Transcription
When he speaks, his emotions are put aside. The only thing in before him is he's this messenger, committed to delivering revelation. That's it. Whether it reaches somebody's heart or not, he knows that's not up to him because what goes in the heart comes from Allah. Otherwise, these are just sound waves. Whether they reach or not, that's not up to us. You get that? It's an incredible, incredible message.
When is make the most of this series by downloading our free workbook for a guided contemplation of this powerful Surah. But now we get to the meat of the matter. On the side, I was going to get to Ayah number six. I'm gonna get to Ayah number three. This is all we're gonna do today. He says, they, you know, think of it this way. A public speaker or a speaker, because the Prophet (SAW) is now speaking the Quran, so he's become a public speaker. What are the motivations of a public speaker? They want to be acknowledged. They want their idea to be heard. They somebody publishes a book, what is their desire? Inshallah, will it sit in the library collecting dust one day? No, people are going to read this book. When somebody writes a PhD thesis, they're really hoping people do what? Read it. When you make a stupid post about what slice of pizza you ate and your amazing contemplation on the cheese and you put it up on Instagram, you check all the time for what? Acknowledgment. Somebody saying, "Oh my God, that's so deep. I'll never eat pizza the same way again," etc. You're looking for something because a speaker, a presenter, when they present their idea in public, they desire acknowledgment. They desire to be heard. They desire to be understood. Maybe they desire to be praised. Maybe they desire to be, you know, seen, valued. "Wow, that was ingenious." Maybe they desire to be put on a social position. "I want to learn more from you." Maybe they desire that. But there are desires behind speech. Like if I'm sitting here giving you this lecture and two of you are talking, it will annoy me. It'll annoy me because I'm desiring to be heard right now, and you're taking away from that, and it's agitating me because I'm directly impacted by what you're doing, right?
The Prophet (SAW) is being described as something different. When he speaks, he has no desire to be heard, no desire to be acknowledged, no desire to be appreciated, no desire to be followed. He's only doing this because Allah told him to. And none of his personal ambitions or emotions, conscious or subconscious, are part of the equation. This is the most incredible expression of pure, like, a million percent pure sincerity. Because this is a level of purity, I don't know if it's humanly possible for the rest of us. I don't know if it is. But there's one thing I can tell you. When talking about the Quran, because this is tied to the giving, the delivery of the Quran, he says, it's not, it's not up to me to change it for myself. The Prophet doesn't decide what words will come out. And by the way, most of the time, the words that were coming out were offensive. And when somebody's angry, and then the next Ayah is even more offensive, and then they get angrier, and the next Ayah is even more offensive, and then on top of that, you should know you're going to be in Jahannam, and congrats to the believers that are getting beat up. Oh my God. This is like, maybe, you know, in my mind, it would be how I would be. Maybe I shouldn't say this right now. Maybe I'll recite the Surah later when there's nobody listening, or when I'm around a less hostile crowd. Then I'll recite this one. Right now, I'm explaining to you, but you're all willingly listening. You took time, you know, time, money, effort away from family to sit here and listen. You think this was the situation of the Prophet (SAW)? There's a bunch of mushrikun, atheists, materialists, anti-Islam, like dictators, narcissists in front of him, and he's reciting the Quran, and they're making noise. Does he stop? They say, "Maybe I should go to a more willing audience." No, clearly he's delivering the Quran, no matter what the response. He's not concerned with the viewership and the following and the comments. Most of us, will you post anything online? I don't care if you're a public speaker or not, you post something online, what do you check? Comments. In fact, even if you listen to you, you put somebody else's clip on or lecture on, you're not even listening to the lecture, you're just going through the martial laws and finding somebody who's trolled the speaker, you know what they said? Oh my God. What you're doing? We're so obsessed with the commentary.
First of all, he is not dying to express his talents to the world like a philosopher is dying to share his philosophy, that singer is dying to sing his song, a storyteller is dying to tell his story. The Prophet (SAW) is not like, "Oh my God, the world needs to know what I have inside me." No, no. Allah has given him this. It's not, it's not a projection of his own ego like it is for every other public speaker. It's not. And then on top of that, you know, a public speaker really listens to feedback, right? "This poem was a big hit. This was not a big hit. This speech went really well. That one didn't." Now I'm going to change my style to cater to the audience because I need to nurture my audience. And by the way, now this is a multi-billion dollar, trillion dollar industry. How do you nurture an audience and how do you cater your message to pander to an audience better and better? Isn't that what social media analytics are now? Isn't that what people are doing degrees in now? You know, marketing degrees and social media analytics degrees and trends, studying trends and behaviors and all of this to what? Get engagement, get a crowd, get an audience. And all of it is just Allah just pours asset over it, just saying, um, he's not concerned with what people want to hear. He's just not concerned with that. He's just put on. You know, I'll tell you something personal as I conclude this. Um, uh, this is, by the way, I said this to you out loud, but you can take this. This is for you to, you know, when I was developing Quran Week, this program, before this, when I was traveling, I was doing another program called Story Night. And Story Night is my pent-up desire to be a comedian, masked with the Quran. Like, I enjoy myself in Story Night. I love telling stories. I love, you know, I, you know, this academic geeky stuff, this is one side of me. There's another side of me that is the opposite of this, is entirely stupid, and that's the side of me that comes out in Story Night. And I really, it's just three hours, it's entertaining, it's kids are there, they're having a lot of fun, non-Muslims come and come and enjoy themselves. It's easy, it's no hard work, it's on autopilot. I have to do nothing for it. And I was like, let's go to communities and contemplate a whole Surah of the Quran. And you know what my team said? "Who's gonna come to that? People aren't ready for that. People have TikTok attention span. After 90 seconds, they, no, 90 is too long, 30 seconds. They're going to try to swipe you in the first day. People are going to say, 'I'm not coming back to this. This is too much. There's too much stuff. There's too much material. It's too deep. It's too heavy.' That's not what the public wants." I was like, "Yeah, but the thing is, the Quran is dying. We're not doing it as a people." And I had to make a decision. Whether one of you shows up or none of you shows up, I'm gonna do the Quran. And I want to act. Even if I can ignite one person to start doing Quran in one community, I'm good. But I, and I could have been sitting at, but in a campus doing this in front of a camera. I could do that. I've done sort of use of like that. So it'll have like that, like that. I was like, "No, I don't want to. I want to travel and take the hard work with me." You know, and I'm part of the, the blocks, mental blocks I had is, I don't think this is gonna work because it's not a desirable program because it's too much work. And then there are IOP like these that slap you across the face. So what if it's not desirable? So what if it's not catering to the marketed audience? So what if it's not going to get? That's not your goal. That's not your goal. I have to cleanse myself to the point where two of you are sitting here, 200 of you are sitting here, 2,000 of you are sitting here, makes no difference. That's when I've understood something from Ayah.
When he speaks, his emotions are put aside. The only thing in before him is he's this messenger, committed to delivering revelation. That's it. Whether it reaches somebody's heart or not, he knows that's not up to him because what goes in the heart comes from Allah. Otherwise, these are just sound waves. Whether they reach or not, that's not up to us. You get that? It's an incredible, incredible message.
Inside, notice finally that the word Hawa, emptiness, falling, is repeated. When najimi either Hawa, may Allah star falls. In the beginning, the star falls, but the Prophet (SAW) doesn't. Stars can fall, but this message doesn't. There's a contrast made between the use of the Hawa and the first Ayah and the third Ayah. I'm really excited about this week. I don't know if I'll be able to finish or not. I really don't. If I don't finish it, I'm gonna request Epic to take extra days and finish it. And if none of you can make it, I'm okay with that. I'm still coming and finishing it, inshallah. But I think we can do it. I think we can do it. My intention tomorrow, inshallah, is to try to reach Ayah number 18. That's the first section. I know that this three Ayah took this long. So like, "Oh, he thinks he's going to reach 18." Maybe let's have hope. Things can, they can start progressing a little faster now that I've laid the groundwork for you. So, um, so we're hoping to reach Ayah number 18 tomorrow, inshallah. But before I conclude, I want you to know that these booklets that you were given, right? These booklets are going to be about how to contemplate the Quran. And each lens, I'm going to give you from each lens something to to take away. And before we start the lens, there's something we call the heart filter. I talked to you about the about that in the beginning. I'm going to talk to you about that now. So you have that with you. I have to spiritually, emotionally ready myself before I do tadabbur. I have to intellectually prepare myself. Remember when I was doing the Seerah of the word, those Arabic sources and quotes from scholars and Sahaba and Tabi'in and things like that, right? That's intellectual work. But does not require your brain. Tadabbur requires your what? Your heart. The prerequisites are in my heart. The first prerequisite is Allah's speech is perfect, and my understanding isn't. Which means when I read something and it's not making sense to me, it's because my understanding isn't wide enough and vast enough, and Allah's wisdom is infinite. I have to humble myself before the speech of Allah. This is one of the hardest prerequisites of tadabbur because we live in a critical society. Every message you receive, you critique it. You put a heart on it. You put a thumbs up on it. You put a thumbs down on it. You put a commentary on it. You take a course in college, you rate your professor. You listen to a speech, you rate it. You listen. People are now really into reading. Even people rate hubbas. And this is, it's become such a practice. I give up one time, my brother came up to me, "That was really good, but if you use this, I am, this Ayah would have been better." I was like, "This is rape.com now." Like, like, "I'll give you a 7.5." I wasn't looking for a score, bro. But we're not rating Islam too? Who's your favorite speaker? What score do you give him? This stupidity has to stop. This nonsense has to stop. This kids used to do this for athletes, for basketball players. People do this for UFC fighters. And now you do this for sheikhs. What is this? This is, this is the religion now. We've molded the religion into this because why? Because what our heart desires is more important than the message. So if a speaker has an accent, or a speaker isn't charismatic, or a speaker's too old, you're like, "I can't pay attention. It's not, it's not entertaining enough. It doesn't give me that high." You know, this like, "There's no jokes in his speech." Yeah, they're not, you know, the people I listen to, they're really boring. They're really, but I love them. I learned. I literally have to stop every five to seven minutes because my eyes are rolling up. But I still listen to them because I get more benefit from them than anything else. Anything else. The Quran is not there to cater to you because it came from your master. The master doesn't cater to the slave. The slave caters to the master. That's a shift in attitude when I come to the Quran. That's my heart filter. I, I cannot come to it like a critic. I can't come to it like a, a product on Amazon. "I only give it two and a half stars." You know, not like that. The, the, the next filter in the Quran, I'm looking for something. I'm looking for guidance. I'm not looking for information. I'll get the information, but the goal wasn't information. The goal was what? It was guidance. As you contemplate today, your homework assignment, your homework assignment is what guidance am I getting personally from these three Ayahs? What do I get from these three Ayahs? I mean, I've shared some to see your comments with you. I've shared what it means. I went through the vocabulary and all of it. That's just, that's the Seerah. Now we gotta do what? What does this mean for me? I shared with you, but you must have your own. You must do the work yourself. This is Allah speaking to you. Allah speaking to me. Everyone.
Somebody asked a beautiful question, and I'll conclude with it. You can, you can turn this off now. Beautiful question. He said, "The Sahaba had so many opinions. Why and how come they just didn't tell us what the Prophet said about the Quran? It would have been easier." The thing is, Allah designed this Quran in a really incredible way. He didn't say, "So that the Prophet reflects on it." He said, "So they reflect on it." So you understand, who was supposed to ask questions about the Ayahs and ponder about the Ayahs and wonder about the? Who was supposed to do that? We were. If the Prophet (SAW), my theory is, if the Prophet (SAW) started doing tafsir of the Quran, he'd still be alive. There's too much wisdom there. Allah would keep him alive longer than because it wouldn't be done. And even if he did the most brief tafsir of the Quran, he described one Ayah with one Hadith. If he did that, you know what would happen? Nobody would ever contemplate the Quran again. You know why? Because we'd say, "How can I speak after the Prophet has spoken? How can I speak? I can't have any thoughts about this because the thoughts have come from the ultimate authority, the Prophet himself, God's authorized teacher." Allah gave us this Quran, and he spread it around the world, and he said, "This is Ayahs for people who will contemplate." Imagine the first century, 10 years after the Prophet (SAW), people have reached Abyssinia, China, India, they're all over the place. Those people, when they're hearing the Ayahs of the Quran, they're like, "Do you have a tafsir with this? Can I, can I read?" What were they doing? They were hearing the Ayahs, and what were they doing with the Ayahs? They were contemplating. And as they were contemplating, they were accepting Islam. And as they were accepting Islam, we became Muslim as a result of that. What we did is we replaced with tafsir, and then we said, "The Seerah is only for scholars. It's not for you." Sure, you'll see this for scholars to write, and it's for me to read and then to do. But we, we separated the Muslim population from engaging with the Quran. I come from Pakistan, and in South Asia, one of the most common things you'll hear about the Quran is, "Don't read it directly. Don't read a translation. Don't think about it. You'll get misguided." And I say, "The book that came to guide humanity, and your religious advice is, don't think about it because you'll get misguided." Incredible. It was just incredible. The job of those who know is to make it easy for those who don't know. That's, that's our job. What do we do now? No, no, no. We are not going to come to you. You have to come to us. That we, we flipped the script on this. This delivery of the message. I want every one of you to develop a love of contemplating Quran, and you will see benefits of it in your life that you've never imagined. Never. I'm telling you, it is the most fulfilling thing you will do with your life. That I could do with my life is contemplate the Quran. You know, I find studying tafsir exhausting. But after when the tafsir study is done, and I started doing tadabbur, nothing like it. Best job in the world. It's the best job. In Scotland, in a cafeteria, we're just doing the tadabbur for five hours, and I just have to stop in the middle and say, "Isn't this the most amazing job on the planet?" He said, "Yeah." "Don't tell anyone." I was like, "I'm gonna, I want all of you to have that joy." He said, "Because of the Quran, they should be filled with joy. It's better than everything else that they're gathering." Let's gather some Quran.
So with that, I'm going to conclude our first session. I think it went fairly well, inshallah. But that's up to you. I don't care about your comments. But do do the homework assignment, and I'll see, inshallah, all of you tomorrow. 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 bayyinah.tv.com under the Deeper Look section.