Weekly Sermons

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					Who could ever presume to extinguish the light of guidance that God Himself has brought into being? History is filled with scenes of destruction showing how those who sought to put out that light were themselves overwhelmed and swept away. The Qur’an conveys this with striking eloquence, describing how people of insignificant stature, committing grave offenses far beyond their measure, collapsed along the path of rebellion they had chosen: “They seek to extinguish the light of God with their mouths, but God wills nothing other than to bring His light to completion, even though the disbelievers may detest it”<a href="#_edn1" name="_ednref1">[1]</a>
The attempts of those steeped in denial and rebellion to extinguish or render futile the divine light are expressed in the verse through the verb yurīdūn (“they seek”). Because this verb is in the present tense, it points not only to the past but also to the present and the future. In other words, throughout history there have always been those who felt disturbed by the light of revelation and sought to block its path; just as this has been so until now, it will continue to be so in the future. These darkened souls, hostile to light, do not want the divine radiance to illuminate its surroundings. For this reason, they will obstruct those who serve it, try to sabotage their efforts, and attempt to shut down the institutions established in the name of that service. They will trip up devoted souls who run to light the candles of others, seeking to divert them from their paths or even to eliminate them altogether.
They are so fixated on evil that they will attack innocent people, take pleasure in the oppression they inflict, and no matter how many they strike down, they will never be satisfied. They will persist in their excesses until no one is left standing. These corrupters, having learned their lessons from Satan, will employ every kind of deceit and conspiracy to extinguish the lights that are burning. If a malicious thought occurs to them at night, they will not wait for morning; if a scheme comes to mind during the day, they will not wait for night. They will carry it out at once.
Yet no matter how relentlessly they blow, using all their strength and every means at their disposal to extinguish the light of God, they will never fully achieve their aim. For, as the saying goes, “A candle lit by the Lord cannot be put out by mere breath.” Indeed, with the continuation of the verse—“But God wills nothing other than to bring His light to completion”—it is proclaimed that the Almighty will render all their efforts futile. The verse allows us to say, in effect: “Wretched people! You struggle in vain; your labor is wasted. For the transcendent will and sacred purpose of the Almighty will manifest in bringing His light to completion. He will unravel the schemes of those who seek to extinguish it, overturn their plans, and make them know their limits.” And so it has always been. No matter how hard the ungrateful strive, God has caused their plots to recoil upon themselves and, each time, has brought His light to completion.
In the Age of Bliss, darkened souls who were disturbed by the light kindled by the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) mobilized all their strength to extinguish it. Yet the Pride of Humanity, utterly devoted to his sacred calling, did not allow himself to be hindered. He cast worldly pleasures and comforts beneath his feet and, turning night into day, continued to spread that divine light without pause. And what was the outcome? As Mehmet Âkif so powerfully expressed: “Weakness, whose only right was to be crushed, rose to its feet; oppression, which never imagined its own end, perished.” Those who subjected the Messenger of God to every form of torment were toppled one by one, to the point that their names are no longer even remembered. Yet the light he disseminated and the delicate lacework of wisdom he wove still gleam vividly before our eyes. Nothing truly ended when the unbelievers and the wicked of that day declared, “It is finished.” Even if the sun and the moon were temporarily eclipsed, they did not set; when their season returned, they continued to shine. And by God’s permission and grace, they will continue to do so until the end of time.
If your life endures, you will see it for yourselves: the temporary eclipse experienced in our own time will also pass, and the moon will rise once again as a full moon—halo and all. The darkened spirits of today, unable to extinguish God’s light, will suffer one fiasco after another, writhing in disappointment and inner collapse. For, “God does not gladden the heart of the one who truly knows Him with worldly joys; nor does the Master abandon His accepted servant to his own devices.”
When that day comes, you may even find yourselves pitying their wretched state. You will pity them because they failed to use their energy and dynamism for truth and justice, because they did not draw close to those who served faith with sincerity, and thus lost out precisely at the moment when true gain was possible. You will pity them because they could not place the world beneath their feet, became stuck in it instead, and darkened their inner worlds within pitch-black palaces. You will grieve and say, “If only they had not clung so tightly to the world, to rank and position, to fame and prestige! If only they had used their means not to extinguish God’s light, but to make it shine more brightly—and thus found salvation!” Yet how tragic it is that today they are not even aware of how utterly they are tumbling headlong.
Those aggressors who persist in trying to extinguish the candle lit by the True One are so locked into evil that they devise new conspiracies every day, employing schemes that would not even occur to Satan, all to divert people of the cause from their path. Through their oppression and wrongdoing, they inflict every kind of pain upon them and try to make life unbearable. Yet one point, alluded to by the following verse—though revealed in a different context—is of great importance for your situation: “If you are suffering, surely they too are suffering just as you are; but you hope from God for what they do not hope”.<a href="#_edn2" name="_ednref2">[2]</a> As the Qur’an makes clear, the pain and anguish endured by oppressors in this world are not less than those borne by the oppressed. However, there is a crucial difference: the suffering the oppressors will face in the Hereafter will be far greater than anything they experience here. For those who have devoted themselves to the path of God and sought His pleasure and approval, there is no such thing as loss. While oppressors depart for the Hereafter burdened with heaps of violated rights, the innocent and the wronged go forth as claimants, not losers.
None of us has endured the hardships that the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) endured. His life unfolded amid trial and suffering. At Uhud, his blessed head was wounded and his tooth was broken. Those dearest to him fell to the ground one by one. His beloved uncle, Hamza (may God be pleased with him), was martyred; Mus‘ab ibn ‘Umayr, after losing his arms, offered his life as a shield. Many others who stood as a protective barrier around the Prophet were likewise martyred, one after another. All of this, without doubt, wounded the Messenger of God deeply. Yet there was a profound source of consolation for him—and for the noble Companions as well: they knew that those who were martyred would enter Paradise, that they had passed from a world of hardship into a realm of fidelity. They believed that after this temporary worldly life, they would be reunited with them in the hereafter, hand in hand, and be honored with the vision of the Almighty on the slopes of the Day of Gathering. When this is the truth, could what befell them truly be regarded as a loss?
As spiritual luminaries such as Muhyiddin Ibn al-‘Arabi and Imam Rabbani have noted, believers who have given their hearts wholly to God may, at times, receive a greater share from manifestations of divine majesty than from manifestations of divine beauty. This is because, in moments of trial and affliction, they turn toward the Almighty more intensely and implore Him with deeper sincerity. Even in ordinary times, they preserve their moral compass and maintain their bond with their Lord. Yet when confronted with manifestations of divine majesty, they experience a more acute metaphysical tension and direct themselves toward God with greater earnestness and intimacy. The Almighty, in turn, does not leave such supplications unanswered. As stated in the Qur’anic verse, God responds to the prayer of the one who is utterly constrained. A sacred hadith likewise declares that He is with those whose hearts are broken. Indeed, according to a beautiful saying transmitted as hadith, He turns His gaze toward sorrowful and grief-stricken hearts and honors them with His nearness.<a href="#_edn3" name="_ednref3">[3]</a>
Is it not enough honor for a believer, having forgotten all the hardships of this world, to walk into Paradise while receiving greetings from the Most Merciful Lord?
<a href="#_ednref1" name="_edn1">[1]</a> Surah al-Tawbah, 9:32.
<a href="#_ednref2" name="_edn2">[2]</a> Surah al-Nisāʾ, 4:104.
<a href="#_ednref3" name="_edn3">[3]</a> See also: General discussions of divine trials and spiritual consolation in classical Islamic spirituality and Qur’anic exegesis, particularly al-Sakhāwī, al-Maqāṣid al-Ḥasanah, vol. 1, p. 169, which cites reports indicating that God is with the brokenhearted; and al-Manāwī, Fayḍ al-Qadīr, vol. 2, p. 69, which transmits and comments on the same meaning concerning divine closeness to the sorrowful.
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A Candle Lit by the Lord Cannot Be Extinguished by Breath