Quran is not arranged according to subject, neither do Surahs deal with a single subject
Surah comes from the word Suwar or Saura which means the outer walls of an ancient city, Ancient cities used to have giant walls which people could never scale. There were many different kinds of buildings and streets and neighbourhoods in the city,but everything was complementing one another and everything was supporting everything and interacting e.g. residential areas,commercial areas,recreation spots etc. ..And when you leave one city you can immediately tell that its a different city now and its different. So every city is unique in its identity.
Similarly a Surah is a boundary wall that has a bunch of topics which all interact with one another.
Sometimes different Surahs have some common themes. Just like sometimes you go to a new city and it reminds you of something you had seen in a previous city, so they have some common elements.
-This course covers the summary of the entire Quran and covers all the main themes
-It answers what is the least expected of me by Allah(minimum passing criteria)
There are places in Quran where Allah tells us how to get an A, but here we will discuss the basic minimum criteria, some of us just care about passing and don't want extra credit,so we really need to know the basics
-Some scholars believed that Surah Asr is the summary of the entire Qur'an
SURAH ASR
Every human being is in loss(failing) except those who do the following things:
Believe
Do good deeds
Counsel each other truthfully
Counsel each other patiently
How is this a summary of the Qur'an? because all passages in the Qur'an talk about one or all of these things
This Surah has 3 ayahs yet it is only one sentence in continuity
I swear by time! Why does Allah swear by things?we swear when we are not being believed or when we want to reinforce our point, or when we are angry, or when we are in court to testify
There were 2 additional reasons used by Arabs at that time:
-They swore to grab people's attention(e.g. A person wants to grab peoples attention in the marketplace, he suddenly swears by the morning to grab ppls attention, it meant that something very serious was going to happen in morning, all sorts of thoughts would cross peoples mind when they swore)
-Allah also swears in the Qur'an in order to give an evidence or make a witness
So Allah could be possibly angry here as He swears by time that everyone is in loss or He is testifying,or He is not being believed,or He is grabbing our attention to time by swearing to time,or He will take whatever he swears by and He will bring it forward as a witness->time itself is a witness that man is in loss
Imagine time is like an old man who has been through everything and seen everything and similarly time has been watching over and over again how we have wasted it and been in loss generation after generation
Youth are under the delusion that they have their whole life ahead of them, who has got that guarantee? nobody knows how long they are going to be around, which means we all need to have a sense of urgency, look at the graveyards and you will see so many people died young
Time is the ultimate proof and evidence that we are in loss. A true loss is the one after which we cannot regain that thing. We can lose a game and win again or we can lose money and gain it back or we can lose some possession and gain it back but we can never get back time even if we have all the wealth in the world
Even if you are a billionaire, when you will be old and will lose your faculties none of what you own will matter, it will be of no use if you cant see or hear or walk or enjoy them
Inna = no doubt about it
Allah did not say that nations are in loss, Allah said that humans i.e. every individual is in loss so that you think of yourself when you read this ayah
Allah says at another place in the Qur'an, when we were unborn, our mothers belly surrounded us,when we were born we were wrapped with a towel, when we are children we are wrapped by our parents, we are wrapped by our clothes , our homes, etc. On the day of judgement everything will be peeled off,everything that wrapped us, even our body wraps our soul and it will also be separated
My teacher once asked me, where are you? I was confused. I pointed to my chest, I pointed to my brain,but he said point to your self, he meant ROOH, because this body will die and will be lowered in the grave,but the rooh will live
In reality, we are ALONE. We show our true self only when we are alone. Being with anyone else modifies our behavior and conduct. We need to internalize that we are in loss.
Imagine we are drowning. The first thing we need to do is to wake up. If we dont wake up and accept reality we will die. The next thing we will do is that we will take action, even if we dont know how to swim, we will try to take action. Then you see that your family and loved ones are also drowning. So now you try to wake them up to reality as well. When one of you is pulled down the other one can pull him up so you can buck each other up. And if you lose hope or are going to fail, you counsel each other to hold on and be patient as theres just a little more left.
THIS is realizing and believing you are in loss,doing amal,counselling each other truthfully and counselling with patience
There are 3 words used in Qur'an to denote loss. Allah chose KHUSR which shows the least amount of loss. So Allah didn't say that everybody is in terrible loss(Khusraan) or the loss that keeps increasing(Khusaar)
>What is Qur'an's definition of success and failure?
If somebody lives in a cardboard box,we think he is a failure.
If he lives in a huge mansion, we think he is a great success
In Qur'an, Allah talks about Ibrahim AS that he got kicked out of his house and was homeless, but he was the ultimate success
Our messenger S.A.W.W was also homeless for some years and was deported from his country but he is the greatest success humanity has ever seen
Firaun had the biggest and most elaborate house ever
Qaroon had so many vaults and they used to have massive gates for which he hired a group of people who could lift the gates of those underground vaults,thats how heavy they were!but he is one of the worst failures
This does not imply that being poor is a success and being wealty is a failure but the point is that money has nothing to do with success, rather success is determined by how you use your time, if you use it wisely you are a success and if you don't you are a failure!
The Qur'an's point is not to create depression by telling that we are in loss, and the point is not that we cease to enjoy life and just become sad. If we become truly grateful for what Allah gives us, we won't be in loss. And being grateful is itself a good deed. The more grateful we are, the more Allah will bless us with
Allazeena=means those who, but it is used for very specific group of people. Using the word allazeena means that these people are special and it takes effort to be part of this group. And it is an exception, and exceptions are always in minority. So very small number of people are able to live up to this criteria.
Allah did not mention what to believe in, so that makes it limitless and encompasses everything. but if we take it in context, the first thing we need to believe is that we are in loss.
Now we take Islam very casually, most of us are brought up in this way that we begin to take religion very nonseriously except in Ramadan,it's fine if we follow the rulings and it's fine if we skip them
>Belief has 3 parts:
belief in Allah
The messenger
The afterlife
Every religion has all these 3 concepts, but what we believe about these is different in every religion and for every human
So basically Allah is the one who has to lay down the definition of believe of all these 3 things. so that we know what to believe in and whats required of us
We should believe fanatically in Allah and Allahs word, we should be utterly convinced
When we are exposed to an environment where everything is being questioned and our religion is being made fun of, we begin to lose our belief and religion and our roots, if we are not grounded strongly in belief, and then we go through a religious crises
A famous scholar said that if I believe in this book, it will put brakes on my life and restrictions, and if I don't then I will be free to live my life as I like. So he said that this book better give me very good reasons for me to believe in it if I'm gonna give up my life
If you ask converts, when they first read the Qur'an they got sucked into it and even if they tried to put it away or get rid of its thoughts, they were pulled back to it over and over again,that is how powerful the Qur'an is! And on the other hand,there are some ppl who just bury this book and pretend it's not there because this is the easy path where we don't have to give up our desires.
Remember Yusuf A.S., as a young man he was put in a situation where a beautiful wealthy woman locked the door and offered himself and nobody was ever going to find out but he still kept his composure, and he saved himself and preferred going to jail!
When we are in school, there are consequences of our behavior, for e.g. if we have an exam the next day we will study, suppose someone is not studying it could be because he does not value it or take it seriously or because he has given up already, but if our live is dependent on something we will do everything to achieve a goal. It all boils down to his: How motivated are you to get Jannah and how much you want to protect yourself from Hell?
The Quran is extremely graphic in describing hell, extremely graphic. Why would Allah talk like that? because it is a gift from Allah to develop the urgency in us to do anything we can to get away from it. It's not a joke.
The Quran is also very graphic in describing heaven, other religions have a very vague description but Quran describes it as a party where we get anything we desire and we are having the time of our lives, we are having a great time,wearing beautiful clothes, everybody is serving us, the trees are lowering ourselves to us, we are getting married,we are hanging out with friends, we are at the edges of waterfalls, there are rivers,lofty mansions, master beds,meeting Allah, and who should say salaam first? the younger or the elder?the teacher or the student? but there ALLAH will INITIATE salaam!And Allah will serve us drink! SubhanAllah! We have to know Jannah to want it!
But this Surah is about not wanting Jahannum...
What is the proof that we truly believe? that we take action, just like we take action if we want to win something or we take medication if we are sick,hollow words mean nothing..
Saalihaat means the deeds that fix or correct, it means we are not perfect and we will always be doing acts to fix and mend things, and we will always try to be better and need to do that in every sphere of life. What are things I do in my day that I can fix?What are the things I can fix about ourselves?
Salihaat is an adjective, It is a Jama qillat, which means that they did a few good deeds, It means that Allah is not asking a lot from us. Qillat literally means less than 10. So here Allah is implying that I am only asking for a few things,that's it!
The hardest people to talk to about serious things is family. It's easy to give a lecture or talk to unknown people but it is extremely hard to convey it to family as family will be very sarcastic to us. We need to find ways to give advice to family that works with them. So when we have to counsel others, we need to find the right way to do it. wasiya is the advice which is heartfelt and sincere. Our point is to soften their hearts so we need to choose the right word at the right time, this religion inherently calls on us to care about others.
Tawasau is from tafaaul, it implies a mutual relationship,meaning you are both willing to take and give advice. We don't consider ourselves superior to others.
We counsel each other to truth,and truth is always hard to swallow. When we counsel friends we are afraid they might not talk to us anymore if we show them the truth. SO we don't have to hide the truth but we have to convey it to them using hikmat. They counsel each other not only truthfully but sincerely. Your advice should be an honest conversation and not merely a show or performance. When we counsel others, it is first and foremost about us.
Counsel each other to patience. How? Suppose you are walking down a dark street at night. Somebody is playing there and they are like thugs who are playing and damaging property in the process. Suppose you think of stopping them to protect others. But you are afraid of the consequences. It takes strength of character. BUT Qur'an says that we have to persuade one another to stay strong and hold on to our faith and keep counselling and encourage one another to keep doing good deeds.
Plus a very imp meaning is that we cannot survive unless we stick together and help one another. We need to hold on to our faith together and strengthen one another. The Surah starts with the idea that we are alone and we ends with the idea that we cannot survive unless we are united.
We not only need to stick together on an individual level but also as organizations and also as an Ummah
Technically the last ayah is in past tense. They believed and counseled etc. WHY? NO human being should actually think they have survived this. The only people who have made it are those who are already dead. As long as we are alive, we need to keep doing these things over and over again until the end of our life because there is no guarantee while we are alive. Others will be able to say about us that we lived up to this.
We are all living different roles and we should check in our sphere who we can give advice to, and who we can influence positively
Sometimes family abandon you if you counsel them to the truth, like the families of some Prophets, so Allah replaces their old company with new company and makes them their big support,and company really matters, we need to find company who we can speak truthfully to, we need to have good company, be very careful of the friends you choose
How is this a summary of the Qur'an? because all passages in the Qur'an talk about one or all of these things
This Surah has 3 ayahs yet it is only one sentence in continuity
I swear by time! Why does Allah swear by things?we swear when we are not being believed or when we want to reinforce our point, or when we are angry, or when we are in court to testify
There were 2 additional reasons used by Arabs at that time:
-They swore to grab people's attention(e.g. A person wants to grab peoples attention in the marketplace, he suddenly swears by the morning to grab ppls attention, it meant that something very serious was going to happen in morning, all sorts of thoughts would cross peoples mind when they swore)
-Allah also swears in the Qur'an in order to give an evidence or make a witness
So Allah could be possibly angry here as He swears by time that everyone is in loss or He is testifying,or He is not being believed,or He is grabbing our attention to time by swearing to time,or He will take whatever he swears by and He will bring it forward as a witness->time itself is a witness that man is in loss
Imagine time is like an old man who has been through everything and seen everything and similarly time has been watching over and over again how we have wasted it and been in loss generation after generation
Youth are under the delusion that they have their whole life ahead of them, who has got that guarantee? nobody knows how long they are going to be around, which means we all need to have a sense of urgency, look at the graveyards and you will see so many people died young
Time is the ultimate proof and evidence that we are in loss. A true loss is the one after which we cannot regain that thing. We can lose a game and win again or we can lose money and gain it back or we can lose some possession and gain it back but we can never get back time even if we have all the wealth in the world
Even if you are a billionaire, when you will be old and will lose your faculties none of what you own will matter, it will be of no use if you cant see or hear or walk or enjoy them
Inna = no doubt about it
Allah did not say that nations are in loss, Allah said that humans i.e. every individual is in loss so that you think of yourself when you read this ayah
Allah says at another place in the Qur'an, when we were unborn, our mothers belly surrounded us,when we were born we were wrapped with a towel, when we are children we are wrapped by our parents, we are wrapped by our clothes , our homes, etc. On the day of judgement everything will be peeled off,everything that wrapped us, even our body wraps our soul and it will also be separated
My teacher once asked me, where are you? I was confused. I pointed to my chest, I pointed to my brain,but he said point to your self, he meant ROOH, because this body will die and will be lowered in the grave,but the rooh will live
In reality, we are ALONE. We show our true self only when we are alone. Being with anyone else modifies our behavior and conduct. We need to internalize that we are in loss.
Imagine we are drowning. The first thing we need to do is to wake up. If we dont wake up and accept reality we will die. The next thing we will do is that we will take action, even if we dont know how to swim, we will try to take action. Then you see that your family and loved ones are also drowning. So now you try to wake them up to reality as well. When one of you is pulled down the other one can pull him up so you can buck each other up. And if you lose hope or are going to fail, you counsel each other to hold on and be patient as theres just a little more left.
THIS is realizing and believing you are in loss,doing amal,counselling each other truthfully and counselling with patience
There are 3 words used in Qur'an to denote loss. Allah chose KHUSR which shows the least amount of loss. So Allah didn't say that everybody is in terrible loss(Khusraan) or the loss that keeps increasing(Khusaar)
>What is Qur'an's definition of success and failure?
If somebody lives in a cardboard box,we think he is a failure.
If he lives in a huge mansion, we think he is a great success
In Qur'an, Allah talks about Ibrahim AS that he got kicked out of his house and was homeless, but he was the ultimate success
Our messenger S.A.W.W was also homeless for some years and was deported from his country but he is the greatest success humanity has ever seen
Firaun had the biggest and most elaborate house ever
Qaroon had so many vaults and they used to have massive gates for which he hired a group of people who could lift the gates of those underground vaults,thats how heavy they were!but he is one of the worst failures
This does not imply that being poor is a success and being wealty is a failure but the point is that money has nothing to do with success, rather success is determined by how you use your time, if you use it wisely you are a success and if you don't you are a failure!
The Qur'an's point is not to create depression by telling that we are in loss, and the point is not that we cease to enjoy life and just become sad. If we become truly grateful for what Allah gives us, we won't be in loss. And being grateful is itself a good deed. The more grateful we are, the more Allah will bless us with
Allazeena=means those who, but it is used for very specific group of people. Using the word allazeena means that these people are special and it takes effort to be part of this group. And it is an exception, and exceptions are always in minority. So very small number of people are able to live up to this criteria.
Allah did not mention what to believe in, so that makes it limitless and encompasses everything. but if we take it in context, the first thing we need to believe is that we are in loss.
Now we take Islam very casually, most of us are brought up in this way that we begin to take religion very nonseriously except in Ramadan,it's fine if we follow the rulings and it's fine if we skip them
>Belief has 3 parts:
belief in Allah
The messenger
The afterlife
Every religion has all these 3 concepts, but what we believe about these is different in every religion and for every human
So basically Allah is the one who has to lay down the definition of believe of all these 3 things. so that we know what to believe in and whats required of us
We should believe fanatically in Allah and Allahs word, we should be utterly convinced
When we are exposed to an environment where everything is being questioned and our religion is being made fun of, we begin to lose our belief and religion and our roots, if we are not grounded strongly in belief, and then we go through a religious crises
A famous scholar said that if I believe in this book, it will put brakes on my life and restrictions, and if I don't then I will be free to live my life as I like. So he said that this book better give me very good reasons for me to believe in it if I'm gonna give up my life
If you ask converts, when they first read the Qur'an they got sucked into it and even if they tried to put it away or get rid of its thoughts, they were pulled back to it over and over again,that is how powerful the Qur'an is! And on the other hand,there are some ppl who just bury this book and pretend it's not there because this is the easy path where we don't have to give up our desires.
Remember Yusuf A.S., as a young man he was put in a situation where a beautiful wealthy woman locked the door and offered himself and nobody was ever going to find out but he still kept his composure, and he saved himself and preferred going to jail!
When we are in school, there are consequences of our behavior, for e.g. if we have an exam the next day we will study, suppose someone is not studying it could be because he does not value it or take it seriously or because he has given up already, but if our live is dependent on something we will do everything to achieve a goal. It all boils down to his: How motivated are you to get Jannah and how much you want to protect yourself from Hell?
The Quran is extremely graphic in describing hell, extremely graphic. Why would Allah talk like that? because it is a gift from Allah to develop the urgency in us to do anything we can to get away from it. It's not a joke.
The Quran is also very graphic in describing heaven, other religions have a very vague description but Quran describes it as a party where we get anything we desire and we are having the time of our lives, we are having a great time,wearing beautiful clothes, everybody is serving us, the trees are lowering ourselves to us, we are getting married,we are hanging out with friends, we are at the edges of waterfalls, there are rivers,lofty mansions, master beds,meeting Allah, and who should say salaam first? the younger or the elder?the teacher or the student? but there ALLAH will INITIATE salaam!And Allah will serve us drink! SubhanAllah! We have to know Jannah to want it!
But this Surah is about not wanting Jahannum...
What is the proof that we truly believe? that we take action, just like we take action if we want to win something or we take medication if we are sick,hollow words mean nothing..
Saalihaat means the deeds that fix or correct, it means we are not perfect and we will always be doing acts to fix and mend things, and we will always try to be better and need to do that in every sphere of life. What are things I do in my day that I can fix?What are the things I can fix about ourselves?
Salihaat is an adjective, It is a Jama qillat, which means that they did a few good deeds, It means that Allah is not asking a lot from us. Qillat literally means less than 10. So here Allah is implying that I am only asking for a few things,that's it!
The hardest people to talk to about serious things is family. It's easy to give a lecture or talk to unknown people but it is extremely hard to convey it to family as family will be very sarcastic to us. We need to find ways to give advice to family that works with them. So when we have to counsel others, we need to find the right way to do it. wasiya is the advice which is heartfelt and sincere. Our point is to soften their hearts so we need to choose the right word at the right time, this religion inherently calls on us to care about others.
Tawasau is from tafaaul, it implies a mutual relationship,meaning you are both willing to take and give advice. We don't consider ourselves superior to others.
We counsel each other to truth,and truth is always hard to swallow. When we counsel friends we are afraid they might not talk to us anymore if we show them the truth. SO we don't have to hide the truth but we have to convey it to them using hikmat. They counsel each other not only truthfully but sincerely. Your advice should be an honest conversation and not merely a show or performance. When we counsel others, it is first and foremost about us.
Counsel each other to patience. How? Suppose you are walking down a dark street at night. Somebody is playing there and they are like thugs who are playing and damaging property in the process. Suppose you think of stopping them to protect others. But you are afraid of the consequences. It takes strength of character. BUT Qur'an says that we have to persuade one another to stay strong and hold on to our faith and keep counselling and encourage one another to keep doing good deeds.
Plus a very imp meaning is that we cannot survive unless we stick together and help one another. We need to hold on to our faith together and strengthen one another. The Surah starts with the idea that we are alone and we ends with the idea that we cannot survive unless we are united.
We not only need to stick together on an individual level but also as organizations and also as an Ummah
Technically the last ayah is in past tense. They believed and counseled etc. WHY? NO human being should actually think they have survived this. The only people who have made it are those who are already dead. As long as we are alive, we need to keep doing these things over and over again until the end of our life because there is no guarantee while we are alive. Others will be able to say about us that we lived up to this.
We are all living different roles and we should check in our sphere who we can give advice to, and who we can influence positively
Sometimes family abandon you if you counsel them to the truth, like the families of some Prophets, so Allah replaces their old company with new company and makes them their big support,and company really matters, we need to find company who we can speak truthfully to, we need to have good company, be very careful of the friends you choose
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