Maximizing Our Benefit From The Quran In Ramadan 1

Assalamu alaykum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh you're listening to radio answer 90.4 fm. My name is Mike Condon. And inshallah I will be your host every Wednesday mornings from 9am to 10am with a really exciting new program entitled The Divine connection, the divine connection understanding the Quran.

With this being our first episode of this program, I'd like to take a short moment to explain why I chose the subject.

I am a teacher at the Islamic online university and one of the subject subjects which I teach is aluminum Quran. And I was mentioning that the reason why I chose this specific topic is that one of the subjects which I teach at the Islamic online university is called aluminum Quran, the sciences of the Quran. And even though this is a very technical subject, it's a very academic subject. There was a lot of information in that

field of study, which I feel every Muslim needs to know before reading the Quran. So I decided to put together a series focusing on those points, which each and every one of us need to know if we wish to understand the Quran better and we wish to connect with the Quran in a stronger way.

And furthermore, it is the month of Ramadan. And as we all know the month of Ramadan is the one in which about which Allah subhanaw taala has said Ramadan and Lizzy Hoon de la v hilker and hudl de nasi will be inactive in a coup de Waal for fun, Shadow Ramadan and Lizzy unzila for the month of Ramadan is the month in which Allah revealed the Quran as what he does in us as a guidance for mankind will be anatomy houda and as proof and evidence for what counts as guidance, well for corn and as our criteria between what is right and what is wrong. And so most of us spend the month of Ramadan trying to get closer to the Quran. We spent the month of Ramadan trying to connect with the

Quran, we increase the increase in our interpretation, we increase in our tarawih in our tahajjud in the various different forms of reciting the Quran and praying during the month of Ramadan. And so, because of this I decided that inshallah we will have this program which will give you the foundation to understand the Quran on a higher level.

Now just to give you a glimpse of what is to come in our six episodes of this program, this week being the opening episode and will it being the last witness day before Ramadan. inshallah, today I will be discussing some practical tips on how we can maximize our benefit from the Quran. This Ramadan so today's program will focus primarily on Ramadan and how we can maximize our benefit from the Quran in Ramadan. Next week inshallah, we will look at how understanding the Quran can transform your life. Right, how it can transform your life. That way once you understand the Quran, a lot of things will change in your mindset in your attitude in the way you deal with people in the way you

approach the religion. So how does it transform you what changes to expect and how good are these changes? And we'll also go through the basic steps of reading the translation of the Quran and reading it up seal and inshallah both this week and next week we will focus on what are the best translations and of seals to read insha Allah. In the third episode we will be looking at some of the most commonly recited students in Salah, like circle Fatiha, and

answer and the three goals because we recite the Quran almost every day in our solar. So it's important for us to understand them so that we now play the Sala with understanding. So inshallah in the third episode we'll be looking specifically at the sutras and how we can understand them.

In the fourth show, we will dedicate the show entirely to the concept of stories in the Quran. Now the stories of the Quran are very unique, they are not written in one place, they are not written with a lot of details. So we are going to discuss these commonly raised issues. Why are the stories written in different parts of the Quran? Put together in one place? Why are the stories not written in details like how do humans how we write stories Furthermore, wife's real use of England skoura while other wise the story of use of Instagram user while the other stories are split up, we will look at all of this in detail inshallah, in the fourth show, which will be dedicated entirely to the

stories of the Quran.

Towards the end of Ramadan in our program, we will be looking at the areas which many of us find difficult in understanding the Quran. For example,

Things like abrogation, what is abrogation? Which verses of the Quran abrogated? How do we understand this concept? How do we explain it to people of other faiths? We're going to look at the reasons for revelations. certain verses have a context, how to understand the context so that you do not misunderstand the verses. So inshallah we will dedicate our first show to that specific topic. And our final episode The six show, which will be in our last week of the program, we'll look at practical steps in how we can make the Quran a constant part of our lives. Because for many of us after Ramadan is over, we struggle to keep the Quran alive every day in our lives, and inshallah we

will spend an entire show dedicated on how we can make the Quran part of our lives not just in reading, but the understanding and practice as well. So inshallah that is the lineup for the next six weeks every Wednesday morning from 9am to 10am. I hope that you're excited that I am for this program, and I hope that you will be joining me and joining into a discussion about the beauty of the Quran and how we can understand it better.

Now inshallah getting into today's today's topic, we are looking at Ramadan, and understanding the Quran in Ramadan.

And I pray that each and every one of us have an intention in our hearts that we want to make this upcoming Ramadan special. We want to make it unique, we want to make it life changing. We want to make this Ramadan such that we come out from it better Muslims, and one of the best ways to do that is to make a dedicated effort towards reciting and understanding the Quran.

Now what is the Quran, that is something which needs to be first explained before we explain how we understand most of us know what the Quran is. But for those listeners, especially those who are not Muslim, who would like to know about the details, I will very briefly go to what the Quran is. The Quran is part of the final revelation, sent by God sent by Allah to the final prophet muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam 1400 years ago. We believe that Allah subhanaw taala sent revelations to different people at different times. He sent the Torah to Prophet Musa, the Prophet Moses, he sent the Psalms to the Prophet David, and the gospel to the Prophet Jesus. And then for the final prophet

Muhammad, who was sent as a final messenger to all of mankind. He gave him a revelation, which is of two types, the Quran and the Sunnah. The Quran and the Sunnah about revelation from Allah subhanho wa Taala to the Prophet Muhammad Ali Salam. And the key difference between the Quran and the Sunnah is that the Quran is in other words, it is God's words. While the Sunnah is the prophets words, so it's the revelation of Rasulullah, sent to Rasulullah saw Islam in his own words, aside for Hadees output see, that is also in Allah's words. So the Quran is God's word and the sooner is the Prophet Muhammad Salah, towards he are kept as two separate things, but they are both the sources of Islam.

Furthermore, the Quran is a miracle in of itself, that studying the Quran understanding the Quran, you will understand and gain conviction that the Quran is indeed from the Creator of the heavens and here because in of itself, it is a miracle and the proof of the truth of Islam. So this vertical that we Muslims all accept and believe in. We believe this as Muslims, that the Quran is the final revelation. The Quran is a last word, the Quran is a miracle. And so we should make extra effort to understand it, extra effort to practice it, extra effort to teach it. So inshallah I'm going to explain how we can do that. And before we went for a break, we were looking at what the Quran is. We

said that the final messenger of the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was given two types of Revelation. He was given the Quran and the Sunnah, with the Sundar being revelation in his own words, but the Quran was a Venetian, in the words of Allah subhanho wa Taala himself. And so the Quran holds a very special place in the lives of Muslims, and that Muslims should strive to understand it, and to practice it, and to follow it.

Now, despite this being the case, we find today that in many Muslim homes, the Quran is not recited a lot. For many of us the Quran is kept on the shelf, we recited perhaps in Ramadan, perhaps at the janaza Nika if it be lucky, we might recite it for Juma.

But it's very rare to find homes where the Quran is recited on a daily basis, which is rather sad because it's too large. So some has warned us and said don't make your home.

graveyards recite the Quran in your homes. You know, don't make your homes dead in terms of Eman, recitation of the Quran on a daily basis, keeps the mind in your house alive, and he chases the schreeten away Rasulullah saw some say that if you recite to Rebecca in your house, it chases the devil's away. So the recitation of the Quran in our homes is very important. For how many of us do this? And for those of us who do recite the Quran, at home, how many of us make an attempt to understand it?

And furthermore, how many of us are trying to follow it? My brothers and sisters, remember that the Quran itself mentioned the alleged to be Hannah, what are Allah created us, and put us in this world? To test us? It is a test to see who will submit and follow the creator and who will not. We as Muslims, we know this, we know that Allah is testing us. And we know that he has sent to us a revelation, which has in it our best interest, the Quran, whatever laws are in the Quran and Sunnah idea, to facilitate what is good for us, and to keep away what is bad for us. This is agreed upon by all scholars. If you open any book of Islamic law, it mentions that the fundamental principle of

Islamic law is to bring about what is good for mankind, and to keep what is bad for mankind. So why wouldn't we want to follow this? Why wouldn't we want to follow the one teaching, which can help us attain what is good in both worlds, and keep away from what is bad in both worlds? And so we find that we have become many of us a sign of gamma, a sign of the Day of Judgment, which Rasulullah sallallahu some wonderful things are Hadees Rasulullah sallallahu Sallam was talking about the signs of Yama. And he mentioned that knowledge will be lost to the Sahaba radula. And who asked him they said how can knowledge be raw be lost if we recite the Quran?

Now, if you listen to that sentence, that means the Sahaba understood the Quran to be knowledge, not just the book, which they recite the Quran to them was knowledge. So they said how can knowledge be lost if we recite the Quran, and we're going to teach it to our children, and they will teach it to their children, etc. Rasulullah sallallahu Sallam replied and said, Don't you see people of other religions and other faiths. Many of them read the books, but they don't really do understanding they don't follow it. And one day, the Muslims will be like this, too. That's not the exact words of Rasulullah Islam, but that is paraphrasing it in English, that he said that we will follow in their

footsteps, meaning that just like in some of the other faiths, they have followers who do not read the books, and those who do read it, do not really understanding or practice it or follow it amongst the Muslims. Many of us will follow in the footsteps. We need to think about this. Are we part of the sign of Yama, those who Rasulullah some wonder about that knowledge is lost from their lives because they do not make an attempt to understand they follow the Quran. Allah subhanaw taala himself warns about this. In the Quran, Allah subhanaw taala warns about this, when he talks about something which will happen on the Day of Judgment, on the Day of Judgment alleged behind Allah says

there Rasulullah Islam We'll see. He's Paula rasuluh. Yeah, Robbie innoko mitaka Sahaja Cora Khurana Majora. This is in Surah

chapter 25 verse 30.

is called raw sewage when the messenger will see on the Day of Judgment. Here Robbie. Oh my lord, Oh Allah in the comi taco, the huddle Khurana Matura. My people have deserted the Quran. My people have deserted this Quran. They have left this Quran. They are not following this Quran. This is what Rasulullah some will complain about on the Day of Judgment. And we need to ask ourselves, are we from those people who will be sad about that we did not follow his core and will we be from those who the Prophet Muhammad Allah Islam be proud of as his followers on the Day of Judgment, let us not be a sign of karma. This is not be from those who went against the teachings of Islam. Let's make a

concerted effort here and now that this Ramadan, we are making a change. We are going to understand the Quran. We are going to practice the Quran, we are going to live the Quran. And sadly for many of us, even though we make this effort, we make this intention, but the methods we use to attain it sometimes are not done in the proper manner. For example, many of us are guilty of playing turabi at superspeed. In fast forward, you know, lightning speed we played around with so fast without the dream, without understanding without pondering, we just the words of the Quran just fly out of our mouths, as if you know it has no impact in our life. And this needs to change. This is not the way

of Rasulullah sallallahu wasallam. This is not the way of the Sahaba or any of the early generations in praying

practicing Islam, that each and every one of them, they would pray this Allah in a way that they would cry, because they understood what they were praying. You know, even if they didn't cry, they would take their time, they will ponder over the verses how many of our students now obviously we don't know Arabic it's not possible for us to do this for the entire Quran. So again, one of the things we need to do is to make a concerted effort to study Arabic, study the Arabic language inshallah It is not something which is impossible, it's something which with a bit of effort, we all can attain, study Arabic and understanding the Quran becomes so much easier.

So, now if we have an intention to study and if we have an intention to change, then what are the steps that we need to take to do so inshallah I will explain this after the next break as salaam alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh. We spoke today about the Quran itself, what it is and the importance of us changing our intention and making a firm intention distal Ramadan, to understand and practice the Quran. And so now we are going to look at the practical steps that we need to take in order to do so. And of course, the first step is to make the intention. Because Rasulullah sallallahu Sallam has told us in the most popular of Hadees

narrated by Omar rajala, and who, in normal Armenia, every action is judged by its intention. In Islam, if you make a good intention, even if you are unable to fulfill it, you will still be rewarded for that intention. So today, right here and now each and every one of us should make an intention that this Ramadan, I will become a better Muslim. And I will do so for the sake of Allah alone. And I will begin understanding and following the Quran and the sooner to the best of my ability, and I will not allow my mistakes or sins to stop me from repenting and trying again, make this intention and allow will make the road to accomplishing it easier for you Bismillah he tala.

With such an intention in our hearts. The next step of course is to make dua to Allah to help us to achieve our intention. Now intentions as noble as they are, really, you know, on a practical level, you can't fulfill an intention without a plan. You will study this in any cost on leadership or management, that when people have good intentions, and no plans, nothing gets accomplished. And so I would recommend to each and every one of us to like to write down, write down a list of goals for this Ramadan, and to draw up a plan for accomplishing your goals this Ramadan. Now for many of us, this might sound like something different, something new, which you might not have done before. But

trust me, this is something which can make things more concrete and easier for you

to know where you're going. For example, for myself, about a week ago, I wrote down a list of 12 goals, which I have set for myself this Ramadan, and I made it like a checklist to as each goal is completed our ticket, and I've set for myself a way of accomplishing the goal. So for example, one of my goals is to complete two Islamic courses. To the Islamic online university, I wanted to study two full courses in Ramadan. So how am I doing it, I've set a plan that every day, I've dedicated certain hours just to study so that we might go in Ramadan becomes realistic, and I'm able to achieve it. Likewise, I've set a goal that every day on Facebook and on Twitter, I will post a verse

of the Quran, which I've seen, and I've set a time for that as well. So now these goals are not just intentions, now they are written down with a plan, there is a bigger chance that you will go ahead and do it. So these are my personal goals. Everybody would have their own goal. You know, you write down the goal at this Ramadan, I want to read the Quran understanding and make a plan for how you're going to do that. When you write down your goals, it becomes easier. And if you have good time management skills, it becomes even easier. For those of you who would like to know more time management and some basic tips on fulfilling goals. I have a very good article available online

called top seven time management tips. This is an article I wrote a few months ago, available on the website WWW dot Muslim methods.org if you go to that website and look for the article top seven time management tips, it will help you these tips will really help you to accomplish your goals Ramadan, so please go ahead and read an article inshallah. And I hope that that will help you to put your goals into a realistic setting and to be able to accomplish them in Ramadan. Now regarding a goal related to understanding the Quran, I'd like to read a personal story of how I began reading the Quran understanding and how this changed my life.

When I was a teenager, and when I was young, every Ramadan we would recite the Quran as many times as possible to try and complete as many quarters of the Quran as possible in Ramadan. Right. This was a practice of my family. But even though I should

Do this it didn't really have much impact on me until one year while I was a teenager 100 I got exposed to shake I'm a DD Rahim Allah Galicia comodidad. And for those of you who know him, you will know that he emphasizes a lot in his lectures the importance of reading the Quran, with understanding

and so that you I had made up my mind that this Ramadan, I'm going to do something different. I'm going to read the Quran would understand it. And as a teenager, the time I spent the entire Ramadan every day, four times a day I read a quarter Jew the quarter power of the Quran. So I did one Jews of the Quran a day with the use of Allah translation, so that every day one Jews would translation, the entire Ramadan. By the end of Ramadan, I completed reading the entire Quran with understanding what have the Nila. And the next year I did the same thing with the darussalam Translation the year after the same thing to the FARC as a body translation, and hamdulillah after I had learned Arabic

And I had learned Arabic well enough to understand the Quran our translation and so after I have been reading the Quran, in Arabic with tafsir every Ramadan trying to read a different tafsir as much as I can. Of course with upstairs is sometimes not possible to read an entire tub see Ramadan, what we try to do as much as we can. The goal is not to finish the entire Quran, but to benefit and to understand the Quran as much as possible. So this is my personal story of how I started reading the Quran understanding of Ramadan and hamdulillah I can see this lip a major impact in my life, it completely changed my life. And the Quran has become a part of my life in a major way. And I really

hope that for each and every one of us we can get this we can get this connection with the Quran. So I hope this gives you some idea of what you can do to

read and recite the Quran from my dad with understanding in a way that's realistic, that perhaps inshallah, if you have enough time, if you make enough time rather, you'll be able to complete reading the entire Quran with understanding this Ramadan. Now, for many of us, we have now an idea that we want to read the Quran with understanding. But then you know, the next question which arises in our heads is, which translation do I use? Because there are many translations of the Quran available in English, and I'm sure you would have heard a lot of things about the mistakes in the translations or the problems with the translations. So which ones are the best to use? inshallah?

I'm going to talk a bit about that soon. First, let's talk about the issue of translation itself. What do the scholars of Islam

say about the topic of translations? And you see the scholars of Islam they have agreed that translating the Quran in of itself is permissible. We see that even in the time of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam that when the Sahaba went to Abyssinia, and they met the king of Amazonia, they recited for him to Romario. And the king of Amazonia did not know Arabic He had a translator with him, who was translating for him what he was saying. Likewise, when Rasulullah Slocum sent a letter to Heracles, the emperor of the Byzantine Empire, he sent him a letter which had Quranic verses in it, and this was translated for him as well. So the translation of the Quran

into other languages began in the time of Rasulullah sallallahu sallam, but the scholars see that we need to understand a translation of the Quran is not the Quran. It is not the Quran. This is because the Quran is God's word. The Arabic Quran is God's Word, and the translation is a human effort. So the Quran is God's word and the translation is a human effort This is something we need to keep in mind. Now inshallah we are going to discuss what are the best translations to use for before that we are going to take a short break, salaam Wa Alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh Alhamdulillah. Thus far today we have been talking about the Quran in Ramadan, what practical steps we can take towards

connecting with the Quran in a stronger manner. And towards the ending of the program, we now began discussing the issue of translations. And before we went on break, we're talking about the translation. What did the scholars of Islam say about translating the Quran, they have established that translating the Quran is permissible. But when you translate it, you are translating the message of the Quran. It is no longer the Quran itself. It is no longer a large word. It is now a human translation. You see the Arabic Quran is divine, it is alleged to be $100 worth his exact words.

It is a vertical in of itself. When you translate it when a human translated, there will be human errors. Part of the miraculous nature especially in terms of the Arabic grammar and the Arabic poetry becomes lost. Part of the meaning becomes lost. But the main messages of the Quran will remain in a translation and that's where the benefit of the translation comes from. That the main

message of the Quran is still there, it's still there for us to benefit from. And that's why, you know, it's encouraged for somebody who does not know Arabic yet to read a translation, but at the same time to study Arabic, so that inshallah in the future you don't need to use translations and you'll be able to understand the Quran in Arabic itself. Now, as far as the translations available in English go up my two personal favorites.

The translation known as the Sahih International translation, which is done by three Reaper sisters from the USA, that's a very well done translation, but very few mistakes and it's very easy to read. Another one which is my personal favorite is Alcor and a guidance for mankind.

And it's done by fabric as a Moloch. Also from the USA. Why I like this translation specifically is that it's written with a flow, very similar to how the Arabic of the Quran flows. This translation also has a beautiful flow to it. The only problem I have with this translation is that it doesn't have a lot of footnotes and explanation. So for somebody reading the Quran, for the first time wanting explanation, you might find this translation a bit lacking in that department. And that's of course when you need to consult your local ama for assistance.

Now if neither of these translations are available in your area,

the two next best is that of barbecue picked out which was the first full translation of the Quran into English by a Sunni Muslim author and the dogs the lamb translation known as the translations of the meaning of the Noble Quran by Dr. Marcin God and Dr. God Atilla Li. These are probably the four best translations available in English. Again, let me repeat their names. My personal favorite as far as translations goals is the one by far rook as Moloch is called Alcor on the guidance for mankind. And the second best one to need is a Sahih International translation,

which is done by three Ziva sisters. And then we have the translation of the Noble Quran by Dr. Moss in Karnataka Altima Lee, published by darussalam publications. And finally, the Islamic pitfalls, translation. These are in my view, the best translations available in English. There are other translations as well available. But as I said, Every translations has mistakes as they're done by humans, every human makes errors. These translations tend to have the least mistakes and have some of the best content

have two more points to note before we conclude on the issue of translation, and of reading the Quran understanding and the first point is a very important one which anybody will tell you who has experience with the Quran. And that is that when reading the Quran, one needs to be unbiased. One needs to be completely sincere, that you are reading the Quran with an open mind. Whatever alerts to the HANA what Allah told you in the Quran, that is the truth, even if it goes against your opinion and my opinion, because Allah knows better than us. For many of us, when we read the Quran, we try to impose our understanding of the world of Islam onto the Quran. Right. And as a result, sometimes

you will miss read the verse, because it goes against our understanding, to get maximum benefit from the Quran and not to deceive ourselves. We need to approach it with a clean slate that I'm going into the Quran unbiased with the open mind, whatever Allah tells me in the Quran, this has to be the truth, right, even if it goes against my own opinions. So that's the first and important point. The second important point towards understanding the Quran is that it is very important to note that not every verse of the Quran can be understood by everybody. They have verses in the Quran which are fixed in nature which are which deal with Islamic law. There are verses in the Quran which have been

abrogated. There are verses in the Quran known as the Mater shall be hard to unclear versus the verses dealing with intricate aspects of Akita. Now, all of these make up a minority of the Quran for the idea. And you need to acknowledge that these verses you need the explanation of Allah to understand it. So what I would recommend is when you are reading a Quranic translation, when you are reading the Quran, with our understanding, keep opinion at hand to take note of those verses which you don't understand of those verses which you afraid you might miss understand, for those verses, which deal with Islamic law, or what difficult concepts and take you to a scholar that you trust, to

get to a limit you trust and asked him to explain to you what this verse is about, that you can get the correct understanding of the verse. And of course, if you want to you can even,

you know, ask for these questions right, you're on this program every Wednesday between nine and 10 or 10am. I will be available, right your radio and stuff and if you have questions related to understanding the

And feel free to ask me about them. inshallah. So, that is inshallah today's program. We have spoken about the Quran in Ramadan and we spoken about translating the Quran, I hope inshallah, that you all have benefited and I look forward inshallah to join if you're joining me for the remaining five episodes. Don't forget if you want to join in and talk more about this topic. If you have any questions or comments on this topic, then you can follow me on twitter at a smile calm or you can like my facebook page on both of these Facebook and Twitter. We'll be continuing discussing this topic throughout the month of Ramadan and inshallah next week we will discuss how the Quran can

transform your life. So inshallah I will see you all next week until we meet again and early Ramadan Mubarak from me is aka the heroine who after Dawa, and hamdulillahi Rabbil alameen wa salam wa Alaykum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh