What’s the Purpose of Stories in the Quran? – Once Upon The Nile
2017-06-27
Ladies, gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to an episode of tagalong. I'm your host, Sean and we have here with us, Jeff Mohamad Manor. samridhi. calm. Welcome back. We are here to discuss some some certain topics. Yes. About once
we go back now. Yes. So, of Moses Musashi, the epic of Moses, I gently he did it again.
Again.
I really thought you wouldn't do it again.
I called him out on it. He did it again.
I apologize.
There's just so much easier.
But anyway, so we,
you've taught this class, how many times now? five times five times? Yep. So one of the cool things about with a lot of seminars, this has been since its inception is that, you know, you develop a class, you have an idea for it. Yeah. And then, but then you actually then put it out there. Yes. And then people react, respond. And there's certain things that really resonate with people. Yeah. And these video series is geared towards potentially talking about some of those things that really resonated as well as certain things that you may want to look out or look forward to. Yeah. When the program happens. There are so many stories in the Koran. Yes, there are. And one thing that you
mentioned here, and you mentioned this class, and, and how there isn't that much detail. Like there's a lot of stories, but the stories themselves don't have details. Yeah. And from what I understood by that, what do you mean by details is like, it's hard for us to know, when the story is taking place. Okay, right. In the cloud is a on this year.
Or an exact time? Yeah, exactly. Time and
Date. Sometimes the names of people aren't even mentioned many times. Yeah. So I'm guessing there's a wisdom or purpose or like, what's, what's the deal? Yeah, this is a very interesting distinction between how stories are told in the colon, as opposed to how we are accustomed to reading them in storybooks. Okay. Or in perhaps other religious texts, where we find a tremendous amount of minor details. Like, for example, a big thing is like you said, people's names. Yeah.
People always want to know the name of the character. Yeah. So sometimes there is description of a person. Yeah. Or there is a statement that that individual made, and the name is not there. So people like, what was that person's name? Well, you know, and they want to know that, and that has absolutely no impact on the actual story itself. Yeah. But yeah, it's a detail. And so oftentimes we're accustomed to to reading or hearing stories that have those kinds of details. But then when we look into the plan, generally speaking, generally speaking, most of these minor details are not included. Okay. They're left out.
Give me an example of some. Okay, well, even from the story, even in this in this in our course, once upon the Nile, there's a section where we talk about
the hidden believers, okay. And so there is an individual that, that Allah tells us about men early for their own. Yeah. believing man from the people of Pharaoh. Yeah. And this name is not the story. And when they say Alif, your own you're not talking about Benny, sorry, no, we're not talking about Venezuela. We're not talking. That's that's a different ethnic group. So So right now, just based on this, we understand that the epic and story of Moses is really talking about two groups of people. Yeah, but it's real. And Alif around Yeah. So much of the story is set in the land of present day Egypt.
They call it Egypt back then, what did they call it? Because like, you know, today in Arabic, this hymn must. Yeah, right. Basically, well, yeah. Well muscled in Arabic. literally means a town or civilization or a city or a place where people live like Medina means city. Right. Okay. linguistically. Yeah. Yeah. So So Miss LA, even it comes in the golden missile. Okay, that word is mentioned. Okay. You know, but it doesn't refer to missile, as in Egypt, okay. Just like the word Medina is used in the Quran. Okay, you know, but similarly, like the term medion Yeah, like when they say
like, when Messiah Sarang goes to the land of meridian meridian. Yeah. So is that a general thing? He went to a land or is that the name of the land? No, that's it. That's referring to a particular region. Okay. Yeah. I was referring to specific although it means does madeon mean? Like, like, Is it like a general thing like Misra? No, it's referring to a specific place. Okay. Okay. Gotcha, man. Yeah. So like back to the idea of Egypt. Is it Yeah,
So, so yeah, so so the word muscle doesn't literally mean, the land of Egypt. That was a name that was taken later on to refer to that land. Okay.
But I feel like this is a detail I still mentioned of, like, I guess we know generally where it's at because of historical understanding that we know the pharaohs were in Egypt. Yes. But if we didn't know that through historical research, would we know that the story is taking place in Egypt?
Yeah, we would. Okay. We would, because and maybe not verbatim from the words of the end? Because even even in the story of usage, they don't they don't say that. Yeah. No, but but we definitely have other going on. Yeah. Yeah. But that's an actual place. Yes. Does it still exist today?
by that name? No, no. Okay. by that name? No, but but you know, there are other countries that that take up that that geographic space, but we have a Hadeeth we have statements of the prophet SAW Selim, and we have statements of the companions that help us geographically contextualize. Okay, the story, okay, and the events of the story. So if it's not, and then we also have the the narrations that come from a Judeo Christian source as well,
that that many, many of which also have companions that mentioned them. So a lot of that like, okay, so the details of it, are made visible to us with supplemental sources with supplemental sources, and which is, which brings us back to the point here, which is that when we read stories in the Quran, we oftentimes are feel that a lot of these little details are missing. Yeah. So why is that? And ultimately, you know, there there are many wisdoms behind that but ultimately, a lot somehow know what to add a lot of the Most High and most perfect, does not want us to get lost in the detail. Okay. We have to remember things without the details. Look on is an amazing book and it's
revelation. It's the word of Allah. Yeah.
It has a lot of stories in it, but the Quran is not a story book.
Okay, that's a good one. It's not a history book. Okay. It's not a it's not a science book. Okay. The Quran is a book of guidance. It's a word of Allah. Right? It just goes back to that and a lot. Exactly. And Allah uses different mediums to get these messages and to get this guidance across one of those mediums is stories. Okay, truthful stories, right. And
a lot says, We will tell you the story of moose and for their own bill help, okay, it's a story of truth. It's not a tall tale. It's not a legend. It's not made up so this the story like when is that that's the end of fraud. Right? We will tell you a story of Moses. Yes. That's that's one of the first verses and sort of puzzles chapter 28. But this but so this is the thing that I'm trying to find interesting is that
the story of many Israel and the mentions of moose Isla has already begun before you get to social causes. Yes, well, what do you mean began in terms of the order of the Most High four in terms of order of revelation as well? Okay, so this is maybe something you can clarify. Yeah. The order of if we're looking at from the order of the most half right so the Baccarat Yeah, what is right and then it becomes a story that there's there's, there's so much mention of Moosa and his people and his experiences and sort of welcome even before so and so it's named after Yeah, event that took place with the people of Muslim right. Yeah. So in total US.
Always was telling us I want to tell you the story of Musa Yeah, but it's just like, well, I've already kind of heard that we've already started the story of Musa well. Salt and pepper sauce was revealed before salted Baba. Okay. Now in terms of order of revelation. So in the order of revelation, is that the first mentioned that Muslim?
No, okay. No, because there were other there were other chapters of Poland revealed before. So tell us
I can't see off top of my head. That's something I need to sit down and think about not going to.
But but sort of the attention now, with sort of processes being brought to the fact that I'm going to tell you a story, because now that's basically saying it's a this is the medium communicating? Yeah. Well, sort of taco sauce is one of the chapters in the pool and that within which many verses are dedicated to the story of Moses, okay, but so because this means like the sort of story, yeah, stories, stories, okay. Yes. Okay. So even though the bulk of it is dedicated to the story of Musa Okay, yeah, and about the others, right. But that's what's amazing about the story of Musa Yeah, and that's what's amazing about this course. I mean, look, let me a lot of people think like, Oh, you
have a whole weekend course. Just on the story of Musa Yeah. And it's like, if we could have a more than that we can
just, you know, you could spend the entire weekend just on a hug. Yes, we could spend the entire weekend adjust on. So the story of Moses has so many stories within it. Yeah. And that's one of the things that makes it unique. So again, we're talking about details. Yeah. This is one of the
That makes the story of Musa in the Quran unique and different than other stories. Okay, the amount of detail that is mentioned. Again, maybe not as many details as
the questions that we might have when we hear the story, but I mean, compared to other stories in the Quran, yeah, tremendous amount of detail. Tremendous names, you're talking about names. There's a lot of names as names. There's characters, there's names. Yes, yes. Yeah. And it doesn't it's not it's not just taking place in one location. Yeah, it's taking place in Egypt and medion in the Sinai, you know, there's different even geographical places a lot tells us about the mountain of tourists a not.
So a lot of details, but again, not as many details as perhaps someone might be accustomed to why, because really, we're here for an important lesson and moral, okay, that's why stories are mentioned in the hold on for profound lessons. So ultimately, if we find ourselves asking why, if we had more details, I guess we need to bring ourselves back to the reality of, okay, what's the actual lesson for guidance? Right. Okay. So details are not bad.
They're not bad. Right? Always. You know, and, and a lot of times, like we said, we can get some of those details from supplemental sources. Yeah.
Something supplemental or complement, you know, complementary sources to the Hold on. However,
definitely, if something is not mentioned in the Quran,
if something is not mentioned in the Quran itself, right, that means that it's not integral to the purpose and the intent behind having that story to begin with. Okay, makes sense. So whatever Allah did tell us in the plan is sufficient detail and information to extract those important lessons. Okay. So having said that, one of the key things and having also attended once upon the nail this past weekend in Calgary, shout out to all our calgarians
Why would they say? Yeah, if you're holding, so you're, so they see which way would it be? So how, what do you see with me? I see, I see. So, whereas, okay, so, yeah, yeah.
Or you could do this for like flames? Oh, yeah. Well, Calgary Flames is that their team name? That's their team name. Okay. Which is interesting, because we're in the city of Anaheim, which is the city of the Mighty Ducks.
flames. And the funny thing is, it's really cold in Calgary.
So their team name is that's probably why they named it that because they were just huddled around a fire one day and they were like, what should we name our team? Yeah, right. And here in Anaheim, it's pretty warm. It's nice. Yeah. And and usually haven't seen a single duck. We haven't been to the leaks. Okay, here's the link. Got it. Got it. Made links. So. So essentially, one of the key things and I guess the final takeaway here is, is that when we're looking at the Quran, don't get lost in like, if there's not a detail there. That's not what we're looking for. Yeah, we can, we can sometimes find it. And sometimes we appreciate those details, we look in some of the narrations of
the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him or some of the statements of the companions or some of these other historical narrations that we get. And scholars generally were a bit more lenient when it comes to the strength of narrations with regards to history, right? Generally speaking, that's a really oversimplification of the topic. But definitely, and really, that's what this course is about. Okay. This course is about
more than just the story of most and again, just this area, it's so it's so amazing and intense and powerful and full of information. But really, what we want to do is we want to feel a closeness and comfort with reading and reflecting over the polar. Okay, so here's a cool takeaway. And if we were to close out this video, if anybody who's watching
whether or not they take once upon the Nile, but even if they want, once upon an Alice coming, and they wanted to kind of prep, what would be maybe one passage or surah in the Quran, you would recommend I would assume, since we mentioned it, yeah. would be sort of us definitely. Okay. Definitely to sit down in a in a sort of
reflective mood in an environment that's conducive to you reading attentively. Okay, and reading actively active reading know, the sorts of causes will be good. So let's find out as well. Okay, so be very good as well. So okay, so su casa Soto, how do you know what number like because I know sometimes people like what, what sort of number is that? I'm not Zechariah
chapter 28. Okay, Chapter 20 spa is
20 Okay, so, as you all know, for anybody not not not everybody's like some people might be able to recycle it or whatnot. There's some many people more people can't even read the Arabic. Yeah, so just go ahead and read English right? Absolutely. Absolutely. Read the translation. Listen to the right citation if you don't know how to recite it in Arabic yourself, okay. There's a lot of value and blessing. Okay.
And that's one of the things that's beautiful and reckless about the Quran is it's your citation. Okay? That's one of the things that makes this course special is we recite a lot of code on Cool, cool. Alright guys, thanks for joining us and keep a lookout for once upon the Nile coming to a city near you. Again, I'm your host David Allen and I'm here with Jeff Mohamad Manor in Anaheim, California. Also MIT comm Yep,
What’s the Purpose of Stories in the Quran? – Once Upon The Nile
2017-06-27