Nouman Ali Khan – Hikmah in the Quran – Part 1/4
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It's actually something Allah expects every human being to be working towards. We want to be able to access wisdom. We want to be able to live with wisdom. So what in the world is wisdom?
This new short series is based on the findings of Dr. Zakir Hussain in his PhD thesis wisdom in the Quran, which was summarized and presented by iostat doorman in front of a live audience. The link to the full paper is in the description.
And Episode One, we're looking at the purpose of learning about wisdom.
Salam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato.
Alhamdulillah wa Salatu was Salam ala Rasulillah. Eddie, he was happy here Jemaine and my bad. I'm going to start by describing what I'm going to try to do with you guys, and hopefully you will survive the evening. Inshallah. First of all, I'm very happy to be back in Manchester. And shall I get an opportunity to come back and visit you again Mithila after this too.
But let me just start by introducing the agenda for this program. A week ago, or more than a couple of weeks ago, I was in Germany, and I was doing a lecture series on Soto Jamara. And that's part of a project that I'm working on full time for almost a year now. Called Quran week. So myself and my team, we study a surah of the Quran a short surah. For about three weeks, we study it full time. And then I go and do a lecture series on that Surah At some community in the world. And then as soon as that's done, we start on the next surah and the next surah and the next surah. So this year, we were working on we started actually from sort of that yet, and we've made it all the way almost to sort
of July now. But when I was doing the lecture series on Soto Juma
the IR came that mentions wisdom, that Allah sent a messenger among the unlettered people who are live the batha Philomena Rasulullah Minh home, yet to Allah He Marathi he he recites Allah's ayat to these unlettered people will use a key him he purifies them, are you any more humble? Kitab he teaches them the book. Well, heck mine, he teaches wisdom. And when we got to that portion of wisdom, I had Sir, I've studied the subject before and I became a little more curious than I was before, looking into what Allah means by wisdom. What Why is he saying okay, he teaches them to book that sounds like the Quran, he teaches them the Quran. And then he mentions he also teaches wisdom.
And so I wanted to take a deeper look at the word wisdom. I was very fortunate that one of the people on our team, Dr. Zakir Hussain, who's paper, I will, I'll put a QR code on the screen tomorrow, inshallah. So you guys can take a scan of it, and you can get access to his paper, too. He did a PhD paper out of the University of Oxford, on hikma in the Quran, and it's it's a 350 page, exhaustive PhD paper. And I started reading it when I was in Germany. And I said, There's no way I'm going to be able to do this while I'm in Germany. So I stopped I did, I completed my series on sort of genre, but one subject was outstanding. A good look at hikma in the Quran. And so I've been
trying to do gather my own thoughts and kind of go through his PhD paper also, and discussing the subject with him. And I'll tell you a little bit about my formula, because you guys, I haven't been to the UK for some time. And some of you are familiar with YouTube videos of mine, I help you go to sleep every night. So you're familiar.
But this recent project is about helping Muslims take a deep dive into the Quran. My philosophy, my my view has become that for the most part, Muslims are not studying or engaging with the Quran deeply. And they feel like that's something for scholars to do. That's not for us to do. Right and but the thing is, every Surah that Allah revealed was a gift for every human being on this earth. And especially the Muslims in the Quran was not revealed for scholars, the Quran was revealed for humanity. And when Allah asked us to contemplate the Quran deeply, he didn't ask some people to do that. He asked anybody who has a heart to do that, like everybody should be doing that. The problem
with that is, it's difficult. And you feel like you don't know enough or when you're reading the translation, you might get confused. Or if you try to read at FCW, and it feels disconnected, or you don't know how to make sense of it, or you don't know what you're supposed to get from that. How do you make sense of that for yourself, right? Because it becomes kind of, you know, scholars have their own geek language, their own nerd language, I can speak in that language and that's not the normal people. We don't talk like that. Like I try to think of myself as normal at times, but the point is when you don't talk in that scholarly kind of language, right, so okay, I could
give you a link to the PhD paper. But he's gonna use words in there that I have to go to the dictionary every few sentences myself, you know, every time I think I know the English language, I read a paper by Saddam Hussein. And I'm reminded that I do not you people from Oxford man, I tell you anyway, so my job becomes I'm going to do this research study, and this exhaustive, you know, discussion with scholars with people that are just way up here. And then I'll try to figure out well, if I was trying to explain this to an aboard 16 year old, how would I do it? Right, so how do I take this geeky stuff, and then put it in language that the rest of us can actually make sense of,
and I'm only partially I'll be honest with you, I'm only partially successful in that project, there are some things that are going to be taken as they sound, how high level and they are, how high level this is, there's no way around it. And so my goal, inshallah is not to do justice to his paper or justice to the topic, I think I'm going to take some of the most important pieces of that discussion of what I think every Muslim should know about wisdom in the Quran. Why is the subject important? Why is that such a big deal? Why is it so? Is it something really fundamental to our religion? like growing up, you heard or you learned that the most fundamental things in your
religion are five pillars, for example, right? So everybody knows how important those are. Everybody knows how important the Ramadan is or Hodges and there's you don't have to be explained that that's stuff is important prayers. Important. Is hikma? Is wisdom, some extra thing for really old wise people? Or is that something as important as the prayer or as important as hudge? Or is it that fundamental, and I'm going to try to argue that it's actually one of the most important, fundamental basis of our religion. It's not something you get to when you get to a PhD level. It's actually something Allah expects, every human being to be working towards, we want to be able to access
wisdom. We want to be able to live with wisdom. So what in the world is wisdom? How does the Quran define wisdom? How did the Muslims who first became Muslim in the first couple of centuries of Islam? How are they thinking about wisdom in the Quran? Right? They're also interesting questions about before the Quran came? How are the Christians thinking about wisdom? How are the Jews thinking about wisdom? How were the philosophers before outside of religion? How are they thinking about wisdom? How are the Arabs before Islam before the coming of the Quran? How are the Arabs thinking about wisdom? And the Quran come? And the Quran has different audiences and different audiences have
different backgrounds, right? And how did the Quran come and talk about wisdom to people, many of them have different definitions, don't they? So imagine if you're sitting in the audience, and there's a there's a Christian in the audience, and there's a Jew in the audience, and there's a Hindu in the audience. And I say, prayer is important. If I say that prayer is important, do you think each one of them will think of the same thing, they will all have a different concept of what prayer is, isn't it? So when I say the word wisdom, somebody who's been studying philosophy, and they hear the word wisdom, they have something else in their head. Somebody else who's been studying
literature has something else in their head, they all have different definitions of the same word. And the Quran is using a common word, even though people that were listening to the Quran, some of them were coming from pagan religions, like the mushroom, goon of Arabia. Some of them were Christian, some of them were Jewish. Some of them were agnostic. You know, some of them were just philosophers, they were just poets. And Allah is talking to all of them. And by extension, ALLAH is talking to all of us, right? And he's using this common word wisdom. So it's gonna become an important thing for us to explore. So now I'm gonna get into it. I'll give you a warning today is
the boring day. Tomorrow's the exciting day. That's the That's the plan. So my plan was to just have you survive the boring material today, so that we can get to the juicy stuff tomorrow. And that way, I convinced you to show up again, that was
at this, this can totally backfire. This couldn't be just gonna go so badly, because then you'd be like, this was so boring. And I'm like, I can't do this again.
Right. So this could go either way, but I'm willing to make that experiment happen. Okay, so let's begin with some introductory comments. I usually don't use PowerPoints and slides. I started doing that more and more. I didn't do this for you. I did this for myself. So I just make sure I cover everything that I wanted to cover. So if you're going to try to take pictures of the slides that I show you and stuff, do it you're never going to use it I know you you're just I mean it's not gonna it's not like oh, let me look at the pictures I took of the screen and contemplate you you won't. You'll just go to tick tock and watch some
You can play the piano or so that's what you're going to do. So be real. Okay, so anyway, so let's begin. If you guys can show the screen. The first thing I want to show you is the mission given to the Prophet salallahu Alaihe. Salam was to call people to Allah right to call people to Allah's way, simple enough. But how did Allah tell him that Allah says to him for example, although Elizabeth Rebecca Bill hikma, call to the way of your master, with hikma, and I'm going to use wisdom loosely call to the way of your master with wisdom, the mission of the prophets lie Selim is to call people to Allah. And Allah is saying, You must do it with this one weapon. What's that weapon? Wisdom. And
actually, the width can be you have to do it wisely. So the way that you call people has to be full of wisdom. And the things that you're going to say, when you call people they have to be full of wisdom to what is it that you're going to say has to be wise, and the way you're communicating has to be wise. Also, you know, this is this room, because I'm a student of psychology, this, there's an element of psychology here. So let me explain that to you. If I want a child to listen to me,
there's different ways I can tell a child to come here or to sit down, right. And some of you parents know what I'm talking about. Right? So if it's your child's misbehaving or they're not listening, and you want them to sit down, there are different ways you can do it. You can do if you're from certain parts of the world, you can you can look at them and say, oh,
and that's enough.
Right? Or if you're a mom, we will just say, to Rebekah, but only I'll tell your dad, that's enough. That's enough, like, you know, in that for him, that's enough reminder of the alcohol for him. He'll sit down, right? Or, but you know, what, if you end up in the child listen to you. But what the child also now internalized is the only time I should listen is when there's a threat.
Right? So when there's no threat, that I have no need to what? I have no need to listen. Now, if I have some wisdom, I might say, How do I get this kid to sit down in a way that even when I'm not here, and I don't want them to do this, they'll they still won't do it in my absence. That is not just me instructing. That's me trying to communicate with some level of what? Wisdom That's wisdom, you can complete your husband and wife get into arguments not in Manchester everywhere else this you guys are immune. But you get into an argument. And every time it's the same conversation over and over and over again. And after the 100th time you in your head, you're like they just said this and
you you're thinking in your head? Oh, yeah, well, what about and then you know how to that sentence goes. And you've used it 57,866 times before. And you know, when you say that, you know what the reaction is gonna be? And then what the counter, you know, the whole thing you've noticed, this is the same match. It's been played the same exact way, several 100,000 times. But you know what, you're like, I gotta do it again.
You know what, that communication lacks
wisdom, wisdom, because you're running into the same, you're not recognizing the pattern, you're not recognizing the problem. So Allah is telling His Messenger, you have to communicate, telling people to come towards Allah is not enough. You have to tell people to come towards Allah using wisdom, you have to use wise words. And by the way,
practically speaking, if I'm speaking to a senior, will I use the same words, as if I'm speaking to a child? Well, I speak to a scholar the same way I will speak to a student. Will I speak to a stranger the same way? I'll speak to a family member? No.
I have to look at the situation. I have to look at the person I have to look at my place. I have to look at the context is this the right time? All of that stuff, right? So you know what that means. Wisdom, necessitate necessitates if you're going to call to Allah, you have to be really aware of the situation before you decide to communicate something. So many moms come to me from around the world. And this is I wish this wisdom every mother learns. i My son, he used to listen to me. My daughter, she used to listen to me. I don't know what happened.
I don't they don't listen anymore. I keep telling them to pray. And they don't bring. I don't know what you can you tell them to bring? I was like,
Yeah, so when did they stop listening? I don't know. Can you please tell me when they stopped listening? When they became teenagers?
How soon before? Like and by the way, when did you get them a phone? Can we can we look at some of the other factors that were part of this call?
And how do you tell them to pray?
It's the last time namaste Sparta
is such a beautiful way to call to the way of Allah with wisdom.
Like, prayer is supposed to be the most beautiful experience where a human being makes an attempt to connect with God. And now, the moment somebody says prayer, you hear your mother's nag first, and you hear the call to Allah second. In fact, you almost don't even hear the call to Allah in your head. You hear your mother's nag first. And now you don't want to pray because you're so annoyed not with God, but with your mom.
And your mom says maybe if I yell some more it will work.
With Earl, Elizabeth Rebecca bill, it's a fundamental call. Like imagine these people these these, you know, if you don't know anything, I have a lot of Arab friends that doesn't justify what I'm about to say. But man, my Arab friends, are they stubborn? Oh.
I thought protons are stubborn on Putin, no Arabs, man who and changing Arabs from the way they were to what they became right to leave all of their culture, all of their practices to go against their family to go against their elders, and to change the way that they did. You can't just tell them to change and they're going to change they were called towards Allah using some special secret sauce. And according to this, I'll what is that secret sauce. Wisdom is it's almost as if I'm trying to tell you the world changed, because Dawa was done through wisdom. The world is the way it is. We're Muslim today, because the Prophet lived by that principle with the rue de la cibilia. Rebecca Bill
hikma, that hikma it's, I'm just trying to give you a taste of why hikmah is important. Right? So now let's go a little further. Okay. Now, this is something called MCQ and chronology. Let me put that in normal language. In those two kinds of solos in the Quran, right? Can you guys tell me what they are two kinds of solos. Okay maki and Madani? Not the ones I know and the ones I don't know. No, that's not what I'm saying. I would say
Mk II solos and Metheny, sola so this is about the mucky solos. The earliest mention of wisdom in the McKee sutras was actually mentioned about Dawood Allah Islam will go into details later, right now I'm just giving you an idea. Just want some ideas in your head. So Allah says to him, that Allah made him Allah has strengthened his kingdom. And he gave him an Allah says, We gave him wisdom. So specifically, Allah mentions wisdom was given to who doubt you gotta, you gotta remember that for me, okay. And then Allah says, well, first of all, hip hop. And I also gave him a really decisive way of speaking, he was very good at speech. In other words, his wisdom came out in the way that he
speaks. So he's one thing that you're wise in your head. But when you open your mouth, you sound stupid. But it sounded a lot smarter in your head that ever happened to you happens to me all the time. It sounded way better in my head. And then when the by the time it reached the journey from here to here, there were lots of bumps on the road for a hit. So by the time it came out, that's not what I meant at all. You know? So there's, sometimes that happens when people can't connect their ideas and communicate them effectively. Allah says, Not only did he give Tao with wisdom, and he said, um, he gave him the ability to communicate very effectively, very decisively, and that's
Muslims hip hop. Okay, so that's the first. The second you can see that is a Saudi Saddam, Jesus. And Allah says this multiple times in the Quran, one of them the most important I think, when a manager or ESA unit hired aka G to come Bill Heckman, this is really interesting. He's the only prophet who spoke like this in the Quran. He said, Allah says when Allah gave when he saw was given or when he brought forward all the proofs, the miracles that Jesus brought forward. He said to his people, he said to them,
to combat bill by Bill hikma, I have come to you with wisdom. I've come to you with wisdom. So now this is special because we're going to look at Jesus in the Quran a little bit later on. And we're going to look at him from that lens. Allah is saying that, especially Asa was given some special kind of what wisdom and he went in and told his people look, I'm bringing wisdom to you. Jay token Bill Hekmati. Okay. And then finally, in this progression, we finally get to our messenger, sallallahu alayhi salam. And Allah says, Daddy, come in Ohio, la cara Buka mineral hikma. That is what Allah has Your master has given to you from hikma. So Allah is now telling the prophets lie.
Selim, you have also been given hikma. So you've got three prophets so far we've got down Saddam in the murky Quran. Thou that Islam then
Hey Saturdays, Saddam and then Muhammad sallallahu alayhi salam, that's the chronology. Okay, now we're gonna go to Madani sorrows. Right so those Marquis surah is now we're going to look at Madani Solas and in the Madani sutras instead of talking about prophets what I want you to know about the medina Quran is the that hikma keeps coming up after mentioning the book. So Allah keeps saying the book and wisdom, the book and wisdom, the book and multiple times in different places. He keeps mentioning the book and wisdom but he never did this in the mucky Quran. The Quran that was given in Medina and Mecca he didn't say that, but the Quran that was given in Makkah, or in Medina rather, he
now multiple times says the book and the Wisdom, the book and the Wisdom. So there's a connection being made between these two concepts. And one time in salt Allah Huzzah. He also says, I asked him now he will hikma the Ayat of Allah, the revelations of Allah and wisdom, by the way, the revelations of Allah his book also, aren't they? Right? So there's a connection being made that was not made in Medina, or rather not made in Makkah. But now it's being made in Medina and my job tomorrow inshallah will be to try to help you understand the connection between the book and wisdom because the book, easy to understand, that's the Quran, right? And another by the way, you should
know another meaning of the word book in Arabic is law is law. So Halal and Haram is also called book. Okay? By the way, this is used in English to, I'm gonna do this by the book. Right? Or the judge threw the book at him doesn't mean the judge picked up a copy of the Constitution and hurled it towards the plaintiff. It means the judge use the full extent of the law. That's what that means. That's the same way Allah uses that in the Quran. When he says Kitab Allah He Aleikum, the book of Allah mandatory on you, that you must live by the book of Allah meaning the law of Allah. So the word book is actually as a term in Arabic for the law. Okay, so you can think of this phrase in
Medina, as law and wisdom law and wisdom, law and wisdom. That's how it's being used in Medina. Okay. Let's move on. I haven't started this series yet. This is pre introduction introduction. I learned how to do multiple introductions. When I was in Pakistan. It was the most amazing experience. I got invited, I spoke it I went over 10 days, I spoke at 23 universities. And I drove halfway across Pakistan, I went to, I went to flew to Karachi. And then came back to Lahore and from Lahore, I drove all the way to the shower and stopped in universities along the way. And just and then I was in this one university that shall not be named, because they'll get embarrassed. But
anyway, so I'm sitting there and they say, and then I'll translate in Urdu, even though I think most of you speak Urdu. But now to introduce our speaker, I invite the Chancellor of our universe and the guy comes and he gives a lecture. And then he says, And now to introduce my next introducer.
They had, they introduced each other, there's about 10 people introducing each other.
And now,
the moment you've all been waiting for introducer number five, like
so I learned the idea of multiple introductions from them anyway. And then the other thing I learned from them is they give you flowers. Everybody can walk in to give you a giant thing of flowers. What am I going to do? What?
I'm not gonna stand with them, it looks
like you want me to lead the prayer with them. Like what do you want me to do? Right? So they know that they know you can't do anything with these flowers. You know what they do? They hand them to you take a picture, then they take them away.
Okay,
sounds like J is, right.
Some people that's that's a painful joke for some people anyway.
Now let's talk about one quick thing. This is a quick comment. We don't need to do all on this one. But I do want to give you some idea of of this concept. So the word hikma in Arabic is wisdom as I'm translating it, right? There's another word in Arabic that's similar. And that's the word hokum. So there's hikma and there's also hokum. Now focus has three different meanings. How can one of its meanings is judgment, like the hook of Allah is the judgment of Allah, the judgment of Allah Right? Or what could nearly hook me him? Shahidi Tao would and Solomon, Allah Hamsterdam. When they used to make judgments than Allah says, We used to be witness to their judgments. So the word hokum One
meaning is judgment. Another meaning the bottom meaning here is governance or authority. So Allah says in Hokkaido Illa Linda hokum only belongs to Allah meaning governance and sovereignty and kingdom
and authority only belongs to Allah. I know. I know that's a that's a baby tecmyer Okay? Okay, so Morrow doing Hola Hola. Hola. Hola Hola Hola hokum then they will be they'll be taken back to their Mola their guardian, their master Allah, their true their true God. And then Allah says and focus on meaning governance and authority only belongs to Allah.
Allah Allah Holcomb but the middle meaning is the one I'm interested in hokum also means the ability to make good judgments, which is kind of like wisdom, isn't it? Like, what's the difference between a stupid teenager and a wise teenager? Good judgment. Right? Should I go to this party? Or should I stay home? Should I respond to that text message? Or should I block the number? Right? That's the difference between stupidity and wisdom, isn't it? It's actually it's interesting at young ages. Youth are very smart. They're very smart. But most of them are what I like to call stupid genius. Right? They have the knowledge wise, they're really smart. They're understanding of technology,
their understanding of, even in their studies, and their ability to memorize stuff is very sharp, but their ability to make good decisions is very primitive. So that would be what you call what I like to call a stupid genius. There's a lot of alien but not enough hikma are actually more more correctly that's actually allow
avoid of hokum. Now, heck, Baba. Hakka. Poco means the ability to make sound judgments, good decisions, and hook them also actually means the ability to stick by your decision. Hey, come on. Let's go. Let's go. No, I'm not going come on just one time. Just one time. No, I'm not going on man. Okay, now we're going to set it that way.
You use the secret weapon? I'm coming. Fine. hookah means doesn't matter what kind of face your friend makes, what emojis they send, well, how many broken hearts they send you.
Your decision isn't changing. That means you possess what? How come now hamidou Dean Farah, he made this argument and I like his argument. I'm not saying it's absolutely correct. But I like it. I'm more convinced of it. He argues that hokum is used in the Quran with youth. hokum is used with youth so he says for example, Allah says about Yeah, who was young? What are they now hold hook wasabia. Allah gave him hook on when he was a child.
So a young child still had the ability to make good decisions. Allah says about use of or they said, with a Marbella should the WHO attina WHO Hawkman where Elma, when he reached puberty, or young man's age, Allah gave him hokum and knowledge. He's a young man is in his youth, and Allah gave him hokum about Musa and a Sudan. Allah azza wa jal says, What Amala should the who was Dawa attina Hockman were Elma waka delegation, Maxine, again he gave him hokum. Similarly, Ibrahim alayhi salam when he was kicked out of the house by his dad, he was young right? And when he was young, he made a DUA, Robbie Hubli Hawkman, my master give me hokum. So hokum seems to be used with younger age, and
we do the same for our he argued, this is the first step towards hikma hokum is the first step towards Heckman when Hickman becomes mature. That's Hickmott on barley law. That's the old man giving his son advice. Welaka attina Luqman al hikma right, look, man was given hikma Tao Darnay Salam was a judge, he was a ruler. He was given Heckman that's an older age and at the younger ages, it's spoken. That's a little bit of a subtle difference between the two words in the Quran, and how they're employed. Okay, now,
this is going to be relevant later on just a side note. So cuz I'm excited to get started with you guys. And that is that which three prophets that I mentioned with wisdom?
Doubt at a salon. Sid salaam, the prophesy shall have now one thing you should know about Tao, wood and Isa they have something in common. Tao, then SRTs Oliver Salam, they have something in common. What they have in common is they're both Israelite prophets that were sent to Bani Israel aid. Right? And they're all They're both after Musa and they both believe in the Torah. They both believers in the total Torah was given to, to Musa they sow doubt on Instagram is a follower of the Torah of Musa and eSATA Islam is also a follower of the Torah of Musa raisonne. But what's really unique in the Quran is even though Tao is associated with hikma and Isa is associated with hikma the
Torah is never mentioned alongside hikma, Musa and asylums revelation is not associated with hikmah. So it's kind of a peculiar thing. The followers of that Prophet
are connected with hikma, but the Torah itself in the Quran was not directly connected with hikma and we're gonna try to figure out why that is, as we move forward. This is an interesting question. As we explore hikma, we're going to try to find the answer to that question. Now we're right, we're about to begin. Okay? The first thing I want you to know is Allah says he gave hikma to all prophets, he actually mentioned that have Allahu Mitaka been Lama our data communicator been well Hekmat in Allah took a promise for all the prophets, that whenever I give you any book or any wisdom, so he mentioned wisdom for all Prophets first, okay, so that's one, then he mentioned it,
especially for the family of Ibraheem Alehissalaam so Allah says what occurred? So he says, what occurred attina Allah Ibrahim Al Hikmah al Kitab al Hikmah, we gave the family of Ibrahim the book and the Wisdom. So the book and the Wisdom are part of the family of Ibrahim rice and by the way, Tao de Salaam and Lisa Ali Salam, and Rasulillah Salam are all the family of Abu Ibrahim are they set up? Right so that's there's already a connection. Okay, though, of course I already mentioned though that a Salam to you he's given hikma, a Saturday Salam has given hikma then our messenger is given hikma and multiple ways hikma, the Hikmah given to him as described. But then there are two
cases in the Quran where hikma is given to people that are not prophets. This is where things get really interesting hokhmah given to people that are not prophets. The first one is actually could be anybody. Allah says you till Hickmott amania Shah, he gives hikma to whoever he wants. He gives His motto whoever he wants. Well, man, you tell Hekmatyar for call duty Ohio and Kathira and whoever has been given hikma has been given an amazing amount of great amount of good. Now in this IRA, Allah mentions that he can give Hekmati who?
Anyone so I can get it, you can get it any anybody can get it. Anybody can have it, right. So we're gonna have to then this, this creates a problem. The problem is, now there's a kind of hikma that he gives to profits.
And then there's another kind of hikma that he gives to everyone. What's the difference between them? What's the relationship between them? Are they is the same word. So how do we understand the connection between these two, okay. And then of course, there's this one last one. And that's Lachman, or the Allahu anhu, saying Sulak Lookman. Very famous individual. As mentioned, his name is Lookman. He before Islam, he was a famous figure, some argue he was not even an Arab. So he's a non Arabian figure. But he was famous for his wisdom, and for solving disputes between people, and for his kind and wise words. And the Quran actually acknowledges that this person that's famously known
for his wisdom, actually did have wisdom. And he used a lot of that wisdom when he was advising his own son. And so Allah gave us a passage about milkman giving advice to his son, and sort of Laquan. But when Allah says, We gave Luqman wisdom, it's actually giving wisdom to someone who is not a prophet. He's not a prophet. And so that's going to become an interesting study to What does wisdom mean? What is given to not a prophet? And what does wisdom mean, when it's given to a prophet? What's the what's the difference between them, okay, now, I've done this part to you. Now we're gonna get to the definition of Heckman, you'll get your first break. There's actually lots of parts
to this. So this is gonna be fun.
This, I promise you this is the boring part. Okay, I promise you. Let's let me first go through what this means the meaning of the word hikma in the Arabic language, this is called the lexical meaning. Lexical is a big word. I use that to make you feel stupid.
I hope it worked. I hope you feel like you don't have a good education and you feel bad about yourself and you're Googling the word right now on your phones. Let me just tell you what lexical means. It just means dictionary meaning
lexical just means diction, and now you sound smart. Now you can go home and say, by the way, the lexical meaning of hikma
and your family will learn
a new
target. Okay?
The thing about the Arabic language is you will have a word, but that word comes from a bunch of other words that don't seem related, but they have the same letters. So some of you may be familiar with the idea of root letters in Arabic hikma is made up of HA cough and meme, ha, cough and meme, that those three letters have a whole bunch of history behind them. There's a lot of words that come from them, and those different words. They help us understand the concept of hikma in the mind of the Arabs. Why did they connect
These two ideas together let me make this simpler for you first before we get into the lexical meaning, okay?
The word Alcon which is also are the speakers here will know what alkane is what's alkyl
terracotta is tamale can empathize IRA.
The intellect alkyl means intellect, aka in Arabic means to tie something up.
It means to tie something up, and it used to be used for a rope that you use to tie a camel.
And the Arabs used to have, they didn't have antilock brakes on their camels. So they used to put a rope around their head. And when they went somewhere, they took the rope off their head, and they tied the camera with it. And that that rope was called an icon, icon. So it used to be on their way on their head. And they used it for control the control or restraint of an animal a leash on an animal. From it came the idea of the word alcons. The intellect one because it's here to because it's something that puts you under control, you're able to control your anger, because of your intellect, you're able to control your stupidity because of your intellect, you're able to control
your tongue because of your intellect, you're able to control your hands because of your intellect. So to them, intellect means the ability to control your emotions, or the ability to control yourself. So you see what they did, they took this image and the associated with the word intellect. Now we don't do that in English. Right. So the word intellect may be it may have some interesting etymology, but we don't necessarily see that connection. But words in the Quran, they have this connection behind them. So we're going to try to find that connection for the word hitman. Hitman actually comes from hakama to Legion.
The picture is pretty dark, you know the horses, they put this muzzle on their face, and they can pull with the rope on the muzzle on the face. And they control its face with it. That's called a Hakama. And a Hakama is also the chin of a person this, this bottom jaw and this chin, that's actually called a Hakama it's also the chin of a sheep or a horse or a person. These are all called Hakama. Now what is why is that important? This part is set to hold your face together.
Okay, this is this is supposed to hold your face together. So you know somebody gets a chin injury or something drastic happens in a car accident, they're not able to hold the muscles and they're the jaw line and everything starts falling apart. This is actually holding things together and securing them. Okay, and the the bridle on a horse that you're pulling on, that's holding the horse restraining the horse just like the jaws restraining your face. It's keeping things intact, you know, killing it and not letting the delicate muscles inside fall apart know, from it came the idea that Hukam Ullman omit the fact cook with the SE Ube sofa and candidate Medea or Magnolia or
Kelemen. I wrote Arabic here to make you feel bad.
And to show off, I could read Arabic. But no, I wrote this for myself. And it was I was too lazy to translate. So I'll translate in person. I'll tell you what this means it means the word haccombe means when you keep something from falling apart when you keep something from falling apart, okay, and whether it's something physically falling apart, or something intellectually falling apart. Meaning when you speak in a way where your argument doesn't fall apart. You use hikma in your argument, when you wrote an essay and your ideas were well connected to each other. And your thesis didn't fall apart. Then you had heckum or hikma in your speech, when a lawyer is trying to win a
case. Right? And they make their case really solid. And it didn't fall apart. And that's because they were hacking in their presentation. Sometimes you have a class presentation, many university students here who have nothing no purpose in life other than you know, the so
when you have your school presentation, sometimes you're in the middle of your presentation, you forget everything.
And then your laptop dies.
And then yeah, some some some people got bad memories. Oh, I remember that day.
Yeah, and osmosis.
It's kind of Moses in it. And
that means that fell apart. Anyway, that's the lexical meaning. Now, let's go to some other interesting, early, early, early Islamic dictionaries this these are like, you know, first century second century of Assam scholars that were writing the dictionaries of the words in the Quran. How are they defining hikma? How are they defining wisdom? By the way, the idea of holding something together. Keep that in mind. Okay, so the idea of hikma has to do
Securing something will tie those concepts later. So in tuxedo that he will Quran this evening Ali Al hikmah. Amana will biannual fix will icon will farm. He says hikma is trustworthiness. His definition is one definitely. Heck my means trustworthiness. It means clarity and speech. It means understanding. It means intellect. And it means you're basically another word for understanding. So understanding intellect, trustworthiness and clarity in speech. If you have those things you have what hikma that says, definition, another definition of the word you want to avoid. And miroir Eve alhfam will occur and Naboo as I just mistyped.
Good advice. Good advices hikma and then he says, understanding and knowledge is hikma. And then he says prophethood is also hikma, which makes sense because Allah actually mentioned in the Quran that he gave Ibrahim hikma, which means he gave Ibrahim prophethood isn't it? So that's actually an example of hikma.
He also mentions in Makati mentions the serial Quran will Quran meaning understanding the Quran or explaining the Quran itself is also hikma. So one of his definitions of hokhmah was the Quran itself. He will Quran beep Nikolova he says L will Amelie interesting definition. He says hikma means knowing something and acting on it.
This sounds really easy. Knowing something and what? Acting on Hey, you got to tell your dad what happened? I know. I know. I know. I'm working on it.
Well, you when people say I'm working on it.
You know what that means? Right? I don't want to do it. But I want to sound like I'm doing something. So I'm gonna say I'm working on it. How are you working on it? Exactly. It's a process.
What's the process? It's a struggle.
So can you define the struggle for me? Yeah, it's it's like, you know, just leave me alone.
Working on it as my favorite one. I know I have to do it. But it's a process. And it's a struggle. And I'm working on it. You know what that is? That's knowing something but not what? You're not acting like that's a lack of hikma. That's a lack of Hickman. Okay. So then he will Quran he says, Actually, I literally didn't. Actually it's Khalil, Khalil Muhammad. This this deaf early, one of the earliest, maybe even the earliest Dictionary of the Arabic language. He translated wisdom as justice. His definition of wisdom was actually justice is really cool. Because you know what justice is? You put things where they belong.
Right? You put things where they belong you you don't yield, you don't misplace something. And that's why later definitions of hikma became in Islamic history, hikma also got defined as putting something where it belongs. Putting your anger where it belongs, putting your criticism where it belongs, putting your praise where it belongs, putting your hard work where it belongs, putting your money where it belongs, right. You're putting your effort where it belongs, putting everything where it belongs, that would become Hickman. So that became a definition, justice. Now we're going to look so we looked at the lexical meaning. We looked at the early writers of the dictionaries and what
they said about wisdom. Now we're going to look at the philosophical definition. This is coming not just from Islamic literature, but it's also coming from from Christian literature. The Christians in the era of Islam are the few centuries before Islam. They were obsessed with the subject of wisdom. You might not know that, but now you do. Christianity, one of its main focuses was the subject of what wisdom and I'll give it away. They were so obsessed with wisdom. And of course, you all know they were also obsessed with Jesus, that they actually made them into one subject. And they developed literature, especially in Proverbs and other places, where they said Jesus is wisdom
itself walking around. So in many of their works, when they will talk about wisdom, they were actually talking about Jesus, they called him wisdom itself. Wisdom, it's a wisdom manifest. So wisdom is a major subject for them. But they talked about it in many different ways. And of course, philosophers have talked about it in different ways. I'm gonna give you a definition of wisdom that they have that actually agrees with the Quran. The Quran offers the same definition. In this case, not the one that they say Jesus's wisdom. The Quran changes that and says, No, Jesus is not Jesus is not wisdom, Jesus is given wisdom. So the Quran says correction. Let's fix that a little bit. Okay,
and that's what the Quran does all the time. It takes a statement from Christian literature, and a statement from Jewish literature. And the statement is almost correct, with a few adjustments and the Quran will make those few adjustments. Okay, now we're now we got it, right. Okay. So that's what
The Quran does in this case, too. But anyway, their definition now listen to this part carefully because this will be one of the most important discussions for the entire two days. Their definition is every human being has something inside them, that tells them right from wrong. Every human being, it doesn't matter what religion they are, it doesn't matter where they were raised, what century they were raised in, they have something inside them that says, hurting someone else is wrong. Cheating, someone else is wrong. lying is wrong. Deceiving is wrong. Taking somebody else's rights is wrong. You know, the end and, you know, oppressing someone is wrong. There are things that you
don't have to be Muslim to know that they're wrong. Anybody could be walking around and they see some kids yelling at a kid or be bullying a child. And you will know that that's wrong. You'll say let me check with the fuqaha first let me ask my Mufti if she if you have a bunch of kids are beating up a kid in school. Is that haram Ianis? Nobody has to check that you could there's a meter inside you that says hey, that is what you could just see that it's wrong. When you're standing in line, and you're waiting your turn, and you know, some somebody cuts somebody in line. Everybody in line says it's wrong unless you're in the Arab world, but in a box, but otherwise here, but it's
wrong. And you can tell everybody has read there's an understanding of you know, people's please. Right. So the Christian argument is, actually we have a sense a basic sense of right and wrong inside of us. Now let's talk about the Quran point of view on this. This is the fifth fifth with Allah, Allah T Fatah, NASA Allah, the fitrah with which Allah created us, and that Fittler is so powerful that nature inside us is so powerful that Allah made us with that Allah says He swears by it without oxy will be enough Salah Why am I swear by the person that blames themselves? Meaning if nobody was around, nobody was around, and nobody could check what you're doing. And you're about to
do the wrong thing. Right? Something in you says don't do this. Something in you feels bad. And you have to silence that put it on airplane mode. You know, you have to you have to mute it to be able to go ahead but it was there the voice is there. The way Allah describes that voice inside you and inside me and inside every human being is sorted to know it he describes a person who's drowning in the ocean
and they keep drowning deeper and deeper and there's waves and there's waves on top and it's a cloudy night and it's you know it's raining so there's no moonlight there's no Starlight there's and the deeper you go into the ocean the darker it gets. And he's he gets to the almost the bottom of the ocean. And Allah says either arthralgia Yoda who lamb yak at Yamaha, when he takes his handout right in front of him, he almost can't see it. He doesn't say he can't see it. He says what? You almost can't see it, you know what that means? Something is still there, no matter how dark you got. Somebody got into somebody got into a club. Somebody started drinking, somebody started doing drugs,
somebody's been drinking for a year now. They're picking up the bottle for the 1,000th time. And before they bring it to their mouth. Something in them says I shouldn't be doing this. Something goes off. And it's weak, the alarm is weak, the batteries are weak, but they're not dead. You could still see that it's there. So that consciousness that we have you can call it a conscience. You can call it a moral compass, right? You can call it an old do the same as Emile Majid Ankara right. Your your inner self right? This and enough sandawana in the Quran.
Actually, the air the the the the Christian literature called it hikma itself, there's a sense of justice inside you and inside me. Now, this is going to be a really interesting thing. Now we're learning. Allah teaches hikma doesn't he he taught hikma to Ibrahim Ali Salaam. He taught hikma to dowload la Salaam. He taught ACHEMA to Lisa they sit on he taught Akbar tools who Allah Salam. But now Allah is also saying every human being already has some level of what inside them. Some hikma is already inside them. There's an inside hikma and there's an outside. Heck, there's two of them. And we're going to have to figure out what the relationship between those two guys is or those two
hecklers is okay. Now,
this is real this. This was on the Jewish side. This the previous one was on the Christian side. Now I'm going to show you something on the Jewish side of things a couple of 100 years ago
For Jesus, and carrying forward, the Jews also became very interested in the subject of wisdom. But their definition of wisdom was really different, really different. They developed this idea that wisdom actually means that some special people, some elite people, they have secret knowledge about judgment day.
They know judgment day is coming. They know details about judgment day and the end of the world. But that knowledge is not for everyone it is for very exclusive special groups of people. And those people have what
Hikmah so actually
hidden knowledge of what's going to happen when the world comes to an end, hidden exclusive, special knowledge. Okay. Now, what did the Quran do to respond to this idea? Because remember, when the Quran said hikma where the Jews also listening? Were they in the audience? Yeah. And when they heard hikma, what came in their head, if they're part of this culture, they're like this refers to secret knowledge of the end of the world. And Allah says in surah Al comer, when he says extra Batista to unshackle Kumar, when the when the you know, the the hour has come near the moon, she'll split. What era I attend your repo where your Kulu several mystery of what has double Waterboro Hua Hua Kulu
Ambrym was stuck in the center. This part I'll translate this part, what are called the jaho mineral, Amber EMA fee, hemos. Dodger, and they have received news that have a lot of warnings in them. Hickmott on Balikatan sama token, another wisdom that reaches everybody. But none of the warnings have benefited. What is Allah doing? No, Allah is saying there are warnings, but there and there are mornings of Judgement Day. But they're not for some special exclusive group of people who have access to this secret hikma classified documents that nobody else gets. Allah called it Hickmott one by Lila tone, some are talking another. This is a hikma that has been made accessible
and shall reach everyone. And even though it's reaching everybody, people are not taking advantage of the warnings. So what did Allah do? Allah took the concept of hikma that the Jewish community had and redefined it not as elite and exclusive but as what public access. It's actually meant for everybody. Right. So the quick lesson now, the Christian concept of hikma was about inner hikma, the Jewish concept of hikma was about secret knowledge of the afterlife, the Quran is actually going to deal with both of them in its discussion. Because you have to remember we think of Muslims, we think of the Quran as something that's talking to us. But actually, the Quran is talking to the
Christians. And it's also talking to the Jews. And it's also talking to them with Shikun. It's actually talking to everybody, and Allah knows everybody's background. Allah knows everybody's culture, everybody's religious upbringing, and knowing that he speaks, and when he speaks, it hits them differently. Because he's saying things we didn't catch on to it because we don't come from that background. So it doesn't hit us. So some sometimes Allah will say an IRA, and there's a Sahabi, who's listening to it, he understands it. But there's another savvy who used to be Jewish. And he hears that he goes, whoa, Allah just commented on something I learned in Saturday school. You
know, my rabbi taught me this and Allah has corrected it right now. He wouldn't know that they would know that you understand. So that's become a really interesting study in learning the Quran. Also, in regards to hikma, almost done, guys, I'll give you a first break. Okay. So wisdom contrasts with law. Now, let's talk about that.
In the Bible, now, we're talking about the common denominator between the Jews and the Christians, the Old Testament, okay, so the Bible is common to both religions. And in the Bible, especially in Proverbs, there's actually this, they talk about wisdom as if it's a lady. That's you, you have to respect her. Okay, they talk they don't talk about wisdom as a concept. They talk about it as Lady wisdom. Okay, and what is Lady wisdom basically, it means the things you need to do to live a good life. Pay attention to your life experiences. Pay attention to what happened, learn. Learn the lessons from the tragedies in your life. Learn the lessons from how you were deceived, or how you
experienced the death of a loved one, or how you experienced sickness or whatever trial you went through in life will teach you wisdom. Listen to your elders, listen to your parents. All of that will be called wisdom. So the wisdom in this definition, wisdom doesn't have to do with the book. It just has to do with your life, doesn't it? Just calm
Complete your life, pay attention to the world around you, and you will get wisdom. And if you pay if you get this wisdom, which anybody can do you lead a good life, this isn't the Bible. And job comes along and says, That doesn't make any sense. So job actually argues against this and says, you're saying, If I live by wisdom, I'll have a good life. I know a lot of wise people that have a really tough life. How are you saying it's going to be a good life. And then the Bible has a debate with job and eventually gets to the point where Job is being told no, no, no. This means eventually it will be a good life. Maybe it'll be a good life in the next life. Now the Quran solves this
problem. He goes, let me tell you where Muslims come into play here and this will be your break now.
People come and say, Stan, I pray I fast. I I stay away from haram stuff.
I eat halal food, I eat I make Hello money. Why do I have all these problems? I make so much even pre tahajjud I fast Mondays and Thursdays I do so much DUA and my problems just don't go away. What's the point of doing all this? Ibadah and I'm doing all the right things, but everything keeps going wrong in my life. In fact, the more I do, it seems like the better I do in Islam, the worse my life gets.
And this is very common, actually.
And someone even told me, you know, the lesser I follow Islam, the easier my life gets. I mean, I don't want to see him. I know Allah is listening. And he did this. Like,
is this? Is this gonna help?
Like, should we go in this corner?
Like the angels are like, Oh, wait, oh, they went to the corner? Darn it. I can't write those.
Do you know when I started praying, things get really hard. When I stopped praying things get easy.
I'm just saying that's what it is.
I was like, Okay,
who told you that if you obey Allah, life will get easy, because the Quran never did.
Proverbs is saying live your life according to wisdom, life will be good. The Quran ever said that.
The Quran ever made you a promise if you live a good life. If you live a moral life, if you live a life by the commandments of Allah, that you will actually live prosperously, and great things will happen to you. Does he do that? Not really. No. He says, Look what's happening in South Africa, but human beings were created in exhaustive labor.
And then he gives us exam Okay, fine. Let's take the examples of the people who followed Allah the most
on Abraham Island is I'm really followed Allah, his life was super easy right?
Away. Yusuf alayhi salam he lived by wisdom he never followed broke any rules easy. He did good.
So his life was really easy. Wait, no.
Wait, there's a there's a theme emerging in the Quran.
And really great people that live by wisdom have really tough lives, don't they?
Then there's somebody and then when I explained this to this person who was trying to find a no cell phone connection zone. This is the what's the point? I was gonna be hard, I think, what's the point? I was like, Ah, now you're asking the real question. What is the point?
Allah did not put me on this earth to have an easy life.
Here, Allah put me on this earth to pass a test.
That's why you put me on this earth.
And there are people who have the wisdom to understand that. And there are people who just don't want to understand that and want to have what
and easy life and the people who want an easy life are denying the path of wisdom.
Will Allah give ease? Sure. How will he give it when will he give it that's not a schedule, he will email to you ahead of time, you will not get a notification on your phone. User is coming in three days.
He is not going to do that. has to have
you know the best some of the believers were like Mutton Masala. When is the help of Allah coming? When is it coming? Allah says it's near.
Or if you say somebody is near how near though, can you can you give me a little bit like, do you have projections months? Are we talking months, years? hours? Can we get a little bit of No, no, you can't. Well, my god Allah who literally I can identify. Allah doesn't owe to you that he should tell you something about the unseen. He doesn't owe you that. Right? That's actually maturity, isn't it? It's a mature view of
Life trials will come. Allah has given you the strength and the wisdom to navigate those trials. The purpose of guidance is not to make life easy. The purpose of guidance is not to the storms will stop the purposes you can navigate the storms. Now you know how to cross through the storm with strength. Not that the storm will disappear, right? So with that in sha Allah, I'm gonna give you guys your first break, and then we'll talk about how we talked about how the Christians talked about wisdom. The Jews talked about wisdom, how the dictionary talked about wisdom. Now we're finally going to talk about how Muslim scholars talked about wisdom in early Islamic scholarship and shall after the
break Baraka Lavinia welcome similarly,
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