Surah Ar-Rahman - A Deeper Look #28 Humility Questions and Intellectual Courage

0:00This audio is brought to you by Moslim Central. Please consider donating to help cover our running costs and future projects by visiting www.muslimcentral.com for the slash donate. Last time in this Surah Ar-Rahman series, this is our book, guys. It's our book. And you know, and your reading translation are like, I don't understand it. I have a hard time relating to it. And that's why I just, I don't even know. So, stop with the attitude. Stop being lazy. Stop making excuses. And give the book what it deserves. To help you follow along and reflect more deeply, we've created a companion workbook for this series. Download it at bayina.com forward slash Rahman.

1:07I'd like to actually first start, usually these things are said at the end, but I want to start with that. I want to start ICCC by talking about them and the hospitality that they've shown me and the support that they've shown me and our team. And just really a round of applause for them and their volunteers because they've just done a fantastic job. And I think they're extremely accommodating. For someone like myself who travels and gives talks and ad lectures and classes and things like that sometimes, some communities are very hands-off and some communities are too pushy. So they don't give you space to breathe. These guys are just right. They're very supportive. Anything you need, they're there. They're very helpful and easy going. And at the same time, they're not overbearing or pushing or anything like that. So I really appreciate that. And I hope that allows them to preserve this community. So, when I want to start with this evening, we're only going to have one session today and then

2:09I'm going to open it up for your questions and I was going to take your, you actually want to start actually with your contemplations and your thoughts about the surah, anything that you reflect on. I gave you guys three lenses, the lens of language, the world of the Quran, and then also your own world. So if there's any brave souls that would like to share a reflection, I'd love to hear, yes. Salam alaikum. The five lenses, I used three or four of them and I reflected on the first two ayahs only. About the lens number one, you called wording. And as it relates to the first ayah, you use the example of time travel and you say the most advanced technology, like an iPhone, you know, if you're giving back to the, you know, 1400 years ago, three Arabs, they wouldn't know what to do with it because you need a manual for life to operate, a manual for the operation, operation manual. That's very true. But I also see something different in the first two ayahs by looking at it through the literal lens of language, a wording, they call it. Here's what I see,

3:16al-Rahman al-Mal-Kur'an. I learned from these two ayahs that Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala started this amazing Surah with the Rahma. And from his Rahma, he taught us how to live where to put our priorities in all years of life and how to interact with others and what to aspire to and finally how to die actually is all in that Surah. Al-Mal-Kur'an, the Allah is telling us, this is the operation manual that we run, that should run our lives. And you said, you said that very clearly. But also Allah in this ayah to me emphasizes, he puts a lot of emphasis on knowledge and the benefits of attaining knowledge early in the Surah by opening with al-Mal-Kur'an. He taught man with this book implying that this is the book of all knowledge. The first thing that Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala wants us to know about ourselves is that he blessed us with his

4:19Rahma and gave us a purpose for our lives and the ability to learn, to access knowledge and to transmit and contribute with our knowledge. From the second ayah, Al-Rahman al-Mal-Khalaq al-Assan, Al-Rahman al-Mal-Kur'an, from the first two ayahs, the Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala draws our attention to the importance of having Rahma in our dealing and the importance of the alim and the alim because when Muslims focus on adding positive value and to purpose of alim and alim seriously they change the world and they succeeded in removing civilization in general and the European in particular from the dark ages and to the light of knowledge and application of new knowledge to what was discovered earlier they add to what was discovered earlier in a never ending quest to make this world a better place to live for all humanity. The early

5:19Muslims transmitted their knowledge through the Europeans which was which were wallowing in darkness. The Europeans thought that knowledge is evil at that time then came the Muslims and showed them what is possible with knowledge when applied properly and for the good to cause because Allah Subhanahu Ta'ala dictated erected early and the Muslims to pursue knowledge they succeeded in making an amazing unprecedented discoveries in the fields of knowledge and made the greatest contribution to mankind civilization still benefits today from the early Muslims contribution 1400 years later and this is all because the the Muslims took the word Iqra seriously and they backed it up with knowledge and massive action be it in the field of medicine chemistry mathematics engineering space literature and liberal arts even the early Muslim excelled and where the leaders in all these areas all because of this one command from Allah Subhanahu Ta'ala Iqra the West benefits today from the

6:23efforts of the early Muslims and their fruits of knowledge and labor the fact that the West is advanced today is because the contribution of the early Muslims we said that a few times and then transmitted their knowledge to the West through al-Alam and al-Talim yeah that is the greatest contribution to humanity made by an early Muslims who took again the commands seriously of Allah now the second lens the world of the Qur'an the first two eyes took me to talk to me about the past nations like Farahun, Wakaum, Lut, Wahad with Amud who did not follow the instructions manual and they transgressed so they were punished in the dunya and they will be punished in the Iqra for their defiance and transgressions I also get from this ayah that the best way I also get from that that the best way to love Allah Subhanahu Ta'ala and to appreciate him by recognizing that he would

7:23that we would not exist without his Rahma and to extend the Rahma to all of Allah's creations and that is our existence is useless without a clear purpose in life that this ayah gave us through the lens number three which aims to apply the teachings of Allah Subhanahu Ta'ala to help improve our lives experiences and knowing that I have a defined impatient I know I have defined impatient personality I can learn to surrender and to become more obedient and more patient with others I can be less judgmental and more forgiving for those who do me wrong I can pray that Allah Subhanahu Ta'ala gives me beneficial knowledge and make me benefit from the knowledge that I acquire I am taught to help others and do more righteous deeds also the last lens number four not the last one number four is about connecting with the ayahs at a deeper level

8:24I started taking learning Quran much more seriously and I'm presently enrolled in Tafiq Quran the debate actually it's called it's photographic reading of the Quran suppose you can read you can memorize the Quran in such short time so I just enrolled in and I enrolled back here also for the recitation and also this week has helped me change my relationship with this because I have young kids and well not a young anymore but I was afraid this this week after listening to you and after the lessons I really I'm not that anxious anymore that's so beautiful to hear and so that's that's the really what I get away from it I am not terrified of this actually I'm longing to meet Allah that's how Allah will give us all of that thank you so much any other lady side anybody like to share yes all the way back Assalamu alaikum so I know you were talking about the lenses but you started with that first mindset of just grounding ourselves in Allah's word is perfect and I am not yeah I think that's

9:26resets this for me because if you've grown up here you're commended and you know recognized for having critical thinking as high school or as a college student you analyze all textbooks right so one of the biggest things for my kids as well I don't understand this so that means this doesn't make sense right yeah and that mindset mindset change is what makes it easier now like two decades ago if I when I was reading the iars about what the men get and there's no you know mentioned from Allah on what women will get right it right it didn't sit right because to me it was like well if it's not mentioned then that means it doesn't mean that we are not going to actually get anything right right but as as you start to like internalize hey I'm not I'm the one who doesn't understand right Allah is Allah's word is perfect and then obviously getting older you start actually not thinking about okay what does it not say for me it's almost like well Allah protect me from being one of the criminals that he talked about you know what I

10:31mean like this is longer you live the more sins you've committed you stop thinking about what you may not get in juna because you're some more concerned about the other side being what you end up you know so but I really did appreciate that lens of not the lens but that mindset of you're not perfect right a less word is perfect but that's hard because as kids you just a less so far away and you don't know how to grasp that like a less perfect well what does perfect even mean right it's hard yeah yeah so it's just really connecting back and opening your mind up and then being okay when you don't understand it's it's just a it's a constant journey you know what you bring up is so so important because we have to understand the difference between the answer to that question that a child might have or you might have had when you were young and you had that question of the Quran and some Christian has that question of the Bible because a pastor can sit there and say the Bible is perfect so you know don't don't be critical

11:33of the Bible and they can say you know what that really touched me I'm not going to question the Bible anymore right so we have to on the one hand what I said applies but there's a difference in approach to what we do with the Quran to what anybody else does with their book because if we don't make that distinction then they get to say the same thing about their religious tradition and we end up in you have your truth and I have my truth but we actually believe we have the truth right so one of the things that I want you to think about and I'm glad you brought this up is that whenever Allah says something and he gives us some kind of wisdom on the one hand I have to have humility but on the other hand one of its conditions is ayatul lisa inin these are ayat for people who ask questions you wonder you have to ask why why would Allah not mention for example I do ask the question why did Allah not mention the rewards the spouses of women and I suggested some answers that I think make a lot of sense after having spoken to a number of women on the subject I didn't mention an experiment that I did and I thought I maybe that was a one fluke experiment

12:39which is why I did it again in Pakistan and it was the same result but the experiment was actually in New York I had a group of kids a couple of hundred kids a hundred boys a hundred girls and I asked them to you know these were preteens and teens and I asked them to write down if they can have anything they want and they will not get in any trouble you don't have to tell me your name and you can keep your answer a secret and you just tell me what you want and there's no worry about halal or haram don't worry about if it's forbidden or bad or good no it doesn't matter whatever you desire if you could have it right now and you would not get in any trouble and nobody would mind your parents wouldn't mind anybody what would it be just write it down on this piece of paper right and I gave all these kids a piece of paper on the on the girls side and on the boys side the boys were done like they were done in 10 seconds what what was interesting is what happened on the girls side what happened on the girls side was hey wait can we have some more time wait so can I have another paper can I have another paper

13:42and then there was also what did you get what did you what did you what did you oh my god so no wait wait wait I changed my mind can I have I back can I have it back no boy asked for their paper back but the girls side there was there was a diversity in thought there was a diversity in what they want there was an uncertainty about pinning everything they want to one thing you know and there there's actually this is the nature in which Allah created a difference between men and women and you know one of the things you said Allah didn't mention it I want you to remember something when Allah doesn't mention something it's actually more it's actually more so you know how we we saw that Allah said that you're going to get the best the word best is more than the trees and the gardens and all the other stuff that he mentioned doesn't cover what the best is something more it was also really cool and so it's not that they'll have whatever they want

14:44you know what that covers it but he says well the day namazid and we have some more what is this more you know so wonderful wonderful thoughts but I actually want you to one of the things that that really helped me solidify my faith and this is going to sound a little controversial but I'm going to share with you exactly what my journey looks like sometimes I'm studying something in the Quran and then the first you know I have my own thoughts on it my own notes and my own conclusions and I'm not sure about my conclusions yet but I'm at least writing them down but then I go to the Tafseer's the people that have studied and discussed the Quran and explain the Quran and stuff and we study a lot of different Tafasid in our group we study the classics like the Tafseer, like Ibn Kathir, Kursubi, Tawbari, Jalalayin the early works we study you know the legal Tafasid particularly things like the Al-Kursubi for example or even a Shauqani but then then we'll study like the linguistic and literary Tafasid like the Zamakhshari and some of the philosophical Tafasid like Razi and Al-Muddurar and you know and then come to the later

15:49Mufasirun that are rooted in the tradition like Al-Usi and Ibn Aashur like just we're going to scan the the universe because it's so incredible just think about the fact that there were people that dedicated their entire lives to studying this one book from all these different continents and all these different centuries across history and we get to have the juice of their life work in front of us right so I'm very humbled by having even access to that stuff but even after having access to that stuff sometimes your your the question you had in your mind is not answered or the answer isn't satisfactory right and then you start wondering am I crazy or something wrong with all these scholars Astaghfirullah how can I think that they don't have the answer the reason is they had questions in their mind and they answered those questions when they read the ayah they had a certain number of questions in their mind and they attempted to answer those questions but as humanity moves forward and our experiences as as human beings move forward we get new questions right and when we get new questions we seek new answers

16:56so the work that they've done is actually a lot of times asking older questions that have already been answered and sometimes our our questions are the same but sometimes our questions are not the same so our answers are not going to be the same we we're we're gonna have to seek out new answers to some things so that also happens in the course of my study and it's actually a really interesting part of my study then what I have to do is I'm like okay you know what I have some crazy thoughts but I need to talk to a bunch of people to verify how crazy I actually am so I'll talk to Dr. Sayyap Sayyid I'll talk to Dr. Akram Nadvi I'll talk to like you know any a number of scholars that I that I lean on and trust and get their thoughts on people that are that are rooted in Islamic studies and scholarship I'm actually in my group I'm the only not scholar everybody else is a scholar right but I give them a hard time oh man I give I don't I don't let them let them go like if they say this is the answer I was like yeah no doesn't make sense because I'm hum I have to humble myself to the Quran but I'm not gonna humble myself to less than convincing answers

18:00right because Allah wants me to be a thinker and that actually sets our religion apart from every other religion we're supposed to be people of thought while maintaining a humility to Allah's part of it right I'll give you just one quick example of that I don't I don't like naming names ever so I'm not gonna name the name but I was listening to a lecture one time and this fellow made a comment about the Quran this scholar actually someone I respect I listened to lots of his lectures and he made a comment about an ayah and the Quran and he said we all know that Allah has given men a degree over women we all know that I was like we all know that I've been studying Quran for 20 years I I didn't know that how do we know that because you know Allah says this in this ayah and he cited a part of the ayah from Sultal Bukhara and I'm just left scratching my head like what just happened and everybody's okay with it because they've heard it a million times I'm not okay with it because I don't see what that's what the ayah says so I go to him after the lecture I put him you know I'm not in front of people backstage kind of thing and I said and I say

19:02hey so the ayah like it wasn't talking about women it was talking about divorced women and it was talking about when a man divorces his wife how many months before he can take her back still take her back and has the advantage is three cycles right Thalat Thaqurul and in those three cycles he does have a degree of advantage over her that's the ayah's context and subject matter it never used the word women in fact to use the word them and the word them is a pronoun referring back to a noun and the noun is a Mutalakat divorced women so why are you taking this and then saying this is talking about all if you want to come to that conclusion from some other thing you've studied great why are you using this as your basis for that conclusion he goes yeah your opinion exists but you know scholars agree I was like yeah but why did they agree I'm not finding myself a green because the ayah is not a green that's not what it's saying you know and if

20:04we make that bold statement that you know they all have a degree over us do I have a degree over Aishat al-Yallahu anha technically then or or medium or like do I mean because I'm a man and she's a woman according to the statement that men generally have a degree over women do I have a degree over my mother I don't I don't see that working out and because then you start running into problems in any of so many other teachings in your religion right because who has degree over who so that's what I mean by having a a critical mindset while maintaining humility and ultimate loyalty to the Quran and also on this note I get a chance to go to Islamic universities in the Muslim world Madaris students are studying they're studying five six seven years sometimes learning and becoming or not getting the stamp of a Sheikh right and they want me to give a lecture to these students I'm the I'm the non-scholar giving these two B scholars a talk right and they they but

21:06some many of them follow my work and they listen to my lectures and stuff I was actually pretty shocked that that's that's going on so the lecture that I always give them always the same one you have teachers you've learned from that you love teachers that have taught you your dean and for many of you not knowingly I've become that teacher like you followed hundreds of hours of my work right but you know what your loyalty isn't to me or to your teachers or your loyalty has to stay to evidence your loyalty has to stay to the most convincing argument and if you find yourself disagreeing then it's not I'm not saying you should be impressed with your opinion but you should be thorough in your disagreement like if I disagree I really have to be grounded not just I feel like I don't like your conclusion my feelings not enough because that's not huge that's again lack of humility but if I am going to disagree I'm going to dig deep into the evidences and not have

22:07any conclusion until the evidences speak for themselves and if the conclusion is not conclusive I can't say either way then I'm okay with saying it could go either way I should be okay with that right but if we develop that mindset can you imagine what a different kind of Oma we become right there I have colleagues that I love that I absolutely love them and on some issues I completely disagree with them and they think I'm crazy on certain issues completely but I have my reasons and they have their reasons and we debate them we actually debate them and that's completely okay we they don't become a coffee in my eyes or deviant or lost and I don't become that in their eyes there's just a difference in how we are viewing certain things but we gave each other a safe space to debate that stuff right to discuss that stuff I don't think the Muslims a Sunni Muslims especially I don't know about the others because we know about our own family situation right we haven't created a safe place for us to discuss and contemplate

23:11and question right and so one of my hopes also that I you know one of the hopes is to do deeper work but at the same time one of my hopes is to bring scholars together bring experts in different fields together and to actually debate honestly debate certain issues openly discuss certain issues and gain different perspectives and hear different perspectives out and start saying no no no don't talk about this people will get misguided homey what time are you living in people will get misguided do you not know what's already available like that the only way I feel like the only way we can save the future generation from massive confusion is to actually take these issues head on like to actually discuss them and to actually be able to hear out what criticisms or thoughts they have and what the Qur'an has to offer as an answer so wonderful wonderful coming up next time in the Surah Ar-Rahman series ayat of the Qur'an Allah says that they were stitched together

24:13they were stitched together okay so the thing with stitching is when cloth is stitched together it becomes interconnected and inseparable right so you no longer see a thread you see a consistent cloth right and that's the image Allah gives of the Qur'an or kimat ayatuhu ehkam actually means stitching and weaving right now what that means then is when you're studying a subject in the Qur'an an ayah in the Qur'an first of all it was stitched together inside the Surah right so the first thing I have to really think about is what are the connections being made inside the Surah to understand this ayah that's the first most important thing