UNDER CONSTRUCTION!
GUIDANCE FROM THE QURAN.
This document is a summary from Tadabbur lessons. We are not going through each ayah but just summarizing them.
(A full Tadabbur lesson will still be based upon Tafseer books and lectures going through ayah by ayah)
Merely reading English translation of each ayah is not the same as going through Tafseer/ Tadabbur.
# Color legend: Purple = Surah Info, Blue = The Attributes of Allah, Green = The Guidance, Black = Related Information
Surah 01: Al-Fatihah (The Opener)
“(1) In the Name of Allah, the Most Compassionate, Most Merciful. (2) All praise is for Allah, Lord of all worlds, (3) the Most Compassionate, Most Merciful, (4) Master of the Day of Judgment. (5) You ˹alone˺ we worship and You ˹alone˺ we ask for help.
(6) Guide us along the Straight Path, (7) the Path of those You have blessed, not those You are displeased with, nor those who are astray.”
Surah Intro:
This Surah is a summary of the core messages of the entire Quran. It introduces “Aqeedah, Akhirah & Risalah”. It acts as a gateway (Opener) to the rest of the Quran. An Opener towards Eeman (Faith). An Opener to ease you of your Human issues. A cure for physical and spiritual sickness. This Surah is so important that it is made compulsory to recite it in our daily Sola.h.
Extracting from this Surah:
Aqeedah: God introduces His name (Allah), the definition of God and some of His attributes.
His attributes of being Compassionate and Merciful (i.e. in the “Basmalah”) inviting people towards Him and not to run away from Him out of fear.
> Compassionate (“Ar-Rahman”) to both believers and non-believers by providing them all of their provisions to live on earth.
> Merciful (“Ar-Raheem”) to the Believers in the Hereafter on Judgment Day.
Our action: Recite the “Basmalah” before anything that you want to do as a constant remembrance of Allah.
> Incidentally, this behavior will stop you from sinful acts since you will not be saying the “Basmalah” before an evil action.
> Naturally the heart cannot remain empty. It will always be filled with something. If it lacks the remembrance of Allah, it will be filled with something else. The heart is longing for spiritual tranquility. When much of it is filled with worldly pleasure, the heart will feel a sense of “emptiness”. It is being fed with the wrong “food”. Eeman in the heart will grow with the constant remembrance of Allah.
By truly knowing and understanding the “Basmalah”, this will trigger the Love towards Allah. We praise the one we love. We thank Him for the provisions and guidance for being Believers.
Next: God introduces His attribute of Praise worthiness and receiving Gratitude. (“Alhamdulillah …” )
We are to Praise and have a sense of Gratitude towards Him. We are in utmost Gratitude towards Him because of His Compassionate and Merciful attribute (The “Basmalah”).
The next divine attribute is the “Rabb” = The Creator, Owner, Maintainer, Master.
We are to Praise the Rabb, the One who maintain man’s livelihood on Earth. Praising Him will benefit us and Not benefit Him. He do not need us but we need Him since everything we get is under His ownership.
However, the main meaning of “Rabb” in the context of this ayah “Alhamdulillahi RABBil áalameen” is = “The Master”.
We are literally Slaves to the Master and to be in obedience to Him. We must never forget this Master and Slave relationship. There are many other slaves out there in the many Universes that are unknown to us. We are just tiny beings and is justified upon us to act humbly towards The Master. We are not the only intelligent creations of God. Knowing this will restraint us from being arrogant.
Allah introduces His next attribute = “Al-Malik”. King & Owner of Judgment Day (Akhirah).
The known world will end and we will be resurrected. He owns every single soul on that day and there is no escape from His justice. He provides Justice on Judgment Day based on what we have done.
This will prevent us from doing whatever we like during our time alive.
The length of that Day depends on the level of piousness of a person. It will be 50,000 years for a Disbeliever or very short for a very pious Believer. This will encourage us to increase our current level of piety.
Having knowledge of Judgment Day, Paradise and Hell, it will change our perspective and goal in life.
Our life’s perspective is not only about finding happiness by feeding our desires. It is about finding Tranquility being at peace with the loving Master.
What to do? Worship Allah and directly ask for His help. The two core things in our daily life: (1) Worship and (2) Duá.
Making duá (asking for help) without worshiping Him is a breach of the Master and Slave relationship.
Worshiping done according to what our Rasul s.a.w taught and not to create our own way of worshiping God.
How to worship? Firstly, ask Him for guidance.
We request God to guide our lives based upon the straight path of Revelation (Risalah).
This is the ultimate Duá! Being guided is overwhelmingly the most important value in a person. Nothing else matters.
Worshiping God is about contacting Him. It is a Mercy from Him that He allowed us tiny creatures to contact Him daily.
What does Guidance look like?
Living our life based on how the “Successful” people of the past used to live their lives. Their attributes and deeds are mentioned in the Quran & Hadith for us to emulate. The past tense verb (“an’amta”) is used since they have “graduated” from life (dead) successfully. (“an’amta” = You (Allah) has favored)
These “Successful” people were: (1) The Prophets (2) The Truthful (3) The Martyrs (4) The Righteous.
> The first 2 criteria are beyond our “pay grade”.
> There are two sides of the 3rd criteria = The Martyrs.
<1> Dying on the battlefield – honored in the hereafter
<2> Dying of severe sickness or accident – Sins forgiven.
Either way, we have no control over the way we die.
However, we (the common man) have some control over the 4th criteria which is being Righteous. We need to put efforts in achieving that.
We really do not know who among us is divinely recognized as being the righteous since “Graduation” is after Death.
Knowing this will prevent us from the arrogance of fantasizing having higher “Spiritual Ranking” than other Believers. It will make us humble and constantly putting our hope in Allah.
Next is avoiding these two groups of people:
<1> evil people that earned Allah’s wrath.
<2> deviated people that went astray. Avoid the wrong path that they have taken.
The Surah does not mention these unpleasant groups in the past tense since they will always be among us.
We recite this Surah a minimum of at least 17 times a day in our daily Solah reminding us over and over again.
Refer to Tafseer on how the ayaat are neatly arranged, etc.
Surah 02: Al-Baqarah (The Cow)
– The longest Surah in the Quran.
Humans having limited knowledge and capacity
The Arab Mushriqoon were proud of their Arabic language eloquence and were arrogant of it.
Excellency in the Arabic language was the prestigious tradition of these ancient Arabs.
They labelled non Arabs as Ájam, meaning one of lesser articulation of language. For eg. There are more that 100 classical Arabic word for “Camel”. There will be a word for a camel of every type, behavior, age, etc. They were also proud of their speaking eloquence.
However they themselves were in awe and overcome by the language of the Quran. They were amazed in the Qurán’s art of word articulation, rhetoric, eloquence, nuances, conformity in its melodious recitation. Allah challenged their poets to create anything similar like the Quran. The Arabs terms of Language. They had no idea on how the accuracy in History and the Modern discoveries were already mentioned in the Quran.
The prestigious tradition in our modern times is the increase and accumulation of knowledge. This too will lead to arrogance and the will to oppress lesser people.
Surah Al-Baqarah begins with the notion that humans are given limited capacity and knowledge. It humbled us that we are unable to know everything that exist in the knowledge of Allah.
Guidance and the Righteous Believers
To be guided in life is to look into the revelation (the Quran).
You must have some sense of righteousness before you are able to find guidance in the Book.
A test of faith is having absolutely no doubt in everything of what the Quran says.
The righteous are those who believed in the unseen world, humbly submit to God in Solah and are charitable.
Believing in the unseen world mentioned in the Quran is possible because even in the “seen” world we are unable to know everything.
They believed in the Prophet s.a.w who delivered the divine messages and are certain of life in the hereafter.
The ultimate success is in the hereafter and not in this world, reserved for the Guided souls.
The previous Surah Al-Fatihah teaches us to keep asking for guidance in our daily Solah and this Surah list out the attributes of those who are Guided.
Are you ready to be a Guided Believer ?
Three types of people
This Surah was revealed in the Madinah period when a community consisting of Muslims and other factions had been formed.
Therefore it will focus on the challenges living as a society among the mix.
In the society, there will be Believers, Disbelievers and the Hypocrites.
A Kafir is a Disbeliever who have been introduced to the truth but arrogantly reject and shows animosity against the truth.
Iblis believed Allah, Angels, Judgment day but he rebelled against Allah and hostile towards the Believers. He is a Kafir.
This is the group that reminders are of no more use to them.
However, a Non Believer will still be receptive to reminders until proven that he has become a Disbeliever (Kafir).
Those who are ignorant of the truth and are not hostile cannot simply be labelled as a Kafir in its true meaning.
A Hypocrite is one who pretended to be a Believer. It is easy to identify the Disbelievers or Non Believers but tricky to identify a true Hypocrite (Munafiq).
There were plenty of Munafiqoon in Madinah who said the Shahadah in front of the Prophet s.a.w.
At the same time they had good connections with the Mushriqoon of Makkah who were bent to destroy the Believers.
The Munafiqoon did the Shahadah so as to wait who among the two factions (the Believers and the Mushriqoon) will be victorious. If any one of the two is victorious, they will be a part of the winner even though they disliked the Believers and wished that the Mushriqoon will win.
Types of Munafiqoon
There are two types of Munafiqoon:
(1) A pure Munafiq who has no eeman in his heart but pretended to be a Muslim.
(2) A Muslim who behaves like a Munafiq.
The first is more dangerous than the second. It had brought many calamities to the Muslim ummah in the past as they collaborated with the Kafiroon bent to wipe off Islam. The Muslims need to be careful not to be manipulated by the Munafiqoon. From historical records, they have caused the Muslims to fight one another, etc.
The second type is a Muslim Munafiq that will bring harm to the Muslim society in the long run. We are to avoid having the Munafiq behavior. In the long run, the effect of the second type of Munafiq will be like the first group without them realizing.
Learn the traits of a Muslim Munafiq in order to avoid them in yourselves. The Quran and Hadith gave us the information.
We are not allowed to casually label anyone as a Munafiq as this is a matter in the unseen heart. We are to look inwards into ourselves and not to find faults on others on purpose.
The Munafiqoon eventually will spread corruption and distort the religion. Do not be ignorant in falling into deviation and got stuck in it because of social pressure, tribal arrogance, etc.
The Trials
The Believers will be expected to face mockery and transgression from both the Kafiroon and the Munafiqoon. So do not be disheartened by their foolish behaviour.
Without the light of Guidance (from God), people will succumbed into the darkness of desires and emptiness of life.
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