The Temporary Nature of This World - 11/29 - 30 Verses For 30 Days 2022
Verse 24 of Surah Yunus
Salamun ʿalaykum dear brothers and sisters and welcome to the 11th clip of this month of Ramadan.’ InshaAllah in this clip we're going to discuss verse 24 from Surah Yunus.
Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala in this verse gives us an analogy of our lives in this world and the dunya as a whole. He says, “Innama mathalu al-hayat id-dunya kamaʾin anzalnahu mina as-samaʾ” (10:24). The life in this world, the dunya, if you want to think about the dunya, think about a valley in which there are crops and there are plants, and Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala sends the rain upon this valley. So what happens when the rain comes down? “[...] fa-khtalata bihi nabatu al-ardh”(10:24) the plants take from this water and they slowly start to grow. And the verse says: “hatta idha akhadhati al-ardhu zukhrufaha wa azzayyanat” (10:24).
And then it reaches a point where it's so beautiful. Imagine you go from a valley to a place where now it's turned into a garden. And you have beautiful flowers and you have beautiful trees. And Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala says that then all of a sudden, when things are looking so green and so beautiful, this garden is only gonna live for a short period of time: “ hatta idha ja'a amruna” (11:40), then our order commands, and we wrap up this garden and things are done.
The analogy Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala is giving, is that life in this world is of the same type. You are in a situation, where you see this potential in front of you. You are that valley waiting for water, and you see that potential in front of you. So Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala blesses you: He blesses you with youth, He blesses you with talents, He blesses you with strength, and you start to work on yourself, and you start to prepare your life.
And finally, when you get to a point, where you now finally feel like you are settling down and everything is finally falling into its place: you got your job, you got your family, everything is settled down now. Then He says, Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala's command comes, that now the life is supposed to start to wrap up. And it's a very odd feeling, because this is exactly what we experience in this world.
If you look at the life, the way it works: until the time where you're getting settled down, you're not really settled down, you're trying to put things together. Then when you finally settle down, what happens? Then old age starts to show up, illnesses start to show up, a lack of strength starts to show up and the problems of old age start to show up. And Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala says, this is how I have created this dunya. You're not supposed to fully settle down here. Meaning, mentally speaking, you have to always remember it's temporary.
It's okay to work for all those things that we talked about: your career, your job, your house, your family, whatever. But you have to remember, that before you can fully settle down, and really enjoy all of these things, before you know it, this life is gonna come to an end. So you always have to remember that this life is temporary. It's like that garden that gets some rain, it grows for a little bit and then before you know it, it's turned yellow and everything has gone bad again.
This is [what] Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala says: this is how the life in this world is. It is extremely temporary. And you and I are looking for that moment, where this garden turns green, and Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala is saying: that moment, where this garden and turns green is gonna be a very short-lived moment. Don't be upset, when it starts to turn yellow again; that is the decree of Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala because He has something greater in mind for us and that is the life in the Hereafter.
