"Leave Us With Those Who Sit"

Then there were those who were looking for excuses to get out of their duties; here are the āyāt that speak about them. Allah (ʿazza wa jall) says:

And when a sūrah was revealed enjoining them to believe in Allah and to fight with His Messenger, those of wealth among them asked your permission to stay back, and said: leave us to be with those who sit at home. And who were these who were asking to be excused? They were the ones with wealth. So the very ones who should have been going out were the very ones asking for an excuse to stay. And this shows the fitnah of money. Money in itself is not evil; but if it causes a person to forsake his duties towards Allah and His religion, then it becomes an instrument of evil. And here in this ayah we find that these people came to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) and said: we do not want to go; excuse us. Allah (ʿazza wa jall) says: raḍū bi-an yakūnū maʿa al-khawālif, wa ṭubiʿa ʿalā qulūbihim fa-hum lā yafqahūn — they were satisfied to be with those who stay behind, the women and children, and their hearts were sealed over, so they do not understand.

Pay attention to this. These people had heard the Qur'an; these were people who had sat in the khuṭbahs and the lessons of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him); so most likely they knew more than you and me. And Allah (ʿazza wa jall) says about them that they have no understanding: people who heard the Qur'an fresh from the heavens, and heard the hadith not from a book but from the mouth of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), and lived in the context — they lived in the context in which the verses were revealed and the hadith were said. So no matter how much we read, we will not reach that understanding, because we were not there. And still Allah says that they do not understand. By today's standards they would be great scholars; but they do not understand. Why? Because they do not get the point: they do not understand the reality of the dunyā and the Ākhirah; they do not understand the wisdom behind jihād in the way of Allah; they do not understand the importance of sacrifice; they just do not get it. And many are the Muslims today who do not get it — who do not understand the proper Islamic view of the world, and do not understand the importance of supporting the dīn of Allah (ʿazza wa jall).

So understanding is not how many āyāt and how many aḥādīth you memorise and know; understanding is the fiqh of the heart, the understanding of the heart. Because anybody can memorise Qur'an and hadith; even a non-Muslim could do that. There are Islamic studies departments in many universities in the West and other parts of the world, and many of the students who get the top grades there are non-Muslim; so they know hadith and they know āyāt. So is that the criterion of true knowledge? No. True knowledge is not how many āyāt and aḥādīth you have learned, but how much you understand them and follow them. Because if you are just memorising āyāt and aḥādīth, you are just adding up evidence against yourself on the Day of Judgement: every ayah you know will be evidence against you on the Day of Judgement — you are actually making it worse for yourself — and every hadith you learn will be evidence against you, because you knew it and did not follow it; you did nothing. So you are actually worse than somebody who did not know it, because the one who did not know it can say on the Day of Judgement: O Allah, I never knew about this; nobody told me about it. But the one who knows it has no excuse at all. And these people knew the truth, and they did not follow it.

So the fiqh — and this is very important: do not be deceived by a sweet tongue, and do not be deceived by people who have learned by rote — they just memorise everything and spit it out to you. Rather, take your example from the ones who are following al-ḥaqq, not the ones who are just saying it; and as for the ones who are saying it — if they are saying the ḥaqq, then follow it yourself.

And then Allah (ʿazza wa jall) says about the ones who understand: but the Messenger and those who believed with him fought with their wealth and their lives; those will have all that is good, and it is those who are the successful. Allah has prepared for them gardens beneath which rivers flow, wherein they will abide eternally; that is the great attainment.

And then Allah (ʿazza wa jall) says: and those with excuses among the Bedouins came to be permitted to remain. These were some Bedouins who had valid excuses: they came to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) — according to some of the mufassirūn they had valid excuses, and some of them say they did not; there is a difference of opinion on the exact meaning of this part of the ayah. But then Allah (ʿazza wa jall) says: there will strike those who disbelieved among them a painful punishment.