Nouman Ali Khan – Curiosity and Divine Oaths – Surah Qaf
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Religious education around the world is shut your
eyes,
rock back and forth, memorize the answers, and
if you question, you'll get in trouble.
Don't get curious,
don't ask questions because that's blasphemous.
That'll get you in trouble.
The Quran itself, you cannot sit still without
asking questions.
Allah won't let you be.
He'll put a question he'll inject you with
a question and he'll make you lose sleep
and make you ponder.
Let's begin
with the unique beginning of Surat Kaaf which
is
it begins with the letter
and what's argued about the the the the
the meanings of the letter
is as follows. The first and most most
convincing of those,
questions is answered by the following. Only Allah
knows what that means.
There's lots of speculation of what it could
mean. Some say that it's one of the
names of Allah. Others say it's an oath,
meaning Allah swears by the letter qaf. Qaf
itself is an oath, others say it's a
challenge.
Meaning qaf is just saying the name of
a letter, sending shock waves to the Arabs.
How is this man who doesn't even know
how to read and write saying the name
of a letter? Because he's not supposed to
know the names of letters.
You know because he's literally unlettered.
He could know the syllable
but he why was why does he know
Which actually sends the message that he's educated,
that he's being educated, he's learning. Then the
it raises the question who's his teacher? And
then the answer comes the teacher is Allah.
Right? So that's one way of, some interpreting
it. Others say that these names
These are all or
These are all names of the surahs they
start with. That is less convincing
only because there's like multiple alif, lam, memes.
Right?
So if there are names of Surah then
the point of a name is to make
something distinct from something else.
Right? And that wouldn't serve that purpose.
So yes, they are in fact something only
Allah knows. There are some unique things about
huroof muqatta'a. I don't think this is the
right time to talk about them. I'll just
say a few things.
You know, the vast majority of the time
these letters occur, aliflammeem,
you know, and and and etcetera, you'll notice
that they're immediately followed by a statement about
the Quran.
Like Allah will say something powerful about the
Quran. For example,
He sent a book down to you.
Notice even if I don't translate, what verbal
you hear over and over again?
Kitab.
Kitab or Quran? Kitab was book and the
the written and Quran is the recital, which
was referring to the same.
Over and over. Or it's gonna either be
kitab, or it's gonna be Quran, or it's
gonna be tanzil.
K.
Over and over again. Okay?
Now there are only 3 surahs that begin
with a single letter,
Noon,
qaf, and sad.
Noon, and qaf, and sad. Actually I'm going
in reverse order. The first in the order
of the Quran is sad,
then there's and then there's
Okay?
And interestingly enough when they're one letter, they're
actually one ayah.
So they're not a separate ayah by themselves,
they're merged with what's coming. So,
is 1 ayah.
Is 1 ayah.
Is 1 ayah. So they come together. If
you compare this to alif lamim, what happens?
Alif lamim is by itself and then there's
an ayah. Okay? So when it's one letter,
then it's
merged together. When it's two letters, for example,
yasin, paha,
those are separated.
Separate Okay?
Now what's really also pretty interesting is that
is I swear by the Quran. Followed immediately.
I swear by the Quran.
Also, I swear by the Quran.
Noon, I swear by the pen
and what they write. And most scholars agree
this is the revelation of the Quran
being documented so that it can be sent
down.
You know from the original manuscript that is
with Allah, it's copied and then sent down.
Umayas turun. So each of these surahs begin
with an oath by the Quran.
Each of these surahs end the surah that
we're studying today
is going to end with, fadakir bilqurani ma
yakhafu wa'id. Remind with the Quran.
Remind.
Surat Sad is gonna
end
It's only a reminder.
Surat kalam noon will end,
It is nothing but a reminder. Reminder, reminder,
remind.
They begin the same way, they end the
same way. They are dispersed in the Quran.
They're in 3 different places.
They're different surahs but they begin the same
way and they include similar statements in them.
As a matter of fact, even
a very similar ayah to this occurs in
surah
You know, it highlights
the another dimension of the same problem which
I haven't translated yet. Now I want to
get straight beyond the letter and, you know,
and I
want to get to the oath itself. When
Allah says,
I swear by the Quran and then it's
given the attribute
a Uniquely in the Quran, the word is
used to describe 2 entities.
The Quran itself is described as majeed here
and elsewhere.
Right? And then
The arsh of Allah, the grand throne of
Allah is also called majeed. So the two
things that are called are the
and the Quran.
Right? Those are the 2. Okay?
Now let's we're gonna dig into the word
a little bit later,
but first I wanna tell you what this
oath means. What's the purpose of taking an
oath?
In most societies, an oath is taken for
the purpose of testimony.
For the purpose of testimony, I swear to
tell the truth, nothing but the truth, most
of the truth,
so help me, God and my lawyer, etcetera.
Right?
So the idea of an oath is to
take testimony. That's the context in which it
occurs. It also is used to convince someone
of either what happened or what's going on
or what's going to happen. I swear I
was sick that's why I didn't come.
I swear they're already here.
I swear I'm gonna come tomorrow. Whether it's
the past, present, or future, in order to
convince someone, you take an oath.
That's something ancient and it even happens today.
So the first context in our usage, in
language across
societies is that of testimony,
and the second usage of an oath is
to convince.
And it's usually it's typically used when you
convince someone who's not believing what you're saying.
Meaning, if you just said, I'm gonna be
there tomorrow, it just wasn't enough for them,
you had to say, I swear to God,
I'll be there tomorrow. You had to add
that in. Right? So it was as though
this was going to add some kind of
credibility to what you're saying, and you had
to stake your credibility on the claim.
Now
in Arabic literature,
oaths
additionally,
you know, serve another function. We're not getting
to the Quran yet, so the first thing
I want to share with you is some
things about oaths in general.
And then the next thing is about oaths
in Arab culture in addition. Meaning Arabs also
use an oath to convince you, Arabs also
use an oath in testimony,
but then in additional additional usage for the
Arabs is actually
to get your attention.
So if you guys were all talking,
like you know right after jum'ah prayer,
and I was trying to get your attention.
Excuse me, excuse me, could you please could
you please pay attention over here? I just
have one announcement.
Or if I was Arab,
What?
What's up?
The oath is actually
a kind of listen up.
It's a kind of shut up and listen
for the Arab in Arab literature.
And the thing is, you don't just say,
I swear.
You say, I swear by something.
You say, I swear by something. So when
I said when I was pretending the Arab
line, I said,
So what did I swear by? I swear
by Allah. But the Arabs before would say,
I swear by the morning that's coming.
I swear by the night.
I swear by our enemy.
Whatever they swore by
is actually their way of getting your attention.
You know how nowadays on your phones you
have different ringtones for different people?
Right? So if, you know, a certain family
member calls you, you hear
like alert and skull show up on the
you know.
There's certain ways of communicating certain messages.
Well they'll swear by something to give you
an idea
that they want your attention
and it's important and it kind of has
to do with the thing that they're swearing
by.
So if they say, I swear by the
morning,
something bad is about to go down when?
In the morning. Listen up.
This is urgent because morning is near. You
got it? So this was their way of
garnering your attention. Sometimes they would do this
not just to make you think this is
associated with what's coming,
or what it's related to, but also they'll
swear by something that is important to you,
or that is grand.
You know, I swear by the stars.
Really? This must be a big deal.
What are you gonna tell me? You know,
this so the idea of aggrandizing.
Now the thing is
what you swear by has to be this
is one of the things in Arabic culture.
What you swear by technically had to be
greater than yourself.
Remember, one of the functions of taking an
oath is to convince someone.
Because your own self was not credible enough.
So you have to call on something that
is more credible than
yourself, I swear by my mother.
You're saying my mom is much more credible
than
I am, and
you don't have to believe me but come
on, give my mom some credit, and now
believe me.
You see what I'm saying?
So when you swear by something, typically you
swear by something greater than who? Yourself. And
you do that because that is your credibility
wasn't enough, you're using the object's credibility. That's
called the in English literature we'll call it
the object of the oath.
You use the object of the oath. In
Arabic we call it
The Arabic term
is The English will say the object, the
thing you're swearing by.
It's used to give you credibility, and that's
why by definition it has to be something
greater than yourself. You can't say, I swear
by my janitor.
But you might say, I swear by the
king.
Right? You can't say, I swear by my
goat.
Because
it just says a lot about your credibility
that you think the goat has a better
chance.
You see what I'm saying? So
this is important because you know
interpreters of the Quran, they said Allah swears
by things in the Quran.
Allah swears by time, Allah swears by the
morning, Allah swears by the night, Allah swears
by the day, Allah swears by
like the sun, the moon.
He swears by the fig and the olive.
And they would say, then the Mufasirullah would
say, Well Allah swearing by the fig means
the fig is really important.
You may have heard this before, or Allah
is telling you how grand the sun is
by swearing by the sun, or He's telling
you how amazing the moon is by swearing
by the moon.
Other scholars went on to criticize this view
and I agree with that position, the criticism
of that view. If Allah wants to tell
me something is great, He can tell me
something is great.
But if you use the convention that when
you swear by something, you're trying to say
that it's great, that was originally done to
establish what? Credibility. Credibility. So you swear by
something greater than yourself.
Guys, sorry for the interruption in the middle
of this lecture.
Just before you continue, I wanna let you
know and encourage you that I want you
to sign up for bayonetv.com
and help others sign up or even sponsor
students for bayonetv.com
so we can create worldwide communities of students
that are studying the meanings and the benefit
and the wisdom of the Quran,
and are spreading that in their own circles.
Thanks so much.
Allah
does not swear by something
because it's great.
Because that would mean he needs it for
credibility.
He doesn't.
He's above that. You get it? So there
must be some other function, other purpose for
which Allah swears. You understand?
The other thing that Hamiduddin Farahi, one of
my heroes in Islamic studies, in Quran studies
argued
is, So what if it's great? What does
that have to do with this surah? The
fig is great, the olive is great, the
mountain of Sinai is great, the city is
great. Human beings were created in the best
form.
What is the fig and the olive, and
Mount Sinai being great
have to do with the how does that
change? And by the way, you can make
them great, why don't you take these oaths
and put them in Suratul Adiyat, and put
the oaths in Suratul Adiyat over here. You
know,
the horses that pant and
they go
they're great.
And I swear by them as sparks fly
out of them, they're also, as the sparks
fly, that's also great.
It's like you could put them in any
surah, they'll still be great.
There's no point in actually using them
in a particular surah if the only purpose
is to say they're awesome.
There's got to be something more.
And this is where the idea,
Hamiduddin Farai's idea goes far and then there
are other people like Bintashati, I just read
recently. I read her I read the article,
Sharif, that you sent me but I also
read her own writings on the subject.
Basically, two things and I can combine both
of them to present that view to you.
Hamiduddin Farahi is saying,
just like actually Ibn Tayyim kind of alluded
to
that when Allah swears by something,
He's making you pay attention to whatever it
is that He swore by
because whatever he's going to say after that,
he's mentally preparing you for it. He's actually
using it as evidence for what he's gonna
say.
So the object of the oath is actually
a kind of proof.
It's a kind of proof.
He would say 2 things, he say he
would say, it's a kind of proof, and
it's a kind of witness.
So for example, to make this easy for
you because it sounds like up high in
the sky.
I swear by time,
humanity is human beings each human being is
in loss. Yeah?
He'll say that time is proof
that human beings are in loss.
That Allah has made by swearing by time,
He has made time proof
that human beings are in loss. He will
also add that by swearing by time, Allah
has made time a witness.
So I would interpret
time is witness
that human beings are in loss.
There has been no greater witness to the
loss of humanity than what thing?
Time.
You understand? And so he'll use this approach
to interpret a huge number of oaths in
the Quran. This works for many, it doesn't
work for all,
but certainly is a much more plausible approach
to the study of oaths.
I would argue actually not only is it
evidence, or not necessarily is it evidence,
but it's actually mental preparation for what's coming.
I think that covers
the spectrum of it. When Allah takes an
oath by something, He's actually taking your mind
in a particular direction. And when He's taking
your mind in that direction,
he's now mentally preparing you for what is
to come.
It is true in
many many cases, it is in fact literally
an an evidence. My favorite example is
when Allah swears by panting horses that are
going to raid in the middle of a
morning, early morning. By the way, when you
have a few horses
to to raid, you know, the village or
raid the enemy,
then you should have more horses. But the
swear, the oath is done of very few
horses.
And if you have very few horses, the
best time to attack is in the middle
of the night, because you can use the
cover of dark to get away. But it's
they're raiding in the morning time. They don't
care.
And you should raid on the sides,
not in the middle. You should raid on
the outskirts.
But he says,
They go right and penetrate
all together into the middle. And if you
just have a few, because you have a
few, you should disperse.
But they're jama'a, they stay together and they
go like it's death,
literally.
Right? So it defies
the logic of a raid,
that oath.
And Allah is saying these horses, because it's
not about the riders actually, the oath is
about the horses,
You know.
The horses are showing
suicidal tendencies
in order to be loyal to their riders.
Animals run from danger.
Animals by nature get away from
death.
These horses,
just because their rider tells them to march,
are marching into what even they can see
as what?
As death. What an incredible show of what?
Loyalty.
And that's why the very next statement
sinks into the mind,
No doubt the human being is truly disloyal
to his master.
Like that's the point that's made. Look, learn
from the loyalty of the horse.
So he brought to mind the concept of
loyalty,
and used it as evidence against
the disloyalty of the human being. You see
what just happened there? It's remarkable what he
did there.
So now there are 2 things, let's take
a step back and understand what we're doing
in suratqaaf.
There are 2 things.
There's the object of the oath,
which in my just the example I just
gave you was horses.
And there's the subject of the oath which
is human beings are disloyal.
There's the object and there's
the subject, and they're supposed to be related
to each other in some unique way.
But sometimes,
actually multiple times in the Quran,
Allah will mention an oath, he'll obviously give
it an object
and he won't mention a subject.
He just won't mention it.
It's almost like saying I swear to God
Okay see
you.
Look at all.
You just took an oath.
You gave me this grand object.
Where's the what?
Subject. I need a subject because the reason
you take an oath
that is universal is you get somebody's attention
because you're gonna tell him something.
He'll get your attention. Hey, listen here.
I swear by this really important thing,
and then he won't tell you nothing. He'll
just move on.
And you're left
What do I do now?
That is what happens in Surat
Kaaf.
We believe in the unseen.
I swear by the Quran full of grace,
full of majesty, full of dignity, full of
nobility. I'll get to the word still.
I swear by that Quran, I call upon
that Quran as evidence, that Quran is witness.
The majesty of this Quran is witness. The
nobility of this Quran is witness. And I'm
listening going,
w witness to what?
Witness to what?
You swear by this and what are you
gonna tell me? Now if you compare this,
the closest comparison to this in the Quran
is actually
1
Quran
I swear by the Quran full of wisdom.
Okay?
I'm gonna make you
I'm gonna bring the pot you know, call
upon the wisdom of the Quran as proof.
Proof of what?
No doubt you are from those that have
been sent. This wisdom is not humanly possible.
I make the wisdom of the Quran a
proof that you're a messenger.
That's what he did in Surat what?
Yaseen.
I was expecting something similar here.
I was expecting him to say
oh, God. Okay. I got it. I was
expecting him to say,
By the grace, the nobility, and the majesty
of the Quran, I swear and I call
upon it as evidence, you in fact are
a messenger.
You certainly are.
He didn't say it.
The question is why didn't he say it?
By the way, most Muafasirun
extrapolate, well he did it in Yaseen,
so it must have been the same thing
here.
That's what most Muhammad has done for, you
know,
They draw the evidence from Surat Yassin and
say, Well, he by the object of the
Quran,
he meant that the Prophet is in fact
a Messenger. He must have meant the same
thing here. I don't disagree.
My problem though is this is Quran,
and there are always going to be 2
audiences for
believers
and disbelievers.
Quran you can argue, the primary audience is
who?
Believers.
But Quran is
It's very likely somebody's listening to this Quran
that has never heard Quran before,
or has heard very little of
the Quran,
and they're also hearing, I am bringing the
nobility
of the Quran. I'm calling upon the nobility,
and the grace, and the majesty of the
Quran as witness
to a fact that I shall not mention.
What are they supposed to think? Because they
don't know Surah Yaseen.
My point is, a lot of people that
are gonna be listening to this in Mecca,
at the time it's revealed, are not gonna
say, Well, no, I remember Surah Yaseen, it
was in Mecca, I
can make that connection over here. Mufasirun can
do that because they are a believing audience.
But what about the original audience? We can't
ignore that.
And if you ignore that, you're ignoring the
original logic of the surah.
Right? So we have to balance those two
things. Sometimes
these from the Quran, bringing to evidence from
somewhere else in the Quran is helpful in
us deepening our
this was
This was given just straight.
And there's no conclusive way of saying, Yaseen
was already revealed and was revealed later. There's
no way to say that. We don't even
know maybe Yaseen wasn't even revealed yet. Maybe
that answer came later,
and the question came first.
The point that I would make humbly suggest,
is when Allah doesn't mention something,
He means not to mention something.
For a teacher,
mentioning something
is a purp is a has an educational
purpose,
and not mentioning something has an educational purpose.
Assalamu alaikum everyone. There are almost 50,000 students
around the world that are interested on top
of the students we have in studying the
Quran and its meanings, and being able to
learn that and share that with family and
friends, and they need sponsorships, which is not
very expensive. So if you can help sponsor
students
on Bayina TV, please do so and visit
our sponsorship page. I appreciate it so much.
And pray that Allah gives our mission success,
and we're able to share the meanings of
the Quran, and the beauty of it the
world over.