With the Noble Prophetic Hadith
The believing slave between two fears: .... a past term, and a remaining term!!
We greet you all, dear listeners, everywhere. We meet you in a new episode of your program "With the Noble Prophetic Hadith" and we begin with the best greeting and the purest peace. Peace, mercy, and blessings of God be upon you. After:
On the authority of Jabir bin Abdullah, may God Almighty be pleased with them, who said: The Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, used to give a sermon on Friday, and after praising God and praying for his prophets, he would say: “O people, you have landmarks, so stop at your landmarks, and you have an end, so stop at your end. Indeed, the believing slave is between two fears: a term that has passed, and he does not know what God has done with it, and a term that remains, and he does not know what God will decree in it. So let the slave take from himself for himself, and from his world for his hereafter, and from youth before old age, and from life before death. By the One in Whose hand is the soul of Muhammad, there is no repentance after death, and after this world there is no abode except Paradise or Hell.” (Al-Qurtubi mentioned it in his interpretation).
The pre-Islamic rhetoric did not care about order and sequence, and did not address the conscious and insightful mind, but rather it was like a cry of an enthusiastic person shouting it in public. Then the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, came and brought about a great revolution in rhetoric, both in form and content: As for form, in terms of its appearance, it is bright, clean, with a full voice and eloquent words that win hearts just by seeing and hearing it. This formal appearance of the speaker bestows upon him awe and acceptance in people's souls. As for content, brevity prevailed in the Prophet's sermons, and brevity is conveying many meanings with few words, and from here the comprehensiveness of speech spread in his sermons, may God bless him and grant him peace. His sermons, peace and blessings be upon him, were characterized by seriousness in presenting ideas and the power of persuasion, so that they left no room for an opponent. The source of persuasion is the warmth of sincerity and devotion to the message, and the strength of his belief in it. Therefore, you find his sermons arranged in words, with consistent meanings and clear structures, like a ladder whose steps lead to each other until it reaches the desired goal.
His sermons, may God bless him and grant him peace, were distinguished by the brilliance of the exordium, and he began this sermon with a call that included an alert to the listener and attracted his attention, so he, peace and blessings be upon him, said: “O people, you have landmarks, so stop at your landmarks, and you have an end, so stop at your end.” He began the call with his saying: "O people"; so that the speech would be general to all people in every time and place. His saying, peace and blessings be upon him: "Landmarks": singular: "landmark", which is the trace that is used to indicate the path, and it is an explicit metaphor where he likened the commands and prohibitions of religion to the signs that a person uses to guide him on his path so that he does not get lost, and he omitted the thing being likened and stated the thing being likened to. The secret of its beauty is the embodiment of the meaning and its presentation in a tangible form. He chose the word "landmarks"; to indicate the impact of religion in guidance and direction, and it contains a psychological indication specific to the residents of the desert, where confusion and loss are common, and the value of landmarks appears in reaching the goal safely. He added "landmarks" to the pronoun of the addressees, saying: "your landmarks"; to suggest that religion only came to guide them. You also feel that in his saying: "for you" and his saying: "your end". The structure of the paragraph alternates between the declarative and the injunctive: As for the declarative, they are nominal sentences affirmed with the letter of emphasis "that" that act as fixed rules, such as his saying, peace be upon him: "Indeed, the believer is between two fears." As for the injunctive, they are real imperative verbs that require following the rule being ordered, such as his saying, peace and blessings be upon him: "So stop" and his saying: "So let him provide."
Then he, may God bless him and grant him peace, said: "Indeed, the believing slave is between two fears: a term that has passed, and he does not know what God has done with it, and a term that remains, and he does not know what God will decree in it." In this statement, there is an explanation of the person's position in this world, as he stands between two things: a past behind him, and he does not know whether he has attained God's pleasure in what he has presented in it or not. And an unknown future ahead of him, he does not know what God will do with him in it; So he is from his past and his future between two fears, both of which require the utmost vigilance and attention.
He, peace and blessings be upon him, expressed the human being with his saying "the slave"; to indicate his servitude to God, which feels weakness and requires obedience. The one who lives between two fears is the true slave who knows the meaning of faith. The Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, expressed the past and future of life with his saying "two fears"; to send awe in people's souls so that they are on guard. The Messenger, may God bless him and grant him peace, portrayed the slave in his life as living between two fears, and the word "between" indicating the place transferred the mental meaning to a vivid and realistic image, as if the past and the future are two tangible bodies between which the slave stands, seeing them standing before your eyes. The expression contains suspense stemming from "detailing after generalizing" where the meaning came generally in his saying: "Indeed, the believing slave is between two fears," then he detailed the two fears after that.
The paragraph is built on the contrast between: "past and remaining" and "maker and judge" with equal number of words in each of the two sentences. This is what is known as parallelism. And the saying of the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace: "So let the slave take from himself for himself, and from his world for his hereafter, and from youth before old age, and from life before death." In it is an explanation of what a person must do, and he, peace and blessings be upon him, mentioned four things: The first: to prevent himself from some of what he loves, and to carry it on some of what he hates within the limits of Sharia. The second: to reduce the demands of this world; to add to his good deeds that will benefit him in the hereafter. The third: to seize his youth, and to present in it of righteous deeds what he may be unable to do in his old age. Fourth: to seize the opportunity of life, and to do in it what brings him closer to his Lord before death overtakes him.
The paragraph is a continuation in elaborating by clarifying what a person must take from his world for his hereafter, and from his youth for his old age. It is an injunctive sentence that used the real imperative form to oblige the slave to its content. The declarative sentence confirmed in the previous paragraph was suitable: "Indeed, the believer is between two fears" is in the position of the result of the cause. Among the rhetorical enhancements that the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, used in this sermon: "antithesis," which is bringing the word and its opposite, and its benefit is to highlight the meanings by contrast. Among the examples of antithesis is his saying, peace and blessings be upon him: (his world, his hereafter) and his saying: (youth, old age) and his saying: (life, death).
The Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, concluded this sermon by confirming what preceded it, so he swore that if a person dies, his hope ends, and no opportunity remains for him to make up for what he has missed, or to apologize for his sins, but rather he has reward, or punishment: Paradise if he is a doer of good, and Hell if he is a wrongdoer. So he, peace and blessings be upon him, said: "By the One in Whose hand is the soul of Muhammad, there is no repentance after death, and after this world there is no abode except Paradise or Hell." The oath is a method of emphasis that suggests God's power and control over souls. And his saying: "By the One in Whose hand is the soul of Muhammad" is a metonymy for a described one, who is God, glory be to Him.
And his saying "in His hand" is a metaphor of causation about power, its relationship being causation. And his saying: "repentance" He repented and pleased in the same sense, which is: he pleased him after he had offended him, and it is also said: He repented: in the sense of asking to be pleased. It is genitive with "from" indicating partiality, in an expression that suggests scarcity, meaning: not even one repentance. The Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, used the method of restriction with "what and but"; to restrict the destiny to one of the two matters mentioned after it, there is no third for them, and calls for judging the mind when choosing, Paradise or Hell.
This text is a type of religious rhetoric, and the sermon included a short introduction "O people" followed by a presentation of the topic based on repetition, elaboration, persuasion, and inclination, and the conclusion came «By the One in Whose hand is the soul of Muhammad, there is no repentance after death, and after this world there is no abode except Paradise or Hell». And in it is a summary of the goal of the sermon. The Prophet's rhetorical style was distinguished by artistic characteristics, the most important of which are: ease, clarity, persuasion, enjoyment, and diversification between declarative and injunctive.
Dear listeners: We thank you for your kind listening. Our appointment with you is in the next episode, God willing. Until that time and until we meet you always, we leave you in God's care, protection, and security. Peace, mercy, and blessings of God be upon you.
Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut-Tahrir Radio
Professor Muhammad Ahmad Al-Nadi - Jordan Province - 9/21/2014 AD
