> The Effects of the Qur'aan upon the Hearts of the People

[Aboo Uthmaan]

The Effects of the Qur'an upon the Hearts of the People
By Shaykh Khalid al-Jasim

The Prophet [sall-Allahu ?alayhi wa sallam] said:

?Allah did not send any Messenger to a people except that He sent him with something through which people would believe in him.?

When Allah [subhanahu wa ta?ala] sends a Messenger, He sends him with a miracle or something that is amazing that people cannot reproduce and that is suitable for that time. If we look at the example of Moosa [?alayhi-sallam], we find that he was sent with a staff that was used for and turned into a snake, since in that time magic was wide spread. If we look to ?Isa [?alayhi-sallam], his time was famous for practicing medicine and finding cures for different diseases, so Allah [subhanahu wa ta?ala] sent him with that ability [by His will] to cure the lepers, the blind and the deaf. One of the greatest miracles that the Prophet [sall-Allahu ?alayhi wa sallam] was sent with is the Qur?an. It is the miracle that will remain until nobody believes in Allah and it is the miracle with which Allah [subhanahu wa ta?ala] challenged the Jinn and Mankind to produce the like thereof. Allah described it as:

?[This is] a Book [the Qur?an] which We have sent down to you, full of blessings that they may ponder over its Verses, and that men of understanding may remember.? [Sad 38:29]

Before the Qur?an was sent, at that time the Prophet [sall-Allahu ?alayhi wa sallam] lived in a time in which the Arabs used to pride themselves on their eloquence and they used to gather in their seasonal markets and recite poems to each other. A poet would come and recite a poem consisting of 100 or 200 lines and people would go home having memorised the entire poem, and they used to take pride in that. Allah [subhanahu wa ta?ala], challenged the Jinn and Mankind, after revealing it, to reproduce anything that is similar or the like of the Qur?an and He challenged them by saying:

?Say: ?If the Mankind and the Jinn?s were together to produce the like of this Qur?an, they could not produce the like thereof, even if they helped one another?.? [Al-Isra 17:88]

In order for us to appreciate and truly understand the greatness of the Qur?an, we need to ponder and reflect over those verses in which Allah challenged the Jinn and Mankind to bring the following:

We have different degrees of that challenge, starting with the verses we just mentioned [above], Allah said that they are not able to bring a whole book that resembles the Qur?an, since they were not able to do it to that degree, Allah [subhanahu wa ta?ala] lessened the challenge and He [subhanahu wa ta?ala] said:

?Say: ?Bring you then ten forged Surah [chapters] like unto it?.? [Hud 11:13]

The challenge was reduced from the whole book to ten chapters like that of the Qur?an. Allah [subhanahu wa ta?ala] then challenged anyone to bring just one chapter like a chapter in the Qur?an, and that the word chapter here is indefinite which from Arabic Grammar implies any chapter, short or long. And then lastly Allah [subhanahu wa ta?ala] said:

?...then produce a Surah [chapter] of the like thereof...? [Al-Baqarah 2:23]

Meaning that since you have not been able to bring anything like that of the above then something close to any chapter, but nobody from mankind or from the Jinn was or has been able to achieve this. Does that not prove beyond any doubt that this Book is indeed very great because nobody has been able to meet the challenge? This also proves to us that this Book, as Allah [subhanahu wa ta?ala] said, is from the Revelation of the One Who is Wise and the One who is All-Aware of everything.

The greatness of the Qur?an is shown by the fact that even Non-Muslims may [come to] realise its greatness, even though they may not understand the meaning of the Qur?an they may still find its greatness. Unfortunately, as Muslims, sometimes we may not appreciate the greatness of the Qur?an.

When the Prophet [sall-Allahu ?alayhi wa sallam] was in Makkah, the people gave him an offer, they said: ?Oh Muhammad, if you want wealth or money we will give it to you, if you want women we will marry you to the most beautiful women of the Arabs, and if you want to rule us, we will give you the kingdom, just leave what you are doing and stop calling the people to Allah [to tawheed].? After which the Prophet [sall-Allahu ?alayhi wa sallam] said: ?Have you finished?? And this shows the manners of the Prophet [sall-Allahu ?alayhi wa sallam] to a Non-Muslim who is calling him to disbelief, he did not interrupt him until he finished and asked him: ?Have you finished?, and the man stated that he had. Then the Prophet [sall-Allahu ?alayhi wa sallam], started reciting Surah Fussilat in reply to his offer, and he kept reciting until he reached the saying of Allah:

?But if they turn away, then say [O Muhammad]: ?I have warned you of a Sa?iqah [a destructive awful cry, torment, hit, a thunderbolt] like the Sa?iqah which overtook 'Ad and Thamood [people]?.? [Fussilat 41:13]

When he [sall-Allahu ?alayhi wa sallam] reached the above verse, the man who had come to negotiate and make an offer, he said: ?Enough O Muhammad, enough O Muhammad.? He could understand the meaning [of what was being recited] and he became affected by it.

Another example is the story of Jibrayah Muta?im. Before [his reversion to] Islam the disbelievers of Makkah waged a public relations war on the Prophet [sall-Allahu ?alayhi wa sallam]. They used to tell everyone not to listen to him and spread propaganda claiming that he [sall-Allahu ?alayhi wa sallam] was magician, a poet etc., despite this, Jibrayah Muta?im went to see the Prophet [sall-Allahu ?alayhi wa sallam] and he saw him praying near the Ka?bah. The Prophet [sall-Allahu ?alayhi wa sallam] [after Maghrib] was reciting Surah at-Tur, and he said:

?When he reached:

?Were they created by nothing, or were they themselves the creators?? [At-Tur 52:35]

I thought my heart was going to fly out of my body.?

One of my friends was studying in America. He was travelling on a bus and he was reciting Surah ad-Dhua. An American woman heard him, approached him and asked: ?What are you reciting?? He said: ?This is the Book of Allah, I am reciting the Qur?an.? She said: ?This attracted me can you recite it again?? So the brother started to recite Surah Zalzalah, the women said: ?This is not what you recited before but it is still nice, could you give me something that I can benefit from, like a tape or something I can listen to?? The brother went and he forgot, but when she saw him again [on the bus] she reminded him: ?Remember you promised to give me a tape.? He said: ?I searched through my sound library but I only found a tape by Shaykh Ali ?Abdullah Jabir, which was recorded in a studio as opposed to the Masjid in Makkah. There is a difference because the recitation in the Masjid in Makkah is generally more beautiful, but insha?Allah she will be affected by it!? He gave her the tape. After three months they met again and she said: ?There has not been a single night from that time until now except that every single night I listened to this tape, and when I tried to go to bed without this tape I couldn?t do it.? This woman didn?t even know the difference between Alif, Ba and Ta, so how comes it affects the Non-Muslims and many times it does not affect us, the Muslims?

Imam al-Qurtubi [rahimahullah] related a story in which he said: In that time it was the custom of the rulers to gather yearly and to have meetings. They would invite the scholars and the people of knowledge so that the meetings would be full of knowledge. There was a man in that gathering who could speak Arabic well and it was said to the ruler that this individual is not actually a Muslim, he is a Jew. He [the ruler] was surprised and so he said to him: ?Why don?t you become a Muslim and I will give you something to strengthen you in Islam, like some money or something material?? But he [the Jewish man] said: ?This is the religion of my forefathers and so I will stay on it.? When the next years gathering was taking place, the same man was in the gathering and so the ruler looked at him and said: ?Are you the same man I saw last year?? It appeared that the man had embraced Islam, and so he asked him: ?Have you embraced Islam?? He said: ?Yes!? The ruler asked him: ?What made you embrace Islam?? He replied: ?I am a man with very good handwriting so I decided to try the three books, the Torah, the Bible and the Qur?an, to see which one of them is the truth. I copied three copies of the Torah with my nice handwriting and I added things to it from myself and I took some things out of it myself, and I took it to the market and decided to sell it, and the people bought all of them from me, so I knew that the religion [of Judaism] is false.? He did the same with the Bible and the same happened, he did the same with the Qur?an and nobody bought a single copy from him because they realised that this was not the true Qur?an, he said: ?Then I knew that this is the true religion and I embraced Islam.?

A great scholar was at that gathering by the name and when he heard the story [of the man?s reversion]; he addressed the ruler and informed him that there is what confirms to what he has just said in the Qur?an, in Surah al-Ma?idah. Allah [subhanahu wa ta?ala] says:

?And the rabbis and the priests [too judged the Jews by the Taurat [Torah] after those Prophets] for to them was entrusted the protection of Allah?s Book, and they were witnesses thereto. Therefore fear not men but fear Me [O Jews] and sell not My Verses for a miserable price.? [Al-Ma?idah 5:44]

And:

?It is We Who have sent down the Dhikr [i.e. the Qur?an] and surely, We will guard it [from corruption].? [Al-Hijr 15:9]

So Allah took it upon himself to protect the Qur?an and with everything that has been mentioned, unfortunately, many of us have abandoned the Qur?an and we do not treat it seriously, nor do not study it. The Messenger [sall-Allahu ?alayhi wa sallam] said:

?Indeed my people have abandoned this Qur?an.?

Abandoning the Qur?an can take different shapes and forms:

First of all, not reciting it regularly, maybe we do not recite the Qur?an for a few days in a row; perhaps we do not even recite the Qur?an for several weeks.
Secondly, we may recite it but we may not reflect on what we recite.
Thirdly, we may leave acting upon the Qur?an, what it makes Halal and what it makes Haram.
Fourthly, we may abandon treating one another with the Qur?an.
Finally, we may even abandon taking the Qur?an as our judge between us.

So if you have abandoned the Qur?an, then which type of abandonment have you fallen into? We must be very careful not to fall into that du?a in which the Prophet [sall-Allahu ?alayhi wa sallam] said to Allah that his people have abandoned the Qur?an.

There is a great hadeeth in the Musnad of Imam Ahmad [rahimahullah] stating that the Qur?an is the accepted intercessor, meaning that when it defends someone and intercedes for that person, Allah accepts its intercession, and a defender who is believed, when the Qur?an defends someone Allah believes and accepts their defence. Whoever puts the Qur?an in front of him, the Qur?an will take him to Paradise, and whoever puts the Qur?an behind him, the Qur?an will take him to the Fire.

Imam Muslim [rahimahullah] narrated in his book as part of a long hadeeth a saying of the Prophet [sall-Allahu ?alayhi wa sallam] in which he said:

?The Qur?an is either a proof for you or against you.?

There is no third choice, the Qur?an will either testify for you and will be proof for you or it will be against you, you have to think which way it is going to testify, you have to look at yourself and decide in all honesty, are you really in the group that will be protected and defended by the Qur?an. That is why we must pay attention to the Qur?an by studying it, memorising it and understanding its meanings, because the Qur?an is a treasure that we must learn and discover its knowledge.

?Umar ibn al-Khattab [radee Allahu ?anhu] appointed as a governor of an area, a person who was set free at that very moment, who used to be a slave and he was set free, and he appointed him as a governor straight after that, some people said to him: ?Why are you appointing this man to be a governor when we have other Companions?? ?Umar replied to them and said: ?Keep quiet because I heard the Messenger of Allah [sall-Allahu ?alayhi wa sallam] say: ?Indeed Allah raises the status of some people through this Book and lowers the status of some other people through this Book?.? This man [the freed slave] has memorised the Qur?an and this is what made ?Umar respect him and raise his status; and that is why a person who memorises the Qur?an, his status will be raised in this world and he will be mentioned with good things in this world and in the Hereafter.

And finally, I want to advise all of my brothers and sisters to be keen and eager and to put effort into memorising the Qur?an, they should not be prevented by age or things that may occupy them because learning and memorising the Qur?an little by little all the time is better than something you do a lot but doesn?t last, you must have that intention in your heart that you want to memorise the Qur?an, and I indeed hope for every single person who truly intends to memorise the Qur?an and does what he or she can to do so. Even if they die and they have not memorised the Qur?an, I hope sincerely that Allah will treat them on the Day of Judgement as if they have memorised the Qur?an and that is why we must expend extra effort to try and memorise, learn and understand this Qur?an, because one day the Qur?an will be taken away from the earth to the extent that not a single verse will remain.

Taken from: http://islamictexts.wordpress.com/20...of-the-people/

[Assad]

MashAllah very motivating article. I have seen that Quran has just became a kinda lost book for Muslims. They hardly refer to it. I was once the same but I deeply had interest in Quran but I didnt knew how to read the Urdu translation which was at home. I felt shy however to ask parents to do that for me.

until I found the English translations , It changed my life. Gave it a new meaning, a new direction , May Allah guide us all towards His Book.

[Aboo Uthmaan]

Originally Posted by Acid

:salam

MashAllah very motivating article. I have seen that Quran has just became a kinda lost book for Muslims. They hardly refer to it. I was once the same but I deeply had interest in Quran but I didnt knew how to read the Urdu translation which was at home. I felt shy however to ask parents to do that for me.

until I found the English translations , It changed my life. Gave it a new meaning, a new direction , May Allah guide us all towards His Book.

Maha'Allah brother, ameen!