وَالْعَصْرِ
Time and the passage of time is something that is magnificent, that demands reflection.
إِنَّ الْإِنسَانَ لَفِي خُسْرٍ
The object is time and the subject is the loss of the human. The object is a proof for the subject.
What is the proof? Time is something that we cannot keep. It is leaving us and it continues to leave us. Time itself is evidence that humans are going bankrupt. We already have so many regrets of opportunities that we did not avail, they passed us by.
Allah is bringing time as a witness that human beings are in loss. We run after things that are distract us from our real purpose. Nations before us, having been failing over the same drama - the pursuit of car, house, women. Time is one of Allah's creation, that is sees this great human tragedy. It's like "here we go".
Asr is the last part of the time, the time when the merchant and the traveler are in a hurry. So they rush to sell off their merchandise or reach their destination because when night falls, they are doomed. So this time is associated with a sense of urgency. We don't have time to react. The sunset of our life is at bay. We are in state of emergency. A second's delay can be fatal.
The struggle of the human being is that of an ice vendor. He needs to make the sales fast before his ice melts.
إِلَّا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَعَمِلُوا الصَّالِحَاتِ وَتَوَاصَوْا بِالْحَقِّ وَتَوَاصَوْا بِالصَّبْرِ
They are necessarily connected. They are tied with each other, in fact, the last 3 are the result of the first. If you want to check you have imaan, then see if you do good deeds, enjoin patience and truth.
If you are really doing good, you will tell others. Some people will love you for it and others will hate you for it. So you will need lots of sabr.
One is the state of the heart, and the 3 are actions. 2 we do at a minimum level and the remaining 2 are generally looked over.
MYOB - Mind your own business is not the policy of the believers. The very basic thing that we do when there is a problem, is find the truth. You hear your mother and grand mother are not talking to each other, if you love them both, then you will hear both of their stories and try to get them to reconcile. Finding the truth necessitates that one person is wrong and the other is right. So you either confront them with your solution (apologize, return what was taken unjustly etc). But if you mind your own business, ur mom and grandma may never speak to each other again.
Same thing if you are walking by and see kids playing baseball too close to a the parking lot and you see them bashing the car windows. So you know the truth, at least you are not damaging other people's property. You feel you should stop them, they don't have any right. But then you think that you might get bashed. So you walk away and let them do what they are. But this make you human? So many non-Muslims stand for what is right. Animal rights, environment. Justice and equality. They are looked as heroes though it cost them an eye, a tooth, a night in jail or whatever. Their name is celebrated.
Allah gave us the entire truth (people protest for small truths) and where are we defending it? Look at the patience non-Muslims have for such trivial things. How they organize themselves and persevere. Compete with them in the taqwa of Allah.
وَالْعَصْرِ
Different ages, decades and centuries that passed.
The night and day. When you see nightfall or daybreak, you should be reminded that I am in loss. I am losing.
Know that you are in the verge of death.
When we have a sense of emergency, the boss walks in and says "every single employee is in trouble. They will lose big." Do you go like, oh well that's not me? No you will turn your life upside down to prevent the loss. You wreck your brain. You quit sleep, food, family. And buckle and just work work work work work. If there is a death in the family, if your child is sick, you take out time to give the attention the event needs. You will take time off work, you will cancel your meetings. You will tell your friends you cannot make it to the game. You won't worry about adding an another room to your house or enhancing your car. You will just worry about one thing and that is your dead mother's funeral and your sick daughter's health. The rest will like not matter to you one bit.
Insaan - As human beings we forget. You will listen to this lecture and forget about it when you reach the parking lot. We suck when it comes to remembering things. We will make all sorts of promises to change and to commit but moments later we will trip on our plans and do something totally different.
Each and every single human being is in a state of loss. Forget everyone else, I am in trouble. Allah is calling me a loser. On the Day of Judgment, the mother doesn't care for the child, the child will not look for his friends. So don't do charity and think that this ayah is for others not me. No. Allah is point and saying YOU! YES YOU! are in trouble. Allah could have said, Naas - all people. So forget everyone else, and worry about urself first! Look at yourself. You send your kids to Islamic School because u say they need good environment, then why are you watching that stuff? Why you not getting up for Salah? You bring your child to the imaam because they need advise, you think you don't need advise. You should get the advise first because you screwed up and now this kid needs advise.
We are at loss with this addiction of material things that will never be satisfied. We are at loss with being blinded by our problems. Things which are of trivial value. We are at loss with the preoccupation with ourselves. We don't pay attention to Allah's signs in His creation. We don't thank Allah. We have no connection. We are a people without any patience, gratitude or wisdom. We are just losers.
Monuments and ruins are a record of nations that were destroyed. Time is an enemy that you cannot fight. Time will get you. Look at other nations, even they couldn't do outdo time.
Human beings have more suffering than animals. Physical + pyschological suffering. We are being killed pyschology. You are going to meet Allah and you are going every day, advancing towards him. On the Day of Judgment, we would wish we were dust. Today we want this car, that house, that kitchen set, that bed sheet, those curtains, that cake and on Day of judgment, we wish we were never.
The majority sets the trends, standards. Even in psychology, normal is what the majority does and abnormal is going against it. So the Muslim stands out as the odd ball in society. We go against what everyone else is doing and enjoying. People begin to talk about us, eye us different. They come and ask us questions, some yell at us and others feel sorry for us. We don't go to parties, we don't party, we don't buy stuff on credit. Its like, what is wrong with you man? What are you being so hard on yourself? Why being so rigid? Have a little fun. Live a little. Don't be a loser. You are going to lose out if you don't cash in now. Soon we start feeling uncomfortable with sticking out. We feel lonely. We dont' want to appear strange any more. So we throw in the towel and join the people in their sins. But it is important to note that the majority is wrong. Majority is misguided. You are the exception. You need to keep away from the misguidance and disobedience mobs.
Just the sight of each other gives us strength. We don't know anyone by name or even by face. But just seeing people in hijab/beards/thob is imaam rushing. The moment we are together, we feel a sense of community, a sense of belonging and this helps us increase imaan and do good deeds. It makes the struggle a little easier because you know so many others with you are engaged in the same fight. So it is important that we are connected to the masjid, to study circles, we have contact with each other. otherwise we'll suffer a loss of imaan. You feel suffocation inside of your heart and you come back and listen to the khutbah, you pray salah in congregation, its like you are alive again, you can breathe again.
Fruits of Imaan: peace with your life because you know your life and everything in it belongs to Allah. People say, I lost my kid, I lost my car, I lost my job, I lost my wife. No, I belong to Allah and all that I was given in this world was also Allah's property. So you are tranquil in good and bad times. This guy in New Orleans owned a car dearlership. He was selling hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of cars every week. Life was fantastic for him and his dad. Then Katrina came. When the levies broke, everything was washed away, including his showroom. The only car that they could save was the Lexus which they escaped on. Now this brother is delivers pizza in that lexus. But if you see him any time during the day, you'll notice him with a big smile always. If this happened to anyone else, they would just pop a bottle of advil or jump of a cliff and get it over with. But this brother, he says that when business was good, he was too busy. Now, he has more time to play with the kids, to treat his wife. He doesn't miss a single salah in the masjid. There is food on the table. There is so much to be grateful for. You get that only with imaan. If you don't have imaan, you would say this guy is a loser. When you long for something other than Allah, it drives you off the bridge. But when you long for Allah, Allah gives you satisfaction.
The human being is created in the best way and is qualified to be successful but he is in loss.
In this Surah Allah mentions 4 things in the end: the last two things (tawaso - are both actions, they are translated as enjoining the truth and perseverance). These are the actions that people will overlook. But they are so necessary.
وَ - means 'and' Anyone who wants to be saved from loss MUST do (a), (b), (c) and (d)
Loss is mandated upon all human beings except for those who approach Allah withe these 4 things. The salvation on the DofJ hangs with these 4 conditions.
The human being is created frail, pathetic. He gets easily excited for the smallest of things and overly depressed for the smallest of things.
إِلَّا the vast majority will be lost except a few. Very limited people will behave in the way Allah has prescribed.
The Surah is "who is not a failure" This gives a minimum requirement. This Surah is not about success, this is about survival. It is not about Jannah but escaping the hellfire. When your survival is being questioned, you forget everything else. You cannot talk about success unless you have guaranteed your survival. If your office was on fire, would you still negotiate your promote. It doesn't make any sense that a person would talk about anything else if they cannot guarantee their survival. If you were dying, what is the thought on you mind? I CAN'T BREATHE Not, what is for dinner? I have to take out the trash.
Being good is not enough. You must concern yourself with the survival of others for the sake of your own survival.
خُسْرٍ
khasara = loss on top a pre-existing trouble. So we are not in trouble (we aren't in trouble to begin with) but we are putting ourselves in trouble.
Kusraan = a lot of loss, a total loss, an ultimate loss
Every human being aspires to something that they call success. You look at something, don't you get distracted? When you drive by a nice house? There was a Gallardo on hw 401 and people ran out of their houses to chase it down the street. This is what goes on in our head.
Pharaoh had a celebrity crib. Qaroon had so many keys you had to hire people to carry it. Success? Prophet (s.a.w) was deported from Makkah. Ayyub lived in the jungle, lived off from shrubs. Failure? For sure. So we need to rearrange our thinking. The society sets a wrong standard of success that bombards u and pumps you until you accept it. Because everyone thinks this way, desires it and is working for it, it must be right. So a change in attitude is required. Success is not on the earth. Not to say that the earth is evil. Nice things are not evil intrinsically. But if you think these things are success then you have failed. Having the dunya is not evil but loving the dunya, being influenced by the dunya is failure.
Human beings are drowned in loss, emersed in loss. Totally loss. There are no exceptions. If we don't address this, then there is no point talking about success. There is no success.
You are drowning and your unconscious. Do you have a lot of time? When your time is running out, it is called الْعَصْرِ Last part of the day, and the day is running out. 3aseer is juice so time is being squeezed out. So to live, you need to wake up - OPEN YOUR EYES. If you continue sleeping, or wake up and go back to sleep, you have no one to blame but themselves. So you shake them back to consciousness, then wake up other around you and encourage him to save others. You wake up everyone and take them to the shore and go back and wake up. Get them to swim to safety. You need each other to make it. You cannot give up.
Its like you wake you during Friday Khutbah, when you read the Qur'an then you go back to sleep so you have to go wake up the people around you again otherwise they will drown and unconscious. And if you don't save them, you will drown with them. You are tied to them and they are to you. If you don't pull them out, they will pull you down.
This Surah is about this Dunya. Time is running out. Time is being drained away from all of us. It is the heart of the entire Qur'an. We read it when we want to pray hit and run salah. When we are late for a movie, for a game or for food, we just recite this Surah and quickly wrap up our Salah.
This is the last Surah in the Qur'an in which Allah takes an oath.
The entire manhaj of the Prophet (s.a.w) is summarized in this Surah.
