Transcription
That image is going to be tied to certain spiritual messages. Whenever TV doesn't just teach you about the Quran, you can also learn Arabic from a brilliant teacher. We started Naman Ali Khan has made this beautiful ancient language easy to understand, so you're not only improving your language skills, but your understanding of the Quran too. Tap now to check out Bayan TV.
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If you can show the screen, please. I'm going to start by giving you some important comments, uh, some important concepts that you should be aware of. This is for you, not for me. Uh, and this, I'm gonna walk you through this. We discussed this sporadically yesterday, but we're going to try to organize our thoughts a little bit. This will not just help you with Surat An-Najm, this will help you in the study of Makkan Quran altogether. So, I've I've started talking to you about contemplating the Quran. These are some things that will help you contemplate the Quran when you're reading it, okay?
So let's go through each of them. The first of them is visual, visual imagery or spiritual truths. What's the visual imagery in this Surah that it started with? It's the stars. The stars. It falls, or you know, play these as it falls, right? And that image is going to be tied to certain spiritual messages. I haven't completed a discussion on those spiritual messages yet, but at least you're aware there's going to be a connection between those two things. Allah does this. He, he, um, many connections. And among them, Allah describes, you know, bandits that are raiding a town in the early morning. They're going to raid a town, and they're unsuspecting, and they just ravage through the whole town. And from there, the discussion is going to be how unannounced and shocking the arrival of Judgment Day is going to be, that it's going to ravage through the Earth, right? So there's, there's the visual image, and it's tied to a spiritual truth. That's the first thing. And this is something that happens throughout the Quran. Um, behind each of these, there's fancy Arabic terms that can make you sound really Islamic, but I'm not interested in that right now. I'm just, I just want you to understand the concept, okay?
The second one is the, the major strands in the Quran. So in the surahs of the Quran, you'll find some major themes. I listed a few of them for you, a few of the major ones. There are more. They're not that many, but you should be aware of them. And you should see how the sequence of those different strands are being reconfigured in a certain Surah, and it's being reconfigured differently in a different Surah. And sometimes there's more of one thing and less of another, right? So, for example, you can find Suratul Insan. It's something I was studying in, in Malaysia, uh, last month. And Insan, usually Allah talks about heaven, he talks about hell, right? Or, you know, both. He mentions punishment in like one ayah, and the majority of the rest of the Surah is about Jannah. Like the, the proportion is very different, you understand? And you can go to something like, and you'll find very little about Jannah, and you'll find a lot about the destruction and the, the horrors of Judgment Day and the afterlife, right? So you can find this interesting shift in something is more stressed, something is less stressed, something is not mentioned at all, something is, you know, being highlighted. And that's what I mean by the strands inside of the surahs.
Then I talked about the continuity of strands between surahs. What that means is, you know, let's say they're stories of the prophets. That's mentioned in one Surah. It might very well be that something based on what was taught about the stories of the prophets will come up in the next Surah, building on what was left off in the previous one. An interesting strand from the last Surah. This we're doing Surat An-Najm right now, uh, and the Surah right before it is, and I didn't add this as a concept here, it's called dovetailing in English, but I'll tell you what it is. The last ayah of Surah, uh, is, declare the perfection of Allah, especially on the backs of the stars, meaning as the stars are about to disappear. Last ayah of Surah number 52, first ayah of Surah number 53. You see a continuity there, right? So these, this is what I also mean by strands. There's a continuity of thought in the Quran too.
Often as Muslims, this is not just you, this is me, this is everybody. We hear about an ayah, we hear about a story, right? We hear about some, some small part of an ayah or, or a ruling. And the Quran is used as a dalil, like you're making a point and you're going to use this ayah as your evidence, right? But we're not actually studying the Quran. We're studying this other topic, and we only use the Quran as a reference, right? So the Quran just becomes this repository of references instead of being read as a book. And one of the things that the labor will make us do, this idea of contemplating the Quran, we're not going to treat the Quran as a set of proofs, as a set of evidences for other concepts or for other ideas. We're going to look at the Quran for itself. Like my concern isn't what can I prove or disprove from this ayah. My concern is about, I, that's my topic, you understand?
So all too often, and this, once I put this filter, I put this filter on like 23 years ago, and it changed the way I see Islam, and it changed the way I appreciate what people are talking about. You could tell immediately, this person has a topic in their mind, and now they're surrendering the, the, the Quran and the evidences from the Prophet (peace be upon him), they're taking all of that just to make their point. But the ultimate goal for them is their point. It's not actually the ayat. And this, this can get to such an extreme where even students of Islamic Studies, they're just, they're reading something that a scholar wrote, and the scholar quoted an ayah, right? You know what they'll do? They'll read what the scholar wrote with a lot of attention. When they get to the ayah, they'll say, yeah, yeah, okay, that's a dalil. Let me keep reading ahead. The only part they'll skip is the Quran. And these are advanced students in Islamic Studies, and this is a very common phenomenon, right? And that's also, this is a, it's a sub, it's an unconscious departure from tadabbur, from this idea that Quran takes center stage. It's supposed to be at the center of our thinking anyway.
So the, the next concept that I mentioned to you was the three different kinds of audiences, right? You can have a neutral audience, you can have an unsure audience, and you can have an opposing audience. You remember that, right? And the, the thing I told you is, for a neutral audience, you don't need to stress your speech too much. For, for an unsure audience, you at least stress it once. And for more than one stress, that might mean that you're talking to an opposing audience. The oath is a kind of stress. The use of "ma" is a kind of stress. So the opening of Surat An-Najm is talking to an opposing audience. That becomes evident from the style with which it speaks, keeps repeating itself. I know people love listening to that recitation and saying, ah, it sounds so nice. But the point is, in ancient Arabic, in in ancient Arabia, when someone's repeating themselves over and over again, isn't that a kind of stress? What does that tell you about, about who is it talking to originally? The opposing audience. It's actually talking to opponents, you know? So this will change your perception of who is the addressee, first and foremost, in these ayat, okay?
Then, of course, there's the coherence, structure, and design of a Surah. This is, you know, something that I, I, I very strongly believe in, that Allah revealed the Surah as a unit, and it's an expression of His wisdom, and everything in the Surah is stitched together and tied together. Um, and just like a good author has organized speech, Allah is the author of all creations, uh, and in every one of the things He created, there's order and a system. The joints in my fingers have a system, and there's an order. There's a method to the entire universe. There's a system under which the stars move the way that they move, and the Earth rotates the way that it rotates. There's a system for the distance between us and the, and the sun. There's a system and an order and a design down to the most subatomic level that Allah created. And somehow we assume that there is no system or design in a Surah that He gave. I don't understand that. How can they, how can the Surah be random when nothing Allah does is random? How can the Surah be chaotic and sporadic and talking about all kinds of things when nothing Allah does is chaotic? He's the one who, He created Mizan to begin with, balance and scale. How can His speech not have balance and scale, right? So that, I'm a very strong proponent of that.
Of course, when you're reading a translation of the Quran, you might feel like the subject just kind of changed, and then it changed again, and then it changed again. What's going on here? Or that he already talked about this, why is he talking about this again? And all of those questions get answered with the study of the coherence, structure, and design of a Surah. This also helps you understand that the Quran cannot be human. Like one of the ways that it becomes clearer to me every time I study it, the coherence of a Surah, it'd be, this is not human design. Human beings cannot speak like this. They don't organize like this. They don't organize thoughts like this. They don't organize concepts like that. This is beyond human capability. And as we go through, I'm going to keep highlighting the structure. When we get to a certain portion, I'll say, hey, look, look at this design, look at Allah's design in these ayat. Then go to the next section, look at Allah's design in these ayat, you know?
And so finally, the primary and secondary meanings of words. This has to do with vocabulary. You remember, for example, the word Hawa, which means to, you know, to fall or to rise, also also has to do with cowardice and other things, right? So there, there's primary meanings and there's secondary meanings. And that's a really important part of understanding the language of the Quran. Allah gave it to us in Arabic for a reason because Arabic is rich. It has every word has lots of nutrients in it, right? So there's the primary nutrient, and there's these secondary nutrients that you and I have to understand as we go through, uh, the study of a Surah.
So that's, uh, something that we've discussed already today. I'm going to add something to that list. How many items were there? Six, right? So this will be your number seven. Uh, this is again, a very important concept in Makkan surahs. Allah taking oaths. Allah takes the Kasam, like, "Wallah," etc., etc. I've talked about this many, many times, right? Now, I'm going to keep it very brief. And the thing that I need you to know is there's a, there's two parts. There's the oath, or this, you can call it the subject of the oath, and the object of the oath. Okay? There's a two, there's two terms I want you to know: the subject of the oath and the object of the oath. Those of you who can write in Arabic, you can say, those are the two: the subject and the object.
Now, I'll give you an example first so you understand this concept. If I say, "I swear to God, I'm going to run away." "I swear to God, I'm going to run away." God is the subject of the oath. So the subject means who did you or what did you swear by? "I swear to you, I didn't do it." Who's the subject? You. "I swear by time, humanity is in loss." What's the subject? Time. "He says, I swear by the olive, I swear by the fig, I swear by the mountain." All of those are what? Subjects. They are the subject of the oath.
Now, then there is the, what? Object of the oath. Actually, I think I messed up the words. That was supposed to be the object. No, this is the object. The object is coming now. The object of the oath is going to be, "I swear to God, I'm gonna run away." What's the object? I'm gonna run away. Now, I imagine somebody came up to you and said, "I swear to God." All right. Uh, there's a, is okay. I, I got you. The subject is there. An object is there. Are we gonna go anywhere from this? The subject by itself is incomplete, isn't it? Except for my Arab friends, "Wallah," what? Like, is there more? Is there something coming? No, it's just, just. [Laughter] It's by those. But the thing is, the, when you take an oath, then you mention something after that, which is actually the thing you wanted to say. That's called the jawabul qasam, the object.
Okay, now the thing is, this object of the oath, this, this thing, the topic that you wanted to discuss, there's a relationship between the subject and the object always. You have to discover the relationship between the subject and the object. So, old theories used to be, if Allah swears by the fig, that must mean the fig is really good to eat. If Allah swears by the sun, that means the sun is awesome. If Allah swears by time, time is amazing. If Allah swears by the star, the stars are incredible. In other words, when He swears by something, He's just telling me how amazing it is. The problem with that is then I can move the oath anywhere. It's still going to be amazing. I could replace because they're still awesome. There's no, then that doesn't explain what's it doing here and what's that doing over there, you understand? So the oath that's taken is related to the subject that's coming. And discovering that requires contemplation.
The easiest one to give you an example of is "Wal Asr." What's the, what's the subject? Time. Time as it's escaping, time as it's squeezing out. And what's, what's the object? What's the human beings are in loss. What's the relationship between time that's running out and human beings being in loss? Well, human beings can suffer all kinds of loss: health, wealth, you know, loved ones. You can have all kinds of loss. But there's one loss that is always there, the ultimate loss of all losses: time. Like the biggest evidence of loss for a human being is actually time. So you see how there's a really deep connection between. And there's more to it than that, but you get the idea.
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 surahs on BayyinahTV.com under the Deeper Look section.