Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – Qur’anic Reflections Knowledge The First Command of Islam

Salam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato. Welcome to the Quranic

reflections. And as usual, let us begin with the verse for today.

Our will do Mila human a shameful annual Raji Bismillah al Rahman al

Rahim if all Bismillah AR beacon lady hot Elko holla call you son.

I mean Nida. You've got wallop Bukal Quran, Lavinia lemma we'll

call them ilevel use an Amana, Mia.

This, as you all know, is the first revelation that we've had in

the Quran. And it is from surah to Allah, which is chapter 96, verses

one to five. And these are probably verses that you read

often and that you must have heard about so many times because of the

detailed incident that took place in 1400 years ago, approximately

over 1400 years ago in the cave of Hira. So, when you read these

verses, it brings to mind that this particular event that took

place in this dry and desolate desert, in this particular part of

Arabia, that was

shrouded in ignorance, and fighting between themselves and

just complete, Jaya Helia and complete darkness.

This is a single event, this amazing event very profound, where

Gibreel Ali Salam came to the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi

wa sallam in that cave, while he was all alone. That pretty much

changed the course of the whole of human history. And in fact, we

could probably say that it changed the fate of mankind. I mean, I

would say that it changed the fate of mankind. And the reason for

changing the fate of mankind is because finally the next profit

was here, the final profit actually was here, the raw

material, I mean, that the world had been waiting for for over 500

something years. Now, what's really interesting when we look at

these verses, let me just translate the verse for you. Just

so I wanted to mention the backdrop so you understand,

you know, in what kind of a circumstance what kind of scenario

that these words are being revealed in. And this is,

remember, this is the first ever revelation to the Prophet

sallallahu alayhi wa salam, it's the first message now what would

you expect to be in a first message? You know, what are the

most important aspects of Islam? What do you expect that the first

words would contain? Well, let us see what Allah subhanaw taala sent

as the first words. So

Allah subhanaw taala says, Read, in the Name of your Lord who has

created, created basically all that exists, He has created man

from a clot of congealed blood, read, and your Lord is the Most

Generous, who has taught man by the pen. He has taught man that

which he did not know. Now imagine, this is the Prophet

sallallahu sallam, he doesn't know how to read or write.

And suddenly, he's never had an experience like this before.

Right? He's had some dreams. But suddenly he sees this angel in

front of him, the stranger, and he's told to read in the Name of

your Lord who has created everything. That's the first

description, He has created man from a clot, to show that Allah

subhanaw taala is, I mean, giving an example of one of the most

important things Allah subhanaw taala is created in this world,

which is, you know, the human being. And then again, read again,

read again, read so and your Lord is the Most Generous, your Lord is

the Most Benevolent, meaning he's there to help you and assist you.

And he has who has taught man by the pen, the pen is mentioned

right at the beginning, and he has taught man that which he did not

know. So now let us look at this, this event. And these words, they

essentially one of the big points in here, one of the main points in

here is that Allah subhanaw taala speaks about the pen.

He has taught men by the pen, I lemma will column, the pen. So

there's a highlighting of the pen and the tablet, because that is

what laid the foundation of knowledge, scholarship and

civilization. It's the pen generally what does that, you

know, when you have some of the early civilizations that we

discussed, like the Greek civilizations, you've got so much

writing from that time? Because it's through writing that you can

actually preserve something accurately. Many, many traditions,

most traditions, maybe your oral traditions, I mean, even today,

there's many oral traditions and a problem with oral traditions that

is very difficult to maintain accuracy, right and maintain

complete accuracy of the information and and then keep it

going. I think the only civilization that's been able to

do that is the Islamic civilization again, that with the

Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam Hadith initially, you know,

it was all oral. I mean, there were some writings case, some

people did write it, but then they had to invent a completely new

system of cross examination, ascertainment and disparagement,

to keep the knowledge accurate, right? The Quran, of course, was

written straight away, right, the Quran was written straight away.

So you see that in the past that if there are traditions and

civilizations that wrote it down, then you got a more accurate,

you got more accurate history, right from them. And that's why

Allah subhanaw taala mentions this, that the foundation of

knowledge and scholarship and civilization is the pen and the

tablet is essentially you know, what you write on Subhanallah, you

know, had had that not been the case and we we may have not been

the way we are today, you know, we may not have had the same kind of

guidance that we had to do with this, what Allah subhanaw taala

wanted, and this particularly was around the sixth of August, the

610 CE

or 579 ce depending on which version you go with, in the hara

cave in Makkah, and this pretty much is the earliest piece of

Revelation, first installment to the Prophet sallallahu, alayhi

wasallam and one installment, and this shows that our the new faith

the Islam was going to be

completely linked, you know, without being able to be separated

with the pen and knowledge. Now, the most important thing here is

that it was an unlettered prophet and a prophet and, and maybe alone

me, who was blessed with this first divine revelation in this

lonely cave. He doesn't read, you know, he doesn't know how to read

and he's been told to read. And he's given he's been granted a

whole charter for mankind. You know, from this, he's been granted

a very, very important message for mankind. And he doesn't know how

to read, read or write. And this is probably the most unprecedented

history, unprecedented, unprecedented event in history

rather, right? That you've got somebody

who an unlettered person, among a throng of illiterate people,

actually, that brings about a revolution. And he's told to read

first, right? And subhanAllah, after nearly 600 years of nothing,

and it starts off with

Read, Recite, not to worship Allah. That's not the first

discussion. The first thing was not believe in Allah. Or

consider Allah to be one or your prophet. But more it was read.

That's the interesting part here. And unlettered person is blessed

with a revelation and directed to recite. So implicit in this

message, this is important implicit in this message, what is

this to us? I mean, this is an event that the Prophet sallallahu

alayhi wasallam went through the Quran has revealed and related and

basically kept in memory until today and forever, really, what is

in there for us. So implicit in this message for us is that his

community would also be a community that will

spread knowledge far and wide. And it will essentially through their

writing, through their learning through their knowledge. They will

be characterized by knowledge, reason, wisdom, and a constructive

approach and all around progress. We're told to be enterprising

through our knowledge. And essentially, the prophesy blossom

is being told through this, you're going to put an end to ignorance,

darkness, barbarism, and error Subhanallah however, what is

really, really important is that that this knowledge is linked to

Allah subhanaw taala. Right. Allah the Alabama Bill column, I live in

Santa marlim Yalom showing that knowledge only comes from Allah

subhanho wa taala. So when you recite Quran bismi robic, when you

recite, recite in the Name of your Lord.

Why do you say recite in the Name of your Lord? Does that mean just

what's a Bismillah? Before you read? No, not just say Bismillah

before you read, not just start in the Name of your Lord, but you

need to read and your knowledge needs to be sanctioned by what

your Lord is pleased with. So there's a number of things that

are mentioned here based on the compound that we have here. So

management reminded here that knowledge should be permeated with

God consciousness with taqwa, Allah subhanho wa Taala has

bestowed the knowledge everything owes its existence to Allah

subhanaw taala

Therefore, it's only under the divine guidance, can knowledge

remain on the right track and prosper, right in a way that it

doesn't lead to the wrong? Look, there's a lot of other bodies of

knowledge out there, right? There's lots of other learning

universities are filled with them, that are non sacred, that really

are non sacred they, I mean, a lot of them are actually a waste of

time, right? Some of them contribute to civilization.

However, they're devoid of goodness, sometimes some of them,

some of them, some of them are mashallah for the benefit of

mankind. But others, they're just a lot of waste of time and a

redundancy. I mean, they could have people doing other things,

but a lot of them are devoid of any connection with Allah subhanaw

taala. And that's what basically takes them off track. In many

cases, while the knowledge might be good, but the people who are

involved in it, it doesn't help them, it doesn't assist them, to

see what the real truth is of this world.

So a massively radical message of the day, and something that would

have been considered to be totally inconceivable in that time and age

in that pre Islamic world. If all the intellectuals of that day, you

know, were asked to guess that, look, there's going to be a new

revelation that's going to come, right, what would you think it

would be the first revelation, they would never have anticipated?

That it would be about writing, or it would be about reading, it

would be about knowledge, right? That that would just, you know,

that just sounds so far fetched, and unknown, actually a concept

unknown to the illiterate Arabs of the time, you know, there were

very, very few people who knew that. However, mashallah, the this

verse wide, it covers every single aspect of knowledge, right? And

modes of acquiring it, like it doesn't tell you how exactly to

acquire it, or only specifies that you must do it this way, or that

way only learned this or that it basically leaves that open. And

it's saying that you can use your mental faculties and its and

develop your intellectual heritage. However, in Islam,

knowledge cannot be divorced from faith, right? We

Islam makes it so amazing that anytime you study something that

just seems to be secular, even, it makes it sacred because of the

purpose for which it's going to be studied. medicine can become

sacred engineering to a certain degree can become sacred, right?

Likewise, many other things, psychology or whatever the case

is, it can be sacred, depending on the intention that it's been done

for, to assist people to help people to understand humanity to

understand yourself better than it can become sacred to a certain

degree.

That means that's why no true no true Muslims should be able to

disregard knowledge at all that they don't learn anything. Right?

Muslims need to prosper in knowledge in terms of education in

terms of studies, right? Because at the end of the day, it's

without that people are going to be misled, and humans, that is how

they're misled. They're misled. Due to ignorance. There's been

scholars who've said, you know, history scholars of history, who

basically it's like Amanda hubby has mentioned that if there's one

Malady and watch one crisis in the Omada, it's always gone through

and where the weakness is coming from, is ignorance, right?

Ignorance of their faith in particular, right? So that's why

Allah subhanho wa Taala

tells us to study knowledge, however, not all knowledge,

knowledge is sanctioned, Allah subhanaw taala would forbid such

knowledge as that which would create mutual hostility, that

would create wars that would contribute towards that would

contribute to destruction, pillage, and basically doing

things just purely for material gains, or selfishness, and so on

and so forth. Now, remember, in Macau, only a few there were a few

scribes, there were only a few people that knew how to write and

read. And they had heard the reference. In fact, according to

Sheikh Abdullah Hassan Ali nadwi, he says that if you look in older

Hindi poetry, you hardly ever see reference to the pen. So the pen

in Arabia was actually not a very important aspect. I mean, for us,

I mean, we have martial art pens everywhere, you know, we have

pens, we have virtual pens, we have all sorts of pens and writing

is just like martial law, everybody writes, but you have to

understand where this initially came down, right? Where there was

actually nothing, not even the preacher Helia poetry would

mention pens, pen, a pen was not important because nobody knew how

to write except very, very few people. Right? They just relied on

the oral tradition.

The other thing that Allah subhanaw taala kind of implies in

here and tells us is that knowledge is inexhaustible, right?

You can't attain all knowledge. Right? Because Allah says, Allah

subhanaw taala is teaching you that which you did not know. Now,

there's a lot of things that we don't know. Right? So there's

multiple things there's infinite things that we don't know. That

means knowledge can encompass multiple things and infinite

things. Of course, human can never have that kind of knowledge. Allah

subhanaw taala has obviously knowledge of everything. So how

does this relate to each one of us? Well, mashallah, there's some

fungus right who have taken the time off from a young age if their

parents had prepared them and they went to study they were sent to

study as Allah subhanaw taala says follow Allah for I mean cool if

you're a demon hunter Eva Talia de facto houfy Dean while Yun

Hirokawa with origin elation, Lando Mia their own, right. So

they, they were, they were encouraged to go and study and

they started. And then there's other people who, mashallah when

they older, they've started to study, and they've done an intense

form of study. Now, what I'm going to tell you is that for everybody

here, you're sitting here today and listening to this is a method

of study, right? However, our study needs to be more focused,

and it needs to be a bit more targeted, and it needs to be a bit

more substantial. I mean, lectures, right lectures, they're

generally inspirational, right? They provide a bit of knowledge,

but they're mostly inspirational, and they're more encouraging. We

need to go beyond that, we need to go beyond that. And every single

individual, I mean, everybody can't become a full scholar.

Right? Whatever scholar means, you know, scholar means that you have

a certain amount of knowledge that you've accomplished a certain

amount of knowledge and you have Ejaz Earth and you have

authorizations, licensing, to be able to say that, okay, you've

accomplished yourself in this science and this science and this

science and you need a number of those to be considered a Muslim

scholar. However, regarding our this world and the Hereafter, the

sacred knowledge, everybody needs to develop themselves in that

regard, because we will just become enriched our civilization

will become better. And our person, our human being, our our

own selves, will enhance themselves by knowledge, the more

people in a family that know about religion, and about the Quran and

the Sunnah, and the fake and the aqidah, and the history and

everything like that, that that family is just a much better, much

more aware family. They're prone to less problems prone to less JD

JD is Raif. Right? JD, unfortunately, is rife. And the

only way to combat that is through knowledge. Because that's what

Allah subhanaw taala because remember, the Quran came down as

the first revelation, excuse me, Robbie color, the Holo came down

in the time of Jr, Haiti that was characterized by ignorance and is

to remove that is to remove that darkness. Right? So that's why

what we would say is that go and learn something and on a regular

basis, learn something find the circles of Hadith and tafsir

classes, Fick classes, Aqeedah classes, and mashallah, now we

have absolutely no excuse, because things are available online, even

if locally, nothing is being disseminated. The best thing

obviously, is to join a formal class, right where you have to go

in and be there at certain times, and there's an examination and the

supervision, those are always the best because we work with more

discipline, humans work with more discipline. However, if that's not

available, or it doesn't suit your time, then there's the on demand

classes like we have Andre Yan Institute, that's essentially what

Rayyan Institute was created for, and go and check it out a yoga

institute.com I mean, go and learn something and take your whole

life, you know, take whole life, take one course a week, take one

course a month, but go and sign up and go and study something, take a

book and study them, right. But the main thing is that we need to

read and we need to learn and we need to recite and we need to

educate one one another so that we can have a more prosperous

society, exactly how Allah subhanho wa Taala has mentioned as

being as in the first revelation Jazak Allah here please remember

us in your doors may Allah subhanho wa Taala bless you all,

and till the next time in sha Allah Assalamu alaikum wa

rahmatullahi wa barakato

Jazak Allah here for listening May Allah subhanho wa Taala bless you

and if you're finding this useful, you know

as they say to that like button and subscribe button and forwarded

on to others, just like Allah head on Salaam Alaikum Warahmatullahi

Wabarakatuh