Ali Ataie – Transmission of Qur’anic Revelation (Part 2) Qur’anic Sciences Series
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AI: Transcript ©
About
the,
the form and the style of the
themes of the Quran,
And then inshallah,
begin on the,
the compilation of the Quran.
So the the smallest division of the Quran
text is called an ayah.
Ayah means literally a sign.
6,236
ayat in the Quran.
Fahad Edvard makes a comment here that the
term verse is not appropriate
since the phonon is not poetry. For lack
of a better term, you could refer to
it as a verse.
So that's okay.
But many of you are gonna prefer not
to call it a verse because verse in
Arabic is Beit.
Date abyat in the Quran. In terms of
not abyat, the Quran is not poetry.
Wama'alavnaushara
wama yabbarila.
The Quran,
expressively
explicitly,
repudiates itself as being poetry. It's not poetry.
Alright. And we'll talk about,
what what the Quran actually is.
It's a form of Arabic prose. So there's
2
literary genres,
that are prevalent at the time of the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. One is called nathar
nathar.
Noon thara nathar,
which is prose.
That's what the Quran is.
And there's different types of prose. Mursal,
straight prose, sajak,
rhymed in prose.
Prose is nonmetrical.
So we'll talk about that later. And then
there's something called shirer, which is poetry.
Quran is not poetry, so the poet has
license to myth make the shakerr.
Right? He doesn't have to stay true to
history. He can invent stories to teach a
true lesson.
The ihbaran is important.
The Quran is not myth making. The stories
in the Quran are true.
You know, the flood and the exodus,
Right?
The story of Adam and Eve. We believe
these stories are true. In Nahada, Atwurqasasotak.
These stories are true.
The poet and event stories to teach a
lesson.
The poet also has license to break rules
of grammar
for the sake of the rhyme, sake of
the kaffia.
So one of the greatest poets of,
pre Islamic
Arabia who actually became Muslim
should've put a tanween at the end. But
he said Baqdil for the sake of the
rhyme. That's okay. He's a poet. He can
do that.
The Quran does not break any rules of
grammar. It's consistent within itself grammatically.
We'll talk more about that when we talk
about the tahaddi. The Quran issues
a tahaddi. Tahaddi means a challenge.
And it's an open challenge, an objective challenge,
not subjective.
When most Muslims are asked, you know, what
is the challenge of the Quran? They say,
well, if you produce 1 surah like the
Quran, you say, well, what does that mean,
1 surah like the Quran? Something as beautiful
as the Quran. So that's not the challenge.
That's very subjective.
You know, you can read Arabic poetry that's
very beautiful.
That's not the challenge of the Quran. The
challenge of the Quran is objective. We'll talk
more about that inshallah.
So 6,236
ayaat,
we'll call them verses, for lack of a
better term.
And then there's a 114,
suag.
Suag means,
like fence,
surah
or fas. In the in the bible, they're
called fas.
Quran calls them surah. The shortest is 3
ayaats, 108
surah.
Just Surah 108 kotham is 3 ayaat. It's
the shortest Surah.
The longest Surah is 286
ayaats, Surah 3 Baqarah.
What's also noteworthy is the term ayat and
surah is in the Quran. It's a turkha
aatulkitahal
mubim
So these terms are in the Quran. The
term Quran is in the Quran.
Right?
So these these terms are Quranic.
All of the Surah's, all of the Surah,
the plural of Sura is Suwar,
begin with divasnada,
mismidar al mamalrahim except
Surat Aqtoba,
surah number 9.
And there's two reasons for this according to
the Uraratma.
There is an opinion that Surat At Tawba
is actually a
continuation of the previous surah at Anfah.
That is really a 113 surahs of the
Quran.
Because if you look at the first few
surah,
they're extremely long. Right? This is how books
were
pretty much arranged
in the pre modern world,
longest to shortest. Like the bible is like
that. Longest books to the shortest.
The Talmud
is like that.
So Qafara 286
ayah, and Imran 200,
Adi Salam,
176. Al Ma'id at 120.
Anam,
165.
An Arraf, 200.
Then you have Adafar,
only 75.
And then Tova, 129.
So there's an opinion that these are actually
the same Surah, which would make 204 ayat.
Because they're the the theme is the same,
you know. And and and Thad is
the major theme of spoils of war.
And Surah the toba is dealing with rules
of engagement in war. That's one opinion, not
a very popular opinion. More popular opinion is
that Surah Al Tawbah backs the bas madah
because Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala in this surah,
he means business.
Would. The Surah Tawba if all you had
at the Quran was Surah Tawba,
then you'd have a very
strange perception of the message of Islam.
Surah At Tawba is dealing with rules of
engagement.
How to deal with Siyana, for example, treachery
against the Muslim polity.
Right?
So there's no Basmala.
So Allah
wants to stress
his majestic qualities.
Right?
His his qualities of
of rigor.
The names of the Surah are often derived
from important or distinguishing,
characteristics or themes within the Surah.
So Surat Al Baqarah is called Al Baqarah
because the story is that Musa, alayhi salam,
ordered the bad Israeli slaughter, I Baqarah.
And then instead of immediately obeying Allah
they began asking a series of questions.
How old? What color? What what is a
baqarah?
You know, all these different types of questions.
So the ebra'ah is to submit
to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
And this is important because complete faith
entails
total submission.
Right? Even if it seems like it's something
that's beyond our intellect.
Something supra rational,
not irrational.
You don't have to believe in anything irrational,
anything that can be falsified.
You don't have to believe in that. But
when Allah
tells us
that he took his servant on a journey
by night
from Masjid al Haram to Aqsa. We don't
sit there and try to rationalize it. Well,
you know, maybe
there was some warp in the space time
continuum or something like that. Although, Adam, maybe
there's some rational explanation for it.
But we
hear and we obey.
It's a super rational transmission that's given in
in in, in text in scripture.
Right?
So idaan,
idaan, and kabul mean to be there as
part of state.
Idaan in Arabic means submissiveness
and the kabul means to accept.
Ida'an
and kabul.
So this is why shaitan is a kaffa.
Shaitan certainly knows that the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasalam is a messenger of God.
He certainly knows that. Ibn Kathir mentions that
when the prophet was born, shaitan started screaming.
Why is he screaming?
Because he knows that the prophet
is the messenger of God. He's accepting the
rational propositions
that the prophet
is the messenger of God. But he's not
a Muslim
because he doesn't have gedaan and habuul of
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. There's a
difference.
Heraclius, the emperor of Byzantium,
he interrogated Abu Sufyan ibn Hurrah. And Heraclius
was sort of a
freelance biblical scholar, if you will. He was
the emperor of Byzantium. So he said to
Abu Sufyan, you know, describe him to me.
Abu Sufyan describes him. And then Herakles says
to him, you know he's a prophet.
You know he's a prophet, so you should
follow him. And he says, soon my dominion
will be underneath his feet. This is what
Heraclius, said to Abi Zukar. But Heraclius has
not become Muslim
because no hidaan and no qaul. He didn't
go to Medina and seek out the prophet,
being Bayat and the prophet, began following the
sharia, begin implementing the sunnah. None of these
things happen.
Right? So complete faith
entails
submissiveness
and
acceptance.
Allah
By our Lord, they don't really believe unless
they make you a judge in all of
their affairs and they find no resistance in
their hearts against your judgments and they have
total taslim to you. Total taslim.
So this is part and parcel of the
faith. So buffer up the you know, some
people why is it called the heifer, the
the cow?
The lesson there is total submission to Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
And they have Surah and some Surahs have
multiple names. Surah Tullechwas,
according to Fakhruddin al Razi, has 22 names.
Sometimes it's just called
The prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, referred to it
as Qumu Wala Waah.
He said Qumu Wala Waah Ta'adee wuthudathal Quran.
This surah has the weight of a third
of the Quran.
But it's also called,
according to the Sahaba and the Tabi'i, Surah
as as as surah to as as assessment
is the foundation
and the foundation of theology.
It's also called surah al ikhlas.
Ikhlas, of sincerity.
It's also called Surah at, at Tawhid,
the Surah of monotheism or oneness.
These are just some of the names of
the surah. And then you have a juz,
and the
plural is ajazabanajazab.
This is 1 30th
of the Quran.
One part one
out of 30 parts of the Quran is
called the juz. So the Quran is divided
into 30 equal parts. This is post Uthmanic
after the time of sayin Uthmanic.
And this was done for, Ramadan recitation
that it's traditional to read a little over
1 juz at night, takes about an hour.
And then we have a manzil.
A manzil is one
7th of the Quran,
also a post of Manic division. So Jews
and Manzil are not mentioned in the Quran,
but I and Surah are mentioned.
So 7 parts of approximately equal length. So
each Mansil contains about 4 ajisat.
Right?
And these are sort of divisions that the
early
scholars,
developed in order to facilitate
health of the Quran, basically.
The language of the Quran is Arabic,
obviously.
May not be so obvious for some western
scholars who claim that the Quran is in
Syriac.
Very strange,
sort of radical revisionist opinion.
There's a German scholar named, Christoph Luxenberg,
and that's his pseudonym pseudonym. It's not his
actual name, because he's afraid, like, Muslims are
gonna kill him or something.
But,
his claim is that and no one takes
him seriously. But he it's his claim is
the Quran is written in Syriac is a
Syriac text written in Arabic letters,
but nobody takes his,
opinion seriously, as I said. Even someone like
Patricia Crone who believes the text of the
Quran is totally unreliable.
She doesn't take Luxembourg seriously at all.
The Quran describes itself as arabiyu mumbibim.
So mumbibim does not mean that the Quran
does not contain foreign words.
It does contain foreign words. Sometimes anti Muslim
blemishes,
they'll say, look, Mubin means, you know, pure
unadulterated
Arabic.
That's not what mobeen
means.
It's interesting. There's you have these satellite
stations. You have these
Persian channels,
and some of these
Iranian guys are totally anti Muslim.
And one of them actually and he talks
about politics. One of them has a rule.
If you call my show, you can't use
any Arabic.
Right? He doesn't like Arabic. So if you
call and you say,
they'll hang up on you. You have to
say,
and then he'll say, no Arabic, no Arabic.
Then he starts talking,
you know, he's like,
Everything he's saying is Arabic. He doesn't know
it's Arabic. Half of what he's saying is
Arabic.
Anyway,
so
what does Lubin mean? Arabic,
which reveals
clear truth.
Lubine is from Abana Lubine, form 4. In
order to make something clear, this is Arabic
that that demystifies
things, that makes it clear. It doesn't mean
that it's pure Arabic and there's no foreign
words. That's impossible for any language as a
living breathing language to stay pure.
Right? If you go into the English dictionary,
into the Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, the Oxford English
Dictionary,
You'll be amazed what you find in these
dictionaries.
You'll find the word alcohol, which is Arabic.
You'll find algebra. You'll find jihad. You'll find
fatwa.
These are English words. You don't have to
italicize them in academic papers. If you read
the word fatwa, you can leave it un
italicized
because it's an English word and there's an
assumption that the reader knows what it means.
Right? Oftentimes, they don't know what it means
though. They think it means like a death
sentence or something.
It just means a legal ruling. Most fatwas
have to do with food.
Can I eat gelatin?
Let me see if I can get a
fatwa.
So the Quran contains and this is, you
know, at Imam Tabari al Baqidani.
Imam soon as he read wrote a short
treatise
called Al Mutawakiri,
where he says there are a 118 expressions
in the Quran that contain foreign words.
And that these words were used by the
Arabs
prior to the Qur'anic revelation according to Imam
Shafi.
For example,
then there was
6 different languages
in the Qur'an.
The Quran borrows from 6 or 7 different
languages.
So the word injib, for example, injib is
a Greek word.
It's Arab aside. The Arabs were using it,
so it's Arabic.
If you study the ajiromia al kalabo,
is beginning of the Ajiromia.
It's a very famous tree design
and grammar.
You know, speech is
utter. It's compounded.
It's,
buffid.
It's useful. It has meaning. And it is
it is used by the Arabs with what
they're eating. It's placed by an Arab placement.
The Arabs are using it. It's recognized.
Right? So Arabs are using the word inji.
Right? It comes from igilion, Greek word made
Arabic.
The word rasaaf is Turkish.
It
says in the Quran.
Surah An Nava Wasa,
Turkish.
The word doryon,
doryon,
kavukavon, doryon, ayapunur.
Doryun is Ethiopic.
It's another semitic language,
spoken in Ethiopia at Habasha.
And kokav, the word before kokav, kokav is
Hebrew.
And
then Sijiv is Persian.
Sajeel. Tarmi him be hejabatim in Sajeel.
Sangugil
became Sajeel. There's no there's no
g, there's no g, right, in in Arabic
unless you live in Egypt.
Then there's a there's a g. Right? And
people like to watch the show.
Geyla. Geyla. Anyway,
sorry. Bad joke.
But,
they say gamal.
Damid, damid. That's what jamid.
Right? It's Arabic,
Egyptian ladja.
Right? But sambogeb became sidjee.
It's like a stone made of
mud.
And then other there's Hebrew words. A lot
of you sinim, bussa, Nur, Ibrahim.
There's Syriac. Syriac is the language of Israel.
The word Tull.
Tull. What Tull
mountain
is is Syriac.
Suriyaniyah.
So you have these different languages.
You have these different words in the Quran
that either etymology are foreign. But since the
Arabs were using them, they're considered to be
Arabic.
Okay.
Let's talk about the themes of the Quran.
According to Imam al Azali and others, you
know, al Bukhari
and many others,
There are about
7 different,
thematic types
of ayats in the Quran.
Every ayah of the Quran falls into one
of these types, one of these thematic types.
The first is called qasas.
Qasas means narrative.
Qasas.
Right? Atasat means a story.
So for example, the nativity of
Right? A story of the past.
So the flood, the exodus,
the Asab al Taaf, the 7 sleepers of
Ephesus,
These are all kasos. These are all narrative.
Also references to events in the life of
the prophet
like the battle of Khangakh,
later in Israel and Miraaj, the treaty of
Gudevia.
This all fun falls under the thematic category
of of ghusa or ghusas.
Narrative.
And then you have
another type of ayah which is called,
hirkom.
Hirkom.
The plural is aqam.
So this deals with a certain some sort
of legal ruling
for judgment.
Right? Akkam.
So you have akhkan
badaniyah.
You have rulings that deal with the body.
So like ayat that deal with fasting
or ablutions
or penal punishments.
Right?
What to do with the thief.
When you stand and pray, wash your face,
wash your hands to the the elbows.
Right? So these are called aqam badaniyah.
So these fall under the category of aqam.
So again, there's 7
thematic
categories of ayat. The first is called narrative.
Now we have aqam. Within aqam there are
different categories.
AKHAN Badaniyah,
then you have AKHAN,
Kalbiyah
or Hulupiya.
So rulings or imperatives or injunctions
that deal with ethics or spirituality.
For example, er adi luwah aptrahu l'etatwa.
Be just.
It is the closest thing
to piety.
Be just.
And there's many types of these types of
ayah.
Or in Suratul Isra, ayah 32,
inahuqinanafahishatam
wasa asabila.
Don't even come close to zina.
Right? Notice the wording. Walatakalahuqarib.
Don't even come close to fornication.
So the Quran doesn't say don't fornicate.
It says don't even put yourself in a
position
where that that can actually be possible.
Right? So like you're not allowed to be
in a room with an al nahram
that's that's locked
or that's closed. There has to be so
much fear of,
of being discovered.
Right? So most
were, incidents of zenith in our culture, American
culture,
they originate in the workplace.
You know, a man and a woman go
out for lunch. Hey. It's just lunch. What's
the problem? Right? No no big deal. They
go and they talk and they get to
know each other.
Or I'm going out to I'm going out
to the movies with my friend's wife.
What? What are you talking about?
Yeah. You know, he's out of town. I'm
gonna take her out to the movies. What?
And when we, you know, when we question
these things, they think we're so strange.
They think we're weird. Right? I mean, you
don't do that? No.
I don't even shake hands with
a non what? What are you talking? They
think that's okay. They think you're strange.
The prophet, sallam, he said
This religion began strange. It will return the
strange,
glad tidings to the strangers.
Glad tidings is from every week they would
come to my cubicle when I worked in
the corporate world.
They say, hey, Ali. Are you going to
happy hour? Happy hour is when they go
out and get drunk on Friday afternoon
every week, and I said, no. I I
don't I don't drink. Wow, man. That's strange.
Just come and listen. Just come and be
with us. I said, no. I'm not even
I don't feel comfortable. Really?
You're strange,
man. That's too strange.
You're a you're a extremist.
Everything alcohol is extreme. Nowadays, like praying 5
times a day for a lot of parents
is extreme. Like
a a youth who wants to pray for,
oh, that's, you know, you're gonna become God
knows.
I'm just praying. No. It is too extreme.
Do we get your degree first? Degree you?
I have to get my degree to pray
5 times a day.
This is what I hear from people. My
mom will let me break. She wants me
to get my degree first.
I see your parents have a good intention,
obviously.
You know, they're very concerned about,
you
know, you sort of going down the wrong
path, but praying is the right path, obviously.
Praying is right.
So that's okay.
Okay.
And then he has,
cam,
that deal with ebadah.
Kan or wodiga?
You
know, things dealing with prayer. Right?
And then akamadiga.
You know, legal injunctions dealing with what to
do with wealth.
So that's the second thematic category. It's achan,
rulings.
And of course you also have do's and
don'ts. These fall under the category of the
akham.
Prescriptions
and proscriptions.
A prescription
is you have to do this. A proscription
is do not do this.
And people think the entire Quran is a
book of do's and don'ts. Less than 600
ayaat out of 62100
deal deal with do's and don'ts.
And most of those 600 are actually commentaries
on the do's and don'ts. Just a few
dozen ayat of the Quran deals with deal
with do's and don'ts.
Right? So the Quran is not a a
purely
deontological
book. Do and don't. That's not that's not
what it is. By far,
the most prevalent theme of the Quran
is hasas, is narrative.
So stories repeated over and over again.
Allah
wants us to think about these stories and
to draw out lessons
and how to make them relevant for our
times.
And then
the third thing is,
rububiyah,
a theological type verses.
Rububiyah.
Right? So like Suratul Ikhlas, that entire surah
would fall under the category,
the thematic category of rububiyah.
So aya, a deal with the
that, the essence,
the sifaat, the qualities or attributes
and afa'al, actions of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
And then the 4th type of ayah is
called prophetological,
nabawiyyah.
Nabawiyah.
For example, Surat Al Aqsa, ayah number 6,
and nabi yum awwlaa bilbuilinim in a museum.
The prophet takes precedence
for the believers than their own selves.
Right?
And you might have 1 ayah that contains
3 or 4 of these elements.
But every ayah at least can fall into
one of these categories. At least one of
these categories.
The quarantine, imamathazada.
Then you have number 5 is called promise,
wa'ad. And number 6 is called wa'id, threat.
Promise and threat.
Wa'ad and wa'id,
promise and threat.
So oftentimes in the Quran you have what's
known as tibau,
tibau, which is a juxtaposition
of ideas.
You have a promise of jannah
and immediately you have a threat of the
Nod.
Right?
There's a story of the Prophet Sallam, the
Sahaba were praying behind him, and they saw
him during the prayer,
leaning in and put his hand out in
the during the prayer, and then suddenly,
withdraw his hand.
So he asked him after about that, and
he said, you know, I was reciting Ayat
describing Jannah.
Right?
And I was suddenly given a vision of
some of the low hanging fruits of Jannah.
Mhmm. It reached my hand out.
And then the Quran has tibak. So when
you keep reading, suddenly there's a threat of
Naw, of the fire. So when he got
to those ayat, he had a vision of
the fire he withdrew his hand.
Hand. Why then? Why Eden?
Promise and threat. In the out in the
Kolkotha.
You know, indeed, we have given you kawthah.
This is a wag, a promise.
The believers will gain salvation.
This is a promise, and Allah will never
break his promise.
A wahid is a threat.
Allah
says in Surah Tawba, ayah 24. We talked
about the nature of Surah Tawba.
That if any of these material things are
more beloved to you, houses and your possessions,
any of the your families, any of these
things,
Any of those things are more beloved to
you than Allah, his messenger, and struggling in
the cause of Allah, which has a martial
aspect as well as an internal aspect, then
just wait until Allah brings about his decision.
In other words, we don't want to wait.
This is a threat from Allah. Allah issues
a threat. We should take it seriously. If
a human being calls your house,
issues you a threat,
you're you're not gonna sleep all night. You're
gonna call the cops. You're gonna move out.
You're gonna take it seriously.
Right? So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala threatens. We
take it seriously.
However, we know from our theology
that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is so merciful
that he may forego a threat.
And this is something that is,
in the theology of Addis of the Wajamat.
The Marathesidah,
the rationalists,
they they claim that every single threat that
Allah makes, he must carry out.
Right?
So the problem with that type of theology
is that
they're circumscribing
or they're,
limiting Allah's volition and agency and mercy.
If Allah breaks a threat,
that's a
demonstration
of his mercy.
Breaking a promise is qiyana.
Breaking a promise is considered treachery.
Right? Did I talk about this last time?
Oh, I talked about this. I was in
Australia.
Similar setup.
So for example, if there's a if there's
a king
who has a who's who's made a law
in his land that if you kill any
of the sheep of my kingdom,
I'll hang you.
Right? So they caught this little boy
killing sheep. So they bring him to the
king.
Right?
So the king says, well, you know, the
law says
I have to hang you, so go hang
him.
Right? That's the letter of the law. Or
the king could say, why are you stealing?
And the kid says, oh my family's
poor.
So the king says, okay. That's okay. Take
some more sheep.
Right? So that's a function of the king's
mercy. So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
can forego a threat.
He can forego a threat, but we don't
lean on that
assurance. There's no assurance Allah will do that
for any of us. It's monjim. It's it's
just conceivable
Allah can do that.
Right? That's why we have to be between
hope and fear.
The prophet, sallallahu alaihi, he said, wear the
2 sandals of hope and fear.
Right? So hope is called raja.
Raja.
Raja means hope with work.
It doesn't mean just fear without work, a
hope without work. That's called tamenma.
The intelligent one is the one who subdues
his lower self
and works for what comes after death.
The unintelligent
one is the one who puts his nuffs
in in pursuance of its desires
and just has vain hope in god.
You know? Oh, I hope I go to
Jannah and he doesn't pray.
Right? I hope I told his brother one
time, way back in the college days,
or brings lots of Jummah, like, right outside
where his brother was. And he's Muslim.
He said, you wanna pray with us? And
he said,
in the love of war.
God is
he's
merciful and forgiving.
We said, yeah. That's true.
That's true. He's merciful and forgiving.
Right? It's like what's
when shaitan came to Isa alaihis salaam and
said, and
then Isa alaihis salaam said, that's true but
I'm not gonna repeat it because you told
me to say it. It's a true statement.
So I said, you know, no longer shadeemu
iqal.
You know, Temena is just, you know, like
someone who's
sitting in his mother's basement at 40 years
old.
And his mom said, go get a job.
If it happens, it happens. I I hope
I can become a doctor one day. He
just played video games,
wearing his flip flops, eating Cheetos.
So rajap rajap means to have hope
coupled with strong effort. This is called raja,
and there's tofib in that.
Tamanna is to have hope with no
no effort,
and there's there's no tophi.
Is forsakenness
in that.
So
be between hope and fear.
So not too much hope,
right, that you start to become arrogant.
Right? And and then you start becoming lax
on your ama.
Like some Christians, you know, they say I
have assurance of paradise.
I'm assured of paradise.
Many Christians
said to me, do you have assurance of
paradise
in Islam? And I said, you know, the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam,
Whoever says, la ilaha illallah with sincerity will
enter paradise.
So inshallah, I am that person who will
say la ilaha illallah with sith.
And he said, no. That's not good enough.
You have a personal assurance. Personal.
You mean, you know, is there a hadith
where the prophet says, hadith a'ih will get
hulu jannah? No. I don't know.
Such personal assurance. Personal assurance is dangerous
because it makes one lazy.
If you're assured paradise, you know a 100%
that's going to happen,
then you start becoming lax on your Ahmad.
That's a problem.
Then, you know, the other extreme
where people are full of fear.
Right? So they get into a state of
ulut. Ulud means despair.
You know, like, what's the point? You know,
I'm you don't have dirty Banafsa?
How can God even forgive me? This type
of mentality.
Do never despair of God's mercy.
You have to be between the 2.
And and nowadays, even I'm a say lean
a little bit on the side of hope.
A little more hope nowadays
because there's so much
doom and gloom and,
you know, fire and brimstone.
Okay. So wahad and wahid.
And then the last
thematic category is called ma'ad or the hereafter.
The hereafter.
So any ayah of the Quran will fall
into at least one of these seven categories
Of qasas,
of narrative sorry. Narrative, of,
judgment or ruling,
of theology, of prophetology,
promise, threat,
and ma'ad, hereafter.
So if you look at Juz'amna,
the last jewels,
the central theme of the last jewels is
ma'ad.
Right? Because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is training
muslims.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala didn't begin by revealing
all these aqa.
Right? Those came in Medina actually.
You could be,
the town drunk in Mecca and be Muslim.
There's nothing wrong with bringing it out.
After the battle of Badr, someone's Sahaba, they
had a party and
they got drunk. It's mentioned in Sira,
because there was no prohibition of alcohol at
the time.
Right?
So these things came later. So when we're
implementing
the religion,
we had to keep these things in mind.
You know, we don't suddenly,
you know, expect people to adopt all of
these
aham and sunnah. They should be encouraged,
Right? But I've seen people become Muslim and
then leave the religion
shortly thereafter
because
they find it burdensome. It's not burdensome. It
has to be taken
in dosages.
So our mother Ayesha, she said, if, you
know, prohibition, meaning
not not allowed to drink alcohol,
was revealed
initially, then very few people would become Muslim.
There's a statement attributed to her along those
lines.
So we have Ma'ad.
And then the final verse of the Quran
revealed according to Naul Suyuti
is Al Baqarah 281.
This is the final verse of the Quran.
It's not aliomak madri laqundima.
That's not the final ayah. And when you're
gonna catch it with your wata, with many
ayah that came after
Some of the heard of us say, there
are no akham that came after this aya.
But the final verse, Yani,
absolute final is surah number 2 verse 281.
Fear the day
that you will return you will be returned
to Allah.
So the qalaq comes full circle.
Nahad back to Nahad.
Okay.
Any questions so far before we start? Yes,
sir.
In terms of when,
in terms of tafsir of the Quran and
even from the translation, there seems to be,
like, difference
in Afbaited in terms of
in
terms of who can interpret Quran and how
there's a relationship. Can you clarify, like,
what are the main differences between the 2
or if they're even likely
Yeah.
The the 2
the traditional
definition of a Sunni Muslim
is someone who follows the 4 schools of
thought, one of the one of the 4
madad.
Although
most of Uemau would say that there is
allowance for mixing that as well.
And then also following one of the 2
schools of classical theology,
which are Ash'ari, Matuidi, and some include the
Athari or the early
Hadnari school as well. Imamatihar's
creed is Athari.
Right? It's non speculative. It's very ecumenical.
The differences
between Ash'ari, Matuidi,
the Urdu Ma'i, and the Wajima will say
are negligible. They're not they're not major.
So, you know, what to do with
really really the difference.
One of the major differences, and it's again
not a major difference.
One of the noteworthy differences is the role
of the intellect.
You know? So for the Ash'adi,
the intellect
really has to be aided
by revelation
to arrive at at true theology.
For the al Shali, in other words, the
intellect left by itself
will not arrive at tokid. It must be
aided by revelation.
But as an actual deity will say it
is it is possible.
It's possible for the intellect to arrive at
Tohi
without revelation.
Right?
But parents in society
will compromise the fitra,
compromise the aqal.
It's a hadith that
says
Every child is born upon a
pure
state in an innate
disposition to accept the message of the prophets.
Parents in society make that child a Jew,
a Christian,
a Zoroastrian, atheist.
And then with the,
Asharra, there tends to be more,
tendency to make a wheel of ayat.
So interpretation
of ayat that are Mutashabihat.
Ayat that are not clear in meaning.
Right? So a little more speculative.
That's sort of the
critique from
the Hanabila
or the Ethari about the Ashadi is that
it's too speculative.
Of course, the Maritesilah theology is way too
speculative and it's not even considered
a
permissible position theologically.
But some of the I should believe that
it was
it was,
necessary to engage in elm ul kedam,
speculative theology or plomical theology
because you have these other groups,
you know, saying these very strange things about
the Quran.
Right?
For example,
the hand of God. What is that? Some
groups that that means a physical hand made
of matter. Allah is located in space, is
sitting on a physical throne.
So the actually, at least they had to
clarify
what that means.
Means the power of god,
right, according to
those who make tawhid.
Right? So this is called tawhid.
The case? Yeah. By and large, the the
Arabs of Becca were Ushleking,
but there seems to have been some influence
from Madhulikika.
And nowadays,
scholars would say that there was probably more
influence
than we previously thought.
In the Quran,
it's interesting, in a Meccan Surah, the Mushri,
there's an ayah that says that the Mushriqim
came to the prophet, and
they said to him, you know, why don't
you receive a revelation like Moses did?
This is coming from pagan Arabs.
So there is some familiarity
amongst the Poresh, the mushirikim
of the Poresh,
So the nature of prophecy.
And of course you have the Qurnafah.
You have a group of Arabs in Mecca,
pre Islamic Arabia in Mecca,
that did not engage in shirk,
because they claim to be in the tradition
of Ibrahim, al Islam.
So they're very conscious of their Abrahamic heritage.
Right?
So and obviously there are Arab Christians
that, you know, don't necessarily live in Mecca
but live in the south and north that
pass through Mecca.
You have Jewish tribes living in the north
in Saybar and Yathrud,
and other places.
That would pass through Mecca as well.
So these names were established amongst them at
the time. The Arabs in the Arabian Peninsula,
it's interesting. They didn't use,
Yesua for Isa.
You know, Arabs in other
like, maybe in Iraq were using Yesua, but
Arabs in
in Mecca, we're using Isa.
So that's what the Quran uses. That was
the Quran was revealed in the dialect of
the Quraysh.
The Quran was revealed in the dialect of
the Quraysh. We'll talk about this more. We'll
talk about the 7 Nahruf. It's
a hadith that says, and this hadith from
Bukhari, 10 companions related to hadith.
The Quran was revealed upon 7 letters.
What are these letters? These ahroof?
One opinion is these are these are 7
different dialects of Arabic.
Qurayshi and Hudayli
and, you know, the
Saqifi and others.
The dominant opinion is that no, they're not
7 dialects. The Quran is revealed in the
Qurayshi dialect,
But there's 7 types of variations
of the text.
Seven types of variations of the text.
So one type of variation is
variations of the skeletal dots.
You have you have a reading.
Allah will teach Anisa the book
in another tera'a.
We will teach him the book. You and
Nu both are multiply attested to'asim.
So this is a function of the akhbuf.
Or you have
variations
in diacritical,
vowel notations.
For example,
and we'll get into this later. I sort
of point on tandem.
But the the verse on the hulu,
Right?
This is
means and
and wipe your heads
and wash your feet to the ankles
because arjulakum
of the fatha means it's mansub, it's accusative.
So it's not referring to the closest verb
which means white. You have to go to
the next closest verb which which is qasala,
to wash.
However, there's another reading of this ayah where
it says, avjulikum
genitive kasra,
which now goes back to the white.
And Sunnis, they take from these all these
qara'at.
Right? There's 7 or some say 10 qara'at
to the Quran.
So the general rule is to wash to
the ankle. But if you're wearing
socks that are above the ankle,
then there's dispensation to wipe over the hush.
The shia, they only take the genitive reading.
So they'll wipe over the barefoot.
This is really the issue with praying behind
them. There are some differences in Aqina.
They believe in 12 infallible imams.
Right? The Ithna shayyah.
Right?
We believe in those imams. They were great
men, but isma is only for al Anbiya.
So it's a mistaken belief.
But it doesn't give kufur.
The main issue is
they don't wash their feet to the ankle.
So there's a problem, sharhan, with their prayer.
That's why the
to pray behind the issue.
Not necessarily for a theological reason. Although some
of the people in the also mentioned
that, you know, their their opinions of certain
Sahaba do give kuforn.
For example, anyone who maintains the ifr about
Aisha.
Right?
And if you read their books, some of
them actually maintain that, unfortunately.
So that's going against Dali al Qateeb. Allah
says,
you know, he says in the Quran,
Allah exhorts you never ever to say anything.
Don't be close to this about Aisha ever
again
if you are believers.
Yeah.
So
some of them bring them up. Unfortunately, they
maintained the if I don't know how they
you deal with that Aya, to be honest
with you.
But something like that is clearly cool for
me.
Yes.
You mentioned the language theory.
Yeah. Is that a nation language that is
not existing anymore? Yeah. It's considered a dead
language.
There there are some remote villages in Chad
to this day,
where they speak the language.
You know, day to day.
But other than that And then the church
of the East, there's a church in Iraq
called the Assyrian church, also called the church
of the East.
Their church liturgy is conducted in Syriac,
but they speak Arabic.
So they don't speak it as a spoken
language.
But in church, they're literate the good literature
church liturgy is conducted in Syria.
But basically, it's it's like Sanskrit.
It's a dead language.
A Canadian,
Ugaritic, these are all Semitic languages that are
now dead. Nobody really speaks them anymore.
Even Hebrew was a dead language for a
while, and they revived it by looking at
Arabic.
There's a statement Imam al Habdab mentions that
in the lives of man, he says on
the day of judgment,
the language of Yom Kiyama is Suriyamiyah, is
in Syria.
The proceedings of the Yom Kiyama are in
Syria.
The language of Isadism.
The language of Jannah is Arabic.
And it's okay if you don't know Arabic.
You should try to learn it, but
you'll you'll you'll be initiated into the language,
inshallah.
All of us in general.
We should learn.
Okay.
Any other questions?
Yeah. Syriac is also called Late Aramaic.
Late Aramaic. It was the language of Isad,
his spoken language.
Okay. Let's begin talking about the transmission of
the Qur'anic revelation.
So the Quran has been transmitted to us
in 2 ways, orally and in written form.
So on page 18 of Vandenfor's text,
Ibn Hisham relates Ibn Hisham was a great,
historiographer who wrote the Sira and Abu'iha,
3 volumes of the Prophet Sallidah.
He mentions that
that early in the Meccan period,
you have
reports of Sahaba
reciting Quran
at the Kaaba.
Abdul Adul Mas'ud,
the first of the Sahaba to go recite
in public, and he was beaten. Right? Abu
Bakr al Zifari
recited Quran on the Kaaba. He was beaten.
Of course, he probably says to someone go,
you recite. They put him in a choke
hold. They throw garbage on him. Right? They
also mentioned that Abu Bakr as Siddiq would
recite the Quran,
at his house, and then we should keep
that some of them used to come and
hide behind his fence just to listen.
Right? So the Quran is very sweet. If
you know Arabic well,
it it is mesmerizing.
So you have, you know, Abu Sufyan and
others would come. And it must have been
a very awkward moment when they'd go there
and there's other bershakim there. What are you
doing? What are you doing? What are you
doing?
What are you doing?
I'm just relaxing. And I'm listening actually listening
to Abu Bakr Siddiq's recitation.
So the argument is then why did they
just become Muslim then?
The reason is because,
you know,
it's beyond aesthetics. It's not just this is
so beautiful I should become Muslim. That's the
mistake Muslims make when they deal with that
tahti.
As we said, the challenge in the Quran
is not just make something as beautiful as
the Quran.
The reason why these people didn't become Muslim,
Abu Sufyan did become Muslim but not until
later,
but Abu Jahl never became Muslim,
is because the Quran is calling towards a
morality
that's coming into conflict with their own nafs.
So that's first and foremost what the Quran
is doing.
Right?
So it doesn't matter how beautiful it is
if a person doesn't wanna change.
They're not going to convert.
Okay.
There's a hadith in Bukhari.
The best amongst you are those who learn
the Quran and teach it. Another
hadith in Muslim
Al Qurano Her judgment, Leq al-'Alek.
The Quran is either a proof for you
or against you
on the Yom Haqiyam.
Recital of the Quran is required, obviously, in
the 5 daily prayers.
Thus, the Quran was constantly
heard and recited and memorized
by the Sahaba.
Right? So
this is important.
The Quran that we recite was recited by
Sahaba.
The New Testament that Christians read
today, the gospel of Matthew, for example, was
never seen by Esa, the sun.
The gospel of Mark was never seen by
these sides.
The gospel of John, the gospel of Luke,
the first Corinthians, second Corinthians, the book of
Romans, book of Revelation, None of the 27
books of the New Testament, the so called
were ever even seen by.
They were written after his life.
Right? But the Quran we recite today was
recited by Sahaba and the prophet
We actually know which surah he will recite
at specific prayers.
Our mother Ayesha said that the prophet
would pray the 2 sunnah before the fard
of sur in the morning.
He would recite Ankhafirun
in the first rakat and Ikhlas in the
second. And it and it was very,
he was very,
what's the word,
consistent in doing that.
For for sunnah prayers, you can have some
some consistency.
But for fog, you shouldn't
need for fog prayers, you shouldn't designate, hey,
I'm gonna recite this in every fog. It's
Mapru in the Hanafi school. Although there is
a reported man, the prophet
put him in charge of a group of
Muslims to go out for an expedition. This
man would every rakha would recite Ikhlas.
Even when he would recite another surah, he
would he would do Ikhlas after.
So they complained to the prophet and said
he's always reciting Ikhlas. Every rakah. Ikhlas, Ikhlas.
So Prophet Hussain, he said, why do you
recite the surah in every raqa?
And he said so he said ask him
why he does that. Ask him why he
does that. So he asked why do you
do that? And he says, I just love
how Allah is is
describing
this Surah.
So they came back and he said his
answer was he loves how Allah is described
in the Surah. And then the prophet said
tell him Allah loves him.
So Ikhlas is weighty.
And then like Suratul and and and, Salatul
Jumaa.
They said, there was some consistency
with Salatul Jumaa.
And then
in
the second
87 and 88.
So we know
which which and then in Fajr prayer, the
thought that he would he would recite
longer ayaq.
Right? It would be a longer prayer. And
Maghreb, it was short. We actually know this
from the Hadith literature.
So it's extraordinary that we know this.
So
the Sahaba were constantly
hearing and reciting and memorizing the Quran.
Now,
you know, this was an oral culture
an oral culture. It was, you know, word
auditory.
It was sunnahi yu.
So most people were illiterate. They didn't know
how to they didn't know how to read
or write.
In fact, most
pre modern cultures were oral.
Even,
in Athens, in the 5th century before the
common era,
the time of Socrates and Aristotle and Plato,
90% of the general populace
did not know how to read or write.
In fact, Socrates himself
was illiterate. That's why he never wrote anything.
Everything we know about Socrates
is through Plato.
Right? So this was normal.
Everything was oral. So the Arabs actually excelled
at poetry
and at memorization.
This is something they excelled at. It was
the height of their language.
The The time of the Quran revelation,
it was the height of Arabic,
and they excelled
in
in hefib and memorization.
So it's almost as if Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala is preparing them,
for the Quran and the Sunnah.
They would memorize their lineage back to Ibrahim
Alaihi Salam. They would memorize
their horses' lineages.
Well, horses.
This horse is the son of so and
so, the son of so and so. All
the way back. Generations were horses.
Right? So this was something that was very
important for them.
So Allah
facilitated
the preservation
of the sunnah in the Quran
by giving it primarily, first and foremost, to
the Arab.
There are still oral cultures in the world.
1 of my colleagues went to Mauritania,
West Africa,
and he was 18 at the time.
And he said that the children were laughing
at him because he was not a Hafiz
of Quran and he was so old.
So what did you do with your life?
You're 18 and not Hafiz?
So in world culture, memorization
is
something that's valued. There are people who have
the entire Arabic dictionary, the Khammus, memorized.
The people who have the Shamayel and Abu'iha
of relativity memorized page numbers and everything.
So
the Muslim argument is that the order and
arrangement
was well known.
Order and arrangement of the Quran was well
known
because of
the the constant
constant recitation of the Quran by the Sahaba.
So that's an important point to make.
The prophet also listened to the recitation of
the Quran by his companions.
On page 18 of month 10, there's a
hadith of Bukhari
where the prophet
says that Abdullah ibn Masrud, who's known for
his Quranic skills,
he said
reciting the Quran to me. And Ibn Mas'rud
said, how can I recite it to you
when it was revealed to you? And he
said, I'd love to hear it from somebody
else other than me.
So David Mas'rud began reciting Surat An Nisa,
and he got to verse 41.
How will it be when when we appoint
a witness,
against
every people and we'll appoint you as a
witness against these people. And then the prophet
says, maybe you can stop them.
And even mister Ubud looked and there was
tears streaming down in the face of the
prophet says,
So there's evidence
that Sahaba would recite the Quran to the
prophetesses.
The prophet also sent teachers to teach the
Quran.
Ibn Nishan relates the prophet
He said, Musa'abi
bir Umair to the people of Yathrib
before they hit you up to Medina
to recite the Quran to them and to
teach them the Quran. And they called them
Al Qari Al Qari, the the reciter,
the reader.
Imam Sayyuti mentions in the Ith Khan
over 20 well known companions
who are Afaf of the Quran.
These include the 4 halos,
ibn Masrud,
ibn Abbas, Abu Burera,
ibn Hajjar, he mentions over 40 names
names. He names them.