Our Articles – Page 8 – Quran In Context

07
Mar 17
0

OBR – Outcomes Based Ramadaan! Chapter 2 Verse 183

With the name of Allah, Most Kind Most Merciful…

All Praise and Glory to Allah who has sent us the Quraan to guide us and Peace and Blessings on the final Messenger, Muhammed!

What’s the purpose of fasting(sawm)? What are the expected outcomes?

The answer is quite simple – Chapter 2 Verse 183

لَعَلَّكُمْ تَتَّقُونَ – To develop your Taqwa

What is Taqwa? – An infusion of Love and Fear of Allah(SWT) or A heightened awareness of Allah(SWT)’s presence…

So after the task(of fasting) what should the student achieve?

In one word the Outcome would – TAQWA

How would one recognize and rate the TAQWA, what are the practical qualities, behaviors’ that need to be measured?

Acticity 10.1 – Has fasting increased my TAQWA?

For our case study, I have taken just one set of verses to draw the measuring qualities to test any progress in TAQWA after the activity of fasting.

Surah 3 Verses 133 – 135

وَسَارِعُوا إِلَى مَغْفِرَةٍ مِنْ رَبِّكُمْ

Be quick in the race for forgiveness from your Lord,

وَجَنَّةٍ عَرْضُهَا السَّمَاوَاتُ وَالأرْضُ

and for a Garden whose width is that (of the whole) of the heavens and of the earth,

أُعِدَّتْ لِلْمُتَّقِينَ

prepared for the righteous,

(Those with TAQWA)

Verse 133

FASTING SHOULD

1) Increase our frequency of asking Allah(SWT) for forgiveness. The Prophet(SAW) is reported to have said “I seek for forgiveness from Allah more than 100 times a day “

2) Increase our attention and focus of the real goal of attaining Al Jannah. Yeah, imagine you are granted Al Jannah, and you are taken to these huge beautiful gates that lead to you castle, and your land stretched from Mercury to Pluto or even much more J Insha Allah!

(Those with TAQWA)

الَّذِينَ يُنْفِقُونَ فِي السَّرَّاءِ وَالضَّرَّاءِ

Those who spend (freely), whether in prosperity, or in adversity;

وَالْكَاظِمِينَ الْغَيْظَ

who restrain anger,

وَالْعَافِينَ عَنِ النَّاسِ

and pardon (all) men;

وَاللَّهُ يُحِبُّ الْمُحْسِنِينَ

for Allah loves those who do good;-

Verse 134

3) Increase the value and frequency of giving of our wealth for the upliftment of the poor and needy regardless of economic conditions.

4) Strengthen our control over our anger. The Prophet(SAW) is reported to have said “When you are angry, sit down, if you are still angry, lie down”. Simple but really effective advice. Yap, I have never seen 2 people screaming at each other whilst sitting down.

5) Soften our hearts, remove our prejudices, make us, more forgiving. Fasting should give us the strengthen to overlook peoples faults. This very act of forgiving and overlooking each others faults is the necessary glue that our ummah needs for unity.

وَلْيَعْفُوا وَلْيَصْفَحُوا

let them forgive and overlook

أَلا تُحِبُّونَ أَنْ يَغْفِرَ اللَّهُ لَكُمْ

do you not wish that Allah should forgive you?

وَاللَّهُ غَفُورٌ رَحِيمٌ

For Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.”S24V22

(Those with TAQWA)

وَالَّذِينَ إِذَا فَعَلُوا فَاحِشَةً

And those who, having done something to be ashamed of

أَوْ ظَلَمُوا أَنْفُسَهُمْ

or wronged their own souls

ذَكَرُوا اللَّهَ

earnestly bring Allah to mind,

فَاسْتَغْفَرُوا لِذُنُوبِهِمْ

and ask for forgiveness for their sins,-

وَمَنْ يَغْفِرُ الذُّنُوبَ إِلا اللَّهُ

and who can forgive sins except Allah?-

وَلَمْ يُصِرُّوا عَلَى مَا فَعَلُوا وَهُمْ يَعْلَمُونَ

and are never stubborn in persisting knowingly in (the wrong) they have done.

Verse 135

6) Increase our awareness of our own weakness’s and sins. Fasting should cause a heightened concern of our very own characters and lead us to self inspection. One of the meanings of TAQWA is “To guard oneself against evil”. In Ramadaan, through fasting we are strengthening our will power. Fasting is a way to strengthen ourRESISTANCE to anything that displeases Allah(SWT). Fasting teaches us to say “NO”. If we can say “NO” to food for 12 hours than we are preparing ourselves to say “NO” to Shaytaan when he calls us to lie, cheat, hate, steal, backbite, ….

“Ramadan is a month

whose beginning is Mercy,

whose middle is Forgiveness

and whose end is freedom from the fire.” – Hadith

Scorecard – Rate yourself 0 – 5

0 – No improvement / increase

5 – Maximum improvement / increase

Measurable quality / activity	0 – 5
1) Frequency of seeking Allah’s forgiveness
2) Strengthening our goal of attaining Al Jananh
3) Giving of our wealth
4) Anger Control
5) Ability to forgive and overlook
6) Self awareness of our weakness’s, our sins and our resistance to sins and shaytaans whispers

May Allah(SWT), the Most Kind, Most Merciful, make this month of Ramadaan easy and filled with blessings for you and your family!

May Allah(SWT) increase our closeness to Him, our Love for Him and our Obedience to Him in this Blessed Month of the Quraan,

And May Allah(SWT) strengthen our resistance to shaytaan, grant us greater control over our anger and soften our hearts so

That we may forgive and overlook each others faults…

May Allah(SWT) strengthened Deen Al Islam in our country in this month and the coming years and establish

Peace, Mercy, Love and Unity in the Ummat of Muhammed(SAW) in our country and throughout the world…

05
Mar 17
0

Did you hear that? Chapter 8 Verses 20-24

With the name of Allah, Most Kind Most Merciful…

Listening is a powerful skill that develops our intellect. Our 2 ears(on board stereo system) are awesome gifts.

But every gift is a test. We can use these gifts to get closer to Allah(SWT), use these gifts to listen to the advice and commands of Allah(SWT)

And respond or just turn a deaf ear and lead ourselves astray.

Chapter 8 Verses 20-24

These verses refer to the Prophet(SAW) but set the general “listening standard” among Believers till the Day of Judgment.

V20 – Turn not away. When someone is speaking, it is disrespectful to turn away from them.

V22 – The worst creatures are those that don’t listen. Listening develops intellect. Listening to different people talk from different backgrounds

And culture helps broaden our understanding. When we turn a deaf ear, we lose the opportunity to learn and reflect nothing less than arrogance.

V23 – Allah(SWT) has total control over us. If He finds good in us, He would cause us to listen and benefit from the hearing.

V24 – Response is a clear proof of listening. How often we find ourselves listening to great motivation yet we fail to respond, as if we never heard.

Surah 6 Verses 36

The Human Ear: Masterpiece of Engineering

PLAIN BUT PERFECT!

Human ears are not much to look at, yet behind these flaps of skin and cartilage lie structures of such delicacy that they shame the most skillful craftsman, and of such reliable automatic operation that they inspire awe in the most ingenious engineer. Working together, the structure of the outer, middle, and inner ear perform acts of amazing range and virtuosity.

The ear has three main parts: the outer, middle, and inner ear.

The outer ear (all that we normally see) comprises the pinna, i.e., the flap of skin and cartilage leading to a narrow tunnel that terminates in the eardrum. The middle ear is an air filled cavity with the eardrum on one side and piece of stretched skin known as the oval window on the other side, leading to the inner ear, which contains the organs of hearing and the organ of balance.

SOUND, NOT WHAT YOU’D THINK

Sound as we all know is really a form of motion. Invisible sound waves travel through the air and set up corresponding vibrations in the outer ear. Usually when a sound wave travelling in air reaches a solid or liquid surface, most of it is reflected, and thereby lost, and only a small percentage is transmitted. But the design of the ear allows this difficulty to be overcome. As a result, sound is passed from the outside air to the liquid filled inner ear without much loss. The inner ear is a coiled tube divided in two by a thin tough sheet of tissue called the basdar membrane which when examined under the microscope is seen to carry millions of fibers called hair cells. The arrival of sound at the oval window causes vibrations in the watery fluid within. The to and fro movement of the fluid causes waves to travel along the basilar membrane and thereby to the hair cells which are in contact with nerve fibers which eventually form the auditory nerve that carries the message to the brain. The basilar membranes near the oval window respond to high frequencies and the more distant parts to low frequencies. The message to the brain is therefore coded, containing information about the pitch of the sound, its loudness and its quality.

The reason we have two ears is because they form a stereo system allowing us to identify the place from which the sound originated and also to identify whether the source is moving. The processing of sound by the ear and brain is so accurate that clicks presented to one ear and then the other can be distinguished as separate sounds when the time interval between them is as small as thirty microseconds.

YOU COULD HEAR A PINDROP…

The virtuosity of the human hearing is as remarkable as its importance. A man can hear a mosquito buzzing outside the window even though the power of the sound reaching him is no more than one quadrhhonth of a watt. If 100 such buzzes (100,000,000,000,000,000) could be combined and converted into electricity, there would be just enough power to light one reading lamp!

The sensitivity of the ear is remarkable. The movement of the eardrum in response to the minimum audible sound at a frequency of 1000 Hz is about a thousand millionth of a centimeter: considerably less than the diameter of a hydrogen atom. The movement of the basilar membrane in response to the same sound is about a hundred times smaller – about the diameter of an atomic nucleus!

This represents the ultimate limit of performance. If the, sensitivity of the ear was further increased, we would be conscious of the continual bombardment of the eardrum by air molecules. Even at the present limit it is surprising that we do not hear our own blood flowing through the tiny vessels in the eardrum. This is so because the ear can ignore signals which are constantly present.

MUSICIANS – ALL

The ear also displays a judgement of pitch which is unequalled in the animal kingdom, and makes man the most musical of all living animals. With no musical training, we can distinguish the Note A sounded on the piano from the same note played on a violin. We can also distinguish the combination of different tones peculiar to each instrument that make up the note. We can reject the hubbub of a party while picking out a single familiar voice. Even during sleep the ear continues to function with incredible efficiency: because the brain can interpret and select signals passed to it by the ear, a person can sleep soundly through noisy traffic and the blaring of a neighbor’s television , and yet awaken promptly at the gentle urging of an alarm clock. A barking dog, a squealing tire, a footstep — can all be identified. In fact, a normal ear can discriminate among some 400,000 sounds.

ALL THIS AND MORE!

The ears, besides being a high fidelity stereophonic hearing system, are also responsible for keeping the body in balance. This is done with the help of two systems located within the inner ear.

Of all the organs of the body, few can accomplish as much in so little a space as the ear. If an engineer could duplicate its functions, he would have to compress into approximately one cubic inch a sound system tht includes an impedance matcher, a wide range mechanical analyser, a mobile relay and amplification unit, a multichannel transducer to convert mechanical energy to electrical energy, a system to maintain a delicate hydraulic balance and an internal two-way communication system. Even if he could perform this miracle of miniaturization, he would be unable to match the ear’s performance.

Many birds and animals have learned to signal one another by their voices, both for warning and recognition, but we, the humans, with our ears, our mobile tongues and throats, and our large complex brains have learned to speak. We have learned to be articulate, to attach arbitrary and abstract meaning to sounds, synthesize words, and create a language which we then use as a tool to communicate our experiences of the past and also our ideas and plans for future action. We now have innumerable languages across the world. Humans are the only creatures capable of achieving all this. The great strides we are making in every field are evidence of this fact. Even with our minimal numbers and our average sizes we dominate the planet earth to the exclusion of all other creatures.

WHY ALL THIS?

Is there a lesson to be learned from all this? Is there a purpose? And if so, what is it? What is our responsibility?

It seems abundantly clear to me that our main responsibility is to use our ears and eyes and brain to recognize the role of the Almighty God and to understand the purpose of our existence.

Using our God given senses and our unique ability to explore this vast Universe we have learnt a great deal about the physical laws that govern it. We know that these laws are fixed and consistent; that they apply equally at all points through out the Universe, without differentiation. This attests to the fact that there is one Creator and His system is unchangeable. Thus, we can also appreciate the fact that the same rules apply to all creatures, as they are part of the Universe too.