8th ShehrAllah 1441 H
Al-Dai al-Ajal Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin RA stated, ‘the river of Kauthar is sweeter than honey, whiter than milk, colder than ice and softer than butter, with vessels made of gold, as many as the stars in the sky. It has two shores. Whoever drinks from it will never be thirsty again. Allah has made us the ones who drink from it’.
The word Kauthar has many meanings: a thing great in value and number, an abundance of good, a charitable person, a leader, Islam and nubuwat.
This surah was revealed when Rasul Allah SA was heading back following the burial of his shahzada Qasim. He passed by Amr b. Aas and Aas b. Waail. One of them told the other, ‘I bear great hatred towards Mohammed’. The second replied, ‘let him be for he has now become abtar (one with no posterity). At the moment, Allah revealed this surah, in which He decrees, ‘O Mohammed, we have given you Kauthar, pray for your Lord and sacrifice for him. Verily, it is your adversary who is devoid of posterity’.
Rasul Allah’s AS descendants are the Aimmat Tahereen AS through Maulana Ali AS and Maulatona Fatema AS. Some dispute the notion that a person’s matrilineal descendants can be attributed to them. However, in the Quran, Allah has stated that Nabi Eesa AS is from the descendants of Ibrahim Nabi AS through his respected mother, Maulatona Mariam AS.
Surah al-Mujadila, the 58th surah of the Quran has a total of 22 aayats, with each aayat containing Ism al-Jalalat (the word Allah). Allah is mentioned 38 times in this surah.
Today’s bayan focused on making choices. Man is in the position to make a choice. Sometimes the choices available to him are so many that he cannot make a decision. Generally, a person selects a choice that he feels will cause him happiness, benefit him and ensure that his desires are fulfilled.
In one verse Syedna Taher Saifuddin RA outlines the defining principle when it comes to making a choice. He writes that the happiness of Allah and His Wali has always remained by ultimate desire and wish. Thus for a Mumin, Maula’s happiness is the guiding factor whenever he is faced with making a choice.
Maulana Imam Jafar al-Sadiq AS states, ‘five things are considered good fortune: (1) a virtuous wife, (2) devoted children, (3) righteous companions, (4) one’s livelihood in his hometown, and (5) the mohabbat of Aale Mohammed AS.
The Quran Majid states that marriage is source of tranquillity, love and mercy. Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin RA and Syedna Mufaddal Saifuddin TUS have repeatedly stressed that when choosing a spouse, the defining criteria should be imaan. If imaan is given precedence then tranquillity, love and mercy will ensue. This consideration will also affect the state of one’s children and future generations.
Secondly, what choices should we make in the upbringing of our children? We should provide them with an upbringing in an imaani environment, ensure that we speak to them, and they to us in Lisan al-Dawat so that they may understand the waaz mubarak of Maula TUS. We should encourage them to do hifz al-Quran, attend Ashara Mubaraka with Maula TUS and make it a habit to go to Hazrat Imamiya regularly.
Imam Ahmed al-Mastur AS states, ‘Know, my brother, that when any field of knowledge or literature does not guide its seeker towards pursuing the hereafter or aid him in reaching it, it will yield dreadful consequences for him and stand as an argument against him on the Day of Qiyaamat’. If a field of study is pursued with Maula’s raza mubarak and with the intention of his khidmat then the pursuit is of the hereafter.
The third good fortune is friends and companions. Rasul Allah SA counsels, ‘enquire about your neighbour before purchasing a house and about your companion before embarking upon a journey’. Syedna Hatim RA guides Mumineen, ‘if you ever come across a sincere and righteous companion then cling on to him for such people are few and far between’.
The fourth good fortune is earning one’s livelihood in his hometown. One way to ensure this is to develop a business mindset that allows one to look for opportunities in his hometown.
The fifth and the most important of all is the mohabbat of Aale Mohammed AS. It is mohabbat that allows us to make the correct choices when it comes to the previous four good fortunes.
Whenever the zikr of Imam Husain AS is narrated, we repeatedly here the words that Imam Husain AS chose shahadat. Even though one’s family, one’s children, one’s companions and remaining in one’s hometown are indications of one’s good fortune, he showed us that upholding the tenets of Islam, ensuring the continuation of Imams and Duats and ultimately securing the salvation of humankind is the source of all good fortune for all eternity and for which he sacrificed all that he had been blessed with.
