Allah says this town that used to live on the coast by the way if it's a coastal town then you can already imagine
use your minds their economy depends on the sea they're fishermen.
They do trade or ships embark on their docks and they do trade with them.
Or they go out and get their food from the ocean so that's already understood and Allah says
"They used to violate in the matter of the Sabbath." Meaning they carried on doing their business
even when Allah told them not to on Saturdays. This was the time where they're not supposed to do it, but they would do it.
And why would they do so? Why would they violate the Sabbath they have six other days to earn their income or their fish.
So He says {إِذْ تَأْتِيهِمْ حِيتَانُهُمْ يَوْمَ سَبْتِهِمْ شُرَّعًا} [07:163]
on the day of Saturday when it's impermissible for them to go fishing {شُرَّعًا} actually suggest that the fish would actually come to them
{تَأْتِيهِمْ حِيتَانُهُمْ} they don't have to go to the fish. The fish are coming to them. Blinking at them
"Hey you want to catch me? It's easy catch today." And they're jumping up and down.
They're doing like flips in the air "Like man this is easy catch." On Saturdays the fish would come out like it's a festival.
And other days {وَيَوْمَ لَا يَسْبِتُونَ ۙ لَا تَأْتِيهِمْ} the days that they don't have Saturday the fish don't come easy.
They don't come to them. It's not like they had no fish to catch. They could still catch. But it wasn't easy.
But on Saturdays it was super easy. It would come to them. The fish would run towards them.
And these are Muslims by the way. They are Muslims. Now imagine by analogy so it's closer to your and my context
imagine that you run a store you have a store and you get no customers you get like two customers a day most of the time
you are sitting there playing crossy road or something on your phone you do nothing no customers show up
and then it's like one o'clock or 13:15 13:15 you leave your store and you head towards the ‏مسجد
by 13:45 the prayer is going to start and you going to be back by three o'clock
but every single week, 12:45 30, 40, 50 customers start just coming through the door and they're buying everything.
Stuff you're trying to sell for 6 months, nobody's touched it. They're putting everything in the cart and they're buying.
And then Friday prayers getting late and then you say "No you can't buy right now."
"Oh yeah forget it. I won't buy it now." And you don't see them again until next Friday right exactly for the time of the prayer.
Other than that you get maybe 10% sales. 90% of the sales happen right as Friday prayer is coming.
So it's pretty tempting "I mean come on I'll still catch two ‏ ركع. It's not that haram is it? Just one Friday.
It's not like I'll become a non Muslim. It's not so bad." So you start making calculations in your head.
"What's a bigger loss? Missing the prayer or missing all these customers."
So this happened to these people over and over again and eventually they start getting in the habit of violating the Saturday.
They saw it enough times come in their face. Probably not the first time they saw the fish come out and they said
"Yeah I don't care about Saturday. I don't care about the Sabbath." It didn't happen like that.
It's a slow but regular temptation that's hitting you every Friday In their case every Saturday.
So eventually they cave and it became a normal thing for them. It became a normal thing for them to violate the Sabbath.
And so Allah says about these people that started violating the Sabbath {كَذَٰلِكَ نَبْلُوهُمْ} that is how we tested them
{بِمَا كَانُوا يَفْسُقُونَ} because of other corruptions they were engaged in. Now this is a clue Allah is giving us.
Why did Allah test them in that way? When Allah sees that one kind of corruption comes out in a person.
One kind of sin they don't care about. Then Allah opens doors to other sins. And He makes those other sins accessible to them
and He wants to see "are you actually remorseful for the other smaller deeds other corruptions that you're engaged in
and you want to walk away from them or if other doors were open to other corruption you do that too?
you would do that you'd take that also you'd jump at it too." And Allah says
"This is how we tested them because of the corruption they used to engage in."
Meaning these kinds of test sometimes come to people that dabble in sin that engage in corruption and they don't walk back from it.
Anybody can make mistake when you make a mistake, you make ‏توبة you walk back,
but if you refuse to walk back and you keep being corrupt then Allah opens doors to even worse haram for you.
Now, why would Allah do that? Allah does that in other places He describes that {إِنَّمَا نُمْلِي لَهُمْ لِيَزْدَادُوا إِثْمًا} [03:178]
Allah extends their rope for them so they can earn even more sins. I always give the same analogy when I describe this principle of the Quran
when Allah allows people to keep going {وَيَمُدُّهُمْ فِي طُغْيَانِهِمْ يَعْمَهُونَ} He keeps extending them in their rebellion.
The analogy my teacher gave me is still stuck in my head. He gave the analogy of a dog.
If you have a dog on a leash that's one foot long the dog wants to run it can't because the leash keeps tugging at him
so what the owner does to punish the dog instead of giving him a one foot leash he gives him a 200 foot leash. It's still a leash.
It's still tied to the tree and the dog thinks it's free for 199 feet. Until he hits the 200 foot. What happens to him?
He gets chocked so hard because he was running so fast. So, the one foot leash was actually safer for the dog.
The 200 foot leash actually kills him. Destroys him "You want to rebel? Go ahead. You think you don't have a leash on you?
Go ahead and run. See how far you go and the further you go, the harder the choke will be at the end."
That's the idea. Allah says you want this then I'll give you {نُوَلِّهِ مَا تَوَلَّىٰ} [04:115]
Quran says we'll turn him in the direction he turns into
"You want to turn in a certain direction? Okay. I'll open up all the roads you want to take."
Allah will not stop you from taking a road. As a matter of fact someone wants to take the right road.
Allah will open more doors for them in the right direction {وَالَّذِينَ جَاهَدُوا فِينَا لَنَهْدِيَنَّهُمْ سُبُلَنَا} [29:69]
Somebody wants to take the wrong road. Allah will open more wrong. Go ahead take it. He's not making you do it.
He's giving you the choice. You can walk away from any of them at any point.
But the other important thing before we get to the next Ayah maybe we won't get to it today.
Maybe in the next week I'll cover this more in depth the response and what happens in the story.
But today what I wanted to highlight is a kind of test that you and I have to be ready for from Allah
and what's that test? That test is that the halal, the right way may seem like it requires more work.
It requires more effort. It's not as convenient. And the wrong way is actually wide open and extremely tempting
and super convenient and effortless. Where the benefit that you're seeking from the Halal way if you do the right thing,
you have to make a lot of effort for it to, it won't come to you have to go to it.
But the haram, you don't even have to go to it it's coming to you like the fish are coming to you.
You don't have to go to them they are coming to you {تَأْتِيهِمْ حِيتَانُهُمْ يَوْمَ سَبْتِهِمْ شُرَّعًا}
So when something is wrong sometimes Allah will have that
test to you and me knocking on your door hey you don't have to come pursue me I'll pursue you the fish is saying
"Come hunt me you don't have to catch me I'll come to you I'll jump right in your basket."
So this idea is a very powerful one we have to look out for this test because are we people that run after convenience
and as a result of looking for convenience or quickly fulfilling what we desire. Whether it's money or lust or anything else.
Whatever we desire. There's a halal road to take and that road may be difficult,
and there is a haram road to take and that's super convenient and extremely tempting. And it wets the appetite and someone says
"I should just go for that. It's so much easier. Why am I making things hard on myself? Why even put myself through that difficulty."
This is how Allah test not disbelievers. Remind yourself this is how Allah test a believing community.
These were a believing community. They believed in revelation. This is them.