The Branches of the Relationship with the Quran, and the Degrees of Taking the Book with Strength

In an earlier clip I spoke about branching out the relationship with the Noble Quran, and I said I would expand on it later.

By branching out the relationship with the Noble Quran, I mean that one's relationship with it should be manifold, not of a single kind; it is not right for a person to limit himself to recitation alone, or to be content with memorization alone, or with tafsir and understanding alone. Rather, these are kinds that he must take up and whose path he must walk, but gradually. And we will learn how this path goes and what the evidence for it is.

The first stage of the relationship with the Noble Quran is recitation, according to however much of it is opened up to a person, even if it is one, two, or three verses a day; then he progresses after that: half a juz', then a juz', then three ajza', then five ajza'.

Then, in whatever Allah the Exalted opens up to a person after recitation, it is best that he move on to memorization, then to understanding the Quran, reading tafsir, and taking from its books and sciences. And at every one of these stages he must act upon the Noble Quran from the very first letter of it that he reads.

As for where we took this from: from the supplication of Ibrahim (peace be upon him) in Surat al-Baqarah: (Our Lord, and send among them a messenger from themselves who will recite to them Your verses and teach them the Book and wisdom and purify them. Indeed, You are the Exalted in Might, the Wise).

Fakhr al-Din al-Razi said that what is meant is to begin in this order: that is, to begin with recitation (who will recite to them Your verses), then after that (and teach them the Book), meaning he explains to them the meanings of the Noble Quran; what is meant by the Book is the Quran, and what is meant by wisdom is the Sunnah. (Who will recite to them Your verses): he begins with recitation, then after that comes tafsir and understanding (and teach them the Book and wisdom).

And so, part of branching out the relationship with the Noble Quran is the relationship with the Prophetic Sunnah; it is never separable from the Noble Quran. That is why a person must read in the Prophetic Sunnah and have understanding and knowledge of it; this too falls within the relationship with the Noble Quran. The relationship with the Noble Quran is not a relationship with the Quran alone, since the Quran is inseparable from the Prophetic Sunnah; and that is why He said: (and teach them the Book and wisdom).

And Allah the Exalted also says: (So when We have recited it, then follow its recitation. Then upon Us is its clarification); so one begins first with reading, in this order: recitation and memorization and occupying oneself with them, then after that clarification and tafsir, then contemplation.

Allah the Exalted censured the People of the Book, saying: (And among them are unlettered ones who do not know the Scripture except in wishful thinking, but they are only assuming); meaning that the relationship these People of the Book had — and what is meant by them here is the Jews — was a relationship of reading only; they get its words right but do not act upon it and do not understand its meanings. And the explanation of their not understanding its meanings is that they did not occupy themselves with its tafsir and understanding its meanings, and with asking the people of knowledge and learning from them about that; and that is why they neither comprehend it nor act upon it.

Why do the People of the Book not act upon it? Because of their ignorance of its meanings and its tafsir. Had they looked into the tafsir and the meanings and understood them, they would have been able to act upon them, and would have benefited and profited, but they confined themselves to reading the words only.

That is why Ibn Uthaymeen (may Allah have mercy on him) said: In this verse Allah the Exalted censures whoever reads the Book as words without understanding its meanings, and it shows the importance of understanding the Noble Quran and its tafsir.

And Allah the Exalted also says: (Every time it lights [the way] for them, they walk therein). This parable — the water parable, as some of the exegetes called it — Allah the Exalted struck concerning the Noble Quran; that is, the lightning: the light of the Noble Quran and its proof. So every time this lightning — the Quran — lights up, the hypocrites are able to benefit from it, and they walk as far as it has lit for them; so they do benefit from the Noble Quran, but their benefit is little, through the faith they display; with it they deceive the believers outwardly, while in reality they are deceiving themselves. So they walk as far as the Quran lights for them, and through that the movement of life returns to them and they benefit; then when this light goes out through their distance from the Noble Quran, (but when darkness comes over them, they stand [still]), meaning they halt, unable to move and unable to benefit.

And of the contemplation that came to me in this verse: that a person's action is in proportion to his understanding of the Noble Quran; meaning that the more understanding increases, and the wider the tafsir, and the wider the meanings, the reading, and the knowledge gained through tafsir and occupying oneself with it, the wider one's acting upon the Noble Quran becomes, and the better one's way in life becomes, even one's thinking and inclinations. And in proportion to the narrowness of a person's understanding of the Noble Quran and the shortness of his reading in tafsir, his action will be narrow and scant, and narrow will be his understanding, even of life.

And understanding the Noble Quran is an understanding of life; the more one's understanding of the Noble Quran increases, the more a person's understanding increases of himself, of his life, of the people around him, of the Hereafter, and so on.

And among the kinds of branches of the relationship with the Noble Quran: contemplation. But is contemplation possible without understanding? No, understanding is a must; and that is why: the wider it gets — every time it lights for them — the wider a person's understanding of the Quran and the meanings in it gets, not only does his action increase, but Allah the Exalted also opens up for him in his contemplation. So if you find a person who has been opened up to in contemplation, know that he reads, looks into, and listens to the tafsir of the Noble Quran a great deal.

And I come now to taking the Book with strength: when Allah the Exalted raised the mountain — at-Tur — over the Children of Israel to make them afraid, He took the covenant from them, and part of it was: (Take what We have given you with determination); what We have given you of the Torah, what We have given you of the Book: take it with seriousness, zeal, vigor, and resolve to preserve it.

And this resolve and strength — upon what? Upon the branches of this relationship: understanding, memorization, and recitation; take it with resolve, vigor, and zeal, not with slackness and laziness.

When I memorized the Noble Quran — and praise be to Allah — I used to think and assume that once I reached memorization I had finished and was done, but I discovered that memorizing the Quran is half the strength, not all of the strength; it is very important, but it is part of the strength, not all of it.

Then after that I came to know the strength of looking into tafsir and reading in it, and of reading and listening to it a great deal, and that this is perhaps the completion of the second half of the strength. That is, I can say — by way of exaggeration and emphasis —: half the strength is memorization, and the other half is understanding.

And that is why, when someone asked one of the scholars: What should I do after memorizing the Noble Quran — should I occupy myself with the qira'at or with tafsir? He told him: Rather, occupy yourself with tafsir; it takes priority over the qira'at.

And this differs for each person according to his goals, but this is what Allah, Glorified and Exalted, commanded: that a person not occupy himself with the words only; and that is why He censured the People of the Book for having occupied themselves with the words. The qira'at are beautiful and good, but let a person read, even just a little, in the concise and simplified books of tafsir so that he understands; then once he understands, he can set off after that to the ten qira'at and the other sciences of the Noble Quran.

So half the strength is memorization, and the other half of the strength is understanding. And if a person is given the strength of understanding, then — by Allah the Exalted's leave — he is given contemplation and action; contemplation and action are the fruit of these two strengths.

So if a person has been opened up to in contemplation and action, know that he was only opened up to in contemplation because he acted. And I can order the relationship between contemplation and action, saying: action first, then contemplation; for how could he be opened up to in contemplation while he does not act upon what is in the Book?

But action begins from the very first time he reads a letter of the Quran, and every time he is opened up to in understanding, he acts, and all the time he acts upon the Book; there is no day and no hour in which we do not act upon the Book, and no vacation and no break from acting upon the Quran.

Vacations are for worldly work; as for the Quran, it is in every breath and every particle of a person's life, which he lives by the Noble Quran.

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— Shoroog Almehmadi