Maryam Amir – Falling in love the Quran in Masjid alAqsa
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AI: Transcript ©
Sooner,
I'm
so blessed and humbled to say that I've memorized the Quran. Of
course, the journey of review is a lifetime. But while I was
memorizing, as maybe many of you have experienced with different
Surahs or a different ayah, you connect to a verse or a surah in a
certain emotional weight because of something that you're going
through in your life. Some of you love sort of, for example, or
Surah Arah, or Surah Yasin. And when you love that Surah, and then
you get WhatsApp forward when you're going through something
really, really difficult. And if that Surah, you're like Allahu
Akbar, Allah knows what I'm going through, right? Do you feel that
connection sometimes, that sometimes you walk into the masjid
and they are reciting the verse that you most need to hear in that
moment. And subhanAllah, you just feel like Allah knows. He knows
what I'm going through. He's listening to me. And that
experience when you're memorizing the Quran, every surah you have a
different connection to, because sometimes you've memorized that
surah in a time period where you've also been going through
something very painful. And so that surah is connected to this
moment in time, like some people say, you know, they have a
favorite song. That song reminds them of this, and that song
reminds them of that, which is SubhanAllah. With the Quran, you
have these different Surahs that at certain time periods, you feel
like Allah knows specifically what you need to hear for this moment,
Surat to Toba was the hardest Surah for me to memorize. It's the
ninth chapter of Quran. When I first started it, my teacher was
so excited. This was when I was studying in Egypt. And she was
like, Oh, I love this surah so much. And she just started
reciting one of the verses with so much joy. And I was like, okay,
sort of Toba. I know this is a very serious Surah, that surah was
so hard for me to memorize, and at the time, I was telling her, I
can't I can't memorize it. I don't know why I'm having so much
trouble. And she's like, are you committing sins? Like, are you
committing extra sins? Is that the reason? And I was like, I moved to
Egypt to study all I study Arabic five hours a day. Then I do two
hours of Arabic homework, and then I have four hours of Quran. I
don't have time to sin. All I'm doing is there, because I'm doing
more worship than I ever have in my whole life. And she's like, I
don't know what the problem could be that, but at that time, I was
going through a lot emotionally. There was a lot happening in my
life, and so I had trouble focusing on my memorization. So
after Toba, I never establish an emotional connection. Of course, I
love sorts of topa. We all love the Quran, all of it. But did I
have an emotional connection to the surah? I did not accept and
forgive. I still, of course, me, I love it, but I couldn't say that I
would turn to it in moments of hardship or turn to it when I was
seeking something, until I went to Medina. And when I went to Medina
a few years ago, I was only in Medina for about 15 hours. And for
any of you sisters who have been to Medina and you have tried to
get into the Roda, and you know how difficult it is to get into
the Roda for women, oftentimes there are very specific time
slots, and there are 1000s upon 1000s of people who are trying to
get in in those time slots. And so many sisters that I know have told
me that they just tried to just survive the road, or they didn't
even try, because they know which is SubhanAllah. It's not a
reflection of the beautiful teaching of the Prophet salallahu
alayhi wa sallam, who was so accessible to women, who made it
so easy for women to come and ask questions and visit him and ask
about very intimate issues to the Prophet salallahu, are they? He
was sent them. And so this visit, we were there for 15 hours only.
It was actually when we came in 2019, when we came to the then we
stopped in Medina for 15 hours, and mecca for 15 hours. And then
we left. So it was a very, very short visit. And when I got into
the area for women to go in. They said there's no space. And I said,
Please, I'm only here for less than a day. And they said there's
no way come tomorrow. And this is after me waiting for, you know,
over an hour and a half, going from one guard to the next,
begging, like, please. And of course, I don't want to take
someone else's space. That's not fair for me to try to, like, make
my way in when so many other 1000s of women are waiting. They said,
come back the next day. But come at this time to come early. I came
back earlier than the time they told me when they got there,
earlier than the time they told me. They said, there's absolutely
no space and you cannot get in. So now I just felt like I wasn't
worthy of seeing the Prophet. So the law far they can withstand
them I had just come from, and I felt Subhanallah, Allah, meant to
go to Medina and on my way to Mecca, but I can't see the Prophet
salallahu Alam. And of course, we can send our Salawat on the
Prophet salallahu from anywhere Allah. Of course, there doesn't
actually mean that this isn't someone who is, you know, one of
the people of the Ummah, the Prophet salallahu alayhi, wa
sallam. But for me, I just wanted to go into the Rolla. It's the
place of Jannah, and I couldn't get there. So that trip, I
couldn't look at the sky of Medina, or the floor of Medina, or
the mission of Medina. On that trip, I have like, three pictures
of Medina, and it's before I walked into the Rolla, because I
felt like I wasn't worthy of Medina, like, how could I be
standing in.
Gina when I walked out of the rolled up, actually, not the roll
up. When I walked out of the area of not the rolled up. The first
verse that came into my mind was about these three companions of
the Prophet, peace be upon them. In short to Toba, that they did
not go on this campaign that the Prophet sallallahu, he was
telling, went on and they were supposed to. They had no excuse
not to go, and they didn't. They did not go when they should have.
And so part of their repentance was to be there was a there was a
journey of their repentance. Part of it was to take isolation, and
then Allah revealed verses about them, and one of them was well,
evil Rahu that it felt like the Earth was constrained upon them,
although him just the it was just so tight, and the vastness of this
earth was just so tight. Those verses were the ones that I just
kept thinking about over and over, from sorts of Toba the entire trip
on the plane, I could just listen to swords. I only listened to
sorts of Toba for 15 hours. Sorts of Toba was on replay, and I just
kept thinking Subhan, Allah. I have never understood Asura like I
feel like I understood Surah tatoba In that moment now, when
I'm going through hardship, when I'm going through times where I
feel like I'm trying to navigate my relationship with Allah, when
I'm feeling unworthy, I go straight to sort of Toba, but when
I was memorizing it, I didn't have that connection. Even though it's
memorizing the sura. It took a very difficult point in my
relationship with my my religious experience, for me to feel like I
can emotionally connect to sorts of toga. And why I want to share
that introduction with you is because when we talk about a place
like Aksa, do you know sort of boom, Surat Abu? No, Allah has a
prophecy. He mentioned not prophecy. He's telling us what's
going to happen that surah is talking about the Persians coming
in and taking over meshul Aksa. They were Zoroastrian. They didn't
care about mister Al Aqsa, and this was for them. They knew. They
knew this area was a holy site for Christians. So to desecrate what
they felt Christians were found, found holy because they were
taking over the Byzantine the Romans and the Romans were
Christian. They desecrate. This is why, when Alma ro came in, this
whole place was Subala, not it was not, excuse me, that was actually
after but anyway, it was not cared for. This area was not cared for
at all because they intentionally tried to ruin it. So when Allah is
giving us the surah mentioning that the Romans are going to be
successful, when it seemed like there's no possibility of that
success, it was in mentioning that they're going to overcome and take
Aqsa back, or take not Aqsa specifically, but goods back. And
of course, Christian belief is closer to Islamic belief in the
Zoroastrianism. So this was a step towards Muslims
becoming connected to Aksa again. Let's panel on that that mention
was impossible to the Muslims at that time, the small group of
companions were hearing this verse, like, how is a huge empire
going to the Persian Empire going to be taken over by the Romans
again? And then the Muslims took over the Romans. But can you see
how, like in that time, mentally, even though they believe in the
Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi was sent them, sometimes even though we
believe, of course, but sometimes it takes time to say, Okay, we
believe because you're the Prophet salallahu Alaihe was sent them.
But that doesn't necessarily mean there's an emotional connection to
that idea. Or maybe there's an emotional connection because we
believe into what makes us stronger, but it's a journey to
feel that strength of faith internally. Does that make sense
when we look at one of the companions, his name was Juba Abu
Asmaa. He was praying behind the Prophet sallallahu alayhi, he
would send them. When he prayed behind the Prophet sallallahu,
alayhi would send them. The Prophet recited,
were they created from nothing, or did Allah create them? And then
the prophets will send them. Started reciting a few more
verses. And this is a companion of the Prophet. You see upon Him,
praying behind the Prophet, peace be upon him. And he said, that was
the first time I felt my heart flying with iman. This is someone
who saw the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa, who believed in Him,
who was praying behind him, but the first time he felt the Quran
that his heart was blind was these verses. Journeying with the Quran
is a process of a lifetime, and when we look at the stories of the
people who connected to it, sometimes they had extremely
emotional moments, but other times it hit them later when they needed
to hear it most. So when we look at Amar Ali Allahu anhu, he was
reciting Surah Yusuf one time. And the Companions mentioned that as
Amara Lee Allahu Anhu was reciting, he got to this verse
where ya salam is talking about mentioning Yusuf, what we looked
Aina that his eyes became just
just over this.
Sadness of the sadness of you suffer that he set up and that he
said the ayah in school. I only
complain my sadness, my sadness to Allah. And I know from Allah what
you don't know, and Oman oladila just began to we began to sob.
There's another narration where Omar Al Abu Asmaa was reciting
Surah Yusuf, and he sobbed so much he cut off his recitation and just
went into the poor so we hear these moments with the Companions,
where they were reciting and they felt so connected to the verses.
Think about Amar Ali Allahu was somebody who said about women
before he became before he became Muslim, he would beat his
servants, who were women, completely beat them. And he
thought, the only reason he stopped this is he got bored. But
how did he accept Islam? He accepted Islam because he was
going to go kill the Prophet sallallahu, alayhi wa sallam. And
then he made a detour to his sister's house when one of the
secret Muslims told him about his own sister, and that's when he
heard the verses of Surah Baha. Hearing the verses of Surah Baha
hit his heart so hard that that was the moment he said that he
wants to become Muslim. He went and later on, he said, we used to
think a woman is nothing, until Allah revealed. He revealed, and
then this became the ruler of the Muslim. So a woman could stop and
stop him in front of a whole bunch of people and talk to him and
contradict what he said, and advise him, and he would listen.
This is a change that the Quran brought to someone like Amar Ali
Allahu, anh, one of the greatest of our Ummah person of paradise,
when that change was a process with the Quran, and it's a process
for all of us. The process starts with understanding what we are
reciting with feeling and understanding and the connection
of what we recite in Ramadan. Many of us have had the goal of
finishing the Quran one time. Some of us have heard that that's like
the one Quran goal we should have reciting it at least one time in
Ramadan, and in my message, sometimes they say you should at
least read it five times. Now remember, before I even learned
Arabic. I was like, I can barely read it one time. If ever I
remember, it took years for me to even do it for the first time. And
I was like, how is the AHA, thinking about five they would
just say, like, recite it five times
physically possible. Well, when you read it every single day, and
you speak the language, and it's something you've been doing since
you were a kid, yeah, it's a lot easier than someone who has no
clue what they're reciting, and they're trying really, really hard
to recite the verses Subhanallah, but the point is that, how many of
us have also heard when you're reciting it in Ramadan, to recite
with understanding that, if you don't speak Arabic, to read it
also in the translation that you understand, because when you
recite it and you understand what you're saying, that's when the
change starts, SubhanAllah. You visited the grave right here. I
even saw him. It's really Allah, a he was one of the companions who
helped open he's buried right outside. He was one of the people
who compiled the Quran. He was one of the first companions. He
witnessed every single
battle, including being at the pledges the Aqaba of both and this
was one of the compilers of the Quran. A compiler of the Quran is
someone who understands the Quran deeply, as someone who interacts
with the Quran, interacting with the Quran, making it something
that you live with, that you long for, is very different from and
it's part of the process is reading it Yes.
Mentioned that the house in which sort of Quran is recited in the
shaytan flees from reading in Arabic is critical number one.
It's a means of reward every single letter that you recite. The
angels roam the Earth, looking for you, coming to you to hear the
Quran from your lips. Angels seeks you when you recite the Quran. So
it's so critical to recite the Quran in Arabic. But also there is
a companion. Excuse me, oh, one of the righteous scholars. He said he
had a neighbor, and the neighbor was not an Arabic speaker, and he
said he would listen to him reciting the Quran in the middle
of the night and weeping and weeping and sobbing. And so he
said one night, he just wants to, like, try to understand what verse
is impacting his heart, this this much in the middle of the night,
so he's listening to him, and then the idea that the man is reciting
is why, which means then they ask you about menstruation. And so
then it's like, Why is he crying about menstruation? But he didn't
understand what he's reciting, and it's the Quran, and it's
beautiful, because it's the Quran, and so he's touched by it, but
someone who understands what the verse is saying is like, Why is he
crying about that SubhanAllah? The point is that you can be touched
by the Quran no matter what it's saying, but when you understand
what it's being recited is very different, and understanding is of
different levels. Someone can speak Arabic but not really
understand what the verses are saying, not really be touched by
what the verses are saying. So today, Inshallah, what we're going
to focus on is building a connection with the Quran in a
relationship. How can we build a relationship with the Quran? Now,
how many of you know the love languages, but the five love
languages which are so popular, give me them?
What is it?
Offer words of affirmation, acts of service, physical touch,
quality time.
What gifts Mashallah? What brother? I'm sure all the other
brothers were the brothers act on it. The sisters say it.
So I want to show you
a gift that I got here in Mashallah.
You
This is my most pop
it's one of a couple, but this is you. But this one, I came here in
2010 2010 and at that time, kind of law I was studying in Egypt at
the time, and we took a bus, and we came here, and I didn't hear
anyone speaking English at that time. And Zayd, may Allah bless
Zayd. May Allah the way that mashabahi has brought so many
people from the west to come and visit, ah, and revive this
tradition in our religion. May Allah bless him with making it
Aria and be a means of harib. Masha Allah, for the Alameda at
that time, I heard nobody speaking any other language. It was just
kind of only Arabic everywhere. And I had just started learning
Arabic at that time, so I didn't quite like fully understand,
especially because here it's a different
it's like a different dialect, dialect. So I didn't quite
understand. So I was sitting over there on the other side of the
Dome of the Rock, and I was reciting out loud. So it's
reciting out loud from a different and this little, this one of these
teenage girls comes up to me, and she's like, the hat him. The hat
him. And I thought she was saying that I don't have any Bahram
around me, so It's haram for me to recite out loud. And I was like,
no, no, haram, no. And she's like, bahadim. Bahadur means tissue. And
I didn't understand that men deal. I learned men deal because and so
then she realized, she was like, Oh, where are you from? And I was
like, oh, so she spoke to you in English. And then this girl, this
teenage girl, she was with a few other teenagers, and she's like,
meet me here tomorrow. I'll give you a tour of the compound. So the
next day, I met her here, and each one of them gave me a gift, and
one of them gave me this must have. I don't know her name. I
would not recognize her if I ever saw her. I have no clue. I don't
remember at all what she looked like, but the amount of years I
have spent memorizing from this must have reviewing from this,
must have writing all over this must have. I just think about how
many times I've tried to switch to a different must have covered
here. I tried to switch to different and I can't. It's like
this must have has to be the must have I use. I just feel this
connection to this must have and this sister. I don't know what
she's going through in her life. I don't know what hardship she has
gone through. I don't know what loss she has gone through. I don't
know if there are times in her life that she wants to come to
meso and she can't. I don't know if there are times that she felt
like she has made a mistake in front of Allah and asked for his
forgiveness, but she wonders whether or not he's going to
accept I don't know her life, but what I do know is Inshallah, on
the Day of Judgment, she is going to come with so much reward that
she did not plan for Inshallah, I pray, I pray, and she's going to
ask where she's where this all came from, as from someone she
maybe forgot about. But how many of you have done this for someone
else? How many of you have gifted someone something, whether it's in
teaching them about character or giving them something, giving them
something that you don't even remember? You did has someone
helped you in this way that you don't even remember, but they did
an act of kindness for you in a moment, and they don't remember it
at all, but you do, and it meant something to you. Allah subhanahu
wa, even if you don't see what you're doing, he sees it. And if
you forget, he never forgets. And so the first when we're talking
about the Quran, the first connection when we're talking
about love languages with the Quran is simply physically
touching the Quran.
When we're talking about loving the most half, my Quran teacher,
he what he does is he opens the Quran, and he says, he only opens
it for the sake of your Ida, of looking at it, he says, looking at
the Quran with longing, looking at it like you wish for it, looking
at it like you love it is an act of worship. So he opens the most
half, and he just looks at it with longing. But he says he doesn't
actually read it, because his memorization is so strong that if
he were to look at the words, it confuses him, because he's
reciting sort of meida, but he's open to sort of Bakara. So he says
he opens it just for a bad and just to connect with it. But what
he actually does is just long for it when you think,
when you think about the Quran, part of the journey with the Quran
is physically holding it and giving it a hug, taking it for
walks. When you're walking on the beach and just holding it, going
to a cafe, getting your coffee and opening it and just touching the
words and touching the pages. There are many people who've
spoken to me about religious trauma, that there has been a
Quran teacher, specifically as a child, that introduced the Quran
to them in a way that was very harsh or very painful, or that
even their parents beat them so that they could read the Quran
better. And as an adult, that doesn't necessarily always leave a
positive association with the qur.
At even as a child, we can understand that it doesn't but as
an adult, it has led to many people feeling like they can't
emotionally connect. Of course, you can't emotionally connect to
it. From the beginning, you were told that you need to you need to
read it beat. You need to read it beat. But reestablishing new
connections with the Quran is like reestablishing a new relationship.
How do you build a new relationship with someone, it's
spending quality time with them. Spending quality time with the
Quran looks like finding ways that you feel connected to the Quran in
spaces that you may not necessarily think about. So for
example, baking cookies and loving the scent of cookies while the
house smells like that you sit and you read the Quran, getting your
favorite essential oil, and being close to that sense, while you're
reciting the Quran, it's building an experience of quality time with
the Quran. And of course, you can read it in any language, and when
you're reading it in Arabic too, every single letter that you're
struggling with is double the reward. But what I'd like to talk
about with you now is how to build a connection on an emotional
level. So I need a volunteer who speaks a different language that
you think no one else can speak here, who speaks another language
that maybe no one else might speak. Yes.
What is it Dutch? Does anyone else speak Dutch?
Come on up. Come on
up.
Paradigm
light of
uh oh,
okay, wow, okay,
you
are literally
the perfect bullet
here in
every way, okay, You probably understood,
but don't you heard me after listening? We also saw her become
emotional, right? When you saw the emotion, did it change the way you
felt about what she would say immediately, what did you think?
And I hope that I
and we all can come back again
and deter here.
That's very special. Right here. Stay right here. Okay, so the
first thing she did all the examples in one. So the first
thing, when you first started hearing her speak, you didn't
really, you didn't, really didn't understand what she was saying,
right? But you were trying to, just, within a few seconds, did
you find yourself not blazing over or something like, I had literally
no clue what's being said. Okay,
then you heard a word that you understood, a word that you
understood. So it piped your connection, keep your connection.
So you're like, Okay, I gotta have to let you think something
happens. Okay, okay. Again, not sure. And then medical, okay,
she's not even talking about something related to me, because
you know that, but don't you got emotional. What changed for you?
Okay, anyone else,
it softens your heart. You clean for anyone else you
want to know what would you say? It made you want to even worse, is
an extra time, right? Okay, now I want you to imagine this is so
amazing, because actually, here we are in messed up together. Imagine
if she only spoke Dutch and I only spoke English and the whole trip,
would I still feel an emotional connection to her, because we are
here together absolutely but we may not necessarily understand
what each other is saying. Imagine if we didn't get each other's, you
know, social media information, and we totally lost contact for 10
years, and 10 years later, we needed cut and even though I
didn't understand what's saying the first time, you didn't
understand me. Do you think we would be connected? Yes, we would
definitely feel that connection. And over time, if we stayed in
touch, I would try to.
Learn some of her language, and she would probably try to learn
some of mine, just so that we can
deepen that connection. Thank you so so much.
Okay, so when we are talking about connecting to the Quran. Her
example was so powerful, because for many of us, when we open the
Quran, we understand Jannah, we understand Yusuf, we understand
Maria, but we don't understand much else. But we want to
establish the emotional connection. We may hear the Quran
like we heard when it became emotional, when we're in ups, and
we do have a moment of emotional connection. But there might be
some time where that doesn't come for a while. Has there been years,
maybe when you've tried to connect to the Quran and not felt
anything? You may not have felt an emotional connection, but you want
to, when we talk about that click, that click, in that moment of
wanting to feel the connection but not feeling it, I want you to talk
to yourself about two things, the verses of companions themselves,
Abu Bakr, ODI, Allahu, Anhu. There were a group of people that came
from Yemen, and this was when he was the Khalifa. They came from
Yemen, and they hate they listened to the recitation of the Quran,
and they started to cry. And Abu Bakr commented on them crying, and
he said,
we used to be like this. This is Abu Bakr saying. They used to be
like this. When they would hear the Quran, they used to cry, you
know, the ayah we talked about the other day. Did you notice that it
was being recited that night? Did you notice that yesterday, when we
were reciting about in the lahama, ikebuso, Luna Alan Levy, and the
verses that we talked about before that, that hualieu, Salli Alaikum,
did you know he recited those verses last night? This is a
connection that when we're talking about the Quran Allah is honoring
us to hear those same verses at a different time. But this time for
the heart to feel
that conviction with Allah, Who is this being revealed to the
Companions themselves, the Companions themselves. We're
hearing from Allah that isn't a time for the believers to feel the
softness of their heart so fear.
One time, there was a verse of such that, and the Companions make
such that, but they didn't cry. There's a verse in the Quran that
talks about crying when you make such that. For the Sajida tilawa,
they didn't cry. And she said, there's the Bucha, where's the
crying? And who he would make such a tilawa? He would make Sasha with
the tilawa, and then he would say, This is my Sasha, but where are my
tears? So the first is, if you are not weeping every time you read
the Quran, it doesn't mean you are not connected to the Quran. The
Companions themselves navigated that journey too. But the prophets
of Allahu alaihi wasallam, he said, I wish that I could see my
brothers and my sisters and the Companions, were like, aren't we
your brothers? Who are his brothers and sisters? They're both
happy. You are my companions. But who are the brothers and the
sisters of the Prophet? He was telling them, it's us. Why?
Because we believe in him without even seeing him. Is that not
enough for us to establish the fact that we have a certainty in
our faith that we haven't even seen him. Salalah, Father, he was
seven, the Bible Islam came here for me. Raj Subhan Allah. He was
the Quraysh. Said to him, You believe him. And he said, like he
went on a rock and went up to the heavens and went to Jerusalem. And
he was like, I believe even bigger than that. He says he receives
revelation from God. SubhanAllah. We believe him, and we've never
even seen him, sallAllahu, alayhi wa sallam. So number one is this
recognition that we believe in the Quran. We love this book. But just
because we don't necessarily always feel that connection, it
doesn't mean that we don't have a connection. Number one is just
establishing in my heart, I have a connection to the Quran. I am
worthy of a connection to the Quran, and then the second is
something that we take from the Companions themselves. It's
spending time with words of affirmation with the Quran. So we
talked about physical touch. We talked about
quality time. Now we're going to talk about words of affirmation.
When you recite the Quran. How are you reciting it? Because what the
Companions would do is they would focus on reciting it with
contemplation. They would recite one ayah over and over and over.
So Asmaa Radi Allahu Aha, the daughter of Abu Bakr radila, there
was her nephew, said that he entered upon her, and she was
reciting the Quran. And then he went to the market and he came
back, and she was still reciting that same ayah over and over she
was reciting the men
about the hereafter the Allah has blessed them and protect them from
the punishment, reciting the ayah over and over and over again.
Um.
He was one of the one of the tabureen, one of the great
scholars of our time. And at night, he would wake up and he
would lay down in bed, and he would just recite the same verse
over and over and over, thanking Allah for his blessings that
give me the eye I forgot all of a sudden. You know when you thank
Allah?
No, no, no.
But that was the first thing, the translation you answered,
the translation we have given you from everything that you've asked
for. And if you try to count the blessings of Allah, you can't. He
said he would recite that ayah over and over and over again, and
he would only see the blessings of Allah increase over and over and
over again. So the first is take a verse that you love and sit with
it in the literally five minutes and just recite that ayah over and
over and over and every time you recite it, think of a different
way that you can connect to this verse if you are going through
hardship, if you are going through loss, if you are worried about a
loved one who doesn't seem to care about you, or doesn't seem to care
about Islam, whatever your sadness is, sit with that ayah and read it
over and over. Just recite it over and over. And many of you have
told me that you wish you could recite and that you don't think
you recite correctly, and that you don't think that your voice is
good. One time I was in Masjid Al haram in Mecca, and there was this
reciter of the Quran sitting on the top floor, just sitting and
reciting like Abdul Basit. And I came and I was like, Can I, like,
ask you a question? And he's like, Sure. And I was like, how do you
recite like that? And he said, practice.
Just practice. That's all. He said. Practice. Every time someone
tells me, Oh, I'm not a good reciter, all I think is, you
haven't. You didn't. You were not taught that. All it is is
practice. It just is about practice. So sit practice hearing
yourself, even if you hate hearing yourself over and over and over
and over. Do you think if you recite that ayah 100 times in one
year, it's going to be different than in three years, and if you've
recited it 1000s of times, your connection is going to be
different. The way you recite is different. It's a completely
different experience. When we were creating Claudia, which is the
women Quran reciters app, you can download for free on Apple or
Google Play stores today, this app is all women Quran reciters, when
we found women's recitations from the 1920s and 1910 one of the
things I kept thinking about is these were the contemporaries and
those who came before Abdul Basit. Abdul Basit Rahmatullah are they?
Is, of course, one of the foremost Baron reciters of the world. I
think about how he was not asked to recite in Mecca or Medina, like
if you were to that, like any of you. Okay, let me ask you,
brothers, if any of you were asked, Where in the world would
you want to recite the photo? Where would you want to lead the
law? If you had the chance to lead Salah one time, where would you
choose
here? Okay, where else Becca, anyone else? Vidina, anyone else?
That's it for anyone else you is okay.
Four where
Lester,
either your emissions are too high or not high enough. I don't know
which is between the two. We all have lost you all
the central mosque,
Dane, I've already done that on hustle. Okay. So when we're
talking about where you would want to recite, the first places that
you shared were Mecca, Medina and also, and let's say you've already
done those, then you probably choose another place as well.
Didn't recite in Mecca, and you didn't recite in Medina, and you
did a recite in Michel OXA. But who probably has more reward than
all of the other Imams of the haram? Maybe because of the
millions upon millions upon millions who memorize with him,
and then they recite, and then they teach their kids with Abu
Bakr toys. And then shall we and Hussain and these great reciters,
these are the people that Allah have been born in a time where the
Taal, the ability to record was available all the recitals that
came before them. Maybe they had better voices. Maybe they were
more specific. In Quran, the Quran, we know the Quran. Did you
know, by the way, we have different Quran to the Quran, two
of the Quran that we have the Quran from, one was deaf and one
was blind. One was deaf and one was blind. We have to the Quran
from people who didn't, it wasn't someone wasn't the they used the
vibrations. The vibrations is what they knew whether or not someone
was residing with perfection. Subhanallah Allah has made the
Quran for every single person of every single ability. And so when
we were doing QA and we found this recording. It's a woman from 1910
if you listen to the recording on the app from 1910 from Sheikha
mafruka, you would listen to her voice, and you're gonna tell me
she sounds like Abu basit. She was reciting before Abu Bakr was born.
So how does she sound like Abdul Basit? Or was Abdul Basit using a
style that there was a whole generation before him, Rahman
Tamar Ali, who was using this style. And we don't necessarily
know their names, except for Shay.
From the Bucha, although in the 1920s there were five women who
resided on Cairo's Quran channel, five women who were residing on
Cairo's Quran channel, which right now, if you go to Cairo and you
sit in a taxi, they're most likely going to be playing the Quran
channel. And now, Quran channel, of course, has the most amazing
men reciters. And may Allah bless them in every way and increase
them in every way. There used to be five women. And those five
women, they stopped reciting because there was a fatwa that was
made from Alzheimer's, which, by the way, has been shifted since
that time, and it's now changed. But at that time they said it's no
longer allowed. So overnight, these women reciters, Quran
reciters, who used to recite, and the recitations would be played
all the way in Italy, they stopped reciting overnight. One of the
Quran reciters, who was a contemporary of these women. He
was the first Egyptian to ever recite in Mastodon, Aqsa. And this
reciter, he said about this, this, this prohibition. He said that I
will never rest. I will never rest until woman can become Quran
reciters on Cairo's radio channel. Again, that we go back to the time
of the Quran, the golden era of the Quran, where women's
recitation was heard OMA dorodah anha. She was a tabiri. She was at
the time of Hasan and Ibn Siri, and these two were huge scholars.
I'm sure many of you have heard their names, but have you heard of
OMA darda? Omar dat was considered to be a greater scholar than her
two contemporaries. She would teach here, right there. Marwan is
the Marwan is the one who fills this structure. She would teach in
front of this structure. This woman who was a scholar, she would
teach in front of that structure. The Khalif would sit and listen to
her, to her teaching, and then when the class was done, he would
stand up with her, and they would walk to mashallah, and they would
pray there together. This was a woman who taught us about the way
of recitation, the way to continue the recitation of the Quran. And
we have two other women who we know. We have so many because of
Shaykh from that we may Allah bless him and honor us with coming
to me with him, Allah Ameen. But we have all of these examples that
he shares, where, for example, at a mission in nebali sheikhof, you
know where the Rolla is, she would sit just resting on the Rolla, and
the men, like a Suki and other scholars would sit in front of
her, of her, and they would listen to her, and then take ijazza by
her hand. These are scholars whose we have, whose recordings, excuse
me, who's, uh, who are recorded in history, people of the Quran,
teachers of the Quran men and women. And so right now was
listening to Sakina Hassan, because she was one of the ones on
the radio. And I was thinking about it. I was thinking like
panel abdulsarium, and shall we they're getting so versatile
bajaria, so versatile bajaria, while they are under the ground,
we're hearing their voices, then what about someone like Sakina
Hassan to be able to allow for her, for women, to hear her
recitation, and for her to get the Sala bajaria over and over and
over again, that connection to the Quran is so different, and not all
of us are going to record the whole Quran for people to hear
until the end of time. But when you recite the Quran, and you
don't do it in Michelle or mission abue or unless you're going to
central Boston, Lenin, unless you're saying if you don't even do
it in any of those places, but you do it within your in your home,
and you do it within your family, there are going to be people, or
there are going to be beings that travel the earth looking for your
voice, just you. You don't have to be able to bust it. You have to be
taking a head. You can just have your voice. And Allah doesn't
promise that the Quran is being heard by the people who have the
best voices ever. It's the one who is trying that this is the one who
Allah
sends angels to hear. And when Allah loves you, He called to
Jibril alayhi salam, and he talks to jib alayhi salam about loving
his servant. When he loves his servant, Angel Jabil alayhi salam
loves that servant, and then love is spread amongst them, made an
announcement through the heavens, and love is placed upon the earth.
This love begins with a connection with the Quran, and when we're
talking about that connection, one of the ways that we think about it
is by having hasna vanilla. This hasna vanilla is having a hopeful
feeling about Allah. This is one of those signs of that connection
with him. So we talked about physical touch. We talked about,
give me the other one.
Quality time. We talked about, where's an affirmation, and now
we're going to talk about,
Yeah, guess what was I just saying? Though, right before this
gift,
do you know that when you recite Suratul,
when you're reciting,
are you doing it because you just don't have time for is that
usually the reason you're like, Oh, I'm gonna play time for
Suratul mahida.
Are you usually like, I'm just gonna recite oftentimes, most
times we all recite surf loss because it's short and it's fast,
and maybe you feel guilty about that. Maybe you feel like I should
probably spend more time in Salah. But do you know when you recite
surplus? The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasalam heard a companion
reciting the Surah, and when he heard that companion reciting it,
he said that it's an obligation on it's his right. It's his right.
And the companion said, what is his.
Right? And he said, Paradise. Paradise is the right of this
person. Why? Because they are reciting sort of IQ loss. The
Prophet sallallahu Sallam asked, Who of you can read the whole
Quran in one night? A fourth of the Quran in one night. And the
companions were like, that's a lot of Quran. And the Prophet saw
some, taught them. So 1/4 of the Quran in another narration, the
prophet Salla Salam taught us, if you recite social if lost 10
times, a house in Paradise will be built for you another time. And
companion was told that Allah loves him because he loves another
companion was full he's promised paradise because of his love for
Surah, who Allah words of affirmation is reciting the Quran
when you're reciting Suratul if lost, and you tell Allah to Allah,
I love reciting this surah because it's your description. I love
reciting this surah because it's a surah that you revealed and that
you promised people paradise for when you go to play pray ASR and
you're just like, I'm going to recite your recite was because of
your love for it, but not because it's fast, because it's such a
weighty surah in the Quran, because it's like you're reciting
a fourth of the Quran. Go on to social if lost, with words of
affirmation, and do that with every Surah that you recite, even
if it's an ayah. Oh, I'm reciting this not because it's fast,
because I love you, because I love to recite your words. And finally,
what's our fifth one?
What's the
fifth what I acts of service. When you seek the Quran, you should
change. We need to change the Quran is not just about reciting
it as much as physically possible. It's when I'm reciting it and my
mom or my dad, my blessed Dad, this has never happened in our
relationship. He's asked me to do something I've been like never.
There's not a single time ever. Has never happened. But if he were
to ask me that, how am I going to respond if I'm trying to inculcate
the Quran, even if I'm frustrated, what is my response going to be?
What is his response as a father going to be when I say no, is he
going to yell at me, or is he going to talk to me like the
Prophet sallallahu, that he would tell them to his children. How is
he going to react based on the Quran? How are we going to
interact with the people around us? The Quran is about action. So
act of service with the Quran is acting on the Quran with the
intention that I want the Quran. When a map Quran teaches told me
that if you want to seek the Quran, do Sora for the Quran. When
you help someone else, you say out loud to Allah, say quietly, oh,
Allah, I did this for the Quran. Open the Quran for me. Open the
Quran for me, because I'm trying to do good for the Quran. Make
your service about coming close to the Quran. Someone who is busy
with the Quran, when they're so busy reciting and they don't even
have time to make dua, Allah, will answer their daughter without them
even making it. You don't even you didn't say anything. But Allah
will answer the needs of your heart. He answers the wishes of
your heart. He answers what your heart is longing for, and it might
be different from exactly what you're asking for, but sometimes
he gives you something you didn't expect. So for example, he might
give you a plate of cookies that you really were craving. Only your
friend decides to pop over with cookies, and you're like, I
literally was thinking about that this morning was Panola. That
might not be the big, big, big thing you've been asking for for
10 years, but it's him reaffirming that he hears you, he knows he
asserts his love for you, subato, that you're seeking Him, and that
he acknowledges you're seeking and finally, to end, there are moments
in our life for where we may not feel like we always have that
connection, but Allah sees the effort that we put in. It's about
the action that we do, even if we don't necessarily feel the
connection. And in the process, we ask for our hearts to feel that
sweetness. But if we don't, it doesn't mean we give up. It
doesn't mean that we're not worthy. Last night, I have been
making this dua since I came to upsa in 2019 when I came to 2019 I
went to use upsa restrooms, which I don't need to expand on. And
there was a old, an elderly woman, who asked me if she could use my
shoes, and I was supposed to give a lecture in five minutes, and I
was just thinking, you want to wear my shoes into that bathroom?
And I don't know what's gonna happen to my shoes. That's all I
could think about. Like, oh, I don't know what's gonna get all my
shoes. And I, before I could even say yes, another chala stepped in,
and she's like, Auntie, you can use my shoes. I just it was five
seconds of thing, what did you say? Because she was making it on
me anyway, so she wasn't making it. So it took me a second to
understand. But like all those thoughts went through my head in
five seconds, someone else took my shoes. Someone else gave her
shoes. And the regret I felt, the regret I could have had a
grandmother use my shoes. Since 2019 I've been making a I'm gonna
just tell everybody my secret they're making this draw. Oh,
well, let me be the person who gives my shoes immediately. So
this whole trip, I'm like, remember shoes. This was my
moment. My moment. I walked into the restaurant. 1000 people were
waiting yesterday. This is my shoe moment. And I went in, and one
person after another cut me in line, and they said, Can I go
first? Can I go first? Can I go first? I was waiting like, 30
minutes, then an hour, and then I was like, I can't wait anymore.
Like I.
Okay, so this grandmother aged woman comes with like four people.
She's like, can we go before you? And in my head, I'm like, Miriam,
this is your shoe moment. This is the shoe moment. And I said, No.
I said, No.
And I walked out of there hating myself. I've been making this job
for years.
So I came to Masjid feeling like, literally the worst person in the
child world. And
I say, yeah, a lot. I can't
believe I said, no, like, I've been working on this, and I've
been making dua for this, and I have the opportunity.
And then, you know, the ayah that was being recited,
He
forgives anything else other than making dua to someone other than
him. Of course, even if you make Toba for that before death, He
forgives that. And so I thought, okay, okay, Allah, please forgive
me. Forgive me that I didn't say yes. And then later that night,
still, I asked for forgiveness, but it didn't mean that I felt
like I still regret in this moment, I still regret it. But
later in the evening, he, the reciter, recited surato mo Minun.
Surato mo Minun was the first Sura I ever memorize. And I memorize it
in English. I memorize it with B, I S, M, I L, L, A H, A L, R, I H,
A M, a G, A D, A F, S,
that hat in English. I memorize the whole Sura in transliteration.
Every time I hear sorts of Minun it takes me to a very particular
place in my life. And I always feel like I'm restarting my
journey with Allah. He is beginning my journey with
repentance. It's the moment of, I have a chance. Surat will be known
for me as I have another chance. So for me to feel like I just said
no, again, like, why? And then I came here and to hear Allah can
forgive, and then to hear surato mobino, and I'm not saying that
Allah sending me special messages. I'm just saying that anyone of you
who goes through a journey with the Quran is going to have moments
where you feel like you're not enough, but Allah will remind you
you still have time. You still have a chance, and that moment of
connection with the Quran is what we're seeking. You still have a
chance, and how can you change? And now I have two to make for the
next time inshallah. So please pray for me that I actually
overcome my problems, but the fact that Allah will open this door for
you Subhanallah is a mercy that he still gave you another day to be
Inshallah, someone who tries to seek the Quran. May Allah make so
the
people. If you have a
question, please remember to go. You don't need to say no money if
you have been away for 24 hours. But if you have any questions,
please, we can do it. Yeah, go ahead.
I bought sandals, just for this moment. Literally
bought sandals. When
someone takes my shoes, I have sandals. You can take it to the
bathroom. I mean, I don't know if I fulfilled my jaw right now, but
thank you for trying to help me fulfill my jaw. Any other
questions? Yes, what are we coming?
Small. Small so how? What are the small things you can do on a daily
basis to incorporate the Quran in your life? So the first one again,
like sitting with one verse and thinking about it like, how does
this apply to my life, really reflecting on it, going through it
over and over and over again. That's one two, by the way, thank
you for this question. I should have said this in the lecture. So
I appreciate giving me the opportunity recite a specific
amount daily, no matter what happens. You're going to recite
it. And if you don't understand the Arabic with English or
whatever other language as well, the understanding part is so
critical, because when you understand you start realizing,
Oh, these are messages from Allah to me in my particular
circumstance. So for example, you're gonna say, I'm gonna recite
five verses a day with translation or not. But it doesn't matter.
Five verses every single day, you will not sleep until you do that
certain amount every single day. Those are two and that's already a
lot to do. Those two things is already a lot. Pick one thing
you're gonna do on a daily basis, and if you are ready, and if you
have the time, start enrolling in a class, whether it's tafsir or
memorization, you don't have to memorize the whole Qur'an in a
year. It took me seven years to memorize the Quran because I was
also going to school and working full time, and I couldn't find a
teacher back and forth. But what if your goal is you want to
memorize it in 10 years? Imagine saying after 10 years, I said, 10
years memorizing the Qur'an, 10 years with the book of Allah.
That's incredible. That's amazing. Imagine being able to say that. So
make a goal and work slowly towards it, be consistent, but
just daily. Find something that you can do regularly, whether it's
reading a translation or sitting with contemplation and making dua
for and you're such a Quran for me.
Yes, you.
Can
you say a letter?
Oh, yeah. So the woman reciting in front of men. So first of all,
there is no definitive proof in the Quran or sunnah that a woman
cannot recite in public. So because of that, where does that?
Where does the
prohibition come from? There's an ayah in sort of where Allah says,
fella
tahdana,
this verse comes in a set of verses to the Mothers of the
Believers. And the general translation is, do not.
This is the tricky part. What is mean? What is do not. So it's
translated sometimes as, Do not be soft in your speech, do not speak
softly. But women, a lot of times have a naturally soft voice. So
what does that mean? The translation is really hard in
Arabic, it's talking about, don't be seductive in your speech. Don't
speak. Don't be flirtatious in your speech. However, the most you
don't have so many different commentaries on what that actually
means, and all of them say muddled. What is muddled? What is
a sickness in the heart? Generally, the way this is
translated, or the way that it's taught, is women don't be soft in
your speech, in case a man overhears you and becomes tempted
by you. But when you hear the different scholars of tafsir
talking about it, they're talking about someone who is a is a
hypocrite. Someone who is a hypocrite may find something in
your words that can impact the way that they see Islam, or the way
that they see you. Other scholars say that it's about being a
fascic, which is like someone who is, you know, to the extreme of
the way that they do very sinful acts. Others say that's talking
about and just to keep that very PG, that means extreme attraction.
It's not just, Oh, I like her voice. It's like to another level
that is completely inappropriate with the Quran. So one, there's so
much nuance to what the scholars themselves have actually said that
this verse means, first of all, so to just establish your
prohibition, the scholars who prohibit it, they just take that
verse and say a woman shouldn't soften her voice or recite in a
way that could potentially attract a man's attention. Okay, so that
those who prohibit it say this, but other scholars say like my
teacher, for example, the one I spoke to before the sheik Dula
deep, and he was like,
possible for a man to think of the Quran in the disgusting way, like
this, like this. This person's not talking about women reciting the
Quran. My own teacher, he was the one who told me to recite, and I
was like, Shaykh, that's haram. And he was like, he was so mad at
me, and he's like that. He pointed to shear, who was a Quran, one of
the biggest Quran scholars ever century. She died in 2006
and her students were the contemporaries of Abu Bakr. His
name was actually Abdul Baza himself, but her teacher was from
the contemporaries of the woman who I just mentioned, who resided
in them on the radio. Recited on the radio. Sheik was Sharif, if
you're familiar with shayab, Sharif, his ijaza goes through
them, and I just had a session with him, SubhanAllah. Right
before coming we were reciting together on his program, and he
said, I don't understand where people say that. You know, women
can't recite the Quran, because if Shaykh Nafisa had never recited
out loud, I wouldn't have any Jazza. So Subhanallah, this
tradition is one that Sheik bin baz Rahima Allah says it's
permissible for women to recite the Quran, where men could hear
and what the intention be pure. As long as, as long as the intention
is pure, it's permissible. Sheik bin Baza specifies men and women
not seeing each other, but that's because he also follows an opinion
that has to do with that. It's a separate from recitation. Imam Abu
Jeremy,
who was from here, they talk about women's recitation, where men can
hear like 1000 years ago. So this is something that's part of our
tradition. It's something that has been in our books of silk for
many, many centuries. And if you look in areas right now, Malaysia,
Morocco, Algeria, Singapore, Indonesia, Nigeria, parts of
Yemen, parts of Ghana and parts of the Gambia. These areas all have
public woman reciters, all of the reciters on the app. Sometimes
people are like, how do the reciters on the app feel? If like
my husband overhears me playing the recitation and I'm like, they
literally recite on television. They recite on television with
other men, they recite together. That's their culture. The scholars
of those regions have all said this is permissible. When the app
came out, I was like, by the way, there might be some pushback,
because in the West, we have no concept of women reciting in front
of men. And they were like, what we've never heard such a thing.
Where did they get that from? And I'm like, I don't know where they
get that from. So, like, it's a difference of opinion among
scholars in the first place. We respect that. No problem. If
someone doesn't want to listen to a woman, they absolutely don't
have to. But also, the scholars who talk about not listening to
him, like Imam Abu jahimi, who does he put the responsibility on?
He puts a responsibility on a man who knows himself, and he knows if
he listens to a woman, he's going to go crazy. So if that's the
case, he should walk away. But it doesn't close the door for a
woman's recitation. Does that make no sense? There's a difference
between an individual responsibility versus saying no
woman should recite because one possible man in 1000 could take it
the wrong way, and men are so much more than that. One of the
problems I have about the way we talk about men and women,
honestly, is I feel like it's so reductionist, like brothers can't
handle physically saying Saddam to a sister, and if a sister.
Salam to a brother that
knows what's gonna happen tomorrow, like you. You're
we're created us as allies. The Quran says we are allies. The
Bible says we are partners. Like we respect one another. We work
together respectfully. The Prophet saws companions taught us this
anyway. So is a difference of opinion that fatwa. Interestingly
came because there's a book shahrawi. He has an introduction
to this book on women Quran reciters. And he wrote the
introduction, Chef sad, and he's the one who wrote the book. But he
talks about a woman who was the appointed court reciter of Egypt's
ruling class of alibasha. He was, she was the appointed Quran
reciter for his court. Her name was she Muhammad. So she would
come in the late 1800s and she would recite the Quran for the
court. And she's buried right next to Imam ashahiri. May Allah have
mercy on both of them. Have you ever heard of that? That's part of
a religious tradition. It's part of a historical tradition that we
have all of these women Quran reciters throughout history. So
the point is that if we are not familiar with it, and we've never
heard of it, and it's so shocking, it's because we come from an area
or a region that's followed a particular opinion. That opinion
was passed over time. If you look at United States, for example,
most of our massage it have been built by the South Asian community
and particular parts of Europe, communities like the Egyptians,
the Palestinians, they generally Palestine is different, though you
hear Abu Yusuf, he would hear me reciting all these costumes here.
They're not going crazy. They're like, right? But like, that's
different from maybe having women reciters on their radio, right?
Like, it's a different culture versus Malaysia it's on their
radio. So like, when you see that the masajid in our community were
built by these these cult like, people from these cultures, why
recitation is not acceptable, it's they're establishing a culture.
That culture is being established. So all of us grow up never hearing
reciters, who are women, and thinking, Oh, that's unacceptable.
But if any of us had grown up from a masjid that was established by
someone from a different culture where that's their norm, do you
see how growing up it generationally, it changes the way
that you think about yourself in Quran. I'm so grateful. Since
Claria came out, we had so many little girls and so many parents
tell us, like they want to memorize the Quran. They're asking
how they can be a clariah. These are five year olds, 11 year olds,
15 year olds, and they're saying, How can I become a body? Yet they
never even knew the word clariah before last year. So kind of what
you see, like generationally, the way that's gonna how they're gonna
change the way that they if they become mothers, how's that gonna
change the way they impact they interact with their own children?
So Inshallah, we pray that you know this. It's okay. It's a
difference of opinion, no problem. But Claudia, we marketed it as
four women, so we don't have to deal with controversy. So
Inshallah, sisters can benefit from in that way. Is there any
other questions? Yeah, these
Thank you. Thank you so much, Trisha.
And I am mount olives, Shelly, yes, and shell at Mount olives and
shella. And then I think after that tomorrow we have one after
ours. You're
so sweet. Yes, you had a question.
Yeah.