Islam
Friday Sermon: In Times Like These…
Published
3 years agoon
By
Eric
By Babatunde Jose
“There is no more dangerous menace to civilization than a Government of incompetent, corrupt, or vile men” – Ludwig Von Mises.
Let me echo the president of Ghana, Nana Akufo-Ado when he said, ‘We are in a crisis, I do not exaggerate when I say so. I cannot find an example in history when so many malevolent forces have come together at the same time.” He might have been referring to Nigeria.
Dickens wrote: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way…” – A Tale of Two Cities
Abu Huraira reported: The Prophet, peace and blessing be upon him, said, “Woe to the rulers! And woe to the chiefs! And woe to the trustees! Some people will wish on the Day of Resurrection that their hair was hanging from the sky and swinging between heaven and earth rather than to have done what they did.”
We are today drifting in an uncharted and uncertain sea. What hope do we have of reaching the Promised Land? When this journey started, we had high hopes but today our revolution of rising expectations has turned into a revolution of rising frustration, bordering on despondency.
Our patrimony has been squandered and embezzled. Our national coffers are broken into and brazenly robbed. The man we employed to keep account of our money stole N120 billion from the strong room. The armorer embezzled the billions meant to procure weapons to fight insecurity. The Samaritan who mediates with the insurgents and kidnappers had been creaming monies meant for ransom. And the troops commander has been selling arms to the enemy.
Allah in the Quran, Surat Az-Zukhruf, Ayat 32 said:
…But the Mercy of thy Lord is better than the (wealth) which they amass. (Quran 43:32)
Yet, they are here again, asking for our votes. What happened to the votes we cast four years ago, eight years ago, sixteen and twenty years ago? The proverbial ‘dividends of democracy’ never got to us. Where are the jobs they promised? Our pensions and gratuity were stolen. Funds meant for our roads, electricity, housing, and the food on our tables. All stolen.
Fathers are today jobless, while the mothers have no goods in their shops. The children are out of school, 40 million of them and those that went to school have joined the swelling army of the unemployed. Our universities were under lock for 8 months, while our children roamed the streets, many of them becoming the workshop of the Devil: Like dispossessed children we walk naked in the streets seeking food from the dustbins. And Umaru Dikko predicted it!
Today there is much poverty in the land. Poverty amid plenty. Poverty now parades our streets in nakedness, and I ask, ‘where are we going’?
“Many Nigerian states receive revenue allocations which are larger than the budgets of neighbouring countries such as: Liberia, Gambia, and Benin Republic. Akwa Ibom and Rivers –receive allocations, which is about half of the entire budget of Ghana.
It is instructive to ask ourselves, what our leaders did with such fantastic allocations. They were stolen.
And of course, Lagos State, with its jumbo IGR: It is instructive to ask what they have done for their people. Some 30 years ago, there was a land rush in a place called Badore because of speculation that the Lagos State government would be constructing the 4th Mainland bridge from Ijede in Ikorodu to Badore. It is axiomatic to ask the question what the various leaders who ruled the state since the demise of the military did on the project. Today, the chief architect of the party that has ruled the state for over 20 years is a presidential aspirant. What should we expect from him? Can a leopard change its spots?
Another of the political aspirants was a co-ruler at the federal level for 8 good years during the ara of the locust. What contribution did he make to the socio-economic development of our people? He is now promising to give us better life. Hmmmmmmm! How long will we wait at the ‘gates of hell?
They failed to bring about meaningful change to the life of their people; only promises and promises.
Can an empty sack stand erect? Can these men bring meaningful change to our lives? Can they usher in the desired restructuring required to correct the structural and political imbalances in our dear country? Can they arrest the haemorrhage in the economy where we have lost $12.6b, 120 million barrels of crude oil in 9 months? Can they arrest the drift towards economic Armageddon?
Can they right decades of wrong? Can they plug the leakages in our economy, subsidy, cooked-up petroleum consumption, inflated road construction contracts and other iniquities? Can they restore our light and bring us out of the darkness we have been sentenced to for ages? Can they revamp our abandoned projects? These are daunting propositions which seem to be beyond these men. We have many more miles to go.
Allah said in the Quran:
“And O my people! Give just measure and weight, nor withhold from the people the things that are their due: Commit not evil in the land with intent to do mischief. (Quran 11:85)
For many years now, people living and working in Apapa have been under siege, caused by unprecedented traffic on the only two approaches to the port. Yet it need not have been like this if our leaders had had the foresight to plan while developing the port of Tin-Can some 40 years ago. This port was developed without any provision for expansion. What land could have served as avenues for expansion were carved out and divided among our leaders; Ibafon, Beachland and the Kirikiri waterfronts up to the Ferry port in Mile 2. All could have been available today for port expansion. Ask them who owns these places and you would be amazed.
According to Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, in his epic book, My Vision: Challenges in the Race for Excellence, he wrote: “The crucial point in Dubai’s modern history was the dredging of the Creek and the construction of a modern port. … Following the deepening and widening of the Creek, my father expected Dubai would soon attract much more trade…he decided that much larger port facilities in deeper water were needed. In 1969 he ordered construction of Port Rashid. He kept on increasing the size of the port and eventually two years to completing it he surprised everybody by ordering the construction of a larger new port; the port of Jabel Ali, which today is the biggest port in the Middle East.”
With all our oil money we cannot boast of anything comparable.
Change must come and must come now! Unfortunately, the elections will not usher in the change we desire. Reason: All the contestants are men and women of yesterday. Old wine, in an old bottle. They have been aged and seasoned in political perfidy and spiritual iniquity. Like the proverbial dry fish, they cannot be straightened again. There are therefore ‘dark clouds on the horizon’.
The Prophet (saws) said, “Any man whom Allah has given the authority of ruling some people and he does not look after them in an honest manner, will never feel even the smell of Paradise.” Sahih Muslim – Volume 9, Book 89, Number 264.
God calls His people to trust Him, to live carefully, to be watchful, and to pray in troubled times. Jesus had something to say to his disciples about the uncertain and troubling times that would come to them, it can equally apply to us now.
25 “There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea.
26 People will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken.” Luke 2: 25-26
War and insecurity, terrorist threats, starvation, uncertain economic times, levies, wage cuts, lay-offs, higher taxes, more pressure on the job, austerity measures, declining income and productivity, currency devaluation, declining value of export, and most important, the shaking of our inner peace. Suddenly, the end time is here.
We must work towards change. We must use the only weapon we have – our votes. However, without restructuring the polity, without redrawing the political format, and a paradigm shift, it is doubtful if our votes can bring about a new system.
GOD, give us men! A time like these demands. Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands; Men whom the lust of office does not kill; Men whom the spoils of office can not buy; Men who possess opinions and a will; Men who have honor; men who will not lie; Men who can stand before a demagogue And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking!
Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog In public duty, and in private thinking; For while the rabble, with their thumb-worn creeds, Their large professions and their little deeds, Mingle in selfish strife, lo! Freedom weeps, Wrong rules the land and waiting Justice sleeps.- Josiah Gilbert Holland
Show us the straight way, The way of those on whom Thou hast bestowed Thy Grace, Those whose (portion) is not wrath, and who go not astray. (Quran 1:6-7)
Barka Juma’at and a happy weekend!
Related
You may like

NOAH, (lit. ’rest’ or ‘consolation’, also Noach) appears as the last of the Antediluvian patriarchs in the traditions of Abrahamic religions. His story appears in the Hebrew Bible (Book of Genesis, chapters 5–9), the Quran and Baha’i writings, and extracanonical texts.
The story of the Deluge, the Great Flood, is part of human lore and communal memory virtually in all parts of the world. Its main elements are the same everywhere, no matter the version or the epithet-names by which the tale’s principals are called: An angry deity decides to wipe Mankind off the face of the Earth by means of a global flood, but one couple is spared and saves the human line.
Except for an account of the Deluge written in Greek by the Chaldean priest Berossus in the third century B.C., the only record of that momentous event was in the Hebrew Bible and later in the Quran.
But in 1872 the British Society of Biblical Archaeology was told in a lecture by George Smith that among the tablets of the Epic of Gilgamesh discovered by Henry Layard in the royal library of Nineveh, the ancient Assyrian capital, some contained a Deluge tale like that in the Bible. By 1910 parts of other recessions have been found. They helped reconstruct another major Mesopotamian text, the Epic of Atrahasis, that told the story of Mankind from its creation until its near annihilation by the Deluge.
The Bible introduces Noah, the hero of the Deluge tale, who was singled out to be saved with his family, as a righteous man, of perfect genealogy. The Mesopotamian texts paint a more comprehensive picture of the man, suggesting that he was the off- spring of a demigod and possibly (as Lamech his father had suspected) a demigod himself. It fills out the details of what walking with God; had really entailed.
Among the many details that the Mesopotamian texts provide, the role played by dreams as an important form of divine encounter becomes evident. In the biblical version it is the same deity who resolves to wipe mankind off the face of the Earth and, contradictorily, acts to prevent the demise of mankind by devising a way to save the hero of the tale and his family.
In the Sumerian original text and its subsequent Mesopotamian recessions, more than one deity is involved; and as in other instances, which is beyond the scope of this narrative. The embarkation of pairs of animals has been a favorite subject in the narration. It has also been one of the eyebrow raisers of the tale, deemed a virtual impossibility and thus more of an allegorical way to explain how animal life continued even after the Deluge.
It is therefore noteworthy that the Deluge recession in the Epic of Gilgamesh offers a totally different detail regarding the preservation of animal life: It was not the living animals that were taken aboard—it was their seed (DNA) that was preserved! Taking on board the seed of living beings rather than the animals themselves not only reduced the space but also implies the application of sophisticated biotechnology to preserve varied species—a technique being developed nowadays by learning the genetic secrets of DNA. This should not surprise us, for if the ancients can build the pyramids, which still astounds us, we should not doubt them to clone and toy with DNA.
How global was the Deluge? Was every place upon our globe inundated? The human recollection is almost global and suggests an almost-global event. What is certain is that the Ice Age that had held Earth in its grip for the previous 62,000 years abruptly ended.
It happened about 13,000 years ago. One result of the catastrophe was that Antarctica, for the first time in so many thousands of years, was freed of its ice cover and this raised the seas to astronomical levels. The true continental features of Antarctica became visible.
Amazingly (but not to our surprise again), the existence of maps showing an ice-free Antarctica became available. In modern times the very existence of a continent at the South Pole was not known until A.D. 1820, when British and Russian sailors discovered it. It was then, as it is now, covered by a massive layer of ice; we know the continent’s true shape (under the ice cap) by means of radar and other sophisticated instruments used by many teams during the 1958 International Geophysical Year (IGY).
Yet Antarctica appears on World Maps from the fifteenth and even fourteenth centuries A.D.—hundreds of years before the discovery of Antarctica—and the continent, to add puzzle to puzzle, is shown ice-free! Of several such maps, ably described and discussed in ‘Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings /Evidence of Advanced Civilization in the Ice Age by Charles H. Hapgood, the one that illustrates the enigma very clearly is the 1531 Map of the World by Orontius Finaeus, whose depiction of Antarctica is compared to the ice-free continent as determined by the 1958 IGY. An even earlier map, from 1513, by the Turkish Admiral Piri Re’is, shows the continent connected by an archipelago to the tip of South America.
But as many who have studied these maps had concluded, no mortal seamen, even given some advanced instruments, could have mapped these continents and their inner features in those early days, and certainly not of an ice-free Antarctica. Someone viewing and mapping it from the air could have done it!
Yet, another puzzle for us to ponder over. Do we also know that seashells are found on mountain tops (even on Everest), Sahara Desert and such impossible places? I can attest to sea shells on Idanre hills, the highest peak in South West Nigeria. Evidence of sea inundations or deluge. Did the flood occur? Was Noah a historical figure? These are the questions begging for answers.
Fortunately, recent scientific evidence of the occurrence of the flood are now available. In a book named “Noah’s Flood: The New Scientific Discoveries about the Event that Changed History,” Walter Pitman and William Ryan, describe a flood that took place 7000 years ago, before the Biblical story was written by the ancient Hebrews.
There is also archaeological evidence of the Great Flood. One such significant piece of evidence was provided by the world-famous underwater archaeologist Robert Ballard. Only after 7000 BC when the ocean levels finally began stabilizing, did human life once more begin to return to normal. Is it a mere coincidence that our “recorded” history happens to start around this time? After all, it seems that as soon as the adverse climatic conditions receded, it did not take long for humans to thrive once again. Genesis 9:1 And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” It has come to pass and we are today 7 billion plus on Earth.
Noah is a highly important figure in Islam and he is seen as one of the most significant of all prophets. The Quran contains 43 references to Noah, or Nuḥ, in 28 chapters, and the seventy-first chapter, Sūrah Nūḥ, is named after him. His life is also spoken of in the commentaries and in Islamic legends.
Noah’s narratives largely cover his preaching as well as the story of the Deluge. Noah’s narrative sets the prototype for many of the subsequent prophetic stories, which begin with the prophet warning his people and then the community rejecting the message and facing a punishment.
Noah has several titles in Islam, based primarily on praise for him in the Quran, including “Trustworthy Messenger of God” (26:107) and “Grateful Servant of God” (17:3).[48][59]
The Quran focuses on several instances from Noah’s life more than others, and one of the most significant events is the Flood.
Our take away from the foregoing is that Noah was a historical figure who walked with God. He was a messenger sent to his people who refused to listen to him. This is contained in the Bible and the Quran: ‘We sent Nuh to his people and he said, ‘My people, worship Allah! You have no other god than Him. I fear for you the punishment of a dreadful Day.’ (Quran 7:59)
See also 71:1; 71:10; 23:23; 29:14; 26:105-110. On the attitude of unbelievers towards the Prophet Nuh (as) see, 26:111-115; 23:24 25. ‘Nuh, if you do not desist you will be stoned.’ (Quran 26: 116). But he replied to them in these verses 71:2-20; 11:27-31; 7:60-63; 11:32-34; 10:71: 11:36-39. Allah opened the gates of heaven with torrential water and made the earth burst forth with gushing springs…… a reward for him who had been rejected. (Quran 54:11-14)
So, We rescued him and those with him in the loaded ship. (Quran 26:119); 29:15. We left the later people to say of him: ‘Peace be upon Nuh among all beings!’ (Quran 37:75-79). And say: “O my Lord! Enable me to disembark with Thy blessing: For Thou art the Best to enable (us) to disembark.” Verily in this there are Signs (for men to understand); (thus) do We try (men). Then We raised after them another generation. (Quran 23:29-31)
Noah’s contemporaries had all sorts of chances and warnings. But they refused to believe and perished. But Allah’s Truth survived and it went to the next and succeeding generations. Will not mankind understand? We need to deeply reflect and contemplate. May Allah guide us and not let our ways lead us to perdition.
Barka Juma’at and a happy weekend.
Related
Islam
Friday Sermon: Stories of the Quran: Uzair (Ezra)
Published
2 weeks agoon
June 27, 2025By
Eric
By Babatunde Jose
Today’s sermon is taken from Stories of the Quran to exemplify the possibility and reality of bodily resurrection on the Day of Qiyyamah. The reality of the Day of Judgment speaks to the need for accountability in all that we do and the realization that no one will escape the judgment of Allah.
The story of Uzair is here used to epitomize the power and glory of God. He is the creator and ‘Master of the Day of Judgment’. Uzair questioned the possibility of resurrection and Allah made an example of him. He was made to die for a hundred years, resurrected and made to face his people who have all added a hundred years to their age since he left them. He was made to die at the age of 40 and had not added a day to his age when he was resurrected. His maid who was 20 was now 120 and his son who was 18 had grown to 118. Yet, Uzair was still 40. What a paradox. Allahu Akbar!!!
Allah the Almighty says:
Or (take) the similitude of one who passed by a hamlet, all in ruins to its roofs. He said: “Oh! How shall Allah bring it (ever) to life, after (this) its death?” But Allah caused him to die for a hundred years, then raised him up (again). He said: “How long didst thou tarry (thus)?” He said: “(Perhaps) a day or part of a day.” He said: “Nay, thou hast tarried thus a hundred years; but look at thy food and thy drink; they show no signs of age; and look at thy donkey: and that We may make of thee a Sign unto the people, look further at the bones, how We bring them together and clothe them with flesh.” When this was shown clearly to him, he said: “I know that Allah hath power over all things.” (Quran 2: 259)
Ishaq Ibn Bishr narrated that `Uzair was the man whom Allah caused to die for a hundred years, then raised up again. `Uzair was a wise, pious worshipper. One day, he went out to look after some of his properties, when he finished he passed by a ruined place where he was scorched by the blazing sun. So, he entered that ruined place riding on his donkey. He got off the donkey holding two baskets, one full of figs and the other full of grapes. He sat down and brought out a bowl in which he squeezed the grapes and soaked the dried bread he had therein. He ate thereof and then slept on his back, relying his two legs against a wall and started to gaze at the ceiling of the house. He saw some decomposed bones and said: Oh! How will Allah ever bring it to life after its death?
He did not doubt Allah’s Omnipotence to do this, but he said it in exasperation. Upon this, Allah the Almighty sent the Angel of Death who seized his soul, and thus Allah caused him to die for a hundred years. And, after one hundred years, Allah the Almighty sent to him an Angel who woke him from death. The Angel asked him saying: How long did you remain (dead)? He (the man) said: (Perhaps) I remained (dead) a day or part of a day; that he was caused to die in the afternoon and then was given life again by the end of day while the sun was still in the sky; that’s why he said: or part of a day i.e. not even a whole day. The Angel said: Nay, you have remained (dead) for a hundred years, look at your food and your drink i.e. the dried bread and the squeezed grapes that did not alter or turn bad, they show no change, and the grapes and the figs did not change as well.
As if he began to deny the matter by heart, the Angel said: Do you deny what I have said? And look at your donkey! He looked at his donkey and found his bones to be decomposed. The Angel called upon the donkey’s bones and they answered his call and gathered together from all directions till he was made whole again – while ‘Uzair was looking and he clothed them with flesh, skin and hair. Then, the Angel breathed life into it and it roused erecting his ears and head towards the sky thinking the Last Hour had come.
Then, he rode on his donkey back to his village where he seemed unfamiliar to the people and the people looked unfamiliar to him. Even so, he did not find his own house easily. When he reached the house, he found a crippled blind old woman at the age of one hundred twenty years old. She was a maid owned by him in the past and he left her while she was only twenty years old. He asked her saying: is this the house of ‘Uzair? She said: Yes, it is. She wept and said: Today, no one ever remembers `Uzair.
He told her that he was ‘Uzair and Allah the Almighty caused me to die for one hundred years then He gave me life again. She said: Glory is to Allah! We lost ‘Uzair one hundred years ago and never heard anything about him. He said: Verily, I am ‘Uzair. She said: ‘Uzair was a man whose supplications were acceptable by Allah the Almighty, so invoke Allah to return my sight to me to look at you, so if you were ‘Uzair, I would certainly know you’. Consequently, he invoked Allah the Almighty, then, he wiped over her eyes and they were recovered and took her by the hand and said: Stand up by the Leave of Allah! She stood up by the Leave of Allah. She looked at him and said: I bear witness that you are ‘Uzair.
Then, she set out for the Children of Israel in their meetings and gatherings and Uzair’s son who was about one hundred and eighteen years and she called them saying: This is ‘Uzair who came back to you. They believed her, but she said: I am so and so, your maid. He invoked Allah for me and He recovered my eyesight and legs. She added: he claims that Allah caused him to die for one hundred years and then He gave him life again. The people rose up and went to look at him. His son said: my father had a black mole between his shoulders. He disclosed his shoulders and they realized that he was ‘Uzair.
The Children of Israel said: ‘Uzair was the only one who committed the whole Torah to his heart and Bikhtinassar burnt it and nothing is left thereof but what the men can remember, so (if you are the true ‘Uzair) write it down for us. His father, Surukha, buried the Torah during that era of Bikhtinassar in a place known to nobody but ‘Uzair. Thus, he took them to that place and brought them out, but unfortunately, the papers were rotten and ruined. Consequently, he sat under the shade of a tree surrounded by the Children of Israel and he renovated the Torah for them.
He renovated the Torah for them in the land of As-Sawad. The town in which he died is said to be called “Sairabadh.” ‘Abdullah Ibn ‘Abbas (May Allah be pleased with him) said: Thus he was as said by Allah the Almighty: And thus We have made of you a sign for the people i.e. for the Children of Israel. That he was with his sons a young man among old people for he died when he was only forty and was revived at the same age and status. Allahu Akbar!!! – Stories of the Quran
Barka Jumuah and a happy weekend
Related

You drunken and confused lot! You who take delight and indulge in rivalry for wealth, children and the pleasures of this life, from which you are sure to depart! You who are absorbed with what you have, unaware of what comes afterwards! You who will leave the object of this rivalry, and what you seek pride in, and go to a narrow hole where there is no rivalry or pride! Wake up and look around, all of you! For indeed, “you are preoccupied by greed for more and more, until you go down to your graves.” – Sayyid Qutb: In the Shade of the Quran
Takathur, or Piling Up. In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. The mutual rivalry for piling up (the good things of this world) diverts you (from the more serious things), Until ye visit the graves. But nay, ye soon shall know (the reality). Again, ye soon shall know! Nay, were ye to know with certainty of mind, (ye would beware!) Ye shall certainly see Hellfire! Again, ye shall see it with certainty of sight! Then, shall ye be questioned that Day about joy (ye indulged in!) (Quran 102:1-8).
In this Sura people have been warned of the evil consequences of worshipping worldly possessions which leads them to greed and avariciousness an increases their propensity to acquire more and more of worldly wealth, material benefits and pleasures, position and power, till their death, and in vying with one another , bragging and boasting about their acquisitions. This one pursuit has so occupied them that they are left with no time or opportunity for pursuing the higher things in life.
They mortgage their soul on the altar of acquisitiveness. After warning the people of its evil end the Quran says: “These blessings which you are amassing and enjoying thoughtlessly, are not mere blessings but are also a means of your trial. For each one of these blessings and comforts you will surely be called to account in the Hereafter.”
In his Tafsir of the above Sura, Sayyid Qutb, the ‘Martyr’ says of the first two Ayah that the passion for piling up more and more has made the people heedless of God, of the Hereafter, of the moral bounds and moral responsibilities, of the rights of others and of their own obligations to render those rights.
They are only after raising the standard of living and do not bother even if the standard of humanity is falling. They want to acquire more and more wealth no matter how and by what means it is acquired. They desire to have more and more means of comfort and physical enjoyment and, overwhelmed by this greed, they have become wholly insensitive as to the ultimate end of this way of living. They are engaged in a race with others to acquire more and more of power, more and more of forces, more and more of weapons, and they have no idea that all these are means of filling God’s earth with tyranny and wickedness and of destroying humanity itself.
We are under the delusion that the abundance of the worldly goods and surpassing others in it, is real progress and success, whereas the opposite is the case. Soon you will know its evil end and you will realize that it was a stupendous error in which you remained involved throughout your life.
In several Hadiths it has been reported from the Holy Prophet (SAW) that the believers and the disbelievers, both will have to account for the blessings granted by Allah. However, the people who did not show ingratitude but spent their lives as grateful servants of Allah, will come out successful from the accountability, and those who proved thankless to Allah for His blessings and committed ingratitude by word or by deed, or by both; will emerge as failures.
The Holy Prophet (SAW) said: “By Him in Whose hand is my life: this is of the blessings about which you will be questioned on the Resurrection Day: the cool shade, the cool dates, the cool water.”
These Ahadith make it explicit that not only the disbelievers but the righteous believers too will be questioned. As for the blessings which Allah has bestowed on man, they are unlimited and countless. There are many blessings of which man is not even conscious.
The Qur’an says:
And He giveth you all that ye ask for. But if ye count the favors of Allah, never will ye be able to number them. Verily, man is given up to injustice and ingratitude.(Quran 14: 34).
Countless of them are the blessings which Allah has granted directly to man, and a large number of these are the blessings which man is granted through his own skill and endeavor.
About the blessings that accrue to man in consequence of his own labor and skill, he will have to render an account as to how he acquired them and in what ways he expended them. The man who claimed to possess 25 buildings and plots in choice parts of Lagos and Abuja will have questions to answer on the Day of Qiyamah, as will the banker who built an estate of over 753 buildings.
In respect of the blessings directly bestowed by Allah, he will have to give an account as to how he used them. And in respect of all the blessings, on the whole, he will have to tell whether he had acknowledged that those blessings had been granted by Allah and whether he had expressed gratitude for them to Allah with his heart, and by word and deed, or whether he thought he had received all that accidentally, or as’ a gift from many gods, or whether he held the belief that although those were the blessings of One God, in their bestowal many other beings also had a part, and for that very reason he had taken them as his gods and worshiped and thanked them as such.
That mutual increase in wealth diverts man is commented on by the Prophet (SAW) in the Hadith in which he said: (If the Son of Adam had a valley of gold, he would desire another like it…).
Imam Ahmad recorded from `Abdullah bin Ash-Shikhkhir that he said, “I came to the Messenger of Allah (SAW) while he was saying: The Son of Adam says, “My wealth, my wealth.” But do you get anything (of benefit) from your wealth except for that which you ate and you finished it, or that which you clothed yourself with and you wore it out, or that which you gave as charity and you have spent it)” Muslim, At-Tirmidhi.
Imam Ahmad recorded from Anas that the Prophet (SAW) said: ‘The Son of Adam becomes old with senility, but yet two things remain with him: greed and hope.’ Al-Bukhari and Muslim.
Then, shall ye be questioned that Day about joy (ye indulged in!). (Quran 102:8)
Meaning, on the Day of Resurrection, you all will be questioned concerning your gratitude towards the favors that Allah blessed you with, such as health, safety, sustenance and other things. You will be asked if you return His favors by being thankful to Him and worshipping Him.
Then, on that day (shall ye be questioned that Day about joy) you will be asked whether you gave thanks for all the bounties you enjoyed, of food, drink, clothing, etc’.
Bukhari, At-Tirmizi, An-Nasa’i and Ibn Majah narrated on the authority of Ibn ‘Abbas that the Messenger of Allah (SAW) said: “There are two blessings of which many people are deceived (i.e. about which they wrong or deceive themselves): Health and leisure time.” That is, they are slack, or negligent in giving thanks for them, neither making full use of them nor fulfilling their obligations in regard to them.”
It is reported from Abu Hurairah that the Prophet (SAW) said: “Allah will say (on the Day of Judgement): ‘O, son of Adam! I made you to ride on horseback and on the camel and I gave you wives and made you to rule and to sit upon thrones, and what thanks do you give for all that?’
This Surah reminds one of the story of the miserly and stingy rich man in Yusuf Olatunji’s ballad Oba Oluwa loni dede. After death, the rich man gets to heaven and meets his maker and God asks him ‘what have you brought for me’. The rich man was embarrassed and he replied, opening his palms ‘Lord, I have brought nothing. See my empty palms’. We come with nothing and will go with nothing.
O Allah we thank thee for all You have blessed us with. We recognize that it is not by our power but by Your Grace.
Barka Juma’at and a happy weekend.
Related


Akpabio Relieves Natasha of Committee Chairmanship Position, Appoints Akwa Ibom Senator As Replacement

Supreme Court Upholds Election of Monday Okpebholo As Edo Governor

Former NBA Star’s Wife Files for Divorce Six Months after Marriage, Seeks Equitable Sharing of Wealth

‘Overthrow’ Comment: Tinubu’ll Be Removed by Votes, Not Bullets, ADC Replies Presidency

Review Your New Visa Rules, Tinubu’s Govt Urges U.S.

Sick Female Inmate on Death Row: NGO Calls on Ekiti Gov, Others for Assistance

Atiku Debunks Reports of Meeting Where He Refused to Step Down for Southern Candidate

Adding Value: Start Small, and Grow Big by Henry Ukazu

Review of Nigerian Constitution: South East Demands Rotational Presidency

Imperative of the Battle Against Impunity

Government House, Agodi Ibadan: A Mind-Boggling Overhaul

Nigeria Loses $25bn Annually to Lack of Electricity – REA Boss

Osun Speaker, Hon Adewale Egbedun, Celebrates Stylish 40

Exit of a Safe Hand, Peter ‘Dodo Mayana’ Rufai (1963 – 2025)
Trending
-
Adding Value5 days ago
Adding Value: Start Small, and Grow Big by Henry Ukazu
-
Featured5 days ago
Review of Nigerian Constitution: South East Demands Rotational Presidency
-
Opinion5 days ago
Imperative of the Battle Against Impunity
-
Featured6 days ago
Government House, Agodi Ibadan: A Mind-Boggling Overhaul
-
National5 days ago
Nigeria Loses $25bn Annually to Lack of Electricity – REA Boss
-
Boss Of The Week4 days ago
Osun Speaker, Hon Adewale Egbedun, Celebrates Stylish 40
-
Featured4 days ago
Exit of a Safe Hand, Peter ‘Dodo Mayana’ Rufai (1963 – 2025)
-
Uncategorized3 days ago
Things Fall Apart Festival 2025: Chimamanda Adichie Calls for Igbo Unity, Honoured by ATPN