Ramadan 2023: Surah An-Najm #1

I'm entering something divine. I'm entering something that travelled through seven heavens

when Najimy the

male oneness or he will come one out of our

the Unity v doesn't just teach you about the Quran. You can also learn Arabic from a brilliant teacher who started Ahmed Ali Han has made this beautiful ancient language easy to understand. So you're not only improving your language skills, but your understanding of the Quran to tap now to check out the unit TV

so that I'm able to cut

out a little bit learn him in a shade Lana Raji rajim Bismillah Al Rahman Al Rahim when nadji me either how my oneness or he will come one hour warmer young deep wine in Hawaii. In Hawaii in WA UE we you have a llama who share the

Lumia Marathi first our

rubbish rally suddenly we're suddenly Emery working on the rock determine the Sani of Cali but hamdu lillah wa Salatu was Salam ala Rasulillah. While early he was happy ah marine and about

once again, everyone is cinema Alikum warahmatu Allahi wa barakato. I'd like to first start by thanking all of the people involved at Epic. To make this program possible. I'm going to take this few minutes in the beginning to give you an idea of what we're going to be doing in sha Allah and get right into the material because we don't have a lot of time contrary to what it might feel like. So

the concept the idea behind this program Quran week, which actually I'm traveling with all over the world, and I plan on doing a different surah in every location is to actually help Muslims everywhere in the world begin to contemplate the Quran directly. We all know that we should be thinking about the Quran contemplating the Quran understanding it better, but for the most of us, we don't know what first steps were supposed to take. How do you even do that? How do you begin to engage with the Quran and for a lot of people, even though of course we all say the words Quran and Sunnah Quran and Sunnah Quran and Sunnah. For most of us, when we read the translation of the Quran,

it kind of leaves us in confusion, we skipped over parts are like, Ah, I don't get that part. Okay, let me go to this part, let me go to this part. And so there's a lot of gaps in our understanding of what Allah is saying. And part of the intent of this program is to bridge that gap. And to help each one of you see, including myself, how beautiful and rich the word of Allah is, right. So what I'm going to do now in this 30 minute session, and by the way, just so you're clear about the schedule, I'm going to start at 730. Every day, the Isha prayer here is at eight o'clock, so I have that 30 minute window to get at least get something out. And I need to take that opportunity. So even if

you're coming in late or whatever, I'm going to start at 730. In fact, I'll be here probably seven or before seven. So if you'd like to ask questions or anything like that before seven is fine, I will already come prepared, so you're not going to mess up my preparation. Once I'm here, I'm at your service, inshallah. So 730 to eight, then we're going to pray a shot and then 815 I'll be here right back again, we're going to have about a 45 to 50 minute session. If I'm really feeling like I want to, you know, ruin your life, I'll have an hour long session. After that, I'm going to give you a break. And then you can fight over chai and coffee, whatever they put back there. You have about

five, seven minutes of a break no more than that. And we'll have our final session. That's the idea. There are two goals we have this week. One the primary objective, the main goal I have is to share with you the dashboard, and I'll explain what that means on pseudo najem surah number 53 of the Quran so for those of you who didn't know, we're going to be diving as much as we can into surah number 153 and najem. Okay, and our second goal is going to be something shifts for hips eight and I call lenses five lenses to contemplate the Quran. What that means is what are five things you guys should be thinking about when you want to begin to contemplate the Quran. Okay, so let's get right

into the word I'm going to tell you some things about what the Buddha means what deep contemplation what does that mean?

Allah in the Quran did not say that thinking deeply about the Quran is a an extracurricular activity. We know that some things in Islam are absolutely necessary like the fry five prayers there's no compromise on the five prayers. Some things are haram they're absolutely haram there's no compromise. The doctor of the Quran contemplating thinking deeply about the Quran is

is actually something Allah demands in the Quran and complains when people don't do it. So it's not something light. It's not if you have time you should do it. In fact he says if Allah Tada Brunel Quran twice. He says Don't say then think deeply about the Quran twice. He asked that question. Also he says that he sent this book down for lots of reasons right? So he says he sent us as guidance. Everybody knows that answer. The Quran was sent as a guidance. Another place in the Quran, he says Anza now who La Cumbre con, Lea de Navarra, Lea de baru IRT, a book we sent down to you full of blessings for the goal that they should contemplate its IRS, they should think deeply about its

ayat. So the fact that you and I have to think about the Ayat of Allah deeply and engage in contemplation is actually one of the main goals of the Quran. Nowadays, the tragedy has become and it's been there for a few centuries. So we didn't start this problem, but we're continuing the problem. And that is when somebody says, I'm learning Quran, or my child is learning Quran, you know what that means? They're memorizing Quran, or they're learning that weed, or they're learning how to sound the words and we call that learning Quran. When the Quran came down, nobody called that learning Quran. Nobody called that learning Quran. When someone was learning Quran, they were

pondering the Quran, they were thinking about the Quran, they were trying to understand the Quran. So now that I've said that Be brief introduction. Now, I want to make clear for all of you two concepts that usually get confusing for us to have seen enter the bar, I'm going to define these two terms for you to see it and what the bar Okay, see, is basically, am I understanding the IR correctly? What do the words mean? Do I know anything about when the IRA was given to the profit slice? What is the context of the IRS? Is it being translated correctly? Is my understanding the lesson I'm supposed to get from this? Am I getting that correctly? That is tafsir. And I've seen

work. Our scholars have done centuries and centuries of work on the field. Sometimes they have debates intercede, we'll see that too. Sometimes there's debates. But for the most part, that seed is basically research based, you have to do the research. What does this word mean? What is this? I mean, what how did the Companions understand it? What was the story behind this ayah, etc, etc. All of that is the study of what they've seen. Okay? The Mufasa, the people who wrote tafsir, they had a few basic questions in front of them. And when they answered those three, four or five questions, they move to the next tire. Then they ask the same three, four or five questions, then they move to

the next tire. What is the I mean, when was it revealed? What are what is the what did the early scholars or early companions say about this, that the Prophet SAW Selim say something about this, etc? There's a few questions. Once they answer those questions, they move on to the next style, okay. Now, then there is and by the way, intercede, if you weren't if you went to a tafsir library, and soon you will see on YouTube, so him and I have done a video series, we've recorded it, we're gonna release it soon, on tafsir library walking through it or see your library, his library actually in Scotland. But anyway,

if you went through a tafsir library, it would be like going to like the Literature Department in the library, you have different kinds of literature, right. And under each category, you got different books. But there's kind of similar genre. There are different kinds of Tafseer, different specializations intercedes, at fc will Thora, Sera, la Hawaii and other BLE, Shari, there's all different kinds of FC. And each one of them, there's multiple people who did lots of work in each one of those categories. So to see it is a big world. It's a very big world, okay.

But at the end of it all, it's where scholars do their work to try to explain the lessons of the AI in simple language to you. Okay, now, that's the fear. But there's one more thing What was the other thing

that double what in the world is the double? The double is okay, now I know what the IRS means. Now I know something about the, the history of it, or the placement of it and all of that stuff, I answered all the basic tafsir questions. What does it mean for me?

What is this ayah they're doing for me? Like, what do I get from it? How do I how does it change my view of the world?

In other words, there's the information and then there's the impact of that information, you understand, that seed will give you the information.

So the Buddha is basically an exercise how is this impacting my heart? How is it changing my view of the world? How is it supposed to change my emotions? How is it supposed to change my opinions? Because these are out there talking about something that happened a long time

I'm ago, but they're also talking about my life right now. That's the double. That second part is that that book. Now the problem that has happened in the OMA and I say this, you don't have to agree with me, this is my own analysis.

People that study to see you

feel like they don't need to do to the birth of series enough as to the birth.

We studied that to see if that's good enough.

And then people on the flip side came along and said, these people, all they do is read these tough seers, but they don't really connect with their heart to what the Quran is saying, I want to read a translation. And I want the Quran to talk to me about what it's saying to me, I'm going to do to the Buddha myself, right. So now lots and lots of Muslims are reading translations of the Quran and trying to do what the book so that people have to see are not doing the double. And the people after the board are not studying the fear.

And this is a disaster.

Because if you don't have the correct basic meaning, and then you start contemplating on top of that, you're gonna be crazy. You're gonna come up with crazy conclusions, but your heart tells you it works. This by the way, down the road, this is what happened with a lot of denominations of Christianity. And a lot of denominations I, I was very fascinated with American Christianity because it has so many branches. And one of them I'm particularly I was fascinated for a while with Joel Olsteen. You guys know Joel Osteen is, okay, well, he's from Houston. He's a preacher and very famous. Right? So

I went to one of Joel Olsteen Christmas specials, just to see what he does. I just want to I just want to experience the thing. And he took a passage from the Bible where there was the Lord sent do do means like the morning you Misty moisture on the on the leaves and things that's called do, he goes, And the Lord said, There shall be do so this year, you're gonna have your do. And then he starts doing everybody like, your job is gonna work out this year, because the Lord's gonna give you do and your and that divorce, oh, it's finally going to finish and you're not going to have to pay no lawyers no more. That's your do. And I was sitting in the crowd, and all the peoples like, this

my year of Do

you know, this was this was like, everybody's buying into, you know what he's doing. He's taking something from the Bible. He's coming up with this, like, fantastic thing. And everybody's singing along. You know what that is? That's his version of the double without any word.

And he'd have seen, right, but on the flip side, whoa, ignore above Saudi Allahu Anhu said this, if new Kathy, you said this go to be said this, somebody said this. So you shut up.

You know what that is, I'm going to call everybody I have all this information. Now there is no need for what

there is no need for to double my group. I'm part of a group of researchers, students of Quran we studied Quran together and we've developed a formula, we start with the seed. We studied it have seen, and then we engage in what

we engage in as much as we can. And we ask ourselves hard, hard questions, and you're gonna see a combination of the seed into the bore, in this series, in what sort are we studying? Again, remind me serotonergic. Okay. Now there are the approach to the study of the Quran that is a fusion between Tafseer into the Buddha and some other elements, I have my own method for studying it. As you go through the study of the surah. With me, you'll you're going to see my method in practice. So instead of me talking in theory about my method, you'll kind of see it in practice, and you'll see how everything comes together and shallow tarla. But one thing I do want to tell you I want to

because certain legem is a murky surah. Right, right. So it's so we'll talk a little bit about mucky sorrows. You know, in just anma Most of the sorrows, if not all of them are what their makiya their murky, Surahs right. Now, if somebody asks you what is the subject of mucky sorrows, you will say they talk about Allah. They talk about his signs and creation, they talk about previous nations that were destroyed. They talk about some Stories of the Prophets, they definitely talk about judgment day and heaven and hell, that's pretty much *in sorrows. Right? My consumers have these five, six subjects, right. So if you open up sort of dokkan, it's going to be one of these. If you're going to

jazz here, it's going to be a few of these. If you open up sort of off, it's going to be a few of these. If you have a certain number, it's going to be a few of these. It's the same five, six items, and they keep coming up. So then the question becomes a little kind of all the same. This one's about judgment day. What's this one about judgment day? What's that one about? Let me tell you, Judgment Day. And you're like, they're all talking about the same thing. They keep they keep repeating the same stuff.

This one has Allah's creations. This one also has Allah's creations. And this one also has, oh my God, Allah is creations. And if you just begin to read the Quran, especially the murky Surah of the Quran, you start noticing there's a lot of repetition. There's a lot of what they call an English literature, redundancy over and over and over again, right. And so what happens with the scene? Here's the fun part of senior scholars, when they come upon an idea, and they've already talked about an idea similar to that one before. They say, God subaqua The crew, we've already talked about this, you can look it up in that surah. Right, because it's not a new Tafseer question. It's not a

new question. The problem with this approach, this is not it's not a wrong approach, but it's missing something. And I want to tell you what, it's missing the Quran each surah is a perfect gift sent from Allah. Each one of them is a unique gift from Allah. No, Surah of the Quran is extra. Do you believe that? We believe that all of us, right? No, Surah of the Quran is superfluous. We could do we could Oh, I could have lived without sudo Nava Taquile was enough. No, that's not the case. Every single surah is part of the perfect divine gift from Allah. Nobody says I have two hands. One of them is just extra. Nobody says that. We in Allah's creation, we don't consider anything extra.

We don't say the sun's good enough the moon I don't know. We don't do that. You know, one ocean was enough. I don't know. Why do we need the rest of them? We don't do that. But you know what we do with soldiers of the Quran sometimes, and maquiladoras we don't say because we have respect for the Quran. But unfortunately, even Quran students that see your students are thinking it, they're thinking it and that's a bigger problem. So what we're going to do, I'm going to explain this with an analogy, and then we'll get started after Okay, I gotta keep track of time to my goodness.

I have 30 minutes. So good. I have good time.

I want to I want to give you a simple analogy. You guys know what Legos are?

Okay, Legos, Legos. Imagine I have like a bucket of Legos, yellow, blue, different sizes, right. And I have five of these buckets. But they all have the same exact set of Legos. Right? They all have the same five, six colors, all these different variations, all of them. And I give these Legos to five very creative kids. Are they going to create the same thing? No, the pieces are all the same. But when they was all put together, it was a completely this one made a robot. This one made a dinosaur this way, you know, Okay, you go to an architect. They're using brick, they're using wood. They're using metal, they're using sheetrock.

When they put it together, they're like, clap brick. I've seen that before. No, you're like, that's an amazing building. Oh my God, that's incredible. You know, the way they use this window, the way they use that door, oh, my god, the way they use that angle. It's so incredible. Nobody comes and says, you know that sheet rock, right? I have that in my house too.

Nobody does that. Why? Because it's being used in a unique way, isn't it? In fact, our the way Allah made us our genetic sequence, essentially, the fundamental components of our genome are the same. And it's just a rearrangement of that, that makes us different human beings, doesn't it? At the end of the day,

what I'm trying to say is every Surah, even though it has components that other soldiers have, has a unique signature, a unique fingerprint, a unique identity, a unique divine artistic expression, a unique beauty. And if you don't come to it with that attitude, and you say, Oh, it's just another maki Surah always saying the same thing again, the Buddha's closed because the dub what happens when someone comes to Allah's the Majesty of Allah speech, they come to it in all

you know, people, I when I travel, sometimes people want to take me to historical sites, right? When you go to like a historical Castle, or presidential palace or whatever, at the door, people are taking selfies are like, whoa, they have this like, all what I want you to have what I want me to have, when I approach the doors, the entrance of a surah of the Quran. I want to be in awe. I want to be I want to have reverence. I'm entering something divine. I'm entering something that travelled through seven heavens. I'm entering something that's that's that's more powerful that travels fast through that 13 point 9 billion year universe. It traveled the billion light year unit traveled

across that and came to this man Muhammad sallallahu alayhi salam and transformed the entire world. I need to have the right kind of attitude in my heart. When I approach

to Surah so you're not here my point is you're not here and I'm not here to give you lots and lots of information even though we'll go through a lot of information. The point of it is what some something Allah says himself. He says fly at Brunel Khurana, Allah Kullu been a follower, don't they contemplate deeply over the Quran are are their hearts something that have their own locks or some hearts have their own locks on them. What that means is the seed gives you aim.

But the duck bore unlocks the heart

to different goals. The seed will expand your understanding, it will give you concepts, it will help you deepen your rich, richer your your depth of knowledge. But then if the double is missing, then the heart stays locked even you have a lot of knowledge and that's why Allah gave the example of people that came before us who had a book and they had a lot a lot of knowledge of that book. But Allah says for Cassatt Kulu, boom, their hearts became hard. You know, even though he other places has been birdie ma canoe even after they understood it, because understanding in our case, understanding the Quran is the Tafseer question.

But the dark blue is where the heart gets unlocked you with me. So we're going to have to merge between those two. And part of that is I have to approach the surah with humility, my own part of my I have my own also that also looked at the bar like a lot of thieves is willing to double right? My own salute at the bar. When I start the study of a surah. I assume I know nothing.

I've been trying to study the Quran for 23 years now, when I studied started re studying Surah najem to prepare for this program. Three weeks ago, I assumed I've never read it before I know nothing about it. And I'm going to just dive in. And I'm going to ask whatever questions come in my mind. And I'm going to document my questions and discuss and read and discuss and read and ask questions because I want to understand what Allah is saying to me, above and beyond the Tafseer with me. So that's the approach we're going to take now. I have I gotta keep track of time, good. Eight minutes, eight minutes, I think I can do one one good thing so we can move things along.

So the surah

in the Quran is not like a chapter. Right? I've said that many times. But because we're in this series, you guys need to hear that. So those are not like what chapters, chapters depend on each other a lot.

Right? So chapter two, if you didn't read chapter two, you're probably not going to understand chapter three. And if you didn't read one through five, you're gonna have a hard time with six. That's how chapters work. They're sequential. But the way the Sutras of the Quran are, they're connected to each other, but each of them have a unique independent identity. They have an independence. Also, the word Surah comes from SU in Arabic and soul, which is the ancient outside walls of a city, those of you that have played Assassin's Creed might be able to visualize what the ancient outside walls of his city look like. That's what the word sutra comes from. And inside of

those ancient walls, there were all kinds of things going on. There were there were markets, there were homes, there were there were palaces, there were all kinds of things, right. So inside of a surah, lots of different things are going on. Right. But they're all work together and create this ecosystem. Right. So the same way inside of a surah, you might find multiple subjects, you're not going to find SOTL Bacara only talking about beef and cows from the beginning to the end, even though it's called sootel. Bacara is going to talk about a lot of things, right? Because it's inside the bounds of this. So we're entering now into this world of sorta najem might demand from you is

live in this world for a week. All of you have questions about a son, I have a question. Can you comment on mortgages? I have a question. Hey, what about nail polish? I have a question. Can Can I eat In and Out Burger is that Hello? I have a question. Oh my god.

put your questions in a shelf and lock that shelf for a week.

Just put it away? Not because I'll be annoyed by your question, not because of that way. Because this week, the only questions on your mind should be the ones that come to you from the reading of serotonergic. Don't just surrender your time here.

Surrender your heart and your mind to the word of Allah for a week.

Wonder, ask, document your questions. Think about what he's saying. I wonder if that's what he's saying. I wonder what he means by this. I don't understand this. Start engaging the surah you're like you're really Allah is speaking to you directly. And you're really trying to understand what he's saying to you personally. Not Hey, what did you say? What did you say? What did you What do you think? What do you think for yourself? That's my process for myself. In fact, I do.

Before I even studied of seer, I read a surah. I read, I read, if I'm selling sort of najem, I'll read it 5060 times to myself over and over again. And then I'll start writing my questions and writing my thoughts on the surah. Even if they're crazy, I'll write everything down. And then I'll start talking to my team. Hey, I had a crazy thought, Is that crazy? And they'll say, yeah, that's crazy. And here's why it's crazy. And I had another crazy thought, You know what, you're not the only one who had that Imam Razi had that thought, too. I was like, Ooh, somebody eight centuries ago, nine centuries ago, thought what I was thinking, that's pretty awesome. High five team, I'm

Razi. And

so that's my process. And I want you to be part of that process this week. That's what you're going to get out of this week, I want you to leave this week in sha Allah and myself with a new relationship with the Quran, our relationship based on the appreciation of the seed, but more importantly, the icing on that cake to the Buddha itself. Because the goal of the Quran, one of its goals, fundamental goals is to double now, in order to understand a surah,

I believe every Surah has a design.

Or you can call it a structure, you can call it architecture, or you can call it a design, every Surah has a unique design. Remember, I told you those Lego pieces, you put it together, you get a different design, or the architects does different design, the same way certain najem has a unique design. And I'm a student of AI, and this is one of my areas of interest to understand the structure and the design of a surah. So I can I can contemplate it better. So what I'm going to do before the break, is give you a picture of what is the design of serotonergic what's going on inside pseudo natural, okay, the first and because there's so much going on, I'm using titles, but the titles are

not doing justice, just know that I've broken it up into five titles, five parts, but the those parts are not going to do a justice. Once we get inside the part you'll see a lot more. Okay. So here's the first part, Allah is going to talk about the events, essentially, he's going to talk about the event of the final revelation. He's going to talk about the Prophet meeting Djibouti, rather, he set up the beginning of the final revelation. And the two great meetings the prophets lysozyme had with Djibouti lanais Salam, once in this world. And once in the heavens, in the mirage in the Ascent, he'll talk about those two great meetings. And that's the event of the final

revelation. We'll dig deeper into that a little bit later. Then he's going to talk about, interestingly is going to switch, by the way meeting with God, what kind of creation is Gibreel? An angel, and Allah will say, by the way, you people deny that he might Gibreel. Let's talk about what you believe about angels. And so they believe that the angels will speak on their behalf on judgement day that they are daughters of Allah, and then we're gonna dig into that. And that's their false idea of salvation. That's what I mean by false salvation, then Allah will talk about make sense. No, that's not how salvation works. true salvation works this way. Right? And you don't need

angels to come in between and plead your case, ALLAH is forgiving on his own. Allah forgive sins on his own in Arabic awasi remark, fella will come as a response to this false idea. Then, the next topic is going to be Allah will talk about revelations throughout history and guidance that has been throughout history and how unfortunately, so many nations received guidance and rejected guidance and receive guidance and rejected guidance. So a summary of all of previous revelation summary of its main lessons, and a summary of the tragedy of history when people will need different nations dealt with Revelation. And finally, the final day is just about arrived as the philosopher the final

day is on the verge. We're in the final episode of the the story of humanity, it's begun because the final revelation came, that means the last episode for human history has begun, as if I did as if now if you look at these five components, you will see the final revelation and the final day or at the beginning and the end, you see that there's a relationship between the top and the bottom? Yeah. Does everybody see that? Right? And then the false salvation, the wrong beliefs are contrasted with the right beliefs that have been sent throughout history, and all the nations that had false beliefs, and therefore God destroyed. And right in the middle of it is the truth about what is going

to happen on Judgement Day. And how are we supposed to have a relationship with Allah? So in a thematic sense, the surah actually has a kind of a symmetry, it all everything converges. And so we're gonna go through one section of this at a time, so it's time for sulla has started. I'm going to take a break. I'll see you guys back at 815 BarakAllahu li Walakum. Salaam aleikum wa rahmatullah explaining the Quran in depth as part of the deeper look series. Studying the Quran in depth can seem like a really intimidating thing that's only meant for scholars our job at Vienna is to make deeper study of the Quran, accessible and easy for all of you. So take us up on that challenge. Join

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This study the deeper look of the Quran for this surah and many other sources on Vienna tv.com under the deeper look section