Maryam Amir – Your Heart and the Quran
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
We don't feel like we can actually connect, and one of the reasons is
because we don't look at this book as a relationship, just like any
relationship, like your mom, your dad, a sister, a brother, you
might mess up. Your parents might hate you sometimes, and you might
hate your parents sometimes. But does that mean you want to
completely disown them, maybe sometimes, yes, but in general, in
general, no. There's still something that keeps you together,
whether or not you feel like you deserve that relationship. There's
something that ties you together. With the Quran. You are always
good enough for the Quran, and the Quran Inshallah, will help you and
me inshallah go and recover through the difficulties that
we're facing and ride with the Mercy of Allah through the ease
that Allah has blessed us with. Sha Allah. In this class, our
goals are going to be having an emotional and intellectually
interactive Quranic experience. Emotionally. That means we're
going to connect with the Quran we're going to listen to verses
with beautiful reciters. We are going to have contemplation
exercises. We are going to have moments when we just have peace
with the Quran. We're going to have emotional times when we cry
with the Quran. Inshallah, this is going to be a very emotional
experience, connecting with the Quran. The second thing inshallah
is we're going to have an intellectual experience. That
means Inshallah, we're going to be connecting with tafesir. We're
going to be talking about how verses affect us at certain times
and how they affect other people, how they can help us affect other
people in our lives. Inshallah, we're going to use both of these
experiences to make an action plan of how to inshallah actually fall
in love with the Quran that is the goal of this workshop. Inshallah,
number one, fall in love with the Quran. And number two, have an
action plan of how we can not only establish that relationship, but
how we can maintain it throughout our lives. Inshallah, secondly,
Shala, we're going to learn to teach. Some of you may feel like
I'm never going to be a Quran teacher. I'm never going to be
someone who teaches it. But all of us are teachers in different ways,
whether we actually are Quran teachers, whether we have kids who
we by example, show what the Quran is like, whether we have a
sibling. Could be a relative. It could just be someone at school
who has a question about Islam. You are going to be someone who
teaches the Quran? You will be in that situation. So Inshallah,
we're going to talk about how to teach the Quran, how to teach it
effectively, and how to impact people at different age groups,
how we can make the Quran super awesome and fun with kids, but how
to make it deep meaning and spiritual, meaningful and
spiritual for someone who's looking for that grounding with
the Quran, what we're going to begin with. Inshallah tonight is
talking about how the Quran has transformed people's lives.
Inshallah, I'm going to begin with the story of Malik Ibn dinar.
Who's heard of this name before? Malik Ibn dinar,
Okay, a few people have heard of him. Malik Ibn dinar is a great
scholar. He's a scholar of Islamic history, but he wasn't always a
scholar. He didn't start out as a scholar, like many of us, raise
your hand if you are someone you know came to Islam later in life,
whether you converted or came back to Allah, even if you were born
into a Muslim family, raise your hand if that was your story. Okay,
that was many of our stories. Many of us came back to Allah later in
life. And this is the story of Malik Ibn dinar. Malik was a
policeman. He was somebody who used to drink excessively, and he
was someone who was known to be unjust and a little bit brutal
with people. But one thing that Malik had was a daughter. How many
of you have young kids who are like, in their toddlers, like
three year olds, that kind of age, or a sibling around that age?
Okay, would you say that those kids are kind of like, cute? They
kind of like make you happy. He likes seeing them when they smile.
They ask really curious questions. They kind of make you laugh. This
daughter that he had was someone he loved deeply. He loved her more
than everything. Malik realized that he shouldn't be drinking,
especially because of his daughter, but one day, a lot took
his daughter's life, she just died. And in his grief, in his
immense emotion, what did Malik do? He began drinking. He drank
and drank and drank and drank until he got drunk and he passed
out. So now he's drunk. His daughter just died, he's passed
out and he has a dream. What happens in this dream? Malik
dreams that it's a day of judgment. No one is around him.
He's completely alone. And suddenly Malik sees a snake, and
this snake isn't like a garden snake, it's not a little
rattlesnake. It's an enormous snake with an enormous mouth
that's chasing him because it wants to eat him alive. How many
of you could say that kind of seems scary?
Not everyone. All of you are afraid of human eating snakes.
Well, you would be on the day of judgment. God protect all of us.
So what happens is Malik is being chased by the.
Snake. He's being chased, and he's looking around. No one is there to
help him.
Suddenly, he sees an old old man. As he sees this old man, he goes
and he says, Help me, please. You see what's going on? There's a
snake. It's attacking me, the old man. He just sits. He's so weak,
he's so old. And he looks at Malik, and he says, Don't you know
I'm so weak, I'm so old, I can't I can't do anything for you, but run
in that direction. So Malik listens to him. He starts running
in this direction. As he runs into this direction, he suddenly
realizes that he's at the edge of a cliff, and he looks down and he
sees the Hellfire in front of him is the Hellfire behind him is a
snake that's trying to eat him. And suddenly he hears a voice that
says, go back. You're not from the people of the *
so he turns back. He runs. Who does? He approaches. He's running
that old man. He goes back to that old man. Help me. Please look at
the snake. The man says, Look at me. I can't help you. Go in that
direction. So Malik starts running in this direction, and as he's
running in this direction, all of a sudden, who do you think he
sees? His daughter? Was that gonna be your answer?
MashaAllah, may Allah reward you for that awesome answer that you
didn't actually say out loud, but you were thinking, Can you
pass back? Thank you. May Allah make you and everyone related to
you and everyone around you in your whole life. Emmy
so Malik suddenly sees his daughter, and all of a sudden
everything comes down.
Yes. Was that what you were thinking, too. You were Inshallah,
he's going to share his chocolate with you.
Just kidding. I was just kidding. Talk to me after Shala. So he
suddenly sees his daughter, and he's so happy to see his daughter,
and Subhanallah, the snake, goes away, and he sees this love that
he had for his daughter, and he sits with her like they used to
sit when she was alive. I
want you to think about someone you know in your life who's a kid.
Maybe it's just a student, maybe it's someone you saw at the masjid
once. Think about their innocence. Think about losing them, and then
think about what it's like to suddenly be with them in your
dream, sitting just like you used to do. He's sitting with her, and
he says, Tell me about the snake, he asks her, and she says, that
was your bad deeds.
They were so many, and that old man, that old man, was your good
deeds, but you had done so many bad things that your good deeds
were not strong enough to help you get over the difficult situation
of the Day of Judgment. Don't you know my beloved father that on the
Day of Judgment, your deeds take a form, a physical form, that old
man couldn't help you store somewhere, and someone came up to
you and spoke a language that you didn't understand. They come up to
you, they're speaking, and they're stoic. They don't use their hands.
They're just like men wouldn't Jareth done. And you're like,
what? And they keep talking to you, and they make you feel
uncomfortable. They have no expressions whatsoever, so you
have no clue what they're trying to get at. You don't understand
their language. There's no body language. Do you think it could be
like, kind of frustrating trying to understand what they're saying?
Awkward? Now, imagine if you had that experience over and over and
over with that same person, wouldn't you kind of be like, oh,
there's that system and lock out when you try to be getting away
from that person, because it's kind of awkward. The same thing
with the Quran. It's awkward. Sometimes we open it and it's
like, oh, God, I don't even understand what this is saying.
Reading it in Arabic, if we don't practice, it's like, takes six
hours to go through one verse, and we know we sound horrible. Or
sometimes we think we sound good, and then we record ourselves and
I'm like, God, I really sound bad. Other times we might go to the
Quran because it's like a time of need. Maybe like that person who
we just talked about, who we really didn't understand. Maybe
they were the only person around, and we needed their cell phone
because ours ran out of battery, and we had to call our mom. So we
run to them, like, Hey, dude, can I use your phone for a second?
They don't really understand, but you're like, you know? And finally
they get it, they get it. They give you your phone. You needed
them for a moment, and you appreciate that next time you see
them. But that doesn't necessarily mean you want to be best friends.
You just got over that awkward situation, that awkwardness, and
you asked them for help. Same thing with the Quran. Sometimes we
are going through a hard time in our life. In that moment we open
the Quran, wow, it helped us. That's amazing. That's it. We
don't have that connection every time we open the book, like the
brother was saying. So it's hard for us to get over the awkward
conversation. So we don't move forward. What we're going to do,
Inshallah, is talk about how to get over these awkward
conversations with the Quran, so that, like a human being, we begin
to establish relationship with the Quran. How many people here met
someone for the first.
Time, maybe it's even your current spouse. You met them, and then
you're like, oh, you know, we don't really click. But with
exposure, with constantly hanging out with them, you started
realizing that, like, this is, this is a cool person. I'd like
them to be my friend. Raise your hand if that situation has ever
happened to you. Okay, it's a situation that, if it hasn't
happened to you personally, I'm sure you can understand what that
situation looks like. It's just like that with the Quran. Over
time, Inshallah, we become friends with the Quran, and then once we
become friends, maybe we start realizing we like the Quran, just
like you might start realizing you kind of have a crush on someone.
So you're like, are we more than just friends?
Oh, what does that even mean? Am I ready for this relationship?
And then you think, yes, I'm in love. I want to get married. This
is the time. So then we propose to the Quran. We ask the Quran, will
you be mine? And the Quran always says, yes. You say, I do. The
Quran says, yes. The Quran will never reject you. Will Never think
you don't look good enough. We'll never think you don't make enough
money. We'll never think your career isn't good enough for them.
We'll never think you're not emotionally supporting them. We'll
never unfulfill you in any way. The Quran will always, always
accept you. The question is, how to build that relationship. What
these steps tangibly mean when we talk about the Quran is awkward
conversations look like having Quran fun. What's Quran fun? It's
having games with the Quran. So we're going to play games through
the weekend. Inshallah, have to do with the Quran. I'm so excited
about this, my favorite game in the world. Inshallah, we're going
to play Quranic games so that we can start having a bit of a
comfortable relationship with the Quran. We're becoming friends,
getting over the awkwardness that relates to being able to
understand the Quran in our language, understanding it, having
a habit of actually connecting with it, reading it in in a
consistent basis, in a way that we understand, contemplating it,
making
studying the verses of it in tafsir so It talks about actually
becoming friends, understanding what the Quran is about, just like
you would understand what a person is about. Then we go to more than
just friends. That's when we decide to memorize the Quran. We
realize we can't always have a book around that we can read. We
can't always just bring out our phones. Sometimes it's awkward to
just bring out your phone in a situation. That's when you
realize, I want these verses in my heart. I want them with me all the
time. So we're going to talk about memorizing the verses. What are
different methodologies of memorizing? Are you too old to
memorize? How to memorize in an effective way? How will work for
you as a memorizer? Then we're going to go to saying I do. Saying
I do is talking about reviewing the Quran, because just memorizing
it. All of you, I'm sure, either have a concern of, if you start
memorizing, you'll forget it, and then you'll be punished for
forgetting the Quran. Have you ever heard this before? Many
people talk about that being the reason that they don't start
memorizing. Or some of us may start memorizing, and because we
haven't reviewed in maybe, like, six years, we totally forgot the
verses we memorized. It's like God is such a process saying I do
entails renewing that relationship. Just like when we
get married, we have to form habits. When you first get
married, maybe the first like, you know, six months is like you're on
this high. The next six months is like you're still on that high.
The next five years, you're still on that high. And then maybe you
start dipping a little bit just because you're not as new to one
another anymore. So you have to figure out ways to help that
relationship deepen and feel that love. It doesn't mean you're not
in love. It doesn't mean you're not awesome with each other. It
just means you need new ways to kind of spice up your life, or
have habits that'll help you feel closer to one another, just like
that. With the Quran, shall we're going to talk about Quranic habits
that we can implement once we start that plateau, once we start
feeling like I'm not really feeling that emotional high that I
used to feel with the Quran. We're also going to talk about learning
to teach. Like I mentioned, we're going to talk about specific ways
on how to teach the Quran, because, like I said, whether or
not you're planning to be a Quranic teacher, you will be in
situations where you have to be someone who's a teacher of the
Quran. It could be for one of your kids, it could be for a cousin, it
could be for someone on campus who comes up to you and wants to know
about the Quran. You will be a Quranic teacher, whether or not
you've memorized the whole Quran. How can you teach it in an
effective way? And finally, we're going to talk about changing the
world through the Quran stories of people who've been impacted by the
Quran and how they've changed personally because of it, and how
their stories have helped benefit society. Now, Inshallah, as we
move forward, I'm going to go into talking about a personal love
story I'm going to share with you the moment that I said I do. I'm
going to talk about how I committed to learning the Quran.
And the reason I want to share the story with you is because I'm
going to go through specific verses that affected me in
specific time periods of my life, with the hope, Inshallah, that
when you're hearing my story, you will be thinking about your own
love story. You will be able to connect to some of the some of the
situations that I talk about in my life. You may have the exact same
verses that affected you in similar situations and Inshallah,
through what I hope will be an example that will help your mind
start thinking about your own love story, inshallah. From there, I'm
going to ask.
Ask you to take a moment share your love story with someone near
you, and then we're going to hear a few personal love stories.
Inshallah, the reason this is important is because when you hear
stories of the way the Quran has affected other people, it starts
to make you and it starts to make me appreciate the Quran and the
power that it has to affect someone's life. So Inshallah,
we're going to go through that process of how coming to feel in
love with the Quran is going to affect us. We're going to listen
to the verses that affected me by the reciters who affected me
inshaAllah. I'm going to recite some verses for you as they
affected me in situations. And just in case you're wondering
about a woman reciting in front of men, there are differences of
opinion about it. My teachers, who have asked, especially when it
comes to learning and teaching, have encouraged the absolute
permissibility of this so that Inshallah, it can be for the sake
of knowledge. So hopefully, Inshallah, that rests your heart,
if that's a concern. Now, again, I'd like you to start thinking
about your story as I begin mine inshallah
and inshallah. After we talk about your stories, we're going to talk
about inshallah wrap up with a quick way that we're going to
continue with actually making our love plan this weekend. I know
that not all of you have had a love story, yet some of you may
don't. May not even feel connected. Some of you may be here
for the first time in a masjid some of you may not even be
Muslim. You may never have had a relationship, or you're having a
current relationship, and that's why you're here. You're starting
to explore this relationship with the Quran. So every person's
personal story is going to be different, and that's okay. I
don't want you to listen to mine and think that needs to be my
story. Your story is unique for a reason, because, Inshallah, your
story will hook the people that are around you. So as I say that,
Inshallah, I'm going to begin when I was growing up, my parents, both
of them basically embraced or had an Islamic identity. When they
were in college, they came to the United States when they were in
their teens, my dad went to UC Davis, my mom went to Iowa State,
and they both didn't have any type of religious background. They may
have had families who identified as Muslim, but they didn't
necessarily understand what that wasn't a practice for them. And my
dad didn't believe in a hereafter. He didn't know if he believed in
God. So he went to UC Davis, and while he was there, he had
roommates who were evangelical Christians, very, very good
people, who invited him to go to church with them. So he started
going to church, started reading the Bible, and that's what started
making him think about God in the first place. Now, as he's going
through that experience, my mom at Iowa State, even though my mom is
actually five years older than my dad, how old? That's so awesome,
right? Masha, Allah, may Allah, bless both of them. I think that's
the coolest story ever. So anyway, my mom, she is going to Iowa
State. This is a different time period. She also happens to have
evangelical Christian roommates who invite her to church. So she
starts going to church with them. They start asking her about
religion. She's like, I don't really know anything. So she
starts studying all these different religions. They study
Judaism, both of them study Hinduism, Buddhism, looking to see
what the right religion might be. Finally, both of them, two
separate schools, two separate time periods, go to the Quran. My
dad, when he opened the Quran, it was a 10 day period, where, right
before it those 10 days, he said, if you're out there, I don't know
what's right. Guide me. He fell sick the next day for 10 days. So
he couldn't go to school, he couldn't do anything. And all he
did those 10 days was read the Quran. And as he read the Quran,
he especially got to last verses of the third chapter of the Quran,
the last the last section, he was so affected by those verses that
he said, This is the truth. And that's when he decided he wanted
to be Muslim. And he took his actual trip to the masjid and
formally started practicing Islam. He was very afraid to come to the
masjid because he's worried there might be terrorists or something
in there. So alhamdulillah, that was how he was blessed with Islam.
My mom, Cat Stevens, converted to Islam in that time period. So when
she heard Cat Stevens convert to Islam. So like, if it's good
enough for him, it's good enough for me, that wasn't the only thing
she said he did too. She read the Quran. She did her own research,
but that was a beautiful experience in her time period, and
so that's something that affected her. Now, Alhamdulillah, they both
became Muslim. They both started practicing Islam in their lives,
and then they got married, and then they had me. So I was born
into a family that identifies as Muslim. They have a religious
background, they have spiritual connection, and of course, that's
how they want me to be, but that's not how I felt. I was born and
raised in California. I had no desire to be any type of spiritual
person. Going through school, I went to public school basically my
whole life. I really didn't want to be someone who was different
from everyone else. And you'd okay only one person, Sabrina
specifically, and if Imam Sohaib is somewhere here at Imam Sohaib
would be the only other person know me well enough to know that I
am an extremely, extremely, extremely energetic person, and I
love being everywhere, and I just love being wild and crazy, and
Islam just seemed all the opposite of all of that. So for me, going
into high school, I didn't care about religion. I thought that
Islam would dampen my ability to become popular and awesome. So
that's what I started doing. I started trying to be popular. That
was my goal in life. And of course.
First being popular isn't praying all day and fasting all day. Now,
that's what I think popularity is. You know, in moderation, balance
Islam is completely applicable to every situation in life. But then
come on,
I'm a 14 year old in high school. Britney Spears was cool back then,
not like some praying person. So I really didn't connect with Islam,
and I didn't want to connect with Islam. When I was nearing the end
of my freshman year of high school, my mom and dad had a
family meeting and said, we are going to Mecca. And I was like,
no, no. Can you believe someone's reaction to say no, I was so
afraid that I would go to this holy place and I would come back
as some type of spiritual person, and there goes all my efforts in
being popular and awesome.
So I remember actually telling someone on campus, I was like,
Dude, I'm just afraid, like, I don't want to change, like, all my
swag will be gone, and that's my perspective, going to Mecca. So we
go to Mecca. How many of you have been to Mecca before?
Wow, may Allah, take every single one of you next year. Amin, this
year. Emin, whenever is good for you multiple times in your life,
and everyone you love. Emin, we get there. And how many of you
have seen pictures of it? Yeah. Okay. So the Kaaba, the house of
Allah, is in the middle, but it's surrounded by a big masjid, right?
So you saw that masjid, masha Allah, may Allah take you many
times in your life, and your parents, Emmy, everyone who love
and everyone in this room with you. Emmy, so the Kaaba is in the
middle, but there is a there's a masjid surrounding it. So as we're
walking through the masjid to get to the Kaaba, my dad says, look
down, so that when you get to the front, the first thing you will
see will actually be the Kaaba. So as we're walking, our heads are
down. My parents are crying. I can hear them crying. It's a very
emotional experience for them. But me, as I'm going through I don't
feel anything. I don't feel anything. And it's the first time
in my life I actually think maybe there's something wrong with my
heart. I just think I'm in this supposedly super spiritual place,
and I think the mall would be like more emotional for me to be at.
So we're walking through, my parents are crying as we get to
the front, my dad says, look up. So that's the moment when I looked
up. And as soon as I saw the Kaaba, my heart was so affected,
and I just started to bawl. It was just a moment where I felt this
tangible presence of Allah. And before this, I wasn't sure if God
existed. I started wearing hijab in eighth grade, not for the right
reasons, but the point is, I wore some type of covering. And I
remember when I was that young, thinking, well, Christianity
doesn't make their followers cover, although, in Christianity,
in certain areas of the world, Christian women do cover. But here
in school, none of my Christian friends covered. I didn't want to
be like a Muslim. I wanted to be like them. I was the only person
who covered in like a school of 1000 people hated it, and I didn't
do for the right reason in the first place. And Alhamdulillah
wasn't forced by my parents in any way. I've been very blessed with
my parents hamdullah anyway, so I had already doubted whether or not
Islam is the truth and whether or not God existed. And as I go and I
see the Kaaba, I realize God exists. And then I start crying
because I think about my life and how I've wasted and have not done
anything right with it. And as an experience happens, and I'm going
around the cabin, I'm like, oh, Allah, help me. I realize I need
to change. Fast Forward, come back to America, back to the same high
school, back to same set of, you know, peers, nothing has changed
around me, but I've had this experience. I want to keep that
feeling because I'd never felt that before. I had never felt that
sweetness before, and I really wanted it. It was hard not to fall
back into my habits, right? I mean, that's we're back in the
groove of what you do. So I realized that I watched a lot of
TV. This was before Facebook and all that stuff probably would have
been on there instead. But I used to watch hours of TV a day, and I
thought, you know, if I could watch hours of TV a day, I could
read, like I could read the translation of the Quran. Ooh, I
missed up. That's not what I was supposed to say. I'll tell you
that in a second. I didn't think of a translation I was going to
read the Quran. So I haven't read the Quran ever. I mean, not
really. My parents are not Arab. I wasn't really speaking Arabic. The
only reason I knew how to read it is because, like, you know, many
parents in here, you put your kids in, like, Sunday school or
something, so they know how to read it. So I knew kind of how to
read it. But it was, like, slow. It was so slow. So I decided I'm
gonna read five pages a day. Shala, I go home, I open the
Quran, and I start reading, reading, reading. And it's so
painfully slow. Takes me, like, an hour to get through five pages, if
not longer. And one day, my mom is passing by my room, and she's
like, Miriam, why don't you read the translation that way you're
understanding what you're reading. And I thought, dude, I read
English so fast. What a great idea. I'll just like speed through
it. So I started reading the translation in the Quran, and at
the same time, I started reading the Arabic, the Arabic of.
Still slow, but with lots of practice, until I got faster. But
the translation of the Quran changed my life. I went from
someone who's like, you know, do a lot of things that I'm not I
wouldn't, you know, it's not cool, but reading it, the more I read
it, the more I wanted to change, the more my outer wanted to
change. My inner wanted. I just wanted to change because I wanted
to reflect what the Quran was teaching me. The more that I read
it, the more that I started realizing how close God is to me.
And one of the things that affected me greatly was listening
to the chance listening to the Quran as I was driving around in
the car. So one day it was rumble dawn. This is just a few months
after I came back after my experience in Mecca, I've been
reading the translation for a while, and as we're in the car,
we're going, my dad has a recitation
on he has a tape on a tape back in the day, so I'm listening to it,
and this shaykh is just crying. He's bawling, and I don't
understand anything he's saying, but it affects me so much. So
Inshallah, we're going to listen to the same verses that I listen
to. I want to warn you, I don't completely agree with this video.
It's just nature, but there's a part that talks about hellfire,
and it's really scary. So kids, please close your eyes, and
adults, close your eyes too. But you can listen to what happens,
because the way he recites are very, very Effective. You
different
you
had To
Yes, I do have
will
Be A
we're
gonna skip the rest of the video, but the verses he comes to talks
about people in the hellfire and how their faces are burned and
then their like teeth are just showing. And that image affected
me so much. I had no idea what the sheik was reciting, no clue, but I
heard him weeping. And when he stops weeping, because he's crying
so hard he has to stop, I hear people weeping behind him, and I
just thought, What could possibly be affecting someone to the point
that they're crying that hard, and that when they're not crying,
people behind them are bawling. So I asked my dad, what is this? And
he said, This is the 23rd chapter of the Quran, and they're talking
about the hereafter, and they're talking about *. So I went to
the Quran that night. I opened it, I went to Suratul moenon, and I
started reading the translation. And the translation affected me so
much that in that moment, I said, I have to memorize the Quran. That
was my moment of deciding I want this. I want to understand this.
I'm going to memorize her to what me doing. I didn't know Tajweed. I
know anything. I just like I'm going to memorize the surah. And
that's what I did. Took me months, months and months and months. I
would listen to it, I would read it, I would read the translation,
because I wanted to memorize the translation so I knew what I was
saying. And that was my first exposure to actually memorizing
the Quran as I'm memorizing it again. I'm starting to see my
life.
Changed, but at the same time, I'm still questioning. Many of us go
through that. We have that connection with the Quran, we have
that Imaan Hai, and then all of a sudden, we're like, is the law
really listening to me? Are my dua is really being answered,
especially when we pray for something that's not happening for
months, for years. Why can't I get married? What's going on in my
life? Why are all these trouble? Why are all these things happening
to me? Many of us have those experiences, and we wonder, Is
Allah even listening? So one day, I was sitting and I was making
dua, and I'm like, Is God even listening to my prayers? Is he
even like out there for real? I mean, this is great. I feel
connected. But is this really the truth? Han, Allah, as I'm thinking
this, I open the Qur'an and I read, what either salaki Would
says, when you ask, when my servant asks, I am Close, I answer
the person who is asking me so follow my way. Is that not exactly
what I was wondering opening the Quran and suddenly seeing that
Allah is telling me, I'm listening to you.
Come on. He's listening to you. This is your story too. Just
because I'm telling it doesn't mean this is only my special life.
This is all of our stories. When I went to school, people started
spreading a rumor about me, and I was very, very affected. They said
that I was involved with things that I wasn't. And I got home and
I was crying, just bawling, like Allah. How could they say this
about me? How could I say that I did this stuff. I'm crying. I
opened the Quran,
and the verse that I get to is not written here. Why?
Oh, did I
Oh, thanks.
He had my back right now. I just didn't know. So the verse that I
get to is In ladinah, Mina, Morina, Allah saying the
P the people who say things about women who are chaste, they don't
even think about these things, don't you think Allah is gonna
hold them accountable? There's, there's a serious punishment for
these things. So I'm bawling. I'm like, oh, Allah, how can they say
these things about me? I opened the Quran. What verse is there,
subhanAllah, that just wouldn't make me go crazy like whoa.
Seriously, listening to me, who cares what other people say? He
knows the reality of my situation.
And then Subhanallah,
what happens? I hear these amazing verses. We're gonna listen to This
Inshallah, quickly. I
Be Your OH.
Okay, who knows where those verses are?
May Allah raise you with the mbN. And everyone in this room with
you. I mean, you're welcome.
Okay? So those verses are like amazing recitation, right, right?
I want you to go through this experience with me, because I want
you to see my emotions. I really hope this isn't boring for you.
Please forgive me if it's too much detail, is it too much detail? All
this? Sister said that, of course, you have to say No, I'm asking
what he was saying. Yes. Okay. Well anyway, so those verses were,
like, amazing to hear that recitation. They used to walk
around in high school under my hijab. This is why hijab is so
cool. Got my mp three player on walking through the school. Then I
used to be like, salaam, Alaikum, Miriam. And then I'd be like, I
can't hear you. I'm listening to Quran right now. So went to high
school together me. And then, all right, so that was really
Subhanallah verses that affected me. And through high school, I
started becoming closer to the dean. When I got to college, I
decided I need to formally memorize Quran. So I go to Quran
teacher, and she starts helping me memorize. But this was a very,
very rocky time period, as many of you may have gone through, or may
have seen in other people, when you first connect to the deen,
you're so excited about it, then you start taking classes. And as
you start taking classes, maybe the people who teach you are not
necessarily the best fit to teach you, especially a current Islam.
Alhamdulillah, I was ALLAH. Bless me. Bless me. Bless me. With Imam
Suhaib being my teacher when I was going to that very rocky time
period, hamilham, to the hamiltonham, to the I do not know
if I would exist right now if he if he wasn't there for me or be
Muslim, but I was going through times where people were trying to
mentor me and tell me certain things, like, women are absolute.
Fitna, Your existence will make a guy just like fall over. So stay
away as much as possible, stay at home as much as possible. Never
ever speak in public. I thought this was the most haram thing to
do ever. My personality just completely started changing. And
as I started doubting Islam's validity of women's empowerment,
as I started fearing my relationship with God, instead of
one of hope and fear, it became one purely based on fear. I
started fearing he's displeased with the at this moment, did that
guy who just said salam to me want to marry me? All of a sudden,
maybe I became fitna. Maybe I'm going to go to *. Because of
that, I started becoming like OCD with Islam. And this is not just a
personal experience. Women talk to me all the time about this being
their reality too, and I see some of you nodding your heads, and
maybe it's true from brothers in other ways. So I'm going through
all of this, and one day I am sitting and I'm watching the
Haram, you guys like, know, the live haram stream, where you can
see Mecca, live prayers. And I thought I despair, and despairing
in Allah is a major sin. I didn't have hope in Allah at all. I
thought I go to college, right? I would skip classes to go to the
library. They're praying like 12 racades of Toba because I thought
I did something wrong. It was horrible. And going through that,
I thought, how can I keep this lifestyle up? How can I be Muslim?
How can I keep this going? And while I'm just so concerned about
being a female and being a Muslim woman, going through this
experience, going, Oh, Allah, how SubhanAllah. Right then, as I'm
crying, Allah swt has, the reciter in Mecca, recite my favorite verse
in this time period, which is allahumu semawa Tiwa.
He recited the verses of God as the Light of the heavens and the
earth. How can that not be hopeful? How can you have despair
in someone who brings light to everything, who is the Light? And
that made me, Hamdulillah, start realizing that I can have hope in
Allah, that he can be there for me, and that he will see me
through this difficult time. Alhamdulillah, as I went through
college, I continued to memorize the Quran. I started memorizing
when I was 17. I finished when I was 24 It was a long process.
Yesterday, someone at the northeastern she asked me if it's
too late for her to start. And I was like, How old are you? And she
said, 18. I was like, come on, there are people who are 80 years
old and they memorize the Quran. And that's real. Imagine saying I
spent 50 years of my life memorizing the Quran. That's a
relationship you never want to end. So I spent seven years
working on this. I started in college. I couldn't find a
consistent teacher, and when you don't have a consistent teacher,
it's so hard, because then when you start with a new teacher, they
want you to re recite everything you've already memorized. So there
goes six months, and then you start again, and then they're
busy, and then you're stuck, and then start with a new teacher,
start the process over six months of waiting for a teacher in
between that time took a long time because of all these
interruptions. So I had a friend. Her name was israat me Allah
blesser. We would sit on campus and we would just memorize
together. We would recite to one another and hamdullah after
college, the next day after graduation, I flew to Egypt.
Alhamdulillah, my parents finally let me go. My dad went with me so
that he could make sure I was cool. There.
Living there at the time may Allah, bless him. So when we went
to Cairo, I was on sor Tula Naida. I had memorized from Bakara to
annisad. So I was on swordsul Naida. So when I go to Cairo, sor
tunaida Is the surah that I'm memorizing the first one, right as
I'm memorizing it anywhere I go in Egypt, sword Naida is playing. I
sit in a taxi. The taxi driver has on serto Naida. I walk into a
restaurant, and I sit down, and I'm like, that sounds familiar,
dude, I just memorized those verses from swords of Naida. And
I'm like, telling my roommate, like, I just those. She's like,
What? Like, you know, you know, you do not you memorize Brian too.
SubhanAllah. We would walk into the mall, and then the TV channel
they have, like, we're en playing in some of the stores. Sor
tulnaida And my brother came to visit me, and I'm like, dude,
everywhere I go, so Tana is playing. He's like, Yeah. And then
we walk somewhere, and I'm like,
he's like, okay, fine, I get it. But the point is, everywhere I
went to hanala, I felt like this connection. Because as I started
memorizing it in Cairo Subhanallah, it's everywhere with
me. Why am I sharing this with you? Because this is your story,
too. The Quran is with us everywhere. It can be the one that
helps us when we go to somewhere new, when we leave our families,
when we're all alone. I used to look at I was lived on the eighth
story of the apartment, and just look at I miss my mom and dad, I
miss my brother, I miss my friends. I was alone. I loved my
roommate, Tamil. I loved Egypt. I love Egypt so much. May Allah
bless the Egyptian people. May Allah bless every single person in
the world, except for the bad, evil transgressor people, and
guide them and if not, then take them away from the world. I mean,
but Egypt was,
Egypt was utopia for me, and when I smell turn smells like trash,
I'm like, whoo, Egypt. You're just not all trash. But sometimes you
know that whiff, it's like, oh, oh yeah, that garbage pile. Anyway,
point is sword. Samatha helped me through that process, because I
felt like Allah was connecting with me through all of this.
And then I moved back to America by now, I'm on sort hood, and I
moved to LA with my husband, so we're in Los Angeles. I can't find
a teacher. Can't find a teacher anywhere who will teach a woman. I
can't find a teacher who will teach a woman. And Alhamdulillah,
I finally heard of someone named Sheik Mohib. Sheik Mohib is the
best Quran teacher in the entire world. Allah, seriously, massively
blessed me. Alhamdulillah, he's Egyptian. He doesn't speak that
much English. He speaks an Egyptian dialect. But he is an
amazing, amazing teacher. He is so powerful with women's empowerment
and scholarship. He has a picture of a woman who memorized the
Quran, who had the highest chain in Egypt, who would teach people.
And he would say, like, look, all these men are studying under her.
All these men studied in her. She had passed away. May Allah have
mercy on her. He said, that can be you. You need to do it. He would
ask me to recite in like, banquets, and I'm like, Shay, if
I'm a woman, and the men are gonna be like, I'm gonna get out of
here. This is like, haram. And he's like, those men women need to
be scholars, so not to bang on the men all. I don't mean like
personally, may Allah, bless all of you. I'm just saying that,
like, as a female, you know, we have a lot to tread, and brothers,
you have a lot to tread too. In our community, there's a lot of
expectations. But anyway, he was all about female scholarship. And
Sheik Wahid, he's someone who hated memorize the Quran. As a
kid, his parents put him in schools where they had to memorize
the Quran, and when they were in school, what would happen is he
hated going to class so much that what he started doing is hurting
himself so he wouldn't have to memorize he would take dirt and
put it in his eyes so he would have to go to the hospital and not
go to class. He broke his own ankle so he wouldn't have to go to
Quran class. That's how bad it was. Finally, his dad made a deal
with him and said, If you memorize the Quran, then you don't have to
go anymore. Just memorize it. No more class. And he said, fine. So
that's what he did. Once he finished his memorization, his
teacher said, You're a really, really good student. I'm going to
make you my intern. He's like, I don't want to be your apprentice.
I'm done. But too late, he had to be his apprentice. Alhamdulillah,
as he did, he became so in love with the Quran. Anytime you sat
with Shaykh Mohib, you're going to come out of there feeling like you
are flying on the Quran, and you're going to be like, what's
wrong with me? Why don't I read it every day? Your risk with the
Quran. Allah provides for you. For the Quran you want the best life.
Hook up with the Quran. He will help you understand the importance
of it, because he understands the Quran. So alhamdulillah, that's
when I started memorizing with him, And Alhamdulillah completed
my memorization. Ramadan came about soon later, and I'm going
to, Inshallah, end with this story when I
when Ramadan happens. I love praying in my hometown, Masjid,
because Sheik Sayyid Jibreel. Have you heard of Muhammad Jibreel?
He's a big, famous reciter. His brother leaves tarawiah At our
masjid and his mother just passed away a couple days ago. May Allah
have mercy on their mother, subhanAllah, to have two sons that
are crazy in love with the Quran Mashallah. Inshallah, her rank is
very high. May Allah give her the highest Jannah, he said, so I love
listening to his recitation last 10 nights. I just want.
Be in the masjid, and I flew up from LA so that I could spend
those last 10 nights with my parents and going to go to the
MCA. So as I fly up, the day that I fly up, my dad picks me up from
the airport, and he tells me that my grandpa
couldn't breathe and he's in the ER, but it looks okay, and
Inshallah, he's going to be fine. We go to visit him, and they say
that he had, they had done like, a surgery to help him breathe easier
because he couldn't breathe on his own. He's 95 and they said that
tomorrow we're going to, like, monitor him. He'll be stable.
He'll be here for like, three days, and then we'll take him off
the machine. So we said, okay, and they wouldn't let anyone stay
overnight. They said he's sedated. He wasn't conscious at all. So
they said, Come back tomorrow, so that the next day we get a call in
the morning, and when we get the phone call, they say that he has
dramatically fallen down and he's not doing well, and come and start
saying your goodbyes. So we go to the hospital, and when we get to
the hospital, we're there for a few hours. And my grandpa was
like, my best my he used to be like, I love you, I love you more.
I love you more. I love you more. I love you more I love you more.
He was so loving, so generous. Just when you when you were around
him, you just wanted to be with him. So when my grandpa passed
away, may Allah have mercy on him and bless everyone. My second
grandpa passed away two months after him, and I'm sure many of
you have had parents, grandparents, children, loved
people, loved ones who have passed away. May Allah have mercy on all
of them. May Allah make it easy for all of you. We've had that
experience when I was going through that it was so hard to
lose someone who I'm so close to, and after we had the janaz
Alhamdulillah, it was in the last 10 nightham was on a Friday. May
Allah bless him and bless my other grandpa and all of your loved
ones. It was comforting for us to go through that, but it was so
hard. And I went to the masjid and Subhanallah, this is the time of
TM, so this is like three in the morning. There's not that many
people. It's a beautiful Masjid to be in. We start praying. And there
are verses in the Quran that I don't want to miss. I don't want
to miss certain verses praying in Ramadan, behind, behind the
reciter, but that Ramadan in LA I had switched from so many masjids
because of reasons that I didn't get to hear certain verses, and I
was really sad that I missed those verses as Ramadan. So we walked
into the Masjid. My grandpa had just passed away. May Allah have
mercy on him. We had done the janazah. It was very, very
difficult to go through that experience. And then as we get to
the masjid and we start praying, I know he's not going to be on the
verses that I missed, because it's last 10 nights. He's supposed to
be way, way ahead. But Subhanallah, for some reason, for
the first time in my history of my life, he didn't start in the
beginning of the Quran. Excuse me, in the middle. He didn't start in
the beginning in the 15th night. He started in the last 10 which
means that by the time I got there, the verses that he was
reciting were the verses that had to do with Mariam alaihi salam,
the verses that had to do with her mom realizing that she's pregnant,
asking Allah to accept from her,
and when she has the baby, she realizes Waldo untha had a girl,
Wallah, Alamo, Bima, Wada, Allah knows greater than you know me,
that what I've had when I said that Karu ka wainism made to her
Mel William, I named her Miriam, and I seek refuge with Allah from
the shale time. And then Allah says, fatal come in Has any one
better? And he talks about how zakiriya alaihi salam, he took
care of her in the
* is all. Every time that Allah, excuse me, zakiri alaihi
salam would go and, like, visit her, she had some type of like,
provision. Allah provided her with something beautiful, like fruit
that was out of season, he says, Ola, ya know, Yamo and nakihada.
Where did you get this?
This is from Allah. In Allah. He
said, Allah provides whoever He wills without taking account more
over and over and over. And that's when Huna hunaliq, that's when
Zachary alaihi salam goes immediately and starts making dua,
as you provided her provision, as you provided her fruit that's out
of season, provide me with the child when my wife is out of
season. And then the angels give him the glad tidings that, yes,
Allah is going to grant you a child. You a child. He realizes
that if Allah can provide for Maryam, alaihi salam, that Allah
can provide for him and for his wife, and, of course, for the
whole ummah. So I'm hearing these verses having gone through the
most difficult experience of my lifetime, death the first time,
especially when you're Alhamdulillah, I'm very blessed
that I could live all the way to 25 without having had someone die
in my family, I can't imagine what the people who are losing loved
ones from the beginning of their lifetime as children, as orphans.
It's I can't even imagine it, SubhanAllah. May Allah protect
everyone hearing these verses. Comfort me when I was going
through such a hard time when I wasn't supposed to hear them, the
sheik wasn't supposed to be reciting them. Help.
Me reconnect with the Quran, even through a time that I felt like I
was being tested. Sometimes we go through hard times and we feel
like,
why is Allah doing this to me? Why does this have to happen to me? We
have these questions. Sometimes the reason it happens is so that
we can go back to Allah, and he tells us that in the 32nd chapter
of the Quran, he tells us that sometimes we're tested with with
things that seem like torment, so we would go back to him before the
great torment of the Hereafter. So these verses affected me. And as I
was preparing for this presentation, Thursday night, I
was getting, excuse me, Wednesday night, I was getting ready to
come, I went to swalesha, and as I'm praying, the Imam starts
reciting the same verses I played for you this verses of minuen,
those, those same verses I was going to have this presentation
start with. And the reason I want to share my personal story for
you, as I mentioned, is because I am not some, like, special person
that has special connection with the Quran. And I know people say
this, but like, really, I have so many weaknesses with my Quran. I
have so many weaknesses with my life. Ask my husband, or ask
anyone who knows me, well, I have so much that I need to get like,
you know, work on, and I'm very afraid of dying right now because
I am not ready. But this doesn't have to be my special Quran story.
This is your special Quran story. Maybe you have already had a love
story that you're ready to share. Maybe you're working through that
process and trying to have a love story with the Quran. Maybe you
haven't ever had a good relationship with the Quran, and
that's why you're here, because you want to start having that
relationship. Maybe someone in your life is so far away from what
you want them to be that you weep over their situation every single
day, and you wish that you could be a means of helping them come
back to Allah. If that is what you're going through, no one is
going to understand it better than Allah, and the way that he talks
to us is through his words. The way that we can connect with Allah
is through having this Quranic love, romantic relationship. What
I'd like you to do, Inshallah, tonight, we were going to actually
have you share your stories, but only in 10 and eight minutes. So
Inshallah, what I'm going to do is ask you tonight, think about your
love story. Think about what your love story is and what you want it
to be.
Are you single? Are you divorced with the Quran? Are you just
friends? Is it complicated? What is your relationship with the
Quran? Where do you want your relationship to be? Think about it
tonight Inshallah, and tomorrow Inshallah, what we're going to do
is we're going to talk about our action plan. We're going to go
through the steps of having an intimate relationship with the
Quran. And if you already have one, Inshallah, how to enhance it.
And if you feel like there's no way my relationship with the Quran
could ever be enhanced, how you can inshallah teach it? Because
what may not be applicable to you right now is inshallah applicable
to the people inshallah you're going to help teach the Quran
with. So finally, I'd like to end with Adnan. He's going to come up
here. He's going to recite those verses when so calf come on up,
bro
and Inshallah, we are going to be amazed by how young of this person
is mashallah, but how he's so excited to recite these verses to
us. Bismillah, him in a shaitani, rojim, Bismillah, Rahman era, himI
Kanu, canumin Aya, Tina Abu a jab is a well fit yet to is a well fit
here to eleka FIFA, call you Robin
for call you Robin a Tina,
Min karama, hey, Elena, roshada for the ROB now a then. For the
ROB.
Now today, him was
it?
Now? Who the water? But now cool lube. Him is como? Facalura, buna,
robusama, what you will? Art
Lenna, do I mean, do me
11? Okay, tell us. Tell us. When did you memorize these
verses? Um, tell us, when did you memorize these verses?
Like two years ago. How old were you two years ago? Nine? Akbar,
what made you decide to memorize those verses? I fell in love with
the story of ashabil. KEF,
really. Come on. At nine years old, you fell in love with the
story? Yes, whoa. I'm shocked. Tell me why.
I don't know. I just found it a great story. Oh, my God, may Allah
make me like you. Emmy
nine, where's your parent? Who's like your dad? Yeah, Mahalo.
May Allah bless you, protect him forever. And every single parent
in here and every single one of your children, may Allah make you
of those who fall in love with the Quran all the way through your
whole life, and everybody in this room, and every one of our
progeny, and every one of our relatives, and everyone we love
Emmy. And what is some advice you have for people who want to fall
in love with historians?
So my advice is that
you guys think of it
as a story that can have impact, or, like, something that has to do
with your life. So like, not just like, think about like, oh, that's
in the past. Forget it. It's never gonna happen to me. But keep this
in mind that, like, if it happened to our like, to people who are
before us, it might happen to us. So, so yeah, that's my advice.
Sure you're 11. I'm sure
Masha Allah Baraka, lope. Adnan, may Allah, bless you for dunya Al
aqhira and everybody who's surrounding you in this room right
now. Emin
Masha, Allah, is anyone shocked right now? Feeling shocked? Adnan,
can you teach our class tomorrow?
Okay,
I gotta, I gotta follow up on that. So now that we've heard
Adnan's ridiculous story, we're going to go home and cry over our
states, and then we're going to come back and say, I'm hopeless.
Just kidding. Inshallah, we're going to figure out how we could
be like Adnan tomorrow. Inshallah, protect him, Baraka, lofi,
mashaAllah and every one of us. So again. Inshallah, tonight, please
do me a favor. Think about your situation. Think about what you
need to do to have a relationship with the Quran. We're going to
start inshallah with this slide tomorrow morning. Do me a favor.
If you are coming to class tomorrow, bring a must have that
you can give away. Inshallah, what I'm going to ask you to do is
bring an extra Quran, and I'm going to have you trade it with
someone in the class, even if you've never met them. And
Inshallah, whenever they read from that must have, or if they make
the commitment to memorize from it, as they get the reward of
their memorization, you get the reward of them reading and their
memorization. And as you read from their must have, they get the
reward from you reading and you memorizing from it. So tomorrow,
Inshallah, please make sure to bring a complete Arabic musthave
with you, if you have one, and if you have an extra, bring an extra
just in case someone forgets or isn't here tonight. And if you
have a translation, whether if it's even on your phone or on your
computer, please make sure you bring that as well. For some of
the activities that we're going to do. Ask Allah to make all of us of
the people who love Him, who love His book, and who he loves and who
the Quran loves. Who will be of the people who the Quran will be
with them in the grave when no one is with them, who will be of the
people who the Quran will be an intercessor for in the grave and
on the Day of Judgment, who will be with the people who Allah
chooses to mean be a means of guidance for their family members
and their loved ones and all of the world through the Quran. May
Allah SWT bless you and make you of the people of the Quran and
make us of the people too. So panic Allah Ana either. So if you
don't want to believe it,
hi. Assalamu alaikum, everyone. Just to let you know, in case you
do not, that we are having your heart and the Quran tomorrow at
Northeastern it's in the Snell engineering building, and we're
starting at 10 o'clock register you, but because you lost me and
the difficulty of losing a child, especially at such a young age,
because you lost me, there's chant, there's hope for you.
And then she asked her father, my father, alamilin decrila, hasn't
it become time? Isn't it time for the people who believe, for their
hearts to be affected by the Quran. Isn't it time that you wake
up? Isn't it time that you listen to the Quran and allow it to
affect your life? Malik woke up in that moment, screaming, oh, Allah,
I repent, I repent, I repent, I repent. It happened to be time for
feger. He gets up, makes wudu, goes to the masjid. As he walks
into the masjid, he hears that's exactly what the
Imam is reciting as he walks in.
I want you to think about how that will impact you, if you're going
through such a difficult time in your life, and all of a sudden you
hear the Quran in a dream that's telling you to wake up, and you
walk into the masjid and the Imam is reciting the same verse. Do you
think that would change your life? Do you think that would affect
you? Allah is telling you, he's telling you, I am here. I am
listening.
I just need you to take the steps to me, this is Malik's story of
his repentance. And as he repented, He then started studying
Islam, and he became one of the greatest scholars of our ummah. He
went from someone who used to drink to somebody who we still
quote in our books. Now, Malik became someone. He used to stand
in the night crying, weeping to Allah, saying, Oh Allah, you know
who the inhabitants of the paradise are, and you know who the
inhabitants of the Hellfire is. So whichever one of these two men I
am, O Allah, make me of the people of the Paradise, and don't make me
of the people of the Hellfire. He used to beg Allah, weeping to him.
Now, the Quran changed Malik's life. But Malik isn't just one
special celebrity scholar who was touched by the Quran, and that's
it. Malik is me, and Malik is you. The Quran can be like this for
each and every one of us.
The real question is, though, why isn't it? Why is it that we have a
difficult time connecting with the Quran? What are some of the
reasons we don't establish a regular relationship? What I'm
going to ask you to do inshallah is just take one minute talk to
someone next to you about some possible reasons why, and then
Inshallah, we're going to come back and we're going to talk about
some of the solutions. So go ahead and take a minute on timing you,
and if you're not talking to someone, Michelle, I'm going to
spot you and make you talk to someone. So please Do
it. You
all right, and we're back in three,
We're back in two,
we're back in one,
we're back in zero.
I lost track of time because mashallah, some incredible young
people were telling me their Quranic stories, and Inshallah,
one of them is going to recite some Quran for us tonight. So what
are the things you came up with? What are some of the reasons that
we don't establish a relationship with the Quran relationship with
the
Quran, right? It's not applicable to us. We're going through all
these problems, and it's like, oh, you know, it's just like we're on,
but like, when you're dealing with your kids not listening to you,
and your parents are getting older, and you're dealing with all
these frustrations as a person, and then you have to work, and you
have to go to school, and maybe I don't know, all these things, it's
like all this, you know, it's just a book that I'll read in Ramadan
for sure. You know, yes, I think that's applicable to all of us. I
saw a hand. Wait, we're gonna do brothers, sisters, sisters. Yes,
I only heard the first sentence one more time.
Okay, we don't understand what it's saying. How many people don't
understand the Arabic version of the Quran? I mean, that is the
Quran? Yes, okay, even if you speak Arabic, I would say 99.9% of
people do not speak classical Arabic. They speak like street
language. So or an isn't in that language. So even if you, if you
come from an Arab speaking country, that doesn't mean you're
going to understand it. So yes, that's one of the biggest reasons.
And then it's work to have to read the translation and try to
understand absolutely.
Yeah, all of us go through that. What else? Give me another one?
Oh, sorry, sorry, brother. And then yeah,
oh yes, that's a big one. You know, you're not gonna have, like,
an emotional experience with it. You don't believe that you
personally could benefit from it to that level. It's not that you
don't think you could benefit the crime's amazing. Of course, we all
believe that. Amazing. Of course, we all believe that in Islam,
right? But it's not like when I watch a movie that'll make me cry
and then make me feel awesome, right? It's different. We're not
We're not affected by it like that. Absolutely, yes,
yes, big one. It's just like, but it's so much easier to be on
Facebook right now. Yeah, let me just Instagram myself on Facebook.
Yeah. I
Sorry, one more time.
Oh, 100% we're so busy. Just life moves fast with so many
responsibilities, it's very hard to keep up absolutely sisters,
our hearts are filled with other things. They're so full that it
makes it hard for us to make room for the Quran 100%
brothers,
yes, if we realize what it could do for us, what kind of way it
could affect us, we might spend a little more time in it, just like
you do a degree. Because you know getting your degree will help you
in your job exactly, help you get a job. That's not always true, but
with the Quran, it is okay. Sisters, yeah.
Wow. So sometimes we go to the Quran because things are horrible,
and we're like, oh my god, life is so hard. Oh Allah, help me. And
then you don't know how to come to Allah, so you just open the Quran
and you close your and you close your eyes, and you point to a
verse and oh, that's the answer, right? But other times things are
smooth, Alhamdulillah. So you know, it's not like you don't
think of Allah. It's just you don't really need him that much.
May God protect us and forgive us Absolutely. All of us have this
Yes,
big Uh huh.
Yes,
100%
when we have the Iman high, whether it's reading Quran or like
in Ramadan, when we're paying tadawiya, there are times that we
just feel like, wow, I just connect with Allah so much. Like
30 pages today, or maybe two. And when we get so excited like that,
but then slowly, you know, things change, like our iman starts
dipping. And that's normal. The Prophet saw some told us about
that, that our Imaan goes up and down. If you feel like, what's
wrong with me? I used to be so excited. That's a normal
experience. And the Prophet saw some taught us the way to Revive
Our Hearts is by constantly remembering Allah. So one of the
reasons that we go away is once we had that intimate relationship,
we're like, dude, what happened? We don't have that relationship
anymore, and it makes it hard for us to be consistent with it. Thank
you so much for all of your answers.
Many of you alluded to the fact that it's hard because we don't
necessarily feel that connection. There's not really that emotional
connection. We don't see the benefit to it. It's hard to be
consistent. It's hard with just life. It's hard when other things
keep you busy. It's hard when it's just easier not to since things
are not that hard. But one of the things that all of that alludes to
is the fact that we see the Quran as a book. We do see the Quran as
a book right there are so many of them right there. But one thing
that we need to just shift our perspective with inshallah is that
the Quran isn't a book. The Quran is a relationship. The Quran is a
relationship. What we're going to inshallah do talk about the steps
of a relationship, number one, recognizing why we need the Quran
as our lifelong partner. How many of you know someone who wants to
get married.
Come on, don't be shy. Seriously. Yes, we know so many people, maybe
ourselves. But why do you want to get married? You might know it
could be like, yeah, man, I just want a soul mate. I almost want
someone to emotionally connect to. I want someone to get physical
with. There's so many reasons why we want to get married. Look at
the Quran, though. Why do we want a relationship with the Quran?
Some of us don't even know, but if it was a real relationship, like a
person, we could understand why we want to be friends. Like, I don't
know. I could see a sister that I met at the ECI retreat, and then
I'm like, Whoa. She's here again. I can't wait to reconnect with her
because she has some amazing calligraphy skills. I have a
reason why I want to connect with her. Many of you can think of
people that you want to connect with in your life after meeting
them and seeing how awesome they are. So one of the ways that we
connect with the Quran is by viewing it as a relationship that
we need, understanding why we need this relationship. The second way
is getting over awkward conversations, it could be awkward
to meet someone you for the first time. It could be like, Oh, wow,
that person's just awkward. Hashtag, awkward. Have you guys
ever been in those situations? What about for example, if you
went to school or you were at work in a.