History Lessons from Allah

History Lesson 1:
When our power is the biggest, that is the time that Allah creates the conditions that destroys that power, Have you noticed this?

(Continue to read the previously related article here…)

Examples in history

If you study Hitler, when did he get hit? When he thought that everything was conquered and that he was the biggest and the best. And then what happened to Hitler? Do you think the Allies beat Hitler? The cold of Allah beat Hitler. His armies went to Russia and they froze to death. This same thing has happened to many other people. The Romans never thought that their empire would end until they were invaded by people whom the Romans considered their inferiors. Attila the Hun once said that everyone would fail except he. He managed to bring the Roman Empire to its knees yet he himself was defeated. The armies of Genghis Khan and his successors ruled much of Asia and Eurasia, encompassing a land what comprised more than the size of China and the former Soviet Union, but this empire died as well. The Ottomans thought nobody could beat them, that they were the biggest and the meanest. But they are gone now. It was once said that the sun would never set on the British Empire, but now the sun has set. All of the once great empires have died.

What else can we learn from a careful assessment of history?

History Lesson 2:
We can count through the ages and see that the conditions of human suffering repeat themselves over and over again and that these conditions arise from our nafs [selfish ego].

Nafs makes no distinction of religion, race, color or time in history.

Look at some of the examples we can take from history.

History Lesson 3:
In each case, we can see that those who forgot the presence of Allah and began to think of themselves as all-powerful, were forced by Allah to fall.

Many people are bothered by such events. Take the Jewish people for example. They react to the fact that Hitler did a lot of bad things to the Jews. Yet the part that many Jews refuse to acknowledge is that the suffering that Hitler brought was not just for the Jews, but for many other people as well. The Germans in World War II killed about 50 million people. Only six million of them were Jews. What lesson was Allah trying to give us from this experience? Hitler’s armies did not really care who it was that they destroyed, they just wanted to destroy. Allah did not make the Nazis do things. The Nazis wanted to do it. But we continued to ask, “Why didn’t Allah stop this?”

How many people asked Allah to stop it?

People thought that they could stop it themselves. It was only after they got into the war and realized how bad it was, that they asked Allah to stop it. The problem is that we should not have gotten into it from the beginning, but…

History Lesson 4:
…Allah allows us to do these things with the hope that we will learn something from them.

History Lesson 5:
The point is that we seem to forget the “Allah Factor” in our worldly affairs. We have to remember this in our government affairs, national affairs, local affairs and personal affairs.

History Lesson 6:
Allah is part of our lives. We cannot avoid this and we cannot close our eyes to it.

Qur’an References

So relate to them the history (of the communities of the past), to give them the opportunity to reflect and contemplate. (Al A’raf:176)

It may be that your Rab [Lord] will show you mercy and kindness, but if you repeat the crime, so will We repeat the consequence, and We have appointed Jahannam [Hell] as a prison for the kafirin [unbelievers]. (Al Isra:8)

Do you think We will treat those who believe and do good deeds the same as those who spread corruption on earth? Likewise, do you think We will treat those who act with taqwa [self-vigilance] the same as We treat the wicked? (Sad:28)

O you who believe, when you meet an opposing force, hold firm and do zikr [repeated remembrance with contemplation] of Allah much, so that you will reach salvation. (Al Anfal:45)

And without a doubt, We have displayed to human beings in this Qur’an all kinds of examples with lessons, but most human beings refuse them and insist on disbelief. (Al Isra:89)

There is no doubt that, from the examples in the stories of their lives, there is a lesson for ulul albab [people of understanding and mature discernment]. This is not a fabricated story, but a confirmation of the prior scriptures, and a detailed delineation of everything, and a guidance and mercy for people who believe. (Yusuf:111)

More references here…

This is a continuation of the edited excerpt of the newsletter, Call of the Divine, Vol.8 No.3 (April 2002). Both the article and the translation of the Qur’an verses are from Murshid Shaykh Taner Vargonen Ansari. Published here on February 28, 2024.

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