Bayyinah

Q: "Allah says human beings will get nothing except what they strive for. I took this ayah as my guiding light, but recently, despite sincere effort, I didn't get what I hoped for. I feel lost, betrayed and shaken in my iman. How do I deal with this?"

A: There is a particular kind of pain in this question that anyone who has tried their hardest knows intimately. You poured yourself into something, you held an ayah in your heart as your promise and the result you were waiting for never arrived. The reason it shakes the iman so deeply is that the ayah was being read as something it was never meant to say. An-Najm 53:39 tells us there is nothing for a person except what they strived for and most of us quietly absorb that as a guarantee, as if enough sincerity and effort will eventually force the outcome we want into existence. Before you draw your inspiration from any ayah, it is worth making sure you have understood what it is actually promising.

Here is the heart of it. The world has trained us to measure success by accomplishment, by the visible outcome, by the number on the scoreboard. That is why a losing election campaign gets erased from history the day after the vote and why a business that closed after years of devoted work is spoken of as though it amounted to nothing. The world keeps a ledger of results. Allah's ledger is completely different, because the results were never yours to begin with. He controls outcomes and He always has. What He placed in your hands and the only thing He is actually recording as success or failure, is the effort itself.

Consider how the Quran honors Nuh (AS). He gave 950 years of sincere, relentless calling and by every worldly statistic it produced one of the smallest followings of any prophet in history. If results were the measure, that would read as failure. Yet Allah speaks of him with extraordinary honor, because Allah wanted to see the effort and the effort is what tells Him about your intention and your purpose. The same logic reaches all the way down to your situation. Nothing you poured out was wasted, because effort offered with sincere intention is the real currency of value on the Day of Judgment, regardless of how the outcome appeared to the people around you.

This is also, quietly, the healthiest way a human being can live. People of effort still care about results, they are simply no longer destroyed by results they cannot control. They are sustained by the striving itself, which keeps them anchored in the present rather than trapped in a future they were never in charge of. So if you are sitting in the ache of an outcome that did not come, hear this clearly: your effort counted, it counted with the only One whose record lasts and it was seen in full. Do not let the world's measure quietly become your measure.

This is from a live Bayyinah TV Q&A with Ustadh Nouman. Have a question about an ayah like this one? Ask it directly in our new Revealed app.

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The Quran forbids calling each other by hurtful names. The Arabic word is 'nabz,' and it refers to derogatory nicknames, insults that reduce a person to a single aspect of who they are.

وَلَا تَنَابَزُوا۟ بِٱلْأَلْقَـٰبِ ۖ بِئْسَ ٱلِٱسْمُ ٱلْفُسُوقُ بَعْدَ ٱلْإِيمَـٰنِ ۚ (49:11)

These nicknames come from different sources; some are based on physical appearance, some are based on family background or circumstances of birth and some come from something someone did in their past, even though they've already faced consequences for it and changed. Some are based on a religion they left behind when they came to Islam.

Think about calling a convert 'the Hindu' long after they've taken their shahada. They've made a complete commitment to Islam, but you're still defining them by the religion they abandoned. Or calling someone 'the criminal' long after they've served their time, faced their punishment and genuinely changed their life. Yet the nickname keeps them imprisoned in their history.

This kind of name-calling is obviously wrong, but the Quran goes even deeper. Allah says don't call each other hurtful names even using harmless words. How is that possible? A perfectly innocent word can be weaponized through sarcasm.

Imagine saying to someone who failed an exam, 'Oh, star student,' but with a heavy sigh that drips with contempt. Imagine telling someone who has gained weight, 'Look how skinny you've gotten,' knowing exactly what you're doing. The sarcasm is the insult; the innocent word becomes a blade. Neither the obvious insult nor the sarcastic version is acceptable after faith.

This reflection is from the latest installment in the Deeper Look series on Surah Al-Hujurat with Ustadh Nouman Ali Khan. Follow along at https://byna.tv/342