If there’s a God why’s there suffering

Auto-generated transcript: In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds. And peace and blessings be upon the honour of the Prophet and the messengers. And peace and blessings be upon the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and upon his family and companions. And peace and blessings be upon him, and upon his family and companions. And after that, my brothers and sisters, sometimes people who are atheists and people who don't understand, even sometimes, may Allah have mercy on us, Muslims who don't understand Islam, who have not taken the trouble to learn anything. They ask this question, they say that if there is a merciful God, if there is a merciful God, why is there suffering? If there is a God, or a merciful God, why is there suffering? Seems to be a... a reasonable question, if you look at it in one way. That's why I said, people who don't understand, ask this question. Because people who understand and know the Qur'an, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala mentioned very clearly, why there is suffering, despite the fact that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is there, and this is Haqqa. This is the truth. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, in Surah Ar-Rum, Zahara al-fasadu fil barri wal bahri, bi ma kasabat aydi al-nasi li yuziqahum ba'da alladhi amilu la'allahum yarji'oon. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, which means, the fasad, the trials, tribulations, difficulties, calamities, diseases, wars, all the orphans and widows, all the blood and gore, all that you are seeing. Zahara al-fasadu, jo fasad zahir hai, fil barri wal bahar, zameen pe aur paani pe, on the earth and on the oceans. bi ma kasabat aydi al-nasi, yeh insano ke haaton uska kia hua hai, yeh aapki mehnat ka sila hai. Allah said, this is the result of, and the fruits of what your hands have earned. Kasabat aydi al-nasi. Kasab, Urdu ka raaz bhi hai. Kasbe maash. Ayd, aydin, yadam, yada, is hand. Aydi al-nasi. Insano ke haat, kut ki. Bi ma kasabat aydi al-nasi. Now you might say, well, okay, so why doesn't Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala intervene? And why doesn't Allah change everything? Can He do it? Of course He can do it. Why doesn't He do it? Allah says, li yuziqahum ba'da alladhi amilu, la'allahum yarjihu. So that we can allow you to test the result of some of your deeds, so that you may turn towards Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Ta ke aap apne amal ka maza chakhe, thoda sa, chakhe, poora khaye nahi. Zaa'iqa, yuziqal, li yuziqal ladhi ba'da al-amilu, la'allahum yarjihu. Ta ke Allah ki taraf, Lord Almighty. So that you may turn towards Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. A good way to understand this is, say for example, the mother is cooking in the kitchen and the, imagine the old days when the stoves would be at the, floor level. So the mother is sitting there cooking and the little kid is trying to put his hand into the fire because the fire looks very nice. Right? Fires are extremely attractive. You look at it, the flames going up and down, the orange and the yellows and the colors and it's very nice to see. So the child doesn't understand what is a fire. So the child is constantly trying to put his hand into the fire and the mother keeps pushing him away, pushing, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it. Finally, one day, when the child tries to cook, when the child tries to cook, when the child tries to put his hand in the fire, the mother slaps him on the wrist. So when she slaps him on the wrist, it hurts. Right? So he starts crying. Yeah, my mother hit me. Why did she hit you? To prevent you from doing something which would have caused you far more pain. If she had not hit you and she had allowed you to put your hand into the fire, then you would have burnt. And the pain of burning is far, far more than the pain of being slapped on the wrist. So Allah says, we allow you to taste some of the result of your own deeds. Right? So people say, if there is a God, why is there suffering? There is suffering not because there is no God, there is suffering because you are not doing your duty. Another example, in America they have this practice, or this possibility, opportunity. You can go to the local police station and you can say that you would like to enroll for the ride-along program. So the ride-along program is, this is a police public, you know, PR thing they do, where they give you the opportunity to sit in the cruiser of a car, and you take the police officer and go with him on a shift. So you are riding along with the police officer. So you see whatever he sees, you are participating in whatever he is participating. So I did once in Florida, and we caught several people on the highway and gave them tickets. And the, so when I went there, the police officer I went with, Paul Bosco. So he, first of all he deputized me, he gave me a badge. And he says, you are legally, officially a deputy now. And then he gave me a bulletproof vest to wear. So his car, when I saw it, it was freezing cold inside. The AC was full on. So I said, look, we'll freeze in this. He said, no, put on this vest and you'll see. That's so warm, that bulletproof vest. So I'm wearing the bulletproof vest. And, so he said, now stay in the car. If anything happens, if I call you, then you have to come and you do whatever you need to do. So I had a weapon, I had all this. Now, we went to the highway and one guy he caught, who was speeding, then he gave me the radar gun. He said, now you point at the thing. And so he pointed at it, gives you the, instantly gives the reading of what he's doing. And he said, if he's going more than five miles over the speed limit, then the officer has the, you know, they allow five miles, but if it's 10 miles, or of course, if it's 20 miles, then you're dead. So it's, you know, we did that. Then we went to one place where there was some altercation in an old people's home. It was quite, in a way, sad and funny because there were these old people who were in this old people's home who had a fight between them. And they can barely walk and they're still fighting. So they had this, so I went to this. The reason I'm saying this is because, this is a good example of to understand this, this I am. Now imagine that you are sitting in this ride-along program, right? And you are parked in a place and there are a lot of stores and so on, jewelry stores and all kinds of stores. And the police officer is sitting with you, you are sitting in the car. And you see somebody who is breaking into one of the shops. He smashes the glass, he smashes the glass, and he is reaching in and he is pulling out stuff. And the police officer is saying, why is there crime if there is a government? See how bad the government is. See how bad the government is. Because if there is a government, why is there crime? What will you tell him? In that situation, what will you say to him? You will say to him, there is crime because you are sitting on your backside here. You should be catching the criminal. You should be doing something to stop that crime. You are not doing that. You are sitting here, even though you are wearing a uniform, even though you have been given the power to stop the crime, you are not doing that. You are not enforcing the law. And instead, you are blaming the government. You say, if there is a government, there is a government. That's why you are there. The government sent you, they gave you a badge, they gave you a salary, they gave you a position. They gave you all the ability to stop the crime. You do nothing. And then you say, if there is a government, why there is crime? It is insane. Completely insane. So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala sent us into this world. He didn't just throw us on the earth and say, buzz off. No. He didn't abandon us and say, okay, you are on your own, do whatever you want. No. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala sent us into this world and He sent a method of life. He sent a complete, blueprint. All we need to do is follow it. Right? Now we choose not to follow it. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala told us, this path is وَهَدَئِنَاهُمْ نَجْدَئِنَ Allah said, we have shown you both paths. This path leads to evil. This path leads to disease and it leads to suffering and it leads to death and it leads to wars. This other path leads to compassion, it leads to kindness, it leads to relief of pain, it leads to goodness, it leads to prosperity. Then what do we do? You deliberately choose the path which leads to all the evil and then when you are suffering you say, if there is a God, why is there suffering? There is suffering because you have garbage in your head. You don't want to listen. You don't want to understand. You don't want to use your brain which Allah has given you. You don't want to, you don't want to use the method or live by the method which Allah has given you. You want to invent your own method. You want to go completely against what Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said and then you say if there is a God. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala declared interest-based earnings and all interest dealings, all riba. Not only did He declare this to be haram, but Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala declared war on the one who deals in that. Right? Now, if you are in a war, you are fighting a war, what do you call the person who is on the opposite side? Friend or enemy? Eh? Friend or enemy? You fight with your enemy, so you are not fighting with your friend. So, when you are saying, when Allah is saying, I am declaring war against the one who is dealing in interest, which means what? If you are dealing in interest, Allah is your enemy. He is not your friend. Allah is your enemy. And who made the enemy? Yourself. Allah said, I am declaring. If Take the declaration of war. If you don't leave this interesting, if you continue with this, then take a declaration of war from Allah and His Nabi, the Prophet . So, we have accepted. We will do, we will deal with interest. We will continue with that.