BISMILLAH AlRahman AlRaheem

بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمنِ الرَّحِيمِ. الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ وَالْعَاقِبَةُ لِلْمُتَّقِينَ وَصَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَى مُحَمَّدٍ خَاتَمِ النَّبِيِّينَ وَعَلَى جَمِيعِ الأَنْبِيَاءِ وَالْمُرْسَلِينَ.

All Praise is due to Alláh, We praise Him and we seek help from Him. We ask forgiveness from Him. We repent to Him; and we seek refuge in Him from our own evils and our own bad deeds. Anyone who is guided by Alláh, he is indeed guided; and anyone who has been left astray, will find no one to guide him. I bear witness that there is no god but Alláh, the Only One without any partner; and I bear witness that Muhammad, peace and blessings on him, is His servant, and His messenger.

Dear Brothers and Sisters …                                                                                                

السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته

Today topic is about Loving Allah, and how this love is the true power for worshiping Allah. Loving Allah allows us to worship him the right way and increases our imaan and faith. We also emphasized that Knowing Allah is the way to love him, and that the best way to know him is through his names and attributes by affirming the Names and Attributes which Allah has affirmed for Himself in a manner befitting His majesty.

Let’s start with the names that Allah started the Quran with: AlRahman AlRaheem (as the Quran starts with the bismala بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم). And before we start, I want you to first acknowledge or appreciate something about the difficulty of translating.

the names of Allah because as many of you might know the common English translation for bismallah says (in the name of Allah the most beneficent the most merciful) or (the most merciful the most kind) the problem with this is when we say the word beneficent for example, it’s a word that we don’t use in our everyday life! so we translate Quran with words that we don’t use, and this defeats the entire purpose of translation: which is making the names of Allah easier for us to relate to and easier for us to understand, so the English we use has to be one that we actually can relate to, can connect with it but when we use words like beneficent, it’s hard to connect with.

The other problem is when we say the most merciful and the most kind they sound like the same thing, but they are two different names of Allah: AlRahman and AlRaheem they’re definitely different the Arabic principle is “إذا اجتمعا تفرقا ” when two names or two things are mentioned together that means they cannot mean the same thing, they have to mean two different things: so there’s a difference between AlRahman and AlRaheem and that has to be made clear to anyone who says it. So you and I have to be aware of what is the difference between AlRahman and AlRaheem and how does each of them benefit me and why is that in the bismallah anyway! why not just say bismillah why even the addition of a AlRahman AlRaheem.

So let’s start from an easy place, the first thing I want to share with you is both of these words AlRahman and AlRaheem have something in common, yes they are different but they have something in common and what they have in common is that they come from the same origin Rahma (رحمة ) AlRahman and AlRaheem both has to do with Rahma. As we typically translate Rahma as mercy, it’s not very accurate translation, as mercy in English usually means sparing someone from punishment or help him getting rid or alleviating his suffering.

In Arabic, the word Rahma has nothing to do with being spared but actually Rahma has to do with the word Rahem (رحم ) which means the belly of a mother or the womb of the mother when a woman is pregnant they say (Rahma tul Mar’a) meaning she became pregnant. And that’s important, because if we’re going to understand the names of AlRahman AlRaheem, we have to understand the womb of the mother if we are to get any idea what these names really mean for us.

Let’s think about this, every relationship human beings have with other human beings is a two-way relationship people say to each other I love you no matter what! but in reality the situation is different if you insult me all the time or make fun of me or if you’re angry with me and pushing me away and hurting me! if you do these things then what happens to that love? it starts going away even though you said No Matter What, because most relationships have conditional love, there’s nothing such as unconditional love in most relationships! love is grown when love is shown you receive it and then it grows.

But there’s one relationship human beings have this very strange behavior. Something is growing inside a mother and as it grows it’s causing the mother more and more pain and she eats food and he’s taking all the food and he’s sleeping but she’s awake in pain and as he grows more he causes her more pain; backache, stomachache, throwing up, she can’t taste food anymore, and this mother as the child grows all older the love she has for this child grows and she still loves this baby! she doesn’t say you caused me so much pain so I hate you! No, she’ll walk carefully and do everything she can to protect the baby, true unconditional love that Allah describes this as (وهناً على وهن ) weakness on top of weakness and pain upon pain. And all of this is happening while that child doesn’t even know about or appreciate.

Allah wanted to show us something about the way he loves us by choosing the names of AlRahman and AlRaheem, Allah gives and he gives and he gives more and he gives every second and he cares and loves and protects like a mother cares and loves and protects while we have no idea how much more Allah does to us! And sometimes one would ask what have Allah done for me?! When was he when I needed him! I made duaa and he didn’t answer my duaa. And yet you are enveloped and covered inside the Rahma of Allah, it’s not just mercy! a mother is not merciful to her baby a mother loves and cares and protects her baby so the word of AlRahman and AlRaheem have to do with Allah’s love and his care and his protection, all while we have no idea how incredibly powerful that love and that care and that protection is.

The Sahaba understood this very well, so they said AlRahman is for everyone in this world but AlRaheem is only for the believers in the next world,

Surah Taha – 20:5

ٱلرَّحْمَـٰنُ عَلَى ٱلْعَرْشِ ٱسْتَوَىٰ

The Most Merciful [who is] above the Throne established. — Saheeh International

Surah Ahzab – 33:43

هُوَ ٱلَّذِى يُصَلِّى عَلَيْكُمْ وَمَلَـٰٓئِكَتُهُۥ لِيُخْرِجَكُم مِّنَ ٱلظُّلُمَـٰتِ إِلَى ٱلنُّورِ ۚ وَكَانَ بِٱلْمُؤْمِنِينَ رَحِيمًا

It is He who confers blessing upon you, and His angels [ask Him to do so] that He may bring you out from darkness into the light. And ever is He, to the believers, Merciful. — Saheeh International

Ibn Alqaim says: “AlRahman refers to quality of Allah himself, while AlRaheem is dependent on the subject”

People do bad things here in this dunia but Allah keeps giving them love even the disbeliever who disobey Allah who makes fun of Allah and his messenger or mocks the Quran and don’t care about anything, Allah still gives them love but they’re doing something that will disqualify them at one point. So, these were the qualities of AlRahman; it’s extreme, it’s happening right now and it may not be permanent, and In shaa Allah we will talk about AlRaheem in the Next Friday Sermon.

ُI ask Allah for forgiveness, He is the Most Forgiving, Most Merciful.

I pray that you and I will be amongst those whom Allah rewards, without limits. I also pray Allah gives us the understanding of the Deen and Masail according to Quran and in the light of Authentic Hadith.

May Allah multiply the rewards of our Prayers, grant us forgiveness for our sins and freedom from the Fire, and allow us to drink from the Prophet’s (saw) fountain, Ameen.

BY IMAM SYED MAHBOOB RASOOL