God's promise (wa'd Allah)

God's promise as Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy presents it in the tenth lesson of "Al Fawzu Al Moubeen": God is truer than any promise, His promise to the believers of Paradise is true, and the servant submits the matter to Him. ¹ The Sheikh develops this with the example of a father and a son. ² He answers questions on what the past tense of the verb in the verse means and what reassures the believer about the promise. ^{3 4}

The Sheikh holds that God is truer than any promise, that His promise to the believers of Paradise is true, and that a father may be unable to keep his word while God never fails. He says the promise appears in earlier books and in the Qur'an. The first verse on this point The second verse on this point ¹

The Sheikh holds that God is the one who promises, gives glad tidings and grants success, and that out of His generosity He promises to keep His word, so the servant should leave the matter to Him. ⁵

The Sheikh gives the example of a father who gave his son money, and the son returned part of it with an increase. He divides sons into the clever and the foolish, and holds that the son who returns what was entrusted to him increases his father's credit. ²

The Sheikh holds that whoever deals with God secures his profit, and the thought of loss never occurs to him, because God is the Generous One who gave him the money. ⁶

The Sheikh holds that this exchange with God is not limited to Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, Ali and Ammar, but extends to the Day of Judgement to everyone who fulfils it. He cites a saying of the Prophet ﷺ about his community (needs_source: the saying is not named in the recording). ⁷

The people present ask what the past-tense form of the verb in the verse means, and who the buyer is in it. ³ The Sheikh answers that the past form signals that the contract is complete, that time is part of God's creation, and that the seller is reassured that the goods will not be returned and no defect will be claimed against him, because the buyer is God, whose attributes include preservation, wisdom and knowledge. ⁸

The Sheikh answers that the Arabs praised keeping one's word and disliked breaking it. He mentions the familiar proverb about Irqub, and then criticises whoever makes promises and does not keep them. ⁴

The Sheikh criticises some craftsmen who repeat promises and do not keep them, and compares a marriage contract documented before witnesses with the contract of God that He promised to the believers (needs_source: the name and date in this passage are garbled in the recording). ⁹