“Qur’an!” Is The Answer!
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?)
How Did We Manage to Abandon the Qur'an?
Pray tell me, Muslims! Just how did we Muslims manage to accomplish this feat? Just how did we manage to abandon the Qur'an?
We, whom Allah blessed to be the bearers, keepers, servants and custodians of the Qur'an in this world.
We, for whose benefit - along with all the rest of humanity - use and guidance Allah sent the Qur'an into this world.
And along with the Qur'an, out of his infinite mercy and grace, he also sent his beloved messenger Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, into this world.
To teach us the Qur'an.
To show us how to read the Qur'an.
To show us how to understand the Qur'an.
To tell us what the words, expressions and passages of the Qur'an meant.
To demonstrate for us how the Qur'an worked in the real world.
To open for us the doors of divine mercy and blessings that every letter of the Qur'an contains.
To make us see the wonderful wisdom and guidance that is in the words and pages of the Qur'an.
To make us realize the marvels and miracles that every Aayat or passage of the Qur'an holds.
To show us how to put the Qur'an into practice in our daily life.
In our personal affairs.
In our social and cultural affairs.
In our political and economic affairs.
In our moral, military, diplomatic and international affairs.
In short, in every single aspect and dimension of our individual and collective lives:
As persons and individuals;
As families and kinship networks;
As formal and informal groups and organizations;
As institutions and social structures;
As nations and societies;
As cultures and civilizations;
And as the whole world taken together.
And to cleanse and purify us, and to exalt and elevate us, so we would be ready and able to interact with the Qur'an in a positive, meaningful, productive and fruitful way.
In a way that would fill our life - and the lives of all those around us and our world - with the blessings, mercy and grace of Almighty Allah.
That is how Allah describes the role of his beloved messenger Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, in this world. Here is how the Qur'an puts it:
Yatloo 'Alaihim Aayaatika,
Wa Yu-'Allihumul Kitaaba wal Hikmata,
wa Yuzakkeehim (Al-Baqarah).
Paraphrase:
He recites for them your Aayats and signs;
And he teaches them the book and wisdom;
And he cleanses and purifies them (2:129).
This was part of a prayer that Prophet Abraham, may God Almighty bless him, prayed a long time ago, asking Allah to bless and guide the progeny of Ishmael, May Allah bless him - his first-born son from Hagar.
Allah also tells us in the Qur'an how he responded to that prayer by his friend Abraham, may Allah bless him, and granted Abraham his wish. For, that is what Allah calls Abraham (May Allah bless him), in the Qur'an: his friend.
See how the Qur'an repeats the exact same concepts and expressions this time also:
Huwalladhee Ba'atha Fil Ummiyyeena Rasoolan
Minhum, Yatloo 'Alaihim Aayaatihi wa Yuzakkaeehim,
Wa Yu'allimuhumul Kitaaba wal-Hikmah (Al-Jum'ah).
Paraphrase:
He is the one who raised among the illiterate people,
A messenger from among them,
Who recites for them his Aayats and signs,
And who cleanses and purifies them,
And who teaches them the book and wisdom (62:1).
Allahu Akbar!
What kind of a miracle is this?
A miracle!
Call it an event the probability of whose occurrence is infinitesimal; miniscule; really, really, really tiny and small. A miracle is an event that is most unlikely to happen.
Now consider the Qur'an purely in terms of its authorship. Who wrote the Qur'an? Who could have produced it? A human mind? Muhammad? Is that who wrote the Qur'an? What is the likelihood? What is the probability of that happening?
What are the chances, what are the mathematical odds, what is the probability, the likelihood that a book that made its appearance in illiterate, bookless Arabia, in a land without libraries, schools and bookshops, or many scholars or readers of books, will have the same concepts and words repeated in both the prayer of a human being to God, as well as in the divine response of God Almighty to that prayer - each separated from the other by hundreds and thousands of Aayats or passages from the Qur'an?
What is the probability of something like this happening? What are the chances that this remarkable fact is capable of a common human explanation and attribution, and not miraculous evidence of the divine origin and nature of the Qur'an?
Muhammad, the prophet of Allah, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, mind you, was not writing down all this in a book, which he could go back and change and revise if and as he wanted to.
On the contrary, he simply recited and read out to those around him - his companions (Ashaab), not followers mind you, he called them - these Aayats or passages from the Qur'an, these divine revelations, as the Archangel Gabriel delivered them to him.
So, what is the probability or likelihood that in chapter 2 (Aayat 129) he will talk about the prayer of Abraham about his son's descendants and then in chapters 3 and 62 - Aayats 164 and 2 respectively - remember to revisit and record God's answer to Abraham's prayer in exactly the same words?
Who can calculate the odds of this happening as a routine human occurrence?
That is why I say: Allahu Akbar, what a miracle it is.
And that is partly why passages from the Qur'an are called Aayats - signs and miracles each one of them, rather than verses, as people have so naively taken to referring to them.
