Revive Your Heart: Putting Life in Perspective

La jarama anna lahum al-nār
—there’s no doubt about it, these people,
all they have is the fire—
wa-annahum mufraṭūn
—and they are going to be
stuffed and then stuffed further inside the fire. Not only 
mudkhalūn
—they are
going to be entered. 
Ifrāṭ
in Arabic is to go beyond the limit. It’s one thing to get
pushed into Hellfire, it’s another to get pushed and then shoved even further.
That’s 
mufraṭūn
. These are very serious 
āyāt
, and one of the few places in the

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Qur’an, where Allah (
ʿazza wa-jall
) swears by Himself. Allah (
ʿazza wa-jall
)
swears on serious occasions, it’s not something small when Allah Himself
swears. But even more serious when He swears by Himself. In Arabic when you
swear by Allah, you normally say 
wa-Llāhi
. But if that is not enough and you
have to go out of your way, you say 
ta-Llāhi
, the 
tā’
is used.
By Allah, (O Muhammad), We sent Messengers to other communities
before you but Satan made their evil deeds attractive to them (so they
paid no heed to the call of the Messengers). The same Satan is their
patron today and they are heading towards a painful chastisement.
(Al-Nahl 16: 63)
In this next 
āyah
we find: 
ta-Llāhi laqad arsalnā ilā umam min qablik—
I
swear by Allah, Allah Himself is swearing by Himself, We had sent messengers
to many nations before them too. But what did 
shayṭān
do with all of them? 
fa-
zayyana lahum al-shayṭān aʿmālahum— shayṭān
somehow beautified their deeds
to them. They did evil things, but they were so convinced that they are doing
some great thing, or that this is the way you are supposed to think or that this is
the way you’re supposed to behave. 
Fa-huwa waliyyuhum al-yawm wa-lahum
ʿadhāb alīm—
he (
shayṭān
) is their friend then, on that day, on the day of
judgement, that’s their friend. That’s who they listened to. That’s the one whose
dictates and whose beautification they accepted. These are some very harsh 
āyāt
about people who have the wrong kind of mindset. These are the concluding
āyāt
; these are not the 
āyāt
where this conversation begins. So I want to now
take you back and tell you where this passage begins.
They assign daughters to Allah—glory be to Him—whereas they
assign to themselves what they truly desire!
(Al-Nahl 16: 57)

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(Al-Nahl 16: 57)
Allah (
ʿazza wa-jall
) says: ‘They attribute—they put in place for Allah
(
subḥānahū wa-taʿālā
) daughters. How perfect He is above that allegation’, and
then He says: 
wa-lahum mā yashtahūn
—but they get to have what they love
having. So they want to give Allah daughters but they love having what? Sons,
right? Now listen to this next 
āyah
:
When any of them is told about the birth of a female his face turns
dark, and he is filled with suppressed anger.
(Al-Nahl 16: 58)
‘When one of them is given the congratulations of the girl…’. So he is
waiting for his wife to deliver the child—there are no sonograms back in the day
—and now finally, the baby is born, and he’s waiting to hear the news. He was
hoping to hear that it’s a boy, the midwife comes out and she says, ‘It’s a girl!’
Allah says: 
al-unthā—the
girl. Now, in any culture you say