Hangout 14 – Ahsan Hanif

alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuhu This is brother bodum Hamad coming at you with another episode of hangout where we hang out and we're here now in this kind of like weird lecture hall type room but I have a great guest with me

very, very harshly escena de Salud.

How's everything? How's the luck? I think one of the things that I admire about you, Michelle subotica is your love of the Quran, just many things. One thing in particular is your love of the Quran. And I know your journey of the court and Mashallah you studied and at a young age and you know, you're one person who's known for your love of the Quran, and you were able to actually study the Arabic language and study and you know, the illustrious university with Xena Mashallah. But for many of us who are not Arabic native speakers, and we haven't actually studied the deen per se, sometimes we find it difficult to really comprehend the Quran. What I mean is that, for us to

properly work properly reflect on the court and is sometimes difficult because we're limited in our scope and understanding. But I know for you, you've actually started to look and develop more into this idea of can native English speakers properly contemplate this term to double right to double up the Quran? And I know there's something you've been kind of doing a lot more lately, but give me some insights and thoughts. How is it possible for someone who doesn't speak Arabic to properly contemplate on the Korean level from the below salatu salam also delivered early he was talking to human mother seldom at the Sleeman kathira, my band first reached out to her for inviting me on your

show. We never hung out normally ever. But now when it comes to TV, we're hanging out.

Yeah, I have been on a journey with the plan, as I'm sure everyone has their own way. Since I was probably five, six years old. That's where my journey started in terms of like 3d,

getting very familiar as we know me to learn to read the Quran, and from the Lord, I've been on a journey where I memorize the Quran and may attain my ijazah in the Quran, I was able to as you said, automata University and learn Arabic which obviously brings your understanding of the Quran to a different level with a modern mystics have developed some Tafseer courses and so on. And shala a new course that's going to be launching now is one about the the book the contemplation of the Quran.

And the premise of this course and really, the premise of the whole thing is the very idea that yes, as a non Arabic speaker, and in our cases native English speakers, we can contemplate the crown with little to no Arabic. Now obviously, the way that we would contemplate the Quran without knowing Arabic would be different to the way that our Arabic contemplate upon. It may require slightly more effort and work on our part. But at the same time, it can be it is possible and it can be done. Because when Allah subhanaw taala revealed the Quran and Alonzo Joel's knowledge is infinite, his wisdom is infinite. He knew that there would be many millions of people, perhaps billions of people

throughout time, that will never understand Arabic all have very little knowledge of Arabic. Yet at the same time, one of the greatest and most fundamental commandments about the Quran in the Quran is to contemplate the Quran as importantly, so contemplating upon. So when it comes to contemplate the Quran, for one knew that the vast majority of people wouldn't know Arabic, yet they would still be able to contemplate the Quran. How is that to be done? And this is really like what what I want to focus on inshallah we're going to be focusing on in this course as well.

contemplate the Koran for English speaker, former Arabic speakers. So give me some some ideas. Now when we hear a lot of times this idea of contemplating the court and it's not just restricted to nature is restricted to, you know, elements of tawheed. Like, what do we mean when we say contemplating the core and so contemplating the word to contemplate, to reflect to ponder is when you study something at a deeper level, but not necessarily just academically? So for example, it's not just about me reading motifs, yearbooks, because the Koran is not to be treated like a normal book. It's not a storybook. It's not a textbook, Islamic encyclopedia, it's not a magazine or

newspaper. The Quran is unique. So sometimes the problem is when we approach the Koran, and we read the Koran, we read it the way that we would read a storybook. We read it the way that we would read a magazine or newspaper. And so we're not really prepped, our mindset is not prepped to actually contemplate the Koran. contemplate the Quran is when you go to a deeper level. And you look at the way that Allah subhanaw taala has worded certain verses the relationship between stories within a single source or topics within a single source. And why does the last panel dialer mentioned this here? What's the significance? What is the overall message that allows pantalla is trying to

get through to us, and how does it do it? And that's why the beauty of the Quran is that it's something which you can read perhaps like, you know, like dozens if not hundreds and hundreds of times and each time you take something new from it, because it's something which keeps renewing and giving. Because contemplation is when you attach your heart to the or use your mind you reflect you ponder, you stop, you think you ask why? Why is it that Allah has said this here? And in this way? What is the mystery that a las pantallas trying to give to me? And, and this is why like, that's part of the beauty of the Quran is miraculous nature. So I'll give you an example that some people

might be confused about, for instance, you open up the corner and the first first sort of sort of patio. After that you go into sort of buckler, right. And and you think, okay, the title of this chapter is about the cow, right? And you have a reading sort of book that you find that there's actually many lessons, and it's not restricted to just one theme, or one story about Nutanix. And I'm in the bucket up, but yet, there's many different themes embedded within it. Some people get confused, especially non Muslims, maybe when they pick up the Koran, they read it, and they're just kind of confused, like, what's the point of this story and sequence? Like, where is it getting to?

And why is it that that certain themes are here, and then the story will start here and then end at the very end of the court? And how do we reconcile this with the understanding that we have, like you said, modern reading and understanding of books, and so on, and so forth. So the way that the Quran what what Allah Subhana, Allah wants us to understand is from each and every single chapter, each and every single surah, there is a message, there is a theme to the Torah. And one of the topics that are mentioned then within the sauna, connect back to that simple theme. And the relationship between all those topics is to complement that theme. So that's why, for example, lots

of panels, Allah will mention, for example, the story of a prophet, but it only mentioned a very small aspect, because that's what's relevant here to the theme. So it's not like a normal storybooks or biography. It's not all in one place, because the rest of it's irrelevant. In the last panel data when he gave the Arizona biography book, it's not an encyclopedia, it's not Wikipedia, it's nothing like that. So therefore, Allah Subhana, Allah isn't interested in giving the biography, detailed biography of each and every single Prophet, what Allah is interested in doing is giving this a message. And this part of that story is relevant to that message. And that's why when you For

example, beginning a sword on the law speaks about, for example, worshipping Him alone, that he moves on to, for example, the story of a prophet then the Day of Judgment, that back to divorce, for example, then another story, and it seems very random. But in fact, there is something which, which connects all of that. And I can give you a very good example from sort of Baccarat. ayatul kursi autocracy is the greatest verse of the Quran of the Prophet Allah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. But it is not a surah in its own right, even though it's the greatest verse, it is part of sort of Bopara, right the way to narrative. If you were to look at the verse before the verse before, he

speaks about charity,

after either kursi, Allah mentions three stories, each story is only one verse 12, the stories are about Prophet Ibrahim alayhis salam, once when he went to the tyrant Kingdom road, and he had this debate about with him about who Allah is. The other one is the story of Ibrahim and he wants to see how a low brings the dead back to life. And then in between those two verses, you have another story, the story of the Prophet Muhammad Ali Salaam, when he went to Jerusalem at a time it was in complete destruction, the whole place had been decimated. And he thought to himself, how can the city ever come back to life? How will ever be rejuvenated after such destruction? So lock was him to

see for 100 years and in that time, city came back to life? Why mentioned these particular stories after ayatul kursi? What is the connection? There's no way complete biography is just one verse at a time, bang, bang, bang, and it's done. And then a laughter them after that goes back to charity. So the verse before as, of course, is charity, the verse at the end of the passage is charity, in between you have these three seemingly random stories, and then you have added to quality. And the the the way that you understand this, then is by looking at it to see what is its theme and message what what does the law tell us an item policy. And, of course, he speaks about Allah, Who allies,

his names, his attributes, his powers, his abilities, knowing your Lord, so that when you know him, you can worship Him and you appreciate who you are worshiping. So master panels that allow them to show some of his powers and abilities to complement that verse. He mentioned those three particular stories, because each one of them speaks about some type of power and attribute of Allah, either a large creator, or a lot of the resurrector, who bring everyone back from from death to life. So last pantalla, complemento Soros and then Alliance dojo the whole point of doing this is worship. And one of the most fundamental aspects of worship is sacrifice, and one of the greatest acts of worship in

which he sacrifices charity. So love begins to champion into charity. And that's what law says in the Quran. You will never attain piety until you spend from that ritual of sacrificing from things that you hold dear and child

is the epitome of that. And so therefore loss of habitat and now that now when you understand it in this way, you see that there's actually a very logical progression. And it's something which actually makes sense. And there's a theme that like, connects all of this. But this is what the double is, is when you contemplate beyond just the surface meaning, and you look at it. I don't want to diverge too much from this concept to the Board of reflection. But some people might also, you know, be a little bit skeptical as to, for instance, the compiling of the verses, because obviously, we know that the court and in and of itself, as almost half was compiled after the death process.

But how did the profit plus of them? I don't know if you can answer this question? It's a very kind of big question. But how do the process of them know that these particular verses for instance, because you know, sometimes verses were added in a suit? Or it was it was compiled in a different way? Did the two double to the point of reflection change at one point like, what was the what was the kind of hikma? What was the reasoning behind having versus added to a story later on to maybe extend expanded or change the meaning slightly? Do you understand what I'm saying?

I mean, the sexual connected? You know, one of the questions that people often have is, why isn't the Koran in chronological order? Right, so you start off with a prophecy will be the first person ever to be revealed, and wonderful chronologically. And again, the problem is, and this is like a secularist argument as well. The problem is, our mind constructs, the way that we're trying to frame the Koran into our modern understanding of the way books should work. Right? If we're trying to friend the poor and into the way we should understand it, rather than try to understand the poor and the way it should be understood. And that is a fundamental issue. So for non Muslims, like you know,

they have this problem because they especially like if they're secularists, and so on, because they're trying to frame into a narrative that they understand that they're comfortable with practice, you know, the beauty of the Quran and what connects you to the Quran. What raises your Eman is that you're actually understand the Quran the way it should be understood. Right? And that's why that's what makes the Koran unique. That's why it is unique because if it was just a normal storybook people say yes storybook feels like an encyclopedia, you have dozens of encyclopedias, makes the port on unique is the way that it is. So to answer your question, the prophets Allah love

Allah, he was telling me he received revelation, he would mention that revelation would recite it, the companion, some of them would write it, others would memorize it. Then in the year that the prophecy was to die, Jubilee galley Salam came to him twice in the month of Ramadan, to revise the plan with him twice from beginning to end, this revelation was complete. So that that final two revisions, those final two revisions, gave the professor the exact order. And the final finished, for example, version of the Quran. That is what the professor Solomon gave to the companions that they memorize, because the practice of the people of the time was to memorize was oral tradition.

People known for writing, not just in Arabia, but the world over.

However, they would memorize. And they were known for their memories. And then, and it was written, but it wasn't compiled. So when we say it's not written, it was written, it just wasn't compiled into a single book form. Because books were really popular that the whole thing about printing books and so on, and we're talking about 1400 years old, very expensive, as well, yeah. And so people will write them on parchment, and so on. But you know, you may have a few, I may have a few sources there, but it's everyone's like, got it, it's not compiled into one, what rhodiola one did was gather all that together. And the North Mount of your loved one actually formalized the gathering

and he made into what we call a Masako program in its contemporary form. But it's actually order and, and the way that it was, like, recited with the order that we have, that's what it was. Like, we know that, you know, when we hear the court and we know that for instance, there are as a linguist or somebody who studies language, I know that there are a lot of printings grammatical tools that somebody might use in, in speech or, or in poetry to kind of get a point across, right, something like rhythm, like rhyming and repetition. And a lot of these things, actually, you find in the court and always interested me to find that, that almost panatela when he's revealing these

stories and these messages to us, that he's using things like repetition and rhythm and rhyming, and I always for me, that was always a huge point of contemplation, right like to, to, to, to think about how all the spots on my lord is communicating with me is that is that also a field of study within that is to the book. So if for example, you have something which is repeated so many times to ask the question, why, at a very basic level, the story of Musa is a story in the Quran that is most repeated his name and his story is the one that is mentioned most in the Quran. But why Musa are one of the profits. One of the Brahim he was a direct descendant of the Prophet sallallahu arias was one

of his forefathers one at least it is that I'm chronologically speaking he was a closest prophet. Why Musa so this is not to W asking the question why it went to stop it. And it's not just simply reading and moving on, you're actually thinking and analyzing repetition. Why does a lot of handouts sometimes in a very short space of verses, repeat something so many times I can solve it Brahim Allah Subhana Allah gives to

to derive the Prophet Ibrahim alayhis salam, the one that he made when he left his mouth, he left his mother in the desert land of Mecca. He left them there as we know the story. He left them there and he went at this point. And you can imagine he's like, you know, in old age, he just had a child that he's been asking and making draft of all of his life decades have passed, now that he has his newborn baby is told to abandon him, leave him in the middle of the desert. The drive that he makes, at this point, shows the strength of his man, last Panther dimension seven verses that are his daughter. In those seven verses, the name of a lot, he mentioned 13 times seven versus setting times

nearly double the amount of times. And he mentioned like, if you were to make the arch, they would say, oh, a lot, the beginning of your party, like have a whole long list of demands, forget what we're thinking, yeah, maybe at the end, we'll throw in the name of 12 alone or something. But we wouldn't really like you know, keep mentioning the last name every time over and over and using different names of Allah and so on. Even though that's an ethical that Allah is trying to show to us through these verses. But what it shows even more than this is there at this time of trial and challenging difficult to Ibrahim Ali's ceram. Such was the strong connection of his heart with a

loss of power dialer, that he couldn't help verbalizing his love for a lot. Yeah, to keep mentioning, he loves me. And when you see something like first just as a foreigner, Moon Warner, Would you like something was like I keep mentioning your name, it shows that I love you, it shows that I you know that I respect you that I admire you. And so lots of panatela is showing that Ibrahim alayhis salaam is connected to allow so strong, so close, that even in the most difficult of times, all he did was completely just remember last name. And this is if you actually look through the Quran, this is something you'll find throughout the whole Quran, it is actually methodology,

that in times of difficulty, and in times of ease, your connection to a loss of habitat is extremely important. And one of the ways that a lot shows this and how you reflect on this is repetition. The factors repeated over and over. But sometimes we'll find verses in the Quran, for instance, that were repeated, you know, a certain phrase, but then at the end, there's a difference, you know, at the end, it kind of switches up on you. Can you comment on that? Like, what what would be the reason for something like that? Okay, let me give you like a very good Golden Rule. Anytime in the Quran that you find a slight difference. Or you find, for example, that Allah would normally use to name

two of his names together. But now all of a sudden, he's used a different combination. My sister of Allah for Rahim, he said, Rahim, Allah for he just changed the order. Most people read the same, okay? and move on. Stop and think anytime this happens, ask your ask the question why the origin, not a single letter is random. If it's been done, it's been done for a reason. And if you can discover that gem, and uncovered that wisdom, that's what the Buddha is, that is what brings you your heart closer to Las pantallas strengthens your connection with the plan. And often like one of the complaints people have is you read the Koran, it doesn't really benefit us, we don't really cry,

we don't really feel a connection and so on. And too often we use the get out clause that we don't speak Arabic, so therefore it's a given. Actually, no, why should it be a given? Why can't we understand the Quran, okay, you may take a slightly more time and effort, but it's not worth putting in the time and effort. And so Allah subhanaw taala, when he makes these slight changes, ask yourself why. And normally those slight changes are also because there it is relevant to the theme. There is something which has to do with the theme. And there are many examples of this, of this in the Quran. For example, Allah subhanaw taala, in the story of Lutheranism, when he's living with his

family, and they live in that land, there's many verses in the Quran that tell us how he left and all of them say that the angel said to them leave. So they just left right, the family of Route would want to leave before punishment came on his nation and the left. However, in Surah, two, it is the only place in the Quran where there is an additional burden in the middle of verses Same, same story, same incident, Allah Subhana Allah says a lot, leave with your family, but use standard, the real you'll be behind them, you follow them from behind just two or three extra work so like he didn't mention at the other. Nowhere else is this to these two words. Additionally, ministry just

hear why. Why here. And the reason is because the whole theme of that sort of sort of hatred is about preservation. The way that a law protects is only so Luther is Sam has been told to leave when you leave. For example, if you were to go to like, you know, the more you to go to like the city center, a sacred place is very crowded and you have your wife, you have young daughters, children and so on. Would you walk in front of them and like just leave them behind you and just like not pay any attention? Would you as a father or mother, a parent or carer or guardian Would you stand behind and make sure that they can view you know where they are, you can keep track of them. Last

pelletizing the same thing because this sort of is about preservation protection. Everyone else is not really relevant because the theme is a protection but here it's about protection. So Allah says you need to protect your family and a lot

panel data is the one who protects all of his Olia. So just a slight addition, just those two extra words have opened up a complete different, like perspective to that story.

I mean, just hearing you speak about it, it feels like the more I learned about the court, and the more I realized I didn't know anything, right, because there's so many different aspects to it that oftentimes we don't really think about. Just before we go, I have one tiny request of you. Okay. Oh, it's coming. Yeah. Usually, when I hang out with friends, I don't ask them to recite court and for me, but actually the process that I'm used to love hearing court and recited and I thought just in keeping with the theme of the court, and perhaps you could just, you know, share for us maybe a few of your favorite verses or a verse that you know, really sticks out in your mind as one that you

continually contemplate on and it gives you that, you know, that continue reflection on almost all of creation, or our his book, any verse in particular that

actually lists without a certain

smackingly? I came for the second. Okay.

Well, that's good, because you probably missed anyway. So

a lot of hands on sort of through jatiya.

A few verses towards the end of the surah. jatheon basically means when you when you're on your knees, when you fall down on your knees. So lots of data really speaks about human piano, and the terrorism, the difficulties of that de las panatela says that that is the day that each and every nation will be done on its knees. Every single nation, that's such a powerful verse like, because when we live on Earth, we think that we control everything we walk around and stretch around, like, you know, we own this place. And like, you know, the mountains and the moon and the sun, everything kind of belongs to us. But in fact, even collectively as as one nation, or like as a species of

humans, we are so insignificant, so weak compared to the magnificence of a lots of panel Dan and His Majesty, a las panatela says that the day that we will truly realize this is German piano, when every single nation will be honest with us. From the richest, the most powerful, strongest, the most impressive people like this, everyone else. Everyone will know on that day, who the true king is. And so they will be down on the knees, meaning that they will be begging for forgiveness. They will be like literally on their knees. So lots of hands are very big. I mean, Carlos

saura. Tiki, right. He was a part of it.

Part of it, but I just wanted to give you

and especially the people who go back on for the translations, that's the final passage, although

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a sec for having the pleasure of being on your show. I'm trying to do the outro not you. It was an honor having you on the show just for joining us and sharing your beautiful gems and understanding of the program. A lot of times Allah grants you more understanding of the Quran and as well for all of us and those watching at home to be able to properly reflect on the book of Allah subhanaw taala does not get locked up for everybody watching make sure you check out the hashtag hangouts Joe give us your thoughts. Give us some ideas that you love to reflect on and how it's impacted your life inshallah, share it on Twitter and Facebook and so on hanging out show inshallah botica lucky for

watching Brother Brother Mohammed signing off we'll see you again next episode. I send Imani compartmental my heat obata katsu

confetti, then