Keeping Connected with the Qur'an
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The Final Miracle | Qur'anic Miracles Episode 4
Tune in for the fourth part of Qur'anic Miracles with Sh. Mohammad Elshinawy and Sh. Suleiman Hani.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Peace and blessings be upon the best of his creation and the seal of his revelation, Muhammad salallahu alayhi wasalam. We welcome everyone back to our fourth and final session inshallah, this final episode on the ijaz, the inimitability of the Qur'an and the miraculous nature of the Qur'an with my beloved brother Sheikh Suleiman Hani, who will inshallah get us started today as usual with one more facet of the ijaz and then time permitting, hopefully he doesn't leave any time for me, but I'll chime in with a little bit myself at the end of the episode. Bismillah Sheikh Suleiman. Salamualikoum wa rahmatou. Jazakoum wa khayran Sheikh. Bismillah, alhamdulillah, wa salatu wasalamu ala rasoolillah, wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa man wala. There is no doubt whatsoever that this podcast would not be complete if it were not an exchange of both sides. Barakallahu fiqh for all of your input Sheikh. Jazakoum wa khayran. I actually want to begin with a disclaimer and this is based on some feedback I've been hearing recently as well as over the last 10 years, anytime I've discussed ijaz al-Qur'an or any kind of Islamic study, particularly Qur'anic sciences and the role of Prophet Muhammad salallahu alayhi wa sallam. So the disclaimer is of two parts. The first is that what we have here during this series, very clearly it's not an academic presentation. This is the presentation of numerous conclusions and this is a presentation that is highly condensed and we've said many times we cannot address everything during these short sessions. Allah knows that we would love to speak about this for hours if we had the opportunity and we can inshallah on other platforms and in other times inshallah. There's a note here about the concept of objectivity and I say objectivity and it can mean so many different things, it's a very loose term. In Western academia, objectivity is seen as a sacred and necessary prerequisite and condition to all research and many of our professors and many researchers today, Muslims and non-Muslims,
they claim that bias is little to non-existent in the secular academy when it comes to these types of researches and discussions and honestly it's as far from the reality. That bias does not exist, it's far from the reality and as Muslims we should not have an inferiority complex when it comes to any type of academia, Western and non-Western, particularly young Muslims who may not have studied the religion traditionally and the methodologies, the usool, the principles from the scholars who are highly proficient and knowledgeable in these methodologies. The reality is that bias is embedded in all types of orientalist and secular academic approaches to the study of Islam and this can be proven historically and this can be analyzed and assessed in many different ways and it has, alhamdulillah, over the years and we've touched on this in many different articles as well, especially when it comes to the Qur'an and Prophet Muhammad ﷺ with regards to the seerah. The preconceived notion for many people, so the bias, is there from the beginning. The conclusion that they have is already set in stone. So they start to thereafter look for any type of sign, anything that is even weak or fabricated as a source to reaffirm what they already believe. And this is why you find many people with very clear inconsistencies and contradictions because they started out with their conclusion that they reject the Qur'an. So they will look for anything and everything to warrant their claims and they are very easy to refute. In the end, all of this is packaged in the Western academy as historical and objective. And I say objective because again, a very loose term. Do we aim for objectivity? Absolutely. Should we be critiquing as Muslims all of these different sciences historically and objectively? Absolutely. But we also have to be aware that aside from the methodology and aside from the actual evidences, if the individual does not want to consider a differing view or a different
opinion, then the evidences don't mean much to them. You can have all the clear evidences in the world for anything and everything, but the one who does not want to accept it will not accept it. When it comes to Ajaaz al-Qur'an in particular, alhamdulillah this is a topic I've studied and I've discussed for over a decade with many Muslims, with doubts, without doubts, with many non-Muslims, with many of my professors, with many atheists as well. And I've studied this in the East, in Jordan, I've studied in the West at Harvard and other places and I cannot count the number of times I've heard Muslims in Western academia, old and young, claim that our arguments for Ajaaz al-Qur'an are easy to refute or these claims are pre-modern, why are you using the claims that people discussed a thousand years ago, as though the modern arguments are more sound or more advanced. When we talk about the Ajaaz al-Qur'an claims, and I believe Shaykh Muhammad has a lot of experience in this as well, we've critiqued and we've studied for the sake of wanting to know for ourselves that this is true. And you can look at all of the modern and post-modern arguments of non-Muslims, Orientalist Muslims with an A40 complex and anybody else who studied Ajaaz al-Qur'an and started to try to poke holes or to make skeptics of people, and we are very skeptical in our approaches in general as human beings. The truth is that these modern arguments themselves are the biased ones and they are very easy to refute. And I say this with full confidence. Do I necessarily agree with every single historical claim of Ajaaz found in all of the texts? No, not necessarily. And I objectively studied Ajaaz al-Qur'an from every angle so that I know for myself that my Iman is built on something intellectually sound. So we are not advertising and facilitating any kind of blind faith here in our discussions on the miraculous nature of the Qur'an. This is a very sensitive topic and a very foundational, crucial topic for the faith
system and faith evidences for many people around the world, 2 billion Muslims and counting. And the implications are for non-Muslims as well. And I found with all of the different researches in all of the studies in Western academia that there is nothing at all. There is nothing at all that undermines the foundational belief itself. There are discussions historically on different matters, but it is not something that undermines the conviction of belief in the Qur'an. So there is no shame whatsoever. And I say this very clearly so that it is not misunderstood. There is no shame whatsoever in our approach amongst Muslim audiences and non-Muslims as well through different Muslim platforms because this is not a secular academic paper that we are discussing here. When it comes to the confidence and conviction of stating very clearly and very frankly that the only epistemologically sound conclusion is that the Qur'an cannot be from anyone except Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. This is not based on blind faith, but blindness can certainly prevent a person from seeing all of the clear evidences as truth. May Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala protect us from these types of inferiority complexes that prevent us from proper research. Again I know this sounded like a very odd tangent or disclaimer to begin with, but it is important as part of the context on the discussion of Ajaazul Qur'an and Qur'anic sciences and any Islamic sciences in general. Now we previously discussed different types of Ajaazul Qur'an when it comes to the literary miracle. We discussed the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, the myth of human authorship. And I'm not going to go in depth into any one particular facet of the Ajaaz, but I want to list once again some of the different facets that can be touched upon. The Qur'an is a book of guidance. Hudal lil muttaqeen. It is a book of guidance, so therefore part of the Ajaaz of the Qur'an is that it came from a source, from Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, who could not have had these
types of answers and no human being could have, and it provided the foundational answers for all of the crucial questions of humanity. A book of guidance for people who have a connection to God, who are God conscious. The questions of why do we exist, who is God, the names and attributes of God, which can philosophically and logically as well be discussed, and this is a separate discussion, and theologically to see that these are actually the most sound and intuitive understandings of God, even historically. You look at the Qur'an and you find the nature of life and death and details of what happens after you die. These are very crucial questions for human beings. The question of the day of justice and reward. These are crucial questions why it can be proven as well when you talk about the psychological impact of knowing that there is a day of justice and that none of us would like to be on the receiving end of injustice, and one of the arguments for the afterlife is that we desire at the basic level, all human beings, some type of justice. That we don't want to see people who commit evil to get away with evil, evil here defined by the person who is speaking, but generally people don't like a person of injustice to quote unquote get away with their injustice. And so when we talk about the Qur'an's details when it comes to the afterlife, the day of judgment, the rewards, the universal moral laws, you find that this could not have come for Prophet Muhammad ﷺ or any human being because in the Qur'an you find a comprehensive layout, a plan, a boundary, a system that encompasses all types of beliefs and ethics, morality, acts of worship, rituals, inheritance, culture, civilization, history, economics, politics, and law, and other areas of human activity and dealings with God, and all of this fits perfectly and harmoniously and was revealed in a way that cannot be explained by any human being in terms of pointing to a source other than God, and all of this as well provides the psychological tool that allows human beings to cope with this life
and the nature of this life as we see it today. And you can see and you can look at a number of psychological researches and find that when people have some belief systems, and we have here examples of belief in a higher purpose, belief in objective morality, belief in life after death, compensation, reward, and so on and so forth, it helps people to cope. Their perspective and perception of God when it comes to suffering helps them to cope and this is based on a number of secular and religious studies as well. So the Qur'an provides all of that. Allah did not just give us a book of guidance for one small facet of life, but rather it is comprehensive and it is embedded in all human activity. Within the Qur'an you find knowledge of the unseen and this has so many different facets to it. Ikhbaru anil ghuyub, as some of the scholars of the earliest generation stated, so you have yet undiscovered knowledge. You have predictions of the future, the Roman victory which could not have been known. You have the prediction that Abu Lahab would die upon kufr, and this is not a small thing to take into consideration the fact that many of the elites of Quraysh became Muslim at the conquest of Mecca. The conquest of Mecca was also a prediction of the Qur'an, the preservation of the Qur'an as well. And this is important to consider in light of many discussions, again in Western academia and other places around the world, when it comes to the preservation of the message, inna naahnu nazalna dhikra wa inna lahul hafidhun. This is a promise from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and it was clearly fulfilled. When you look at the knowledge of the natural world in the Qur'an, you find that it could not have come from a human being. The knowledge of the natural world, and I use this phrase very cautiously, we don't want to follow the trend of the quote-unquote scientific miracles of the Qur'an that sometimes is actually stretched, sometimes it's not a strong foundation. And this does not imply that science and Qur'an or science and religion are two different
things because religion includes everything and science is an attempt to explain the world around us, but science as a tool is very limited as well. We can say that the Qur'an explains many things about the world around us, but the Qur'an is not limited to materialism, nor is it limited to empiricism. The Qur'an extends beyond science. There are many things in science today that are believed as facts or theories and they may be replaced tomorrow or in 10 years or 20 years, particularly when it comes to physics and the universe around us. You find that in the 1900s and 1800s as well, many different theories were established and discussed in different fields of science and they were replaced within decades. They were replaced in the last few decades as well and we are still exploring the world around us. However, this does not mean that the Qur'an, although it is not intended to be a science textbook, does not explain the world around us. It does. And when the Qur'an explains the world around us, we have to recognize that it extends beyond what science is actually able to tell us. So if the Qur'an tells us about the createdness of the universe, we believe this is a fact. If science has not yet caught up, that's fine with science, but science has time to catch up. And we recognize within the Qur'an that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala discusses things that no human being could have known at the time, such as the concept of embryology and the development of the fetus and so on and so forth. That's not something that humans knew with such detail and accuracy at the time. We find the Qur'an discusses the natural world around us when it comes to the discussion on jinn. So jinn, for those who do not know, an entity that we believe in that is not a human being but also has free will, we cannot see them in their natural form with our eyes. There are believers and disbelievers amongst them. And factoring that into the world and believing in jinn as well would actually help many non-Muslims as well understand many other things that are happening in the world today. When it comes to different types of psychological disorders, and this is a different discussion of course, when it comes to marriages and relationships, when it comes to evil in the
world, belief in black magic and so on and so forth, may Allah protect us. All of these are things detailed in the Qur'an. They are about the world around us and yet science is not able to explain these things. Science is not for everything. If an individual takes scientism or empiricism or materialism as their religion, as their branch of epistemology, they will not be able to explain and answer everything. Meaning what? They have limitations in their ability to reach God, in their ability to connect with God, in their ability to explain the soul. How does science and philosophy as well explain something like metacognition? The fact that human beings as far as we are aware, and the jinn as well, but as far as science is aware, human beings are the only creation on this earth that have metacognition. How is this explained when consciousness does not evolve and create itself? And it does not evolve out of matter that does not have consciousness. And so on and so forth. Many other examples like this. The Qur'an also answers questions about who God is. So the attributes of God, why we were created, why we worship God, all of these are important. The Qur'an explains the impact, or rather has an impact, on the hearts, on the minds intellectually. This is an intellectual faith. And on the bodies as well when it comes to shifa, when it comes to healing. When it comes to the impact on the hearts, a number of studies in many different universities, and this is through many different psychologists and psychotherapists as well who are interested in this area, have found that the Qur'an does have a positive impact on the mental health of those who listen to it, those who study it, those who recite it, and those who reflect on it. And you can search for these studies, they are, alhamdulillah, a dime a dozen, you can find them everywhere. But this is not in and of itself the only proof for ijazah of the Qur'an. The Qur'an is preserved as promised and you cannot find this with any other scripture claiming to be from God. They were modified and corrupted throughout history, you find the Qur'an is preserved.
And you find that the Qur'an came from an authentic, trustworthy, honest source, Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, with an unrivaled Arabic composition, theology. And consider this, in 23 years, all of this from one source, from one place, theology and philosophy, and history, anthropology, psychology, sociology, literature, physics and biology, the world around us, amongst other fields, from Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, an unlettered man in the middle of a desert in Arabia. Consider the impact of the Qur'an on the world as well, on society as well. Now there are many different facets to ijazah, and I urge you, those who are interested, to read into it further and to listen to more in-depth lectures if that's what you're looking for as well. But I want you to consider now, for the sake of time, I have just a few minutes inshallah, I want to mention the knowledge of the unseen. So in Sheikh Muhammad's series on the proofs of Prophet Muhammad, this was something that was discussed as well, and this is found in the Qur'an too. Prophecies of the future. If you look at and you study historically and objectively for Western academia, if you study the concept of prophecies throughout history, you find that all it takes to disprove that a person is speaking the truth or has some kind of knowledge from God about the future, all you need to do is see very clearly and evidence that their prophecy was not true. It did not manifest as they claimed. So many people claim the end of the world, EOW for example, end of the world is very common, that the world will end on this year. And you find many evangelicals and others also had such claims and they benefited from their followers. You find Isaac Newton as well who believed the world would end in year 2000. You find others who thought the world would end for certain types of reasons and they came up with prophecies and they were not true. And as soon as that time passed, you see what? This person's prophecy did not manifest as they claimed and the timeline or the time
frame that they came up with was not true. Therefore this person was not speaking from God if that source can be attributed to the individual. If you look at one of the most famous examples, the French example of Nostradamus, and I have discussed this many times in other places, the conclusion of most of the writings attributed to Nostradamus, the conclusion of many French academics and others is simply that they are untrue. And many have been disproven, many have passed in their time, many were actually fabricated and attributed to him, many were mistranslations of the language itself. What are the conditions for a true prophecy? Some of the conditions, the prophecy has to be clear. You cannot say the red will overtake the blue and then suddenly a hundred years later someone said wow, Suleiman said the red will overtake the blue and now you see the people who are wearing red, they beat the people in blue, he spoke the truth, he knew this was going to happen. That's too vague. It has to be clear. There has to be a time frame if applicable. There has to be a source that is truthful. So the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, the voice of the Qur'an is consistent in its accuracy. There has to be consistency in the source. So always proven true, not once or twice, on every occasion, every prophecy in its time frame was proven to be true. The prophecy has to be preserved, so the preservation of the Qur'an as well. And the most important thing, it has to be fulfilled. When you look at the example of the Romans, I have discussed this in depth in other places, I have written 30-40 pages on it academically as well, and I have looked at the western and eastern sources historically, and there is no other way to explain it except that the analysis of the surah is that the prophecy is very clear, it is not vague, the time frame is stated, the source, the Prophet ﷺ who is conveying the Qur'an from God is truthful, the source, the Prophet ﷺ is consistent, the prediction is preserved, so this is in the Qur'an, the prediction was found and basically revealed in Mecca, and this is also the opinion of many western and orientalist discussions on the chronology of the Qur'anic
revelation such as Theodore Noldeke that this was revealed in Mecca. The question, was it fulfilled? Was it fulfilled within the time frame stated? The Persians defeated the Romans in 614 and 619. Quraysh mocked the Muslims. I am summarizing so much content right now. Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la revealed the beginning verses of Surah Al-Rum in Mecca for the sake of hope, comfort, and optimism for the believers. And you find here the prediction required up to nine years, so no more than ten years, from years 623 to 628 it must be fulfilled. The Battle of Badr took place in year 624 within this time frame, and multiple victories took place for Heraclius and others from 622 to 628 within the time frame. Which of these battles was the Qur'an referring to, we might not know the specific battle. But all of these battles took place within 622 to 628, these were victories for the Romans. The prophecy was very clear, it was dated, and it was consistent, and you find again amongst western historical sources, and it does not have to be western, but in this case many western sources as well, basically discussing the victory of Heraclius and the destruction of some Zoroastrian temples and others belonging to the Persians, the Sassanid Persians, and basically this brought back the Romans to victory, and this gave them rise once again. This is one short and condensed example, and yes there are many modern publications and discussions, academic papers published on this topic that need to be discussed, perhaps in a different place at a different time, they will be addressed inshallah in the series as well, but in short, in short, we do not base our entire belief system, that the Qur'an is from God, on this one discussion. This is one of many things you consider. Ijaaz al-Qur'an cannot be limited to one facet. Ijaaz al-Qur'an, the miraculous nature of the Qur'an, everything must be considered in order for a person to fully understand, it is overwhelmingly true, it is overwhelmingly clear that when you consider all of these different things together, you cannot explain
the Qur'an as coming from a human being, or any group of people, or even the devils or anything like this, the Qur'an cannot be explained in terms of its authorship, or pointed to in any other direction, other than saying this is from God. And if you believe that there's something more sound, if you believe that there's something that proves a greater guidance than is mentioned in the Qur'an, قُلْ فَأْتُوا بِكِتَابٍ عِنْدِ اللَّهِ هُوَ أَهْدَى مِنْهُمَا أَتَّبِعُهُ إِنْ كُنتُمْ صَدِقِينَ Bring something more truthful, we will analyze it, we will assess it, if it is more true we will follow it as well. We are all searching for truth, truth with a capital T. Despite living in this postmodern world where there is no truth with a capital T, we say very clearly, the Qur'an, very obviously, very clearly, for the one who is studying sincerely and objectively, is from God. It is for all human beings, it is the final message, we look to it for guidance, we look to it and we study it, it is an intellectual tradition, it speaks to our intellect, it speaks to our emotions, it speaks to our psychological selves, and it speaks to our spiritual guidance. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to allow us to see the truth as truth and to follow it, and to allow us to see the falsehood as falsehood and to stay away from it, and we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to allow us to fully understand the concept of ijazul Qur'an so that we can have this very sound, strong foundation that is not shaken by anything else. Allahumma ameen, and Shaykh I will pass it on to you, barakallahu fika. Jazakallahu khayran Shaykh Suleiman, ahsanallahu ilayk, Allah azzak, may Allah further honor you and empower you, and I think you've teased me out of my topic. It was very tempting and I think I failed. I think I'm going to inshallah conclude this program with some highlights on what you've said actually, that something that really spoke to me, and maybe it has a little bit to do also with the fact that I began my journey of ijaz, or studying ijaz, with the scientific miracles as you pointed out, and I may have alluded to a little bit last week, and then
I realized with time that this can't be it. You can't measure an absolute truth with something that is theory, that's fundamentally flawed, and at the same time, it can't be that the most powerful proof regarding the truth of the Qur'an was only realized 1400 years after the descent of the Qur'an. And when you discuss the issue of lost knowledge, that was a new beginning for me. You know, sometimes even we get caught up in the recent discoveries that confirm lost knowledge, like Maurice Bukai and others who speak about, you know, archaeological digs in the past 200 years, only when Napoleon invaded Egypt and elsewhere, did the science of Egyptology, the study of ancient Egyptian civilization rise, and then they deciphered the hieroglyphics, and then we realized that Moses was not like historical fiction, and that he actually did have an apprentice or a minister named Haman, all these different discussions, as profound as they are to us, because they're fresh, and you know, new things always have a sparkle, sometimes a deceptive sparkle, we need to realize that the moment the Qur'an came down, its accuracy on lost knowledge was already enough. And this is something we may overlook, like, for example, historians mention the chapter of Surat Yusuf, the chapter on the story of Joseph, peace and blessings be upon him, Allah the Most High says that in this story are signs for those who ask, and Allah says before we reveal this to you, you were like everyone else, you were among those that were unaware, it was said among the reasons for revelation that a group of the scholars of scripture, the Jews, told them, go ask Muhammad how the children of Israel, the Israelites, ever wound up in Egypt anyway, and they thought this would be, that's it, the killer blow to the
message of Muhammad, salallahu alayhi wasalam, and so they come to him and they ask him this question, hey, if you know about lost nations, you know about lost knowledge, perished civilis- how did Moses, how did Joseph wind up in Egypt? And instead of answering them with a one-liner, he recites to them a hundred and ten verses, or switch over to Surat Al-Kahf, for example, they say ask Muhammad about Dhul Qarnayn, this famous historical conqueror, this mighty conqueror that knowledge about him has pretty much diminished and deteriorated over the years, and over the centuries, and perhaps millennia. The Quran, the way it answers it, I just love this verse, the Quran says, wa is'aluna ka'an dhul qarnayn, they ask you about Dhul Qarnayn, qul sa'atlu alaykum minhu dhikra, I'm gonna tell you about Dhul Qarnayn. He informed them about everything they know with surgical accuracy that no one could have known, and then he increased on it, he informed them of what they didn't even know about Dhul Qarnayn. And that is why the Quran said about the issue of it being enough at the time of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam, Allah says awalam takun lahum ayah, is it not sufficient of a sign, an ya'lamahu ulama'u banu isra'il, is it not enough of a sign that the scholars, the foremost experts of the children of Israel, of previous scriptures, recognize that he is a prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam, and even historically they did not even deny that he was a prophet. When he answers these questions for them, when the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam told them, will you now testify anni nabi, or annani nabi, that I am a true prophet from God, I'm an honest prophet, they didn't say no. They said nashhadu annaka nabiyyun lil ummiyin, they had to find a way out. So they said you are a prophet, they couldn't say no. And eat their own words, because their questions were if you know this you're a prophet, and he gets answering and answering and answering on many different occasions, it's not like
one narration that I'm reading to you that it's reliability can be challenged. They said we testify that you are a prophet for the illiterate people. And that one statement speaks leaps and bounds about the subject. Number one, they conceded he was a prophet. Number two, the only way they could avoid not following him and say that you are particular to your people, the people of Arabia, that was their only outlet, their escape mechanism. And then they called his people of Arabia al-ummiyin, the illiterate people, because that is where he came from, a place where there is zero access, zero literacy pretty much that he could not have known any of this. And that is why in the Quran, for example, when Allah speaks about details that exist in the previous scriptures, he says, bi-astayqina allatheena ootul kitab, so that the people who receive the book may have yaqeen, may have certainty, meaning there is more than enough for the contemporaries of Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam in the seventh century to recognize for certain, istiqan, for certain that he was a true prophet, alayhi salatu wasalam. And you know, one thing that I read that was extremely interesting about this issue of lost knowledge, they say, and this is something that was also a new beginning for me, that I was very mesmerized and rightfully so, though this is not like the science one, but about the prophecies regarding the future, they are beyond denial because of, like you said, always being consistent, always being specific to the end of it, the predictions, if you will, or the tellings of the past, it can be argued that this is more profound than the tellings of the future. Because even if you were to say something very specific even about the future, not just blue conquers red, or you had red conquer blue, it's an election year, it might matter. But this issue could be fulfilled for the sake of making the predictor sound right.
You know, they say a king will be born whose name is who will fight here, right? As difficult as that is, it's more imaginable than a lost fact that you can't meddle with, you can't actualize deliberately, choreograph later on. And so the lost past, of course we wrote in the papers, and I'm sure you've wrote far more extensively, I haven't gotten through all of yours yet, about Musa's name, the details of his nation, the misuse in other scriptures versus the Quran of the term Fir'aun versus king, so much to be spoken about. But the only aspect of lost knowledge, or not lost knowledge, predictions, since I have four or five minutes left that I can end with here, is the prediction of the preservation of the Quran. See, the preservation of the Quran, people may not realize this, even if it was not predicted, it would have been a sub-category of ijaz, because how could you imagine the Quran would be preserved and not corrupted when it came where it came, when it came, disseminated the way it was disseminated? It's unimaginable, it's very difficult to imagine if we want to not be hyperbolic. And Jazakumullahu khair for the intro, I think the important intro that you started with today about us saying this in verbal form, we are of course going to be trying to condense, and so we may not choose the most appropriate words sometimes, and that's why an objective person would not hold us to the letter of our spoken words, especially when they have the written forms to be more analytical with, and to be more measuring of, to gauge them with greater confidence, inshallah. So imagine that, the unlikelihood of a book that was taught, not in a sit-down, it's not a line or two, it's a book that was taught to people over 23 years.
This book was taught in segments, no one person would receive it at once. It was documented, no, primarily committed to memory, documented here and there on disjointed letters and fragments of bones and otherwise. Imagine someone would come to the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam, or not even him, sometimes one of his companions during his life, and hear some Quran from them and go back to their hometowns and never meet the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam or the companions ever again, teaches it to his family, teaches it to his children, teaches it to his clan's folk, and then it continues independent chains of transmission autonomously that way. And then 1400 years later, you have 1.8 billion Muslims reciting the same Quran with zero incompatibility, even with the variant texts that have a very perfectly understandable explanation, not text meaning different words for those that are not going to follow up and check on this, but variation in pronunciation at times, variations, very subtle variations, even with that, the compatibility is never compromised. So zero incompatibility between 1.8 billion Muslims. How do you do that? Even if you did not prophesize, that would be a separate part of ijaz, that it would happen, who would ever think it could happen? This is clearly Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala who did tell us we will guard this book from corruption. Clearly, even if he didn't tell us he was going to, he's the one that could have done this because no one else could have done this. That's why Allah azawajal even said, bal huwa ayatun bayyinatun fee suduri allatheena ootu alAAil. They are clear verses in the chests, in the hearts of those that have been granted the sacred knowledge. Allah carved it into the hearts of people in a way, inscribed it into our souls, the souls of those who carry the sacred knowledge, those that memorize it until the end of time.
And that's another aspect, like if someone wants to come speak about the ijaz of the Quran even being preserved as a manuscript, that is also very hard to believe considering the very low literacy rates, considering all things, considering it not being centralized. And the centralization may have been argued by some that Uthman or Abu Bakr, may Allah be pleased with them, maybe they purged the variant copies or the conflicting copies very early. Sure fine, I can understand why you say that considering the other scriptures of other texts, the Bible for example was locked in a vault basically only for the liturgy for a thousand years and William Tyndale when he translated into English, he was burned at the stake for it. But the idea is Uthman and Abu Bakr, may Allah be pleased with them, let us imagine that there was foul play here. We would have known because the memorization track is the primary track by which this Quran was preserved. And then it moves on now, I don't have time to speak about the impact on the hearts, but I did a small, in this just one minute, amateur research as I was going through ijaz just for my own betterment in understanding about the commitment of people to the Quran as opposed to any other book. And I found that the number one book in the past 50 years in terms of sale that sold four times as much as second and third place bestsellers was the Bible. And so the Bible, it sold over 4 billion copies. And second place was the Quotes of Mount Satan and third was the Harry Potter series. Those two sold about 800, 900 million copies, if I'm not mistaken, as compared to the Bible, which by itself, that's pretty impressive, right? Four billion copies, it dusts second and third place.
But the Quran is just in a league of its own. Like tell me of a book that 10 people on earth memorized cover to cover, as Sheikh Muhammad Faqih usually tells us, right? This Quran is memorized by millions of people, cover to cover, the majority of which don't speak Arabic as their native tongue or Arabic at all besides the Quran in the exact same way, using the Uthmanic codex, using the very finite, very specific science of Tajweed, a particular code of rules for reciting the Quran. Who could have done all of this? And this is just, as you said, the appreciation of the Quran, the preservation of the Quran so that you can dig into all of the other aspects of ijaz with confidence that this is the book that Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam received. And so I concur and echo your beautiful du'a. May Allah allow us to not just hear about and not just understand, but experience the inimitability, the matchless nature, the distinction of this book as the word that conquered all words and the statement that silenced every statement in human history and brought out of the world the best of it. And insha'Allah we'll do once again. May Allah bring us back to his book and bring the world back to his book as it once was. Allahumma ameen. Jazakallahu khairan Sheikh Suleiman. Please close us out if you can. Barakallahu feekum, jazakallahu khairan Sheikh. May Allah accept from you and us and all of those who are listening. I'm more than certain for those who are interested in discussing point by point any facet of the ajaz, I know I would be more than interested. I'm sure Sheikh Muhammad would also be interested in discussing these matters or sharing resources when people ask. But don't stop here. For those who are interested, don't stop here. Continue researching, experiencing, reciting, reflecting on the Quran. It is for a people who reflect.
It is for a people of intellect. It is for a people of God consciousness. It is for people who seek something greater. We ask Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la to allow us to live to our greatest purpose, to guide us and guide others through us and to make us a reason for others to be guided. We ask Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la to forgive us for all of our shortcomings. If I have made any mistakes in this podcast series, and I speak for Sheikh Muhammad as well I'm sure, if we made any mistakes whatsoever, we ask Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la to forgive us and to allow us to rectify that for the future. If we have made any mistakes, it is further a proof of the divine origins of the Quran that was revealed and conveyed on the spot with no errors, no room for proofreading or any type of retracting of the Quran and its verses. So may Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la allow us to see that as a proof of Ajaazul Quran as well. BarakAllahu feekum. Continue, inshaAllah, streaming and following the other series by Yaqeen Institute and we will see you inshaAllah on other platforms and other places bi-idhnillah. BarakAllahu feekum. Wassalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Wa alaikumussalam. Alrighty, kiss for now.
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