by Aisha Loya | October 18, 2011
It’s interesting how a person can drown when they’re not actually in water.
Today I would like for you to play a little game with me. One of my teachers made me understand the essence of Surah Al Asr through imagery and boy did I understand the gravity of this tiny surah after the class was over.
Insha’Allah that is exactly what I intend to share with you. Of course, you cannot close your eyes but you can imagine these things as you read.
Imagine that you are drowning and you’re unconscious.
The fact that you’re drowning and are unconscious is a state of emergency because you’re out of time and you may die. The term used in the Qur’an to explain such a state of emergency, when you’re running out of time is Al Asr.
Now, what’s the first thing you need to do in order to survive? … Wake up!
Of course, without waking up, you’ll remain unconscious and die. You’ll be finished. So you need to… wake up.
Let’s suppose that whilst you were unconscious, you were having this amazing dream. You were driving a Porsche down Beverly Hills with palm trees as tall as the sky, amazing breeze, lots of cash for shopping or through beautiful mountain tunnels, enjoying life, enjoying the ride, taking whatever comes your way without discontentment. But when you wake up, what do you realize?
That you’re drowning.
Now if you wake up and say, ‘Oh man, this reality is bitter, I enjoyed my dream better, let me just go back to sleep’, what kind of a person would you be? Do I need to say it?
Yes, insanely stupid.
Could you blame anyone else for your stupidity? Of course not! You’re the one who chose to go back to sleep. You preferred that dream to reality.
Now, let’s imagine that you’re not insanely stupid and you decide to wake up. What do you need to do? You need to survive. You need to get your little drowning self to swim up to the top so you can live reality. Even if you don’t know how to swim, will you not flex every muscle in your body to make it to the top so you can breathe?
Finally, you get to the surface, you breathe in a fresh breath of air but unexpectedly, you get pulled down.
Again!? *Grr* Yes, again. Oh no, how come?
You realize that there’s a chain around your foot and Taha (your cousin, friend or some relative) is sleeping. He, too, is unconscious. This time you’re not drowning because of yourself, but thanks to your sleeping beauty, you cannot manage to get to the top.
So what do you have to do? Wake him up!
So now, you’re not waking him up so you can save him (though that can be a reason too) come on, be honest. You are waking him up so you can survive! At the moment, you’re worried more about yourself and rightfully so. Your priority is to help yourself first.
Now, as you try to wake difficult, heavy, extra-burden Taha up (no, kicking is not polite), he shoves you off, ‘Oh man, I was driving this Ferrari and eating gourmet food. Go away, let me sleep a little while longer, don’t wake me up for no reason.’
Can you say, ‘Fine, I didn’t like you anyway, sleep!’?
Can you afford to do that, even if you’re literally ‘dying’ to do it? No way and how come?
Because if he goes back to sleep, who’s going to die along with him?
Of course, in such a state of emergency, you will be more arrogant than Taha and want things your way and so you try again. You wake him up and try to give him a whiff (or in this case a gulp) of reality. And you’re going to keep trying and trying until he wakes up.
FINALLY! He wakes up with a grumpy attitude, ‘Ok I’m up, now what do you want me to do?’
And you say, ‘Let’s swim together up to the surface.’
Now, the two of you, go up to the surface and begin to breathe again until… *gasping*… you’re pulled down again by your father / brother / husband / sister / uncle / grandparent / childhood friend/someone!!
And this process continues. For how long?
Forever.
Such is the reality of life.
To sum this up, to survive you need to:
- Wake up yourself because you’re running out of time and facing personal loss.
وَالْعَصْرِ
“By Al-‘Asr (the time).”
إِنَّ الْإِنْسَانَ لَفِي خُسْرٍ
“Verily! Man is in loss”
- Once you realize your life is at stake you try to swim yourself to the surface by performing certain actions (swimming /floating/air kicks/froggy leaps/something!).
إِلَّا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَعَمِلُوا الصَّالِحَاتِ
“Except those who believe (in Islamic Monotheism) and do righteous good deeds…”
- Tell the people you’re tied to, the truth, the reality and make them swim up.
وَتَوَاصَوْا بِالْحَقِّ
“…and recommend one another to the truth (i.e. order one another to perform all kinds of good deeds (Al-Ma’ruf) which Allah has ordained, and abstain from all kinds of sins and evil deeds (Al-Munkar)which Allah has forbidden)…”
- Even if one of them gets tired, you keep on pushing, encouraging and persuading them to swim up and survive together. This is something you have to do, over and over again. It can happen that you get very tired but you’ve got to remain on course and you need to keep doing this because your own survival depends on this.
وَتَوَاصَوْا بِالصَّبْرِ
“…and recommend one another to patience (for the sufferings, harms, and injuries which one may encounter in Allah’s Cause during preaching His religion of Islamic Monotheism or Jihad, etc.).”
In the end, if you give up, every effort of yours goes down the drain multiplied by zero. You and the rest of your sleeping beauties may be made to wake up to an uglier reality.
Remember: In an army when there’s a man down or he’s tired and has lost hope, others pick him up and move on. Why? Because their survival depends on each other. There’s no man left behind.
Surah Al-Asr is a Makki surah. It’s interesting how we read it in our Salah (prayers) without even knowing the gravity behind it. This surah is amongst the shortest surahs of the Qur’an but it is so complex in nature. These 3 ayah’s (verses) teach us lessons which can change the whole meaning of one’s life. Imam Ash-Shafi’i said that if Allah had revealed only this surah to His Creation, it would have been enough for them.
The tragedy and the irony is that we know this surah by heart and we do recite it in our Salah (prayers) but usually only if we are running late for something like the movies/shopping. When Salah (prayers) is coming in the way, we tend to do a hit-and-run Salah by reciting this surah. Or maybe we’re watching TV and behind the TV there’s this Surah in calligraphy hanging while we’re flipping through the channels for hours and hours. And what is said in Salah or written on the portrait hanging on your wall?
وَالْعَصْرِ
“By Al-‘Asr (the time).”
إِنَّ الْإِنْسَانَ لَفِي خُسْرٍ
“Verily! Man is in loss.”
إِلَّا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَعَمِلُوا الصَّالِحَاتِ وَتَوَاصَوْا بِالْحَقِّ وَتَوَاصَوْا بِالصَّبْرِ
“Except those who believe (in Islamic Monotheism) and do righteous good deeds, and recommend one another to the truth (i.e. order one another to perform all kinds of good deeds (Al-Ma’ruf) which Allah has ordained, and abstain from all kinds of sins and evil deeds (Al-Munkar)which Allah has forbidden), and recommend one another to patience (for the sufferings, harms, and injuries which one may encounter in Allah’s Cause during preaching His religion of Islamic Monotheism or Jihad, etc.).”
Satan rejoiced when Adam (as) came out of Paradise, but he did not know that when a diver sinks into the sea, he collects pearls and then rises again.
~Ibn al-Qayyim
-Alhamdulillah and special thanks to my wise teacher for helping me understand this surah in such a way.-