Nouman Ali Khan – Ramadan 2023 – Surah An-Najm #02 – When the Disbelievers Fell into Sajdah
AI: Summary ©
The history and meaning of the title "The mountain of poor people see the mountain of tour" in the Quran is discussed, including the use of " sight to see" to teach about spiritual experiences and the controversy surrounding the story. The Surah is a reference to the legacy of Jesus and is a reference to the holy grail and the holy grail of the Bible. The presence of light and flashes in the desert and the lack of stars in the night sky are also discussed, with a focus on "how" in ancient Egypt. The transcript provides resources for accessing the study on Vienster.
AI: Summary ©
And what's happening is sort of Nigeria's, we're going to see at the fear of well, Quran Majeed, what makes it so majestic. When Nigeria, either
male baldness or he will come Why
wouldn't it be nice if there was a streaming service that brought you closer to the Quran but you know, TV strive to do just that with over 2000 hours of enlightening content centered on the Quran and Arabic make learning a habit tap now to get beta TV for yourself today. So the the before I get into the surah itself, I need to give you a couple more preliminary concepts that I need you to be to be aware of, you remember that Legos analogy I gave you, I'm gonna give you this picture. There's no text, there's just this picture. The idea is that they are strands within a surah strands within a surah. So I'm going to list some strands for you some of the more common strands in MK consolas.
Okay, and they all get stitched together. So one of those strands are the signs of Allah. That's one of the strands that you find a lot in like consolas. So the signs of Allah could be in the mountains, the signs could be inside of ourselves, the signs could be in history, etc. Right? That's one. The second is prophetic history. Prophetic history. Okay. Now prophetic history. I'm not talking about nations and their destruction that separate prophetic history is like, you know, when the angels came and spoke to Rahim Salam that he's gonna have a child. That's a small episode of prophetic history. Or when Musa they said, I'm spoke to Allah on the mountain. That's prophetic
history. Right? So that's the second strand. Now. A third strand is judgment day in the afterlife. Judgment Day in the afterlife. How many of you got so far? What are they? What was number one?
Signs of a lot too much.
Preventing history? Well, there's three
judgment thing, right, another string is going to be the fall of nations, the fall of nation, like the fall of finance nation, the fall of the nation, about the moon, you know, so All right, so the fall of nations is yet another strand. Right? Then another strand is comforting the Prophet.
This is a very important strand that's in the mind, Quran comforting the profit. So the profit will be told, so I saw them ignore what they're saying, be patient with what they're saying, Allah is with you, etc. Right? So comforting. The prophet is a constant strand that's going on inside of
you know, these sources.
And then these are the main ones. There's some smaller ones, like for example,
the big at the basis of a how do I describe this? You can call it spiritual morality, spiritual morality. Let me explain what that means. You know, how like, in Islam, we have technicalities, like, how do you make will do, right, we have technicalities, for also we have technicalities for how do you slaughter an animal those are very technical and specific things. But honestly, kindness, you know, being being fair to one another, being good to parents. Those are not technical. That's a part of what spiritual morality, so the technical, the Sharia. That stuff came mostly in Medina.
But when when Makkah in Makkah, when the Quran was talking about good deeds, it was basically in the realm of the spiritual morality. That's that's what it was talking about. How many strands do we have now?
Six, another strands, the Quran itself?
Or, actually, let's make it broader revelation itself. And let me explain what this means. Revelation is three things. Revelation is three things. The angel who delivers it, is part of the machinery of Revelation. What is the angel delivering the message that's part of Revelation, and who's receiving it the messenger, that's also part of Revelation. So there's three pieces to Revelation. There's the the liver, the angel, the you can call it the message or the book, and the messenger, the recipient, all three, that is one of the subjects one of the strands in McKinna Quran dealing with that in one way or the other. The reason I brought this up right now, is I want you to
know something about Surah najem. From the outside before we go inside. Certain najem belongs to a group of sorrows between 50 and 56. You should know that
between what surah is 50, and 56, these are all makin Surahs all of them. And they all have strands that build on each other. So Allah will give you a little bit of one of the strands in Surah cough, and he'll give you some extra, the same strand will come out somehow again and so the value adds, then it will come again in sort of the tool, and then it will come again and najem then in armor then in Rockman, and then in waqia 50, all the way to 56. Now I'm going to talk to you about one of those strands. One of those strands is the Quran itself. Revelation, the Quran itself is one of the strands that you find in Surah, number 50. That comes again and 51 it comes again and 52 it comes
again and 53 and we're in 53 right now. So I want to show you what's happening with this strand. Why do I want to show you this strand and not the other strands? Because we're dealing with section number one of the surah and section number one of the surah is actually about the Quran revelation itself. So let me tell you what happens. So to recap, Allah swears Well, Quran Al Majeed, he swears by the Quran full of Majesty,
the Glorious Quran, the majestic Quran, he doesn't explain what makes it majestic. You should ponder that yourself. But he's dropped an idea. In surah cough that he's describing the Quran has what? Majestic, ensue to that era. He says this Quran is as true as your ability to speak.
He's basically saying if you contemplate the human ability to speak, you will realize it wasn't given as a product of evolution, and you will also realize its limits. And the more you contemplate human speech, the more you will become clear that this cannot be human speech in the hula How can Muslim Americans antico and it's pretty remarkable statement. So there's a proof for the Quran in my own tongue. My own tongue is proof for the Quran if I contemplated that sort of that yet. Through tour now takes a few extra steps. This little tool now says Here are all the things they say to say this is not from Allah. All the allegations against the Quran, all collected in one place in surah.
Toto. One man intervene near material Becca Becca Heenan. Well, I imagine you're not a mind reader, you're not a sorcerer, you're not insane. Are they seeing he's a poet? Are they seeing his crafting it and editing it himself? Dakota who? Well you know, what if this is human speech, and it's one of these categories, why don't you just bring something like failure to be Hadith in myth Li and they should do it, they should produce something like it. So what you're seeing now is a progression, the proof so today the art was proving the Quran, so two tourists proving the Quran. But Surah AF was not proving the Quran. So tough was just saying it's full of Majesty. It was describing the beauty
of the Quran. And what's happening is sort of najem is we're going to see at the seal of well, Quran. Majeed, what makes it so majestic. What are some things that you can think about and I can think about that make it majestic. So keeping track of the strands is helpful, because Allah is building an idea. And other strands will be built. But this is the first one that we're going to dive into. Okay. Now, this is another important concept. Before we get into the Surah, let me get comfortable because I'm a pain do I sit with my knee up?
I need you to understand this concept.
If the lateral mark will build muscles, I'll explain what this means. A lot of the Quran given in Makkah will start making more sense to you if you understand this concept, is a very important concept in the Quran.
So sometimes Allah will talk today in this surah Allah will talk about the star.
The star, you can see the star with your eyes. Yes. So the very apt he will talk about the wind.
The wind, can you feel the wind? Yeah, you can totally feel the wind. And so today we'll talk about the mountain of poor people see the mountain of thought that they experienced the mountain of tour? Yes, they saw it.
Allah will talk about things that you can experience from the five senses. That is a massless
imagery, you can imagine it you can feel it, you can experience it, but he's talking about it. And he's using it to teach you something that is beyond the five senses. He's teaching you something about the unseen through it. He's teaching you something be you know, powerful. Like for example, actually, if I get into the example that will take too long, we'll take this surah as the example itself, Allah will be talking about the star.
But he's using the example of the star to talk about something much more spiritual
Well,
so actually the star is just a stepping stone. It's just a device for something much larger you with me? So that's how we're going to and when you see one of the physical phenomena in the Quran, any signs of Allah, you should ask why is that there? What's the significance of it? What spiritual truth is connected to this image?
One of my favorite examples is what Dini was a tune.
What Dean was a fig in the olives, taking the olive, which is a reference to mounts, you know, mount the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, which reminds me of the legacy of Jesus. But you don't have to say Jesus you can just say what team especially what they do and and the entire history of Jesus comes up. What do we see in in That's the history of Moses Musa as well hasn't believed in. I mean, that's Makkah, which is this the history of Ibrahim Ali salam ala Rasulillah, salam, Salam. So prophets are being talked about by just a few images, you see, and their entire legacy, that entire spiritual truth is encapsulated in just a couple of words. That's part of the style of the Quran. It's
sophisticated, it's rich. And that's what we have to pay attention to, when we if we're going to make
sense of this surah. Now, we're going to get into the surah itself. First things first, there, the reports we have about the surah.
They're not conclusive, but most likely are a high likelihood. This was given to the Prophet SAW Selim in the fifth year. So he's been a prophet for five years, when the surah came, and by this time they've started to become very hostile. Some Sierra historians argue that first three years or so or two years, the Prophet SAW Selim was giving Dawa, but he was giving it one on one. He wasn't going in public, and he wasn't out in the marketplace and things like that. It was one on one, people were being talked to about Islam, and it was kind of underground. And then from three, four and five, things started becoming more public. And as they started becoming more public, the the
response of McAfee has started becoming more and more and more aggressive. So we're now in the middle of the early part of the aggression of maca. When disorder came, an interesting event happened now the one of the things that Oculus used to do, when the Prophet used to recite the Quran, they used to start making noise, Allah Allah Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, I don't want to hear it, I don't want to hear it. Or somebody would start singing the song or they would pay women to start a concert while the Quran is going on. Let us not really handle Quran while row fee. So in the middle of the market, women would start dancing and singing and all the crowd would go over there.
Don't listen to this Quran and create distraction when it's being recited that Allah contact Kneebone so you can win. So the Quran was being ignored, right? And if somebody hears the Quran, they're like, they start making noise. So you don't hear it, right?
But then, five you two years into this aggression. ALLAH gave the Prophets I said I'm certain najem when Najmi either how Baldassarre Hebrew Komazawa llama young, the Quran in our and something strange happened. The Prophet was reciting the surah the whole Surah At one time, it's a long surah he recites the whole surah and nobody stops him.
Nobody stopped him. Nobody made noise. They were all
and he started listening and check this out. And if he doesn't, and then Nabi sallallahu alayhi wa sallam such as I've been najem ignore Abbas reports, that was also salam did such that at the end of Surah najem, because the last I have certain size that certain najem is the size that so he fell into frustration was sajama I will Muslim moon, and the Muslims that such that with him, well, machinery Kuhn, and the machinery couldn't fall into such that the kurage fell into such that well, gen one ends and James and human beings, anybody who heard the surah fell into such that even the machinery couldn't who used to make noise. This happened in what year reportedly the fifth year.
Well, and Abdullah and the Navy, sorta najem Fussa Java, Mr. Bhatia, I don't mean a comb in less such words.
There was also salam reciting Surah najem. He did says that himself, no one was left in all of Makkah, that in the audience, except that they fell into such that except one guy. One guy didn't do such that for aka Roger luminol, calm, custom and husba Ultra ferrata who in which he instead of doing such that he took some dirt and he put it on his head and said, That's enough for me. I'm not going to put my head down on the dirt, the dirt will come up to my head.
Yet, that was his reaction, but everybody else fell it even people who don't believe
Eve fell into such detail momentarily. Okay, so now
Jack Feeny had he said This is enough for me Abdullah falaka palapa draw a to who by the patina Yanni Bardo patina Catherine whatever Khurana here, some say this was a you have no other say other things. Then we saw that this person was killed later on he died a violent death. Anyway, this is a big problem. Because the Quraysh the elders of Quraysh keep spreading. Don't listen to this Quran. This man is insane. This man is wasting your time. He's just a poet. And now everybody has done what? So they can't keep campaigning against Islam, when they all sort of Islam for a few minutes. This is looking pretty bad. This is very bad. So they had to come up with a solution to this
incident. Because this is not just one person or two people. This is everybody. So here's what happens. And this is my understanding of these events. You're free to disagree but to the best of my ability. This is how I understand these events. They had to come up with a solution to this problem. And in this surah later on, Allah will say fri Ito mulata when Rosa or manette Sally satin Austro. Allah will say have you seen your false gods? They had different idols, right. Three of those gods were named in the Quran. Last minute, Rosa. Three of them Allah named them and said, You think these are Allah's daughters? And you know what they did? They went around and they said, no, no, no, no,
no, we didn't do such that because of the Quran. The Prophet was saying that we're not an Ursa are good. He said in Russia for our treasure, their intercession will work. They can save you on Judgment Day. So the Prophet compromised, and he was okay with three of our gods. He even mentioned them in Surah najem.
That the Prophet mentioned those three that Allah mentioned those three gods in certain najem? Yes. Did he say that they're going to intercede on your behalf? No, they made that up. And this became famously known as The Satanic Verses. They this became Oh, the prophet momentarily agreed with a lot when he never agreed. They had to come up with an alt campaign all facts campaign, they took three of the words in the Surah made up their own IOD spread them. And the rumors spread far and wide to some of the Muslims who were living in Abyssinia heard the rumor. That's how good the rumor machine was. And they said, Oh, the prophet has compromised with declaration, you can come back now. He's
made a deal with them. Because if you accept some of their gods, you made a deal. So some of them started coming back because of the rumor. That's how powerful the rumor machine was. And I won't dignify the idea of The Satanic Verses. And whether it's legitimate or not, because for any real academic, not even a believer, any real academic that studies the subject looks at the text looks at what they're claiming. It doesn't add up at all. The the most plausible explanation, which is absolutely convincing is this incident was too big of an embarrassment for them. So they had to create a smear campaign against the Quran. And that's what they came up with. You know, so this is
this is one incident that you should know about that was related to serotonergic. Okay, now, by the way, something I didn't tell you, I should have told you these notes. They're like in Arabic, because I want you to feel bad. No, no, no, they're in there in Arabic in a box. The box is usually for me, not for you, I'll explain it. But sometimes there are things in English and they're not in a box. Those things are for who
they are for you. So don't feel bad about this will feel a little bad, but that's okay. This is for me, but for you inshallah that's coming. Okay, now let's begin with the first I have this surah by the way, my goal today is to try to reach iron number six, in Allah when Allah hit Algerian, let's see how we get when Najmi either Hawa
Allah says I swear by the star as it falls. I swear by the star as it falls. That's an easy translation so far. I'm going to share first with you what did the Muslims say about this ayah historically, this is important to be totally Newcastle, different difficile. These are some of the opinions about these ayat, which I had was for a year is a circuit malfunction without up to somebody theory and management. We're in Canada Phil added Nudelman this is going to be important.
He's saying by Surya Surya is not the name of an Arab. Hala
Surya is a is a cluster of stars in the sky. In English. We call them the police. The police constellation or the police cluster of stars. Okay. The Arabs used to call it Surah Yeah, and they're saying by the cones
deletion are the cluster of stars called ferrea as they fall as they fall, so I'm not going to explain this yet just keep this in your head it's referring to a specific star or a specific group of stars as they fall. We'll figure out what that means soon. Which I had says no when najem is actually referring it saying star but it's talking about the Quran.
Well Quran either knows Zilla Liana who can a Unison know Juma and Nigel Amma or net Gemma or Nojima actually in Arabic means to give something in installments. To give something in installments. So Quran came in what installments so each installment is like a star shooting in the sky.
Like each installment is a star falling, that's how much I had saw. You see the beautiful contrast comparison between those two. It's a similar oath that you find in Slovakia. When Allah says Fila auxin will be more caring no June, I swear by the falling of the end of placement of the stars, right. And so that's a very powerful, beautiful image because the stars are the only light in the middle of darkness. And the revelation of Allah is light in the middle of a world that's full of darkness. Right and Allah controls every star and its movement. And Allah determined every idea and its revelation and when it came. So that was the opinion of Majapahit Alpha najem was sama e Kaluga
Hinata. Who this is all of the stars in the sky, when they fall or when they start disappearing from the horizon.
Huson says something similar Allah swear by the stars as they disappear. Hassan also said this might be referring to stars on Judgement Day, when they all start falling. I swear by the star as it falls or as it will fall, meaning the I'm swearing by the time when all stars are going to start dropping out of the universe. Because Allah will describe, you know that it will come back into what other places in the Quran all the stars are going to disperse, you know, and to me said they're going to be erased and wiped out. So that could be a reference to that this these are early opinions in the Najma Hoonah and Zara Liana Coleman and Arab Canary Abdullah, some say this is a star specific star
called Zara, Zara, and the Arabs used to worship it. So Allah is swearing by it as if he owns it, that's not your God, it has a god. So that's what it's a reference to. And then finally, this is actually the weakest of the opinions and najem Hana who inhabits them to Allah, the least Allah Who sockets najem is also used in Arabic for grass, or low plants. But that's and as they are, the wind makes them go down. So the grass as it goes down, but that's not really viable, and coming up with the rest of it. Now, I've actually mentioned this already, so we can move on.
Interesting opinion, very rare opinion. Sometimes among our Mufasa rune, there were those who really love the prophets of Allah, Allah who said them, and their love of the Prophet influenced their tafsir
their thoughts about the Quran, so they would see Oh, ALLAH is talking about the star as it falls. This must be talking about the Prophet Muhammad, as he came down from the Mirage, the star as of Paul's, so that was also one of the opinions. That was that was further Jafar ibn Muhammad Ali Hussain said this.
Okay.
So now,
this is where I need you to use your imagination a little bit. So don't worry about the screen right now. Just listen to me.
The ancient Arabs before Islam, they were really in touch with the sky. Obviously, they lived in the desert. And in the desert, the sky looks very different than what the sky looks like now, with the world full of lights and electronics and, and pollution. You know, there are photographers from around the world that come to Texas, there's a certain spot in Texas that has the best night sky in the world. And they come there and there are no lights allowed and no flashes allowed. And they come to just take pictures of the sky. But that was the normal sky for the Arabs back in the day. And we see a few stars here and there. But actually, if you go in the desert sky, there is not a place
where you don't find stars. It's actually very different night sky than the one that we see it so we actually the tragedy of modern technology is that for the most part, we have not experienced the night sky. So when Allah is talking about the star as it falls, we have much less of a connection to that than the ancient Arabs did. Now the ancient Arab I want you to just imagine you live in that time before Islam back in ancient Arabia, right? Not a lot of cities, people not a lot of lights. People love coming out at night because the days
excruciatingly hot. And the only real beauty they have to stare at is why the stars, and they love traveling at night because it's safer because you're cloaked. And because it's cooler, and they can move faster. So they traveled quite a bit at night too. And Robin nudged me home yesterday when they used to use the stars for navigation. Now, the thing is, you might not know this, and I didn't know this because we're not in touch with nature. But the stars actually move through the seasons.
They actually move. And over the course if you're looking at, remember I told you PyLadies, the constellation that at one part of the year, as soon as Maghrib happens, you can see it at eye level.
And as the year progresses through the night, it moves above your head.
And another part of the year, the the first time you see this right above your head, and it moves down slowly over the season to high level. So actually, this constellation rises and it also falls. Interestingly, Oh, yeah. Interestingly, the word howa
the word howa actually means rising and falling under gooey you the Harbin fin Hey Darren, well, how are we you the hub 145. And linguists argue that who we from how are the same letters is actually something going down. And how are we is actually something going up. So movement downwards and upwards is captured inside howa. And what's really cool is these stars, half of the year they were rising and the other half of the year they were falling. This is why even the idea of falling really fast is also used in the word however, like they use it for the for the eagle when it swoops down. However,
you know, I will say I'd say like it jumps down from the mountain, and it dives down to capture its prey and then it gets up the eagle when it does that. That's actually called How are also. Okay, so that's a little bit about the meaning of the word haha. But now let's dig a little deeper. I want you to know something that happened in ancient Arabia called the Anwar system. The Anwar was poetry before Islam. All of it was about the stars.
Like there was an entire music department dedicated to songs and poems about what the stars and in those homes, they used to use the word najem a lot, which word najem. And they used it for thorough, they used it for palladium all the time. Sometimes they would say much more thorough, sometimes they would say najem. But they used it all the time. And you need to know that. So when they when the Arabs heard the Quran, say when Najmi they were thinking, you're talking about polities, he's talking about that constellation. And they used to the reason they developed this literature is they used to pay attention to where they can find PyLadies because it will tell them which season is
coming is rain coming or polygamous is above our head is winter coming, or it's right down here, etc, etc. So they will actually keep track of it in their poems and pay close attention to it. And Allah is using that culture that they had in the opening. I also will see why he does that. But right now, I need you to know if you are an ancient Arab and you never heard about Islam, and you heard when Najib Vida Hawa, you're like, Yeah, I do that. Yeah, I know that I know what that's about. Yeah, you know, so there will be a connection to you. It's not a spiritual connection to you yet. It's just something that's part of your culture that Allah is drawing on right. Now. This is
these are just examples of the word najem being used as for a year, we'll skip these quickly. But I will I do want to get you to the summary.
Okay, in the summer, thorough yah najem rises. So when they see it rising this seed at the horizon at the sunset, and then they see it rising, that means that summer coming and when it's falling, that means what's coming winter so the poet will say, Oh, I see Korea falling it's making how're you better tell the boy to get the axe? You know what that means? What is your going to do with the axe? What do you think is going to cut wood which means he's going to make a fire because it's going to get cold. You got it. So they would actually consider this a connection to the change of seasons and they would make preparations for the future based on a nudge him either haha. Now this is really
awesome. Because Allah is also saying, you're so used to preparing for the coming season, because you look at the sky and now
eldest revelation has come from the sky, and it's time for you to prepare for the coming season of the afterlife.
You see, so the physical image of anatomy, the Hawa is now being tied to what is this revelation is not a joke, you have to take it very seriously. You know, so He's tying the revelation together to this cultural phenomenon of the Arabs.
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