[Music]
in
[Music]
when you are weak and the road seems
long remember just remember seek
strength from the strong when life is a
birden
and everything is unstable remember just
remember Allah is the able when nothing
makes sense and you're heading for
demise remember just remember Allah is
the wise when the way is cloudy and
there's no one by your side remember
just remember Allah is the only guide
when your heart is breaking in your pain
makes you fall remember just remember
Allah sees it
all
alhamdulillah I'd like to welcome you
dear viewers to the first in our Series
in the names of
Allah this series in we're intending in
this series to look at the names of
Allah subhana wa ta'ala
with regards to our
lives uh not merely to understand them
because of course it is important to
understand them but to understand how we
may apply these names in our lives and
the basic verse that we are using as the
theme for the overall program is a verse
in Surah
Al verse 180 in which Allah says there
the most beautiful names belong only to
Allah so call on him with them so we
have Allah instructing us giving us very
clear instructions with regards to his
names that we should use them in our
prayer and in our worship
now he pointed out that making
supplication with Allah's names
has two
levels the first level is called
supplication of praise and
worship the second level is called
supplication of requesting and asking
now when we go to the first level this
basically is a consequence of Allah's
instruction to his creatures to glorify
and praise Him frequently as he said in
Surah alab
oh Believers remember Allah often and
glorify his Praises morning and evening
and we also have a statement from
Abdullah masud in which he quoted
Prophet Muhammad S wasallam as
saying because no one is more jealous
than
Allah he forbade public and private
corruption and because no one loves
praise more than Allah he praised
himself so from that we understand that
this element of worshiping Allah through
praising him this is an important
element where we will also use Allah's
names I should clarify here though that
though Allah here said in this Prophet
mallam said said with regards to Allah
that no one loves praise more than Allah
this doesn't mean that Allah needs
praise we don't want to be uh mistaken
on this point uh Allah doesn't need our
praise however he is pleased with our
praise because of the fact that when we
praise him we are worshiping him and
that's the very purpose of our
creation so when we praise Allah a lot
Allah is very pleased with it because we
are engaged actively in worshiping him
on a regular
basis the second level of uh worshiping
Allah with his names we said was
worshiping him through supplications of
request and
asking this second level is also a
consequence of Allah instru his
creatures to call on him in prayer and
to ask him their needs as in the verse
where Allah
said your lord said call on me and I
will answer
you so he has instructed us to call on
him and as different from human beings
human beings when people call on you too
often we're not happy with it but in the
case of Allah tala he loves when his
creatures call on him often
so this is the second level and
according
to one should ask for each and
everything that one desires using the
appropriate name for that request so for
example we should say in our prayers you
know ask Direct to Allah saying forgive
me oh Allah have mercy on me because you
are the oft forgiving the most merciful
Al Al so we use those names while
calling and requesting Allah's uh
forgiveness and his mercy and this we
can also find in statements of prophet
Muhammad wasallam for example where he
said that when we uh finish our prayers
our daily prayers we should seek
forgiveness of Allah
saying then we should supplicate
saying Allah you are peace and peace
comes from you may you be blessed owner
of glory and
grace
now further mentioned that for every one
of Allah's attributes there is a
particular act of worship which results
from it and which is necessitated by it
and this is what we will be researching
as we go through the various names of
Allah I should mention here also that
Allah instructs the Believers in our
first verse that we spoke of
he instructs them to worship him through
his most beautiful
names but in Practical
terms what we're talking about here is
that the believer dedicates his life to
allaha through his knowledge or her
knowledge of the names of Allah the
significance of those names relative to
allaha and the effect that those names
should have on us as
Believers we link these two things
together because of the fact
that Allah said worship Him using his
names and at the same time he also told
us say indeed my prayers my sacrifices
my living and my dying are for Allah the
Lord of all the
worlds so that
basically identifies the goal of the
believer as turning his or her life in
its entirety into the worship of Allah
so th this life that we're talking about
is a life which should be led in the
glory of Allah's names and the light of
that Glory
now if we go on to the status of
knowledge concerning Allah's beautiful
names because we have a general
instruction from Prophet Muhammad
sallallahu alaihi wasallam with regards
to knowledge and that
is seeking knowledge is compulsory for
every Muslim it's the general principle
and we know that that knowledge begins
with the most important knowledge
knowledge of the
religion but the knowledge of the
religion is vast so where do we
start and when I say it begins with
knowledge of the religion I'm not you
know negating knowledge of the needs of
this world there are things that we need
to know to be able to function in this
world and that's part of the obligatory
knowledge on every Muslim that he or she
must learn what is necessary for them to
be able to effectively function in a
society be able to contribute in that
Society towards its development and its
growth Etc but there is an individual
obligation a primary obligation which
begins with that
individual and his or her relationship
with God so that's the religious
knowledge so we said where do we start
with religious knowledge well of course
we know that the
foundation of our knowledge is that ofed
this is the essence of Islam this is
where it all starts from so if that is
the
foundation even this science this field
of knowledge is a vast field of
knowledge toed in itself is still quite
vast where do we start with regards to
it well there's a general principle that
Scholars have
identified that the status of an area of
knowledge is
determined by its
contents the status of an area of
knowledge is determined by its contents
so if the contents are about
Allah toed
this makes that area of knowledge since
Allah is the most important thing in our
lives the most important matter that we
should be concerned about then uh we can
say that this area of knowledge is the
most important and within that area
ofed knowledge of Allah
himself as opposed to uh knowledge of
worship and how worship should take
place knowledge of Allah himself has to
proceed this has to be our starting
point so we can say without any uh
hesitation that what is known as
knowledge of Allah's names and
attributes this is the most important
area of
knowledge if we are to know Allah and
worship him then this is where where we
have to start and if we can
remember when Allah informed the angels
that he was going to create a vice
gerant in the
earth a
Khalifa and they
questioned the consequence of the
creation of man on Earth having observed
the consequence of the creation of the
Jin they saw corruption
they saw the spilling of blood they saw
harm coming out of it so they asked
Allah when you have us worshiping you
why create this other being who is
likely to create corruption so Allah
informed them that he knew what they
didn't know and
then he taught Adam the names of
everything and of course the names which
Allah began to teach
Adam was of
course beginning naturally with the
names of Allah because what are the most
important names of
anything of any thing in existence the
most important names must be naturally
the names of Allah themselves and what
we
find is that when we look at the verses
of the Quran which verse is considered
to be the the greatest verse of the
Quran that is the verse known as
ayat why why is ay considered to be the
greatest because it focuses on the names
of Allah there's a particular narration
which confirms that which was uh
narrated by the companion
obb
and he had
said that the messenger of Allah had
asked him oh ab and that was his
nickname do you know which verse of
Allah's book is greatest relative to you
because obviously relative to Allah
they're all the
same I replied said obn Allah and his
messenger know best he asked me
again oh Abul do you know which verse of
Allah's book is greatest relative to you
so at this point he responded saying
Allah there is no God but he the ever
living the self-subsisting and the
prophet s wasallam then patted his chest
and said May knowledge always be
pleasant for you oh Abul
M this is
ayat
also in the
Quran we
have what this the Surah known
as or
Surah that this Surah has been
identified as being equivalent to
onethird of the
Quran in a number of narration from the
prophet Salli
wasallam and why is that if we look
atah what we're talking about here is
Allah's names and his
attributes clarifying who is Allah so we
can see from that that the
focus of the Quran itself with regards
to its uh greatest verses the greatest
chapters is a focus on the names and
attributes of Allah because when we talk
about Allah's names each name has behind
it an attribute so this is why we have
to consider the meaning of Allah's names
also from that
perspective having understood that as we
said that our program will focus on the
names of Allah and
how they may be understood with regards
to
Allah and how we may practice them in
our
lives we have a
particular uh Hadith in which prophet
Muhammad s alhi wasallam had
identified a number of names of Allah
this is the Hadith commonly referred to
as the 99 Names of Allah in which the
prophet wasallam said
indeed Allah has 99 Names whoever counts
them will enter
paradise and usually all of the uh
various compilations Etc of Allah's
names are done on the basis of this
Hadith there are narrations of this
Hadith uh wherein the names are actually
listed however
I should point out here that those
narrations are in fact not
authentic there is no authentic
narration in which all 99 names or 99
names are
identified we just have the general
statement of the Prophet Sall wasallam
in which he tells us that
whoever counts these names or guards
them or memorizes them different
narrations have different
implications then they will go to
paradise
now when we say 99
names we should understand that the 99
is not a
limitation it doesn't mean that Allah
has only 99
names just as if I
said my brother has
$99 it doesn't mean mean that that's all
he has it may be what he has on him at
the time Etc so similarly when the
prophet Sall wasallam said Allah had 99
Names it doesn't mean that it is only
that number especially considering that
there is an authentic narration from the
prophet wasam in which he said he taught
us to pray oh Allah I ask you by every
name belonging to you which you named
yourself or you revealed in scripture or
you taught one of your creatures or you
kept with yourself exclusively in the
hidden
knowledge so here the prophet s wasallam
told us in our Dua to ask
Allah make Dua to Allah uh using his
names uh based on the names which he
revealed in the scripture that is like
the
Quran and you taught one of your
creatures that is like Muhammad
sallallahu alaihi wasallam so we have
the Quran and the Sunnah but then he
mentions also another category a
category of names which have not been
revealed which he has kept to himself so
on the basis of that Scholars concluded
that the number 99 was not intended as a
limiting number that in fact Allah's
names are more than that whatever he has
uh revealed to us in the Quran and
Sunnah by the counts of various Scholars
actually exceeds that we have a a Maliki
scholar by the name of Abu Bakr alabi he
mentioned in his book
called that some Scholars gathered from
the Quran and Sunnah over 1,000 names of
Allah so we understand from that that
the number 99 is not an intended number
as a
limitation but that what was the stress
of the Hadith is that whoever learns
these protects them guards them counts
them understands them such a person will
be guaranteed Paradise so that really is
the goal of the Hadith that for us to
acquaint ourselves to at least 99 of
Allah's names the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wasallam promises us for that
paradise and that is something worth uh
giving time giving effort to and of
course when the prophet Salli wasallam
gave us that as an instruction he gave
us that because there was benefit in it
for
us even if we don't achieve learning of
the full 99 and giving them their full
uh right in terms of understanding and
application in their lives Etc but just
the quest just the journey just the
effort to try to reach there will be
something beneficial for us because
we're dealing with applying the names of
Allah in our lives and if Allah is all
good and all goodness and the source of
all goodness then for us to put
his names into our lives to live in
accordance with those names it can only
be goodness for
ourselves now if we go back to this
Hadith and what it actually means as I
said the literal translation of it was
indeed Allah has 99 Names whoever counts
them will enter
Paradise but there is another narration
in which uh the Prophet wasallam said
Allah has 99 Names one less than 100
whoever guards them will enter
Paradise that
is so we have the
term count we have the term guard as a
result Scholars looking at this uh
concluded that of course anybody even a
person who doesn't believe in God
could count the names they could find a
list which is an authentic list and
count
them counting that those names surely
this is not what the intent is how is a
person going to go to paradise on the
basis of that simp merely counting the
names as a result we find that the
scholars uh explained that this really
meant uh to act in accordance with them
to understand their meanings and to
believe in them that was Abu alahani
that was his position another scholar
alabi he said it meant to count all of
them and call on Allah with them without
excluding any and to be able to fulfill
the rights of the names and do Deeds
according to their
implications and thirdly to understand
their meanings
so a number of other Scholars have
spoken on this topic and basically all
of the conclusions that they came to are
around the same uh understanding that
the intent is not the literal
counting but guarding them with regards
to their meanings knowing them knowing
their meaning not just memorizing the
names because we can teach a child to do
that and somebody who is a non-muslim
May might do that also but will that
benefit them
no the key here is understanding first
having knowledge knowledge is the
foundation as we said from the very
beginning we need to understand them
having understood
them then we need to give them their
right what is the rights of Allah's
names the rights first and foremost is
that we believe in Allah in accordance
with those
names we believe in Allah in accordance
with those names because that will
identify for us the correct way to
believe in Allah Allah revealed those
names primarily for us to understand who
he is so that we don't mix up his
creatures with him so we don't give the
rights which are due to him to his
creatures which is what has happened to
so so many people on the Earth today in
the various religions and systems that
are out there people have
confused Allah with his creation they
have given the rights which belong to
Allah in terms of sincere belief and
worship they've given that over to his
creatures so the principle here is to
understand those names and then first
and foremost to give Allah his right
with regards to those names that is to
believe in him in accordance with those
names thirdly it is to act in accordance
with them to put them into our own lives
so that our lives
reflect the names of Allah and become
lives truly pleasing to Allah subhah wa
ta'ala
and with that dear
viewers we're going to stop here and I
hope to see you in the next segment of
our program in the names of
Allah
are Road seems long remember just
remember seek strength from the strong
when life is a burden and everything is
unstable remember just remember
Allah is the able when nothing makes
sense and you're heading for demise
remember just remember Allah is the wise
when the way is cloudy and there's no
one by your side remember just remember
Allah is the only guide when you heart
is breaking and your pain makes you fall
remember just remember Allah sees it all
when you are weak and the road seems
long remember just remember seek
strength from the strong when life is a
burden and everything is unstable
remember just remember Allah is the able
when nothing makes sense and you're
heading for demise remember just
remember Allah is the wise when the way
is cloudy and there's no one by your
side remember just remember Allah is the
only guide when your heart is breaking
and your pain makes you fall remember
just remember Allah sees it all