The Prophet ﷺ said, "...No people gather together in one of the Houses of Allah, reciting the Book of Allah and studying it among themselves, except that sakeenah (tranquility) descends upon them, and mercy envelops them, and the angels surround them, and Allah mentions them amongst those who are with Him. And whoever is slowed down by his actions, will not be hastened forward by his lineage." [Muslim]
Shaykh AbdulRazzaq AlBadr said, "The Qur'an is the book of happiness, based on the verses (20:123-126):
Allah sends down guidance and people divide into two categories:
1) People who follow the guidance -> They will neither go astray, nor fall into distress
2) People who turn away from the reminder -> They will have a life of hardship
Even if this person wants to get food it's with hardship, when he wants to earn money it's with hardship. His life will be hardship upon hardship. And this is just in the Dunya - What about the Day of Judgement?
Whenever you come across the word ءايات in the Qur'an, know it's not limited to verses in the Qur'an. It could be the universal signs of Allah, the signs of Allah in the decreed matters and events we go through in life. Everything you see and hear and go through are signs and messages from Allah.
النسيان has two meanings in Arabic:
1) Forgetfulness
2) Abandonment / Turning Away
The ءايات came to him, but he deliberately turned away from them, so he'll be left in Hell like a neglected person.
Allah never forgets. This person will be dealt with as he dealt with the verses of Allah in this life.
Whoever seeks happiness for himself, let him seek it from this blessed source - The Qur'an.
You don't find anyone except that they are searching happiness. And there is no happiness except in holding fast to the Qur'an.
If you go to the beginning of the same Surah - In Verse 2:
Allah didn't send the Qur'an to cause grief, hardship. Rather Allah sent the Qur'an to make you happy, to bring you joy.
In some of the books of Tafseer the Quraish said that the Qur'an had caused the Prophet ﷺ and his companions a lot of hardship and distress. Upon that Allah revealed these verses.
Back to Verse 123:
Allah negates two matters from the person who follows the guidance. And the negation of any statement affirms the opposite meaning.
Allah negated misguidance so He affirms guidance
He negates distress, so He affirms happiness
Whoever follows the guidance of Allah will be guided + happy.
Guidance and happiness are linked together. They're inseparable. Wherever there is guidance, you'll find happiness. And whenever there is misguidance you'll find distress.
Imagine yourself - if you're going somewhere and suddenly you get lost. You don't know where to go or how to reach your destination. You won't be happy at all. You'll feel distressed, unhappy, lost, constricted, fear, etc. A misguided person never feels happy, even if he swears he's living a life of happiness.
And you find people far away from the way of Allah, and Allah guided them after some time, they say now we truly feel happy. They taste the sweetness of faith in their heart, they feel the comfort in their hearts, they feel peace of mind, rest, tranquility, which they never tasted when they were misguided. And this is what we go through in our lives.
The Shaykh mentioned a story of a man. He said someone called him after the Asr prayer and said, "I have a question. But before I ask you I want to tell you about my state. I'm a 27 years old man and I'm totally paralyzed, except for my head" The Shaykh requested to visit him and saw him for that state. For an hour and a half the man was talking about his life. From among what he said, "Shaykh, now I feel very happy, a happiness which I never felt when I was walking on my legs and seeking happiness in whatever I was doing. I never felt that except after the car accident"
He is paralyzed, but he feels a happiness he never felt when he was healthy.
But what was the source of this happiness?
He said after my accident a good man gave me a gift, a voice operated computer. He just needs to say Surah such and such, verse such and such, and that verse in the Qur'an will be opened, along with the Tafseer. In this way he learnt, understood, and memorized the Qur'an. And this made him happy.
What about us? Allah granted us good health and we have no excuse not to read or study the Qur'an.
How much are we giving the Qur'an it's due right?
How many times do we read the Qur'an, understand it in a week?
"فمن اتبع هداي"
You have to follow the guidance. It's not just reading the Qur'an, or just memorizing it. We need to follow the Qur'an. To act upon its teaching. To follow its commandments. To abstain from its prohibitions. This will lead you to happiness.
What does following require from me?
1) To recite it correctly.
I have to know how to recite the Quran and pronounce it correctly.
2) To understand what I'm reciting
3) To ponder upon it, to think deeply and reflect over the verse until you reach the objective of the revelation of this verse. What does Allah want from me?
4) To act upon it with your heart, tongue, hand, limbs, etc.
In (38:29):
In Verse 124:
Turning away is giving your back to the Qur'an. And this has different forms:
1) Not reading it at all
Many Muslims don't read the Qur'an except in Ramadan,
2) Reciting it without understanding it
3) Reading, understanding, but not acting upon it.
These are all kinds of abandonment of the Qur'an.
Look at the state of most of the Muslims nowadays. They may read, but do they understand and act upon it? Whatever you see of distress all over the world, the crisis people are going through, whether it's political, economic, all the killing and the oppression, it's because of turning away from the Qur'an and the Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ.
The hearts are constricted and there is no happiness. They don't know it's because they're turning away from the Qur'an, so they try to remove this distress by excessively indulging themselves in the Dunya, committing sins, etc. Ans if the distress doesn't go from them they think of suicide.
The youth especially nowadays, even if they don't talk, if you sit with them you feel that they are thinking of such things. They don't understand why there are problems in their lives, etc. These are Muslim youth. And they seek happiness in committing sins and drugs, thinking its ways of attaining happiness.
The Qur'an is a book of guidance.
Shaikh AlGhamdi said, "The Qur'an has many guidances:
-> The first most important guidances is that it guides us to Allah, His names, His attributes, what He loves, what He hates, His actions with the believers, with the enemies of Islam, etc.
We need to know Allah, to worship Him, and love Him. If we do this we've fulfilled our purpose in the Dunya.
-> It guides us to know the Prophet ﷺ. His story, his manners, etc.
-> It guides us to know about the universe we are living in, how Allah created it when it was nothing, and from what Allah created it, and how it's end will be. The story of the first man and how Allah created them.
The youth go toward atheism because they are missing this guidance. Atheism is spreading amongst the Muslim youth.
From the guidance of the Qur'an is that it guides us to know who we are and how to deal with ourselves. There are more than 40 verses in the Qur'an which tell us about our nature.
Everything we need is in the Qur'an. It was revealed upon the Prophet ﷺ and it affected the companions and changed them totally.
Why doesn't the Qur'an have an effect on us? The companions of the Prophet ﷺ did three things which we are missing:
1) The Qur'an was the only source of learning for them.
They didn't look left and right seeking other philosophies, theories, or ideas. - although at their time there were the Romans and the Persians. They focused on learning the Qur'an.
Nowadays we have many sources of learning (with regards to religion, and reforming the heart) besides the Qur'an. And the Qur'an is the speech of Allah - how can we equate these sources with it?
Especially when we bring up our children we take wrong methodologies from other sources. The Qur'an should be enough for us. Allah said in (98:6):
How can the best of creation take from the worst?
When we turn away from the Qur'an and Sunnah then we witness the result. Look at what kind of children we have nowadays. All the mothers complain and suffer, because the way we raise our children is not according to the Qur'an and Sunnah.
One time Umar came to the Prophet ﷺ with some papers from the Torah. The Propphet became angry. He said, "Ya Ibn AlKhattab, do you doubt our religion? By the one in whose hand is my soul, if Musa was alive, he would have to follow me"
Do you doubt in your religion - that the Qur'an is not a book of guidance, or that the Prophet ﷺ didn't complete his mission?
2) They took the Qur'an as a means of implementation without delay or procrastination.
As soon as the verse came to them with the command they would follow, as soon as a prohibition came they would abstain.
When the verse of Hijab in Surah AlAhzab was revealed the Ansari women immediately tore their waist belts and covered themselves. Like black birds moving, nothing shown from them.
And when the prohibition of wine was revealed, one of the Sahabah said the cup of wine was on his mouth, when he heard that Allah revealed a verse on the prohibition of wine he poured it, such that the streets of Madinah flowed with wine. Immediate implementation.
And then compare that to our attitude with the Qur'an.
3) They pondered over the meaning of the Qur'an, reflected, and acted.
Ibn Masoud said, "We would not read 10 (or 5) without acting upon them"
They didn't focus on reading or memorizing. Not all of them memorized the Qur'an. They knew that Allah didn't read the Qur'an solely for reading and memorizing.
So we have to recite the Quran correctly -> understand what we are reading. It's not a matter of finishing. Even one verse if you read it with understanding, you'll be rewarded for it. Then I need to ponder and reflect deeply over it. Contemplate on the relationship between the verses, what does Allah want from me. You might think about a verse for one week and find out the objective of the verse -> then I need to act upon it.
The hypocrites read the Qur'an, as the Prophet ﷺ said. But it didn't have an effect on them, or cure the sicknesses that they had. What's their problem? They didn't understand, or ponder,
But it's as if the hearts are locked - and they need to be unlocked. In. :
Allah mentioned this verse after talking about the hypocrites. They don't ponder over the Qur'an,
Ibn Masoud said, "How many recitors of the Qur'an and the Qur'an is cursing him"
Why? because he's doing the action which Allah prohibited although he's reading that verse.
In life we are walking on a path. At the end of the path there is a meeting with Allah. Allah grants us faculties: Eyes, ears, hearts, limbs, to help us walk in life. And this path is covered with signs. Signs which say, "If you follow this way you'll be doomed in the end"
In another sign, "If you follow this way there's a deep valley in the end you'll fall in"
'If you follow this way you'll be drowned.."
"if you follow this sign there are animals which will kill and devour you"
And there's another sign which says, "If you follow it you will reach to Allah peacefully."
If you read without understanding what's written, you'll fall into any of these traps. This is the important of understanding. If you read without understanding you may be lost.
We need to read with understanding.
E.g. The person reads. In (20:131):
The Dunya is like a flower. It quickly dries up. This person reads this and his heart is attached to the Dunya. He doesn't understand what he's reading, what Allah wants from him.
E.g. Or Every day He sees the universal signs of Allah: The sun rising, reaching its zenith, and decline. We see this cycle every day, the moon in the beginning of the month reaches a pinnacle and dies. It tells you O man the same thing will happen to you. You were nothing, you attained full strength, and you will die one day and Allah will resurrect you again. Every day Allah shows these signs, but we turn away from these signs. We don't understand - we don't know how to read the signs of Allah. We are ignorant in interpreting the signs of Allah. This is like the person who is deaf and blind. Allah has mentioned so many times in the Qur'an that there are people who are deaf and blind - the people who hear and see the signs of Allah but it as if they don't see it, as if they are not meant by it. This is the state of the people. They go on in their lives like this until they meet Allah. Until Allah says: My verses came to you, why didn't you take the lesson?
We have to read everything correctly. If you read the book in the way Allah is pleased with it will lead you to guidance and happiness. And the most important guidance is the guidance to Allah.
Pondering over one verse - What does it tell us about Allah?
In (11:44):
I
Nuh came to his people calling them to worship Allah alone and they opposed him. Then Allah commanded Nuh to construct the ark and carry with him those who believed with him amongst his family and the animals. When the command of Allah came water poured from the sky - Ibn Abbas said that there were no clouds in the sky, it's as if the sky opened gates and the water flowed down.
"التنور" is the furnace in the ground. The water came out from the تنور, meaning not only the springs gushed water, the entire earth itself became a spring gushing forth water. And the ship sailed in this water, the disbelievers drowned, and Allah saved Nuh.
We need to recite this verse, ponder over it, and act. acting isn't limited to the limbs, it could be an action of the heart. If this verse increased you in faith, then you have acted upon it
What does this verse teach me about Allah??
Allah's greatness. No one else has the command to control the earth and the sky. He told the earth to swallow it's water.
No one can talk to the earth and tell it to do what he wants it to.
These are all calls and commands.
The water didn't subside except by the command which caused it to subside.
And the decree of Allah is fulfilled. What Allah wants to happen is accomplished.
This should make you feel Allah's greatness. He commanded the earth and sky to bring forth water, and when all the disbelievers were drowned he commanded foe the water to be taken our. If you repeat and imagine these scene to yourself, it's something great. It should bring magndiciairon of Allah in your heart, who can command the whole earth and the sky to withdraw their water.
And the ship rested on Judi.
When you read this again and again and think about the earth and sky which are greater in creation than the human beings and they submit to the command of Allah, and obey Allah, and withdraw their water after the death of the disbelievers. This isn't something trivial, that happens everyday. This never happened in the history of the earth - that the entire earth was flooded. Belief in Allah's greatness should increase in your heart.
This shows you Allah's might. Believing in the greatness of Allah is an action required from you towards Allah.
When you read a verse and think of something, don't affirm what you thought of until you go to the Tafseer book.
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