Divine Speech Prologue Part 1 - Nouman Ali Khan (HD)

our speaker today is no mana Luhan he's the head of the ena Institute the largest and fastest-growing Arabic Studies program in the country he has previously served that Islamic Islamic teacher Islamic studies teacher at Muslim Center chaplain for Adelphi University Arabic professor at NASA Community College and director of education and Masjid al Quran currently brother no man is busy ensuring the growth and sustainability of Bojana which has crossed the 6,000 student mark al hamdulillah he's involved in numerous translations and research project projects all revolving around classical Arabic curriculum development linguistic analysis and the seer of the Quran brother no man's understanding of the language interfere has been influenced by numerous scholars scholarly resources both classical and contemporary he has retained his focus on the Quran related studies for a number of number of years and considers himself an intermediate student of the language and a beginner student of the Quran without further ado I would give you Salaam alaikum whoever cut hamdulillah he replied I mean what salatu was-salam I should have a BA even more saline well either early he was happy he womanist and every Sunday he allowed me Dean Allah who my child I mean home 1 million Lavina a maneuver I mean oh sorry hurt what I was all will hug what I was always I mean you're a behind I mean someone bad for all the billahi min ash-shaytaan-i'r rajeem had rubella holiness well you knew ruby he when the animo and never who 11 warhead well he had that car you know Albert Robuchon is Audrey or silly Emery walk that I mean listen II of Kali allah muhammad nur angle Montavilla ilaha illallah I mean yellow melon I mean I have a monumental task before me today to share with you in two parts two parts of this presentation broken up a break in the middle a huge subject and I was given a different title before and I requested it to be changed even though the subject is very similar I was given the title miracles of the Quran and that's too big a title for me to handle so I changed it to literary characteristics of the Quran those of you that saw the advertising materials it is there's a reason for which I chose this title and I'd like to share with you why in this introductory phase of my talk I'll Center it around one thing I've taken the Arabic portion of a small portion of the ayah that I recited to you in the beginning hatha Bala Holiness Allah speaks about the Quran and he says this is a balla and i'm not going to translate that yet it is a bonel for people but now Moroccan Arabic means that which reaches someone else a communication or communicate this Quran is meant to reach people it is a message to people now because Allah calls it a means of communication or a communique a message I wanted to speak to you today first about the essential components of communication I want to keep this very very simple I'm not gonna try to bother you with heavy grammatical terms or Arabic terminology because that's not my intention today what I want you to be exposed to is this dimension of an appreciation of the Quran that is almost lost entirely upon people who are not students of the Quran in Arabic which is the majority of Muslims and perhaps all of mankind in addition they don't appreciate one dimension of the Quran that I'd like to highlight for you when we communicate there are essentially three components that you have to keep in mind there are three aspects to communicating the first of them is the speaker himself you know what I'm talking to you there's already before I even open my mouth because of my appearance my gender my age all of that what you see with your eyes you haven't even heard me speak yet but you've already passed some judgement you've already passed some sort of predisposed conclusions about how I'm going to speak or what I'm going to talk about think about it this way I have kids right and you know when tax season comes around I go speak to my friends that are accountants and I'm taking their financial advice whatever what if my six-year-old kid came to me and gave me tax advice really good tax advice but it came from my six-year-old would I take it seriously no not because what she says is wrong but because it's coming from a source that I don't really acknowledge for that content I don't expect it from her now if I get that same exact financial advice from a financial adviser from an accountant from an auditor will I take that advice seriously sure it's gonna completely change the way I perceive that information so the speaker is a big deal I'll give you a more relevant example as far as the religions concerned my kid doesn't give me financial advice by the way so you come to a hug but you go to a my you're attending a football you got there little late so you didn't get into the main hall you up you sat outside by the shoes or something so you didn't see the hottie the hottie happened to be this young guy wearing jeans and a t-shirt baseball hat on backwards barely a beard on his face and he gives the most killer hope why you've ever heard in your life the people that are sitting in the front row as they're listening to the whole but you know what they're thinking man I better repeat my salon right after he's done and the people that are outside that haven't seen him that heard this club but you know what they're thinking I wonder where the studied I wonder where he's from that was amazing what was the sheiks name why because the one who speaks the one who speaks certainly affects how we understand what they're saying this is a human flaw but nonetheless it's there it's there is this applicable even in the Quran absolutely the Quran as we go forward you're gonna see the Quran elicited two kinds of responses either people were mesmerized by this book and fell in love with this book and were willing to change their entire lives when they heard this book it had that power on them on the other hand you had people that were so annoyed with this book they had such a deeply rooted hatred for this book that they would do anything to get it from stop from from stop it from being spread spread across to the two responses there was no apathy there was nobody that heard the Quran and said sounds interesting that didn't exist there were only one of these two responses now I want to share with you something on this about the who speaks component of communication briefly you know in the quran allah says allah w'allahu methionine Allah struck an example now just to see if you're paying attention who struck the example Allah Allah so who's the speaker therefore Allah is clear Allah strikes the example and of course when you're a believer I say to you I give you an example you say okay yeah nice example but if I say Allah gives an example Allah strikes an example don't you impair more attention you do because what did we take into consideration the speaker Allah but the disbeliever on the other side on the other side of the spectrum who the messenger is communicating the same Quran to if he hears Allah struck an example he already Tunes his ears out he says I don't want to hear this what allies to say I've heard enough already you've been telling me for a decade now I don't want to hear it anymore you understand deal the only reason he's refusing to listen to the example is what the speaker the same reason for which the believer will pay extra attention is the same reason for which the disbeliever will be extra deterred you follow in so little hedge in surah Hajj namitha near quran surah tehreem allah strikes an example Medina Quran baqara Allah struck an example not of Allah who methanol but then when you come to sahaja Samadhi surah the majority of communication is taking place between the messenger and the vast majority of people that don't believe in what he has to say yet Allah says to them yeah johannes people listen up booty by methylone now listen to the english rough english translation carefully allah says people an example has been struck he says an example has been struck who has been omitted from this discussion the speaker he didn't say Allah struck an example what did he say an example has been struck he took the speaker out of the picture you know why because when the this believer would hear that the speaker is Allah out of all of a sudden the rest of the text would become irrelevant they would not be able to knit tune out so allah azzawajal in that ayah instead of emphasizing the speaker he emphasizes something else and that's the next component of communication what is being said the speech itself simple words the content to component so far of speech the speaker and the content two things the speaker and the content so when Allah says in examples being struck what's the emphasizing the content listen to the example forget where it's coming from don't judge the speaker judge what the speech judge the words themselves right so there's a difference in communication there's a difference in communication now this is of course taken into consideration consistently throughout the Quran this is just one small example that I shared with you but it's something very consistent in very you know the Quran is very conscious of this problem of communication to the point we find an interesting statement almost an axiom of Allie about the allahu anhu a companion of the messenger sallallaahu ajnanam who said something very interesting i'll paraphrase it in english for you we judge the speech before we judge the speaker he says we judge what is said before we judge who says it because it's perhaps from the most unlikely source that you will find the truth you'll find the truth one of the reasons for rejecting muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is that he was an orphan and he wasn't a celebrity in the town and he wasn't one of the two great leaders that everybody already looked up to this was one of the reasons that the kuffar gave who is he to speak why should we listen to him and this is actually recorded in the Quran you know one of the two men Minos Kalia Taniya Arlene one of the two great men from the towns why weren't they picked why would this man be picked to deliver a message so two components so far let's see if you're still paying attention what are they the speaker and the speech here's the third component component how do they say it's who says what they say and the third part how do they say it if I give you advice study harder right your exams are coming over coming coming upon you and your mom comes to you your best friend comes to you and says you're such a loser you're wasting all your time you're pathetic you know and they mean to tell you study now they gave you good advice but the way in which they gave it made it ineffective they may admit it ineffective so it's not just that you have the speaker and the content but the way in which you present the content has to be effective otherwise the effect is lost the communication is lost in the end the point of communication is to influence the audience not just to have them listen to some things or see some things but to actually influence them to influence a change in them you can't do that if you don't speak effectively even if you have something good to say let me give you another example you listen to a hobo incredible content incredible content but the way in which it is delivered is extremely monotone it's extremely monotone now the content itself is profound ayat of Quran are being quoted a hadith are being quoted really powerful statements are being stated but the way in which they are being stated is so boring that you will find half the audience passed out you will and is there's nothing wrong with the content because the content is divine there may not even be anything wrong with the speaker but what's there what's the problem that time the mode of speech the style of speech how something is being presented three components of speech the first one the speaker second one the content the speech the third one the style how they speak the medium the medium in media studies this is given so much important the first axiom you learn when you study media is the medium is the message the way you present is equally important if not more important than how you present it's equally important so now what with that basic introduction when we turn to the Quran then we ask ourselves and we ask ourselves the revisit revisiting the question the Quran is a miracle we believe this now quran is remarkable we believe this the quran is you know it's stunning in its beauty we believe this and it's stunning as communication but it's stunning in three ways it's remarkable and incredible in three ways it's remarkable in that the speaker is incredible the speaker himself what else is incredible the speech what else is incredible the style there are three things now let's turn to the speaker briefly okay the speaker in the Quran is who Allah Span Owatonna but additionally additionally I want you to think about this the disbeliever who hears the messenger reciting Quran does not believe that it's from Allah who does he believe the speaker is the disbeliever believes or he thinks that the speaker is Muhammad listen for the believer he knows that the messenger is only a medium by which the words are being delivered and the words belong to Allah so the messenger is actually quoting some habla whoever he's quoting Allah but the disbeliever says these are not Allah's words because if he said that he'd be a Muslim already he wouldn't be a disbeliever any more so now think of it from this point of view the believer understands that the actual speaker is Allah which is miraculous enough for the believer but let's look at it from the disbelievers point of view from the disbelievers point of view who's the speaker how much listen now keep that perspective in mind this is important because Allah says this is a communication not just for believers but for who how did I begin this talk this is communication for all people and the mat vast majority of people believe already that these are not words of Allah that these are words of Muhammad slicin even then it is miraculous what about Muhammad's background salallahu alaihe wasalam gives away that he is not he can't be the speaker he can't be the speaker and if he is there's something you know unusual taking place there is knowledge of the history of Bani Israel just a side note this is not the subject of my speech it's just aside know muhammad salallahu alaihe wasalam comes and he starts giving this information that exists in the classified texts of the people of the book by the way the people of the book now thump Bible studies they want you to read the Bible what the Bible Jehovah's Witness will come to you with a little pamphlet says what does what does the Bible really say right but the ancient Christian was not well read in the Bible Bible studies was limited to biblical scholars and if you had a question about the Bible you didn't go and look it up yourself where did you go you went to the priest you went to the rabbi for the Old Testament it was classified information it's almost like it was considered so high class or so difficult to access for yourself it's kind of like reading the United States Constitution for yourself you go to a lawyer to interpret it you go to somebody who studied that stuff it's their thing it's not your thing right the messenger sallallahu wasallam starts saying things that existed only in their classified documents and only their higher-level scholars would discuss them and he's just uh Turing those words so already they knew that he is actually not the speaker they had they realized very quickly that he can't possibly be the speaker he can't be just on this point just a side note the historicity of the Quran the historical integrity of the Quran hey man you know who her man is in the Quran he's the minister or one of the ministers of who affarin her man is mentioned in the Quran about six times and Allah tells us about her man that fit our own commanded him to build him a tower fit all commanded him to build him a tower now is there a mention of a ham man in the Bible sure is there a mention of Haman building a tower sure but the ha man in the Bible didn't work for Pharaoh he worked for another king named Xerxes in the biblical book of Esther so the biblical Catholic scholars in the 1600s who were first getting into Orientalist studies Islamic studies they look this thing up in the Quran is aha we found a mistake in the Quran look they're talking about Haman working under Pharaoh while the book of Esther tells us that c'mon worked under the king named Dirk seize a thousand years after the Pharaoh in Babylon not even in Egypt and he built them a tower you ever heard of the story the tower of Babylon so they challenged the history historical integrity of the Quran by Allah they said from the disbelievers point of view o Muhammad must have plagiarized it from a priest and made a mistake because he mixed up the story of the Tower of Babel right and the story of Xerxes with the story of the Pharaoh and he's confused between the two of them that's what he did miss quotation in the Quran what's really interesting is in the late 1800s the Catholic scholarship the the body of Catholic scholarship unanimously denied the book of Esther as a valid source of history they acknowledge their own book they acknowledge that their own book unanimously is legend just stories made up names made up the Jewish encyclopedia even now tells you the book of Esther has noticed no historical value none whatsoever but then it remains this one question remains the Quran tells us that this Quran tells bani israeel about the things that even they disagreed him even they disagreed in some stuff and this quran tells them this speaker is giving this to you he can't be the speaker then there's some this knowledge is coming from somewhere else now check this out you know maurice bucaille is famous muslim who wrote bible quran in science before he got into that subject he was a historian he wanted to study islamic history when he came across this problem presented by catholic priests he did alert research you see what happened in the late 1800s was the egyptian hieroglyphics were now being revived as a language because here igloo fix had died about almost 2,000 years before the Prophet solanum Egyptian hieroglyphics had died as a language and they were revived by German and French scholars the study is called Egyptology they traveled to Egypt they studied the hieroglyphics and they developed a scheme of you know spelling those images and turning him into a pronounceable words and all this stuff okay it started about 120 130 years ago so they got into this study and they made documentation of who the ministers that are mentioned in their the documents of the egyptians what their roles were etc etc Maurice travels to France goes to an Egyptologist and asks him by the way in your records did you see any named Haman and he says well I wouldn't know you have to go to Germany but where did you get the name ham and he said well there's a messenger a man who claims to be a messenger in the seventh century who says that there was a minister of Pharaoh whose name was what c'mon and he'd built told him to build a tower he said that's impossible nobody could have had access to any names from that time because the language has already died at the prophet's time for how long already 2,000 years so he travels to Germany to look up the names of different architects and constructors and ministers under the name under the ferrell specifically under the pharaoh at the time of historical era of moosa aleihsalaam of moses what does he find Haman minister of the stone quarries construction this name is discovered in the 1900s the tout that they actually have a statue in Austria I believe Haman written on it underneath they've revived it from Egypt his name is Haman in Austria the statue is sitting there now we don't know for sure if that's the ham out of you know of the Quran but still the name exists the fact that he's in charge of construction exists and this is something they didn't have but which speaker had The Messenger of Allah but actually the speaker is who then Allah subhanAllah tada this is just from the historical point of view something that they used to laugh at the Muslims came back and blew up in their own face so this is just one dimension but the dimension I want to focus on with you today is not the first or the second the second is the content the content but it's the third not what Allah says not to stand alone but how he says it what makes the Quran so unique in the way in which it communicates the way in which Allah says stuff is so powerful and so incredible you see the Quran when it's translated maybe maybe you'll get the content of what he says maybe what will you definitely not get a hundred percent how he said it that's lost what he said maybe you get something out of translation maybe but how he said it is gone that's it because how he said it exists in what language in Arabic even if you explain it to somebody in Arabic in your own Arabic it's still not how he said it you understand so the creative beauty the unique beauty the unparalleled majesty really of Allah's words they cannot be translated something from the meaning can be translated but the actual impact that the original words have nothing else can have in appreciating this gap between our attempts to translate the Quran and allows own words to appreciate this gap you know what a CEO tell him Allah said he said if you can appreciate the distance between ally in his creation meaning how far above Allah has from his creation then you have some idea of the distance between the word of Allah and the word of the creation what is translation it is the word of creation it can never be a substitute for the word of Allah it can't be this is not a lecture on what is lost in the content we could talk about that - there's a lot lost in the content - but I want to talk to you about what is lost in the beauty in the style and how can we as non Arab speaking audiences as people that aren't exposed to the Arabic language at least even begin that journey of appreciating the Quran in that light that is something that has been held dearly by Muslims for a very very very long time and is almost entirely lost upon the Muslims in our times you see when we hear that the Quran is a miracle as we heard in the introduction before I got up here how is the miracle of the Quran presented mostly if you google it the first thing you'll get a scientific phenomenon in the Quran isn't that true another thing you might get is some crazy number 19 theory right you'll get that some statistics another thing you might get is the Quran had predictions like Rome is going to be it was dominated but it will come back and take over again predictions in the Quran but do we believe that every ayah of the quran is a miracle do we believe that is it a miracle from the very time it was revealed or later on from then from its inception the very big first communication we had with dr. Ahn the first interaction human beings had with the Quran every last I of the Quran is a miracle this is what we believe how many ayat of Quran are predictions very few how many I out of Quran are dedicated to scientific phenomena very few how many of these things were even known to the Arabs of that time almost nothing so what is it that mesmerized these people what is it that every time the messenger opened his mouth that there would be some Allah or honey who said them they would be dumbfound they didn't know what to say three stories and I'm done with the introduction insha'Allah Allah this is the question we're going to try and answer in the second part the first story very interesting is the story of tophane of mohammad awsi interesting fellow he was the leader of his tribe he was also a very skillful poet and he decided to pay his respects to Makkah to visit and make you know Tawaf of the house all Arabs had had shared regard for what city for Makkah so to show their dedication he would show his dedication he came as the leader of his tribe the leaders of flesh realized that he's coming and when he comes he might hear the Prophet so I said I'm reciting Quran and if that happens he might get in chanted so we better protect another tribe leader from falling at the hand of Muhammad sallallaahu our news to them because when a tribe leader becomes Muslim who also follows the whole tribe so you gotta take care of business they go to meet him outside Makkah before even comes in they say them listen we've got a problem in the city right now there's this man he says these words and these cast spells on people it turns father against son husband against wife brother against brother it is causing disunity in our tribe these people are being possessed by demons when he speaks to them we don't we think you're an important figure for your tribe we think that your your your your integrity is going to be compromised if he's able to cast his spells on you we advise you to go back you don't want you to come into maka he's hesitating to go but he says no I came all this way I'm at least gonna go and make them off I'm gonna pay my respects to the house and then go they said fine but at least take this Cork they gave him a couple of plugs for what if you see him you will recognize those words and when you hear those words just plug your ears and run this is the advice they gave him he goes in he's paying his respects to the house the messenger of allah sallallahu alayhi wa send them is they're praying reciting Quran he hears the sweetness of the words and he recognizes immediately this must be what they were talking about so what does he do he plugs his ears and makes a dash for it and halfway in his in his jog he stops and he thinks to himself I am the leader of my tribe I'm the pride of my my people I am one of the most skillful poets in all of Arabia some words are gonna overpower me I can take this he unplugged his ears he goes back to the messenger sallallaahu sanam he listens to the Quran he takes the Shahada and then tells the story subhanAllah that's how we know this story it was alluded to before abou jihad Abu Sufyan Alchemist Abdul Shareef these three people would hate on the messenger sallallaahu our lives on them they were the elders of the core age they were the seniors there was a think tank and they would sneak in the middle of the night and put their ears on the prophets apartments all along or idea who sent them they would listen to Quran being recited and then they would sneak back before morning and what happened the first night was they ran into each other and they the other didn't know the other was there so the first guy is going what are you doing here he says well what are you doing here right they knew what they were doing there so they swore they will never come back they caught each other the next night they swore they won't come back they caught each other the third night they catch each other the third night and they swear by their mothers by the Lord by their lives they're never going to come back again so they don't come back but Agnes he's curious he goes to Abu Sufyan and he says to him we've been listening for three days what do you think is this the truth I will sophie-anne says to him by the way Abu Sufyan became awesome much later this is early cielo of course it's the truth what else can it be okay let's go talk to who John he's been listening to right so the two of them go and they talked up with John what do you think of course it's the truth abu jahal says of course it's the truth but then he explained you see where Banu Amin and he's banu hashim right there before I tell you any more of what he said what did he take into consideration the speech or the speaker the rejection of the disbeliever came at the fact that these words as powerful as they are as true as they are as flawless as the content is as mesmerizing as the style is we are not willing to accept this person because when we when Banu Hashim gives charity we match them when they fight we match them when they show bravery we match them well one of theirs comes up with these words we will never match them so they have won forever we can't let that happen that was the reason subhanAllah it's a different take on history even those who hated the Quran were mesmerised by the Quran even they were mesmerized by the Quran last story it was one of my favorites what by abner abhi on you can think about my bloob er as the Sean Hannity of back in the day okay expert debater very insulting to those who oppose him in this in public discourse he was a negotiator on behalf of conflicting tribes this was he was hired for that he was a consultant you could say that would go in and make demands and get to get the thing done you know these are the kind of people that flourished when they said these this war of words were losing so we gotta get somebody who's really good at their words somebody really good at debate and discussion and negotiation so they hired Alba and they say go why you talk to Mohammed he's sitting there some lorrison of course they didn't say something already sent him you go talk to him you make some demands on him figure out what he wants humiliate him by the way we'll watch from a distance nowadays we watch football games from a stadium or from the you know our couches on TV this was their sport to watch one want to go against the other in this debate right so they're watching from a distance they don't want to get too close but they're they're about to enjoy this matchup between where we are and who Mohammed I saw them but but goes very insulting extremely condescending yeah Mohammed what do you want you want you want wealth we'll give you money you want women will give you women you want shared power we'll give you some power - what do you want make your demands now by already saying that he is not judging the content of what Mohammed says Salalah Harrison he never made any demands of money nor of anything else he is not judging anything but the intentions the person this is called character assassination the best thing the best way you can dismantle somebody or somebodies credibility is that you attack their motives why are you really presenting this message you must have some alternative agenda hiding underneath which is why you're talking this way so he rats off barks like a dog at the messenger so listen the messenger is listening carefully and silently patiently and when he's done in very small very soft tones the messenger says to him sallallahu I didn't said him afar off Diablo will eat are you done are you finished he says fine your turn the messenger alayhi salatu wassalam did nothing but recite Quran he recites from surat fussilat now audhu billahi min ash-shaytaan-i'r rajeem Hamim tanzy Luminara hand over him the first thing he says it is a revelation rough translation of course I can't match what Allah says my rough translation it is something that has been sent down from the exceedingly merciful though constantly merciful the intention when the attack came from rottweil the idea was these are your words and you're just trying to get something out of it the first thing the Quran says in response is what this is not my words where are they from up there you're not negotiating with me who are you debating right now allah azzawajal you're not fighting me you're fighting a lot words these are his day they're sent down to meet and zero may not him qatal one it's a book it's actually a book right now it's being presented at words but where does it come from from tab first see that ayah to whose ayat whose manifest a whose demands have made been made absolutely clear remember he asked about demands right what do you want Allah says the ayat are absolutely clear the ayat make certain demands now what are those demands in are they in clear language Quran and arab' and nikomina and the moon and Arabic Quran for for a nation that seeks to know you want to know what we want you know you want to know what Allah wants you want to know what what the demands are here they are they're coming then Allah Azza WA JAL he reveals the ayah Bashir and when athira this Quran came its two main functions Bashir you know what that means something that gives good news it comes with good news for you it's got a good proposition for you when Adira and a warning a threat when Avila fought for home for homeless Maru but most of them ignore it on purpose about this to ignore something on purpose they don't even listen and they're the ones that they are the ones who are actually not listening they think you're not listening to them but the real dumb the real you know people incapable of hearing are those people over there they're the ones that are not listening for homeless tomorrow so Allah is responding to his negotiation with ayat of Quran and as the ayat are being revealed the people are watching from a distance right they don't hear what's going on but they see what's going on they see the face of God by change they see his face change then what they notice is he's crying Roth was started crying they're expert negotiator caffeine hater of Islam insult er of the messengers of Allah Allah Allah Allah he listens to Quran and he starts crying he cries so much as the ayat go on and he gets stronger and stronger in their wording that he tries to grab the mouth of the messenger sallallaahu I never said him please stop can't take anymore the messenger kept on reciting Salah her I said him until he reached the ayah of such de and he made sajda he comes back Radha walks back from this debate this expert negotiator of the Quraish who their hopes were lying in and he comes back and they say your face doesn't look the same that you left with this is not the face you went with and he comes back and says whatever this man has to say will become an enormous event whatever this man has to say will become an enormous event now this is important because the ayat of Quran the ayat that the messenger was reciting we don't have time to go into all of them at at least the last one for inaudible this is the towards the end of the passage for inaudible and if they continue to deploy to ignore deliberately if they've done so wooden then you tell them now whose you harmless lies Allah by the words what by realizes he's not talking to Muhammad rather allies not dignifying Akbar Allah is telling the messenger so sudden to tell him Allah is not telling him directly Allah could have said and are to come I'm warning you but it's a cold and our token you tell him that I am warning all of you all of you of what sorry Patton a powerful explosion myth laughs sorry potty harden with a mood just like the explosion that occurred with who had and the mood this is something the Arabs knew they knew this had happened in the past and now what was sitting there just realized he has been issued a direct threat from allah himself with the from the words of the messenger that have been given to him by allah himself he was overpowered he comes back and says whatever this man has to say I suggest you take it seriously or it's gonna become say hakuna and ugly my he says soon gonna become a huge event they say to him Sahara he did magic on you too he cast his spells on you too he said say what you will it's not magic but I'm not talking talking to him anymore he gave up on the messenger so I set up I shared this with you for one reason to illustrate a tragedy and that tragedy is the disbelievers at the time of the Prophet sallallaahu are Davis of them and the believers shared one thing they shared one thing they were both overpowered by what the Quran they were both overpowered by the Quran but the believers on the other hand the believers of our times not to mention the disbelievers even the believers don't appreciate the power of the Quran they are not stunned mesmerised overwhelmed by the words of Allah even in comparison to the way that the disbelievers used to be mesmerised back then and that's a tragedy that's a real tragedy that that effect of the Quran is something that is lost and it's lost to the point where people can actually make absurd kinds of questions about the Quran say things about the Quran how come it says this how come it says that it shows that you're not overpowered I want to give you a visual before I start doing examples insha'Allah tada you see if you and I were fortunate enough to live in the time of Musa Dagh sanim and we were standing next to him when Allah commanded him to strike the staff and the water started parting would you ever question Mossad I said I'm again would you ever doubt would you ever have any wavering in your faith I don't think so that's a pretty heavy-duty experience thing to go through to watch that happen and for you to be to escape from the very clutches of death by a Las miraculous intervention our belief as Muslims as believers in the message of muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa Senden is that Allah gave him the final the lasting and the most powerful of all miracles which is what Quran as a result if we were to appreciate this Quran as a miracle right now most of us we appreciate it as a religious text as a book of guidance as a book of knowledge we appreciate those things but if we add it to our appreciation its appreciation its taste as a miracle of Allah as profound words that are supposed to change lives just by their impact they're powered then we would have an entirely different sensation of Iman the Iman before this and the Amman after this is two different things you see when the Sahaba heard Quran two things at the same time they heard a reminder advice guidance all of that at the same time they also experienced a miracle from Allah when we hear Quran today at the most what are we here we hear the reminder what's missing the miracle the other side I want you to visualize that you lived I don't know thousands of years ago in some society and when you lived in that society you had a neighbor and your neighbor knocked on your door one day and he says to you an angel came to my house he told me that I'm the Messenger of God and I'm supposed to deliver this message to all of mankind I've already delivered it to my family and they've rejected me and since you're my neighbor the right of the neighbor is that I tell you and by the way I'm a Messenger of God and everything I say isn't actually my own words they're words of who of God of the of the divine let's say Allah subhanAllah Dada okay they're words of Allah and following me actually doesn't mean that you're following me it means you're obeying Allah there are two problems with this statement the neighbor who opens the door and listens to all of this says wait so first of all you're asking me to believe that an angel talked to you that God speaks to you you're my neighbor that I've known for 20 years and this is hard enough to believe but on top of that you want me to change everything about my life based on every word you say two things that are very hard to do want to believe that especially when your own family says you're what you're crazy your own family says you're crazy and you want me to believe you and I'm not only should I believe what you're saying I should follow you and everything that you do and as the more I follow you the more people not just call you crazy who else are they gonna call crazy they're gonna call me crazy I'll think about it Thanks and close the door and I'm giving this to you because the messengers of of Islam the messengers of Allah that were sent to different nations we know that they gave that word to their people but it's that like our Dawa we have it easy we're in the millions we're in the millions it's easy when you're the only one who believes something in an entire city you know what you are you're crazy what did the people call the messengers have you ever read what did they call them insane they called them insane you say all those evil people they call them crazy they call them and saying how could they do that put yourself in their shoes how easy is it to accept if no one around you believes if no one around you everybody around you is a skeptic no one believes this is a very very difficult thing to believe it's not easy the Sahaba are the best of people the best generation for a reason their Iman was the hardest bridge to cross when someone takes the Shahada that today is way easier than the bridge they had to cross much much more difficult and the hardest the hardest of all is the work of the messenger himself Salah our new synonym because you know Allah the most intelligent people on the face of this earth to be his messengers they're the most intelligent people and they're smart enough to know that when they go around knocking doors and telling people that they get revelation from God what should they anticipate practically they should anticipate that people are gonna say that they're insane they're gonna lose their credibility people are gonna laugh at them even hurt them even be annoyed with them they'll lose the touch touch with their families that's all gonna happen as smart people can figure person can figure that out for himself they knew this going into this message but they didn't have a choice because they didn't take this up as a hobby this was given to them as a responsibility they had no choice in the matter put in this impossible position these messengers on a hemostat wa sallam and they helped them and only to help them deliver this message Allah would give these messengers something that would make their claim more believable what was that thing the miracles Allah would give his messengers miracles so that the skeptics would be quiet silenced so the reason for not believing him is not that they didn't see any proof the reason is I'm too arrogant to follow him that's the only reason left the reason isn't intellectual anymore that's the only reason left and how do you eliminate the first reason the intellectual problem you eliminate it by giving the people something that only be from a lie it can't be from a human being it can't be the product of the human mind it can't be creation it has to be something beyond it can't be something that can just occur naturally you see which is why when we read about the miracles of different prophets the blind person being able to see again the Dead coming back to life the clay bird turning into a living bird all of these things are clear signs that this man is not talking on his own behalf he's speaking on behalf of allah azza wajal but allah gave this nation the ultimate miracle of all he gave this nation this muslim umma and for the rest of mankind he gave them quran this the staunch difference between quran and all the other miracles is what all the other miracles were for the eyes to see you could see a dead guy come back to life you could see it you could see the body of water parting you could see that but the quran was not for the eyes the quran was for what you see something it penetrates your heart that's what the previous messengers with the quran in sahaja yoga first Amir Allah who Samira now etana what is Allah saying listen listen to it yeah you have nastily brahma self-esteem you know who listen to it carefully listen to this Quran it's a miracle for the ears it's different all the other miracles were for what the eyes this is this when I was explaining this to my fifth grade classroom back in the day one of my students I repeat this off and he said ah man I said what happened is that it's not fair brother naman was like what's not fair he said all those other prophets got such cool stuff we just got a book I know it sounds blasphemous but he's got a point it is different we do claim that a book sitting on the shelf and the Masjid is the myth the ultimate miracle of God the ultimate miracle of quran of islam the proof of islam sitting on each bookshelf this must have so there has to be some basis that has to be explored on what basis do we make this claim and why subhanahu wa'ta'ala he changed the direction of the miracles he didn't make it something for the eyes to see when people saw the water parting they told their children about it I saw it with my own eyes the kids are listening then their kids told their kids and their kids told their kids until it passed down to us and we tell our kids at Sunday school hey by the way mo sorry Salam what did he do something about water yeah it's just a story now for the people who were there was it just a story no it was a miracle but for the people after them it's just a matter of faith it's not a miracle to them it's a it's a matter of faith but not of a miracle because America is something you could see something you can experience and you could taste so now the Atheist comes the disbeliever comes to the Christian or to the Jew and he says to him you believe Jesus turned you know of the Dead Guy back to life or you know the bird came back to life things like that you believe that he says yes he said why because the Bible says so is it were you there when it happened did anybody record it is it on YouTube why do you believe it what does the Christians say it's in my heart it's all yes to say the same atheist the same kafir the same disbeliever comes to the Muslim do you believe the Quran is the word of God yeah oh yeah so did you see the angel come down no no I didn't so how do you know that it's the Word of God well let's come study the Quran let me show you let me show you let me show you why this can't be human that next part where I say let me show you that's what we need to know we need that part for ourselves and for others we really need it for ourselves because there's no boost in Eman like the boost you get when you experience a miracle of Allah there's nothing like it and we need that to be able to illustrate it to others because then they the question will probe them they won't go to sleep at night man I didn't come up with an answer to that guy I got to look this up I have a friend who was an atheist who would go around MSA programs all over the country just to mess with the speaker's right and he would go and ask them questions asking questions and until he came to one shape and he gave him a miracle of quran and he said oh yeah well i'll do my research i this is research and illustration literacy research we couldn't find anything until he had to give up literally give up and he took the Shahada and he says when I say I'm Muslim you know what Muslim means what right the one who submits he said I literally submitted I had to I gave up I couldn't do I couldn't fight anymore said I couldn't I didn't have anywhere else to go subhanAllah that is the thing that we need to revive that is something that we need to appreciate I'll just give you one example one example of the Quran as a profound miracle from the literary point of view now you guys have taken literature classes right you've taken Shakespeare you've taken you know the Plato's Republic you've read you've read The Odyssey read you read all this stuff I won't call it garbage it's everything that's some benefit but whatever you read this stuff these are the landmarks of world literature the products the ultimate products of the human mind right our belief is that the Quran is the ultimate literature compared to any language the Quran is the ultimate literature but that's a subjective thing if your literature students I think this is a science school but literature is not objective it is what it's subjective so you say it's beautiful I say it's ugly right you like that poem I like I don't like that poem you like this song I don't like that song don't listen to songs I'm saying okay well you like this painting I don't like that painting it's subjective so you could argue that literature is what its subjective but I began by saying Allah says that the Quran is Bala it is a means of communication and the point the purpose of communication is to influence the audience so we will judge what is better literature by what what's the what's the what's the measuring stick what influence does it have what impact does it have on the world what change does it cause how does it change people how does it influence behavior how does it modify people's behavior how does it command over people that will be the judge that's a practical judge of the power of any speech any literature you could say it's wonderful but I don't I don't I think it's just fiction or you could say it's wonderful and it's my life the way I live and if you study this fact historically no society went through a transformation based on a single text the way in which the Muslims went through with what with the Quran no society in human civilization never and in how many years did that society get transformed 23 years this is even orientalist agree ok the Quran is being claimed as revelation I won't say it is revelation from the conference point of view we know it's revelation he says it's been claimed as revelation at his age of 40 and it stops at the edge of what 63 23 years in 23 years this man starts single single handedly sync one person and by the end of these 23 years what change have these words and this man this speaker this speech and this style of speech what have they influenced you see the way people eat did it change the way people sleep does that change did the way people deal with their family change did the way people schedule their day change did the way people speak to each other change did the way they do business change did the way they go to the bathroom changed it the way they dress change the question isn't what changed you know what the question is what didn't change everything changed everything changed whenever there's quote/unquote revolution in society it's either economic or it's political right it's a there's a political change there's an economic change as a military change but the way people live on a day to day basis that doesn't change they don't change the way they deal with their families that depending on the government changing or a new system coming into power that's still the same that's still the same person but this changed that the Quran brought unparalleled in human history what exactly changed wasn't just societal wasn't just on the macro level it even changed the way people think change everything everything from the very individual level to the collective level every and every every spectrum in between this in itself is in evidence of the unparalleled power of the Quran the unparalleled power of the Quran it's unparalleled in this way insha'Allah Allah after the break all I'm going to talk to you about is just examples from the Quran one after another of different aspects of the Quran as literature we take a break now subhanak Elohim Elohim dick Machado la ilaha illa anta mustafa Luke I wanted to boil egg

Channel: Bayyinah Institute

Views: 45,683

Rating: 4.9459457 out of 5

Keywords: Nouman Ali Khan, Arabic, Quran, Islam, Bayyinah, Bayyinah TV, Bayyinah Institute, Koran, Islamic, Education, Muslim, divine speech, malaysia, muhammad, ustadh nouman, Allah, Allah's book, surah, ayah

Id: eT9_d_RDGrY

Length: 53min 43sec (3223 seconds)

Published: Mon May 12 2014