Read · 3 min · This is the session
Our discussion is 15 minutes, so we will take three questions. 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
Shuʿayb’s first charge after the call to worship is about the market: “So fulfill the measure and weight and do not deprive people of their due”. The word is tabkhasū. Al-Qurtubi gives it a wide sense: running down someone’s goods, talking a seller out of them, cheating on the value, or tricks in measuring. Most of us do not hold a scale, but we all buy, sell, get paid and pay others. Where is it easiest to give a little less than full measure, in work, in time or in a price, and what helps us give it in full?
Read 7:85Q2 core
Hard times came, then good times, until the people grew many, ʿafaw, and they said: “Our fathers [also] were touched with hardship and ease.” Ibn Kathir says they saw only a cycle, hardship sometimes and good times at others, and did not see that Allah was testing them in both. On the hadith page, the Prophet ﷺ says the affair of the believer is all good: in ease he gives thanks, in hardship he is patient. When a good stretch or a hard one comes, what makes it easy to say “that’s just life”, and what helps us remember it is from Allah?
Read 7:95Q3 core
The chiefs warn their people: “If you should follow Shu'ayb, indeed, you would then be losers.” Two ayat later the Qur’an answers them: “Those who denied Shu'ayb - it was they who were the losers.” The word is khāsirūn, and Lane’s dictionary gives loss in buying and selling as its first meaning. Holding to what is right can look like losing: a deal, a chance, some money, how people see us. When has doing the right thing felt like a loss to you, and how do you count it now?
Read 7:90–92Four more questions (Q4–Q7), if the conversation goes there
Q4 optional
Shuʿayb refuses to go back. Then he says: “And it is not for us to return to it except that Allah, our Lord, should will. Our Lord has encompassed all things in knowledge. Upon Allah we have relied.” Ibn Kathir: this part of the ayah “refers all matters to Allah's will”. He is firm, and he does not lean on his own firmness. How do we hold firm to our faith without becoming too sure of ourselves?
Read 7:89Q5 optional
When it was over, Shuʿayb turned away and said: “so how could I grieve for a disbelieving people?” Al-Tabari reports Ibn Ishaq: Shuʿayb did feel grief for them, and said this to console himself. Think of someone you tried hard to help who went another way. How do you carry that, without bitterness and without blaming yourself?
Read 7:93Q6 optional
Ayah 96 says that if the people of the cities had believed and feared Allah, “We would have opened upon them blessings from the heaven and the earth”. The word is barakāt, the Indonesian berkah. Al-Qurtubi warns that this is not a rule that faith makes you rich: believers too are tested with a narrow living. On the hadith page, honesty in a sale brings blessing, and lies wipe it out. If berkah is not simply having more, what does it look like in your home or your work?
Read 7:96Q7 optional
The pattern ends: “And We did not find for most of them any covenant”. Ibn Kathir says this covenant is the fitrah, what Allah placed in people from the start. Many of us make a promise to Allah in a hard time. What helps us keep it when the good times come back?
Read 7:102Tadabbur — personal reflection
- Ayah 85 names the scale right after worship. Choose one place this week where you will give full measure: an hour of work, a price, a promise.
- In ayah 89 Shuʿayb says, “Upon Allah we have relied.” Say it once, slowly, about something you are holding on to.
- In ayah 95 the people said their fathers had good times and hard times too, and saw nothing more. Name one good thing and one hard thing from this year, and what each one asked of you.
- Finish this silently: One place I may be giving less than full is ……… One good thing I will thank Allah for, and not call luck, is ………