Who Preserves the Quran

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Alhamdulillah wa salatu salam ala Rasulillah who either it he was sahih woman while I'm about

the theme of this year's ignor convention is a timeless theme. It is a theme that should always be a constant theme in our lives. It is a theme that deals with the book of Allah the final revelation, the Quran, Al Karim and the Quran Majeed and my talk today will concentrate on one aspect of this beautiful book.

We've all heard that the Quran is the living miracle of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam. We always say that the evidence of our religion is the Quran. The Quran is the only miracle or the major miracle of the primary miracle. But not too many of us can qualify how is the Quran a miracle? What is it about the Quran that is so miraculous? And in today's short lecture, my goal is to answer this question in a manner that inshallah Allah we can use to strengthen our own Iman, and to prove the validity of Islam to other people. And before I begin, a prelude about the concept of miracles, we believe as Muslims, that every prophet was given miracles, we believe that one of the signs of a

prophet is to be given miracles. And we also believe that every prophet was given miracles, in accordance with the culture and custom of the people of his times. So for example, the Prophet saw that was sent to the mood and the people of the mood. What did they pride themselves on? They pride themselves on building palaces and castles carved into stone. To this day, their palaces and castles are objects of amazement and wonder, to this day we can visit their houses, and we wonder we still do not know how did they carve these houses into the mountains? We still don't know there are theories. And they prided themselves on this art and the skill. So what did Allah subhanho wa Taala

do? He showed them the ultimate miracle, creating life out of rocks and stones.

The camo of the people of the Moon was carved out of rock, and in front of them, the camo came to life.

Allah was demonstrating you think you're powerful? Because you can carve houses into rocks? Can you create life out of rocks? That's what Allah did.

The people at the time of Musa frown. They excelled in black magic, the dark arts, we all know the story of the magicians and find out.

So what did Allah give Musa with, he gave him miracles the likes of which would show that black magic is nothing compared to the power of Allah.

If the magicians of the pharaoh could pretend to make a stick, wiggle like a snake, the Prophet Musa by the will of Allah could create a live breathing snake, a snake that was so powerful that could swallow their petty stones and their sticks. The people at the time of Jesus, They prided themselves on the art of medicine, the Romans, the Romans thought they had excelled in medicine, nobody was better than them in medicine. So what did Allah bless our Prophet Jesus with Jesus came,

and he resurrected the dead by the permission of Allah. Let's see if a doctor can do that. He healed the leper, and nobody could heal a leper. No doctor could do that. He caused the person who was born blind to see and no one can do that to this day. So by demonstrating in the same genus in the same category, as the other people's suppose it expertise, Allah demonstrated that you guys know nothing. And this prophet of mine has been sent by the creator of the worlds. So the question arises, what exactly did the Arabs excelling such that the Quran would come and challenge what they excelled in? And the response is very obvious. The Arabs did not pride themselves in architecture. They didn't

have grandiose libraries or medicine.

No, They prided themselves in poetry in the gift of eloquence, they considered themselves to have reached the pinnacle of eloquence. And so the Quran came and demonstrated that your human eloquence is nothing compared to the eloquence of ALLAH SubhanA wa Tada. You cannot compete with Allah, when it comes to eloquence, and Allah subhanho wa Taala issued that famous challenge. In fact, there are five verses of challenge in the Quran, each one of which is challenging the Quraysh to produce something similar to the Quran. Initially, Allah said produce a whole Quran, they couldn't do it. Then Allah said, produced 10 surahs, they couldn't do it. Then Allah said produced something

similar, they couldn't do it, then Allah said, produce even one surah. And they could not even do that. And they have never done that up until our times. So these challenge that the Quraysh were challenged with, of course, it is an open challenge. And it is effective to this day. And the challenge of the Quran

was in the fact that no other piece of literature can rival the beauty, the power, the eloquence, the nuance, the rhythm of the Quran. In fact, we believe as Muslims, that the miracle of the Quran is the greatest miracle given to any prophet in the history of humanity. We believe that nothing rivals the miracle of the Quran. And we base this on a Hadith of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, in which he said that there has not been a single prophet, except that ALLAH has given him a miracle, because of which people believed in him. And as for me, I have only been given the way the inspiration from Allah, that's my miracle. Now pause here, he had been given other miracles, the

splitting of the moon, water gushing out of his hands, the trees speaking and crying. But in contrast to the Quran, these other miracles are nothing. So it's as if the only miracle I have the miracle that eclipses all of the miracles. The miracle that blinds all of the miracles is the miracle of the Quran. So the prophets of salaam said, and the only miracle that Allah has given me is the Quran. And so I am optimistic that I shall have the largest number of followers in my ummah, on the Day of Judgment. Think about what he's saying. He's saying that the miracle of the Quran is so powerful, that he believes our OMA will be the largest OMA because of the Quran. The Quran will

cause more people to convert than any other miracle given to any previous prophet. And how many of us have witnessed this in our own lives? Every time somebody converts every time a shahada is given? Why did you convert? I read the Quran, the Quran spoke to me this passage of the Quran. To this day, the prophecy of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam through the Quran lives on. And the Quran is the greatest miracle for many reasons.

But even before we get to the list of why it is miraculous, the Quran is miraculous, from another perspective as well.

You see, the previous prophets were given miracles to prove their revelation. So Jesus resurrected the dead, and then the Injeel is proven. Moses causes the snake to be created alive by Allah's permission, and this proves the Torah.

So the miracle and the message are separate from one another. The Miracle proves the message. In the case of the Quran, the miracle and the message have been combined into one. So the miracle is the message and the message is the miracle. The message does not need an external miracle to prove the validity of the message and no other miracle and no other message has had this privilege that the Quran has had.

So the Quran is the challenge and it is the answer and response to the challenge. It is the proof and it is the content made into one. The Quran does not need an external miracle to prove its validity.

And another thing about the Quran that makes it different from every other previous miracle is the simple fact that the Quran lives on in our lives. The miracles of the previous prophets

are one time occurrences. They came, they did what they did and they went on. We were not there when Moses split the Red Sea. We were not there when Jesus RESURRECTED Lazarus from the grave. We were not there. Even when the process of split the moon, we didn't see it. We have to believe that it happened, but we cannot witness ourselves. But the Quran we don't have to have been alive in seventh century Arabia. We can read the Quran, listen to the Quran, touch the Quran, feel the Quran, experience the Quran. The Quran is the only miracle that is eternal, all time and space restraints are removed from the Quran. The Quran is the only miracle that you don't have to have been alive to

have witnessed it. When it came down. Here we are 15 Centuries later. And we can witness the miracle of the Quran. And that is why the Quran is typically called the eternal miracle, the only ever living miracle. So the Quran is indeed very unique from all other miracles of the prophets. But the question arises specifically, how is the Quran miraculous? And the answer to this is, of course, a very long list, which we don't have time to get into all of them. But in today's brief lecture, I want to go over at least four or five examples and subcategories of why and how the Quran is miraculous, of the primary ways that the Quran is miraculous. And this is the most obvious way. And

this is the most clearest way to the Arabs of old is the language and the style, the syntax and the rhetoric, the eloquence and the rhythm of the Quran.

No other book can compete with the beauty and the power of the Quran. The words that Allah chooses the context, the precise synonym, the unique sentence, the syntax, the structure, which is unique in human history, any book,

you can kind of detect the style of its author, because the human mind is one. And that is why even to this day, when you come across a book whose author is unknown from classical times, specialists will try to research who is the author? did Shakespeare write this or not? Did Plato write this or not? Because there's a style. The Quran has no such style that we can categorize. And every one of us who reads the Quran knows this firsthand. The Quran does not have any standard style. It is absolutely unique in its own style, even the pronunciations of a word. When Allah mentions Jahannam the words become difficult to pronounce board and lane and ain when Allah mentions gender, is your

words Sal Sabine seen and lamb and but even in the consonants that are chosen, we see the beauty and the power of the Quran. So the number one method which is the primary method of the eloquence of the Quran, is the language of the Quran. of the ways the Quran is miraculous as well. And this is a way that is often neglected. A lot of times we don't concentrate on it

is the stories of the Quran. The Quran mentions many stories of the prophets of old

and our Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam had no access to those stories. We need to understand Arabia at the time of the coming of Islam. There were no libraries, the Old and New Testament were not translated in Arabic. Our Prophet system had no access to the stories of Jesus, the stories of Moses, the Quraysh, could not care less about the children of Israel.

Imagine if you will, in our times, if we were to discover a tribe in the middle of the desert, with no access to modern technology, untouched by human civilization across the world, and they have in their midst, a book that is talking about medieval and ancient and modern history. They have in their midst a book that is mentioning politics of America, we will be astonished. How is this tribe gaining access to this information?

This is what happened with the coming of the Quran, that are Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is talking about Jesus and Moses. He's talking about the stories of children of Israel. He's talking about Joseph use of and he and his people had no knowledge of these stories. And as we know, he was an unlettered prophet. He did not know how to read and write. And even if he could read and write, there were no Bibles in Arabic at the time. From where did all of this go

On acknowledge come from. And Allah mentions this in the Quran, my contatti you did not know or messenger of Allah. You did not know these stories. You were there when Moses was on to the signup, you weren't there when the people argued over Miriam, you were not there when the brothers of use have disputed amongst themselves, but we were the ones who informed you of what took place. So the stories of the Quran, the costs of the Quran, are of the greatest miracles that prove its authenticity, of the miracles of the Quran, as well as the content, the laws, the theology, the social structure, the ethics, the morality, for a book to come and provide this framework of laws

that were unprecedented in human civilization, to preach things that were unheard of. For example, and I mentioned this in my talk yesterday, human equality, it was unprecedented in any civilization, for a society to teach. All Children of Adam are equal in the eyes of Allah. There is no superiority of one race over another race of one skin color over another skin color, unprecedented in human history. And yet the Quran comes and explicitly preaches in a Croma commando Allahu Akbar, calm, we made you languages and tribes, we made you nations and civilizations so that you can get to know one another, not so that you can dispute and hate one another. So the content of the Quran is yet

another manifestation of its authorship, of the miracles of the Quran. And this is one that every one of us sitting in this room can feel and taste of the miracles of the Quran

is the impact that the Quran has on its listeners. What happens when we listen to the Quran, the movement of our hearts, the alignment of our culture with the recitation of the Quran. No one can remain unmoved when they listen to the Quran. Amazingly, and you know, once upon a time I did not speak Arabic also, once upon a time, I had no knowledge of Arabic. And I remember distinctly that when certain chapters came of the punishment of Allah, I could sense that this is a chapter about punishment. And when chapters came about mercy of Allah, I could sense this is something about mercy.

Because somehow, the style of the Quran impacts the bulb, even if we don't understand the actual recitation. I remember once as well, when I was giving Dawa in college that I met a person who was majoring in music.

And he had never obviously heard the Quran. And I was giving him Dawa. And those days, I don't know some of you younger kids don't know what this is. There's something called the Walkman. Back in the 80s, it was common. There's something called the Walkman, right? You guys don't know what this is those of you below the below the age of 25 audio cassettes, right? audio cassettes, you've never seen them? Probably.

I would I grew up in the era of audio cassettes, and I'd have this Walkman with me. And I listened to Quran as we're going to college. So there was this person giving Dawa to him. And I said to him, why don't you listen to the recitation of the Quran. And I remember distinctly, I took off my earphone, put it on him. And it was I Jimmy, Shanghai, Jimmy, the famous audit. And I saw him just close his eyes, and his head just lowered down. And he listened intently, his eyes were completely shut. He listened intently for around 510 minutes. And I had to take off the earphone and say, so what do you think? And there were tears in his eyes. And he said, I've never heard anything like

this in my life. This is the power of the Quran.

This is the power, the impact of the Quran. And Allah mentions in the Quran, that of the people of the book are those who when they listen to the Quran, Tara Are you in a home to feel Domina dama you find their eyes began to cry because of what they hear. And I saw this with my own eyes. And the person who was listening to the Quran did not even understand a word of Arabic. The impact of the Quran on the heart is one of the greatest miracles and we don't need to even understand anything about the Quran. And another story I don't mind sharing with you that once I was attending an academic conference, I said the story and yesterday's lecture in the hall upstairs. I was attending

an academic conference and

as a as a professor as a as a, as an academic, not as a chef or something as somebody on the academic side of things. And I mean, I don't know if you know this or not, but in academia in Islamic academia

Many of the people that are involved in Islamic academia, or shall I say not exactly the most practicing Muslims, many professors of Islamic Studies, shall I say, are not exactly practicing Islam. And one of the people present there was a very famous person who was one of the leaders of a very progressive and extremely liberal interpretation of Islam. Everything is halal. We can change everything. The Shetty is out the window, no big deal. And the time came for Sultan Mohammed was a very famous professor elder to me, who was a teaching at Harvard at the time, and I was ideal finishing my PhD. And

time for Mohammed came. And I just made a quick announcements, quiet leads. I said, if anybody wants to pray, we'll pray in the next room over there. And I walked out three, four Muslims came and I was shocked to see this professor come as well. I honestly did not think he would be coming to pray. But he came to pray. hamdulillah so I wanted to decide room. We prayed Salatin, Margaret, I lead Salatin Muslim, and I kind of made it a point to kind of go a little bit more melodious. I'm not a very great caught it but Hamdulillah I get by in sha Allah, Allah average voice, whatnot. So I kind of made it a purpose thing to make it as melodious as possible, because of him in the audience in

particular, after the prayer, he comes up to me, pulls me aside. He says, you know, yes, sir. I want to tell you one thing.

And this is, by the way, a very famous professor and well known and I can't mention his name on stage. He said, sometimes, I question and I wonder, why am I still a Muslim?

Well, Allah, he this is exactly what he said to me. Sometimes I question I wonder, why am I still a Muslim? And I'm thinking to myself, well, sometimes I wonder that as well. But I'm not gonna tell you that right now. Right? Sometimes I wonder why am I still a Muslim? Why am I still hanging on to Islam? Why because every view he has goes against the Quran, in my opinion is just completely, completely lost the spirit of the Quran, so he says, Why am I still a Muslim? And you know what he said to me? Your recitation of the Quran today reminded me why I still believe in Islam Subhanallah something deep down inside, just the content of the Quran.

Just the style of the Quran. Just hearing the Quran, you know that the Quran is the speech of ALLAH SubhanA wa Tada and that is why brothers and sisters, anytime one of us is feeling doubt, anytime one of us is depressed. Anytime one of us feels lonely. All we need to do is to open up the book of Allah. All we need to do is to put on accorded that we love his voice and just listen with our heart. And Wallah, he you will see yourself that that loneliness that sadness will go away. The Quran will fill our heart with happiness. And this is a living miracle of the Quran, of the miracles of the Quran as well. And this is one of the most important miracles is the fact that the Quran has

been preserved in a manner like no other book.

And it is truly phenomenal when you study any other scripture. The Old Testament, the New Testament, the Gators, when you study any scripture, there is simply no comparison. We have moose halves, carbon 14, dated back to the era of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Carbon 14 dated, perhaps some of you saw a few months ago, they discovered a copy of the Quran and it's currently housed at the University of Birmingham in England.

And it is now scientifically proven that those parchments of the Quran were written within 10 years plus or minus of the data of the provinces and they might even have been written in his lifetimes. And I had a Facebook posting, where I put that copy and I put the modern must have and I said anybody with any basic Arabic You can compare letter for letter word for word.

We have

inscriptions, we have calligraphy, we have coins, not even paper, coins, dating back to the time of the Sahaba and Tabby rune.

A few months ago, Allah blessed me to go to beta muck this Jerusalem and in between mock this and the Dome of the Rock. There is some of the oldest calligraphy of the Quran dating back to the time when some of the Sahaba were alive. And you can go into the Dome of the Rock and you can see it on top of the wall super handled at the SRB ibdv Laila minute Masjidul arami il Masjid doxology Baraka hola who Ludia whom in area Tina. This inscription dates back to the time when some of the Sahaba were still

Life. And it's not even you don't even have to carbon 14 dated. It is an architectural structure.

The early Muslims when they first made coins, we all know in Islam, we cannot draw images. The coins of the Persians the coins of the Romans had images of their kings have their Emperor's what are the Muslims gonna do? They can't draw images, you know what they did, they carved out a suit and a class on the coins. They carved out suitable AirFloss on the back of the coins. And on the front, La ilaha illAllah Muhammad Rasool Allah, and I am a coin collector, I actually have an interest I'm a numismatist. I have over 200 coins dating back to the early OMA years and to the time of the sahaba. And I have plenty of coins that date back to the first 100 years of Islam, where you have verses of

the Quran carved in ancient Kufic script from the very beginning of time. And of course, the greatest aspects of the Quran having been preserved is the fact that it is Muhtar water. In every generation, hundreds and 1000s of people are reciting it. It's not just the book, it's the oral preservation as well. And the final point that will mention about the beauty of the preservation of the Quran, about the miracle of the Quran.

The final miracle that will mention about the Quran is the miracle of the preservation of the Quran, through the act of memorization, through the act of HIV.

Well, Allah He brothers and sisters, this is a reality that is much neglected in our community. This is a miracle that we don't even realize it is a miracle. How many are the hill falls that our Alma produces? How many are those that have memorized the Quran, you can go to the smallest city, you can go to the furthest regions of China of timber to Alaska, and you will find people memorizing the Quran and have already memorized the Quran. And we take it for granted. It is so common that it's not even bizarre to me to hatfill. We're like oh, you're half and mashallah Great. That's it life goes on. But think about it. When's the last time you met somebody who memorized 600 pages, word for

word, letter for letter, how to cut for how to occur in a language he doesn't even know. Think about that. Have you ever seen somebody who's memorized a Chinese poem and he doesn't speak Chinese one page, much less 600. professors who teach Shakespeare for decades, have not memorized Shakespeare word for word cover to cover

the ease with which the Quran is memorized. And all of us have memorized portions of the Quran. The ease with which we produce oil FOV How common are the two forms of our communities. And that is why our Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said that of the signs of showing respect to Allah subhana wa Taala is to show respect to A Hatfield. It is a sign of showing respect to Allah to show respect to a half filled every single half of of the Quran brothers and sisters is a living miracle to the power of the Quran. Every single Hatfield is a testament to how magnificent and how miraculous this book is. No other book can be memorized in such a manner.

So brothers and sisters, we don't need any other evidence that our religion is true. Other than this Quran, it's recitation. It's memorization, its preservation, its content, everything shouts to us that it is nothing other than a miracle from Allah subhanho wa taala. And I want to conclude here, by stressing the fact that this whole theme of our lectures have been about the Quran. And I want to now make it practical and say that there's only a few days left before the month of the Quran begins. And that is the month of Ramadan. Brothers and sisters, I want to get real here. It's all nice and dandy to give fine lectures. It's all great to be in audiences of 510 1000 people. But in

the end of the day, if we don't have a personal relationship with our Lord, if we don't have a personal relationship with the Quran, then all of this is useless. All of this is of no value. I want to conclude today by reminding myself in all of you that the month of the Quran is coming up that we need to make sure that in this month, we rediscover the joy of the Quran that we go to the Messiah

and listen to his recitation that every day we recite as much as we can, that we tried to finish once, twice, three times, five times as much as we can. This is the month that Allah sent the Quran down. And the month is blessed because the Quran came down in this month. So the action item that I have for myself and all of you is enough talk. Let's demonstrate to Allah our action. Enough talk. Let us show Allah subhanho wa taala. We are serious about his book. We are thankful to be a part of the own love his book, we believe in his book, we recite his book, we memorize his book, and most importantly, we act upon his book, brothers and sisters. I want to finish today's talk with a sunnah

that I always do at Akena. This is an Akena sunnah for me. This is one of the largest gatherings of Muslims in all of North America. And I think it's only fair, that every time we come together, we demonstrate the power that we have. Together, we demonstrate our unified Love of Allah subhanho wa Taala we demonstrate how much we value our Lord. And we do so by exclaiming at the top of our lungs, that there is no being who we love more, who we cherish more, who we worship more greater than Allah subhanho wa taala. So as usual, and I do this every year at Akena. I want all of us to join together in a tech bead that will shake the foundations of this entire Baltimore center into cubby that will

shake the foundations of the city around us attack beer that the followers of Donald Trump will hear and they'll realize we are here to stay because no one is more beloved to us than our Creator. Are you going to join me in that took beer

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almost there one more time from the bottom of your hearts that means Allah

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