Every Day With Allah Is Extraordinary

﷽

Sūrah as-Sajdah takes its name from prostration, the physical embodiment of recognising Allah, submitting to Him, and humbling ourselves before Him, and its opening verses ask something of us that is easy to overlook: courage. It takes courage, in a time of confusion, to stay focused on what matters in this life and, above all, on what matters for the life after it. Allah opens the surah by declaring that this Book is a revelation in which there is no doubt, from the Lord of all the worlds, and then He turns directly to the naysayers who claim it was invented. Notice that He does not argue with them. He addresses His beloved Prophet ﷺ and says, in effect, do not let the world distract you. Everyone has an opinion. Most people follow whims, crowds, and inherited culture without ever thinking deeply about it, and if that culture happens to be wrong they lack the courage to walk in the other direction. The believer is told instead to be firm that this is the truth from your Lord, and to spend real time with the Qur’an, not the sliver of leisure left over after work, bills, Netflix, and scrolling, as though the deen must compete with screen time for an ever-shrinking box. Allah then describes Himself as the One who created the heavens and the earth in six days and established Himself over the Throne, and who yudabbir, continually conducts, every affair between heaven and earth. Nothing transpires outside His command and His control. From our limited vantage point we white-knuckle the present, regret the past, and worry about the future, and when we see Sudan or Palestine we are tempted to ask the question the companions themselves once asked: where is the help of Allah? The answer is that His help is near, because the whole span from today until the Day of Judgement, however many years it holds, is to Him a single day. The commentators read the “affair” in this verse as His commandments, or as His justice, and either way the conclusion is the same: nobody escapes the Day of Judgement, and whoever does wrong today thinking they have got away with it is sorely mistaken. We should stand for justice and tolerate no corruption, but the world only appears chaotic because we are not looking through the correct lens. Fixate on the dunya and you become impatient and demoralised, your iman sinks, and you start asking the question that should never be asked. The real question is not where Allah’s help is, but where the iman of the believers is. That is why Allah commands patience, steadfastness, holding fast, and taqwa, because without them the world will simply sweep you along.

تَنزِيلُ الْكِتَابِ لَا رَيْبَ فِيهِ مِن رَّبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ ۝ أَمْ يَقُولُونَ افْتَرَاهُ ۚ بَلْ هُوَ الْحَقُّ مِن رَّبِّكَ لِتُنذِرَ قَوْمًا مَّا أَتَاهُم مِّن نَّذِيرٍ مِّن قَبْلِكَ لَعَلَّهُمْ يَهْتَدُونَ

The revelation of the Book, in which there is no doubt, is from the Lord of all the worlds. Or do they say, “He has invented it”? No, it is the truth from your Lord, so that you may warn a people to whom no warner came before you, that they may be guided.

اللَّهُ الَّذِي خَلَقَ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضَ وَمَا بَيْنَهُمَا فِي سِتَّةِ أَيَّامٍ ثُمَّ اسْتَوَىٰ عَلَى الْعَرْشِ ۝ يُدَبِّرُ الْأَمْرَ مِنَ السَّمَاءِ إِلَى الْأَرْضِ ثُمَّ يَعْرُجُ إِلَيْهِ فِي يَوْمٍ كَانَ مِقْدَارُهُ أَلْفَ سَنَةٍ مِّمَّا تَعُدُّونَ

It is Allah who created the heavens and the earth and all that is between them in six days, then established Himself over the Throne. He conducts every affair from the heaven to the earth; then it ascends to Him in a day whose measure is a thousand years of what you count.

مَتَىٰ نَصْرُ اللَّهِ ۗ أَلَا إِنَّ نَصْرَ اللَّهِ قَرِيبٌ

“When will the help of Allah come?” Truly, the help of Allah is near.

إِنَّهُمْ يَرَوْنَهُ بَعِيدًا ۝ وَنَرَاهُ قَرِيبًا

They see it as far off, but We see it as near.

يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا اصْبِرُوا وَصَابِرُوا وَرَابِطُوا وَاتَّقُوا اللَّهَ لَعَلَّكُمْ تُفْلِحُونَ

O you who believe, be patient, outlast others in patience, hold fast, and be mindful of Allah, so that you may succeed.

When a believer starts to think the world has gone mad and Allah is not acting on their timetable, so they may as well do as the Romans do, the Qur’an names exactly what is happening: Shaytan is the one who frightens you with poverty, and faqr here is not only an empty wallet but an impoverishment of the heart, a lowering of iman, after which he commands you to indecency and you begin to justify it. The verse immediately before it is the antidote: give. The Qur’an repeats this command over and over, and if you look at when these verses came down, the Muslims were, for most of the revelatory period, broke. Only a handful like Abu Bakr and ’Umar had wealth. Yet Allah told them to give from what He had provided, and not to reach for the worthless thing lying around that you would be embarrassed to receive yourself. Giving in Islam means giving up something, which is why it is called zakah, a purification of the soul from its attachment to the dunya. You are not doing your taxes or ticking a box; you are trying to enter Jannah, and sincerity always demands sacrifice. That is also why Islam is a solution for some people and an irritant to others. Like the mob demanding protection money, some people are unnerved by sincerity and want everyone as compromised as they are, and Islam is a deen that makes demands. Allah demands that we worship Him alone, that we give despite our love of money, that we get out of bed when we are tired and rise in the night when we could use the sleep and call on Him in fear and hope. He does not coddle our feelings; He criticises us and takes us to task, and that discomfort is the proof of whether we really believe. Our children need to understand this, because the demands are what make the religion beautiful: by making them, Allah establishes from the outset that everything in the heavens and the earth belongs to Him, and whoever holds the deed has the right to say how a thing is used. Who has more right to command us than the One who perfected everything He created and began the human being from clay? So if you want to know whether you are close to Allah, stop asking the silly question and ask instead what you are doing to inconvenience yourself for His sake. And notice what He offers in return. Unlike Shaytan’s threats, Allah promises forgiveness and bounty. He does not promise the treasure troves of the heavens and the earth, because they are already His. He simply says: worship Me alone, be sincere, struggle for Me, and I will forgive you. That alone tells you what is truly valuable. The second khuṭbah returned to the same verse to note that all affairs ascend to Him, whether the angels, Jibreel, or the deeds of every person, good and bad, and that it will all be settled in a day that we would count as a thousand years. We live short lives, we are easily distracted, beguiled, and intimidated, and we fall for the head fake again and again. The only way out is to become a companion of the Qur’an, reading it not just for its beauty but with tadabbur and understanding, so that it becomes the advisor constantly at our side. We consult Google Maps and ChatGPT for everything and leave the Book for last, but the message has already been delivered and the Messenger ﷺ has already given us the best example. Islam has something to say about every facet of life, from how you enter the bathroom to how you do business, and it was never a matter of emotion or performance but of what Allah said and what His Messenger said. May Allah make us sincere, make us people of patience, and make us among those who give, whatever the amount, so long as it means something to the one who receives it and to Allah, and may He make the right side of our scales heavy.

يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا أَنفِقُوا مِن طَيِّبَاتِ مَا كَسَبْتُمْ وَمِمَّا أَخْرَجْنَا لَكُم مِّنَ الْأَرْضِ ۖ وَلَا تَيَمَّمُوا الْخَبِيثَ مِنْهُ تُنفِقُونَ وَلَسْتُم بِآخِذِيهِ إِلَّا أَن تُغْمِضُوا فِيهِ ۝ الشَّيْطَانُ يَعِدُكُمُ الْفَقْرَ وَيَأْمُرُكُم بِالْفَحْشَاءِ ۖ وَاللَّهُ يَعِدُكُم مَّغْفِرَةً مِّنْهُ وَفَضْلًا

O you who believe, give from the good things you have earned and from what We have brought out of the earth for you, and do not aim at the worthless of it to give away, when you yourselves would not take it except with closed eyes. Shaytan threatens you with poverty and commands you to indecency, while Allah promises you forgiveness from Himself and bounty.

الَّذِي أَحْسَنَ كُلَّ شَيْءٍ خَلَقَهُ ۖ وَبَدَأَ خَلْقَ الْإِنسَانِ مِن طِينٍ

He who perfected everything He created, and began the creation of the human being from clay.

وَإِلَى اللَّهِ تُرْجَعُ الْأُمُورُ

And to Allah all affairs return.

You can watch the full khuṭbah here:

The khuṭbah opened with the customary praise and the verse of taqwa, Sūrah Āl ’Imrān 3:102: “O you who believe, be mindful of Allah as He deserves, and do not die except as Muslims.” No ḥadīth was cited beyond the standard opening formulae. Translations above are the editor’s own renderings.