Revive Your Heart: Putting Life in Perspective

āyāt
after the subject matter are. Meaning, I am going to begin, not from
the 
āyāt
where the subject begins but, where the 
āyāt
conclude. Allah (
ʿazza wa-
jall
) says:
They assign to Allah what they dislike for themselves ...
(Al-Nahl 16: 62)
They attribute to Allah what they hate themselves. They give to Allah what
they hate themselves. The Quraysh used to have this practice where they had

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idols but they believed in Allah too, there are 
āyāt
in 
Sūrat Luqmān
that make
that clear.
If you were to ask them: “Who created the heavens and the earth?”
they will certainly reply: “Allah.”…
(Luqmān 31: 25)
‘If you asked them who created the skies and the earth even they will tell you
it is Allah.’ But at the same time they had other gods and other priorities. Within
what they used to eat, for example, they would take the best of the meat for
themselves and take the leftovers and leave that as a dedication for the idols, or
leave it for Allah. So they would basically give to Allah what they don’t want for
themselves.
Similarly, of course, the Arabs had a tradition of not wanting daughters, they
didn’t like daughters. They thought having a daughter is a humiliation, but they
had no problem attributing daughters to Allah. Allah (
ʿazza wa-jall
) talks about
that in the Qur’an:
What, has your Lord favoured you with sons and has taken for
Himself daughters from among the angels? …
(Al-Isrā’ 17: 40)
You prefer sons for yourselves but somehow Allah took angels as daughters
for Himself. Where do you come up with these ridiculous themes? You don’t
want that for yourselves. Behind it is a mentality and the mentality is that Allah
will be happy so long as you give Him something. Just give Him something; but
most of your life and everything that you work for and your priorities are for
yourself. You have to live for yourself, not for Allah.
It’s like the fact that nobody likes paying taxes and they like to get away

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with giving as little tax as possible. Well giving zakat to Allah, giving 
ṣadaqah
to Allah, giving dedication or devotion to Allah, even giving time to Allah is
something you just have to do, so that you can live the rest of your life for
yourself. That is the sick mentality that these people had and that is what Allah
comments on when He says they give to Allah what they don’t like for
themselves.
They assign to Allah what they dislike for themselves and their
tongues utter a sheer lie in stating that a happy state awaits them.
Without doubt the Fire awaits them and it is to it that they shall be
hastened.
(Al-Nahl 16: 62)
They’ll give Allah the minimum amount of time, they’ll give Allah the least,
the worst of their dedications or their charities etc. ‘And their tongues are very
eloquent at coming up with lies.’ Allah could have just said: 
yaqūlūn al-kadhib
—‘they tell lies’; but He says 
taṣif alsinatuhum al-kadhib
. 
Al-waṣf
in Arabic is
the ability to describe something and not everybody is good at describing things.
So Allah is talking about people that are eloquent. Then He uses the word
alsinah
; and 
alsinah
(lit. ‘tongues’) you’ll find in the Qur’an is used for people
who are very good with their words. So they have these flowery, elaborate
explanations of lies that they beautify for themselves and the people around
them.
Now what is that lie—
anna lahum al-ḥusnā
—that they will have the
absolute best. That somehow, whatever little they’ve given to Allah is such a big
deal that, they should expect from Allah the best of the best of the best. This is
their lie.