Qur'an Convos: Tadabbur
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Connecting with the Speech of Allah
What does it mean for the Qur’an to be the “speech of Allah? ” How can our understanding of the Speaker affect our relationship with the Qur’an? How should we think about Allah when we read His words?
Join host Sh. Suleiman Hani for the first season of the Qur’an Convos podcast, where he’ll be exploring the topic of tadabbur—deep reflection on the Qur’an—with various scholars and experts.
In this episode, Sh. Suleiman sits with Sh. Arsalan Haque and Sh. Jamaal Diwan to discuss the importance of understanding the Speaker of the Qur’an.
Sh. Arsalan is the Resident Scholar of the Islamic Association of Collin County and the Director of Taqwa Seminary. Sh. Jamaal is the Co-Founder and Religious Director of The Majlis in Southern California.
Catch the show every Monday on our Youtube Channel or the main Yaqeen Podcast channel on your favorite listening platform here.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Bismillah walhamdulillah wassalatu wassalamu ala rasulillah wa ala anhi wa sahbihi wa man wala Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh Welcome to Qur'an Convos. This is a podcast, a Yaqeen Institute, where we'll be exploring the many different ways in which you can connect with the Qur'an. And every season, as you'll notice inshallah ta'ala, we'll be exploring different themes, different aspects that relate to the Qur'an, starting with season one, covering the topic of tadabbur, how to contemplate deeply on the Qur'an in the hopes of getting closer to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. We'll be covering inshallah ta'ala the ten inward acts of recitation, and this is from the works of Imam al-Ghazali rahimahu Allah. This is one way for us to understand the meanings of the Qur'an, to get closer to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala through his speech, and to hopefully act upon what we are learning biidhnillahi ta'ala. We have with us alhamdulillah a number of experts and scholars and specialists who will be joining us with every episode biidhnillahi ta'ala. And today we are starting off inshallah ta'ala with some excitement. We have with us alhamdulillah Sheikh Arsalan Haq and Sheikh Jamal Dewan. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala bless them both. Welcome to Qur'an Converse, Sheikh Jamal and Sheikh Arsalan. How are you doing today? Alhamdulillah khairan, alhamdulillah. It's nice to be here. Alhamdulillah, barakallahu feekum. Barakallahu feekum. Before we start, I actually have a personal question for you both, mashayikh. This is a question that will help us inshallah ta'ala motivate many of the listeners from around the world who are in different places on their journey to connecting with the speech of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So maybe we'll start with Sheikh Arsalan, if you can give us maybe an example, one instance in your life in which reading the Qur'an or listening to the Qur'an evoked a deep or emotional reaction from you.
Perhaps if you're comfortable sharing something that's inspirational for those who are trying to get to a point where listening to the Qur'an for them is a way to get closer to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala as intended by the Qur'an. So maybe something that was happening or something that you heard or something that you recited, how did it make you feel? What did it make you think about? Well, I think there are so many occasions that come to mind. Sometimes it has to do with a particular condition which I'm facing in life, and then I read something or listen to something in salah or in my car. Or sometimes it's simply the reciter and the emotion with which the Qur'an is being recited. There's so many occasions, but one that comes to mind right now is, subhanAllah, when the pandemic started a couple of years ago, I remember very clearly that I was in the masjid and I was reading the Qur'an. And just at that time, I happened to be reading Surat al-An'am. And in the middle of the seventh juz, right at the middle point, like this is ayah number 30 something of Surat al-An'am. And I started reading and I felt like every single ayah for like the next four or five pages, subhanAllah, was talking to me about what I was feeling through the pandemic, the uncertainty,
what we were hearing in the news about how deadly this virus can be and the lockdown that was starting. And the ayahs that were coming, subhanAllah, every single ayah in that passage for about five pages, I remember, I felt like giving me a different direct message from Allah subhanAllah about what this means, what this is all about and what we are expected to do during this time, subhanAllah. And I mean, the listeners are welcome to go back and look at that passage to see what I'm talking about. But basically in a nutshell, the thing that really reverberates in that passage is the need to turn back to Allah subhanAllah with tadarru' and du'a and imploring Allah subhanAllah and realizing that nothing is going to help us get out of this situation except Him subhanAllah. Jazakumullahu khairan, Sheikh, for sharing that. May Allah subhanAllah bless you. That's a beautiful example. Sheikh Jamal, same question. If there's something you can share similar to that, barakAllahu feeqan. Actually, the incident that comes to mind for me the most is something that happened when I was in Egypt. And it needs a little bit of background, but I'll try to make it as quick as possible, which is that in Cairo, many people might know that there's a good portion of the city that is basically people living in a graveyard. That's an extended area of graveyards, and it's not how we would conceptualize it in America. You can find pictures online and videos and stuff, but they live in this area. And so it was a Friday and I was at Azhar Park, which is across the street from these graveyards. It's a very nice park and whatever. And Jumma time came and the people in the park told us they don't have Jumma in the park, which, you know, whatever. We'll leave comments on that for now.
So they said, you have to go find a masjid outside. So when we left the park and we started to see people walking towards the graves, so we knew there's a Jumma over there. You hear sounds, you can hear the megaphones and stuff, microphones. So I followed the people and I started to walk into this area where the graves are. And I'm just kind of following the people and following the sound. And I hear some recitation. And after a few minutes walking and weaving and turning in a little bit, and I came upon this masjid and I could hear this recitation of the Quran as I was coming in. That was just out of this world. You know, I just felt like this Qari, whoever he is, it's as if he's truly reading from his soul. You know, like it's really leaving straight from the heart and coming out of his mouth. SubhanAllah. And so finally, I get into the masjid and I walk in and I see the sheikh sitting there and he's like a very old man, very skinny, very frail and completely blind. And he's just sitting there and wallahi, I looked at him and I felt like he's in a different world. SubhanAllah. He was reading the Quran in such a beautiful way. And so that was just a very moving experience. Many years later, actually, I found some recordings of his on YouTube. Now YouTube has everything. SubhanAllah. Sheikh Mahmood Esran. Allah rahman. You can find some of the maqarit, some gatherings of recitation and there's some clips of his recitation, if anyone wants to find it. But it was very beautiful. SubhanAllah. Jazakumullahu khayran for sharing that, Sheikh. May Allah Subhanu wa ta'ala accept. SubhanAllah, those times in which we come across moments like this or encounter moments like this with an individual or groups or people who may not be even known around the world, their names are mentioned in the heavens as they are connecting to Allah Subhanu wa ta'ala through his revelation. This brings us really to the first advice of Imam al-Ghazali,
which is to have magnification of Allah Subhanu wa ta'ala when we recite. Oftentimes, many people are reciting as a habit or reciting very quickly, reciting without much focus. And so we can start with this first advice of Imam al-Ghazali, which is to think about the majesty of Allah Subhanu wa ta'ala to magnify the speaker, Allah Subhanu wa ta'ala, the one who revealed this to us out of his mercy for our own benefit, for our own blessing, for our own guidance, our own salvation. So we want to think about how magnifying Allah Subhanu wa ta'ala improves our ability to connect with the Quran. And oftentimes we don't realize that the blessing of just being able to recite and listen to the Quran is a blessing in and of itself that requires its own episode. An example of this, I'll share a story as well. Approximately 10 years ago, after witted prayer in the masjid, in the month of Ramadan, a young man comes up and he was about 16 or 17 years old, and it looked like he had just stopped crying, like he had been crying in the prayer. So I said salam to him and he didn't respond. He took out one of those phones back then that had the keyboards on the side and he started typing very quickly. So I realized as he was kind of responding with lips and like, you know, writing on the phone that he wasn't able to hear. He was deaf. May Allah Subhanu wa ta'ala bless this brother. His story really affected me and affected many people after that. He introduced himself. He told me who he was. He said when he was 16 years old, several years before this, his mother had really, really been motivating him, pushing him to recite and memorize the Quran. Not a day can go by without you connecting to the Quran and connect to it because it's Allah Subhanu wa ta'ala's speech. These are the words of Allah Subhanu wa ta'ala. So she would always motivate him. He felt a strong attachment to the Quran, a strong love for the Quran, a strong love and a connection to Allah Subhanu wa ta'ala through it.
And he said, I didn't know where this came from, but the encouragement from my mother made a huge difference. When he was 16 years old, he was kind of finishing up his ijazah. He had just finished reciting the last parts of what he had memorized. He finished reciting to his teacher and approximately a week after he finished and he received his certificate and everything else, he lost the ability to hear. He said, now I can't hear the Quran. Now it's as though sometimes in the month of Ramadan, it's as though I can distantly hear it, but I'm not even sure I can hear it. He said, when I feel like I can hear the Quran in Ramadan, I start to cry and I'm not ungrateful to Allah Subhanu wa ta'ala. I'm grateful that he gave me the blessing of finishing memorizing the Quran before I lost the ability to hear. SubhanAllah, when he said this, it just made me feel that we are oftentimes ungrateful, not appreciative for the blessing of being able to open the mushaf anytime we want. And in our times as well, to get closer to Allah Subhanu wa ta'ala through listening to the Quran. We are living in the generation of a blessing that no previous generations used to have, which is access to millions of recordings of Quran anytime we want. An example is the one that Sheikh Jaman just mentioned of looking up a recording, we speak of it so naturally, we don't realize what a blessing it is. So how do we get closer to Allah Subhanu wa ta'ala through this advice, in particular, the advice of Imam al-Ghazali, of magnifying the speaker? What are some things we can take from this? Perhaps we can start with Sheikh Arsalan and Sheikh Jaman, inshallah. Well, if you look at the passage of Imam al-Ghazali, he talks about this by saying that first we need to realize that what we are reading,
the Quran or what we are listening to the Quran is the Kalam of Allah, is the speech of Allah. And so just to pause and reflect on what that means, it's the speech of Allah. You know, it's not just an expression that's supposed to sound nice. It's a very, very deep concept. Allah's speech as Muslims, as Sunni Muslims, we believe that Allah's speech is one of his divine attributes. And when it comes to the divine attributes, we believe in all of Allah's divine attributes that are mentioned in the Quran and the Sunnah, while realizing that they are utterly different from human attributes. So Allah is attributed with knowledge, for example, and human beings are attributed with knowledge. But Allah's knowledge is unlike our knowledge. Our knowledge is something that grows and shrinks. We don't know and then we learn and then we know and then we forget and we no longer know. We can know something and then we can know more about it. But Allah's knowledge is not like that. Allah's knowledge does not grow or shrink. Allah's knowledge is not increasing or decreasing. Allah doesn't forget. So sometimes, even though we use the same word to describe Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, as we do to describe human beings, we understand that the attributes of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala are utterly different from human attributes. So when we say that, you know, the speech of Allah, we, of course, have to understand that, you know, this is a divine attribute.
And Allah's attributes, all of them are divine. And we are mortals and mortals can never understand the essence of the divine. You know, we are four dimensional creatures. Our existence, our experiences are bound by time and space. Allah, God subhanahu wa ta'ala is beyond time and space. He is the creator of time and space. So the Quran that we read and that we hear contains the speech of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. The language of the Quran is four dimensional language that contains and that communicates to us something that is incredible. It communicates to us the divine, uncreated speech of God, which is one of his essential attributes. That's what Imam Ghazali emphasizes in his passage. And what that implies is that every time I read an ayah or even a word or even a letter of the Quran, I am directly interacting with Allah through one of his essential attributes, directly without any intermediary. You see, we can't touch Allah. We cannot see him or hear him in this world, but we can hear and recite his divine, uncreated words that are couched in the three dimensional language of the Quran. And that is very special. So part of magnifying the speaker is to realize that the speech itself is something incredible that is being communicated to us through letters and words that we can understand.
Right. Alif, Lam, Meem, Ha, Meem, Ta, Seem, Meem, Qaaf, Ya, Seem. Allah even, subhanAllah, in a subtle way communicates that to us at the beginning of the various surahs that look, I'm using this three dimensional language. That is something that you can understand to communicate to something, communicate to you something that is divine that actually you could never directly experience. So I'm using language and expressions that you can relate to. And Imam Ghazali also gives an example of like when a human being communicates with a pet or an animal. You know, when you talk to an animal, you talk to the animal in a language that the animal can understand. You know, you use expressions and sounds that you wouldn't normally use, but you use them because that's what the animal understands. You know, I remember when I used to have a goat and I grew up in my childhood in Pakistan. And, you know, when you're trying to goat to make the goat eat something or drink something, make certain sounds, you try to entice the goat to that food or that drink so that it comes to you without being scared and it eats or drinks from that. Make certain sounds. You know, as a human being, don't normally talk like that, but you stoop down to the level of the animal and speak to the animal using sounds that the animal can understand. So God, Subhanahu wa ta'ala, Imam Ghazali is saying that God speaks to us in a language that we can understand using expressions that we can relate to out of his compassion for us. Not because he needs anything from us, but he wants us to benefit from the guidance that he is giving to us.
So I think part of this is, as Imam Ghazali is saying, is to realize the significance of what the Quran is, that it is the Kalam of Allah, the divine speech of Allah, couched in a language that we can understand. And part of it is also to understand who the mutakallim is, who the speaker is, whose words are we raising, who is he? He is the creator of the universe. He is the master of the universe. He is the creator of everything that we see and everything that we don't see. And that majestic, grandeur being is the one whose words we are reading. And so the realization of that should help us show reverence to what we are reading and really turn to it with a sense of gratitude and a sense of appreciation and eagerness to understand and to benefit from what is being communicated to us. BarakAllahu feekum, Shaykh. Shaykh Dima, would you like to add anything on that note as well, in terms of the magnification of the divine speech as we transition to the magnification for the speaker as well? Sure. I mean, I think that Mashallah, Shaykh Arsalan really expressed these concepts that sometimes people struggle with understanding in a very beautiful way. May Allah bless him. I just think that, and it's kind of related to the next one, is that with many things, we often struggle with the transition between knowing something and experiencing it. And I think that this is one of our big challenges, is that we try to know at some level and understand what it means that we're talking about the speech of Allah or that Allah is speaking to us in a sense through the Quran.
But I think that part of that for us practically is to try to feel that at some level. And I think that what that often requires from us is some pause and some reflection. And that's part of preparing ourselves for our experience with the Quran. And subhanAllah, when we look at life, this idea recurs many times. We think about even the hijrah and the Prophet ﷺ and how Sayyidina Abu Bakr radiallahu anhu, he wanted to go with the Prophet ﷺ on the hijrah. So he prepared the camels in advance. So in order to really experience the hijrah, there's things he has to do before the hijrah. When we come to Salat, we make wudu and there's a preparation. And that wudu for the Salat. And I think that this point that we're on right now and the one after it is also like if we want to really experience the Quran, we have to take that moment and kind of really ground ourselves in what am I doing right now? Because I think a lot of what we end up, the way that we end up living our lives is very, you know, we do one thing to the next and we check off the next thing. And but to really stop and say, okay, so what am I doing right now? I'm reciting the book of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. I'm reading, you know, the Quran and this is a really special thing. And to bring to mind all the things that Shaykh Hassan mentioned and to allow them, I in my head, the image I try to think about is like I have these certain ideas in my head. And I want to kind of like let them sit there long enough and stop long enough until they fall into my heart. So I have them up here and I let them kind of, I take a moment and I let them settle in my heart. And then after that, we can read the book of Allah inshallah and benefit from it. May Allah reward you both very comprehensive insights for us to reflect on.
One time with a number of youth with a similar analogy, we were talking about the example of influence and imitation and emulation and how a lot of people look up to individuals that don't benefit them in the dunya or the akhirah. And then this really sparked the question about correspondence, a message. So we asked if somebody were to send you a message, someone really famous that you love and you admire, someone you respect, someone you would love to meet, they sent you a video message. Let's say it's a righteous scholar, a just ruler. Let's say it's a practicing pious Muslim celebrity. Someone sent you a message. Somebody wanted to call you. Somebody wants to send you a text message or they sent you a gift. Would you value it? Would you ignore it? Would you delete it? Leave it unread? You download the message right away? Would you preserve it? In all likelihood, most likely, if you really love such a person, that message is going to be read. It's going to be pondered. Depending on who it's coming from, it's going to be cherished. It's a very clumsy and small analogy. But Al-Hassan Al-Basri, rahim Allah, he says, the people before you consider the Quran to be correspondence from their Lord. So they would ponder upon it by night and act upon it by day. And really, if you think about the Quran is coming from Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, it changes the way you interact with it. But oftentimes, again, it becomes a habit where we're just reciting and we start to become distracted from the essence of it all. So before we begin with the daily recitation of Quran or listening to it, perhaps it's a reminder for those who are starting this practice to reflect for a moment. I'm about to engage with the words of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. I'm about to engage with the creator of the universe, the one who brought me into existence. The one who forgives, the one who accepts repentance, the one who admits his servants into paradise, the one who is watching and hearing and all seeing. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has blessed us with so many things. So as we're engaging with his speech, it's a reminder for us. This is correspondence from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
So let's engage with it as such. And Jazakumullahu khairan, Sheikh Jamal and Sheikh Al-Hassan, you perfectly transitioned us to the second point, which is the magnification of or for the speaker in the Quran. And so now we're thinking about Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala speaking to us and how are we interacting with that? Perhaps we can start now with Sheikh Jamal. What are some ways for us to think about tadabbur in light of knowing that the one who's speaking to us is Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala? So does thinking of the speaker help with our connection to the Quran, our deeper, hopefully, connection to the Quran? And what are some ways we can increase our tadabbur by knowing that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is the speaker? Yeah. So what comes to mind for me is something that I heard one time about salah. And I think there's a connection here is that one of the sheikh was saying that oftentimes we'll find that one of the ways to better our experience of salah is to better our relationship with Allah outside of salah. And so I think that part of, you know, this understanding of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and connecting to Allah and how that helps us in our relationship with the Quran, one of the ways that we can do that is to really try to live and experience our relationship with Allah when we're not reading the Quran. So to, for example, just a couple of small things and, you know, two small points. The first, I think the first way we can do that is to be, to try to be people of dhikr. To try to be people who remember Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So we go about our day and maybe there's certain dua that we make at different times from the example of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam. And that, of course, is going to remind us of Allah. We go through our days and we say la ilaha illallah. We go through our days, we maybe see beautiful things that happen around us and we say subhanallah.
We go through our day and we see things that we're grateful for and we say alhamdulillah. And so all of that zad, so to speak, that provision that we get from that remembrance during the day and that lived experience with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. When we come to read his book, now we're going to engage with his book in a different way because we've been strengthening that relationship throughout our everyday experiences. And I think that one of the, and related to that, I think one of the ways to really do that is to try to find righteous people to be around. And I know that this is, being around people in general is something that's a lot less than it used to be. But if we can try to be around righteous people, and it might not, it doesn't have to always be what we kind of like immediately comes to mind. You know, someone's like spend time with righteous people and everyone's like, okay, there's the Shaykh. I have to spend time with Shaykh, you know. But mashallah, the Ummah of the Prophet ﷺ is blessed. And there's many, many righteous and beautiful people in the Ummah of the Prophet ﷺ. And I'm just thinking about some people in our own lives who, you know, nobody, they're just maybe like family members or stuff like this. And, but they say really beautiful things, and they really have a beautiful relationship with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So, and through conversation with them, you see it. Like, every time they mention something, they'll say Allah is so merciful, Allah is so generous. They might start crying because they're just thinking about how generous Allah is and how merciful Allah is. And you might have like certain phrases in certain cultures, by the way. I mean, this is part of maybe, I don't have a particular culture that I was raised in, but I've seen different things that I'm like, oh, this is a beautiful thing from that culture. Like, for example, I've heard Afghans will often say this phrase that Khudawan Mirabanis. Like, Allah is very generous. Allah is so generous. And so he's just always giving to his creation.
And so in the course of conversation, you hear these statements and you're like subhanAllah, He really is, you know. And so then when we come to his words, you hear people tell stories about their lives, moments when they realized where, you know, just in the course of regular conversation. I realized in this moment, Allah was taking care of me or Allah was helping me with this or Allah was helping me with that. So then when I come to his book, I have a kind of a different experience with the book when I'm reading the book because I'm seeing the whole thing in a different way. So that's just, you know, some immediate thoughts that come to mind on that. Sheikh Arsalan, thoughts on, you know, thinking about Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and how that assists us with tadabbur. Well, I remember, you know, I had a when I was when I was in college, I had an imam who was from Saudi Arabia. And he was telling us a story in Ramadan of something that he had experienced that's very much related to the question that you're asking. He said that since he was from Saudi Arabia, he said that when he used to live in Saudi Arabia, he used to love to go to the haram in Mecca during the last 10 nights of Ramadan and do it there. So he said one Ramadan while he was in Masjid al-Haram and he was praying taraweeh on the second floor close to the balcony. He said the imam was reciting and just next to me, there was a man from China. And he was sobbing in the prayer, just sobbing.
And so this my imam, he thought to himself, subhanAllah, a brother from China understands the Quran because obviously he was moved by the passage that was being recited. And so he he after the salah finished, he wanted to talk to the Chinese brother to get to know him. So he started talking to him in Arabic and very quickly he realized that the Chinese brother did not understand Arabic. So now there's this awkwardness and then the imam tried to talk to him in English and the Chinese brother knew English. So then they started to communicate. And my sheikh, the imam, he said, you know, I noticed that you were so emotional in the salah. Is everything OK? And the brother said, yeah, everything's fine. I was just I was just overwhelmed by the realization who it is that I'm standing in front of. And I was overwhelmed by that emotion, and that's what was causing me to cry. So he doesn't understand what is being recited, but just the thought of who it is before whom he is standing is enough for his tadabur, you see. And that's really the idea that Imam Ghazali is trying to emphasize here that when we recite the Quran, we just have to realize who it is that we are talking to, who it is that's talking to us. And I don't want to for our listeners to feel overwhelmed by what we're saying, because it might come across as, oh, I need to do so many things before I read the Quran.
So this is too hard. No, it's not that. It's not that, you know, you need to do A, B, C, D, like Imam Ghazali talks about 10 adab that are outward adab and 10 adab that were inward adab. And unless you do these 20 things and you're not ready to read the Quran, don't take it like that, because just open the Quran and the Quran itself will help you get into the emotion that you need to be. For example, we're talking about what we're talking about, realizing who Allah is. We're talking about reverence and magnification of Allah Subhanu wa ta'ala. Well, how much of the Quran talks about who Allah is, right? Almost one third or maybe more of the Quran actually talks about who Allah is, describes Allah, the qualities of Allah, the names and attributes of Allah Subhanu wa ta'ala. So just read the Quran, the Quran itself will help you get into the mode that you need to be if you are just reading it with an open mind and an open heart. Wallahu anhum. Barakallahu feekum, Shaykh. May Allah Subhanu wa ta'ala accept from you. Yes, absolutely. For those who are listening, none of this is to say that we are at a place of perfection. And once you reach the place of perfection, that's when you start to read the Quran or preparation rather. It's an ongoing journey of trying to improve. But it requires us to be connecting consistently and constantly. And in fact, there is nothing more reasonable for us to do than to start connecting to the Quran today on a daily basis in order for us to try to achieve that level of connection that we desire. May Allah Subhanu wa ta'ala bless us all with that and our loved ones and bless us to be amongst the people of the Quran. Allahumma ameen. On this kind of closing note, we want to ask in a very practical sense, and I believe maybe the team will also cut this out inshallah ta'ala and benefit many more people with this clip.
I'll ask both Mashaikh, if you had to give like a 10 or 20 second piece of advice, a practical advice for someone who is listening right now, and they want to connect to the Quran, what's one practical advice that you would give? Maybe we can start with Shaykh Arsalan. Well, I think what I would say is kind of what we started out with, which is be grateful for the tremendous honor that Allah has given you by inspiring you and enabling you to have access to the Quran and opening it and reading it and benefiting from it. This is no small gift from Allah Subhanu wa ta'ala. So be grateful for that tremendous honor, that tremendous blessing. SubhanAllah, you know, a few years ago, I came across a section in a book that I was reading that just, just, it was mind blowing for me. And a lot of people don't know this, that there are scholars who, who, who, who believed that the angels are not able to read the Quran. The angels, except for Jibril, are not given the ability by Allah Subhanu wa ta'ala to read the Quran. And this is an opinion that is mentioned by Ibn Salah in his fatawi.
And then it is confirmed by Imam Suyuti. It is confirmed by Ibn Hajar al-Haytami and others. And they said that there are certain athar and hadith that, that indicate this, that the angels are not able to read the Quran. And one hadith that is mentioned that indicates that is the hadith that says that whenever people gather together to recite the book of Allah Subhanu wa ta'ala, there are angels that are going around the earth looking for these gatherings. And when they find these gatherings, they descend, they come down, and they surround those gatherings with their wings and listen to the Quran. And part of the reason is because they themselves cannot recite the Quran, so they are so attracted to the gatherings where the Quran is being recited. And so if that is true, and Allah Subhanu wa ta'ala knows best, because after all, this is a matter of the unseen, but according to these great authorities, this seems to be the case. If that is true, that the angels, which are such pure creation of Allah Subhanu wa ta'ala, that aside from Jibreel, the rest of them are not given this honor, this ability that Allah gave to the human being, the ability to recite his word, his speech, then I think that should cause us to feel tremendously honored and blessed, and the least that we can do is show appreciation for that and feel gratitude for that in our hearts as we open the Quran and seek to benefit from it. Jazakumullahu khairan, Shaykh. That's beautiful. May Allah Subhanu wa ta'ala bless you and accept from you. Shaykh Jamal, same question for you. BarakAllahu feekum. Yeah, I mean quickly, the first thing I would say is to just do it.
The most important thing about having a relationship with the Quran is to just have a relationship with the Quran. Take some time each day, read it. When it comes to reading the Quran, you know, of course you can read in whatever language you understand, but there is a special merit and blessing in the Arabic. And I think that it's good for people to take some time and effort to learn how to read the Arabic properly, and to really feel like I'm reciting this Quran the way that the Prophet ﷺ recited it, which is an incredible thing. If we really sit and think about that, it's a really remarkable thing. So to recite it, but also to try to memorize a little bit. You know, it doesn't necessarily mean that everyone has to be a hafidh, but the Prophet ﷺ taught us by meaning that the heart that has Quran in it is not the heart that doesn't. So, you know, the heart without Quran in it is like a dilapidated house, you know, a rundown house. So we should try to put a little bit of that Quran in our heart as much as we can, inshallah, and just take it step by step. And if we try to be consistent, and if we have times when we fall off and we're not consistent, we don't have to beat ourselves up over it. We can just come back and resume our relationship with the Book of Allah. And inshallah, if we do that, we'll start to see what we're reading and the different things that we experience in our days, inshallah. Jazakum khairan, Shaykh. May Allah ﷻ bless you. That's a beautiful closing advice. All I can really add to this is maybe one more practical advice for those who became Muslim today and those who have been Muslim throughout your life. Regardless of whether or not you are fluent, take advantage because at the end of the day, we don't know which day in this world will be our last. So read the Quran as though it's your last opportunity. And we had a brother, subhanAllah, maybe seven years ago, was diagnosed with late stage cancer. And they told him he had several months to live. And he ended up passing away shortly after that. May Allah have mercy on him.
When we visited him, when we spoke to him, it's as though he was living upon the advice of the Prophet ﷺ. When a man came and asked for advice, he said, When you stand to pray, fa-salli salat wa muad'diyya, pray as though you're bidding farewell. And he applied this advice to everything else. So he's saying, in other words, every time I'm reading from the mushaf, every time I'm reading Quran, I feel like this is my last chance to read the words of Allah ﷻ in this quick life that we have. So read the Quran as though it's your final opportunity. And remember that the Quran is a light for every darkness. It is guidance for every misguidance. Its beauty does not run out. Its sweetness does not end so long as you are reciting with an attentive heart. And I ask Allah ﷻ to grant us all the blessings that we can access through the Quran, especially the blessing of guidance and shifa, healing for what is in the hearts, and healing for our societies and our communities. And as well, the commands for us to be people of justice and to pursue justice for all of those who are struggling around the world. May Allah ﷻ alleviate their affairs and utilize us for what is good in this life and reward us and guide others through us. Allahumma ameen. Shaykh Jamal and Shaykh Arsalan, jazakum wa khayran. May Allah ﷻ accept from you. This does wrap up our first episode of Hamdulillah. Thank you for your time. May Allah ﷻ put barakah in it. Perhaps, inshallah ta'ala, Shaykh Jamal and Shaykh Arsalan, when we get together, maybe we'll hoop, maybe we'll do jiu-jitsu, maybe we'll have a barbecue with the youth, inshallah ta'ala. For our brothers and sisters who are listening from all around the world, may Allah ﷻ bless you for your time. This first episode of Quran Conversation has come to an end, but inshallah ta'ala you can join us for the upcoming episodes and for more programs on the Yaqeen podcast. We'll see you soon, inshallah. Wasalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. you
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