Nouman Ali Khan – Understanding the Symmetry of Surahs in the Quran – Surah At-Talaq
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
What an incredible way to almost put a
parenthetical
opening and a parenthetical closing in the middle
of these 2 Surahs. Even a reader says,
oh,
this is we're ending where we started.
Assalamu alaikum. Before you begin this video, just
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I'm gonna pick up from where I left
off and that is that these 10 surahs
in my estimation revolve around 3 subjects. The
first of them is the prophetic mission. The
second of them I call family and women's
issues.
So for example, in Surat Al Mujadila,
a woman comes to the prophet and says,
my husband called me his mother. What should
I do? Because that was Arab custom. Sometimes
the fight would be so bad. From today
on,
your back is the back of my mother
was his way of saying we will never
be intimate again. That's as disgusting to me
as me being with my own mom. We're
done forever. And that was called Dhihar.
And they were opening ayat of Surah al
Mujadilah, which is 58 part of this surah
series that addresses that problem that they had
in their culture. Right? And Allah gave a
solution to that and how serious it is
for Muslims to ever practice that kind of
ignorance.
Similarly, in Surat Al Mumtahana, you'll find women
that are migrating away from Mecca, and they're
seeking refuge in Medina. And they've accepted Islam,
but they were married to men who are
still non Muslim in Mecca.
And now there are men in Medina who
wanna marry them, Sahaba that wanna marry them.
So what's the procedure for them to officially
end the marriage that's with the non Muslim
guy in Mecca so they can start their
new life in Madinah? And also these women
came to pledge the prophet
their allegiance.
And Allah did not mention a pledge for
men in the Quran
explicitly
like spelling out its clauses, but He did
mention the pledge of women in Surah Al
Mumtahanna
also called Mumtahina.
Similarly, we're gonna find in Surah Al Taqabun
in Nammin Azwajikum
from your spouses and your children are your
enemies for you, which is an interesting statement
for Allah to make. We're gonna find of
course
which deals with women's issues, divorce, and then
we're gonna find which
is again women's issues.
So over and over again, we're going to
find either the prophetic mission, jihad, dawah, loyalty,
or you're gonna find women's and family issues.
So the question then becomes what's the relationship
between these two things?
One place you can look at in the
Quran that shows us the relationship between these
two things is Surat Muhammad, which is not
in this group,
but the ayah is really interesting.
Surat Muhammad is about the battle of Badr,
pretty much. Okay? The first major battle of
Islam. When you're going into battle, what are
you thinking about? What's your objective?
Victory,
defeating the enemy, conquest, that's what's on your
mind. And what does Allah say?
And what what will it be if you
turn your backs from this battle? You're gonna
allow corruption to cause in the world, and
you will cut family ties.
Allah's way of saying that even the battles
of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, their
objective
was to actually create a society that doesn't
cut family ties.
So the maintenance and the preservation and the
flourishing of the family
is actually one of the core objectives of
even jihad.
Even fighting on the battlefield, even the dawah.
That's why even in the beginning of the
Quran
when Allah talked about the most corrupt people
He said,
They cut what Allah intends to keep connected
and they cause corruption in the world.
What is it that should stay connected?
The relationships of the family.
Suratul Anfal is all about battle. The whole
surah is about battle. Guess what happens at
the end? Wa'ulul arhami ba'aduhum a'ula bi badin
fiqitabilah.
And those are family ties, they have more
rights to each other in Allah's book. Why
is Allah mentioning family ties in a surah
that's about the battle of Badr?
And what's interesting on the flip side in
Surah Taherim
which is all about women's issues and family,
save yourselves and your families from the hellfire.
Allah gives the example of good women. Allah
gives the example of bad women. Allah in
the beginning gave the example of the Prophet's
wives, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. It's all about
women and family. And at the end of
it, what does he say? Prophet,
fight the kuffar and the munafiqeen.
Sometimes you're talking about family issues and somebody
says brother. The ummah is bleeding. And you're
talking about divorce and marriage, and you're talking
about family.
Yeah. Because that's kind of how Quran talks
about it when the ummah is bleeding.
It's as if we forgot that the one
of the core objectives of the of the
ummah
of this is of this religion is actually
the preservation of family.
I'm gonna I won't open my mouth more
because I'm gonna get really controversial with you
this week. So that's okay. I'm leaving after
this week. So I don't care. But,
but there's a lot to share that you're
gonna see your world is gonna turn a
little bit upside down
as this week carries on because I'm I'm
I've decided to be unfiltered with what I
I'm convinced of. You're free to I I
and I welcome disagreement. I welcome discussion.
I believe that Muslims have lost the beauty
of conversation.
We, when we disagree with somebody, we just
talk about them
or talk at them, but not to
them, and this is a problem,
and it's rather childish.
I love talking to scholars.
I love talking to students, to the public,
to non Muslims, to atheists, not at them
and not about them.
And so there's plenty of times where I'll
say something and somebody will say, I have
a thought about that. I disagree with you
and I'll end up agreeing with them. And
that that helps me grow. But if they
say, you know what? I heard you say
this, I'm gonna make a video proving you
wrong talking about you.
You're making a video. You could have just
called me, bro, or you could just send
me a voice note and say, hey. What
you said was really stupid and here's why.
And I'll say it's not as stupid as
you thought and here's why. And we can
go back and forth on our reasons, and
that's conversation.
That's how things move forward. That's what I
genuinely believe in. So once again, I say,
I will say things that you might find
crazy and revolutionary
or or wild or misguided. You might,
but that's okay. This that's where I am
now and if you would love to guide
me, please, I love getting guided.
I love growing. I I don't I don't
claim to have the knowledge but I do
claim that I'm committed to growth. Okay? But
anyway, coming back to this. So there's a
and there's b. Right?
The the prophetic mission outside and the prophetic
mission,
pertaining to family. Then there's c, spiritual reminders.
Believe in Allah, believe in the messenger.
Renew your faith in Allah, renew your commitment
to the Messenger, sirs alayhis salam, iman. Iman
billah, iman ber Rasool. And thirdly, there will
be iman berrisalah also. Renew your faith in
the revelation. So you'll find in these many
half of these Surah's you'll begin with the
tasbih
When you hear tasbih, what is it renewing?
Your faith
in Allah. Then you'll hear ayat like
Right.
Yeah. Yeah. So and over and over again.
Believe in Allah, believe in the messenger, believe
in the revelation. So
there are these spiritual reminders that keep coming
up. So that's your a and your b
and your c. And where do you find
these ABCs?
From Surah Al Hadid all the way to
Surah Al Taherim, from 57 all the way
to 66. Now watch this quickly.
The first subgroup, there's 10 Surahs, but we're
gonna look at the first four.
That's Hadid, Mujadila,
Hashar, and Mumtahanna.
58, 57, 58, 59, and 60.
I won't go into too much detail. You'll
do your own reading to appreciate this more,
but I'll point you in the right direction.
Surah Al Hadid begins with 6 ayat, unusually
6 ayat that just talk about Allah.
They're just talking about Allah.
Over and over again, learning more,
like describing Allah, then describing Allah more, then
describing Allah more, then describing Allah more, and
what He does.
6 whole ayat in a Madani surah. Usually
you find those kinds of ayat in Maqki
Surahs
where iman is the main subject. In Badri
Surahs you talk about law, you talk about
social issues, you talk about jihad, you talk
about those other things basically a and b,
right? But there's a huge chunk of c
in the beginning of Surat Al Hadid. And
guess where else you find that? You find
that at the end of Surat Al Hashr.
Which is it's like the way hadith began
is the way Hashr is
ending.
And then you'll find it hadith in the
beginning. There's a huge discourse on believing in
the messenger and spending, spending, spending, sending spending.
And you'll find in Surat Al Hashar, in
the beginning
you'll find
those who spend
You're gonna find a huge subject of spending
and sacrificing.
Lots of ayat about spending and the sacrifice
of the Muslims. So the mission of the
Prophet and
iman both in hadith and
in Hasher. But what's really cool is the
2 other surahs 5860,
really epic stuff happens. Briefly, in Mujaddala it
opens with a women's issue
and it ends with Muslim loyalty. I'll say
that again, Mujaddala 58 opens with
women's issue and ends with what?
Muslim loyalty.
And what's the pair to
it? Guess what? It opens with loyalty
and ends with women's issues.
It flips the order. So it begins with
and halfway through Allah starts talking about women's
issue, It's
about women's issues. So there's this beautiful mirroring
that happens in these 4 surahs, but how
many surahs are in this group?
There's 10 of them. This is just 4.
So we have another 6 to kind of
look at briefly.
There's 61
all the way to 66. This is the
scheme. Okay?
In 61 is Suratul Saf, Allah will describe
the objective of the Prophet against the enemy.
The objective of the Messenger against the enemy.
He'll say,
They're trying to blow out Allah's light. Allah
sent His Messenger so He will dominate.
Right? So that's the objective against the enemy.
In Surat Al Jum'ah, Allah will describe the
objective internally.
That's the internal objective. So both of them
are about the prophetic mission externally
and internally, right? That's it's almost like Suratul
Saf is about the Jihad and Suratul Jum'a
is about the Dawah. It's almost like that.
And one is external and one is internal.
On the other extreme, I colored the middle
yellow so I'll leave that for the end.
On the other extreme are the 2 Surah's
we're looking at right now particularly Talak. Talak
and Tahrim both are about women's issues.
So the first two are both majorly a
and the last 2 are majorly b.
But the middle ones both nifaq,
Suratun Munafiqul is about hypocrisy which is a
corruption of your iman.
And Suratul Taghavun is about how to restore
your iman.
So the 2 surahs in the middle are
about see.
And if you look at this arrangement, you
find something really special. If you really have
iman,
then you will be committed to the mission
of the Prophet that is above
and you will be committed to family guidance
that is below.
So the test of your iman is above
you, above these 2, and the test of
iman is also below these 2. And this
is beautiful arrangement between these three subjects that
distributes throughout these 10 Surahs. And again, I'm
giving you a very bird's eye view, but
if you start digging in, man, you just
get blown away at how intricate these connections
are. I'll just give you one of them.
What was the first of these 10 Surahs?
Hadid. What's the last of these 10 Surahs?
At Tahrim. Watch this. In hadid Allah says,
the day of judgment will come and believers
will come walking
Their light will come from in front of
them and from their right. On judgment day,
believers are walking and there's a light coming
from their chest and coming from their right.
Okay. This is in Surat Al Hadid.
The only other time this is mentioned in
the entire Quran
is in Surah Taherim. Their light will be
coming out from their chest and their right
hand saying, You Allah complete our light. So
that's scene of light being completed was in
the beginning
of these 10 Surahs and that scene is
again at the end of these 10 Surahs.
What an incredible way to almost put a
parenthetical opening and a parenthetical closing
in the middle of these 2 Surahs even
a reader says, Oh,
this is we're ending where we started.
It's ending where we began.
This is really beautiful how the Quran does
this and the more you become a student
of this, the more it dawns on you
that the design of the Quran, the sequence
of the Quran is not accidental.
And the next thing Insha'Allah, as the days
continue, you're gonna see even the design of
the surah.
Inside the Surah we're going to go inside
Surah
Al Talaq, there's an incredible design inside the
Surah too. But we'll get there when we
get there inshaAllah.
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