Summary: When hardship befalls you, how do you figure out if it's a test or punishment from Allah?<br> <br> Punishments versus tests Reference: Surah-e-Aal-e-Imran Aayah no. 165<br> <br> Aaudhu billahi Minash-Shaitaun-nir-rajeem<br> Awa lamma asawbatkum museebatun qad asawbtum mithlaiha, Qultum Anna hatha. Qul huwa min indi anfusikum. Innallahha ala kulli shai-in qadeer.<br> Translation: What! When a misfortune befell you and you had certainly afflicted (the unbelievers) with twice as much, you began to say, whence is this? Say, it is from you; surely Allah has power over all things.<br> Rabbish-rawh-li-sawdri, wa yassir li amri, wahlul-uqdatam-millisani-yafqahu qowli.<br> Falhamdulillah, wassalatu, wassalmu ala Rasulillah, wa-ala aalihi wa ashabihi ajmaeen.<br> <br> Assalamualaikum Quraan Weekly<br> I wanted to share this one Aayah with you for a very particular purpose, Aayah no 165-Surah-e-Aal-e-Imran. A lot of people ask questions about, why Allah s.wt. put them through difficulty and it is a very difficult question. They wonder, what did they do to deserve this difficulty, is it something they did bad or this is just Allah’s decree to put them through a certain test, how do they know which one is it. Some people, whenever something bad happens to them, they blame themselves, thinking they must have done something, been bad to their parents or missed a prayer, that’s why they have met an accident for e.g., they correlate things from unseen to the seen realm.<br> These are some of the aayahs which help us understand, so on the one hand Allah says like in this aayah “Awa lamma Asawbatkum Museebatun Qad Asabtum Mithlaiha”, when at the Battle of Uhud, when Muslim had difficulty and the calamity had hit you, the likes of which you had already dished out to the enemy before “Qad Asawbtum Mithlaiha” twice that you did that damage to the enemy the year before “Qultum Anna Hadha” You said how could this happen “Qul huwa min indi anfusikum” tell them this is because what you have within yourselves, this happened specifically because of you, it’s your fault exclusively “InnAllah ha Ala kulli shai-in Qadeer”, indeed Allah is capable of everything. if He hadn’t wanted it to happen, He would have stopped it but He let it happen because it was the result of your actions exclusively.<br> In Qura’an at other places, Allah says “Ma’a Asawba bilmuseebatin Illa bi-idhnillah ( no calamity hits you or strikes you except for Allah’s permission). So how do you reconcile two things, on the one hand it’s your fault and on the other hand, everything is by Allah’s permission. I want to share this concept very briefly so that it becomes clear to all. So for e.g. when you drive a car over the speed limit and swerving b/w the lanes and then you get into a car accident, you don’t get to say in this situation that it was bound to happen because Allah wanted me to have met this accident, it’s the qadr of Allah, whenever He wants us to meet a calamity, it will happen, you don’t get to say that in this situation, because this was clearly a result of your shortcoming or negligence, so you can’t blame the decree of Allah s.w.t in this case.<br> On the other hand, there are things which are clearly and entirely out of your control, e.g. some issues related to your health might be completely out of your control or issues related to death in a family, even a car accident may not be because of your negligence, it might be someone else’s fault or you losing your job, or your business failing might not be because you did something wrong, or a natural disaster in which you or your loved one got stuck in. These are some of the examples in which there is no one to blame here. The things which go wrong in which you have no control or contribution, you can believe that this is a test from Allah s.w.t., it’s not a punishment. In this world, when Allah s.w.t gives punishments, He gives them when the prophets come and He destroys nations ...
