Ramadan 10/31/03, Surat Al-Hajj

Allah (swt) begins to tell us about the event that is most momentous, one he wants us to be conscious of.
The zalzalah - trembling of the earth. Fear your Lord - be Allah conscious, be mindful. Protect, shield your hearts, selves from the grip of nafs and shaiytaan. Taqwaah is all that counts. "the earthquake of the Hour is a tremendous thing." (22.01) "On the day when ye behold it, every nursing mother will forget her nursling and every pregnant one will be delivered of her burden, and thou (Muhammad) wilt see mankind as drunken, yet they will not be drunken, but the wrath of Allah will be strong (upon them)." *Every* pregnant being will let go. Imagine the stress and fear. The nursing mother will give up their infant. For a female to naturally abort. The fear is beyond our comprehension.

Suratul Hajj also tells us of the end of our hajj, the journey of our life. It's not a coincidence that here is told about the journey of hajj, and associated with the end of the journey of man. We are to always be in a state of readiness, and to leave; to journey with our hearts. Al Hajj begins with a reminder of the ultimate earthquake. The only protection from the calamities of this indescribable action are taqwaah.

Connect your hearts. Stop connecting every bit of your heart to every part of dunya.

Taqwaah is arming, protecting your qalb from too much orientation to other than Allah. Change of discourse; you'll still find people who don't believe at all.

Then Allah tells us about those who believe, but are standing on an edge. Whichever way the wind blows. Allah says - what puts this person on the edge? For this individual, if he/she is graced in something good, he or she feels comforted. The means become the attachment; the source of the comfort is the means. Joys of the world, friends, whatever - there is comfort having it while it was there. It became the source of the heart's attachment. When those toys/friends/power aren't present, we feel a loss of that comfort; are anxious, depressed, angry.
We believe in Allah; when there is affliction by trial; we should turn into our faith. But when the person on edge is tested by conditions that would make that person tested in his or her faith, they read/hear ideas of sorts. Waver from ibadah to no ibadah because they experienced something that made them *doubt*. Losing everything - dunya and hereafter.

Fitnah: can be emotional, intellectual, philosophical, concerning diseased hearts. Later in the same surah:



There are types of people whose quloob are sick, spiritually, morally; they don't see the truth as truth, can't put things in the right perspective.
For people whose heart is ill, it will make them worse; Anything makes it worse, because it's weak. Fitnah only makes it worse. (By different views that shed doubt).
Allah tells us later - Don't they walk on earth and have hearts with which to comprehend? When Allah speaks about comprehension and wisdom, he speaks of the qalb as the seat of comprehension. It's not the eyes that go blind, it's the heart. When our quloob are sick, then even the way we interpret the world will be affected by that inclination. If we lose the faculty of our hearts, we lose the balance of our reasoning. Reasoning about truth - is characterized by the state of our hearts; to recognize shirk or tawheed, selfishness or truthfullness. To be balanced or imbalanced; how we see the world is from our qalb. Anger - you can't make a proper judgment, nor can your heart.

Another call to mankind at the end of the surah:
"Those on whom, besides Allah, ye call, cannot create (even) a fly, if they all met together for the purpose! and if the fly should snatch away anything from them, they would have no power to release it from the fly."
Stuff that you attach your heart to, those that you take as sources of imploration, instead of Allah; the worship of idols within us and outside us. They will not create a fly - even if they all came together. The fly is one of the simplest genetic compositions to study, and sceintists study the fruit fly all the time, to learn the genome. Allah referred to this 14 centuries ago, the fly, now under intense research, the simplest to understand.
"and if the fly should snatch away anything from them" - the seeker is weak, the sought after is weak.