Indonesian Muslim Association of Austin, Texas

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Session 06 · Al-A'raf 7:37–43

Discussion

Three core questions, four optional ones, and personal reflection prompts.

3 min readWednesday 14 October 20263 Jumada al-Ula 1448

Read · 3 min · This is the session

Choose three questions for our 15-minute discussion. Start with the core questions: Q1, Q2 and Q3. The sample circle ends with Q1 and Q2. You are welcome to pass or use a general example rather than share something personal.

Q1 core

At death the angels ask: “Where are those you used to invoke besides Allah?” And the answer is: “They have departed from us.” Leave the people in the ayah aside for a moment. What do we lean on in an ordinary week that will not be there at the end? What does leaning on Allah look like on a busy day?

Then, if the conversation goes there: who showed you, by how they lived, what it means to lean on Allah when things were hard?

Read 7:37

Q2 core

In ayah 38 the followers say about their leaders: “these had misled us”, and Allah answers: “For each is double.” In ayah 39 the leaders tell the followers: “you had not any favor over us”. In ordinary life, when is “someone else led me into it” true, and when is it a way of not owning our own choice? What makes owning our part hard, and what helps?

Then: when we lead others, at home, at work or in the community, what are we carrying for them?

Read 7:38–39

Q3 core

In the middle of the promise of Paradise, ayah 42 stops to say: “We charge no soul except [within] its capacity.” The word is wusʿ, what a soul can carry; it is on the Arabic words page. Where in your practice do you feel you can never do enough? What changes if the measure is your own capacity, and not someone else's?

Read 7:42
Four more questions (Q4–Q7), if the conversation goes there

Q4 optional

Ayah 40 does not only say “never”. It shows a camel and the eye of a needle. The word jamal, camel, occurs only here in the whole Qur'an. Why might a picture stay with us longer than a rule?

Read 7:40

Q5 optional

Before the rivers and before the praise, the first thing ayah 43 says Allah does is take the ghill, the resentment, out of their hearts. The first core narration on the hadith page shows the wrongs between believers settled before they go in. Is there a grudge you would rather Allah took out of your heart now than later? What would help you start?

Read 7:43

Q6 optional

“We would never have been guided if Allah had not guided us.” How do we talk about our own guidance, to our children or to someone new to Islam, without making it our own achievement?

Read 7:43

Q7 optional

Ayah 43 ends: “This is Paradise, which you have been made to inherit for what you used to do.” The Prophet ﷺ said that no one's good deeds will bring him into Paradise, and that this was true even of him, unless Allah covered him with His forgiveness and mercy. A summary of that narration is the last one on the hadith page. How do the two sit together for you?

Read 7:43

Tadabbur — personal reflection

These are personal applications, written for this session. They are separate from the verse translation and from the tafsir.

  1. Ayah 37 says a person's portion reaches him until the angels come. Think of one thing you are worried about this week. Hand it to Allah in a short du'a, in your own words.
  2. Read ayah 42 slowly, and stop on the middle part: no soul is charged beyond its capacity. Where do you most need to hear that this week?
  3. Ayah 43 begins with resentment taken out of hearts. Make a du'a for someone you have had a hard time with, and for yourself.
  4. Finish this silently: One thing I lean on more than I should is ……… One grudge I would like to put down is ………