O Muslims - 38

 

In the Name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful

Extract from QUR’AANIC STUDIES – A Modern Tafsir PART I:

106. Ya ayyuha allatheena amanoo shahadatu baynikum itha hadara ahadakumu almawtu heena alwasiyyati ithnani thawa AAadlin minkum aw akharani min ghayrikum in antum darabtum fee al-ardi faasabatkum museebatu almawti tahbisoonahuma min baAAdi alssalati fayuqsimani biAllahi ini irtabtum la nashtaree bihi thamanan walaw kana tha qurba wala naktumu shahadata Allahi inna ithan lamina al-athimeena

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5:106. O you who believe! When death approaches any of you, call to witness among you, at the time of making the will, two just persons from among you, or two from among others than you, if you are travelling in the land and death befalls you. Detain the two after the prayer, then, if you are in doubt, they shall both swear by Allah, "We will not sell it for a price – and even though it is for a relative – and we will not hide the testimony. By Allah, then, certainly, we should be among the sinners."

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This Verse makes it obligatory for all Muslims to make a duly witnessed Will, before one’s death. As is customary with many other Qur’aanic edicts, this one too is rarely – if at all – followed! No wonder then that Allah Almighty has withdrawn His Hand of Mercy from them.

Mohammad Shafi

Friday, the 30^th of October 2020.

O Muslims - 13

In the Name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful

Extract from QUR’AANIC STUDIES – A Modern Tafsir PART I:

102. Ya ayyuha allatheena amanoo ittaqoo Allaha haqqa tuqatihi wala tamootunna illa waantum muslimoona

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3:102. O you who believe! Fear Allah as He should be feared and die not but as those who have surrendered themselves completely to Allah.¹²⁰

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120. Death may come without any warning signals. Man should therefore never postpone surrendering himself to any future date. That future date may never come in his life.

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Mohammad Shafi

Friday, the 8^th of May 2020.

Resurrection

In the Name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful

The background to the extract below from QUR’AANIC STUDIES – A Modern Tafsir PART I is that someone had killed a person, and people were quarrelling on who the murderer was. Allah Almighty made that case an example to show how He would resurrect people on Judgment Day. The murdered man, thus resurrected in that case, would name the murderer.

73. Faqulna idriboohu bibaAAdiha kathalika yuhyee Allahu almawta wayureekum ayatihi laAAallakum taAAqiloona

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2:73. So We asked them to raise him up⁸⁶ from something thereof ^{87 to 89}. Thus, does Allah give life to the dead ^{90 & 91}, and show you His signs so that you understand ⁹²..

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86. Among the various meanings in which the Arabic root word zaraba is used in the Qur'aan, one is 'to set up' or 'to raise'. It is in this meaning that this word, with its grammatical variation, is used in Verse 57:13. It is used therein to connote 'setting up' or 'raising' a wall between the believers and the hypocrites, in the Hereafter. And the pronoun hu obviously refers to the murdered person mentioned in the preceding Verse 2:72. Since the pronoun is masculine, it is obvious that the murdered person was a man. And in the context of the reference made to Allah giving life to the dead, further down in this very Verse (2:73), it is obvious that the killed man was brought to life again to disclose to the people as to who had killed him.

87. Here, the pronoun used is the feminine ha. This has led some of the commentators of the Qur'aan to link it to the slaughtered cow referred to in Verse 2:71. But this linkage is unwarranted. For, in the immediately preceding Verse 2:72, mention is made of a murdered man, and his dead body (the Arabic word for which is feminine in gender) is already referred to therein as ha. We should remember that the All-knowing Allah could make no mistakes!

88. The fact, that His choice of words is perfect, is well illustrated in the use of the masculine pronoun hu just before, in this very Verse 2:73. Had the Jews been told to hit or strike at the dead body of the murdered man, the pronoun used would have been ha and not hu. The use of hu there conclusively proves that the Jews were told to raise a living man, and not to strike at a dead body.

89. So, the Jews were asked to raise the murdered man to life from or with something or some part of the dead body. It needs no mentioning that in this act of raising the living from the dead, Allah was the sole Architect and the people were just the instruments! Just like: a man and a woman are merely the instruments with which Allah brings a new human being into this world.

90. And in this divine statement lies the divine confirmation of the conclusions drawn in the foregoing notes! The reference here, obviously, is mainly to the Resurrection of mankind in the Hereafter. Allah says that He thus gives life to the dead. That is, just as He had given life to the murdered man (of the episode narrated in these two Verses) from some part or remnant of his dead body. Allah has thus disclosed to us that on the Resurrection Day, He will give life to every human that ever lived on this earth and died, from any remnant of that human. And the good earth contains distinctive remnants aplenty of every such individual! A tiny bit of a bone, a tooth, or even hair from any dead person, mixed with the earth, serves as a good enough remnant for the Almighty Allah to resurrect that person from!

91. Modern knowledge has enabled us to have an insight into these wonderfully meaningful divine Verses. Any bit of a remnant from the dead person contains microcells. And every such cell contains a DNA map distinctive to that person! So even a man now can come to know, by conducting a proper DNA test, as to which person that remnant belongs to. So, we can now understand how the Almighty Creator can have no problems at all in distinguishing the remnants, one from another.

92. In the pre-historic age – the setting for this episode described here in these two Verses under our study – the extent of human knowledge was limited. The All-knowing Allah had compensated the people living then with seemingly miraculous signs to make them understand the Reality of, inter alia, the Hereafter. The seemingly miraculous bringing of a murdered person back to life in the episode, described here in these two Verses, was one such sign. But now, with the considerable advance in human knowledge, the divine signs about the Reality are implanted in that advanced knowledge itself. A few years back, with such knowledge, man succeeded, for the first time, in making a surrogate mother sheep give birth to a lamb that was genetically identical – a clone – to another sheep! The lamb was made to be conceived in the surrogate mother's womb asexually by implanting the nucleus of a cell taken from the body of the other sheep into an unfertilised egg of the mother sheep! This human effort of course involved a very complicated and uncertain procedure, the success rate of which is said to be very, very low! But it did give the unmistakable sign that the Resurrection is a distinct possibility!

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Mohammad Shafi

Friday, the 7^th of June 2019.

Dua

I'm presently away from home, and away from my laptop. So, the Sermon this Friday is bound to be different.

Let me then give it a rather personal colour.

:

I'm in my mid-eighties. It's becoming increasingly difficult to carry on with life's normal routines. Death seems to be a welcome relief.

The mind then starts wondering whether I've passed the test of this worldly life.

Doubts come floating by.

It's only divine Mercy that could save me.

O Almighty! Grant me the wisdom of doing everything right till I die.


Mohammad Shafi

Science Has No Answers

In the Name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful

Extract from QUR’AANIC STUDIES – A Modern Tafsir PART II:

19. Latarkabunna tabaqan AAan tabaqin

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84:19. You [humans] do move from stage to stage.¹

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1. Mankind is aware of the many stages through which man passes from his conception in a womb to his grave. Then why does he not believe in the divine intimation to him of his further stages of barzakh (state of complete unconsciousness from death till his resurrection in the Hereafter) and further life in the Hereafter? This very question is posed to him in the next two Verses. The divine intimation is given to him through the Qur’aan, which he ought to believe in and prostrate (submit himself) to. But one may ask why. The answer is: there is no other source which gives us the information as to what happens after death. Our knowledge of science just tells us that we cease to exist. Science also does not tell us as to what it is that triggers life in the 3-week-old fertilized ovum in mother’s womb. Science is thus helpless in giving us this vital info. So, we have no alternative but to go to the divine source. And the divine info provides answers to several unresolved questions arising in the human mind. Why do innumerable cases of injustices apparently remain unpunished in this world? And why acts of good deeds remain unrewarded? Why do innocents suffer and why do wrong-doers apparently enjoy good life on this earth? Science has no answers to such questions; the Qur’aan has!

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Mohammad Shafi

Friday, the 28^th of September 2018.

Martyrs

In the Name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful

Extract from Chapter 2 of QUR’AANIC STUDIES – A Modern Tafsir:

154. Wala taqooloo liman yuqtalu fee sabeeli Allahi amwatun bal ahyaon walakin la tashAAuroona

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154. And say not unto those who are killed, in Allah's Path, as dead. Nay! They are alive, but you perceive not.^{247 to 249}

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247. It's one of the observed hard truths about life on this earth, that good work done in Allah's Path doesn't often get recompensed here. People have died, or have been killed, while struggling to traverse steadfastly on that Path. Seeing this happen, many of the others have fled from that Path. Should we follow suit? Allah has given us the freedom of choice. And if we follow suit, exercising that freedom, what would we get? Maybe, we would get some worldly wealth, and some worldly position. But at what cost? At the price of our abandoning good things like honesty, fair play, justice, truth et al. And even if we bid goodbye to such good things, are we sure that we would get the worldly pelf and position? Not at all! Worldly life is very uncertain. Today we set about getting the world by fair means or foul, and tomorrow (who knows?) we may die! And who knows what's on the other side of the divide? Maybe, what these religious people say will come true. What if, because of our abandoning belief in Allah and in the Hereafter, we may be put into that Hell-fire they talk about, to suffer there forever!!

248. If only we would think rationally thus, Brothers and Sisters, there is really no real alternative to Allah's Path! Although Allah has given us the freedom of choice, it's a choice between certainty or uncertainty, salvation or doom. So, come! Let us be certain in our belief in Allah, and in what He tells us. HE tells us here not to consider those killed in His Path as dead. Let us have absolute belief in this, although we are not capable of understanding the divine statement. Being mere creatures, we do not understand many things. But our Lord, the absolute Creator, knows everything. So, let's believe Him, for our own good!

249.   In Verse 3:169 and in Verses immediately following that Verse, we are further informed that the martyrs in Allah's Path receive provisions from Allah and that they rejoice in Allah's bounties! Allah tells us there, that He shall not let the supreme sacrifice of such believers go waste. It is thus apparent that the martyrs shall enjoy a pleasant continuity of consciousness even immediately after the end of their worldly lives. Unlike others, who shall be in a state of unconsciousness extending to even thousands of years, till they are resurrected in the Hereafter! That is an additional divine reward for the martyrs*.

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*It may well be noted that modern-day suicide bombers, who are responsible for killing innocent lives besides their own, cannot qualify to be called martyrs in Allah’s Path.

Mohammad Shafi

Friday, the 16^th of June 2017.