The Parable of Shirk

From Ustadz Nouman Ali Khan's lecture about surah Al-Hajj verse 31 

وَمَنْ يُشْرِكْ بِاللَّهِ فَكَأَنَّمَا خَرَّ مِنَ السَّمَاءِ فَتَخْطَفُهُ الطَّيْرُ أَوْ تَهْوِي بِهِ الرِّيحُ فِي مَكَانٍ سَحِيقٍ

“And whoever would commit shirk with Allah, then it is as though he fell from the sky, bird picked at him, and the wind blew him away to uncharted place.”

The parable above in which somebody was heading up to the sky and could possibly fall, is like you’re clinging up a rope and Allah said, “If you lost hope in Allah, cut it!” And what’s gonna happen once you cut it? You’re gonna fall. That image is being continued in the next parable. The people who lose hope in Allah are the people of shirk. That’s a form of shirk. It says, though they’re falling from the sky.

 One of the famous orientalist argued about this example. This is one of the most illogical examples in the Qur’an. He made a criticism against the Qur’an. “Who’s ever seen anybody falling from the sky?” فَتَخْطَفُهُ الطَّيْرُ doesn’t make any sense. Something you can’t even imagine.

So the criticism made by this genius is that this example is illogical because one of the conditions of a good example is should be something the audience can relate to. Something you can visualize. Something they’ve seen. Something from their experience. Nobody has ever seen anybody falling from the sky and birds eating away at him. And then he added “Look! It’s even more illogical.” أَوْ تَهْوِي بِهِ الرِّيحُ فِي مَكَانٍ سَحِيقٍ (eventually the wind blows him away into a place, far away, unknown, uncharted land).

What’s missing from his interpretation is the fact that the Arabic language carries a lot of connotations. “Falling from the sky” as a figure of speech used in Arabic way before. It means falling off a mountain. They used to say “falling off a mountain” خَرَّ مِنَ السَّمَاءِ as an expression to describe a soldier who is or his battalion are fighting the enemy from the top of the mountain. They’re fighting their enemy that are on the bottom. And, of course, who’s in the advantageous position? Guys on top! And despite being in the advantageous position, the guys on the bottom advanced all the way to the top, killed the guys and then took their corpses and chucked him off the cliff.

Talking about the people of shirk, what makes shirk a serious crime? What are the real consequences of shirk? The guy who does shirk has no concept that shirk is a bad problem because he never saw any real difficulties that came in his life as a result of shirk that he did in this world. And he can’t relate to the akhirah because it’s not from his tradition. They don’t know about that. It’s a completely alien concept to him.

So, Allah tells him “Okay, you don’t know about shirk, you don’t know about the afterlife. If you don’t know about the afterlife or you don’t believe in the afterlife, what’s the final thing for you? Death!” Death is the last thing that’s gonna happen to you. And as you get older, you realize that you want to be remembered. So what people do, like the atheists, agnostic, especially wealthy ones. At the time they’re approaching death, they’ll donate millions of dollars to a hospital. So that the hospital department, the pediatrics unit or the nursery is named after them. And they’ll have a statue. Really old dead guy statue in a school of medicine. They’ll put that. Why? Because they want to live on, their name has to live on.

Now, for the Arab, he doesn’t donate to a university to have his name live on so that the school, the department, or a street or a highway can be named after him. What does he do? He goes into battle. And he dies in battle so people sing poetry about that guy who killed like eighty before he died. You know, the guy, who want their songs to be sung. But the worst thing they can imagine that will be set after them is

“You talk about that guy? The guy who fell from the sky?”

Because if you say, “The guy who fell from the sky,” What do people remember?

“That guy was such a bad warrior! People from the bottom of the cliff made it all the way to the top, killed him and as an act of humiliation, chucked him off the cliff.”

“You thought about that guy people laugh at him for centuries?” This is his worst nightmare.

In other words, if you don’t believe in the akhirah, Allah will teach you something. He’ll give you an image that you can relate to. And by the way, either he got defeated by his enemy or he was so scared to fight the enemy, that instead of dying by the sword, he chose to just jump off the cliff. So, either he’s a loser or he’s a coward. The last thing they wanna be said about themselves after they die.

Allah says, “You wanna know about the cons, the ugly consequences of shirk? Here’s the first thing you know. This is how degrading shirk is فَكَأَنَّمَا خَرَّ مِنَ السَّمَاءِ. Then, when battles are over, usually soldiers come and collect the body and give it a proper burial. Usually the winning side takes theirs and leaves and then the losing side, when they get a chance, they come and give their dead a burial too. But this guy, is such a humiliation to his own people. Nobody came and gave him a funeral.

So, he’s already humiliated but Allah adds another layer of humiliation. Even these birds that are known for eating filth, they have lunch and dinner with him and they say, “The rest of it is even too disgusting for us.” Even they fly away. Then, there’s another layer of humiliation. أَوْ تَهْوِي بِهِ الرِّيحُ, whatever scum and a couple of pieces of bone and flesh are left is blown off by the wind into the woods, into the bush, فِي مَكَانٍ سَحِيقٍ, where nobody will ever find it.

Subhanallah, it’s like Allah tells us from our worldview how ugly shirk is. That’s why He said “Whoever did shirk with Allah, is like the person who fell from the sky.” The birds are picking at him and the wind blows him away to a far-off place. Subhanallah.

So, this morning, I just finished learning the fundamental of nahw from intensive 1 day 9. In the end of the video, Ustadz Nouman explained about this certain ayat and I was really amazed how we need to know the background of an ayat to be able to interpret it, to be able to translate it. Subhanallah😭