Context And Meaning In The Quran

Today's call is about really at the end of the day a single idea of political Islam, the 17th suit of the Quran. This ayah belongs to a passage that's important to understand overall so I'll give you just a glimpse of it. The Prophet when he described this passage of the Quran he said that this is similar This is a summary of the entire revelation given to massage a serum essentially was famously known as the 10 commandments you may have heard the biblical term the 10 commandments, the Quran is equivalent of that and really summarizing them in one place is in the sutra called sutra 20. So he also told the 17 Sutra, and this is roughly from iron number 23 to iron number 40 of the surah. But

today's coda is about one of these ayat and really a part of one of these ayat. And here Allah azza wa jal is describing in the 26th, or the 36th, weather Ayah

something about learning and knowledge and how we act on knowledge. And so I want to start with three terms that are used in this idea instead of translating the whole thing. First, I want to take three terms that Allah put in order and talk a little bit about the relationship between them he says, a summer well, bizarre well for odd, he says hearing, and then he says seeing and then he says this thing called Alfred and we're going to discuss all three and the relationship between them. Summer in Arabic means hearing, bustle means seeing or perceiving. And for odd, which is a complicated term can mean the heart could also mean excited emotions, like anger, or passion or

fear, or love. And all of those can be captured inside the word for the word for others a bit of a loaded term. It's a little more, you know, emphatic term, the term culture some of you are familiar with the term called for the heart. But the word for it which comes from the Latin Allah him, for he means roasted flesh, meaning when the heart is overwhelmed, or when it's on fire, literally when the heart is on fire. This is literally exactly how Allah describes the hearts when they're in Hellfire to because they're literally in fire in the heart of Allah. And either in the Masada kulu. It's either, either because the hearts are inflamed at that point. But in a figurative sense. What this

also means is when people are overwhelmed with an emotion, you know, when your heart is on fire with anger, when your heart is on fire with fear, when your heart is on fire with love any one emotion, then it's very hard for you to think clearly. It takes over it takes over your mind, and you can't make easy sense of things. Because at that moment, it's almost like you're not yourself. When when you and I go through such emotions, then we say things and do things that aren't our normal self, we end up using words that we can't believe that that was us. Oftentimes, there are people that have such extreme episodes of this, that they can't even remember what they said. You ask them later on.

What did you say? What did I say that? No, I would never have said that. Yeah, I actually recorded you here is it? Here it is, Oh, my God, that I'm sorry. I had no idea. I said that I didn't realize what I was saying etc, etc. Right? So this is the this is the word for God. So I'll put three things together, hearing and seeing and this overwhelmed heart this, you know, impassionate heart. So let's understand the connection between these three things. The Quran will describe revelation, the process of Revelation and what the prophets came to do with all the people across history is they came to make people listen. Before the prophets had anything for people to see, fundamentally they

were asking people to listen, which is why anybody who believed throughout history would say the same phrase, semana, Aparna the Quran, you know, we hear and we obey and the Quran will also constantly make the appeal for semi Allah who listen to it, it will criticize people who don't listen to the words of Allah, or walk away from the prophet SAW Salem and they don't listen. Or when they listen, they don't listen carefully. You know, even criticize hypocrites who have listen. And when the Prophet is done and walking away, they say Mother, Carla and Eva, what did you just say? Like they weren't really listening. So listening is a huge part of our salvation. What what the

faith is calling for, at the end of the day, all the Quran is if those 23 years of the prophets life Salallahu alaihe salam, as a messenger, the entire what was the Quran, it was sounds the Quran to anybody who didn't have a book in front of them. They didn't have anything in writing. They didn't have to fuss it all they heard was sounds to be heard. That's all it was. Even the jinn their exposure to the Quran. They say in a seminar or on an algebra we heard a unique Quran a unique recital, right? We say summit now munadi a new na de Manya and Amina bureau become phenomena. We heard the call of a caller calling us to believe so we believe it's all about hearing. Now that's

important to understand. Because when you hear something, and you think about it, it changes the way you view things. Your perception changes based on what you've heard. So if you listen to something over and over again, like for example, nowadays, just as a fun example, somebody listening to, you know, Fox News, radio every single day for a few hours, is going to change the way they view things. So maybe when they're driving by and they see a woman in a job or a guy with a beard or something, their view of what they think

See is completely different than if they were listening to something else, right what we hear, you can say you can call it propaganda. You can also call it wherever you get your knowledge from whatever you're constantly exposing your ear to, is going to affect your mind. And by the by affecting your mind, it'll affect your perception. The Quran describes this phenomenon. The Quran describes people that have eyes well.

They have eyes.

They have eyes, but they don't see what why does the Quran say they have eyes and they don't see with them. You see, the Quran makes us listen, and makes us think about simple things like the grass, that when the dead Earth grows grass, and grows plants, that's reminding you and me that one day, we are going to be inside the dead earth. And we're going to be brought back to life. So the Day of Judgment, the Day of Resurrection, the day of being brought back to life is a constant sermon, every time you see something green on the earth, every time you and I see a tree, a flower, a blade of grass, it's actually a reminder for resurrection, our view of grass has just changed, our

view of a tree has just changed, our perception has changed. But someone who hasn't heard this reminder, they also see grass, they also see a tree, they also see the same things we see. And they may be able to know maybe they're they're a botanist, or they study plants. And they can tell you a lot more scientific information about the plant. They can tell you what species of tree it is, or what area it grows in, or how old it is, and all of it. But they can't see what a believer sees. So in that sense, they're blind, they have eyes, but they just don't see what I'm trying to get at. And if you go back is what you hear necessarily impacts the way you see things. If you and I are not in

a constant state of listening to the Quran. If we're not in a state of listening to the Quran, then we're not going to see the world the way the Quran wants us to see.

You know, when you're out of touch with something, when you're out of touch, your opinions get rusty and over time they change. Just because you and I believe and we've accepted the faith and we believe in Quran is the word of Allah. That doesn't mean that those words not constantly hitting our ears and allowing us to think about them. I'm not just saying listen to a CD of the recitation of the Quran, which is great, you should do that, or download it on your phone or listen to it in the car. All of that's awesome. But I'm talking about the message of the Quran going in your ears, when the message of the Quran is going in your ears regularly. It's actually impacting your view. But a

lot didn't just talk about the view. And bizarre. He took one more step. He said, Well, fu ad, he said actually impassionate hearts, what a lie saying is not only will your view change, what you are passionate about what you get angry about what you fall in love with what you absolutely hate, what is it that excites you? What is it that makes you afraid, all of those emotions are going to get impacted by your view. And your view will be impacted by what you hear. So it's a three step process hearing, seeing, and then the emotional response, the emotional reactions that we have. Now a lot as our gel here in this, I didn't actually only talk about the Quran, and I wanted to establish the

relationship a bit the basic relationship between these three things, and share it remind myself and remind you why it's important for us to have a regular relationship of listening to the reminder from the Quran. At the very least, we get something every Juma at the very least. But this is something we're supposed to get like multiple times every day. That's actually the purpose of the prayer to get another dose of the Quran. Then a few hours later get another dose of the Quran A few hours later, another dose of the Quran. So our views and our emotions are kept aligned. And you know, when that's not there, if maybe, for example, a lot complains about a group of people and

says, Well, that's a cool new can Latina, colusa, Mina, homeless Maroon

don't become like the kind of people who say we've heard, but they actually don't hear anything. They don't listen. meaning there's an artificial kind of listening. There's a kind of hearing that you satisfy yourself. Yeah, I heard it. Yeah. But your hearing didn't change your view. And therefore it didn't affect impact your emotions. So it was this dead kind of listening, the kind of listening that didn't count for anything. These are the kinds of people unfortunately on judgment day that say, Well, you know, they cry out had we heard semana, you know, had we only heard Miko nephila cybersafety if we had just listened, if we had just thought about it, we you know, local

Nana smarthalo NACA, NACA Anopheles habitat even spoken work. Have we had only been people listening and as as a, as a result of our listening or thinking changed, we wouldn't have ended up here. Because once thinking changes, perception changes, right. Now, let's go back to the beginning of this ayah he should have known what Allah says when I talk for Melissa Lockerbie here.

Don't obsessively follow what you don't know anything about.

Don't become a follower of things you don't fully know. Then he says hearing, seeing, and your exaggerated emotions, your impassionate emotions are all going to be asked about in some our bussola one four ad kulula masuleh. And he makes a big deal out of them. For those of you who are familiar with Arabic, even though they're very, very rapid. So it's called lutukka. But he's a school Lula kata Haman, he actually aggrandized his hearing is a big deal, your perception is a big deal, and how you feel is a big deal to Allah. And he makes it a big deal by calling them La Liga, Canada and houmous hula, you know, like, it's not a small word to be used here. So Allah is saying that this is

a very important thing that will change your worldview, essentially, and how you will end up before Allah. Now, the beginning part don't follow what you don't know about. There's some simple things I want to share with you about that, besides our exposure to the Quran. Of course, in a religious sense, we don't follow anything in the religion unless we know about it ourselves. Unless we can say with confidence, this is actually coming from Allah's own words, or it's coming from the prophets words so long, why don't you tell them, I'll just take two minutes to just highlight a little bit of that for you. Before I get to the real point. And the other the other things that I wanted to share

within this ayah The thing is, just because something is in the Quran, and you heard it, you heard somebody say this is in the Quran, this is what it says. Oftentimes what we do nowadays, when we have discussions among each other, the sad reality is the vast majority of us, including myself, don't have much knowledge, we don't know a lot. We've heard snippets here and there, we know a little bit of here, a little bit of there. And we sometimes share things with each other in order to advise one another. And we'll quote an IRA will quote ahaadeeth, and things like that. But oftentimes, we don't really know what the iron Hadeeth are actually talking about. And we assume

just because we've heard a translation of the IR, we kinda know what the IR means. It applies in this situation immediately. Or this is, this is the advice I want to slap somebody with, I want to throw an item and throw it at them and set them straight. We may not know the full information, we may not know there's a lot more to that knowledge than what we think we know. So oftentimes, we think we're using knowledge, but we don't know it fully well ourselves. Like for example, somebody quotes a hadith at somebody else. You know, you should do this because the prophet SAW Selim said this. Okay, well, where do you say, well, it's in Bahati? It's a it's a Hadeeth? Here? Excellent.

It's an authentic hadith. Got it? Who did he say it to? When did he say it? What else did he say about the subject? How was this understood by the person he talked to? What was their reaction after that? Did they understand it exactly the same way you're trying to make me understand it? Or was there something you don't know? There are contexts. There are larger stories, you know, just like for example, two of your friends are talking in the back, and you walk by and you hear one sentence, one of the friends says to the other, I'm going to kill you, bro. And you just heard that part, I'm going to kill you, bro. And you walk away like this, I'm going to report this to the police. Because

this brother is going to kill that brother. It's a he authentic recording, I'm going to kill you, bro.

You know, and when you take that one liner and say I'm going to kill, it's true, he said it. But he was just saying I'm going to destroy you on the basketball court.

He was just saying you better stop making fun of me before I push you, man. He wasn't saying I'm going to kill you. He meant something else entirely, didn't he? context can change everything. So just because you say it's absolute Look, it's there, right there in the book. That's what it says. That doesn't mean you understand its context. That's also speaking without knowledge. That's also following something without fully knowing. And that's dangerous. That means you we you and I don't understand. And now we're imposing it on somebody else and making their life more difficult. So we should be careful, especially careful, you know, general advice about being patient or grateful and

those kinds of things. Those are fine. But then there are other things. I'll give you one example of taking things out of context. That just comes to my mind that that happened with me. Somebody came to me a long time ago, very upset with a mother came to me with very upset with her son.

And her son stopped praying and he was doing drugs and drinking and, you know, left the house and he was living with some girlfriend, all kinds of things, right? So, and she's a very pious religious woman, and she's just traumatized constantly advising her son until she gave up and she said, You know, I told him he's no longer my son.

And you know, I find peace in my heart that I said that because even Allah told New Holland Salaam, in the hold a seminar Alec in

that new hair salon when he was on the ship, and his son was still drowning. And he said, that's my family. And Allah said to him, no, that's not your family. Allah said to him, that's not your family. He's no good, basically. So she says, Yeah, well, my son is no good. So I get to say what new Hello Hassan said. And I said, you know, to this lady, I said, you know, you're like my own mother. Sit down for a second. Have you been preaching to your son for 950 years

and that alone

I reveal to you the license to say he's no longer your son. Did he do that?

Because how long have you been having this problem for the last nine months? Oh, okay, so you got about 949 years to go before you quote, no holidays. Chill out, lady. That's still your son. You may draw for him. It's frustrating, but you don't get to do that. You don't get to put an eye on the color of the clown and slap him with it and say I'm done. Nah, that's a crime. That's what I took for my laser lacava and what you hear of Allah's words, remember these words again, when Taku Luca Latina Carlos Amina, a homeless men don't become like people who say they heard but they didn't really listen. They didn't really ponder. This is why Allah says, Allah who Quran Allah, Allah,

Allah, Allah. This is the part that I really want everybody here to understand if you remember nothing else from this codebook which is easier for the brothers. But if you here remember nothing else from the court matters. Remember this part? Allah azza wa jal describes people who don't think deeply about the Quran. And then he says, Why don't they think deeply about the Quran? He says, because they have locks on their heart, their own locks have

their own locks placed on their hearts. Now, what does that mean? That means you have a bias, I have a bias. There are some things that terrify me, there's some things that make me really angry, there's some things that I really want to impose on my son, or my daughter, or my spouse, or my you know, or my parents even I want to argue with them. And I want to prove my, that I'm right, and my anger and my desire to prove them right with that desire, I come to Allah zbook, my heart has already locked that I'm going to prove them wrong. Or I'm going to make my point, then I'm going to come to the word of Allah and find an ayah find a Hadith of the Prophet sallallahu sallam, so I can

quote it in their face. So I can win that argument and get them to do things I want them to do.

I've already got a lock on my heart, I didn't come to us book seeking allas you know, permission. I didn't come seeking a loss, you know, pleasure. I wanted to come to it to find a weapon that I can use in my war of words. This is a lock on the heart to that's a crime against a law. Just because somebody is quoting it out of Koran, or words of our beloved messenger, sallAllahu wasallam doesn't mean they're not committing a crime. This is also an attack for malice. hakobyan This is why Allah says your your emotions will also be interrogated well for other kulula, econda and homeschooler. Maybe because of your anger because of your rage, you started using the religious, the sacred words

of Allah for your own purposes. And so now beyond the religion beyond quoting the book of Allah, beyond quoting the Hadith of the Prophet SAW Salem, we even commit this crime among ourselves.

You know, sometimes somebody says something, this is Somalia come to you. And all you know is they said Salaam to you. But you don't like that guy.

So when they said Salaam to you, there's 1000 thoughts in your head. I know why He really said it.

I he said, Slava. Yeah,

yeah. logico, salaam peace on YouTube.

Like, you don't really mean peace. And they don't really, that's not what they really meant. When they came to me and said, I'm your friend, I mean, well, for you. What they really meant is I'm going to rip you to shreds. I and you say, Why do you say that? How do you know? They mean that? I know, okay. I just know,

you read into what other people are saying, your own biases. I've already made up my mind that this person is corrupt, or this person is evil, or this person's out to get me or whatever else, then whatever they have to say I say he's taken another dig at me. He's taken another shot at me. But he didn't say your name. She didn't mention you. She was just saying something else. No, no, but you don't know this person. It's always about me.

You don't have that knowledge. So now you're hearing what you're hearing with your own lock on it. And because you're hearing it in a corrupt way, your view is becoming corrupt. And because your view is becoming corrupt, your emotions are all corrupt. Your anger is in the wrong place. Your love is in the wrong place. In the summer, well bazzara one for all of you got messed up, because you have biased hearing. Because you know, you're not really listening. Then we do this even a step further. We hear something someone says I know people do this with me all the time. People take parents do this with me. Parents will take a lecture of mine. Take a clip of something I said and then slap

their children with it. You know what Mr. Lee had said? He said that and therefore you better do this.

And so lots of kids around the world hate my guts. Because parents have been using me as a nuclear option for a long time.

And it's funny because I when I travel and I meet some of these families, those same parents that have been using me like a baseball bat, say ah now

To be alive beatdown, so they'll bring their 18 year old son and say someone and make him listen to you all the time. Could you give him some advice? He's good, but not that good.

And I the first thing I say to this young man is I'm so sorry. I really apologize. That's not my fault. And he'll just, you know, under his breath, say, I hate you anyway. But you know,

we shouldn't be using other people's words against somebody else not knowing not understanding context. Just throwing things at something, you know, and, and then speaking, and we also do this, we speak on behalf of people that aren't even around. They don't sometimes aren't even while we're not there, your father would have wanted you to do this.

Your grandfather was and the worst is when these we speak on behalf of the prophets, Adam, you know, if the Prophet was here, he would have told you this, this and that, really, you know that?

You're going to speak Okay, if you're crazy enough to speak on behalf of Grandpa,

or to throw in your uncle would have done this, or your mother would have done this? Well, if they were here, they would have said that. But now you can bring the Prophet into it just to win an argument. Do you know this? Do you know what your messenger would have said sallallahu alayhi wa sallam? We shouldn't talk like that. This is not how we're supposed to talk. Even in anger among family among friends, when you say things about Allah. Allah will punish you for this.

Yeah, Salam did he you get direct revelation of who Allah will punish and who Allah will not punish him for what?

Do you know every case of how people will be judged? How are you speaking on behalf of a law school easily?

parents sometimes out of anger. I mean, I can't believe they say this to their own children. You're gonna burn in hell for what you did to their own kid.

First of all, you don't know who's burning and who's gonna be in heaven. You don't let him give you that license. But to say these kinds of things to your own child Come on. In the summer, well, Massara kulu like a Canon komatsuna. What I want to leave you with is the IR before and the IR after the IR before this one. Allah azza wa jal emphasized the importance of being fair.

Well, you know what, Kayla, is I kill tomasino Bilkis foster teens, alika hiromasa. Leila.

Whenever you weigh things and scale things, make sure you're fair basically, is what a blessing in that ayah be fair in your dealings. And you know, back in the day, people were selling groceries, rice, potatoes, whatever, make sure that the scales are even so you give the exact way that you're supposed to sell to your customer, be fair, be fair in business. And the next day I was about what listening perception emotions, there'll be asked about don't follow things you don't know about why? Because there's not just unfairness in business and in money. There's also unfairness in how we think about people, how we perceive people, how we have emotions towards people, we can be unfair in

that too. It's an extension of that. And the last of these three I art, which really blows my mind, is what I want to leave you with one item, she filled out the Maha. Don't walk on the earth with arrogance. What does arrogance have to deal with any of this when you become okay with being unfair, and you're not careful about fairness, because you assume you're fair anyway.

When you're not careful about what you hear,

and how that affects your perception, and how that affects your emotions. It's easy for you to pass judgment on people or say things to people perceive people a certain way, when that becomes easy for you, then there is no greater sign of arrogance than that.

Don't walk on the earth with pride is not an isolated statement here. It's actually a conclusion to what's come before it. When unfairness becomes common practice. When not not sensitive, listening, not careful listening, not control over our emotions becomes common practice, then young people are gonna walk around on the earth like they own the place. Like they're in a position to judge everyone. Like they're in a position to pass opinions about everyone. And what's crazy about it is when they hear something about someone, or even within your family. Oh, this one's always like that. I already know. You already know.

You don't know you don't even live in the same country. How do you know?

But so easy to pass sweeping opinions and make judgments

and then share them with other others. The last final thing 30 seconds it'll take when Alyssa Taku Miley Celica be here, don't follow Casa in Arabic is the back of the neck. I now who feel who they say about a soldier who's running from the battlefield, constantly looking back, did anybody come and get me is the back of the neck. Okay. The idea of coffee is to follow something like when you're following someone and all you see is the back of their head, you don't really see who they are is it? So the word is actually in a sense describing a kind of blind following. Allah is not just criticizing you and me for what we say or think or perceived. He's also criticizing us for following

people. When we don't investigate properly.

When they say things without verifying and we just take their word for it and go with it.

When we become easy consumers, for for you

Weak inflammation when we become that within our families within our friends within our circles, right when we when we develop that habit, a level described elsewhere well from somebody who de la mala who I mean, there are people who say the wrong thing, say ignorant things, and there are others who listen to them. And Allah says Allah knows all of the wrongdoers meaning the one talking and the one listening are both doing wrong. They're both doing wrong. Identify that in yourself sometimes, you know, your parents might say some crazy things. Parents sometimes say crazy things. You know, those people are doing this. This is my How do you know I just have a feeling.

That's not the time to give your mother a no model econ video, watch this because you need this lecture. No, no, no. That's the time to just end the conversation. Ignore the conversation, talk about what's being cooked for dinner instead, change it when our loved one say things like that. We don't indulge in that conversation. We just change the subject. ignore it. Don't let them fall further into sin. This is a son of our mother is Chateau de la hora, Anna, you know, there were rumors made about her. And when she spoke to her mother, her mother said you know who must have done it. And she named some people,

which was also a rumor.

And so what did I shall the law No, she just changed the subject. She just changed it all together. Since I've handled it change the topic. So yes, within our families when that happens, no need to argue not only to give them a lecture, you have to become crafty and learn to just change the subject so they don't indulge further into that mistake. Nobody does these kinds of mistakes on purpose. We get emotional and we do them. May Allah azza wa jal make us more careful about what we listen to, and how we think about it allows us to correct our perception and the emotions that follow as a result. barakallahu li walakum fucoxanthin Hakeem when a final

hamdulillah haka was Salatu was Salam O Allah anybody Latino stuffer, Susana Allah, Allah him a hard time in the been Mohammed amin where Allah Allah He was happy during a long time

to build a ministry regime. In aloha Amala eketahuna Luna lnav Latina amanu sallu alayhi wa sallam Moses Lima Allahumma salli ala Muhammad Allah Allah Allah Mohammed Camus Allah tala Ibrahim Ali Ibrahim al al amin in NACA, hamidah Majid Allahumma barik ala Muhammad Anwar Allah Allah Muhammad Kamara Allah Rahim. Allah Allah Rahim Allah Allah mean in nicomedia Majid de la rahima como la la in a La Jolla, San Koba Vienna and fascia evil Mancha political La la la Motta stone, okay massala insalata kanatal Mini Nikita makuta