AsSalamu Alaikum and welcome to Islam and focus. Today’s program is the 49th. In this series sources have a plan and it is the ninth on the arrangement of the Quran.
In the last three programs we have been examining the order or the arrangement or the different chapters or the surahs within the Quran. And tonight’s program is a continuation of this aspect or the study of the crime.
I’m your host, the sharper image and you here with me as usual Dr. Jamal Badawi from St. Mary’s University. So I want to come back could you
could you possibly pick up where we left last week? Okay.
The last thing we discussed in the previous program was chapter 93.
And we indicated that the end of that chapter
addresses Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him, and ask him to recount the favours of Allah on him, how he was an orphan, and Allah provided for him and how he guided him to the path of Islam.
That ending that we finished last week is connected with the beginning of chapters 94. And I’m not sure. And the strange thing about it, it seems to be continuing to address the Prophet also, just as it says, lm Nazca, didn’t Allah find you an orphan and he provided for you. It also addresses him in the very same way also, indicating how Allah expanded him, you know, his chest, which is a metaphor of, you know, cleaning his hearts, it ends also
that he should, whenever he is free from the worldly affairs that he should concentrate
on the worship of Allah. And by the way, in that Surah 94, we find that it was revealed at the time of big tribulations and difficulties in Mecca where he and his companions were persecuted. So it’s sort of assures him
that there will always be good times after all this suffering, there will be victory that is connected also with the beginning of chapter 95,
in which it shows or perhaps, let’s say Sue’s the prophet and assure him and indicate to him that this attitude of rejection that he faces among the the idol worshipers is the same kind of attitude of many human beings. And it says simply that the human being is an
endless
except, of course for those who are believers. So again, sort of indicate to him that this is a general attitude of many people. Chapter 95 ends
indicating to the Prophet that Allah is the best of judges. So it is with one of the divine attributes. And that is very much connected with the beginning of 96. Because it deals with another divine attribute, that is Allah as creator, the creator who taught the human how, you know, to read and write
96 ends
by addressing the Prophet Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him again that he should not be disheartened with those who try to divert him from the true face of submission to the One God Allah and addresses him that he should really get close to Allah to prostrate.
That is connected also with the beginning of 97 because as it is well known, the prayer in Islam involves recitation also of the Quran. Furthermore, to get close to Allah, one has to recite his word that is the Quran. So that’s why 97 actually talks about how the Quran was revealed to Prophet Muhammad for the first time in a blessed night that is the night of college or power and excellence.
The ending of that chapter emphasize how blessed that night is, which is connected with the beginning of 98 since it is all with the Quran talking about
The Quran also has a clear evidence that came to the, to the unbelievers.
Towards the end of that chapter, or the last few verses, make a contrast between the attitudes of the unbelievers and their punishment. And on the other hand, of course, the believers and the kind of reward they expect from Allah, that is something in this life and most More importantly, of course, in the hereafter.
That connects actually, with chapters 99, because, as you mentioned before, 98 contrast belief and unbelief and the destiny of both, and that destiny is definitely determined on the basis of the record of their deeds in this life. That’s why sort of called as antenna, it talks about how the earth and the day of judgment will recount and tell it stories and secrets that is witness give witness against those who lived on that Earth, which is the very reason for that contrast or punishment or reward.
That 99 ends indicating that in the Day of Judgment, there will be detailed reckoning, that a person who is doing even the atoms, weight of goodness will be rewarded accordingly, the one who does an atom’s weight of evil will also be punished for it.
That is very related to the beginning of the 100 chapters of the Quran, indicating how great the human is, that is after it reminds us with the kind of reckoning you will face in the Day of Judgment, it indicates to us that this attitude of unbelief, in fact, are ungratefulness is something which is not very positive in human nature that one has to really resist that temptation. And it ends up talking about the hour, that is the day of judgment. Well, so far, we have covered
100 chapters in the Quran. I don’t know if you think that to be a good idea to continue with the rest of it. We have taken so much time already in the Well, I think that in order to get a full picture and for the sake of completeness, that will take this time to complete the rest of the chapter since you’ve gone through the trouble of making the charts
if we could possibly.
Okay, well,
mini ones are quite short ones, in very, very short chapters.
Going to the 101, you might recall that the the 100 chapter ended
the last verse dealing with the hours the Day of Judgment. And that is also precisely the beginning also of chapter 101, because it also talks about our see the connection, it ends dealing with the penalty of the unbelievers. In the Day of Judgment. One or two begins, as if to explain why some people are punished in the Day of Judgment, because it begins with ad hoc with the castle that is, you became so obsessed your humans with multiplying that’s multiplying your wealth and power and so on. And this is to the point that you forgot even that someday you will visit or you would when in the in the grave that you forget about the your creators
one or two ends, clarifying that in the Day of Judgment, all of us will be held accountable, that is lol may 8, and nine will be held accountable for everything,
which again is connected with 103.
Because it says or indicate that this accountability actually will mean that everybody will be in the final loss. And that they ultimately unless or except for those who are believers and do good deeds and exhort each other for goodness and exhort each other for patients sort of the last. So it talks about finalists and talking about the final win
that final win
after it is it has made this contract or if it is this or if this is the case, and these are the criteria for final win or final loss, then it comes back to warn or to give us the lesson.
You know emanating from this in the beginning of chapter one or four at home as if it warns those who
you know collect all kinds of wealth and thinking that they will live on this earth forever. It talks at the end about their penalty in the hereafter. Whereas, Chapter 105 begins dealing also
The scene of penalty of unbelievers, but he is in this life.
In fact, it talks about the so called the people of the elephant relating to the story when abraha, the ruler of Ethiopia at that time, or Abyssinia, as it was known, brought a big army with elephants to try to destroy the Kaaba that was the same year in which Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him was was born. But again, that attitude on that ruler, reflected this pride with wealth, and military minds and so on. And we all know that they were destroyed when they tried to destroy the Kaaba, and the Cabal was protected. It ends. That’s 105, mentioning how the Kaaba was protected, despite of the stance of this army that came to destroy it,
which is very much connected with 106. Because as a result of the protection of the Kaaba and the defeat of the Abrahamic army, the most important line life of kurush, the trade was protected because people were afraid to attack them anymore.
And that’s the beginning of 106, that God has provided this blessing or this safeguard for the trade of price, a 106 ends,
reminding the parasite to be grateful to Allah, the creator who provided them with this blessing. And that is in contrast to the attitude of ungratefulness, which appears in chapter 107. On one hand, it ends with gratefulness. The other one begins with the contrast, which is a unique style, you will find that the variety of ways in which the sutras are connected, but still, you can see the links quite clearly, and describes the people who are miserly who are not helping those who are poor and in need and so on. At the end, also, it specifies the attitude of the person who’s miserly.
That contrasts with the beginning of chapter 108, which talks about generosity.
Because it addresses Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him that you know that Allah has given you plenty of blessings, and talks, again, addresses him that he should can the animals that is in the especially in the face of sacrifice and distribute the food or the meat to the needy. So which is the opposite of what’s happens in the previous chapter.
The one hour it ends, by defending the profit. Again, some of the insulting statements that were made by his haters, and that actually relate to our little story that Prophet Muhammad had several daughters, but he had only one son, his name was Ibrahim. And when his son died, many of the haters of the Prophet said that the Prophet was cut off. By that they mean that he will have no men of strength anymore. So he’s cut off is not important, which of course, is a statement reflecting the hate of the Prophet which comes only from unbelievers.
Chapter 109 speaks also about unbelievers, but this time indicating to them that there is no compromise on the matter of faith, that the prophet will not worship what they worship, and they will not going to worship again. The one true God, Allah, it ends when it says lakum Dino Cambodia deem that there is no compromise, if you follow the true path, fine, if not, lacantina come unto you is your religion unto mine is mine.
that relates again to chapter 111. And must,
because a result of no compromise on faith, and putting our faith in the creator rather than, you know, compromising and principles to satisfy other people, that you will get victory. And that actually begins either Janice realized was that when the victory of Allah comes, and by the way, that surah chapter 110 was one of the last chapters that were revealed
in Medina.
And, strangely enough, it is not necessarily in succession chronologically to the previous chapter.
So it’s very strange. And this is a miraculous aspect of the Quran, how different chapters were revealed at different times. But when the final arrangements were made, which is not chronological by by chronology of Revelation, as indicated before, is still the connection between the end and the beginning of each surah continues. And this is rather amazing with the years sometimes separating one chapter from the from the other 110 ends,
sub 100 a bit that is praise,
your loads or praise, grace.
As of your load,
and I get again connects with chapter 111. Because it talks in contrast about the attitudes of projectors, that is the anchor of the Prophet, one of his anchors known as Abu lahab, when he
actually almost swore at the Prophet when he gathered people for the first time to declares the mission that he was entrusted with. And then he, you know, he almost swore at him and the Koran came to defend the Prophet again.
Chapter 111 shows the penalty for this unbelievers, the uncle of the prophets of Allah and his wife, because they both used to hurt the Prophet.
Now, coming now to the last three short
chapters in the Quran, having presented as you might have noticed, from the beginning of this discussion, that one basic theme in the Holy Quran is to show these various models of human behavior, the attitudes of belief and unbelief, the consequences of each, and so on. And then it comes in the last few chapters to more or less like size up the secret of success and Felicity in this life, and the hereafter, beginning with 112, which talk about the real salvation and how can the person avoid the penalty in the Hereafter, by sticking steadfastly to the the concept of pure, pristine, immaculate oneness of Allah, not just the term monotheism, it’s much more than the term of
monotheism even can convey to him the oneness of Allah. It ends that’s 112 by emphasizing some of the most important divine attributes of the Creator, that he begets not, nor was he the captain, and there is nothing whatsoever that is comparable unto him, upholding the purity of monotheism.
Now, if this is the Lord, and if that or these are his divine attributes, then it follows that He alone is the one who has the control on this universe, and He alone is the one that we should seek His protection and seek refuge in Him. And that connects very beautifully with the remaining two chapters. The first one 113, talks in general, about seeking refuge and protection of Allah against all kinds of dangers, it ends, dealing with the seeking protection of Allah against envy, and envy, of course, in the negative sense, jealous, jealousy, fuel.
Chapter 114 continues also with this prayers, are seeking refuge in Allah for our brokenness as the Lord of mankind. And notice here by the way, it is seeking protection of the lord of mankind, which connects with the evils that are committed by people because in the previous chapter 113,
the third the person is thought, to seek refuge in Allah from all kinds of things, whether even that comes from natural phenomena, or even that comes from people. The 114 deals specifically with a lot as the Lord of all mankind. And it ends again, taking refuge in Him from all evil, either by Genet committed by Jin, gi n, which is a different level of creatures, unseen creature, or
by human beings. And in both of these last two chapters, the address is called, it says, say, say, out of happiness, I seek refuge in the lord of mankind.
So this is basically the end of the
well over the last three programs, we’ve had a beautiful resume of arrangements within the Quran. And as mentioned before, this very important body of knowledge is really unaware many Muslims are unaware of this, although it’s unfair now to ask you to put all this together in a few minutes, I’m still going to ask you to maybe make a quick summary. Okay, if we really make a quick
in the last minute programs, the basic emphasis really was to examine one aspect of the authenticity of the Quran whether the Quran has reached us in exactly the same way it was revealed to Prophet Mohammed or not, but more specifically, it dealt with the issue of arrangement of the Quran.
In dealing with the arrangement of the Quran, the discussion was divided basically along two areas. First, we try to discuss briefly the connection or the arrangement of the various
versus within each chapter, eternally. And again, we have seen that there’s absolutely no difference of opinion that the various verses of each chapters are exactly the same as directed by Prophet Muhammad, who in turn, was directed by the engine of revelation that this is the place where the various verses should be there. And trying to emphasize the analytical approach. We looked at that from the standpoint of historical evidence, textual evidence and other related evidence. And there’s that left absolutely no difficulty whatsoever, accepting the orders of versus today as they were released to the profit 1400 years ago.
And then the other aspect that we examined in the last few problems about maybe three or four programs, is the arrangement of the various chapters even within the Quran itself. And we indicated that the most common and the strongest opinion really is that even the sort of the chapters themselves are arranged the way the Prophet directed the companions to place them, which is not necessarily the chronological order of revelation for those sources.
However, I should indicate at this point that as far as the connection between the various verses in the chapters, as indicated earlier, there’s no problem whatsoever. There’s unanimity and accepting that among Muslim scholars.
As far as the connection between the chapters, there are some who might be less enthusiastic about this kind of analysis that we’ve we’ve gone through.
One contemporary scholar, for example, Dr. Sophy Asada, we quoted him before, he’s the author of a very scholarly work called dermal Quran or sciences of the Quran,
even criticized the acidity,
when he said that sometimes when he tries to connect different sewers, I’m not talking about beginning and end just generally connecting one surah with the other, he might just go on seeking any
word in any part of the sorta that seems to fit the second sort of make the connection, he might have been a little bit over critical and that but in any case,
the point that even critics like Dr. assala indicated is that it makes more sense, in fact, to examine the link between the end of one chapter and the beginning of the following chapter. And this is basically really what we tried to do, even though we did expose the viewers also to the other arguments. But we emphasized also this beginning and ending of the various chapters,
I should make an clarification or repeat again, something that was mentioned before, that there is a very important work that deals with this particular issue of connection, which I haven’t seen, but I read about it, because it’s still in manuscript form, by vorhandene, and pakai, which is in the museum or the Public Library, in Egypt, in the prison, well preserved manuscripts. And I hoped it would be published very soon, it might have been able to do a better job if I had access to this. That’s why to not avoid responsibility. I mentioned before that some of the things that has been presented here reflect my humble reflections, not to claim that this is the final word or any
anything close to that, but hoping that this might be a kind of stimulus for further discussions and
additional comments that I’d like to hear.
But I hope, however, that this kind of discussion might answer,
a basic question, who determined the order the orders of the Quran, both in terms of verses and saw it as a question that many orientalist have been raising, without carefully examining available evidence? Yes, I’m, I’m sure that it will be a reference to people who wish to study further in this regard. Now, let me ask another related question. When one offers the cron there is a number two different sources, but one also finds that there is a name attached to to the different source. What is the origin of this? Okay, well, it was the custom of Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him to refer to the chapters of the Quran by their name.
You might ask here, why is it in here refers to it by numbers. But again, as mentioned before, the final orders of the Quran in terms of the numbers that we see from number one to 100
First Team
was only completed when the entire duration of the forum was completed because they did not are the verses of the Quran or the various chapters or sources were not revealed in the same order that you find them in the Quran.
Which means that at any particular time, there were more than one incomplete,
quote unquote, chapters, if you will. And as time goes on, during the years, maybe some quote unquote chapters were revealed in the middle while other chapters have not been completed yet. So it has a different style altogether of Revelation, which make it impossible really, to say that this is number one, because maybe the Prophet himself didn’t know that this would be the first surah. And the final arrangement, this came through the direction of the engine of Revelation. So of course, the more practical thing really would, would be to refer to, or to give a title, or name to each of the sutras, or chapters in the Quran.
This name normally has something to do with the subject matters of the soul that has to relate to the source, of course, as surah or chapter may contain a number of topics or subtopics. But still, there is some basic themes there. And there’s always some connection between the title and the contents of the sorter. Let me give you just a few examples of the titles and how they connect. For example, the second chapter of the Quran is called Al Baqarah. We’re literally speaking the heifers. Why, because in that chapter, we find that it tells the story of Prophet Moses peace be upon him, and how he ordered his people that are conveying the message or Command of Allah, that Allah
commands you to kill or to slaughter heifer, and then it shows that attitude towards that particular comment. So that’s why it’s mentioned there. The second, the not the second, I should say the third chapter of the Quran is called Anna amaranth. Literally, the family, or descendants of Omron a Mr. n. Why? Well, because in that chapter, there is mentioned
the family of amaranth, from whose descent came, Mary, the mother of Prophet Jesus peace be upon him, where there is mentioned there about
yahia and zaccaria. That’s john the baptist and his father is the courier who belong also to the same family.
The fourth chapter of the Quran is called Anissa, or women.
Because it deals with various aspects about the position of woman in Islam and how she’s created from the same soul as the human, in addition to some of the regulations developed, you know, to regulate family life in Islam, and to protect its integrity and cohesiveness. You can go and sign on elders, you can just to be brief. Let me jump to chapter 19, for example, an important one, and it’s called Marian literally married, because it talks about the story of Mary, the mother of Prophet Jesus peace be upon him, the miraculous birth of Jesus and his life. And his mission as presented in the Quran.
I should add here is that sometimes, a chapters of the Quran or surah may have more than one name, but it’s always known and easily identifiable. For example, the very first chapter in the Quran is called sometimes Al Fatiha, that is the opening. Sometimes it’s called Omen Quran, the mother of the Quran, sometimes it’s called 100 because it begins with the term at Hamden network, Praise be to Allah. This all helps to identify, like I said, help to identify the various chapters before the completion of the revelation of the Quran. Well, thank you very much. Last week, I just completed the ninth and the last on the arrangements of the Quran. Next week, inshallah we will start a new
topic. Thank you all for being with us. From all of us here in Islam focus Assalamu alaikum
