Qur'an to The Rescue
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?)
Fifteen years ago, we started another wave of teaching people the Qur'an. We had been at it for a long time. Starting maybe 20, 25, 30 years before that. Take your pick.
Earlier, generations of people came; tarried a while as the poet says; acquired the object of their desire, whether it was the Qur'an or something else; and departed.
But this time around things turned out a bit different. Some of the visitors chose to stay.
So, after the passage of over 15 years to this fresh wave of going after the Qur'an, God Almighty has blessed us with a core group of people who know how to read the Qur'an. And do so fairly well, clearly and correctly.
With all the Makhaarij, as the experts would say, duly attended to. That is, with all the correct sounds and pronunciations.
To people in Arabia, India or Indonesia, this may not sound like much. But we are talking about the Western Hemisphere, where the mother tongue is English and where the tongue does not easily roll with the sound of Arabic letters, whether it is a Khaa or an Ayin or a Qwaaf.
Many of these people, men as well women, young as well as old, when they embarked on their quest for the Qur'an, did not know how to read Arabic. God Almighty taught them how to.
And with the speed of light.
Not through Transliteration using Roman or English letters, which we consider to be almost Haraam, but through Arabic script using authentic Arabic alphabet.
Most of them, it is fair to say, were put through the book Qur'an Reading Made Easy and they made the most of it.
We did not separate groups by gender or age. Instead, we used a simple model we called Each One Teach One.
According to this model, those who learned first, turned around and taught someone else. And they, in turn, taught someone else, and so on.
Thus, creating a chain reaction and a process that we hope and pray will be one of Infinite Regress.
The result was we had seven-year-olds teaching 70-year-olds. And we had grandchildren showing their grandparents how to read the Qur'an.
So, the tiny band of people, whatever the number, who stayed with it this time around, could now read the Qur'an at will.
Not from English Transliteration, but from the actual Mushaf -- that is in Qur'an's real, original and only language, Arabic.
Now these people who have been blessed by Allah with the trust of the Qur'an, read their Qur'an, not only using their own personal routines, whatever those may be, but also on demand as it were.
And the "demand" comes when someone falls ill. For, the Qur'an is Shifaa -- a cure for all kinds of illnesses, ailments and diseases.
Huwa Lilladheena Aamanoo Hudan wa Shafaa'!:
And:
Wa Nunazzilu Minal Qur'ani Maa Huwa Shifaa'.
Or when someone dies.
Or when there is happy news and the occasion calls for a special offering of thanks to Allah on his mercy and kindness to one or several of us, whether it is a wedding or a college graduation or something else.
On these occasions, we pool our resources and do a formal Khatm of the Qur'an. That means reading the Qur'an from cover to cover as it were: reading it from Al-hamdu to Wannaas.
Qur'an is what defines the life of a Muslim.
The Qur'an is part of the rope of Allah that Allah talks about in the Qur'an and asks everyone to hold on to collectively.
Wa'tasimoo Bi-Hablillahi Jamee-'an.
And a good place to start is by learning to read the Qur'an in its original Arabic script; learn to read it; and then keep on reading it as you move to understand and practice it.
And reading -- and reciting -- the Qur'an is part of practicing the Qur'an.
Faqra-oo Maa Tayassara Minal Qur'an.
Paraphrase:
"Read what you can of the Qur'an!"
And so is reflecting on the meaning of the passages of the Qur'an.
Passages: Aayaat.
And so is trying to understand the Qur'an.
It is all part of putting the Qur'an into practice.
END
