- Islamic Biography / Prophetic Biography
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- Understanding prophetic biography
Introduction about the philosophy of things:
Dear Brother, this is a new lesson from the prophetic fiqh as-sirah. The books of sirah were written after Jibril’s visit to Prophet Mohammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. They talk about the essence of the Message of Islam.Let us mention, by way of introduction, that any inanimate object occupies space in three dimensions -it has length, width, height. It also has weight.
A plant occupies space in three dimensions; it has weight, and it also grows.
An animal occupies space in three dimensions; it has weight, and it grows and moves.
And a man occupies space in three dimensions as well; he has weight, he grows, he moves and thinks.
That is why Allah the All-Mighty distinguished man with the power of perception. However, his human level will be degraded unless he satisfies his mind’s need for knowledge, and that is why the first word of the Qur'an Allah sent Jibril with was:
"Read"
Meaning of the word “read”:
"Read" means here "learn" because man was created in order to know Allah."Allah is He Who created seven Firmaments and of the earth a similar number; through the midst of them descends His Command, that you may know that Allah has power over all things in (His) Knowledge."
The reason for your being on Earth is to know Allah through his Creation. You have to learn whether you seek either this world or the Hereafter, or both of them. Knowledge does not yield a portion of it unless you give it your whole self; if you give it just a part of yourself, it will give you nothing. A man remains a scholar as long as he seeks knowledge; the moment he thinks he knows, he becomes ignorant.
Dear brother, the disaster of people of Hell, and they are in Hell, is ignorance.
"They will further say: "Had we but listened or used our intelligence, we should not now be among the companions of the blazing fire.""
Muslims should seek knowledge to know Allah:
Each person has been made to love their existence, the safety of their existence, the perfection of their existence, and this is not accomplished unless we apply the instructions of the Creator -the only party whose instructions you should follow is the manufacturer. "Read" -meaning "learn". Nowadays, 200 years would not be enough to read the books printed in one language only. So what should we read? He said:"Read! In the Name of your Lord and Cherisher, Who has created (all that exists)."
Your goal must be belief in Allah. Knowledge cannot be for the sake of knowledge only. Knowledge is for the sake of knowing Allah, for the sake of worshipping Him, becoming a Muslim and being happy in this world and in the Hereafter.
"I have only created jinns and men, that they may worship Me."
"Read in the name of your God Who created (all that exists)."
This is the first objective of reading -unless it is aimed at the belief in Allah, it has no value. For this reason Prophet Mohammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said:
"O Lord! I seek refuge with You from useless knowledge, and from a heart that does not have taqwah, and from an eye that does not shed tears, and from an ear that does not hear. I seek refuge with You from these four."
Prophet Mohammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, entered his mosque one day and saw a man surrounded by a crowd of people. He asked: "Who is that?" They said: "That is Nusabah." He said: "And what is Nusabah?" They said: "He knows, that is his name. He knows the lineage of all the Arabs." Then Prophet Mohammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said:
"This knowledge does not benefit who learns it, and does not harm who does not have it."
Well then, unless the goal you aim at in your knowledge is belief in Allah as the Creator, the Sustainer, the One Who Advances; belief in His Existence, One and Perfect; belief that the names of Allah are Divine and His attributes are unique -this knowledge is not something to be proud of. It is just a craft. Crafts are manual and intellectual. The tools used in these crafts depend on the mind, but the knowledge that Allah the Almighty wants us to have is the knowledge of Him -a kind of knowledge that elevates man.
Types of knowledge related to Allah:
By the way, dear brother, there are three types of knowledge: Knowledge of His Creation, knowledge of His orders, and knowledge of Himself. Knowledge of His Creation is the field of universities all over the world. It is dealt with by physics, chemistry, mathematics, logic, psychology, sociology, education, medicine, engineering, astronomy, geography, history, language and foreign languages. Knowledge of His orders is the knowledge of the permitted (ћalal), the forbidden (ћaram), legal rulings (fiqh), personal status, commercial fiqh, inheritance fiqh, etc. This knowledge is the field of the Islamic Law in the Islamic world. But knowledge of Himself is something else. It requires fighting not studying. The first two types of knowledge require studying. Some great scholars said: “Fight to be seen.”When you apply Allah’s Way, when you keep your head and what it contains under control, as well as your abdomen and its contents, as well as your income and spending, and your organs, your home and your work -then Allah the Almighty allows you to know Himself in a way that will make you happy in this world and in the Hereafter.
The contents of Islamic call:
Reading of faith:
"Read in the name of your Lord Who created (all that exists)."
Knowledge has no justification unless it is a way to know Allah, then to obey Him, then to achieve safety and happiness in this world and in the Hereafter. That is the first reading a believer does of
"Read in the name of your Lord."
The entire West is with the beneficence, but the believer is with the benefactor."Read in the name of your Lord Who created."
Who created man? Who created the animal? Who created the plant? A tree works silently, without a sound, without getting exhausted, without smoke, without noise. It gives you delicious fruits as regards their colors, smells, sizes, forms, and benefits. Who created the cow? It gives you milk and dairy products of great utility. Who created the fruits and crops? Who created the heavens and the earth? Who created the stars? Who created the birds? Who created the fish? Who created the plants? Who created the decorative plants? Who created that child who fills your home with joy? Who created all these?"Read in the name of your Lord who created."
This Creation denotes knowledge, wisdom, mercy, power and beauty, so we must contemplate the Creation of the heavens and the earth, so in order to do so, let us stop at these verses.Dear brother, what a clear example we have in a poor man who had never tasted honey in his life, but who used to read books about bees. While reading them, tears flowed down his cheeks as he thought about the greatness of Allah the Almighty reflected in the creation of the bee and honey. This poor man, who did not know the taste of honey, achieved the first goal for which the bee and honey were created, because he got to know Allah through them. But the rich man, who eats honey in large quantities and never comes to know Allah through His Creation, suspends the primary goal of creating the bee and honey. That is why Prophet Mohammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, used to say when he saw the crescent:
"The crescent of benevolence and reason."
"Read! In the Name of your Lord Who has created (all that exists)."
2. The origin of creation:
You may say: How can I get to know the galaxies? There are 230 thousand billion galaxies, unbelievable number. Every galaxy has millions of millions stars. The Universe is infinite. Some galaxies are 20 billion light years away from us."Read! In the Name of your Lord Who has created (all that exists)."
Our answer is that you should recognize Allah in His Creation, and you have an ayah before you.“Read! In the Name of your Lord Who has created (all that exists); created man out of a leech-like clot.”
Are you married? You say: I am. Do you have children? You say: I do. But how did this child become a perfect human being? In the marital intercourse the man produces more than 300-500 million sperms. A sperm cannot be seen with a naked eye –a microscope is needed to see it. A sperm combines with an ovum whose size is that of a grain of salt… put some saliva at the tip of your finger with the least possible pressure, there will be small elements that a naked eye cannot see, and a sperm is much smaller than they are. The creature produced in this way has a brain that contains 140 billion basic dark cells that do not function as yet; 14 billion skin cells; 300 thousand hairs; 130 million nerve cells; and, attached to the eye retina, 800 thousand nerves in the optical nerve; 35 million gastric juices secreted in the stomach while food moves on to the intestine which is 100 km long; 1 million neutrons in the blood carried by vessels which are 150 thousand kilometers long; and 200 square meter pulmonary sockets.
“We have indeed created man in the best of moulds.”
“Have We not made for him a pair of eyes? And a tongue, and a pair of lips? And shown him the two highways? But he has made not haste on the path that is steep.”
Dear brother, when you contemplate your body, think of the splendid wisdom behind the fact that man has no sensory nerves in his hair. What would happen if they were there? He would need to go to hospital for a haircut and have full anesthesia. The same can be said about nails. There is hair in the nose but not in the mouth, have you ever thought of that? If there was hair in the mouth, it would be unbearable; shaving it would be very difficult, one could cut his tongue while shaving it… anyway some people’s tongues ought to be cut, perhaps.
“Have We not made for him a pair of eyes? And a tongue, and a pair of lips? And shown him the two highways?”
Also, if the bladder did not have muscles, man would need fifteen minutes to empty it, and he might not be able to do so, but using the muscles it has, hardly a couple of minutes are necessary -a profound wisdom, indeed. If we spent years talking about the wisdom of Allah’s Creation, we could never finish.
“Have We not made for him a pair of eyes?”
There are, in our eyes, a hundred million light receivers in one square millimeter, whereas the most professional digital camera has ten thousand light receivers in one square millimeter.
Allah the Almighty said:
“Read! In the Name of your Lord Who has created (all that exists); created man out of a leech-like clot.”
A clot… a baby… one brain, two eyes, two ears, a nose, a mouth, a tongue, an esophagus. It is possible for a person hanging upside down by their feet to be able to drink: water will reach the stomach by going upwards thanks to the muscles in the esophagus that contract simultaneously delivering water to the stomach. In your deep sleep, a message comes from the mouth to the brain that the amount of saliva has increased, so the brain, which is awake, gives an order to the epiglottis to close the wind pipe and open the esophagus, and eventually you swallow your saliva. This happens hundreds and hundreds of times in your sleep, but when you are at the dentist's, the saliva keeps dripping down and some sort of a draining device needs to be employed. In your sleep the muscles under you spinal system send a signal that they are under too much pressure, the vessels tighten, nutrition weakens -an order comes to you to turn to the other side.
“And we turned them on their right and on their left sides.”
Without this movement, our flesh would get peeled off.
“Read! In the Name of your Lord Who has created (all that exists); created man out of a leech-like clot.”
That is the standard reading; then knowledge serves faith.
“Read! And your Lord is Most Bountiful.”
2.Reading of gratitude:
The first reading is for research and belief, the second one is for gratitude and giving thanks.Can someone born in 1938, read a book that was printed in 1932? Was there anything on earth called Sa’eed En_Nawrasi while this book was being printed? NO.
“Has there not been over Man a long period of Time, when he was nothing –(not even) mentioned?”
When was it printed? Did any of us exist in the year 1900? Did we have any birth certificates? Did we have any IDs? We did not exist. Allah the Almighty granted you three blessings: existence, support and the right guidance and reason. Firstly, He granted your love in your parents’ heart. They supported you with food, drink and warmth. The first reading is for research and belief, and the second one is for gratitude and thanks. You learn in order to believe, in order to thank. Now, when you believe and thank, you will be achieving the aim of your existence.
“Why should Allah punish you if you have thanked (Him) and have believed in (Him). And Allah is Ever All-Appreciative (of good), All- Knowing.”
If you believe and thank, the divine punishment stops, disasters stop, everything stops because if you achieve the goal of your existence, then there will be no need for disasters -that is the second reading:
“Read! In the Name of your Lord is the Most Bountiful.”
The meaning of intelligent speech:
But Allah the All-Mighty granted to us the bliss of intelligent speech.“The Most Gracious! It is He Who has taught the Quran. He has created man; He has taught him an intelligent speech.”
Speech is the capacity to express your needs, thoughts, and feelings orally, that is discourse. Listening is receiving thoughts, feelings and needs expressed orally by sh3er. Presentation and listening require a meeting. When you write a speech, or a book, someone whom you had never met before might read your book and benefit from it. Well, then:
“He has taught by the Pen.”
With the Pen, knowledge is transferred from one place to another, from one era to another, from one land to another. With translation, knowledge is also transferred from one country to another, a very eloquent word:
“Read! And your Lord is the Most Bountiful. He Who has taught by the Pen.”
3. Reading of inspiration and submission:
The third reading is a reading of inspiration and submission, where do we come up with it?“Read! In the name of your Lord and Cherisher, Who created; Created man out of a leech-like clot. Read! And your Lord is Most Bountiful; He Who taught by the Pen; taught the man that which he knew not.”
When you examine the sun, you realize that it has a creator, but where did the rules of paying zakah, the women one cannot marry, the food one cannot eat, the acts of worship, the salah, the rules of haj and umrah, the interactions, loans, money transfer, guarantee… where did they all come from? From the Revelation. That is the third reading. Thus, you should read for instruction and faith, then gratefulness and gratitude, and then for the Revelation and submission. The core of the message is the verse:
“ Read in the name of your Lord Who has created…”
Importance of revelation for man:
Dear brother, anything beyond the capacity of our mind is told to us by the Revelation. Imagine you have a shop and you need scales; you buy the best quality one. However, its weight range is between five grams and five kilograms. If it occurred to you to use it for weighing your car, and you put it on the floor and drove over it, you would of course break it down. The scales would not have worked because it would have been used it against the manufacturer’s instructions. Since the scales cannot weigh your car, the manufacturing company wrote the weight of the car on it, stating its weight as 1392 kilos. Anything your mind fails to comprehend is inspired to you by Allah the Almighty. Through Revelation we learned about the beginning of the world, Adam and his spouse, not the apes -a big difference.Once, I said jokingly to someone: "By Allah, I am convinced Darwin’s theory is right." He exclaimed: "Allah forbid!" "I am convinced about it the other way round. Darwin’s theory maintains man was an ape and then became man. My belief is the opposite: He was a human and now he has become an ape. What is an ape? Its main concern is its stomach. What is a swine? Its main concern is with what is between its legs. Food and sex have become man’s major concerns, as those of apes and swine." Then Allah the Most Gracious said:
“Those of whom some He transformed into apes and swine.”
"A cuckold will never enter Paradise." They asked: Who is a cuckold? He said: "The one who does not care for his honour." His wife walks by his side in a tight outfit, as if naked. Women’s clothes should be loose and thick, not thin revealing the color of her complexion, or tight revealing the size of her body. A cuckold is someone who accepts obscenity in his wife or does not care for his honour.“Read! And your Lord is the Most Bountiful, Who has taught by the Pen, He has taught man that which he knew not.”
4. Reading of aggression and tyranny:
Dear brother, we have a fourth reading: a reading of aggression and tyranny. If we throw a grenade on a shelter with one meter thick walls, and it gets through it, it will explode inside the shelter killing one thousand people. There are different kinds of weapons: fissionable bombs, clever bombs, microbe bombs, chemical bombs, napalm bombs, mass-destruction missiles. This is the science of destruction of mankind, of controlling the universe, of stealing other people's property. It is a science, but a science of shayatines and unicorns.“Nay! But man does not transgress all bounds.”
An example from the Quran of tyrants:
Allah the All Mighty gave us an example of tyrants, a frequent type -the 'Ad people.“Did you not see how your Lord dealt with the 'Ad, of the 'Iram with lofty pillars, the like of which were not produced in (all) the land?”
Excellence in various aspects, you could get confused… a strong army, the art of ruining people, roads, factories, economy, currency:
“… the like of which were not produced in (all) the land…”
Excelling in arrogance in many different aspects.
“And they (the 'Ad) said: Who is superior to us in strength?”
Another thing, whenever Allah the Almighty mentions destroying a people, He says that He had destroyed before many a people much stronger than them, except in the case of the 'Ad. Abut their destruction He says:
“Did they not see that Allah, Who created them, was superior to them in strength?”
That means there was no power over the 'Ad except that of Allah. Allah gives us an example of what the 'Ad had done:
“All these transgressed beyond bounds in the lands and heaped therein mischief (on mischief).”
Yet, they didn't have the effective tools we have now. They had neither bombs of mass destruction nor did they corrupt people's mind with films. They corrupted their own country but now the corruption is everywhere thanks to the so called "fashion" and the indecent clothes women are using to spoil human relations. Pay attention to Allah the All Mighty’s saying:
“Therefore did your Lord pour on them a scourge of diverse chastisements; for your Lord is Watchful.”
What is the speed of the wind now? If it were160 kilometers per hour, it would destroy everything on its way.
“And the 'Ad, they were destroyed by a furious Wind, exceedingly violent. He made it rage against them seven nights and eight days in succession.”
(Surat al-Haqqah, 69:6-7)What did they use to do? Allah the All-Mighty said:
“Do you build a landmark on every high place to amuse yourselves? And you get for yourselves fine buildings in the hope of living therein (for ever)?”
They showed unbelievable architectural and construction excellence. He said:
“And when you strike, you strike as tyrants?”
They developed unbelievable military and scientific excellence. He said:
“… though they were intelligent”
They excelled in architecture, manufacture, military art, science… but also arrogance, corruption and tyranny –they excelled in all that. There is a very accurate implication. Allah the Almighty said:
“And that it is He Who destroyed the ancient 'Ad’ (people).”
It means that there were another 'Ad, you see and hear about them every day. Those second 'Ad came for the sake of freedom and democracy, of course; that is why the 'Ad in the Holy Quran represent the tyrant nations, excelling in science. What kind of knowledge is theirs? A fourth type, that is aggression and tyranny; the knowledge that is considered a crime against humanity.
Beware! Don’t ignore the straight path!
Dear brother, that was the essence of surat al-Iqra (Read), which was the first surah brought by Jibril, but when man ignores Allah the All-Mighty, He says:“Nay! But man does transgress all bounds, in that he looks upon himself as self-sufficient.”
Men is in the hands of Allah at any time, but he fails in his obedience to Allah, that is why Allah the Almighty says:“By the night as it conceals (the light); by the day as it appears in glory; by the creation of male and female! Verily, (the ends) you strive for are diverse. So he who gives and fears (Allah), and testifies to the Best (al-husna), we will indeed make smooth for him the Path to Ease. But he who is a greedy miser and thinks himself self-sufficient, and gives the lie to the Best (al-husna), We will indeed make smooth for him the Path to Misery. Nor will his wealth profit him when he falls headlong (into the Pit). Verily We take upon Us to guide.”
Types of people:
Dear brother, rest assured that mankind, no matter their creed, faith, color, roots, race, denomination, or religion, is one of the two types.The first type:
“who gives and fears (Allah) and testifies to the Best (al-husna).”
We believe this model was created for Paradise. According to this belief, such people build their lives on the foundation of giving in a broad sense of the word, giving their money, time, effort, and experience. That is the first type, those who believe they have been created for Paradise, and accordingly they refuse to disobey Allah. And therefore, the Divine reply to them is:“We will indeed make smooth for him the Path to Ease.”
In order to make the path smooth, Allah has chosen for them specific abilities, complexion, parents, trade, income, potentials -everything in order to help them reach Paradise. The second type:“He who is a greedy miser and thinks himself self-sufficient, and gives the lie to the Best (al-husna).”
Such people are mean and disbelieve in the good will, and believe in this world. They say: "This life is everything, the be-all and end-all." Since they disbelieved in the Hereafter and believe in this life only, they “become self-sufficient”, they build their life on taking only and their glory on the spoils. They build their power on other people's weakness, their security on other people's fear, their well-being on other people's poverty, and their life on other people's death. Such people go against what they have been created for, they go to misery in this life and ruin in the Hereafter.Conclusion:
This surah, being the first one that was revealed, has connotations of the very essence of the Islamic Message. I ask Allah the Most Glorious that we might move on in the next lesson to the secret part of the Message of Islam; how it started in secrecy and then was brought out into the open.
