Revive Your Heart: Putting Life in Perspective

Subḥān Allāh
!
And so this meeting is about to happen, Allah reveals an 
āyah
to the Prophet
(
ṣallā Allāh ʿalayhi wa-sallam
) before he goes to meet with the 
Ṣaḥābah
. This is
Allah preparing him for this meeting; that’s the 
āyah
. How does a leader deal
with people that have terribly, terribly disappointed him. The 
āyah
begins:

---

(O Prophet), it was thanks to Allah’s mercy that you were gentle to
them …
(Āl ʿImrān 3: 159)
It is by the unimaginable, indescribable, mysterious loving mercy of Allah
that you are lenient towards them. The language here deserves a lot of attention.
Actually, 
linta lahum bi-raḥmat Allāh
is the normal Arabic sentence structure for
this sentence but when you change the order to: 
fa-bi-mā raḥmatin min Allāh
that actually means that this is an unusual kind of 
raḥmah
and it is only because
of this special gift from Allah of 
raḥmah
, of loving mercy that has come from
Him to you, that you are going to be able to be nice to them and lenient towards
them in the meeting.
The second benefit that I want to highlight here is the word 
mā
in the verse
fa-bi-mā raḥmatin min Allāh
. The grammarians say that the 
mā
is extra; you can
say 
fa-bi-raḥmatin min Allāh
. So the addition of the 
mā
actually adds a kind of
taʿajjub
(amazement), they say in 
balāghah
(the study of rhetoric). In simple
English, it is a shocking level of mercy; it is a shocking level of love and
compassion that has come from Allah. Then there is the fact that 
raḥmah
is also
not 
bi-raḥmati Allāh
. In other places in the Qur’an Allah says,
Tell them, (O Prophet): “Let them rejoice in Allah’s Grace and Mercy
... ”
(Yūnus 10: 58)
There is an 
iḍafah
(possessive grammatical construct) in 
faḍl Allah
—they’re
connected together. But here He says: 
fa-bi-mā raḥmatin min Allāh
. The two are
separated with a 
min
and the benefit of separating these two is that it creates a
mystery: what kind of love and mercy is this? Where did it come from? And
then it answers the question: 
min Allāh
. There are three or four or five devices
just in 
fa-bi-mā raḥmatin min Allāh
that are almost impossible to capture in the

---

English translation but the point of them is: the way that Allah has granted the
gift of 
raḥmah
, of leniency, of softness, of love to the Messenger of Allah and
the gift that He gave to the 
Ṣaḥābah
also, is beyond description. Because no
leader could ever leave an example like this one.
In the military, when soldiers make a mistake; lives are lost. The hearing
afterwards is called a court martial. When that hearing is done, typically those
soldiers are either executed or sent in prison. That’s what happens to them
because of insubordination, because they disobeyed a direct order. That’s what
happens in a usual military scenario. And by the way, this is directly a military
scenario, the 
Rasūl
(
ṣallā Allāh ʿalayhi wa-sallam
) in this case is not just the
leader, he is the General of the Army, and these soldiers are presenting their
case. And Allah says, you are exceptional, there is no one like you. Even in this
case, you are unusually lenient. It’s something that has come from Allah for you.
Then He says