Exegesis of Verses (30 - 32) of Surat al-Najm.

The Shaykh : We begin this session with what we have been accustomed to, which is the exegesis of the words of Allah (Mighty and Majestic). I urge you to be diligent in reflecting upon the Qur'an and understanding its meaning, for it was revealed for this purpose. Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) said:
In what we were discussing, we reached the words of Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He): in Surat al-Najm, meaning: The reference is to their being turned away and averted, not wanting anything but the life of this world. This means that this is the limit of their knowledge, for their knowledge is limited; they do not look to the future and do not believe in the news. You will find that their greatest concern is to improve their condition in this world, while they are averted from their condition in the Hereafter. And in the well-known supplication: Then Allah (Mighty and Majestic) said: He (Glorified and Exalted is He) knows best who has strayed from His path in reality and who will stray, because He is All-Knowing of what has been and what will be. So His saying: does not mean that He does not know except those who have actually strayed; rather, He knows those who have actually strayed and those who will stray, for Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He) is described with perfect knowledge of the present, the future, and the past. And His saying: is the opposite of straying. So people are of two groups: either guided or astray. And Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He) specified that for two benefits:
The first benefit: That we know that what occurs of straying and guidance is from the knowledge of Allah and by His will, for it is not possible for anything to exist in His creation that contradicts His knowledge. Is that clear? It is not possible for anything to exist in His creation that contradicts His knowledge. If it were possible for something to exist in His creation that contradicts His knowledge, then Allah would be ignorant, and may He be exalted from that.
The second benefit: Warning against straying and encouraging guidance. As long as a person knows that any action he performs is known to Allah, he will fear disobeying Allah and will be pleased to please Allah (Mighty and Majestic).
So the benefit is two things: the first is, brother...

The questioner : That nothing happens in the universe except by the knowledge of Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He).

The Shaykh : And the second is that Allah guides you.

The questioner : Warning against straying and encouraging guidance.

The Shaykh : Encouraging guidance or seeking guidance, and warning against straying. It is as if He is saying: If you stray, Allah knows you; and if you are guided, Allah knows you. He will reward those who did evil according to what they did, and He will reward those who did good with the best. Then Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) said: The scholars of rhetoric say: If something that should be delayed is brought forward, it is a sign of restriction and specification. So let us look at this verse: is there any delay or advancement in it? The predicate is brought forward and the subject is delayed. So in it, what should be delayed is brought forward, which is the predicate, for the right of the predicate is to be delayed after the subject. You say: "The man is standing," and you do not say: "Standing is the man." The original rule is that the subject, in its name, is the first, and the predicate is the second. But sometimes the predicate is brought forward for a benefit. Here the benefit is: The benefit is restriction, my brothers. Restriction means for Allah, not for other than Him. And no one possesses what is in the heavens and what is in the earth except Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He). We possess what we possess of our wealth, but is our ownership general? It is not general. My bag is not your bag, and your bag is not my bag. So our possessions are not general. Then, do we possess the right to dispose of what is ours as we wish? No, our disposal is limited according to the Shari'ah. Therefore, if two people agree on a sale involving usury or interest, we say: You do not possess that right. If a person wants to burn his wealth, we say: This is forbidden. So the ownership of other than Allah is limited and not comprehensive. The ownership of other than Allah is limited, even in the disposal of one of us; he does not possess the right to dispose of his wealth as he wishes, for our disposal of wealth is, brother, ah...

The questioner : Limited.

The Shaykh : Yes

The questioner : Our disposal is limited.

The Shaykh : Our disposal of wealth is limited according to what the Shari'ah brought. So the perfect, wide, and comprehensive ownership belongs to whom? To Allah (Mighty and Majestic). And for this He said: So He is the Owner of their very beings, and the Owner of what is in them as well. How much ownership is in the heavens? How many creatures are on earth? It is all the ownership of Allah (Mighty and Majestic), and He disposes of it as He wills according to what His wisdom requires. And our faith in this, my brothers, our faith that Allah owns the heavens and the earth, also yields two great benefits:
The first benefit: Contentment with the decree of Allah. That Allah (Mighty and Majestic), if He decrees illness upon you, you do not object; if He decrees poverty upon you, you do not object. Why? Because you are His property, and He disposes of you as He wills. So just as He disposes of the clouds, making them rain or not rain, pass or not pass, and disposes of the sun and the moon, and disposes of the creatures, He disposes of you as well as He wills. If He wills, He gives you health, and if He wills, He takes it away. If He wills, He gives you intellect, and if He wills, He takes it from you. If He wills, He gives you wealth, and if He wills, He takes it from you. You are His property. So if you believe in this, you will be content with His decree.
Likewise, the second benefit: Contentment with His legislation and acceptance of His legislation and acting upon it, because you are His property. He says to you: Do, do. He says: Do not do, do not do. Have you seen, if you had a slave and you ordered him but he did not do it, would you consider your lordship over him complete? No. Or if you forbade him and he did it, the lordship is deficient. So if you disobey your Lord, either by doing what is forbidden or by leaving what is obligatory, you have exited the requirement of complete servitude. For the requirement of complete servitude is what? That you submit to His legislation, just as you submit, whether reluctantly or willingly, to His decree and destiny. Be careful, my brother. The meaning of His saying (Glorified and Exalted is He): is not just to inform us that He is the Owner, but so that we believe in the requirement of this ownership. And what is its requirement? Contentment with His decree and contentment with His legislation. This is the reality of ownership. Look, the word came, meaning as if a speaker says: And if it is clear that the ownership is for Allah (Mighty and Majestic), what is the result? The result is that people are between the doer of good and the doer of evil, as He (Mighty and Majestic) said: If they are between the doer of good and the doer of evil, what is the reward for each one? Praise be to Allah. And they are those who opposed what was commanded or committed what was forbidden. This is the criterion: those who did evil. So walk...
The student: Opposed what was commanded.

The Shaykh : Opposed what was commanded or did what was forbidden. These are the ones who did evil, so that He may reward them with what they did, the evil with the evil, without increase, or He (Mighty and Majestic) may pardon those who deserve pardon, and that is everyone who died upon other than associating partners with Allah, who is deserving of pardon. The important thing is that it is not possible to increase an evil that the person did not do. And for this He said: With what? Without increase. And He did not say: "With what they did," because the favor of Allah is wider than their deeds. If you do a good deed, how much will it be? Ten good deeds, up to seven hundred times, up to many times.
Look now, let us give a close example. The midday prayer has, for example, a third of an hour left. When you perform the ablution and complete the ablution, then you go out to the prayer, nothing takes you out of your house except the prayer. What are the fruits you obtain? For every step you take, Allah raises you a degree and removes from you a sin. How many steps are yours? None can count them except Allah (Mighty and Majestic), even though the intended thing is one, which is the prayer. But your effort to the prayer has a reward as long as you went out of your house, and nothing took you out except the prayer, and you prepared in your house, completing the ablution in your house. So you do not take a step except that Allah raises you a degree and removes from you a sin. Count the steps; none can count them except Allah. Then when you reach the mosque and pray as Allah wills, and then you wait for the prayer, even if the coming of the imam and the congregational prayer is delayed, the reward of the one who is praying is written for you. Is this not better than our deeds? Yes. And for this He said: Meaning: With what is better and more than their deeds. And this indicates to you the vastness of the favor of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) and His benevolence and the perfection of His justice. So the doers of evil are rewarded with justice or pardoned, and the doers of good are rewarded with favor; they are rewarded with favor.
He said: Then he mentioned some of their attributes, saying: Meaning: they stay away from them. The staying away is called *ijtinab* (abstention) because when a person falls on one side, and the one from whom he is farthest away falls on the other side, they stay away and do not connect with the major sins and the shameful deeds. Now, the major sins are called "major" because *kaba'ir* is the plural of *kabirah* (major). Some scholars counted them, and some scholars defined them. The correct approach is the definition, meaning: they are defined, not counted. Those who counted them, and the apparent view, and Allah knows best, is that they intended them as examples. For instance, if a person says: "They are shirk (associating partners with Allah), sorcery, killing the soul which Allah has forbidden except by right, turning back on the day of battle, falsely accusing chaste believing women of fornication, consuming usury, and consuming the orphan's wealth." These are seven. If a person says: "These are the major sins," it does not mean that they are limited to these, because it is possible that his statement is understood as being by way of example only. As for those who defined them, meaning they established a criterion for them, meaning they did not count one, two, three, four, but established a criterion. They said regarding their criterion: "Every sin for which Allah has established a curse, or anger, or wrath, or disavowal, or something similar, is a major sin." And I saw that some of them, including Shaykh al-Islam (may Allah have mercy on him), said: "Every sin for which a specific punishment has been established is a major sin." "Every sin for which a specific punishment has been established, either in this world or in the Hereafter, is a major sin." According to this, fornication has a punishment, which is flogging or stoning. Theft is a major sin. Highway robbery is a major sin. Undutifulness to parents is a major sin, and so on. Whenever you see a sin for which the Lawgiver has established a specific punishment, it is a major sin. As for the sin for which there is only a prohibition, it is a minor sin. For example, a man looking at a non-mahram woman with desire; this is not a major sin, it is a minor sin from the minor sins. But if a person persists in it and it becomes his habit, it becomes a major sin due to the persistence, not due to the act itself. A woman making a phone call for the sake of pleasure is forbidden, and it is not a major sin. But if a person persists in it and his only concern is to keep the phone busy with these women and talk to them, it becomes a major sin. So, persisting in a minor sin makes it a major sin in terms of the persistence, because his persistence in the minor sin indicates his negligence of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) and that he does not care about what Allah has forbidden. Thus, the major sins: every sin for which the Lawgiver has established a specific punishment, either in this world or in the Hereafter. As for what He has forbidden and remained silent about, and did not mention a specific punishment for it, but it falls under the general prohibition, this is from the minor sins. But the minor sins, if one persists in them, become major sins in terms of the persistence. Now, His saying: These are the greatest of the major sins, because among the major sins, some are extremely shameful, considered great, and intensely ugly, and some are less than that. For example, is fornication a shameful deed or not?
The student: It is a shameful deed.

The Shaykh : It is a shameful deed. Sodomy is a greater shameful deed than fornication, because Allah said regarding fornication: And He said regarding sodomy, Lot to his people: So He brought the article *al* indicating ugliness and that it is comprehensive of all types of shameful deeds. The shameful deed of marrying prohibited relatives is a shameful deed. Allah the Exalted said: So it is more severe than fornication. Meaning, if a person commits fornication with a woman who is not a mahram to him, and with his wife's mother, for example, the second one is greater, more severe, and more heinous. For this reason, the stronger opinion among the scholars' opinions is: that whoever commits fornication with a woman from his prohibited relatives, even if he is not a married man, he is stoned. Meaning, fornication with prohibited relatives does not involve flogging, it involves only stoning, because Allah distinguished between fornication and marrying prohibited relatives. Marrying prohibited relatives was described with two descriptions: And fornication was described with one, which is And the Sunnah came with the distinction between them, meaning between the one who commits fornication with a woman from his prohibited relatives or with a woman who is not a mahram to him. It made the punishment for the first one killing in all cases, even if he is not married and even if he is not a previously married man, because this is greater, and I seek refuge in Allah, that a person would commit fornication with his mother, or his sister, or his wife's mother, or his wife's daughter with whom he has had intercourse. This is a great shameful deed.
Thus, We said: the shameful deeds are the greatest of the major sins. Now, do we take from this verse that the major sins differ and the shameful deeds differ? Yes, we take from the verse that they differ, because the major sins are described such that the greater they are, the more severe the major sin is, and the shameful deeds are likewise. For this reason, now you have heard Allah distinguished between them, although they are all shameful deeds, but some are greater than others.
His saying: It was said: it is a connected exception, and it was said: it is a disconnected exception, because *al-lamm* is the small thing, the small thing, this is *al-lamm*. So, does the meaning mean "except the small amount of the major sins," meaning: that they commit the small amount of the major sins? Or does the meaning mean "except *al-lamm*," except the small sins, the minor sins? If we say the first, the exception is connected. If we say the second, the exception is disconnected, and *illa* means "but." The second meaning is closer in terms of the classification, because Allah mentioned the major sins, the shameful deeds, and the minor sins. And according to this, the meaning of: is that except that these who do good commit the minor sins, and the minor sins, and praise be to Allah, are expiated by good deeds, expiated by good deeds. Allah the Exalted said: And the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) informed: And he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: And according to this, the meaning is that the minor sins occur and are expiated either by abstaining from the major sins, or by abstaining from the major sins combined with doing these great good deeds: the five daily prayers, Friday to Friday, Ramadan to Ramadan.
And the summary is: the minor sins occur and are forgiven for the person if he abstains from the major sins and if he does well in the five daily prayers, Friday, and Ramadan.
In this phrase, there is a reference to His saying: Meaning that *al-lamm* falls within the breadth of the forgiveness of Allah (Mighty and Majestic), so Allah (Mighty and Majestic) forgives it. And forgiveness is covering the sin along with passing over it, that Allah covers your sin and passes over it. Covering the sin is not sufficient; passing over it is necessary. The evidence for this is two things: linguistic and textual. As for the linguistic: because *al-maghfirah* (forgiveness) is derived from *al-maghfar* (helmet). *Al-maghfar* is what is placed on the head during battle, and it is called a helmet, and it is called a *baydah*. It is placed on the head to protect against arrows. This which is placed on the head combines two things: protection and what? And covering. So, forgiveness must involve covering and protection.
As for the textual: it is His saying (Blessed and Exalted is He), when He is alone with His believing servant on the Day of Resurrection and confronts him with his sins and he acknowledges them, He said: So this indicates that protection from the sins and not being held accountable are part of forgiveness. We ask Allah the Exalted to forgive us and you what has passed of our sins and what has come, for He is Able to do all things.