Let Us Reconnect with
the Qur'an!
Dr. Pasha
(Bringing Islam to the World One Concept at a Time!
Taking the Qur'an to Every Home and Heart that Needs It --
And which One Does Not?)
Dr. Pasha's International Qur'an Program - Long Island,
New York, USA, April 30, 2005
Inviting Everyone!
A good bit of information on Dr. Pasha's International Qur'an Program as well as on Dr. Pasha's general approach to things Islamic and Muslim has existed on www.IslamicSolutions.com for some time. Here are some additional points.
The Qur'an Program is more a Qur'an workshop and study session than a public lecture - even though per necessity Dr. Pasha has to do a fair amount of talking, especially in the beginning.
Once a general framework has been outlined, Dr. Pasha lets the Qur'an do most of the talking.
And once the Qur'an begins to "talk," all one can do is just to sit there, open oneself to the cascading light and Rahmah of the Qur'an and keep chanting Alhamdulillah, Subhanallah, Allahu Akbar and La Ilaha Illallah, as the Qur'an begins to unfold its wonders.
The Qur'an Program is learning-oriented, goal-driven and individual-focused - a bit more than most public lectures. And it requires active involvement from participants.
Not in the form of arguing or wanting to score debating points, but purely in terms of being an active and engaged learner of what the Qur'an has to offer. Many Muslims are strangers to the miracles of the Aayats of the Qur'an.
And that is what the word Aayah means anyway. It means a sign, a marker, a miracle - not a "verse" or poetry as most of us call it, using Biblical language.
The Qur'an Program seeks to change the present Muslim culture of passive consumption of Islamic talks to one of active engagement with the Qur'an. As a result, in each Qur'an Program, Muslim men and women will spend a considerable amount of time - several hours on a given day - actually handling a physical copy of the Qur'an:
- They will hold the Qur'an in their hand.
- They will open and turn the pages of the Qur'an.
- They will try to read the Qur'an in original Arabic.
- They will look at a translation of the Qur'an in
English or some other language. - They will reflect about the meaning and implications of the words and Aayaat of the Qur'an.
It is obvious that participants will have to be with Wudu as they attend the Qur'an Program sessions.
www.IslamicSolutions.Com somewhere has a Scale of Personal Progress on how to connect with the Qur'an. It will be nice if we can all take a look at it, make a hard copy and keep it with us.
The idea is how to change Muslim culture to reconnect with the Qur'an in a physical, intellectual, emotional, spiritual, social and every other good sense.
Inshallah!
Because of all this, attitude of the participants is central to success of the Qur'an Program. The people who are most likely to benefit from the program are those who in some serious way care about the Qur'an and are willing to invest time and effort in taking a serious, respectful and probing look at it. However, the Qur'an Program is open to all.
Participants are expected to have the discipline, commitment, respect and flexibility to work with the moderator of the session (Dr. Pasha) - as in any workshop on any subject - to allow the program to go where it wants to go and to derive the maximum benefit from it.
The Qur'an Program proceeds from the very serious assumption - call it Iman if you will - that Qur'an Is the Way.
It is the way out of the somewhat sad situation Muslims are in today. And it is the way back to where Muslims belong.
And, also, it is the way for the equally sad, if not worse, situation in which the rest of the world is today. For, if the Muslims are at the risk of losing this world, much of the rest of the world is at the risk of losing this as well as the next world.
So, Qur'an Is the Way for Muslims as well as for non-Muslims - in America as well as in the rest of the world.
And it is the job of the Muslims to find and embrace that way and then show that way to the rest of the world. That is the reason why Allah put the Muslims in this world. And that is the reason why Allah specifically brought them and placed them on the American soil.
But that way cannot be of much help to anyone if it has been rolled up and packed away in the attic, which is pretty much what most Muslims have done with the Qur'an.
The Qur'an Program may be a way - no matter how small - to open up that highway for the Muslims and to reconnect them with the Qur'an - and with their original purpose and mission in life, Inshallah!
May Allah bless us by opening our bodies, minds, hearts, souls, lives, homes, families, communities and societies to the light and Rahmah of the Qur'an.
And may he accept and guide our efforts in the service of his book and his Deen and his world.
Dr. Pasha
Dr. Pasha is an educator, scholar, mentor and community leader blessed by Allah with remarkable talent, training and experience. His background combines authentic traditional Islamic education and training with a Ph.D. from one of the premier research universities in the West.
His lectures, seminars, camps, community clean-up and other programs and activities provide training, education and motivation in Islam and in life in general.
His way of teaching is unique, personal and powerful. It combines time-honored Islamic sciences and traditions with contemporary Western scholarship and knowledge in a way that is all his own.
In the early 1970s, Dr. Pasha produced a highly effective method for teaching Qur'an Reading to English-speakers that has been blessed with success for upward of 30 years.
Dr. Pasha is also an insightful social and Islamic thinker and an engaging and dynamic speaker in several languages. His ideas on how Muslims must understand and apply Islam in the West in the 21st Century are among the most challenging in today's troubled world. They have been at the cutting edge of Islamic thinking on this subject for the past three decades.
During much of this time, Dr. Pasha has been a vocal advocate of Muslims reaching out to their non-Muslim neighbors in the West with the teachings of Islam and with the message of love, service and neighborliness that he says Islam embodies.
For the past several decades, Dr. Pasha has been calling on Muslims in the West to wake up to their civic, social and moral responsibilities in their respective Western societies and homes in the true Islamic spirit of Citizen Participants.
"Love and fear of Allah must translate in service to humanity, regardless of race or religion. That is a central part of the message of Islam and of the model of the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam!" (Dr. Pasha).
"The question - and the choice - before Muslims in the West, and everywhere else, today, is quite clear: It is to reach out or not to reach out. It is that simple!" (Dr. Pasha).
END
(Draft Document: to be revised)
© 2005 Syed Husain Pasha
Dr. Pasha is an educator and scholar of exceptional
talent, training and experience. He can be reached at DrSyedPasha [at]
AOL [dot] com or www.IslamicSolutions.com.
