Nouman Ali Khan – How I Study a Surah (Step by Step) Q&A
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses their third layer of study on the Surah, which involves exploring the meaning of words in the language and finding answers through various sources. They also mention their desire to study the history of the Surah and their comparison of "monk life" to the title of Islam. They discuss a doctor's lecture on the Quran and a comparative analysis of it to a video about a mother and her child. Additionally, they mention a group of students at the International Islamic University of Islam needed to study the Quran and encourage them to join a journey on bay effort.
AI: Summary ©
What I do when I study a surah
is I recite that surah
over and over again for at least a
few days.
Just recite that Surah. So if he if
he talks about something, I want her to
worry about it. I wanna go inside that
world and then take a deep look at
what is it that Allah referred to.
I have a quick question.
Thank you first.
And,
I wonder how you study the Suras. Do
you have tips for us? Like, when we
want to study a Sura Cool. Do you
have a fixed plan
which you use for every Sura or yeah.
That's it. Uh-huh. It's complicated. You I don't
think you guys can follow my plan yet,
but I want to be able to get
you to the point where you can follow
my plan. I'll tell you briefly my plan,
and then I'll tell you what I want
to be your plan. My my plan was
to tell you your plan on day 7.
Okay? So I'll tell you my plan today,
I'll tell you your plan on day 7.
Okay, Cammal.
What I do when I study a Surah
is I recite that Surah
over and over again for at least a
few days.
Just recite that surah. And that's my first
step. And I write down what I think
are some observations or questions about that surah,
I make a note of them, either I
make a mental note of them or I
keep taking notes on my phone on what
I think is going on in the ayat.
I then try to understand the second step
is I try to understand
the organization of the Surah, the organization of
its ideas. You saw some of that when
I
showed you the the last slides.
Right? But that that kind of organization is
called
like a structural coherence, meaning you're kind of
noticing a pattern in the text.
But there are other kinds of organizational matters,
meaning what are some keywords that are repeating
themselves in the Surah? What are some themes
that are connected to each other? For example,
purity keeps coming up directly and indirectly,
right, in the surah. So
had to do with purity,
then
had to do with purity, had to do
with purity,
from the Jewish perspective had to do with
purity,
right? So there's lots of
what are some themes that keep recurring
or showing up in different ways inside a
surah that bind the ideas of the surah
together. That's the second thing I look at.
So this is kind of a literary
type of study.
The 3rd
layer of my study is to investigate the
meanings of the words in the surah.
So
what you know
you've seen me show you some slides
behind sabbaha
or some slides behind Qudus or some slides
behind
you know any keyword in the ayatamani.
Right? So I wanna have a deeper understanding
of the vocabulary of the surah and what
I might learn from that in the context
of this surah. So that would be my
3rd layer
of study of that surah.
Then I,
my next and I I still by this
time I have not opened any tafsir like
I've not
listened to any scholar or any this is
just my process.
Then my my next step in the surah
is to actually ask myself
what questions come in my mind
when I read the surah. For example, a
question that came in my mind is that
I discussed with you today,
well, should I be wishing for death if
I am
from the Awdiya of Allah? That's not a
question I read in tafsir, that was my
own question.
What's the difference between
is my own question.
Why is the analogy of the mule or
the donkey being used? That's my own question.
So I have my own list of questions
about the Surah,
and then I try to find
the answers to those questions across the Quran,
and then the other the the the next
another wave, these are multiple waves I know,
but another wave of of study of the
Surah is if the Quran is talking about
something,
I wanna know more about it from outside
the Quran. Like for example,
I actually
must have read.
I must've watched 2 different
long videos documentaries on donkeys,
and I read
several articles on donkeys,
because Allah talked about donkeys.
So if he if he talks about something,
I want her to worry about it.
That's just my
the way my brain works towards Surahs. When
we were studying
with the winds that blow and carry,
we I studied the winds.
I studied the National Geographic articles on the
winds, and how winds move and the winds
in the over the North Atlantic versus the
Pacific and, you know, different how what what
what do winds carry? How do the winds
carry, you know, air not just temperature and
moisture but also,
you know, pollen and sand and
like I just wanna know. And if, you
know, another Surah comes up, like last surah
came up and Allah mentioned monasteries
and I have to study
and look at the history of the Catholic
church and where the monk life began and
like because Allah mentioned they lived the monk
life, so I wanna know more about the
monk life and where it came from and
what happened, right?
Doctor Saeb and I call this the worlds
of the Quran. The the Allah refers to
something and I wanna enter that world. I
wanna go inside that world and take a
deep look at what is it that Allah
referred to. Right?
And then that that opens up different insights,
like the insights and, you know, the the
biblical analogies that Doctor. Suheb or Doctor. Saker
actually pointed out for me that I shared
with you guys about the donkey and the
mule and carrying and all of that stuff.
So that's another process.
Then now towards the end, then I
listened to,
I read Batawali Sharabi second, actually I read,
I listened to Doctor. Asar Ahmad, his mufasal
dasa alaikru'an it was called an Urdu.
First, it was a it's a detailed lecture
series on the Quran.
Doctor Saab is my first inspiration in the
Quran, I've heard him 100 of times before
but I listen to him again anyway.
And I listen to him to see how
I think differently from he does.
And,
you know, his lectures on this Surah
are 4 hours long.
So he he covered the entire Surah in
4 hours.
Ordu.
Yeah. Yeah. That's not in English. And then
I'll I'll read,
Watawadhi Shahrabi because he has nice insights sometimes,
oremallallah,
If there's something available from him or some
video I can find of his,
then I then I'll start building my way
up to go towards the Tafasir but not
go there yet. Then I One of the
people I will read up on is doctor
Fadus Salih Hassan El Ra'id,
and his I'm very grateful for the sister
Arnut.
I believe she's in
Sarudia. She transcribed his lectures and organized them
by Surah. So she'll send me a word
document for each Surah so I can go
through his work on the Surah.
That's in Arabic,
and I go through that. He he offers
some really interesting comparative analysis. Why did Allah
use this word at this Ayah? Why did
he use that word at that Ayah? And
he has some really cool comparative
textual analysis on the ayah.
And then
I discuss
every ayah
with my team.
There's 2 teams. 1 I get on a
call with, and 1 I am on a
WhatsApp group with just text we text each
other what voice note each other. My my
my my
call team is in Islamabad in Pakistan.
They're it's made up of 8 women and
2 men.
They're both they're all of them are graduates
from the International Islamic University of Islamabad or
they're still continuing their education there. And they're
all have specialization in Quran or tafsir study.
They're absolutely brilliant,
means they're, they rage in age. Some of
them are bachelor's, some of them are master's
students, some of them are PhD students,
and we'll just say okay, I'll give them
a call and say hey, today we're gonna
discuss IIA number 1.
You guys read whatever the series you're gonna
read, but I want your thoughts on ayah
number 1. We'll just we'll just do on
the ayah together for 2 hours,
on just ayah number 1, and the next
day on ayah number 2, and next day
on ayah number 3, like that. Right? So
that's part of my process. I I,
whatever questions I have, discussions I wanna have,
I call doctor Saheb Saeed, who's head of
research at Bayena right now. He I I
talk to him, get his insights and thoughts
on the ayah, then I read the tafasir.
And then so so because the tafasir is
somebody else's work,
but I wanna do my homework before I
read them.
So it's a process.
It takes time.
Takes a little bit of time, but your
process is not gonna be like that. Your
process is super easy.
It's gonna be like ordering pizza,
hopefully not German pizza.
I hope you guys enjoyed that video clip.
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