After praising Allah, the Glorified and Exalted, and testifying to His unique Oneness and Perfection, and to Muhammad ﷺ being His final Prophet and Messenger, and after reminding myself and you with the taqwa of Allah, to live lives that are upright,
lives that are conscious of our Lord, and the ultimate good that He calls us to at all times and all places, and after welcoming my brothers and sisters to the House of Allah, the Mighty
and Majestic, brothers and sisters, in one of the most epic scenes imaginable across human history, Allah says in Surah An-Naml,
and gathered for Sulayman, King Solomon, the Prophet and the King, peace be upon him, are all of the troops that were subdued at his disposal, of jinn kind, of humankind,
and even the birds above, perfectly organized, perfectly regimented. Can you imagine the scene?
Until they passed by a valley of ants. You know, nowadays, they try to map out what the ant world looks like. They say, by the way, that there are 20 million ants in the world per human being.
The largest super colony of ants that they've tracked so far in our times, of Argentine ants in Europe, spans 4,000 miles wide.
So, Sulayman, peace be upon him, enters a valley with all of his troops, and one ant in all of that says, O ants, O civilization of ants, enter into your dwellings.
Lest you be trampled beneath the feet. You are not crushed by Sulayman, Solomon, and his troops while they do not even realize it. So, he smiled out of amusement from the statement of this ant.
And he said, O my Lord, grant me the opportunity. Give me a chance. To show proper thanks for the many favors You have granted me and granted my parents.
That I use these favors to do righteous actions in my time here on earth, that will cause You to be pleased with me. And then admit me by Your mercy, not my righteousness. It will never suffice.
By Your mercy, admit me among Your righteous servants. What was so special about this exchange or this interaction? So special that Allah immortalizes it in the Qur'an.
Gives us 10 good deeds for every letter of it we recite. It gives us another level of Jannah for every verse of it you memorize. What made Sulayman, peace be upon him, smile? First and foremost, it must have been the compassion of the ant, right?
The ant did not just run underground, try to save itself, right? It was concerned about saving as many of its people, if you will, as its voice can reach. And this is a prophetic quality that every believer should aspire for.
The Prophet, may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him, said, Allah will not allow His mercy to land except on the heart of someone who is truly merciful. They said,
All of us have mercy, like who does not have any mercy in their heart? So he said, Maybe you are thinking about, I am not referring to the mercy of a man to his inner circle, my neighbors, my family, my kids.
No, I am speaking about someone that has mercy for all people. Compassion for all. That is why Sulayman, peace be upon him, would resonate with the ant doing this. Because the Prophets of Allah, more than anyone else, they are our models,
more than anything else in their compassion and mercy for the world. They were trying to save people that wanted them dead. They still wanted to try to save them. So that was amusing for him. That was sort of, you know, endearing to him. Here is another reflection.
He heard the ant say, though it felt like it had no right to say, but decided it would still try to say, I need to warn my people. Where do we get that from? The scholar said,
The verse does not say, The ant would have been like a definite, particular, distinguished ant. The queen ant, right? The authorized leader. But an ant, some random ant, was trying to save the world.
And this is a profound lesson. That everyone needs to take it upon themselves to decide to be relevant. To decide to be productive. To decide to be a contributor. You need to decide that.
He used to say, A time will come at the end of human civilization.
That the people will start considering the best thing to do. The best thing I can possibly do is blame someone else for not doing it. Back and forth projection of blame. Or as the poet says,
We love to sort of curse the age. We live in horrible times. We live in dark times. The poet says we curse our age. Everybody does that, by the way, in every age. We curse our age. And we criticize our age. And the flaw is in us.
At least partially, right? The flaw is in us. Ask yourself if everyone were like you. Would it be a better place? If you say yes, you have the biggest problem. You are arrogant. And if you say no, then we are part of the problem. We can do better.
We have something to own. We blame our age. And blame falls back on us. And our age has nothing to blame like us. We are a product of our collective parts. We are the sum. We are all.
So the ant said, I am going to get involved. Some random ant. Namlatun. And then you know what? What did it say? It said, Udkhulu. It did not say, we are all going to die. It is all over. There is no hope. Many times we do that as well.
We just, when we speak, we speak in an alarmist tone. We just say, you know, the Day of Judgment is coming. We love to resign to end times rhetoric. The Prophet, may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him, said, even if it is in the last end time, the last moment.
One of you, the Day of Judgment is about to start. And you have a sapling. You know sapling? Like the baby flimsy little tree. The sapling is in your hand. If you are able to just insert it in the ground before the Day of Judgment starts, insert it. Do something. Be productive.
Do not just be alarmist. You know, when you just spread alarm, like run, we are all going to die. It is all over. Here is more bad news. Be more responsible. Do not just share the bad news. Because that stokes fear and paralysis in people.
You did not let people figure out their own solution, nor did you suggest a solution. You just spread more and more paralysis through fear in people. And that is why the Prophet, may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him, told Abu Dharr, do this, it is a charity. Do that, it is a charity. Do that, it is a charity.
He said, what if I cannot do anything? Here is what you do. You restrain your negativity, your harm from people.
That will be a charity from you on yourself. Do yourself a favor. If you cannot add value, do not detract from it. So it said, get underground. And even subhan'Allah, it said,
Enter your dwellings. And perhaps there is a subtlety here. They say that ants are very hostile to outsiders. They say they are very territorial. Like if you're not from the clan, the colony, you don't, you aren't allowed inside.
So if the ant would have said, get underground, it could have went from death to death. It could have been a death sentence. It said, go get into your homes so that you don't go in the wrong area to save your life. Then you get torn limb from limb
by the opposing army of ants, right? The opposing colony of very specific, strategic advice. Is there a lesson in that for us? Yes. Give strategic advice.
And if you don't have expertise or specialization, don't give advice. That's part of, and we said this prior, that's part of being sincere to your brothers and sisters. Is to give them what's best for them.
Even if it doesn't look great on your image, your self-image. Some people hate to say, I don't know. They got an opinion about everything. Yes. Part of you, just stop trying to save face. Try to save your brother. That's sincerity. Tell them I'm not the best person for this.
You should see a specialist. You should hire a consultant, right? You should go to a counselor. You should check with this person. They know them better than me, right? They have more life experience than me. Do that.
Give strategic advice or point to those who can. 'Aisha radhiallahu anha, just remembering our mother 'Aisha radhiallahu anha. She was the judge whenever the Sahaba ever disputed on some religious matter.
The senior elder companions would come to young 'Aisha and say, listen, we're disagreeing on this, that, and the third. She's so used to having the answers, but she also knew her limits. She said to them, no, wiping on the socks, go ask 'Ali ibn Abi Talib radhiallahu anhu.
He used to travel with the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, more than me. And that's when wiping on the socks was relevant, right? And so he said, get underground. But then he said, here's another beauty in the short phrase.
He said, so that Sulayman and his army don't crush you. He gave the logic. You know, when you're going to decide that I'm not just some random casual marginalia
sitting on the peripheries of life, you need to recognize, yes, you decided to not just be some random ant, but others have not necessarily accepted you as anything more than some random ant. So he gave them the logic.
He contributed to persuade them by giving them the rationale. And that's something you want to do. If you want to convince someone of something for their own good, you're not always going to have time to give the explanation, but always try to give the explanation.
You actually don't own, I don't own as much place in my followers', in my kids' hearts as I think. Let me help them consider it by respecting their intelligence, respecting their agency.
Brothers and sisters, I give you two ways to make sure nobody ever accepts your advice. Number one, just give it as a matter of fact and never give explanations. As if you have like a God complex and everyone's supposed to know that you're never wrong, right?
Just to keep stating them that way. And number two, insisting they accept your advice. Those are two ways to make sure they'll never accept. You never explain yourself and you never give them room to make the decision. Humans don't work like this.
Imagine our Prophet, peace be upon him, the most authoritative person, not authoritarian, but authoritative, the most deserving and rightly possessing of authority in human history. The young man comes to him and says,
Ya Rasulullah, permit me to fornicate. Like I know the rule in Islam, but I just can't handle it, right? Just make an exception for me. He didn't just tell him Allah said it's haram, right?
He helped him understand the big picture why you actually don't want this. Because if you want this, other people are going to want this and you're probably not going to like it. So he said to him, would you like it for your mother? No, would you like it for your sister?
Would you like it for your aunt? Would you like it for your aunt on the other side? He said, he was deliberately extending the example, elaborating to get him to think for himself. Do I really want this in society?
And then he placed his hand on his chest and he said to him, O Allah, he said, O Allah, forgive his sin. O Allah, cure his heart from the pain, the emotional burden of right? The difficult, the lust and cure his heart. He said and protect his body from it being misused.
The narrator says he got up and he walked away, never looking left and right anymore. So you know what, right? When you tell your kids, yes, you're not always going to be able to. Sometimes they're just going to have to learn that they'll appreciate it later.
But the default should be play here, not there because of X, Y and Z. It's dangerous, right? Tell them drink milk because it's good for your bones. The reason I did this is because of that.
Not because I operate with double standards, not because your dad's a bully. Explain your rationale to be able to get into people for their own good.
The last quick stop we're going to make in this exchange of King Solomon and the ant is that the ant said what?
So that Solomon and his armies don't crush you while they don't even realize it. And this is profound. Despite the severity of the situation.
And despite the fact that the catastrophe didn't happen yet, the ant has the wherewithal to say that if they are to stomp us, it's going to happen accidentally, not intentionally.
Can you imagine, right? How impressive is that? You know, we imagine things happen and we interpret them in the most negative of lights, right?
This ant is saying if it happens, they meant well. They don't realize it. Most people can't do that.
Most men and women need to learn this lesson from ants or that ant in particular. The Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, said,
Beware of suspicion because suspicion is the most frequent cause of lying out there. Just go with it, right? And I've shared with you before that when the man came to visit Imam Al-Shafi'i,
he saw him sick and he said to him, May Allah strengthen your weakness. And Imam Al-Shafi'i is a master grammarian. He tells him you shouldn't say Allah strengthen your weakness because that means intensify your weakness. That means he's going to kill me. You're making du'a against me.
He said, no, no, I didn't mean it like that. He tells him you should say it's more proper to say, May Allah strengthen your strength. May Allah weaken your weakness. Like lessen your weakness, increase your strength.
So he said to the great Imam who was sick, he said to him, I only meant well. Like I wasn't like indirectly, passively, aggressively trying to make du'a for your death. No, I hope you didn't think that. He said, I know you meant well.
And I know that if you were to openly, explicitly curse me out, you meant well. Maybe you thought I was somebody else. Maybe you just had a bad day and you weren't in your element. I'll still know that you meant well. And this is what 'Umar ibn Al-Khattab radhiallahu anhu would tell the people.
He would say, it is not halal. It is not permissible for a Muslim to hear any words from his brother and interpret them in a negative light.
So long as he can ever find a more charitable way to interpret his words. May Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala teach us that which will benefit us. Make us people whose lives, whose hearts, whose thoughts, whose minds,
whose communities center upon the Qur'an and the Qur'anic worldview. May Allah 'Azza wa Jal enable us to be a little bit more like this ant and cause us to be of those that are pleasing to Him as a result of this Qur'anic principle. Allahumma ameen.