Nouman Ali Khan – The Opening of Surah al-Mursalat
![Nouman Ali Khan](https://artwork.muslimcentral.com/nouman-ali-khan-150x150.jpg)
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Let me let him initiate on rajim Bismillah R Rahman Al Rahim whether Moodle seller to an IRC 31 Sheila Tina shallot fanfare Riccati fell fell mukhiya TV run out
in two I do not
agree with Emily Emily's honey of cocoa leaf Alhamdulillah wa salatu salam ala rasulillah Allah Allah He was happy to mama bird once again everyone salaam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato. Today in these few minutes I want to share with you some interesting things about a particular literary feature of the Quran oaths in the Quran. Allah azza wa jal takes oats in many, many surah sometimes in the beginning and sometimes even in the middle of Suraj. And it's good to understand the function of these this kind of piece of the Quran. Before we dive into one example that's particularly unique, sort of more salata, 77th surah of the Quran, Allah azza wa jal takes oats in ways similar
that we take old oats also taken typically by people when they're testifying in court. also taken when somebody doesn't believe you, like, you know, I swear, and I swear to God, that really happened, you swear by usually something more important than yourself. And you identify that as a means of validating your claim. So when somebody's skeptical towards what you're saying, you might take an oath, when you're going to testify, you might take an oath, it might even be a statement of anger. In some cases, I swear, you better stop what you're doing right now, like things like that. So you can't you can take an oath in that context as well. The Arabs back in the day, use the oats
for different reasons, in addition to what I just explained to you, they would actually use the oats as a means of garnering somebody's attention. So if you notice a bunch of people sitting and talking, and you just want to grab everybody's attention, nowadays, we say things like, Listen up, and then everybody kind of stops talking and listens to the person. But they would actually swear by something and be like swearing by something, call everybody's attention towards themselves. So they'll say I swear by the morning, and that would actually so it's supposed to send the message that something important is going to happen in the morning, we better listen to this guy, because
he's got a special news alert about what's coming in the morning. Right. So this was a means of getting attention. The carotid, if you were to take an overview, the Quran uses the odds as a means of getting your attention, that's certainly the case. And it's also there to mentally prepare you for a message that is about to be given. So it's actually, you know, the oath itself is not the subject matter, it's actually a means an object that leads you to a conclusion, let me put that in simple words, you don't find normally a person coming up to you and saying, I swear to God, and then walking away, I swear to God, you were gonna say something beyond that. You're emphasizing what
you're about to say. So the oath or the square itself is not your point, your point was coming thereafter, right. So when you read oaths in the Quran, they're actually building up to a point and they're necessarily connected to that point. And so the Quran uses some pretty interesting and unique oaths. And a lot of times the oats are used to actually paint a picture. And one such oath is a little more solid. So Allah says, well, more Salah to alpha. And so he says, basically, I swear by those that have been released in or those whose mains have been released, and this is lots of commentaries found about this, what I find most convincing as a depiction of what most allottee
offer from a language point of view, Muslims in Islam have ruled, which means that which has been let go, something that has been let go. So a small band of something that's been let go. And over the road is actually used for many things in Arabic, including the hair on the back of a horse's mane, like you know, when you're riding a wild horse, you don't have a saddle, you have the hair to grab on to. And so this is actually an image of wild horses, that somebody, some people are writing wild horses, and they're out of control, and they're holding on to their their hair and yanking the hair on the back of their necks, they're off to basically pull the brakes on them. But then imagine
when those brakes are like go when you let go of that here, the horse is going to run wild in any direction it feels. And this is actually a parable drawn in the Quran, between horses that are let go and unleashed and wins because the the Arabic language also uses the word winds, or more solid for winds. And so the parallel is drawn between winds and wild horses that have been unleashed. Basically a lot through it is describing kind of like tornado type winds or crazy wild winds that are going in basically gusting in every direction. And therefore you see that image build further. When in the next I are using the letter fall philosophy as far as when you see a fire in the woods
as opposed to a walk in the old sense actually means it's it's building on the same image. So what is that next image and uses the word house and the Arabic word. Simply put is basically not being considerate of what is in your past.
Imagine a train or a tank or something, and it doesn't care what is in its path, it's just marches on, and crushes through anything without any consideration. The idea is these wins once they're let go, just like those wild horses trample over anything, crush anything in their path, and have no consideration whatsoever. So Allah swears by this incredible, you know, tornado storm, this kind of image or a wild horse image and parallels those two, to paint basically, so far, one very particular picture, that winds have a power have the power to destroy, winds have the power to create, you know, indiscriminate kinds of death and destruction around you know, wherever they go, and they
don't care if it's a nice person or a bad person or there's a there's a good person in the car or the bad person in the car is going to flip their cars over anyway, or destroy buildings and homes anyway when it hits. So that's one side of the image. You'll notice in the next I there's a while one Nashua, Latina Shula. So what that means is a new picture is being painted. And this time, he says and I swear by those that distribute thoroughly national is actually to distribute to sprinkle and Ally's talking about how rains distribute clouds, or rather winds distribute clouds, they distribute pollen, they distribute even dirt or dust. But you know, that distribution that they do
that the winds do, they they're responsible for bringing the rain and also for producing much of the life on the earth. So now we're actually getting a completely different image of the wings of the first to iaat painted a picture of the winds as a means of death and destruction. And now Ally's saying those same wins when they're calm. They're also ones that distribute life and create the very opposite of death and destruction around the earth. And then he says falfa Ducati farka, and they make very precise distinction. In other words, you know, when you take a great like, imagine a bunch of seeds in your hand, and you kind of just throw them like that, they spread in every which
direction, and there's no calculation of where they're gonna fall. But when Allah sends winds, every drop of rain, and every little piece of pollen that falls, it's gonna fall exactly where Allah wants it to fall. And they're going to make very, very clear distinction about which lands are going to get drought and which lands are going to be replenished with water, and which lands are going to get even flooded, and which lands are going to get the pollen and which lines are not going to get the pollen, you know, which which plants will germinate and which plants won't. This is full, fatty, fatty forca. So lysing, just like the destruction is indiscriminate, on the one hand, but to
actually the life of it is actually very the life that it gives is very particular, and very well distributed. And so so far, you've got these two very contradictory pictures of, of wind, and Allah swears by all of them. But then he builds on both of these images and says something kind of unexpected. And this is a unique and very beautiful feature of the Quran, that Allah will take physical images, he'll paint physical images with words. And then He will draw attention to a spiritual reality. He does this over and over again. And whether he's talking about birds or mountains or trees, or you know the sky or whatever else, you think he just be talking about the
sky, but he'll use the sky to talk about something that has to do with you and me and our personal and spiritual life. So he does that here. Again, he talked about these two different kinds of wind. And then he builds on it by saying fall Mulkey It is so beautiful, then they bring into contact with reminder, meaning they bring all kinds of people doesn't matter and there's almost Ruby for malkia they you know, they bring believers, disbelievers any human being that wishes to ponder, they've now been brought into contact with a reminder, you know, the idea of being brought into contact with a remembrance or with a reminder is the idea of a person receiving revelation. Like we say these
people haven't even been brought into contact with the Quran with the last words, right? We have to bring that word to them for you, Belinda. shahidul hiab, like the prophets, I said in his farewell address, let those who are present deliver it to those who are not present, but a lie saying something incredible. In this ayah he's saying those if you if you were to ponder over the wind, then they are delivering a reminder to you all on their own. Like you, you know, you sit in a gym or football sermon, and you're being reminded a lie of saying Actually, that's one kind of reminder. But wins if you were to ponder on their own are a sermon by themselves. They are horrible by
themselves. They are a powerful reminder by themselves. So how in the world are wins a reminder, wins are a reminder on the one hand of how much Allah has spared us allies holding on the reins of this wild horse. And the fact that you feel a nice breeze when you walk out of the house and say wow, it's a nice day. He is really moving is actually a lot of holding back something that is meant originally to destroy. This thing is destructive capacities mentioned first. And so allows reminding you and me that in fact, he's allowing the earth not to fall into destruction at the hands of wins. And sometimes he lets them loose a little bit. Just to remind you and me of what he's capable of in
the original context of the surah was the Pradesh and these people you know they used to make fun of the Quran.
They used to tell the prophets I saw them. Oh yeah, you're giving us all these warnings You and what army? Who's gonna take us on? all the tribes of Arabia are afraid of us and you're gonna stand alone and challenge us our power. What you know, I don't see any people behind you that are going to bring us down and allow basically saying very softly in these words. He doesn't need an army to bring you down. He can just unleash winds. You could be the most advanced nations in the world when the wind is unleashed. There's nothing you can do. There's nothing there's nowhere you can hide. There's no way you can save yourselves. Allah will describe nations before upon whom when winds came and before
that they were the most powerful of nations when winds alone winds came so valuable in Somalia, Yemen, kusuma Fatah, kawaii hasakah Jasmine Aslan Javier for helter Allah home in Dhaka, you saw seven days and eight nights of continuous hurricane tornado man, when when one of those things hits for 30 seconds, two minutes. You know, I live in Texas, they land here all the time. And when they land into a residential neighborhood, you can't recognize that that was ever a house. It's just Rubble, just Rubble, and pieces of it are miles away from the house. And that's for two minutes. Allah has brought wins like that down for seven continuous days. And he says, You, you you would
these look like, you know, our Jasmine Aslan habia. The people look like ripped up pieces of palm trees for helldorado membaca. Did you see anybody left behind? Did you see anybody survive. So when we feel the niceness of the wind, it's actually a reminder of how much Allah holds back his punishment, and how much Allah has created these powerful destructive things. But he subdues them and submits them like a wild horses domesticated And not only is a wild horse domesticated, it's actually put to your set, not only is it not attacking you, it's actually serving you. And so these wins, then serve you and provide you and provide you and that's yet another very powerful reminder
on the one hand about Allah spearing us and allowing our transgressions to go. But on the other hand, him continuing to feed us, continuing to provide us what an incredible reminder for all human beings, you know, there are people who believe in God and people who don't believe in God, there are people who curse God, there are people who refuse to pray to Him, there are Muslims who question the Quran and even make fun of the prophets, I mean, still call themselves Muslim. You know, there are there are people of all manner Allah knows what they say, and how they feel, and what you know what they do. And yet he doesn't withhold from them, you know, as a result of their defiance and their
rebellion, he doesn't hold the winds back from them. And the provision that the winds provide the distribution of food and nourishment to the earth, and therefore them, all of that is not put on hold, because of their rebellion. I want to give you an example that a great scholar, I mean, I've since he gave once about this concept, so powerful. He said, Imagine you have a rabid like a wild dog, and you're trying to tame this dog, and you feed it and it still bites you. Right, and it's still it's just going at you. And you as a cruel owner of that dog, you put the thing in a cage, and you don't feed it, and you don't give it anything to drink. It's just sitting in that cage out in
the burning sun, tortured, for day after day after day. Now it's dehydrated, it's it's completely, almost completely out of food. And it's just basically every time you before when it was acting up, you bring your hand close, it's ready to bite. But now that it's on its death, it's completely humbled, then you can basically take sips of water, put it in your hand and bring it close to the dog, and it will humbly drink, it will no longer have any cause for rebellion. Allah does not bring humanity to its knees before so they can humble themselves beforehand. He can, he could be like that we could be like that dog that's acting up, and he can put us in our place. Because no matter what
we do with if he were to stop the winds from delivering the rains and delivering the food, then all of us will be put in humility. All of us will be in that state. So he says fine, we'll do it. You know, so not only is he spearing you, he continues to provide you despite your rebellion. That is just for someone who would just look outside and feel the wind and ponder, what has the wind done for them? What has the wind done for me? And so he says at the end of all of it, we're all run out.
By the way, he still hasn't made his point. Remember, the oaths are there to prepare you for a point. This is not even the point this is just preparing you for the point or the run Oh no, no one knows that actually means a legitimate excuse. He says I have sent the winds as a legitimate enough excuse. In other words for every human being that was capable of pondering that was capable of thinking, the fact that they can stand before Allah and still say there was nothing that ever warned me. There was nothing that ever gave me reason to pause or think or reflect or think about my purpose in life. I lived a life of heedlessness and purposelessness without any consideration,
because nobody ever came and told me anything. Basically, in one word earthen Allah saying, I sent you wins deny. That's it. That's enough of an excuse that
That's on my on my end the cases done, I gave you Enough, enough to make it tough for me to be absolved and say, You received enough it's actually above and beyond are going to listen to his message to help you contemplate the realities that were already around you, you know what I was on. And then he says, oh, Newsela, or enough as a warning, these things are enough for someone who needs to be warned. They don't need to hear scary sermon, they don't need to hear reminders of Hellfire, they can just ponder over the world around them. And that'll be enough as a warning for them over and over and over. When he says all of that, to put me in a certain state of mind, then he makes his
point. And that point is now so easy to accept. In number two, I do not care. Whatever you have been promised is bound to occur. No doubt about it. Whatever you've been promised, is bound to fall upon you. What is the law saying? You think it's so impossible for the day of judgment to come for the earth to shatter and the graves to come? You know, the data come out of their graves and the sun and the moon to collapse into each other? All of this is fantasy to you. Well, you know what, it's not so fantastic. And it's no, it's not such a fantasy that winds can unleash destruction in the same power that controls those winds is the same power that that uses the very same thing, wind itself,
to produce death and to produce life. And he's the very same one who revealed this word, and this word has spread across the society, and this word will be a cause for some people's destruction. And the same word will be the cause for some people to be brought to life. You know, even while they live here, and you think that whatever you've been promised isn't going to happen. It absolutely is. Subhana Allah how Allah brings his revelation and the natural world around us together in his beautiful, beautiful Callum milazzo Jamaica's people of pondering and reflection on the Quran. And actually as a result, may he make us a people of pondering and reflection upon the world around us
and open our eyes to the reality the beautiful reality, the guiding reality that Allah has created for us to not not ignore barakallahu li walakum wa salaamu Alaikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato