Introduction to The Human Manual

Understanding the messages in the Qur’an for the common man

Welcome to “The Human Manual” – Finding Guidance from the Holy Qur’an. Let’s embark on a journey trying to find the purpose of life. Questioning who has the ultimate rights of determining right from wrong. Searching for the True God. Wanting to be guided by God Himself.

Most people will not bother to ask oneself what is the purpose of being alive. They just follow what society does. When there is a problem in life, most will fall into depression and started thinking that life is meaningless. If a person believed in God and knows why God created him, then he has a purpose in being alive even though society think nothing of him. Most materialistic people will be conscious of what people think of him and he will put on a show that he is better than the next person while belittling a person that he is jealous of. This person does not understand the purpose of life.

A product created by human, eg. the Washing Machine, will come with a manual on how to operate the device correctly. If you keep doing it incorrectly, it will destroy the device.
The Quran is a manual for human to refer to. If human keep doing the opposite of what the Quran has stated, it will make human being becoming a miserable species.

The goal of the Quran is to guide people towards achieving Taqwa and the result is Jannah, Paradise for eternity.

What is Taqwa?

God consciousness in any situation by fearing and loving Him, having hope in His mercy while staying obedient to His Commandments (consistently performing worship & rituals) and staying away from His prohibitions. The most important of all is worshiping Him alone without any partners (w/o any sub-god, mini-god, sons/daughters of god, saints as intermediary, etc). The way of directly worshiping and praying/talking to Him is according to how He had taught through His Prophet s.a.w.

Without knowledge, a person can be manipulated by syaithan of having a false sense of Taqwa, deviated from what Islam is.

Taqwa varies from person to person. The same person will have different levels of Taqwa on the same day, and from day to day. Knowledge is a compulsory tool towards achieving Taqwa. With more knowledge, you gain more tools in opening up the doors of Taqwa. Without the tools of knowledge, you are unable to open the door.

However the amount of knowledge you possess may not be directly proportional to your amount of Taqwa. Someone might have lots of knowledge, yet has very little Taqwa. Knowledge must be supported with sincerity towards God and His religion. With a good understanding and sincerity towards God, you will able to consistently perform religious deeds. Religious deeds are to maintain your level of Taqwa. Without these daily maintenance, your Taqwa and connection to the Creator will perish. A house without walls, the roof will collapse and you are exposed to danger.

The difference between man in our Master’s perspective is the amount of Taqwa a person possesses. The amount of knowledge, the amount of status or the amount of wealth means nothing to God if we don’t have Taqwa. Achieving the highest amount of Taqwa is the goal.

Learning the Quran

There are many parts in learning the Quran as shown in the diagram below.
In this document, we will learn the "Tadabbur" and "Tafseer" parts which in some ways will include Arabic word translation with some grammar and Quran history.

The Clear Quran

[Quran 54:40]
"And We have certainly made the Quran easy to remember. So is there anyone who will be mindful?"

Allah made the Qur’an easy for remembrance. Easy for remembering Allah and remembering the Deen. Easy to get advice from it.

Surah Al-Hijr (15:1): "Alif, Lam, Ra. These are the verses of the Book and a clear Qur'an"

تِلْكَ آيَاتُ الْكِتَابِ وَقُرْآنٍ مُّبِينٍ

However, someone engaging in deep learning of the Quran will find that it is not that simple. He has to put lots of effort to learn everything about the Quran. Allah never said it is simple. But Allah said it is clear. Just like a professor who wrote lots of mathematical formula on the whiteboard. Those formulas were not easy to derive, but the students found his solutions and teachings clear. Clarity is when something make sense. A complicated thing is easy when you find clarity. 

The scholars writing Tafseer of the Qur’an is not easy. But when we read the Tafseer, it is easy for us to understand clearly the guidance. Humanity has so many problems. The Qur’an ease their burden and guide them out of the problems.

Pondering on the Ayaat of Allah

Reading Qur’an is to understand the messages. That is the purpose of this documentation. Syaithan does not fear people who read the Quran without understanding but fears those who read and understand the messages. That was why the Mushrikoon of Makkah will make loud noises when the Prophet s.a.w was reciting the Quran to other Arab tribes because they want to distract them from understanding what was being recited.

The Mushrikun will not bother the Prophet s.a.w reciting the Quran if the people listening are non Arabs who do not understand Arabic and are just enjoying the melody of the Quran.

Only by understanding and contemplation will the Qur’an change a person from being bad to being good. A person can recite the Qur’an for 20 years but has no change in his bad behaviour since all the years of recitation are without any understanding. 

Definition of "Reading"

If you read a magazine or newspaper, the purpose is to understand what you are reading. How about reading a Book containing the speeches of Allah? Most Muslims will just recite making sounds that they have no idea what they are reading. That is not the definition of "Reading". Non Muslims will find it weird. How can you read a book of a language that you do not understand?

Tafsir of the Quran

A Tafsir is a detailed technical explanation of every kalimah (word) and ayah (verse) of the Quran. Example, describing the root letters of a word, the tenses, the linguistic meaning, the context of the ayah, the history behind it and any other relevant sources to explain the Quranic messages.
Scholars have put lots of effort in producing Tafseer upon Tafseer of the Quran. However they have to follow these set of rules in order to derive upon a meaning of a word or ayah:

>>1. The Quran to explain the Quran.
When a word found in one part of a Surah which the scholars are not too sure of the meaning will have them searching for the same word used in other parts of the Quran. Other part of the Quran will explain in detail what this word mean.
Example: In Surah Al-Fatihah, the word Áalaameen is mentioned in the phrase = Robbul-Áalaameen (Lord of the Áalaameen). What is Áalaameen?
Surah Ash-Shuára' (ayaat 23 - 24) explained the meaning :
Pharaoh asked, “And what is ‘the Lord of Áalaameen?”
Moses replied, “˹He is˺ the Lord of the heavens and the earth and everything in between, if only you had faith.”

>>2. The explanation from the Prophet s.a.w.
There are many instances when the companions would ask the Prophet what does certain word mean? Eg. the word "Zhulm" in the context of an ayah in Surah Al-An’Am: 82.

It is ˹only˺ those who are faithful and do not do “Zhulm” are guaranteed security and are ˹rightly˺ guided.

The companions understood “Zhulm” as injustice but after asking the Prophet s.a.w, he said it means associating partners with Allah (Shirk) based on the context of the ayah.

>>3. The understanding of the companions of the Prophet s.a.w.
They were the first generation of people:
--> They had direct access to the Prophet s.a.w
--> The ayaat were sent down because of incidents that happened to them
--> The Quran was in the classical language that they were speaking
--> The Prophet s.a.w praised them as being the very best generation of this Ummah i.e the most sincere, honest, knowledgeable and pious in religiosity.

Example Surah An-Nisa’: 43: 

  ..  If you are either ill or travelling or have satisfied a want of nature or have had contact with women and can find no water, then betake yourselves to pure earth .. (to do tayammum) ..

Ibu Abbas (a Scholar among the companions) said that contact with women means to have sexual relations with your spouse and not merely touching your spouse that will nullify your wudhuk. Therefore if some later opinion said that by touching your wife will nullify the wudhuk, this is a contradiction of what Ibn Abbas (the companion and cousin of the Prophet s.a.w) had said. The sayings of the Companions are above all other sayings of later generations.

We can also refer to the Tabieen who were students of the Companions. Three scholarly Companions had many students under them. They were Abdullah bin Mas'ud (in Kufah), Ibn Abbas (in Makkah) and Ubayy ibn Ka'b (in Madinah). When it is a consensus of Tabieen in understanding an ayaat, then we will take it.

>>4. The ayah must be understood as how the classical Arabic were understood.
Modern Arabs will need to refer to the Scholars who have knowledge of classical Arabic. The Arabic language of the Quran is not what the modern Arabs are currently speaking.

>>5. Tafseers may include some additional stories from the Israelite in supporting certain narrative, not as the source of a narrative. The Prophet s.a.w allowed this as some of their stories may be true and the some other are false.
It acts as additional material to complete the narrative of certain ayaat and NOT as the source of information.

>>6. Lastly are the opinions of later scholars that are subjective depending on the time and era that we are living in. Eg. Surah Ar-Rahman 55:37 :

"And when the sky is SPLIT OPEN and becomes ROSE-coloured like TANNED LEATHER".

Take note that “ROSE” colour on tanned leather takes TIME to develop.

Modern scholars are in the opinion that this ayah is talking about the Rosette Nebula. Photographs of the Nebula taken by telescopes visually looked like a rose. Clusters of hot stars (4-5 million years old) RELEASE intense radiation and powerful stellar winds, blowing away gas and carving out the nebula's iconic "rosette" cavity. The center cavity looked like where the “sky split open” and the whole process took millions of earth years. The size of the Nebula is about 100 to 130 light years in diameter.