Our Character with the Qur'an

Occasion: Transcription of a khatira delivered on 26 June 2019 Source: A transcription of a video khatira by Dr. Ahmed Abouseif — Watch the original video on YouTube

On Wednesday of every week we have the honor of sitting around the table of character. And in today's gathering I wanted us to ask about the character that is a right of the Noble Qur'an over us.

Sincere Counsel for the Book

We have a ḥadīth of the Prophet ﷺ in which he says: «الدينُ النصيحة» ("The religion is sincere counsel"), and we said: For whom, O Messenger of Allah? He ﷺ said: «لله، ولرسوله، ولكتابه، ولأئمة المسلمين وعامتهم» ("For Allah, for His Messenger, for His Book, and for the leaders of the Muslims and their common people").^[1] So the Prophet ﷺ singled out the Qur'an for sincere counsel from among those he mentioned. And the question comes: How do we give sincere counsel to Allah, how do we give sincere counsel to the Messenger, and how do we give sincere counsel to the Qur'an? And the answer from the people of knowledge is that sincere counsel for the Book is to care for it, to give attention to it, and to look after it.

And I do not think a true believer is unaware of the saying of Allah, blessed and exalted is He: ﴿وَقَالَ الرَّسُولُ يَا رَبِّ إِنَّ قَوْمِي اتَّخَذُوا هَٰذَا الْقُرْآنَ مَهْجُورًا﴾.^[2] (And the Messenger said: My Lord, indeed my people have taken this Qur'an as something abandoned). It is a reproach from Allah the Exalted to mankind on the tongue of the prophets, on the tongue of the Prophet Muḥammad ﷺ, or it is a complaint from the Prophet ﷺ about the whole Ummah before the Lord of Might, glorified is He. And Allah the Exalted mentioned this verse in the context of a discussion of the doings of the polytheists and what they were deluded by of what they had in their hands, and of the companionship that avails its owner nothing before Allah, Mighty and Majestic, on the Day of Resurrection: ﴿يَا لَيْتَنِي اتَّخَذْتُ مَعَ الرَّسُولِ سَبِيلًا * يَا وَيْلَتَىٰ لَيْتَنِي لَمْ أَتَّخِذْ فُلَانًا خَلِيلًا * لَقَدْ أَضَلَّنِي عَنِ الذِّكْرِ بَعْدَ إِذْ جَاءَنِي ۗ وَكَانَ الشَّيْطَانُ لِلْإِنسَانِ خَذُولًا * وَقَالَ الرَّسُولُ يَا رَبِّ إِنَّ قَوْمِي اتَّخَذُوا هَٰذَا الْقُرْآنَ مَهْجُورًا﴾ (Oh, if only I had taken a path with the Messenger. Oh, woe to me! If only I had not taken that one as a close friend. He led me away from the Reminder after it had come to me; and ever is Satan, to man, a deserter. And the Messenger said: My Lord, indeed my people have taken this Qur'an as something abandoned), and look at the Qur'anic conclusion: ﴿وَكَذَٰلِكَ جَعَلْنَا لِكُلِّ نَبِيٍّ عَدُوًّا مِّنَ الْمُجْرِمِينَ ۗ وَكَفَىٰ بِرَبِّكَ هَادِيًا وَنَصِيرًا﴾ (And thus have We made for every prophet an enemy from among the criminals. But sufficient is your Lord as a guide and helper). So distance from the Noble Qur'an was bad manners toward what Allah the Exalted sent down of the Magnificent Book.

Come, let us look at the system of rights that we should fulfill for the Book of Allah, blessed and exalted is He.

The First Right: Acknowledging the Existence of the Qur'an

I see, and Allah the Exalted knows best, that the first right is the right of acknowledging the existence of the Qur'an. And you may say: There is no Muslim on the face of the earth who does not acknowledge the existence of the Noble Qur'an! So we ask: What is the significance of the word "acknowledgment"?

How do you acknowledge my existence now, for example, as imam of the mosque? No one goes ahead of me to lead the prayer, and no one raises his voice above what I indicate of opinion concerning the scope of my work and my specialty. And acknowledging the presence of the doctor in the examination room does not permit anyone to presume against that doctor, nor to issue rulings in his presence in his specialty and field. And acknowledging the presence of a judge who rules in the court does not give me the right at all to take a decision in the case of the accused who is before him. So the matter of acknowledgment is not that I say: Here is a judge, here is an imam, here is a doctor; rather it requires a tremendous measure of commitment toward the one whose existence we have acknowledged. Likewise acknowledging the presence of the father and mother in our lives is acknowledging their rights, and is not merely acknowledging their existence in a concrete or symbolic sense.

So the matter of acknowledging the existence of the Noble Qur'an in the life of the Muslim Ummah needs reconsideration in these times, indeed in all generations except those on whom Allah, blessed and exalted is He, has had mercy. That is because the Noble Qur'an has been regarded in our lives as verbal material, and this is among those who care for it, so let us be attentive: among those who care for the Qur'an and memorize it. They begin it with the saying of the Exalted ﴿الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ * الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ﴾ (All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds. The Most Gracious, the Most Merciful), and pass through Sūrat al-Baqara and Āl ʿImrān and the rest of the sūras until they stop at the saying of the Exalted: ﴿قُلْ أَعُوذُ بِرَبِّ النَّاسِ * مَلِكِ النَّاسِ * إِلَٰهِ النَّاسِ * مِن شَرِّ الْوَسْوَاسِ الْخَنَّاسِ * الَّذِي يُوَسْوِسُ فِي صُدُورِ النَّاسِ * مِنَ الْجِنَّةِ وَالنَّاسِ﴾ (Say: I seek refuge in the Lord of mankind, the Sovereign of mankind, the God of mankind, from the evil of the retreating whisperer, who whispers in the breasts of mankind, from among the jinn and mankind). The Qur'an has ended in their hands. So what has that reader benefited? What has that memorizer retained? What has that reviser been affected by? Perhaps the answer varies from one person to another, but in the science of statistics the overall result represents nothing, otherwise it would have changed the lifestyle of persons and individuals.

The Blessing of Preservation in the Chests

Among the blessings of Allah, blessed and exalted is He, upon us is that He deposited the Noble Qur'an in the chests of creation, for it is the most complete means of preserving the Book of Allah. What is written is subject to change or substitution, and many people may not notice. And you find at times complaints that this application on the phone, for example, has errors in the Qur'an in such-and-such pages, and that they replaced the wāw or the fāʾ or replaced a word, and statements and warnings are issued and fill WhatsApp and social media. And one of the brothers, may Allah honor him, came to me with a muṣḥaf several weeks ago, and he opened it, and because he memorizes he discovered a defect in such-and-such verse, or missed a page, perhaps that was by mistake, but the page was lost. And I always say: Glory be to Allah, the one who memorizes will notice, because one who does not memorize does not know.

And many of the brothers often ask me: Why don't you record the rakʿas of the prayers? And I am a man to whom forgetfulness largely applies, and if I reflect on a verse, what follows it escapes my mind, and so Allah, blessed and exalted is He, made it; so I need a number of reviews before I enter the prayer to recite the verses as the Lord of the worlds, glorified is He, sent them down. If I lost a word in a recording of the prayer, and people took this material that contained some error, or I lost a verse or a word or a vocalization, or I was confused while reciting whether this is inflected thus or so, a kind of error would occur. For this reason we have seen our scholars and our great shaykhs of the reciters, when they sit to record the Qur'anic material, even though he is the shaykh of the reciters, the muṣḥaf is before him. Why? Because he does not want to omit anything. And usually when we omit something of the Noble Qur'an it is not something we are aware of, for none of those who recite the Qur'an in their prayers will realize that he erred in a word or changed it and then move on. And what is the meaning of error here? That a word was missed or dropped or a vocalization happened in such-and-such manner. This is among what occurs in writing, which is subject to substitution and change. As for the one who perceives the Noble Qur'an as to the soundness of its recitation and the soundness of its words or lack of it, it is that memorizer.

You remember on Friday in the khutba, glory be to Allah, we mentioned that our shaykhs we used to listen to when we were in the kuttāb. The shaykh might remain from Fajr all day in the recitation circle, and the students would come, and we, as little children, used to compete: who will go to the kuttāb first to take the attendance sheet? The one who goes first is utterly proud: he opens the notebook and tears out two sheets from it and folds them, then writes his name as the first name, for he is the first present in the kuttāb today. Then he keeps track of whoever comes after him, and you are the one who holds the sheet, so you are the object of the shaykh's attention, he calls you every so often and asks: Who is after him? So your name is called in the sight of those present, of the memorizers of the Noble Qur'an and its students. And the shaykh, from extreme exhaustion, might be overcome by drowsiness and take a nap, and you do not wake him however loud the voices of the boys and the noise, and however much voices rise they perhaps do not bring him out of his sleep, but one single error in a vocalization or in a word or in a letter wakes him as though someone had alerted him. Glory be to Allah the All-Powerful! This is the Noble Qur'an.

What It Means to Acknowledge It

So we return to the right of acknowledging the existence of the Qur'an. What does it mean that I acknowledge the existence of a father in the house? First, that I respect his presence, and second, if a problem arises, who speaks the last word in it? And who decides the matter in it? And who rules in it? It is that elder, that father. So are Muslims now, and I am speaking of their memorizers, dealing with the Qur'an as they deal with one whose right they have truly acknowledged in their lives, so that their souls find rest in it, their chests are reassured by it, their ribs are calmed by it, and every person with a matter or an obstacle or a problem seeks guidance from it? Is that present in the life of the believers now?

So I see, and Allah the Exalted knows best, that the first right of the Noble Qur'an in our lives is that we acknowledge its existence. And the Lord of Might, glorified is He, said when He spoke of the Qur'an: ﴿لِّيُنذِرَ مَن كَانَ حَيًّا وَيَحِقَّ الْقَوْلُ عَلَى الْكَافِرِينَ﴾.^[3] (That it may warn whoever is alive and the word may be justified against the disbelievers). So let us pay attention: ﴿لِّيُنذِرَ مَن كَانَ حَيًّا﴾ (that it may warn whoever is alive), and we benefit from that that whoever is not warned by the Qur'an is not alive, as if he were in the ruling of the dead; so the one who reads the Noble Qur'an and takes no lesson from its verses is as if he were not among the living. Glory be to the One who sent down this speech to be a healing for what is in the chests, and to be guidance and mercy, and to be light. Glory be to Allah the All-Powerful!

So the Noble Qur'an should be acknowledged in the lives of Muslims as a reference and a way of guidance, and a word of Allah, blessed and exalted is He, that regulates the movement of life. Otherwise what is the benefit of its existence? Imagine a person who has a treasury full of tons of money, but he does not spend from it; what is the benefit of its existence? This money has not bought food while I am hungry. Which currency shall we eat? The money will have no value, however abundant, if it is not used in its place and needs are brought through it because of its existence; there is no benefit in its existence and it is like nothing. Imagine a man in the desert with a ton of gold, but he has no water, so what does the gold benefit him at that time? Nothing. So the Noble Qur'an, which has lost its effect in the movement of people's lives today, should have the first right tonight as we speak about the right of acknowledging its existence.

Between Heavenly and Man-Made Reference

People today are between the heavenly reference and the man-made reference. What does that mean? We have a law that came down from heaven, by which Allah, glorified and exalted is He, rules in the affairs of creation: ﴿إِنَّا أَنزَلْنَا إِلَيْكَ الْكِتَابَ بِالْحَقِّ لِتَحْكُمَ بَيْنَ النَّاسِ بِمَا أَرَاكَ اللَّهُ ۚ وَلَا تَكُن لِّلْخَائِنِينَ خَصِيمًا﴾.^[4] (Indeed, We have sent down to you the Book in truth so that you may judge between the people by that which Allah has shown you. And do not be for the deceitful an advocate). This is the way of the Lord of the worlds, glorified and exalted is He, which He sent down to rule among creation, and to convey to them the principles of life and its constants, and to set for them the controls that protect them and keep them from departing from the foundation of the divine way. But we leave that altogether and set off to man-made laws.

And I am not saying that we should depart from the framework of man-made laws in our lives. For we are in the midst of methods; in the traffic law by which we travel on the road we have no Qur'anic text that defines the road markings for us, and there is no verse in the Qur'an that says: Stop at the stop sign. But the Lord of the worlds, glorified and exalted is He, formulated for us in the Noble Qur'an that we return to the authority in that: the people of the Reminder, the people of specialization. We do not have in the Noble Qur'an how many floors to build when we build an apartment building or a house, but the people of specialization, the people of the Reminder, give the ruling that this plot of land can bear ten floors, and that this plot can only bear two floors; we should not depart from their word, and by that we are obeying the command of the Noble Qur'an: ﴿فَاسْأَلُوا أَهْلَ الذِّكْرِ إِن كُنتُمْ لَا تَعْلَمُونَ﴾.^[5] (So ask the people of the Reminder if you do not know). Is it not so? And Allah the Exalted knows best.

But reflect on this example: A woman comes and says: I do not want to follow the way of the Sharīʿa in the case of divorce, she says: People, divorce me. Fine, my lady, we put our trust in Allah, we examine the matter and study it, and we spend time between the two in an attempt at reconciliation, and if the relationship ends at this point, Allah decreed and what He willed He did. So what is yours and what is upon you? She says: No, Shaykh, I only want this word from you, as for my right, I know where to get it. Where to? To the court. So she left here a law drawn by the Lord of the worlds, whose features He defined on the basis of the lawful marriage she entered into, and she set off because she wants to take more. Should we respect this? Of course we should respect this, but if her interest is in the man-made law she went to it. And if the man-made law is going to tell her: You have half of his possessions, and our man is bankrupt and owns nothing, so if she goes to the court she will find nothing, then yes, she must return to us, and say: Shaykh, I want the Sharīʿa, for he owes the deferred dowry. And the other may have been cleverer than her, and registered his possessions in the name of someone else. This is trickery, and each party deceives the other in some way, and this is a departure from the foundation of the divine way that the Lord of the worlds, glorified and exalted is He, sent down to regulate people's lives and movement, and a circumventing in pursuit of more worldly gains.

Clear Signs in the Chests of Those Given Knowledge

We were speaking about the memorizers, about those who care for the Noble Qur'an, and we said that for many of these the Qur'an has no truly acknowledged existence, but it is verses that pass over the tongue and the heart, we ask Allah for blessing. But when the Lord of the worlds, glorified and exalted is He, spoke about this kind of people He said: ﴿بَلْ هُوَ آيَاتٌ بَيِّنَاتٌ فِي صُدُورِ الَّذِينَ أُوتُوا الْعِلْمَ﴾.^[6] (Rather, it is clear verses in the breasts of those who have been given knowledge). As if, when you were given the Qur'an, you were given knowledge, and as if, when you were given knowledge, the Noble Qur'an became clear verses. And what is the significance of that? That it lights your way for you, makes known to you the paths, defines the landmarks for you, makes you stand on the truths, and shows you right from wrong.

So the Noble Qur'an for you is like this GPS, the navigation by which you move, it tells you: right, left. Clear verses, the landmarks are clear, it tells you: Be careful, the road you are on will have traffic ahead in a little while, so take this road, it is better, it saves you three minutes and forty-five seconds. To this precision! And I believe in this speech, yes, I believe in the navigation and in the wisdom it has been given in guiding people along the roads. Well, would my belief in this means be greater than my belief that Allah the Exalted has drawn me the map of life in the Noble Qur'an? Would this be just? Is it fairness of the servant to himself with Allah, glorified and exalted is He? And from the servant's standing on the reality of the divine descent, the descent of the Qur'an from Allah, glorified and exalted is He, to the earth of worldly life?

The Duty of Non-Memorizers and of Memorizers

If we speak of people as two kinds, memorizers and non-memorizers: the non-memorizers are obliged to memorize, because learning the Noble Qur'an is a source of excellence in this Ummah. The Prophet ﷺ narrated that the best of people are those who learn the Qur'an and teach it,^[7] so whoever has not memorized the Noble Qur'an is obliged to memorize. And you say to me: Isn't this difficult? And I have no ability. And I know only one sentence in this regard, it says: ﴿وَلَقَدْ يَسَّرْنَا الْقُرْآنَ لِلذِّكْرِ فَهَلْ مِن مُّدَّكِرٍ﴾.^[8] (And We have certainly made the Qur'an easy for remembrance, so is there any who will remember?). So if you come to memorize something after Fajr and you say: This verse is difficult for me, and this sūra I cannot memorize, and I do not know how to join the two verses together, do not be hasty; Allah, glorified and exalted is He, tests, but His promise, Mighty and Majestic, is fulfilled that the Qur'an is made easy for remembrance: ﴿فَهَلْ مِن مُّدَّكِرٍ﴾ (so is there any who will remember)? As if Allah the Exalted is calling the aspirations to arms: Who will rise for this matter? And who will take the lead in it? And who will say: Here I am, it is just my role in life to memorize the Noble Qur'an so as to be a means of conveying it to others? The Qur'an should not be confined with you. So the non-memorizer's duty is to memorize the Noble Qur'an because it is a source of excellence, and no one has an excuse not to memorize; because the One who promised that it is easy and simple is Allah, glorified and exalted is He, and the Lord of Might said: ﴿وَلَقَدْ يَسَّرْنَا الْقُرْآنَ لِلذِّكْرِ فَهَلْ مِن مُّدَّكِرٍ﴾ (And We have certainly made the Qur'an easy for remembrance, so is there any who will remember?).

And if we speak of the memorizers, then it is a right of the Noble Qur'an over them that they learn its rulings, its controls, its meanings and its indications, and that they study it, otherwise what is the benefit of the text if there is no commentary around it? And the first commentary on the Noble Qur'an is the Sunna of the Prophet ﷺ, and after that come the understandings of the upright among the people of knowledge, generation after generation, with which the benefits they derive from the verses of the Wise Reminder are renewed. And glory be to the One whose speech this is!

And we ask Allah the Exalted to grant us good action with what He has given us, and to make us content, glorified and exalted is He, with the Noble Qur'an, and to make it our path to Paradise. O Allah, amen. And we will continue the discussion of this subject, if Allah wills, may Allah reward you with good.

--- ^[1]: Editor's documentation: Narrated by Muslim from the ḥadīth of Tamīm al-Dārī (may Allah be pleased with him) in the wording "The religion is sincere counsel… for Allah, for His Book, for His Messenger, and for the leaders of the Muslims and their common people"; the speaker gave it with the Messenger placed before the Book. ^[2]: Editor's documentation: al-Furqān: 30; and the verses recited after it in the body are from al-Furqān: 27 to 31. ^[3]: Editor's documentation: Yā Sīn: 70. ^[4]: Editor's documentation: al-Nisāʾ: 105. ^[5]: Editor's documentation: al-Naḥl: 43. ^[6]: Editor's documentation: al-ʿAnkabūt: 49. ^[7]: Editor's documentation: The ḥadīth is in the sense of "The best of you are those who learn the Qur'an and teach it," and it is in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī from the ḥadīth of ʿUthmān (may Allah be pleased with him). The speaker transmitted it by meaning. ^[8]: Editor's documentation: al-Qamar: 17.