by Sheikh Imran Nazar Hosein
Introduction
“And when the Qur’ān is recited unto them, why do they do not fall down in prostration?”
(Qur’ān, al-Inshiqāq, 84:21)
The Qur’ān declares that it is the revealed Word of the One True God, and Prophet Muhammad (a) identified the Qur’ān as the miracle which had come to the world through him. Is that claim of the Qur’ān true, or is it false?
Anyone can read the Qur’ān, but someone who has not as yet responded to the above question must first do so before he or she can embark on a study of the Qur’ān. Those who have not as yet taken a decision to either accept, or to reject the claim of the Qur’ān that it is the revealed Word of the God of Nabī Ibrāhīm (Abraham) (a), may read with benefit the chapter on Credentials of the Qur’ān, located in Chapter One of this book.
The fate which awaits those who reject this claim of the Qur’ān, is the same as that which awaits all those who rejected the Taurāt (i.e., Torah) that was revealed to Nabī Mūsa (Moses) (a) the Zabūr (i.e., Psalms) that were revealed to Nabī Dāūd (David) (a), or the Injīl (i.e.,Gospel) that was revealed to Nabī ‘Īsa (Jesus) (a) for these Books also, were the revealed Word of the One True God.
This book is written to guide those who have accepted the Qur’ān as the revealed Word of the One True God, and who now want to respond to His repeated plea, in Sūrah al-Qamar for example, to study the Qur’ān. This plea is repeated no less than four times in that Sūrah:
“We have indeed made this Qur’ān easy to study and to understand: who, then, is willing to study it, learn from it and be admonished by it?”
(Qur’ān, al-Qamar, 54:17, 22, 32, 40)
It should be clearly understood that those who believe that the Qur’ān is the Word of the One God, and yet fail to recite and to study the Qur’ān, will certainly pay a price one day for that neglect of Allah’s Holy Book. They can begin paying that price as soon as they die and are buried in their graves, and the angels then appear to question them in the grave. Before the questioning can begin in the grave, they will have to answer some preliminary questions through which they will be identified. Such would be the questions:
If a Muslim were to answer that he followed Nabī Muhammad (s), then it would imply that his Book is the Qur’ān, and it is by that Book that he would be judged. What will that hapless Muslim do in the grave, who lived his life without ever learning to recite the Qur’ān in Arabic, if the angel hands him a copy of the Qur’ān and asks him to recite the Book? What will be his fate if he asks for an English or a French Qur’ān? What will be his fate if he recites the Qur’ān, but his recitation is so poor, making so many mistakes in recitation, that it becomes an embarrassment for him? The Qur’ān has warned of the fate that awaits those who are ungrateful to the Lord-God in so rejecting (through neglect) the Truth which has come from Him:
Who is your God?
Which Nabī (i.e., Prophet) did you follow? etc.
If a Muslim were to answer that he followed Nabī Muhammad (s), then it would imply that his Book is the Qur’ān, and it is by that Book that he would be judged. What will that hapless Muslim do in the grave, who lived his life without ever learning to recite the Qur’ān in Arabic, if the angel hands him a copy of the Qur’ān and asks him to recite the Book? What will be his fate if he asks for an English or a French Qur’ān? What will be his fate if he recites the Qur’ān, but his recitation is so poor, making so many mistakes in recitation, that it becomes an embarrassment for him? The Qur’ān has warned of the fate that awaits those who are ungrateful to the Lord-God in so rejecting (through neglect) the Truth which has come from Him:
“And if you could but see [how it will be] when He causes those who are bent on denying the truth (and this includes ingratitude) to die: the angels will strike their faces: and their backs, and [will say]: "Taste suffering through fire”.
(Qur’ān, al-Anfāl, 8:50)
The very first lesson that a student must learn when studying the Qur’ān, regardless of whether he is Muslim, Christian, Jew, or other, is that nothing happens in this book by accident or by chance. Rather, every single word, every sentence, including the literary form in which a sentence is constructed, is specifically placed in the Book by divine design and for a purpose. Even an omission in the text, such as the absence of the phrase “with the name of Allah Most Gracious, Most Merciful” at the beginning of Sūrah al-Taubah, is vitally important to be studied, and so too a statement which is understood, while not actually stated in the text, such as (see brackets):
“… and for those who can fast (only with difficulty) there is a ransom that they can feed the poor in place of fasting”.
(Qur’ān, al-Baqarah, 2:184)
It is therefore not possible to make a credible study of the Qur’ān unless the student can access the Arabic text of the Book. One can read a translation (in another language) of the Qur’ān, but one can never study the Qur’ān through a translation.
The so-called civilized oppressors who control power in the modern world, and who used that power to shamelessly conquer and colonize most of the world of Islam at the point of a naked blood-stained sword, brought about such changes in the educational system of their colonized subjects as eventually robbed nearly all non-Arab Muslims of the Arabic language. Even when many Arabs migrated to Europe from North Africa, the same thing happened. There are legions of contemporary Arabs who were born in France, Belgium, Germany or elsewhere in Western Europe, or who arrived in Europe as children, and who in consequence of the educational system, today cannot read or recite the Qur’ān in Arabic, even though they are Arabs.
This book on methodology for the study of the Qur’ān is written to assist such Muslims in particular. It is written in a manner designed to ensure that they will give priority attention to learning sufficient Arabic as to be able to read and understand the Qur’ān in its Arabic text. When they recover the Arabic language of which they were robbed, and they then study the Qur’ān, this miraculous Book can become the means through which they can eventually deliver an eloquent response to the oppressor who is waging ever-increasing war on Islam on behalf of Dajjāl’s Imposter State of Israel.
Secondly, Allah Most High has declared that He sent Nabī Muhammad (s) as the teacher who would not only transmit, but also teach the Qur’ān:
“Even as We have sent unto you a Messenger from among you, who recites to you Our revelations and purifies you, and (only then he) teaches you the Scripture (i.e., the Qur’ān) and wisdom, and teaches you that which you knew not.”
(Qur’ān, al-Baqarah, 2:151)
The student who would study the Qur’ān must, therefore, study what the Prophet taught concerning the Qur’ān. He described Sūrah Yāsīn, for example, as the heart of the Qur’ān, and he desired that every Muslim should memorize that Sūrah:
Anas bin Malik narrates that the Prophet said: Everything has a heart, and the heart of the Qur’ān is Yāsīn.
(Sunan Tirmīdhī)
It is important to note that the verse informs us that the Prophet had to first purify (i.e.,Tazkiyah) the believers before he could teach them the Qur’ān. Unless a heart is turned to Allah Most High with sincerity, it is not possible for such a person to truly study the Qur’ān. That is because the Qur’ān is more than just a book. When the Prophet was asked: What is your miracle – while being reminded that other Prophets brought miracles with them, he replied that his miracle was the Qur’ān. It is faith in the One God which purifies the heart most of all, and so those whose hearts are turned to other than the One God, and who give their supreme loyalty to other than the One God, can never succeed in studying His miraculous Qur’ān. There are many today who rule over Muslims, like those who control power in Pakistan, who worship at the altar of a US visa or a Saudi Riyal, rather than worship the One God. What is true of the Muslim world is also becoming increasingly true of the Orthodox Christian world (other than Russia).
None have done greater work amongst Muslims in respect of Tazkiyah i.e., purification of hearts, than the authentic Sufi Masters of old. How can an enemy of Islam ever study the Qur’ān when his heart is filled with darkness? How can he ever extricate himself from darkness when the function of the Qur’ān is to take mankind out of darkness into light?
“It is He who bestows from on high clear messages unto [this] His servant, to lead you out of the deep darkness into the light: for, behold, Allah is most compassionate towards you, a dispenser of grace.”
(Qur’ān, al-Hadīd, 57:9)
So long as the divinely-appointed teacher of the Qur’ān was alive, it was obligatory on mankind to accept whatever he taught concerning the Qur’ān. When he is no longer with us in this world, how do we access that knowledge which he taught? What is the nature of the relationship between the Qur’ān and the Hadīth literature? This book attempts to offer an answer to this important question.
The Qur’ān itself has demanded, time and again, that the book be studied by all people. The book declares that it was sent down to people who think, – and thinking is the very essence of study:
“Thus clearly do We spell out these verses (of this Qur’ān) unto people who think!”
(Qur’ān, Yūnus, 10:24)
Those who adamantly refuse to study the Qur’ān provoke Allah’s anger to such an extent that he asks whether they have locks on their hearts:
“Will they not, then, ponder over this Qur’ān? – or are there locks upon their hearts?”
(Qur’ān, Muhammad, 47:24)
Those who do think, would eventually realize that the material world is now in a state of decay, and this is as a direct result of the damage being continuously inflicted on it by the modern so-called civilized west. What is true of the material world is also true of the human world in which untold millions now live as refugees because of unjust wars waged directly by the west, or waged indirectly through their Turkish, Saudi or Pakistani proxies, or are refugees from western economic and monetary oppression.
The Qur’ān has reserved the greatest punishment of all for those who commit Fasād on earth. Fasād is that which not only corrupts, but also threatens to destroy. It does not require much thinking for readers to realize that the world is now afflicted with universal Fasād. There is Fasād in endless unjust wars, the secular political system, the secular economy, the monetary system, the feminist revolution and the male-female relationship, in agriculture, transport, communication, water consumption, etc. Since the Qur’ān has declared that it explains all things, proper methodology requires that we learn the method through which we can search in the Qur’ān for that which explains the universal Fasād. If we do not do so, we would betray the Qur’ān, and we would one day have to pay the price for that betrayal.
The greatest fear that the oppressors have is the fear that the oppressed will one day recover their freedom to think, and when they do so, to recognize who are the oppressors and who are the oppressed in today’s world. Those who would think however, will find that the oppressors use television as the greatest weapon with which to corrupt and disable the mind’s capacity to think, and to thus render people deaf, dumb and blind. This book advises those who would study the Qur’ān to turn away from watching television, from reading the mainstream newspapers and listening to mainstream radio, which are all used to brainwash the mind and destroy the capacity for critical thinking.
Those who liberate their minds, and recover the art of critical thinking, are enjoined by Allah Most High to use the Qur’ān as the vital instrument with which to wage a mighty Jihād against those who, for example, wage war on Islam, but who falsely and hypocritically designate it as war on terror:
“Hence do not defer to (the likes and dislikes of) those who reject (this book as truth), but rather wage a mighty struggle against them, by means of this (book).”
(Qur’ān, al-Furqān, 25:52)
The Qur’ān recognizes that while the general reader would think over its verses and study them, that there are those who, having studied the Qur’ān while pondering and reflecting over it, would be admonished in the sense of taking the book to heart:
“[All this have We expounded in this] blessed divine writ which We have revealed unto you, [O Muhammad,] so that men may think/ponder/reflect over its messages, and that those who are endowed with understanding/insight may take them to heart.”
(Qur’ān, Sad, 38:29)
It is therefore clear that those who establish a casual relationship with the Qur’ān, while picking-up the book now and then (usually after dinner) to take a look at a passage here or there, would be in manifest disobedience of Allah Most High, and such a people can never either truly understand the Qur’ān, or take it to heart.
If the Qur’ān is to be studied by those who think, rather than to be casually read here and there, and now and then, how should the book be studied? Is there a method for the study of the Qur’ān? Is there a methodology, or the systematic, theoretical analysis of the methods that can be applied to this field of study?
to be continued .....
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