بِسْمِ اللّهِ الرَّحْمـَنِ الرَّحِيمِ
My Dear Readers,
السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته
As-salaamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. (May the Peace, Mercy and Blessings of Allah be upon you)
بِسْمِ اللّهِ الرَّحْمـَنِ الرَّحِيمِ
الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ نَسْتَعِينُهُ
وَنَسْتَغْفِرُهُ وَنَعُوذُ بِاللَّهِ مِنْ شُرُورِ أَنْفُسِنَا
وَسَيِّئَاتِ أَعْمَالِنَا مَنْ يَهْدِهِ اللَّهُ فَلاَ مُضِلَّ لَهُ
وَمَنْ يُضْلِلْ فَلاَ هَادِيَ لَهُ
وَأَشْهَدُ أَنْ لاَ إِلَهَ إِلاَّ
اللَّهُ وَأَشْهَدُ أَنَّ مُحَمَّدًا عَبْدُهُ وَرَسُولُهُ
(See Note below)
Starting to read the Qur'an?
To read any book, there requires a certain discipline and respect. More so when we are talking about the Qur'an, which believing Muslims hold to be the speech of God Almighty.
Let us first look at how the Qur'an itself advises us to read it:
Al-A'raf (The Heights) (7:204) (
audio)
وَإِذَا قُرِىءَ الْقُرْآنُ فَاسْتَمِعُواْ لَهُ وَأَنصِتُواْ لَعَلَّكُمْ تُرْحَمُونَ
7:204 Hence, when the Qur'an is recited, hearken unto it, and listen in silence, so that you might be graced with [God's] mercy."
To interpret the Qur'an is not a task that can be done by any ordinary person, it needs a command over a wide variety of subjects, and hence it should not be treated lightly. And the topic of the post is not how to interpret the Qur'an, but how to begin the journey towards understanding the Qur'an.
To approach the Qur'an in order to understand it and implement it in our lives, the journey starts with the intention and effort in that direction, for Allah promises us in Al-'Ankabut (The Spider)(
audio):
وَالَّذِينَ جَاهَدُوا فِينَا لَنَهْدِيَنَّهُمْ سُبُلَنَا وَإِنَّ اللَّهَ لَمَعَ الْمُحْسِنِينَ
29:69 But as for those who strive in Our cause -We shall most certainly guide them onto paths that lead unto Us: for, behold, God is indeed with the doers of good
The next step after the intention is the frequent recitation and contemplation about the meaning, as we are urged in the following ayah(
audio):
أَفَلَا يَتَدَبَّرُونَ الْقُرْآنَ أَمْ عَلَى قُلُوبٍ أَقْفَالُهَا
47:24 Will they not, then, ponder over this Qur’an? - or are there locks upon their hearts?
In our journey to the Qur'an, we might have come across an argument that poses a quandary, a catch-22 situation if you please:
"You don't have sufficient knowledge to understand the Qur'an" (and you cannot gain this knowledge until you understand the Qur'an).
Something like when some of us might have experienced applying for our first job, companies would need a minimum experience, and there was no way of gaining experience till you landed your first job.
It is the opinion of the writer of the blog that these are merely hurdles. They should not stop us from our goal of approaching the Qur'an with the intent of understanding it, and applying it in our lives.
A basic step which most of the non-Arabic speaking Muslims would already know is that you should pick up a well-known translation of the language you are most comfortable with. You can check websites like
http://www.islamicity.com/quransearch/ .
For those who dare to venture further, you can read a
tafsir (plural
tafasir) or exegesis. There are lots of them available, translated in English as well for example at
http://www.altafsir.com/ .
Translations and exegesis can offer us insights, but they are not the Qur'an. There is a famous anecdote about someone who questioned
Al-Suyuti on what is the difference between Qur'an and its
tafsir in Arabic? He answered that the difference between the Qur'an and its
tafsir is the difference between Allah and His creation, which mildly put means, you cannot compare them.
The best way to learn the Qur'an is to develop a dynamic and ongoing relationship with it. However, bear in mind that starting there, you would have started a process that will never end. Relationship with the Qur'an is something that is to be cultivated till our last conscious breath, and it is never over.
It is recommended that we should start our journey to the Qur'an with a basic understanding of classical or Qur'anic Arabic, to make it easy, as is indicated by the Qur'an itself:(
audio):
فَإِنَّمَا يَسَّرْنَاهُ بِلِسَانِكَ لِتُبَشِّرَ بِهِ الْمُتَّقِينَ وَتُنذِرَ بِهِ قَوْمًا لُّدًّا
19:97 and only to this end have We made this [divine writ] easy to understand, in thine own tongue, [O Prophet,] so that thou might convey thereby a glad tiding to the God-conscious, and warn thereby those who are given to [futile] contention:
To learn Arabic you can access many good resources, such as
http://drvaniya.com/ or
http://www.madinaharabic.com/
Lastly, in order to read the Qur'an, we might want to know that there are four elements of any given text of the Qur'an as we know it:
1. The consonantal text of the Qur'an not including the short vowels , but including the long vowels (
ي,و, ا) (
ref). This conforms to
الرسم العُثماني (al-rasm al-uthmani) or the
Uthmanic orthography:
2. The second component is the dots or diacritical marks of the Qur'an (
الإعجام), which were reportedly added first by
Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali, to help non-Arabs to read the Qur'an correctly,and were later standardized to its current form by
Al-Khalil Al-Farahidi
3. The third component is the short vowels (الضبط) :
4. The fourth and last component is the signs for pausing or continuing or in other words punctuation marks (علامات الوقف):
May Allah guide us, and help us be on the right path.
والله أعلم
Wa Allahu 'Alam (And Allah is the All-Knowing)
Note:
This post starts with the well known opening lines of at least one of Prophet Muhammad's ﷺ sermon. Al-Nisaa’i
(May Allah have mercy on him) reported in his Sunan al-Nisaa’i: Kitaab al-Jumu’ah (Click Here) that ‘Abd-Allah ibn Mas’ud (may
Allah be pleased with him) reported that the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ taught us the Khutbah Haajah .
