I Am Enjoying Being A Muslim
The Children of Israel lived very long time under a serious oppression, that oppression reached the inside of their homes: nothing can be more grieving than the loss of a child, and add to that exponentially more the murder of a child, and add to that far more the murder of a child in front of your own eyes, and then add to that you can't even respond or react. And for that to happen on such a massive scale under the tyranny of Pharaoh:
[Quran 7:49]
[quote][b]يُذَبِّحُونَ أَبْنَاءَكُمْ وَيَسْتَحْيُونَ نِسَاءَكُمْ
Slaughtering your sons and sparing your women[/b][/quote]
For them to mass slaughter their children in front of their eyes and let their women live, why? So they can have more children, because they still need a slave population, so women were considered factories for building the next generation of slaves, that's what it was.
The children of Israel came from that background and now they are in the desert. Yes, they were slaves and now they are free. But they are also dehydrated, starving, and homeless in the desert. So they are in a pretty bad place.
But interestingly enough this is not the first time prophet Moses (peace be upon him) has escaped Egypt; this is the second time he has escaped Egypt. The first time prophet Moses escaped Egypt, he also ended up in a desert, and the Egyptians were also thirsty for his blood, so this is the second experience for him.
So now prophet Moses has to give children of Israel a speech. In the Quran, a piece of that speech is recorded. He's going to take all this gathering of grieving people that have gone through a very traumatic experiences, and he is going to give them a lecture.
I would imagine that lecture is going to be about patience, because he is going to tell them to be patient and to stay strong regardless of whatever has happened to them ..etc.
[Quran 14:7]
[quote][b]وَإِذْ تَأَذَّنَ رَبُّكُمْ لَئِن شَكَرْتُمْ لَأَزِيدَنَّكُمْ
Remember that your Master promised, “If you are grateful, I will increase you"[/b][/quote]
There was no mention of patience! instead, there was mention of gratitude. What do you want these people to be grateful for?!
These are people that lost their children!
They lost their homes!
These are people that are burning in the middle of the desert!
They have every imaginable problem in front of them and nothing good is happening before them.
The only thing that's good just happened is Pharaoh is not going to kill them, but now the desert will! .. at least that would have been a quick death, but this is going to be a slow and painful death! That's the only difference.
Why should they be grateful?!
This is the world view of the Quran.
Problems around you are so many you can't even stop listing them. If somebody were to open up and say, "Here's what I'm going through...". A lot of us keep our problems to ourselves, we don't open up to others what challenges we have in our life. Every single one of us has a number of problems in our life, not one. And many of them keep us awake at night. Many of these problems have to do with our family, with our personal selves, with career, jobs, money.. etc.
Here the Children of Israel are facing so many problems, and they are surrounded by them, and there's no hope around them, they're in the middle of a desert and Allah says that I'd like to help you with your problem and to pull you out of it and give you more and more and more.
"Okay, yeah I'd love to get some help"
Allah says that here's what I want you to do: I want you to be grateful. Allah is saying that you show me the least bit of gratitude, it's the past tense that is used in this ayah to suggest the least bit of gratitude. If you are able to demonstrate that, then the rest Allah will take care of. He will increase you, but Allah didn't say increase us what.
The verb زِيَاده:ziaduh in the Arabic language is considered an ambiguous verb, what that means when you say "increase", it's not clear.
If I say "Hey I increased you".
"Increase me in what? Problems? What did you increase me in? Blood pressure? It's not clear!"
Instead I have to say "I increased you in wealth", "I increased you in stress", "I increased you in something"!
Allah doesn't say what He will increase for you. Why? Because anyone answer would be good for one group of people and not for another group of people. And you don't want increase in one thing, you need increase in a lot of things: you need increase in patience, but also you need increase in sustenance, in safety, in security, in peace, in tranquility.. you need increase in a lot of things.
So by not mentioning what Allah will increase us in, He actually promises us all kinds of increase, as though what Allah will enhance for us is beyond words.
So [b]"لَأَزِيدَنَّكُمْ: I will absolutely enhance for you"[/b]. The Quran's own remedy for affliction, for difficulty: when we are in a very bad place in life, then you have to really like go through the empty shelves in your mind and find the things that you must be grateful for, and hold on to them, and remind yourself of them. And when you can remember them, then Allah will start taking care of the other things that are overwhelming you. This is actually a formula of the Quran.
Sometimes when you are going through a difficulty, people will come and say to you "Yeah I know this was bad, but be grateful"
"Excuse me! Easy for you to say, you're not going through it!"
Because they are not going through the pain you are going through, so you feel like they are talking to you like they expect you to turn into an angel and you are not entitled to your emotions. It backfires, it actually makes you upset "I don't want to hear a lecture about being grateful please!"
But when you meet someone who's gone through the same kind of pain and suffering, and you find that they're telling you to be grateful, it's something else, isn't it?
That's a different kind of message, it's not coming from someone who's just quoting something insensitively. They have actually lived through it and then they are saying it.
And so, prophet Moses (peace be upon him) has lived through this experience, so he's not just giving them this in theory, he's been exiled and persecuted before, he's seen death in the middle of a desert before, he's been there before, and from that place he says that if you can just be grateful, then Allah will increase.
Allah will say about this nation that was supposed to become non-existent in the pages of history; the Israelite were supposed to die in that desert and nobody will even know they ever existed. And Allah says:
[Quran 44:32]
[quote][b]وَلَقَدِ اخْتَرْنَاهُمْ عَلَىٰ عِلْمٍ عَلَى الْعَالَمِينَ
We chose them knowingly above others[/b][/quote]
Allah gave the Israelite a kingdom that was bigger than the Pharaoh himself. Allah gave them a governance in the world that was never imagined before. Allah gave them prophet after prophet after prophet who had miracles that were beyond description, and actually the most mentioned prophets in the Quran are the Israelite prophets. Allah increased them in this life and in the Hereafter.
Allah has given us a message of patience: If I cannot find in myself reasons to be grateful, patience is impossible. There's no way you will have patience in your life if you don't have gratitude.
[Quran 7:49]
[quote][b]يُذَبِّحُونَ أَبْنَاءَكُمْ وَيَسْتَحْيُونَ نِسَاءَكُمْ
Slaughtering your sons and sparing your women[/b][/quote]
For them to mass slaughter their children in front of their eyes and let their women live, why? So they can have more children, because they still need a slave population, so women were considered factories for building the next generation of slaves, that's what it was.
The children of Israel came from that background and now they are in the desert. Yes, they were slaves and now they are free. But they are also dehydrated, starving, and homeless in the desert. So they are in a pretty bad place.
But interestingly enough this is not the first time prophet Moses (peace be upon him) has escaped Egypt; this is the second time he has escaped Egypt. The first time prophet Moses escaped Egypt, he also ended up in a desert, and the Egyptians were also thirsty for his blood, so this is the second experience for him.
So now prophet Moses has to give children of Israel a speech. In the Quran, a piece of that speech is recorded. He's going to take all this gathering of grieving people that have gone through a very traumatic experiences, and he is going to give them a lecture.
I would imagine that lecture is going to be about patience, because he is going to tell them to be patient and to stay strong regardless of whatever has happened to them ..etc.
[Quran 14:7]
[quote][b]وَإِذْ تَأَذَّنَ رَبُّكُمْ لَئِن شَكَرْتُمْ لَأَزِيدَنَّكُمْ
Remember that your Master promised, “If you are grateful, I will increase you"[/b][/quote]
There was no mention of patience! instead, there was mention of gratitude. What do you want these people to be grateful for?!
These are people that lost their children!
They lost their homes!
These are people that are burning in the middle of the desert!
They have every imaginable problem in front of them and nothing good is happening before them.
The only thing that's good just happened is Pharaoh is not going to kill them, but now the desert will! .. at least that would have been a quick death, but this is going to be a slow and painful death! That's the only difference.
Why should they be grateful?!
This is the world view of the Quran.
Problems around you are so many you can't even stop listing them. If somebody were to open up and say, "Here's what I'm going through...". A lot of us keep our problems to ourselves, we don't open up to others what challenges we have in our life. Every single one of us has a number of problems in our life, not one. And many of them keep us awake at night. Many of these problems have to do with our family, with our personal selves, with career, jobs, money.. etc.
Here the Children of Israel are facing so many problems, and they are surrounded by them, and there's no hope around them, they're in the middle of a desert and Allah says that I'd like to help you with your problem and to pull you out of it and give you more and more and more.
"Okay, yeah I'd love to get some help"
Allah says that here's what I want you to do: I want you to be grateful. Allah is saying that you show me the least bit of gratitude, it's the past tense that is used in this ayah to suggest the least bit of gratitude. If you are able to demonstrate that, then the rest Allah will take care of. He will increase you, but Allah didn't say increase us what.
The verb زِيَاده:ziaduh in the Arabic language is considered an ambiguous verb, what that means when you say "increase", it's not clear.
If I say "Hey I increased you".
"Increase me in what? Problems? What did you increase me in? Blood pressure? It's not clear!"
Instead I have to say "I increased you in wealth", "I increased you in stress", "I increased you in something"!
Allah doesn't say what He will increase for you. Why? Because anyone answer would be good for one group of people and not for another group of people. And you don't want increase in one thing, you need increase in a lot of things: you need increase in patience, but also you need increase in sustenance, in safety, in security, in peace, in tranquility.. you need increase in a lot of things.
So by not mentioning what Allah will increase us in, He actually promises us all kinds of increase, as though what Allah will enhance for us is beyond words.
So [b]"لَأَزِيدَنَّكُمْ: I will absolutely enhance for you"[/b]. The Quran's own remedy for affliction, for difficulty: when we are in a very bad place in life, then you have to really like go through the empty shelves in your mind and find the things that you must be grateful for, and hold on to them, and remind yourself of them. And when you can remember them, then Allah will start taking care of the other things that are overwhelming you. This is actually a formula of the Quran.
Sometimes when you are going through a difficulty, people will come and say to you "Yeah I know this was bad, but be grateful"
"Excuse me! Easy for you to say, you're not going through it!"
Because they are not going through the pain you are going through, so you feel like they are talking to you like they expect you to turn into an angel and you are not entitled to your emotions. It backfires, it actually makes you upset "I don't want to hear a lecture about being grateful please!"
But when you meet someone who's gone through the same kind of pain and suffering, and you find that they're telling you to be grateful, it's something else, isn't it?
That's a different kind of message, it's not coming from someone who's just quoting something insensitively. They have actually lived through it and then they are saying it.
And so, prophet Moses (peace be upon him) has lived through this experience, so he's not just giving them this in theory, he's been exiled and persecuted before, he's seen death in the middle of a desert before, he's been there before, and from that place he says that if you can just be grateful, then Allah will increase.
Allah will say about this nation that was supposed to become non-existent in the pages of history; the Israelite were supposed to die in that desert and nobody will even know they ever existed. And Allah says:
[Quran 44:32]
[quote][b]وَلَقَدِ اخْتَرْنَاهُمْ عَلَىٰ عِلْمٍ عَلَى الْعَالَمِينَ
We chose them knowingly above others[/b][/quote]
Allah gave the Israelite a kingdom that was bigger than the Pharaoh himself. Allah gave them a governance in the world that was never imagined before. Allah gave them prophet after prophet after prophet who had miracles that were beyond description, and actually the most mentioned prophets in the Quran are the Israelite prophets. Allah increased them in this life and in the Hereafter.
Allah has given us a message of patience: If I cannot find in myself reasons to be grateful, patience is impossible. There's no way you will have patience in your life if you don't have gratitude.
