Maryam Amir – Your relationship the Quran
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
For it comes on the day of
interest.
So it
is really our soul and Inshallah, we will talk
inshallah today. That's you for being here the night before he.
I
was going with press to mesh. I was going with a luge press to
lecture, and there were 500,000 worshipers in mesh praying. And it
was a long night. If you go in that night, you do not leave that
compound that night. There are too many people for you to walk out.
And I needed to refresh my Hulu and the restrooms, you can
imagine, as blessed of a place that is as it is, there are only
20 stalls, so you can imagine the situation. And after I walked out,
there was an elderly grandmother, and she came to me, and she asked
me if she could borrow my shoes, because she had taken off her
shoes at some point, and then she had left it so outside of the
restrooms, she's asking me if she can use my shoes, and in this
moment, all I'm thinking about is how disgusting the situation was,
and someone else wearing my shoes into that situation. And I took a
few seconds to hesitate, and I also was supposed to give a
lecture in five minutes. So I was like, how long would it take, and
all those things. And within those few moments, another woman stood
up, and she said, take my shoes. And that minute, have you ever
seen someone else do something and you realize you should have been
that person, the regret that I felt in that moment, I just felt
like Allah gave me the opportunity to maybe go to paradise. And I
said no, because I was worried about my shoes getting dirty, and
I thought I could have given for my shoes. I could, literally could
have said, Please, keep my shoes. I'll just get some sandals. A
Palestinian grandmother living in Palestine Ya Allah. So I said, No,
and then I went back to the the area to pray, and I asked Allah to
forgive me, and I asked him to forgive me, and I begged him for
forgiveness. And then I wrote down on my dua list, my dua list for
the next few years I had written down, make me the person who gives
my shoes without hesitation. I've been making this dua for years.
It's now 2023 Alhamdulillah. I was very blessed to go back to
mashallah this year. I went and Ramadan to lecture again with
elder witch press. And again, I remember Miriam. Remember the
shoes? Remember? I kept telling myself, you never know when the
situation is going to you never know when you're going to have the
opportunity. Remember the shoes. Remember the shoes? 27th night,
1000s of people in line. I go, and I think, Okay, I'm going to try to
come back. Come back. Like three hours later, only a few 100 people
in line. I'm standing in line and an older woman cuts in front of
me. No problem the shoes. A mother comes with her daughter. No
problem the shoes. Another woman comes, no problem the shoes. A
little girl comes, no problem the shoes. Another one comes, no
problem the shoes. Finally, it's my turn next.
A Palestinian mother comes with four other women, and she says,
Can we all go in front of you? And in this moment, I'm thinking, this
is my shoe. This is the real shoes moment. All of those were, those
were practice. This is the real shoes moment. And do you know what
I told her? I said, No,
that is exactly my reaction. Your reaction was my reaction. Except I
wept. I said, No, I went. I came back. And their their faces
looking at me were like
and I thought, You Allah.
I went to mishlo Aksa. It's in the same compound. I went. I was in
Mashallah. Still. I went back to the prayer area, and now not only
did I feel like the worst Muslim in the world because I had denied
an elderly grandmother my shoes in 2019 I denied four elderly
grandmothers my shoes or my spot in 2023 after all these years of
making that same job. And it might seem silly, and some people might
seem like it's not that big of a deal, but to me, it represented my
lack of growth in my heart, even though I let all these other
people cut. I mean, it came close, okay, but Subhanallah for me, I
felt like I didn't do what Allah maybe would have loved for me to
do, and so I went back to the prayer, feeling very inferior and
insecure in my relationship with Allah. And I made Johan. They
said, Oh, Allah, please forgive me. Forgive me. How, how? Twice
now you've given me the opportunity forgive me. Then I
went into salah. Do you know what the prayer? What he recited in
prayer, he recited and sorted and he said, where Allah?
Says, Indeed, Allah forgives everything. He forgives
everything, except if you have intercessors with him. And of
course, we know if you repent for that before you die, that's also
an accepted repentance, sha Allah. But he forgives everything. He is
the One Who forgives. So I'm hearing that ayah, after making
all of these dua, to be forgiven, to be forgiven, to be free. I hear
this verse and I think,
and then, what does the Imam recite next? After this, rakat is
done, what does the Imam recite? The Imam recites with him.
The believers have been successful.
Now this is a beautiful Surah, but for me, Suratul mumini is the very
first Surah that I memorized as a young adult. It's the first one
that I chose to memorize I was 17. I had ridden in a car with my
parents. We were driving to the masjid for taraweeh in Subhanallah
in Ramadan, 20 years earlier, and I had listened to nasty reciting
the Surah, and he was weeping and weeping. And I didn't speak
Arabic. My family, we're not out of so I didn't understand what he
was saying. I didn't barely knew how to read the Quran. All I knew
was that when he was reciting, he was bawling, and it touched
something in my heart. And I said, Dad, what is he talking about? And
my dad said, Well, these are verses about the Hereafter. And
that night, after taramiya, I went home, and I opened the Quran, and
I read the whole surah in translation, and I said, I want to
memorize this chapter so for the next few months without knowing
tijuri, with barely knowing any how to recite the Quran in the
first place, and not knowing how to even start. I just started
memorizing Suratul moenon, and I memorized the English, and I
memorized the Arabic so that I would know what the verses are
about, so that I can try to live them. So for me, this surah isn't
just an amazing surah. It's the surah of redemption. It's a surah
of coming back to the Quran for the first time. It's a surah of
starting over. And when I went to Allah begging for his forgiveness,
and then I heard an ayah about forgiveness, and then the next
surah was this is the surah that he is the only one who knows what
it means to me if any other ayah of the Quran was recited in that
moment, of course, it would have been beautiful, but he knows what
that surah is for me, and the way that I think about my life, and
that he caused that Surah to be the ones that were recited on the
lips of the Imam. I felt like it was a message of hope for me to
keep going.
And why I share that with you is because many times for us, we hear
messages about coming to the Quran. When you memorize the
Quran, when you recite the Quran, when you come to the Quran, your
life will be perfect. These people who are righteous, they're so
righteous, they're so connected to Allah. They don't have problems.
They're not depressed. If you're depressed, you just need to remark
Quran. If you have issues with your children, it's because you
didn't teach them the Quran. If it's you have issues in your
relationship with because you're not obeying Allah. Through the
Quran, we hear those messages, and of course, there's a truth in the
sense of the Quran is always the place that we find, that light and
that hope and that will. But at the same time, the Quran knowing
it, memorizing it doesn't mean that we're never going to have
problems or we're never going to make mistakes, or we're never
we're never going to have issues in our relationships, or we're
never not going to sin, or we're never not going to be depressed.
It means that you have someone calling to you and bringing verses
to you when you most need to hear them, and maybe you have been that
person who's been scrolling on your phone in the middle of the
night because you're going through so much and you can't fall asleep.
And then all of a sudden, you get a whatsapp forward, and it's the
very Surah that you most need to hear. And then you realize Allah
knows, and that Surah might mean something different for someone
else, but for you in that moment, it's the Sura that you most need
to hear. And he knows that the scholars of the past, they used to
talk about the Quran, and they wouldn't just say it's the Quran,
they would say love letters from Allah that this book, it's love
letters from Allah to you. And one of the reasons that I believe we
don't have as some of us struggle with having the depth of
connection, and that's a lifetime journey. It's because, just like
any relationship as a lifetime journey, we don't see it as a
relationship. If you see it as a book that you need to read, it's
on a shelf. You read it when you have time and when you don't, you
constantly feel guilty that you don't read it more, especially in
the days of those hidcha best days of the year, Friday, best day of
the best days of the year. Well, out of a you know, the drama in
the best days of the year, right? But how many of you didn't read
what and today, and then we start feeling like I didn't use my time
in the best way.
Even though you've been doing so much today, you're literally in
the masjid on a Friday. You may be taking care of your families.
You've gone to work to make money for your families. You're taking
care of your mental health. Whatever you're doing not enough.
You didn't do one of the Quran today. And when that is the
message, instead of this is a relationship, the Quran is a
relationship. How do you build a relationship? It's usually not
through screaming at each other, and it's usually not through
feeling so guilty that every time you think about it, you don't even
want to go close to that person, because the guilt is so strong.
It's building a relationship on love. It's building a relationship
on understanding. It's coming to one another and thinking, how can
I show my love to this person? And how can this person show their
love to me in a way that I want to receive it? Because you may love
giving gifts, but you may never really like getting them, and you
may love quality time, but you may not really like to use words of
affirmation, and that's exactly what the other person needs. And
so today Inshallah, what we're going to do is look at
relationship a relationship expert who has spoken about building
relationships the way that you actually feel loved and you are
emanating love. And we're going to apply that to the Quran. So today
Inshallah, we're going to talk about the five love languages.
Where are they? Tell me one.
Allahu, Akbar. Two,
quality time. Three,
gift. Four,
acts of service. Five, physical touch. We're going to talk about
those as it comes to the Quran Inshallah, because we want to
build our relationship with the Quran Inshallah, so the first one,
when we are talking about the Quran, let's look at physical
touch, the must have. This is a must have. It's, it is the words
of ALLAH, right, you might have it on your phone, but how often do
you hug it
before bed, when was the last time you just looked at it and you just
held it?
When was the last time when it came to the Quran that all you did
was open it, to touch the words, just to touch the letters.
Sometimes you may feel like you can't even recite. You don't even
feel like you can read. You just are not in the mental space for
it. Sometimes you're angry. There are times we are angry as human
beings. We are processing a lot emotionally. And what can you do
if you can't even open it? You can pick it up. You can touch it, you
can hold it, and you can hug it, and you can say, in your heart, I
don't have the capacity to read right now, but I want to be close
to you,
just like if you were to speak with someone and you're going
through something and you needed a hug. I don't have the words to
explain how I feel. What's wrong? I don't know what. Why don't you
just talk to me? I don't know what to say, but I do need a hug. And
even if you are not someone who is a physically affectionate person,
that's okay. Why? Because the Quran gives you the comfort in the
way that you seek it. My Quran teacher, Sheik Mohamed, one of the
things that he would always tell me is, whenever you are seeking
the Quran, it gives you what you are seeking. If you open the Quran
and you're looking for healing, the Quran will bring you healing.
If you're looking for knowledge, it will bring you knowledge. If
you're looking for reward, it will bring you reward. And combine all
of those intentions, and Allah will answer all of that together
for you, Sheik Mohib, he'll open the Quran and Suratul Dakar, but
he'll be reciting Suratul Naida, and he says that he looks at the
words, it confuses him. He memorized. His memorization is so
strong it looks he looks at it, it confuses him. But why does he look
at it? Because he feels like it increases him in love. For him,
it's a form of love. It's an act of love to gaze at the one that
you love. So physical touch is an expression of your love for the
Quran this must have I got in mashallah
when I was there in 2010 Hamilton, three times I had gone on a bus
from Cairo, when I was studying there to Palestine, and we were in
meshful Aqsa, and I was opening ma Quran, and I was reciting out
loud, not this one. It was a different one. I was reciting out
loud, and this girl comes up to me, and I had just learned Arabic
at the time, like barely was able to speak and only post Ha, so I
didn't understand when people spoke to me in Egyptian or
Palestinian, all the different dialects. Until the now I can
after many years of practice, but at that time, I had no idea. So
she walks up to me and she says, mahadin, mahadim, mahadin. And I
thought she's saying It's haram for me to recite out loud because
I don't have any mushrooms around me. That's exactly where my mind
went. And then I was like, no, no. It's okay. It's fine.
And then she's like, Oh, you speak English. And then I realized she's
asking me for a napkin. I had learned it as men deal. Napkin is
a Mendel that I had learned. So she was asking for a napkin, which
I didn't have. And then she and her friends were like, you're
you're not Palestinian. Come tomorrow, we'll give you a tour of
pasta. So the next day, they all brought a gift for me. Each one of
them brought a gift, and one of them gave me this must have,
and this must have. Alhamdulillah, I have completed my memorization
of the Quran with I do my review with it. I go to so many different
Quran classes and halakhas with it. This must have. I don't know
her name. I don't remember it. If I were to see her today, I
literally would have no clue who she is, and I don't know what she
has gone through in her life. She might herself have gone through
times where she felt like she's struggling, and I pray not, but
maybe she has gone through hardship in her life, or maybe
she's gone through moments where she feels unworthy, or maybe she
feels like she's not enough. To Allah, I don't know, but what I do
think is that Inshallah, she's going to come on the day of
judgment, and in her mind, she's done certain deeds, and in her
life, she knows what she's done. But on that day, Inshallah, she's
going to be presented with a massive amount of rewards that she
never expected, and she's going to wonder where it came from, and
it's going to come from someone whose name she doesn't remember.
Maybe, maybe she wouldn't recognize me. Maybe she doesn't
even remember giving me the gift. But Inshallah, on that day, I pray
that her rewards are going to be more than she can even imagine.
Because of the amount that I've I've used this book, and I want
you to think about your life, because sometimes we think about
ourselves in a specific way, only in the way that we feel about who
we are, and then we pass that on to how we assume Allah feeds us.
So if I am struggling with myself, if I don't feel worthy, if I have
self loathing, I cast that onto Allah and I assume, and I get
message like that, messages like this constantly. I don't feel like
I'm deserving of my job being answered. I don't feel like I'm
even deserving of making dua because if I'm not doing
everything that I think I should be, then why would he want to hear
from me? But what does he say in the first place? He says,
Well, follow me as the jib. He says, Make dua to make dua to me.
This is a command. It's not just an invitation. It is an
invitation. It's also a command. Make dua to me and I will respond.
This is not make dua to me when you are righteous. There's not a
clause. Make dua to me when you feel good about yourself. Make dua
to me when you give in charity in the moment. Make dua to me. When
you've never committed sins, it's make dua to me, and I will respond
to you. Allah, doesn't see you in your day only. He sees what you
did 15 years ago that you don't even remember. He knows the good
that you've done that you don't even think was a big deal, but
what's really big to someone else? That Subhanallah that you taught
your child, every time your child says it, you get the reward for
that. Every time Inshallah, they teach their children, you get the
reward for that. Inshallah. How many generations of people
inshallah will that reward go back to for you because of something
that you thought was small and you didn't think it made you a better
Muslim or a good person or worthy to Allah. But
what if that's not how he sees you? And that goes back to the
Quran, because this book is one that teaches us that even when I
don't feel worthy of a hug, the Quran will be there to give it to
me. So the first one is physical touch. And in this I really
recommend that if you read the Quran and you know anyone who does
gift them a must have, and tell them, gift anyone. Find someone
you love, find someone you care about, or someone you never met
before, and say, hey, you need to give me a must have, and I'm going
to give one to you. And Inshallah, we'll see each other when we pay
attention. Gift them, the gift of receiving rewards. For me, and
that's a blessing that we wish for when we're when there's nothing to
be our companion but the Quran in the grave, when the grave comes,
when the grave comes, when, when the Quran comes in the grave, and
it comes with this beautiful, beautiful person. And it's asks
you. It asks you, do you recognize me? And you're like, No, I don't,
I don't recognize you. And the Hadith mentions that the Quran
says that I am the Quran. That the Quran speaks about how you used to
spend so much time tiring your throat out and being so thirsty
and being so exhausted, reciting the Quran, and now the Quran is
with you,
that the Quran is that companion for you, it's a relationship. It's
not just a book, it's a relationship. So when we looked at
building relationships, one, we spoke about physical touch, and
two, let's look at a different aspect, and.
Which is words of affirmation, words of affirmation. So words of
affirmation are saying words that make you feel happy or healthy or
good about yourself. Now, when it comes to the Quran, how do we
apply that? There's a few different aspects to this. The
first one is like we talked about, many of us have been conditioned
to see the relationship with the Quran as one based in guilt,
because we're never doing enough. It's just you're never quite doing
as much as you should be, and therefore it's easy to feel like
you're not good enough. Can you raise your hand for me if you've
ever felt like this when it comes to your relationship with the
Quran?
Yeah, that's a lot, and myself included, all the time. So the
first part is acknowledging that the Quran, the way that we are
often taught about it, was very different for the Companions
themselves. So the companions will be Allah, they had the Quran.
Being revealed in front of them. They lived with the quran being
revealed because of an incident that happened in their lives. They
were living the Quran, and yet, Abu Bakr ODI Allahu Akbar saw a
group that came from Yemen, and they heard the Quran, and they
started to cry.
His reaction was, had
we used to be like this? We used to be like this. This is Abu Bakr
only.
Allah made sajda after sajda tilawa. So there's a place that
you make sajda in the Quran, it's a sunnah. It's not a requirement.
It's a sunnah to make sajda. In certain places, he made sajda. And
in this ayah, it says that they make sajda and they cry. He said,
This is the sajda, but where are the tears? This is the session,
but where
are the tears? Jubir ibn Ruth, he was praying behind the Prophet
sallallahu alayhi wa salam.
He's a Muslim praying behind the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa
sallam, and the Prophet saw them recites a few verses. And the
verses that the
Prophet saw some recited are at Abu. I don't know how to quite
translate this, but are you like in like a shock from, from, from
this word, sorry, that's a terrible translation. But he said
this set of verses that were recited was the first time that he
felt like his heart was flying. He describes praying behind the
Prophet, so I'm hearing verses in November, and he felt like his
heart was flying. And then he says, it's the first time I really
felt Iman unto my heart. This is a campaign of the Prophet, seeing
the Prophet sallam, being a Muslim, praying with the Prophet
sallallahu, sallam. But it wasn't until he heard these verses that
he felt emotionally connected to the verses
and another narration, Sophia, the Mother of the Believers. Will you
Allah? A group of Muslims were reciting Quran. They got to Awa.
They made such a but they didn't cry. And she said, Where are the
tears
in the Quran? There's an Aya Alaina. Is it not time for the
believers, for their hearts to be in awe, to soften at the
remembrance of Allah, who were the believers. Allah is talking about
the Companions themselves, who are seeing the Quran. Do you see where
I'm going with this that yes, the Companions would weep, and yes,
the companions were the best generation. And yes, the
Companions changed because of the Quran, that they are the people of
the Quran, that none of us, if all of our Imam combined on Earth,
were to put be put together, we're not as good as the Companions. And
yet there were times that they wished they could weep out of
emotion. And of course, they definitely did throughout their
lives. Undoubtedly, these are the companions. But the point is, if
the Companions can have moments where they struggle with weeping,
with the Quran, and they wish that they could how much more
compassion can we have for ourselves, that despite not always
feeling that emotional connection, then I'm still going to keep
trying with the Quran. And for me, when I was memorizing the Quran
surah Toba was a surah that was the hardest Sura for me to
memorize. I really struggled with the memorization, and I really
struggled with feeling a connection with it. I remember
Mathurin teacher in Egypt. She told me, as soon as we got to as
soon as we got to swertzer, Toba, she was so excited. She was like,
she literally, she did this. She held her back up. She was like,
oh, sorry to Toba. I love this surah. I'm so excited for you to
memorize this surah. And as I memorizing, I'm like, what part
it's so hard. I cried and cried because I was so frustrated many
years of reviewing this surah, and I never felt connected to it. Yes,
I felt connected because I'm a Muslim. Fight connected because
of.
And yes, I felt connected because Alhamdulillah, I memorized it.
It's an honor, all of those things. But would I go to it when
I was in pain? Would I seek it out when I was trying to recite just
for fun? I wouldn't, honestly, even though I loved it. Of course,
I believe in all of that, but I would seek other surahs. Then
Alhamdulillah, I went to Medina. And in this trip, I was there for
less than that same trip that I went to upsa, that I told you
about come to, that we stopped in Medina on our way home. It was
less than 15 hours. And for those of you who know the Rolla for
women, there are very specific times. There are 1000s of people
from everywhere. It's very hard to get in. And unfortunately, in that
trip, no matter how many guards I went to, no matter how many people
who said, come back at this time. And I did. And I went earlier than
they said. I did not get in. And I sat thinking, How did I come to
Medina? And I couldn't visit the Prophet. So Allah, of course, we
can say salawat from anywhere. Allah, Abu na Muhammad, of course,
the prophet from anywhere but to pray in that piece of Jannah, to
pray in the Rola itself. And so I remember in that trip, in my
phone, I have like two pictures of Medina, because after I didn't get
in, I felt like the scum of the earth who gets to Medina and
doesn't get into the robot. Now I know a lot of women because of the
policies in which to require women not to be able to enter, and I
even know that men sometimes are not able to enter because of the
crowd, so I understand that now, but then that's not what I was
thinking. Then I thought I did something to not be worthy to
enter. It didn't help also that I messaged someone, and she
reaffirmed that statement, and then I really thought I was and
then that's when you realize, then maybe sometimes someone who's
mentoring you're not the right person to mentor. You know, it's a
journey. So anyway, why I'm telling you this? Because in that
moment when I left the robot, all I could think about were the
verses and sorts of Toba where the companions did not go for Jihad
when they were supposed to. There were three of them. They didn't go
when they were supposed to.
They didn't have any excuse not to go with the Prophet sallallahu
alayhi wa salam, and when he came back, they went and they
apologized, and they were told that they needed to be kept
secluded from the community as part of the consequence. And the
verses describe the way that they felt internally, Allah got to are
they even? Abubaku bet that they just felt this narrowness, this
tightness they didn't feel this expanse of the earth,
and there was nowhere for them to go, no one for them to turn to,
except Allah. Don't matter. Are they even the atubu? Then we turn
to them so that they would turn to him every time you feel like you
want to come back to Allah. That is an invitation from Allah. He
has already wanted to forgive you until you are turning to him.
That moment was the first time that those verses played in my
head, and until today, I have never felt more connected to a
surah than Surat to Tova when I'm in pain, suratulpa Now, for me, is
a Surah of redemption. It's a surah of just repentance and of
hope in Allah. And I didn't feel that emotional connection in the
beginning. It took an experience for me to be able to understand
it, and that is why I'm sharing with you the concept of words of
affirmation in the sense that. One, you can tell yourself it's
okay for it to be a journey. Two, you can tell yourself it's okay if
it takes some time. And three, you can tell yourself that sometimes
the way that you connect with the Quran emotionally in this
relationship, through these words of affirmation are through
experiences that are not always easy. Some people have songs for
like their wedding day and the first time they met and the first
time and loss we have, of course, that's a different story. Not not
you can be both, but the Quran Do we have a surah for a moment of
loss, a moment of hope, a moment of joy. When you graduated, when
you got married. What is the surah for the season of your life? And
part of building that connection is speaking to the Quran and
hearing from the Quran in a language you understand. So I'd
like to ask for a volunteer who speaks more than one language. Who
speaks a language you think no one else in this room might speak?
What's your language? Russian? Does anyone else speak
Russian? You do you see? Oh,
okay, so come on up.
So Deanna, we want you to speak to us in Russian for
30
seconds about anything you want to consume you.
Not
even
what Arabic or English. So none of us got anything mashallah, okay,
all right, any idea about what you possibly could have said? Any
context clues? Yeah,
how for day is going to eat? I heard E and I also thought, or I
thought the same thing. And I was like, What is Russian, the same? I
don't know any other, any other. Yep,
okay, so she said something that sounds like or she said, Thank
you. So maybe she said, Thank you. So you caught something because
you knew something in the language. You had something
because you associated it with another language. Anyone else?
Yes.
Adjutant, she said, she's like, I didn't do anything.
Okay, what
did you say? No, no, I was a joke. It was a bad dress, but it was a
good, good guess. Okay, tell us. What did you say? I
forgot, but I think I said,
thank you everybody or no, I'm happy that everybody's here. I'm
happy that you're here.
This is a building with walls and windows
outside, and
there's a table, so there's a little ants and descriptions and
descriptions. And I think I said, Thank you, but I do remember,
okay, thank you. Stay for a second. All right. Now, did any of
you think that's what she might have been talking about? My mind
did not go there at all. The alien would know. Actually, no poop.
Alright. Now I want you to imagine that Deanna and I don't know each
other, okay, pretend we don't know each other, but she's actually one
of my really good friends. So turn around. Okay, Deanna and I have
met before. Um, actually, we're gonna meet right now. Okay, turn
around. In front of us is the jackpot.
Deanna and I react very differently to seeing the cab.
She and I, for the first time, are meeting in front of the cab, and I
don't speak Russian, and she doesn't speak English, and so I'm
like, oh. And of course, she goes,
What's your
name? Yes, exactly when she said something to
me, I got together with Mahala, so we are having an emotional
connection. Moment, cab, right? Do we understand each other? No, but
we also make Co Op together. And we make God she says something
that she says at me, so I say, Emmy. I say something. She doesn't
know what I'm saying, but she says at me, do you see that emotional
connection for me? All right, Deanna and I lose touch. I didn't
get her last name. Can't find on social media, so we've never seen
each other for another five years. Okay, now all of a sudden,
mashallah Allah honors and invites us back, but this time, we're in
Medina, and we're walking in Medina, we're just walking, Oh,
what
an honor. Okay, do we already have a connection established before?
Yes, we have this connection from before now this time, we already
have established connection. Can we can you see that we probably
would want to spend some time together? Would you imagine, if
you had someone in this situation, you'd at least feel like, let me
get your phone number, even if you don't use Google Translate. You
can imagine you want to stay in touch over the years, have you
stayed in touch? Do you think she learned some English and I learned
some Russian? Yes, absolutely, absolutely. And then let's say I
told her some difficult views, and she told me some difficult views.
Do you think our connection would establish more and she's there for
me, and she keeps sending these things on board, and she came from
Russia, like all of that builds that connection. And now let's say
we're deciding to meet for the third time Inshallah, this summer
alone. But I mean, and now
some of her, she knows some of mine. She's been there for me.
I've been there for her. Do you see him? Now the trip would re
just Kindle those bonds this
example.
Thank you so much. Is one that you can understand very naturally
would happen with a person. That's a very natural consequence of how
a relationship would go with a person. I want you to apply that
to the Quran. So if we're talking about words of affirmation with
the Quran, what does it look like that? You read it in a language
you understand that when you're coming to the Quran, you're not
just reading it in Arabic, which you should 100% do, especially if
you even if you don't understand Abu Huraira of the Quran, who said
that the Shay of Khan flee from the house where the Quran is being
recited, every single letter is a reward everything not. And the
Prophet saw that even in the.
This. Even in this statement, he didn't, he didn't say Edith. Man,
name is a reward. Edit is a reward. Man is a reward. Name is a
reward. You're getting rewarded. You're being protected. Your ranks
are being raised in Jannah. Inshallah, in this life, there's
barakah. You're never alone. And also, if you read it in a language
that you understand Inshallah, you'll be able to build a deeper
connection. So reading it in the English translation, or the Urdu
translation, or the Turkish translation, or whatever that is
for you. But why do I give you? Why did I want you to see the
example? Because when you're in the middle of reading the Quran
and you feel like I don't feel the connection, but I want to. I want
you to remember me and Deanna in that moment. I want you in five
years, Inshallah, you'll never feel this, but realistically, we
probably all are going to feel all of us, and we think like, Man, I'm
really having trouble connecting. I want you to think about that
moment I don't understand what Deanna was telling me. And
sometimes that means you need to read tipsy and sometimes it means
you need to listen to lectures. It's not just reading the
translation, but you're going to a journey of relationship, right? So
in the beginning, I'm reading and I'm understanding the translation,
and then for some time, I don't feel connected to the Quran, even
though I want to like any relationship that's going to
happen. But what's not going to stop that I'm going to keep
trying, and that the Quran for me will always be there, because just
like Deanna was excited to see me in Medina after we established a
bond, the Quran will be excited to see and hear from you every single
time you go back to I think one of the things we need to most process
when it comes to our relationship with the Quran is our mentality
when it comes to the Quran as a relationship any person, sometimes
they might be mad that you didn't call them for five years. But like
one of my friends said, when the sun comes out and it shines,
you're not mad at it for shining one day. You're grateful it came
that day.
So go back and know that Allah loves to hear your citation, that
the Quran loves to hear you. I think sometimes about the people
whose recitation that the Quran misses, who knows when it's their
last recitation? And does the Quran miss their voice? Does it
miss hearing their voice? Does it miss your voice? Words of
affirmation, reading it in a language you understand, reciting
it on a regular basis tonight. If you don't already do this, choose
how much Quran you're going to recite on a daily basis, five
verses, one page make it consistent. Relationships are
about consistency. Recite it and make it consistent. And the last
part, words of affirmation, is choosing an ayah to live by and to
love for a week or or make it your ayah that you always recite. But
Asmaa of the Allahu aku of a book called The Allah, she would recite
one ayah over and over, but men in Allah, and she would recite it
over and over and over. And one of her relatives walked in saw her
praying, and then went to the market and came back, and she was
still reciting that ayah over and over and over. Hassan Al Basri, he
used to recite while lying down in bed in the middle of the night
what's the beginning of it? Allah has given you from everything that
you've asked. And if you try to think of the blessings up front
from him, you'll never be able to count them. And he said, every
time he recites that ayah, he sees more and more blessings every
single moment he's reciting it over and over until he understands
that he lives it. He longs for it. Pick one ayah that you live and
you long for and you recite it constantly. Be consistent with the
amount that you reciting, even if it's one page a day, one verse a
day, you Inshallah, next year, on this day, will see a
transformation from where you were a year ago. It's so worth it to be
able to say I've spent 70 years navigating my relationship with
the Quran, 70 years trying to come to the Quran, 70 years trying to
build a relationship with the Quran and Subhan Allah. Is there
any loss in that type of a relationship? There's only gain.
So the third one, we spoke about
physical touch. We spoke about words of affirmation. Now let's
talk about quality time. So quality time with the Quran. Many,
many stories we've heard of those who've been introduced to the
Quran in really negative ways, and sometimes it causes adults to feel
like they can't even touch the Quran. I had a sister who told me
that she was memorizing the Quran with her brothers. And when she
was about 12 years old, she was told that women are fitna and she
can no longer memorize the Quran because she could be fitna for the
Quran teach herself to the love, and so she no longer was able to
continue her Quran process. And what's so difficult for that as a
12 year old to hear that message is a lot to unpack for a 12 year
old to hear that message, and unfortunately, it's very common to
hear. And so her brothers continued, and they memorized the
Quran. And she never continued, because she was angry as a 12 year
old. And she was one of those 12 year olds who loved to recite.
There are those kids, masha Allah, some of them actually just love to
recite the Quran. It's something they enjoy doing.
They want to perform with it, and they want to recite at your
wedding, and they're so excited about it. She was one of those
kids, and she felt like the Quran was close for her. She was given a
message from the Quran teacher, so she felt like Allah didn't want
her to recite the Quran. So for 12 years, she didn't touch the Quran,
and it came from a place of pain, and it came from a place of trying
to navigate her emotions with it, having to do that after we watch
Aria, which is the woman Quran reciters Act, which you can demo
today for free on Google Play and Apple Stores. It's women Quran
recitations from around the world, having to do that. She started to
read the Quran again, and she said that now she's opening the Quran
for the first time in 12 years as an adult. She's a young adult now,
and she's reading it and realizing in the past 12 years, it wasn't
just the Quran that she stopped being connected to. She stopped
praying, she stopped going to the majesty. I'm not saying that was
the in the only incident that impacted her decisions. And of
course, we all have to be responsible and accountable for
our decisions, but at the end of the day, it was one of many that
she saw as part of her story of going further away from Islam,
and then she suddenly felt like maybe she can go back to the
Quran, and now it's with a new experience. It's through hearing
women's recitations for her. But what are the experiences that
you're going to build with the Quran? So as a relationship that
looks like going to the beach with the Quran. It looks like going on
a date with the Quran, that you go to a cafe and you get some coffee
and you sit and you read the Quran. It looks like baking
cookies and having your home smell like something you love and
reciting the Quran. How do we build love for the Quran? It's
like we build love for others. It's like we build our
relationships. We do the same things. So especially if you've
had trauma with the Quran, build new experiences with the Quran.
And when we talk about new experiences and new mentalities
with the Quran, we're going to shift into the next point, which
is giving gifts. So when you recite Sura al Islas, for example,
when you pray to Golo or asho or fazr or every single one of your
sanas, literally over and over and over and over again, why are you
reciting uh, what's the reason? Why do we typically recite ahu
Allahu, Akha.
Thank you, mashallah, there's honesty today. I thought you were
gonna say, I don't have time for every day someone turn up, switch
it up. Kidding. I did not think you were gonna say that was
absolutely why it's short.
But when you think about how Allah talks about the gifts that he
gives,
do you know that Surah Al * is 1/3 of the Quran that the Prophet
saw them, asked the Companions, how many of them can read 1/3 of
the Quran in the one night? And they said, it's not easy. Prophet
saw them told them to read through it till the philosophy is a third
of the Quran
that one companion would always recite rahad with another Surah
whenever he was leading prayer. And another companion came and
complained to the Prophet, saw them about that. And the Prophet
saw them after asking him, like had him be asked, Why does he
recite it in one narration? One companion said, because it's the
description of the Most Merciful, and I love it. And so the Prophet
saw them, told him that the Most Merciful that Prophet SAW taught
him that Allah loves him because of his love for Allah.
In another narration, a man was promised paradise because of his
love for Rahul, Allahu, Akbar. If you recite it 10 times, Allah will
build a tree in paradise. Important tree a house, will build
a house in paradise for you, if you recite it 10 times, these are
all authentic narrations. When we're looking at Allah, we may see
it as something quick, but when we see the Quran as love letters from
Allah, then we see the surah as a gift from Allah. It's a love and
giving gifts is a love language that he knows that most of us,
probably in the whole entire Ummah, are going to resent Umu,
Allahu akhib, over and over again. And so instead of coming to it
with it's fast, don't change what you do. Keep reciting, oh Allahu
Akhi, but come to it with insha Allah. This will be Allahumma. Get
in touch. Sha Allah. Allah will see that I love this surah,
because it's the descriptions of the Most Merciful inshaAllah, this
surah, this recitation, will be what builds in your house in
Jannah. Inshallah, I'm reciting a fourth of the third of the Quran
because I'm reciting hokulallahu Ahad. When we see the greatness of
Allah's gifts and are navigating a relationship with Him, it changes
the way we feel internally about the book that he has sent His love
letters to us. And finally, the last one
is acts of service. The Quran is about change. It is about action.
It is about being better through reading it. If we are reciting the
Quran, the Prophet saw that you can describe people who would
recite the Quran, and it doesn't leave their throats.
Yes, it doesn't change your action. They're the worst of
people. You I'm sure all of us have stories, probably of someone
who is supposedly super connected religiously, but with the biggest
turn off from religion in our lives or the lives of someone that
we know. We probably all have one or two or 30 stories of that
experience, and maybe we were that person for someone. There was
definitely a time in my life where I was that person for other
people.
But look at what the Quran did for Malik Ibn dinar, who was a huge
scholar of Islam. Malik Ibn dinal, one time he was praying in the
night, in the middle of the night, and a thief entered his home. And
this thief entered his home and found absolutely nothing, because
Malachi * was a was a very was a dad. He didn't have much,
and medical Indiana was writing. And then he finished his prayer,
and watching this thief walk around, he didn't the thief didn't
notice that he was he was in there. And then he says to this
thief, he invites him. And he says, You, He you. You came to
steal from us. And instead, he decided to steal from Malik Ibn
dinar. What did he steal from Malik Ibn dinar? His bad
character? That's what he said. He stole. He invited him to pray at
the am with him. This man came to take things of this world, and he
took the fear after. Afterwards, this man was a changed man. But
Malik Ibn dinar didn't start like this scholar that we all know, and
we quote in our books, Manik Ibn dinar was known as an alcoholic,
and he was known as somebody who was involved with kind of like the
what you would say is like the private police. He was involved in
things that were not praiseworthy in terms of how it impacted
people. But one day, he had a little girl, and he loved her so
much. And when he would try to drink, she would throw, throw the
bottle from his hand. Even as a very young child, she would take
it and throw it so he had stopped drinking for a time, and he loved
being with her. And he just felt so much joy in just that, that
place with this, with this two year old, his daughter,
and then she passed away.
So malikagan, Dino loses the best part of his life for him, and when
she passes away, he drinks himself to sleep. He literally just drinks
himself into a coma,
and he's dreaming
that it is the day of judgment.
And as he is standing on the Day of Judgment, there is suddenly a
snake, this massive, enormous snake, and it's trying to eat him.
So he starts running. He runs all the way to the other side, and he
sees this old, old man, and he says to the elderly man, help me.
Help me. Do you see there's a snake? And the elderly man says, I
am so weak. Look at me. I can't help you against the big snake. I
can't do anything. Run in the other direction. So Malik Ibadan
dinar starts running in the other direction. He goes in the other
direction. And as he's running, the snake is still chasing him
until he gets to the edge of a cliff. And when he gets to the
edge of that cliff, he suddenly stops, and he sees below that it's
hellfire. Hellfire is on the other side. And then he hears a voice,
and that voice says,
it's not, you are not of this people. You are not of these
people. So he turns around, and he runs again. The snake is still
chasing him. He goes past the old man again. He begs again for help,
and the elderly man, again, tells him, I can't do anything. Keep
going. So he runs, and he runs, and then all of a sudden he stops,
because who does he see? He sees his daughter.
He sees his daughter. Then the snake suddenly goes away,
and he just sees the love of his life, and he holds her in his lap,
and he's just stroking her hair and holding her the way that he so
holds her,
and he says to her,
what was that snake?
And this little girl in his dream says, Don't you know yet? Abut, my
dear, dear father, don't you know that on the Day of Judgment, all
of the evil deeds, all of the sins that you committed. It comes as if
it's a real thing. That snake were your bad deeds, and they were
trying to eat you. They were going to take you whole. And that old,
old man, he was your good deeds. They were so few. You had made
them so few because of all that you were doing,
it couldn't help you,
and if you hadn't lost me, she is telling him that the loss of this
daughter was as huge, as enormous, as a test as it is, that it was
something that helped him in that moment, on a spiritual level,
because of The pain and
the pain of that loss. And then the daughter says to him, she
says, In ayah in the Quran, she says,
hasn't
it
come time for the believers, for their hearts to be affected by the
remembrance of Allah?
She says this ayah to him, and he wakes up screaming, screaming. And
then as he's screaming, he says, it's time, it's time. It's time.
He makes mu he goes to the masjid. They're already praying. They've
already finished short of Fatiha. As he's entering the masjid, the
Imam is reciting,
isn't it time for the believers, for their hearts to be softened by
the remembrance of Allah.
This ayah is the same ayah that he heard in the dream from the moment
that he heard his daughter remind him of coming back to Allah. That
is what pivoted his life. He was someone who was an alcoholic. He
pivoted to being a scholar of Islam. He is the one who invites
someone who comes into his home to steal from him, to steal from the
burglar by stealing his bag Ada and helping him come back to
Allah,
that is act of service with the Quran, that the Quran changes our
lives. And Abdulah said Rahima Allah, someone who has probably, I
don't know, a million gazillion trillion bazillion rewards because
of the amount of people that have memorized the Quran for him and
recite the Quran and teach their students. Their students use the
Quran over and over and over and generations and generations. Did
Abdul Basit? Was he the Imam of Mecca? No. Was he the Imam of
Medina? No. Was he the Imam of mitsub? No.
He was someone who Allah chose to be born in a time where they just
came out with this recorder with the ability to record first
generation of Quran who could record and in his time period, the
Quran that we use, Michelle, we and Hussain, all of these Quran in
the same time period, they recorded their voices. They were
not the ones who recited in Mecca and Medina and mashallah, which
are the places that we know have the most reward for praying. It
every person. Can you imagine? The Imam and mashallah have any
rewards he gets every time people recite behind him as sudayas,
every time people recite behind him or praying behind him, sorry,
how many rewards is he getting? On top of that, how many people
memorize what their voices? Abu Bakr chosen by Allah to be any man
of those places, but Allah chose him in a different way. And when I
was doing the uploads for ARIA, for our for our app, there were
five women Quran reciters that I mentioned here in this message
before. So I'm not going to go over the history, but Sakina
vincen, she was one of the reciters who would recite on
Cairo's radio. She was a public reciter, as were multiple women in
that time that it changed because of the fatwa the Nafe was was
overturned anyway. The point is, there are very few recordings of
her recitation because it she was stopped from reciting. But I think
about how now today, when we hear Sakina, he or when we hear
shahadol Basin, they are in their graves.
When their recordings, their voices, are reaching us because of
the Quran today,
and we are all going to face that end. But
right now, there may not be people who know my name or your name as a
reciter of the Quran. Or maybe they do know maybe you are
teaching your child or your sibling or your student, or maybe
it's the character that you teach, that you impart on all those
little people every single day, that when you are with the Masha
Allah, you don't need to teach the Quran, but they get the character
from you miss Rudy, masha Allah, and all of the people here who are
working with children. But the point is that
you may not be this Quran reciter that's receiving billions of
rewards because people memorize for you. However, did you know
that the angels roamed the earth looking for you? Did you know that
Allah has commanded a group of angels to do nothing, nothing but
roam the Earth, looking for the people who recite the Quran.
When you are reciting the Quran by yourself in your room, there are
angels searching for you, and they come to hear the Quran from your
lips, whether it sounds like Meals on a chalkboard to you, or whether
you love the way you recite quietly in your room, or no one
can hear you, and when other people hear you, they're like,
what's happening
with your voice. But
it doesn't matter what you sound like. It patterns that you're
reciting the love letter of Allah SWT you. And do you understand
that angels can't do anything unless he orders them to which
means that he loves to hear you recite so much that he has angels
who which they bring. As the Quran mentions the excuse me, the
chattesino explained that with the presence of angels is baraka its
blessing, its mercy, its Bucha, its protection, and its the answer
to Doha Imada, lovely.
All of the major scholars of Tim SiO discussed this in their
commentaries of angels and the verses of angels, these angels
were ordered by the one who loves to hear your voice, to come to you
and to bring with their presence that mercy and that protection and
that blessing and the answer to dua. When you are busy with the
Quran, sometimes you don't have time to make dua. So Allah answers
what you would have made dua for, even if you didn't get the chance
to make dua for it, because he knows you're so busy with the
Quran, you have time to make the DUA. These angels seek you, and
then they go back to Allah. Right now in this room, there are
angels. How do I know that? Because Allah promised him, there
are angels that go back to Allah, and they tell him about what we
were doing, and we were doing nothing except hoping for his
reward, begging for his for his protection from the fire. And
Allah writes our names as those people. And if someone was just
walking in, and they had no plan of being as part of this evening,
but they just happen to be here out of His mercy, because of the
blessings of thy gathering. Allah counts them ascension.
Angels roam the Earth, looking for you, hearing you, waiting for you
to recite the Quran, if that is in this life, if it's in this life
that they want to hear you, how much more so does that mean for a
lifetime of building a relationship with the Quran, the
Allah loves to hear your voice, that the Quran will miss hearing
your voice, that it misses the voice of those that used to recite
it, that the words come as a testament, as a testimony, as a
witness for you in the hereafter and Hold you as a as a companion
in the grave. That relationship is built by looking at it as a
relationship, taking it from day one and saying, Ya, Allah, I want
this book, and even if it takes me my entire life, please count me as
those who have memorized it and lived it and loved it. And if you
don't get to complete your goal with the Quran, Allah will count
it as if you already did. Because if you just make that goal, Allah
already count you as that person, because you're sincere with your
intention of wanting to get there. And no doubt inshaAllah will help
you, Inshallah, to reach that and finally, to end, this is one of my
favorite narrations. Is for all of us who
want to try and who have loved ones who we would worry for and
just need hope. That Sarah jubeo mentions in one of the ayats that
talk about paradise, that on the day of in paradise, in paradise,
that there's a person who comes and they look around and they say,
My Lord, where? Where is my grandpa? Where? Where is my loved
one? They don't see their loved ones in paradise with them.
You love the people that you love. We don't know where we're going,
but we want to be with our loved ones. We pray that we'll be in
paradise and that our loved ones would be with us there. And
sometimes we're worried about ourselves or our loved ones when
we see the decisions that they're making.
And Sarah, you mentioned that this person looks friends, sees nobody
that he loves. He says, Where's my son? Where's my wife, where's my
grandpa, where's my father. And then it's, well, you, you did the
deeds. You, you, you worked. You worked for this they didn't.
And do you know what this person responds with?
This person responds by saying, I worked for me and I worked for
them.
I was working for me, and I wanted that work to also be for them. And
so Allah out of His mercy,
he brings those people who believed but didn't do the action
into Jannah with this person, because he doesn't want this
person to be sad.
Read the Quran for you, but also read the Quran for the people that
you love.
Read the Quran for you and for people that might come in the
future that you don't know but you would love if you knew them, you
make me an intentional Allah, I'm coming to the Quran for me, but
I'm also coming to the Quran for the people that I love, and let it
be enough. Let it be enough for them too. He's so merciful that
you don't know what he will gift you because of his generosity.
Don't limit his generosity to the way we see him. He's so much more
expansive than the way we see ourselves. Subhadak Allah will be
handed in. So we're like, we're going to take a break. Inshallah,
especially everyone who's fasting that further Nabil mentioned
mashaAllah. Do you want to make an announcement? There's just food
and dates. Masha Allah in another room. May Allah bless Rahman for
thinking of this. Reward them so much. So we're going to pray
Matri, and if anyone has questions, we'll come back for Q
and A please don't feel like you need feel like you need to stay. I
know it's been a long day, but if you have any questions, we'll do Q
and A after and then Inshallah, we will end.