Transcription
And what's happening in Surah Najm is we're going to see a tafsir of و القرأن المجيد. What makes it so majestic?
[2:1:النجم] {وَالنَّجْمِ إِذَا هَوَى (1) مَا ضَلَّ صَاحِبُكُمْ وَمَا غَوَى}
Wouldn't it be nice if there was a streaming service that brought you closer to the Quran? Bayyinah TV strives to do just that, with over 2000 hours of enlightening content centered on the Quran and Arabic. Make learning a habit. Tap now to get Bayyinah TV for yourself today.
So, before I get into the Surah itself, I need to give you a couple more preliminary concepts that I need you to be to be aware of. You remember that Lego's analogy I gave you? I'm going to give you this picture. There's no text. There's just this picture. Um the idea is that they are strands within a Surah. Strands within a Surah. So I'm going to list some strands for you. Some of the more common strands in Meccan Surah's okay and they all get stitched together.
So one of those strands are the signs of Allah. That's one of the strands that you find a lot in Meccan Surah's. So, the signs of Allah could be in the mountains, the signs could be inside of ourselves, the signs could be in History etcetera. right? That's one.
The second is prophetic history. Prophet history, okay? Now, prophetic history, I'm not talking about nations and their destruction, that's separate. Prophetic history is like, you know when the angels came and spoke to Ibrahim -عليه السلام- that he's going to have a child. That's a small episode of prophetic history. Or when Musa -عليه السلام- spoke to Allah on the mountain, that's prophetic history, right? So that's the second strand.
Now a third strand is judgement day in the afterlife. Judgement day in the afterlife. How many we got so far? What are they? What was number one? Signs of Allah. Two? Prophet history. What was three? Judgement day, right?
Another strand is going to be the fall of nations. The fall of nations like the fall of فرعون nation, the fall of the nation of عاد and ثمود and you know so on, right? So, the fall of nations is yet another strand, right?
Then another strand is comforting the prophet. This is a very important strand that's in the Meccan Quran, comforting the prophet. So the prophet will be told -صلى الله عليه و سلم- ignore what they're saying. Be patient with what they're saying. Allah is with you etcetera. Right? So comforting the prophet is a constant strand that's going on inside of you know these Surah's.
And then these are the main ones. There's some smaller ones like for example the basis of how do I describe this? You can call it spiritual morality. Spiritual morality. Let me explain what that means. You know how like in Islam we have technicalities like how do you make wudu, right? We have technicalities for ghusl we have technicalities for how do you slaughter an animal. Those are very technical and specific things, but honesty, kindness, you know being fair to one another, being good to parents, those are not technical. That's a part of Spiritual morality. So the technical, the Sharia that stuff came mostly in Madina. But in Mecca when the Quran was talking about good deeds it was basically in the realm of this spiritual morality. That's what it was talking about.
How many strands do we have now? Six.
Another strand the Quran itself or actually let's make it broader revelation itself and let me explain what this means revelation is three things revelation is three things the angel who delivers it is part of the machinery of revelation what is the angel delivering the message that's part of revelation and who's receiving it the messenger that's also part of revelation so there's three pieces to revelation there's the deliverer the angel the you can call it the message or the book and the messenger, the recipient. All three. That is one of the subjects, one of the strands in Meccan Quran. Dealing with that in one way or the other.
The reason I brought this up right now is I want you to know something about Surah Al-Najm from the outside before we go inside. Surah Al-Najm belongs to a group of Surah's between 50 and 56. You should know that. Between what Surah's and fifty-six. These are all Meccan Surah's all of them. And they all have strands that build on each other. So Allah will give you a little bit of one of the strands in Surah Qaf and he'll give you some extras the same strand will come up somehow again in Surah Al-Zariyat then it will come again in Surah Al-Tur and then it'll come again in Najm then in Qamar then in Rahman and then in Waqiah 50 all the way to 56 I'm going to talk to you about one of those strands. One of those strands is the Quran itself. Revelation, the Quran itself is one of the strands that you find in Surah number 50. It comes again in 51. It comes again in 52, it comes again in 53 and we're in 53 right now. So, I want to show you what's happening with this strand. Why do I want to show you this strand and not the other strands because we're dealing with section number one of this Surah and section number one of the Surah is actually about the Quran, Revelation itself.
So, let me tell you what happens in Surah Qaf Allah swears [1:ق]{وَالْقُرْآنِ الْمَجِيدِ}. He swears by the Quran full of majesty. The glorious Quran, the majestic Quran. He doesn't explain what makes it majestic. You should ponder that yourself. But he's dropped an idea in Surah Qaf that he's describing the Quran as what? Majestic.
In Surah Al-Zariyat he says this Quran is as true as your ability to speak. He basically saying if you contemplate the human ability to speak you will realize it wasn't given as a product of evolution and you will also realize its limits and the more you contemplate human speech the more you will become clear that this cannot be human speech [23:الذاريات]{إِنَّهُ لَحَقٌّ مِّثْلَ مَا أَنَّكُمْ تَنطِقُونَ} it's pretty remarkable statement so there's a proof for the Quran in my own tongue. My own tongue is proof for the Quran if I contemplate it. That's in Surah Al-Zariyat.
Surah Al-Tur now takes a few extra steps. The Surah Al-Tur now says here are all the things they say to say this is not from Allah. All the allegations against the Quran all collected in one place in Surah Al-Tur [29:الطور]{فَمَا أَنتَ بِنِعْمَتِ رَبِّكَ بِكَاهِنٍ وَلَا مَجْنُونٍ} you're not a mind reader, you're not a sorcerer, you're not insane, are they saying he's a poet? Are they saying he's crafting it and editing it himself? تقوله Well, you know what? If this is human speech and it's one of these categories, why don't you just bring Something like it [34:الطور] {فَلْيَأْتُوا بِحَدِيثٍ مِّثْلِهِ} and they should do it. They should produce something like it.
So what you're seeing now is a progression. The proof Surah Al-Zariyat was proving the Quran Surah Al-Tur is proving the Quran but Surah Qaf was not proving the Quran. Surah Qaf Was just saying it's full of majesty. It was describing the beauty of the Quran and what's happening in Surah Najim is we're going to see a tafsir of. [1:النجم]{وَالْقُرْآنِ الْمَجِيدِ} What makes it so majestic? What are some Things that you can think about and I can think about that make it majestic.
So keeping track of these strands is helpful because Allah is building an idea and other strands will be built but this is the first one that we're going to dive into, okay?
Now, this is another important concept before we get into the Surah, let me get comfortable because I'm a pendu I sit with my knee up. I need you to understand this concept. استدلال المعقول بالمحسوس I'll explain what this means. A lot of the Quran given in Mecca will start making more sense to you if you understand this concept. Is a very important concept in the Quran.
So sometimes Allah will talk today in this Surah Allah will talk about the star. The star. You can see the star with your eyes. Yes. In Surah Al-Zariyat He will talk about the wind. The wind. Can you feel the wind? Yeah, you could totally feel the wind. In Surah Al-Tur to he'll talk about the mountain of Tur. Did the people see the mountain of Tur did they experience the mountain of yes. They saw it. Allah will talk about things that you can experience from the five senses. That is المحسوس imagery. imagery you can imagine it, you can feel it, you can experience it but He's talking about it and He's using it to teach you something that is beyond the five senses. He's teaching you something About the unseen through it. He's teaching you something be you know powerful. Like for example actually if I get into the example it will take too long. We'll take this Surah as the example itself. Allah will be talking about the star. But he is using the example of the star to talk about something much more spiritual. So actually the star is just a stepping stone. It's just a device for something much larger. You with me? So that's how we're going to when you see one of the physical phenomena the Quran any signs of Allah you should ask why is that there what what's the significance of it what spiritual truth is connected to this image one of my favorite examples is [1:التين]{وَالتِّينِ وَالزَّيْتُونِ} a fig and the olive fig and the olive which is a reference to Mount you know the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem which reminds of the legacy of Jesus but Don't have to say Jesus, you can just say what? وَالتِّينِ Especially وَالزَّيْتُونِ and the entire history of Jesus comes up. [2:التين]{وَطُورِ سِينِينَ} That's the history of Moses, Musa -عليه السلام-. [2:التين]{وَهَٰذَا الْبَلَدِ الْأَمِينِ} That's Mecca which is the history of Ibrahim -عليه السلام- and so prophets are being talked about by just a few images. Ibrahim Alaihi Salam and so prophets are being talked about That's part of the style of the Quran. It's sophisticated. It's rich. And that's what we have to pay attention to when we if we're going to make sense of the Surah.
Now we're going to get into the Surah itself. First things first. The reports we have about the Surah they're not conclusive but most likely or high likelihood this was given to the prophet -صلى الله عليه و سلم- in the fifth year. So he's been a prophet for 5 years. When this Surah came. And by this time they've started to become very hostile. Some Seerah historians argue that the first three years or so or two years the prophet -صلى الله عليه و سلم- was giving Dawah but he was giving it one on one. He wasn't going in public and he wasn't out in the marketplace and things like that it was one on one people were being talked to about Islam and it was kind of underground. And then from three, four and five things started becoming more public and as they started becoming more public the response of Mecca started becoming more and more and more aggressive. So we're now in middle of the early part of the aggression of Mecca when the Surah came.
An interesting event happened. Now one of the things that the Quresh used to do when the prophet used to recite the Quran. They used to start making noise. I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear it. Or somebody would start singing a song. Or they would pay women to start a concert while the Quran's going on. [26:فصلت]{لَا تَسْمَعُوا لِهَٰذَا الْقُرْآنِ وَالْغَوْا فِيهِ} so in the middle of the market women would start dancing and singing and all the crowd would go over there. Don't listen to this Quran and create distraction when it's being recited. [26:فصلت]{لَعَلَّكُمْ تَغْلِبُونَ} So you can win. So the Quran was being ignored. Right? And if somebody hears the Quran they're like they start making noise. So you don't hear it. Right?
But then two years into this aggression Allah gave the prophet -صلى الله عليه و سلم- Surah Al-Najm [1:النجم]{وَالنَّجْمِ إِذَا هَوَىٰ (1) مَا ضَلَّ صَاحِبُكُمْ وَمَا غَوَىٰ (2) وَمَا} [3:النجم]{يَنطِقُ عَنِ الْهَوَىٰ} and something strange happened. The prophet was reciting this Surah, the whole Surah at one time. It's a long Surah. He recites the whole Surah and nobody stops him. Nobody stopped him. Nobody made noise. They were all like huh? What? And they started listening and check this out. Because the Quresh the elders of Quresh keep spreading don't listen to this Quran. This man is insane. This man is wasting your time. He's just a poet and now everybody has done what? they can't keep campaigning against Islam when they all sort of Islamed for a few minutes. This is looking pretty bad. This is very bad. So they had to come up with a solution to this incident. Because this is not just one person or two people. This is everybody.
So here's what happens and this is my understanding of these events. You're free to disagree but to the best of my ability this is how I understand these events. They had to come up with a solution to this problem and in this Surah later on Allah will say [19:النجم]{أَفَرَأَيْتُمُ اللَّاتَ وَالْعُزَّىٰ (19) وَمَنَاةَ الثَّالِثَةَ} [20:النجم]{الْأُخْرَىٰ} Allah will say have you seen your false Gods? They had different idols right? Three of those Gods were named in the Quran عزة, مناة , لات Three of them Allah named them. And said you think these are Allah's daughters? And you know what they did? They went around and they said no no no no we didn't do Sajda that because of the Quran. The prophet was saying عزة, مناة , لات are good. He said ((ان شفاعتهم ترتجى)) in their intersession will work. They can save you on judgement day. So the prophet compromised and he was okay with three of our gods. He even mentioned them in Surah Al-Najm did the prophet mention those three, the Allah mentioned those three gods in yes. Did he say that they are going to intercede on your behalf? No, they made that up. And this became famously known as the satanic verses. This became oh the prophet momentarily agreed with مناة , لات he never agreed. They had to come up with an alt campaign, alt facts campaign. They took three of the words in the Surah, made up their own Ayat, spread them and rumor spread far and wide to some of the Muslims who were living in Abyssinia heard the rumor that's how good the rumor machine was and they said oh the prophet has compromised with the Quresh you can come back now he's made a deal with them because if you accept some of their gods you made a deal so some of them started coming back because of the rumor that's how powerful the rumor machine was and I won't dignify the idea of the Satanic verses and whether it's legitimate or not because for any real academic not even a believer any real academic that studies the subject Looks at the text, looks at what they're claiming, it doesn't add up at all. The most plausible explanation which is absolutely convincing is this incident was too big of an embarrassment for them. So they had to create a smear campaign against the Quran and that's what they came up with. You know, so this is this is one incident that you should know about that was related to Surah Al-Najm okay.
Now, by the way, something I didn't tell you, I should have told you. These notes, they're like in Arabic. because I want you to feel bad. No, no, no. They're in, they're in Arabic in a box. The box is usually for me, not for you. I'll explain it. But sometimes there are things in English and they're not in a box. Those things are for who? They're for you. So don't feel bad about this. feel a little bad but that's okay. This is for me. But for you Inshallah that's coming. Okay?
Now let's begin with the first of the Ayah of this Surah. By the way, my goal today is to try to reach Ayan number six [156:البقرة]{إِنَّا لِلَّهِ وَإِنَّا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعُونَ} let's see how far we get.
[1:النجم] {وَالنَّجْمِ إِذَا هَوَى} Allah says I swear by the star as it falls. I swear by the star as it falls. That's the easy translation so far. I'm going to share first with you what did the Muslims say about this Ayah historically. This is in Qurtubi, Tabari, Ibn-Kathir different tafaseer these are some of the opinions about these Ayat this is going to be important. He saying by ثريا. ثريا is not the name of an Arab خالة . ثريا is a is a cluster of stars in the sky. in English we call them the Pleiades. The Pleiades constellation or the Pleiades cluster of stars. Okay. The Arabs used to call it ثريا. And they're saying by the constellation or the cluster of stars called ثريا as they fall. As they fall. So I'm not going to explain this yet. Just keep this in your head. It's referring to a specific star or a specific group of stars as they fall. we'll Figure out what that means soon.
Mujahed says no [1:النجم]{وَالنَّجْمِ} is actually referring it's saying star but it's talking about the Quran. to give something in? In installments. So Quran came in what? Instalments. So each installment is like a star shooting in the sky. Like each installment is a star of falling. That's how Mujahed saw it. You see the beautiful contrast comparison between those two? It's a similar oath that you find in Surah Al-Waqi'ah when Allah says [75:الواقعة]{فَلَا أُقْسِمُ بِمَوَاقِعِ النُّجُومِ} I swear by the falling and the placement of the stars. Right? And so that's a very powerful beautiful image because the stars are the only light in the middle of darkness and the revelation of Allah is light in the middle of a world that's full of darkness. Right? And Allah control every star and its movement and Allah determined every Ayah and its revelation and when it came. So that was the opinion of Mujahed.
Hassan says something similar Allah swear by the stars as they disappear Hassan also said this might be referring to stars on judgement day when they all start falling. I swear by the star as it falls or as it will fall meaning the I'm swearing by the time when all stars are going to start dropping out of the universe. Because Allah will describe you know the [2:الإنفطار]{وَإِذَا الْكَوَاكِبُ انتَثَرَتْ} other places in the Quran. All the stars are going to disperse. You know and طمست they're going to be erased and wiped out. So that could be a reference to that. These are early opinions.
ان النجم هاهنا الزهرة لأن قوم من العرب كانوا يعبدونها some say this is a star specific star called Zahra. Zahara And the Arabs used to worship it. So Allah is swearing by it as if he owns it. That's not your God. It has a God. So that that's what it's a reference to. And then finally this is actually the weakest of the opinions النجم هنا هو النبت الذي ليس له ساق it's Najm is also used in Arabic for grass. Or low plants. But that's and as they as the wind makes them go down. So the grass as it goes down. But that's not really viable in coming up with the rest of it.
Now I've actually mentioned this already so we can move on. Interesting opinion, very rare opinion. Sometimes among our مفسرون there were those who really love the prophet-صلى الله عليه و سلم- and their love of the prophet influenced their Tafsir. Their thoughts about the Quran. So they would see oh Allah is talking about the star as it falls. This must be talking about the Prophet Muhammad as he came down from the معراج the star as it falls. So that was also one of the opinions that was that was further Jafar Ibn-Muhammad Ali Ibn-Hussain said this. Okay.
So now this is where I need you to use your imagination a little bit. So don't worry about the screen right now. Just listen to me. The ancient Arabs before Islam they were really in touch with the sky. Obviously, they lived in the desert and in the desert the sky looks very different than what the sky looks like now with the world full of lights and electronics and pollution. You know there are photographers from around the world that come to Texas. There's a certain spot in Texas that has the best night sky in the world. and they come there and there are no lights allowed and no flashes allowed and they come to just take pictures of the sky. But that was the normal sky for the Arabs back in the day. And we see a few stars here and there. But actually if you go in the desert sky there's not a place where you don't find stars. It's actually very different night sky than the one that we see. It's so we actually the tragedy of modern technology is that for the most part we have not Experienced the night sky. So when Allah is talking about the star as it falls we have much less of a connection to that than the ancient Arabs did.
Now the ancient Arab I want you to just imagine you live in that time before Islam back in ancient Arabia, right? Not a lot of cities, people not a lot of lights, people love coming out at night because the days excruciatingly hot and the only real beauty they have to stare at is what? The star and they love travelling at night because it's safer because you're cloaked and because it's cooler and they can move faster so they traveled quite a bit at night too and [16:النحل]{وَبِالنَّجْمِ هُمْ يَهْتَدُونَ} they used to use the stars for navigation now the thing is you might not know this and I didn't know this because we're not in touch with nature but the stars actually move through the seasons. They actually move and over the course if you're looking at remember I told you Pleiades the constellation that at one part of the year as soon as Maghrib happens you can see it at eye level and as the year progresses through the night it moves above your head and another part of the year the first time you see it is right above your head and it moves down slowly over the season to eye level so actually this constellation rises and it also falls linguists argue that هوي from هوى the same letters is actually something going down. And هوي is actually something going up. So movement downwards and upwards is captured inside هوى and what's really cool is these stars half of the year they were rising and the other half of the year they were falling. This is why even the idea of falling really fast is also used in the word هوى like they use it for the for the eagle when it swoops down actually called هوى also okay so that's a little bit about the meaning of the word هوى but now let's dig a little deeper I want you to know something that happened in ancient Arabia called the انواع system the انواع was poetry before Islam all of it Was about the stars. Like there was an entire music department dedicated to songs and poems about what? The stars. And in those poems they used to use the word Najm a lot. Which word? Najm and they used it for ثريا they used it for Pleiades all the time. Sometimes they would say نجم الثريا sometimes they would say نجم but they used it all the time. And you need to know at. So when they when the Arabs heard the Quran say [1:النجم]{وَالنَّجْمِ} they were thinking he was talking about Pleiades? He's talking about that constellation and they used to the reason they developed this literature is they used to pay attention to where they can find Pleiades because it will tell them which season is coming. Is rain coming? Pleiades is above our head. Is winter coming? Oh it's right down here etcetera etcetera. So they would actually keep track of it in their poems and pay close attention to it and Allah is using that culture that they had in the opening Ayah also. We'll see why He does that but right now I need you to know if you were an ancient Arab and you never heard about Islam and you heard [1:النجم]{وَالنَّجْمِ إِذَا هَوَى} you're like yeah I do that yeah I know that I know what that's about. Yeah. You know so there would be a connection to you. It's not a spiritual connection to you yet. It's just something that's part of your culture. That Allah is drawing on. Right?
These are just examples of the word Najm being used as ثريا we'll skip these quickly but I do want to get you to the summary and then they see it rising that means its summer coming and when it's falling that means what's coming? Winter So the poet will say oh I see ثريا falling. It's making هوى you better tell the boy to get the axe. You know what that means? What is he going to do with the axe? What do you think? He's going to cut wood which is means he's going to make a fire because it's going to get cold. You get it? So they would actually consider this a connection to the change of seasons. And they would make preparations for the future based on [1:النجم]{النَّجْمِ إِذَا هَوَى}
Now this is really awesome because Allah is also saying you're so used to preparing for the coming season because you look at the sky and now this revelation has come from the sky and it's time for you to prepare for the coming season of the afterlife you see so the physical image of [1:النجم]{النَّجْمِ إِذَا هَوَى} is now being tied to what is this revelation is not a joke you have to take it very seriously you know so He is tying the revelation together to this cultural phenomenon of the Arabs.
Hey guys, you just watched a small clip of me explaining the Quran in depth as part of the deeper look series. Studying the Quran in depth can seem like a really intimidating thing that's only meant for scholars. Our job at Bayyinah is to make deeper study of the Quran accessible and easy for all of you. So take us up on that challenge. Join us for this study, the deeper look of the Quran. For this Surah and many other Surah's on Bayyinah TV. com the deeper look section.