This audio is brought to you by MuslimCentral.com

within their own lifetime or within sight. On the other hand, it's also a form of closure to be able to come to terms with why or why not, you know, and what what the purpose of is this and what purpose it serves in my life as a bringing me closer to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is this happening to me because of something that I've done. And when you're in the midst of a trial, it's a lot harder to grapple with those questions

when it's so much easier to give that advice to someone else when they're in it, you know, we grow up our whole lives reciting through the luhah, you understand the idea of a burden that is at some point lifted, but when you're in the midst of a trial, there are certain elements that can really bring all of those concepts into question and cause you to question yourself amongst them is the idea of Allah punishing me because of something that I might have done.

And that usually comes when there is some sort of prolonged nature to this test or trial, or when the trial comes when I feel like I was at the best state of my faith, you know, I feel like this was a time when I was doing everything right, and that's when this all came, or trials come, you know, in succession, and that's usually the way that it works, one hits you, and then the next one hits you, and the next one hits you, you start asking these questions like what have I done?

What did I do for this to happen? Is there some sort of punishment that is behind this? Is it some sort of disobedience that I have committed?

And a question that I get asked multiple times is how do I know if I'm passing the test, and this is really where I want to focus on inshallah to Allah towards the end of this khultbah, how do I know if I'm passing the test? I know I'm being tested, it's very obvious right now, how do I know if I'm passing this test from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala?

Now first and foremost, I want to cover this concept from the perspective of punishment, the reason being, because we have to actually ask the question, does Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala punish people in this life for their deeds?

Is this the place where punishment takes place? You read about nations of the past that were destroyed, but we know that this is not the norm of how Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala deals with nations,

and we host what we read about of those destroyed nations in the past. Overall, there's a loss of baraka, there's a loss of blessing, there could be destruction that comes upon a people of tyranny, and we know that tyranny provokes destruction in the long run, but at the same time, you don't see the immediacy that you hear about in the stories in the Quran.

So there are a few ayat, number one, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says,

Had Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala called them to account for what they have earned, then surely he would have hastened their punishment, of course, as in Surat al-Qaif, which we read every Friday.

If Allah was going to call them to account for what they had done, he would have certainly hastened their punishment.

What does that mean? Can you imagine the nature of our relationship with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala if we immediately faced consequences for our sins?

Believer, disbeliever, whatever it may be. If every single time you commit a sin, something bad happens to you, like you're wearing a device that shocks you with pain.

Every single time you commit a sin, but it doesn't work that way, because instead Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala delays you and gives you a chance to be reminded and to repent, and to actually turn that sin into a good deed,

because a sin that you repent from will ultimately show up in your book on the Day of Judgment as a good deed.

And Allah, as I said, says, this is for everyone.

If Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala delays you and gives you a chance to repent, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala delays you and gives you a chance to repent.

Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, if Allah were to seize mankind for their wrongdoing, for their transgressions, he would not leave on it a single moving creature,

meaning there would not be a single creature on earth that would be able to survive that, because we all slip sometimes.

No one would survive that type of relationship with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in this life.

None of us would get past that, but instead Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, he postpones them.

...