Yaqeen

Certainty.
Confidence.
Certainty carried in Confidence.

You alone our Lord

To You alone we direct our worship.
Free we are from submission
to any beside You.

From You alone we seek our help.
Free we are from dependence
on any beside You.

In Your hand we are our Lord.

The prayer for guidance

Guide us to the straight path
the Muslim's oft-repeated prayer
leaves no doubt

guidance is not binary
rather
a force to be fuelled

strengthened
in opposing one's self,
in the want to be led.

Ma'ariful Qur'an: Merits and peculiarities of al-Fatihah

Here is a summary of a chapter in Ma'aariful Qur'an which I found greatly beneficial. It describes some distinguishing merits and peculiarities of al-Fatihah, the opening Surah of the Qur'an:

1. It is the first Surah to be revealed in complete form.
2. It is the quintessence of the Qur'an and the rest of the Qur'an is its elaboration.
3. It ends with a request for guidance – the rest of the Qur'an is the answer to this request.
4. No other chapter of the Qur'an and no other book has anything to compare with it.
5. It is a cure for all kinds of illnesses.

And eat from it...

Following the previous post, here's another set of verses very very similar in wording and meaning to each other which I often confuse and mix up, the emphasised wa and fa in particular:

"... wa qulnaa yaa aadamu-skun anta wa zawjuka-al-jannata wa kulaa minhaa raghadan 7aythu shi'tumaa..." (2:35)

"... wa idh qulnaa-dkhuloo haadhihi-al-qaryata fa kuloo minhaa 7aythu shi'tum raghadan-wa-dkhuloo-al-baaba sujjadan..." (2:58)

"... wa yaa aadamu-skun anta wa zawjuka-al-jannata fa kulaa min 7aythu shi'tumaa..." (7:19)

"... wa idh qeela lahumu-skunoo haadhihi-al-qaryata wa kuloo minhaa 7aythu shi'tum..." (7:161)

That, that is the great success

There is this phrase in Surah at-Tawba which repeats four times (with slight variations) and which I keep getting slightly muddled up so writing the four occurrences of this phrase down side to side in hope of solidifying and disambiguating my memory store!

"... jannaatin-tajree min-ta7tihaa-al-anhaaru khaalideena feehaa
wa masaakina Tayyibatan-fee jannaati 3adnin;
dhaalika huwa-al-fawzu-al-aDheemu" (9:72)

"... jannaatin-tajree min-ta7tihaa-al-anhaaru khaalideena feehaa;
dhaalika-al-fawzu-al-aDheemu" (9:89)

"... jannaatin-tajree ta7tahaa-al-anhaaru khaalideena feehaa abadan;
dhaalika-al-fawzu-al-aDheemu" (9:100)

"... wa dhaalika huwa-al-fawzu-al-aDheemu" (9:111)

Written compilation of the Qur'an

Had a "wow that's quite freaky" moment whilst reading on the coach into London from Stansted airport yesterday. Read a bit of Chris Kuzneski's novel 'Sword of God' (not all that great a book but will write a full-er review when I get to the end) and a bit of Mufti Muhammad Shaafi's 'Ma'aariful Qur'an' from where I last left off in both books. And, strangely, the exact topic of both passages I read was the written compilation of the Qur'an initiated by the third caliph of Islam, Uthman ibn Affan.

Great to see in 'Sword of God' first hand what Mufti Muhammad Shaafi sets out to clarify in his 'Ma'aariful Qur'an'. That is, the Qur'an in the early generation of Muslims was hardly, if at all, spread by the written word. There were many many individuals around the Prophet who had committed the entire Qur'an to memory and this is what the Qur'an is (something to be spoken, recited rather) and how the Muslims of the time functioned. And these individuals were still around when the first caliph, Abu Bakr, assigned Zayd Ibn Thabit the task of collecting all the parchments (materials) on which verses of the Qur'an had been written in the presence of the Prophet. And many of these individuals (and many more) who had committed the Qur'an to memory/heart were still around when Uthman ibn Affan commissioned a group of four individuals (Zayd Ibn Thaabit, 'Abdullah ibn Zubayr, Sa'eed ibn al-'Aas, Abdur-Rahmaan ibn Harith ibn Hishaam) to put together a single-volume surah-ordered written copy of the Qur'an which incorporated all the different possible readings which the Prophet taught.

Quite an achievement in my opinion to put together a single written copy which served as an authority and incorporated and unified the multiple readings which the revelation allowed. Shame the point of it got missed and it clarified one misunderstanding for those of the time (i.e. the different readings the Qur'an allowed) only to give birth to another years later (i.e. none of the copies compiled at the time of Uthman ibn Affan can be found so there's no guarantee that the Qur'an we have is the unaltered version as taught by the Prophet). I guess there's no pleasing all. To each his goal.