verse corrects this wrong idea and says that to the credit of the soul is the good that it earns by its efforts, and to the detriment of the soul is the wrong that it earns by doing misdeeds. So performing religious duties and doing good deeds to others can overcome the bad or wrong that we do, and bring us closer to God.

Yes, it is true, as the Christian creed holds, that no one can perform religious duties perfectly, but it is wrong to suggest that this means that performing them cannot bring us any spiritual development. The Quran says elsewhere:

“And keep up prayer at the two ends of the day and in the first hours of the night. Surely good deeds take away evil deeds. This is a reminder for the mindful” (11:114).

To say that prayers and good deeds take away evil deeds does not mean that you can continue to do evil deeds as long as you later follow them by prayers and doing good deeds, and these cancel out the evil deeds. The meaning is that prayers and good deeds take away the desire in you of doing evil. By the way, the two ends of the day indicate the fajr prayer at one end, and the zuhr and ‘asr prayers at the other end; and the first hours of the night indicate the maghrib and ‘isha prayers.

Of course we are imperfect and we stumble. But that does not mean that if a great personality like Jesus obeyed God perfectly, we can consider that he has also done it on our behalf. We should be looking at our own deeds. So the first prayer this verse teaches us to say is this:

“Our Lord, do not punish us if we forget or make a mistake.”

When we fail in our duties, or commit some wrong, we should treat it as forgetfulness or a mistake on our part, and not as wilful disobedience to God. Allah is teaching us here to minimise the blame on ourselves by calling it forgetfulness or a mistake. Forgetting and making mistakes is what all humans do, every day and all the time. In this world, we find that when a person is caught doing some wrong, often he says: “I didn’t mean to do it”, and politicians caught in some misdeeds say: “I made an error of judgment”.

The next prayer is:

“Our Lord, do not lay on us a burden as You did lay on those before us.”

Of course, the burden on the followers of the previous religions was not laid by God, but by their religious leaders in the name of God. This prayer is very appropriate for Muslims since this is what has actually happened to us, as it happened to the Jews before Islam. This prayer is saying: Let not history repeat itself in a bad sense, let us not be trapped in the same cycle as what happened in the past. Then the next prayer relates to the future:

“Our Lord, do not impose on us what we have not the strength to bear.”

As we go forward, may we not face insurmountable difficulties.

These prayers are followed by three brief petitions: “And pardon us! And grant us protection! And have mercy on us!” These three indicate three stages of our progress. “And pardon us” (wa ‘fu ‘anna) means that we are asking for forgiveness for the actual wrongs and sins that we committed. That is the first stage. The second stage is: “And grant us protection!” (wa ghfir la-nā), which means that we ask Allah’s protection from the tendency to do wrong in the future because of our fear of doing so. When the words ghafr or istighfār are used, they refer to asking protection from any occasion that may arise in which we might do something wrong. The third stage is: “And have mercy on us!” (wa rḥam-nā). From the stages of asking forgiveness for actual sins, and then asking protection against the tendency to commit them, we move on to doing good and positive things and ask for Allah’s mercy upon us to enable us to do them.

And lastly, we have the prayer: “You are our Patron (or Master), so grant us victory over the disbelieving people.” There has been no mention of any war against the unbelievers before this prayer. So, primarily, this prayer is not asking for victory in any physical battle. The victory that we want is over our weaknesses, faults and shortcomings.

So may Allah accept these prayers from us — Ameen.

Website: www.aaiil.uk