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My brothers and sisters, Allah blessed us with the greatest resource and the greatest wealth that we can ask for, and that is the wealth of guidance. Guidance.
Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala sent His Kalam, and He mentioned His Kalam, and He called it *Hudan lin-Nas*. He said this is guidance for all of humankind. And then Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala sent His Nabi Sallallahu Alayhi Wa Ala Alihi Wa Sallam, and he called his Nabi, Rahmatan lil-‘Alameen—said he is the mercy to the worlds, mercy to the worlds, Rahmatul Lil Alameen. Now, if you see these two things, there are two ways if you want to show somebody the way to a place; there are two ways. Because one is, you can send them instructions, and these instructions can be in the form of voice, or it can be in the form of a text, or it can be in the form of a drawing or something. This is a map, you can follow it.
But the only problem with that is that it is possible that a person can look at the map and misinterpret some things. It’s possible that he may, you know, misunderstand something which is told to him, and then he takes a long time. But an absolutely surefire, 100% success way is: along with this map, along with the directions, if somebody is sent who knows—so this guide who comes, now the guide is not guessing, the guide knows. Knows, the guide knows the way and the guide guides you. So, you also have the direction of the direction which have been sent, plus you have the guide who then can guide you as to how these directions are to be understood and how they are to be interpreted. And that is the situation of the Qur’an-ul-Kareem and the guide Muhammad Rasulullah ﷺ. So, I remind myself anew that Alhamdulillah, we have received these two things, and after receiving these two things, then therefore, obviously, it is incumbent and it is compulsory on us that we follow this guidance because the purpose of the guidance is for it to be followed.
Now, the reason I am saying this especially is because to remind myself anew, the importance importance of understanding what we are reading in the Qur’an, because unfortunately for us, *us* meaning people here in Southeast Asia, and of course, I mean, my six years of living in America and being the Imam in ISWM and being in contact with many, many, many, Alhamdulillah, may Allah bless them, Muslims, Arab Muslims from Arab countries. Unfortunately, the problem seems to be widespread, including in the Arabian world. And that is that people who read the Quran, they do not understand the Arabic. They don’t understand the Quran in its original language. Even the Arabs, because most of the people today, especially the younger generation, either they speak only English and they don’t speak Arabic at all, or even if they speak Arabic, they speak their colloquial, you know, the ‘Aammiyyah, the colloquial languages that they speak. And they don’t understand the Fusha; they don’t understand the classical Arabic of the Qur’an. The problem with that is that the Qur’an, among the many ways in which the Qur’an al-Karim is a mu’jizah, is a miracle in itself; the language is one of the most powerful ways in which the Qur’an is a mu’jizah, and the way in which the Qur’an al-Kareem is a daleel for Allahﷻ is because of the language. And this is something which the Quran itself mentions very clearly: Allahﷻ says, “Lawajadoo feehi ikhtilafan kathiran.” It would have in it many *ikhtilaafat*, many contradictions and many mistakes. And also in other places, Allahﷻ mentions that the Quran is revealed in the Arabic language. And therefore, the knowledge of the language is so critically important. Literally, simply things like matters of grammar of the Quran. In Surah An-Naml, Allahﷻ mentions… both in Surah An-Naml and also in An-Nahl, Allah Subh’anaHu Wa Ta-A’la mentions the ant and the bee in the feminine gender, and we know that in the ant colonies and bee hives it is only the queen bee and the queen ant which can give directions, which can give commands; all the others are actually slaves—they just follow the direction whatever the direction has been given. They do that; they do not have their own internal independent intelligence and they do not function by themselves. They function as per the directions given by the queen ant or the queen bee, and of course whatever other things Allah has genetically programmed them to do other than that, they do not have independent judgment to do this or that. So and there are many others—I mean I don’t want to go into the details of that—but many, many other signs of the miraculous nature of the Qur’an which are rooted in the grammar of the language.
Now, if you don’t understand the language, all of this will go past. We still believe it is the Kalam of Allahﷻ, Alhamdulillah, and there is still a reward for reading the Qur’an, whether you understand it or not, there is thawab, but I remind myself and you: Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala did not send the Qur’an for thawab. Allah did not send the Qur’an for us to simply read it for thawab and put it down. It is a guide, it’s a book of guidance. It’s a book of how to live our lives.
And it begins with that where Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala in Surah Al-Fatiha, right in the beginning, Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala teaches us to make dua, and He says, “Ihdina siratal mustaqim.” O Allah, guide me to the path of righteousness, the path of the straight path, the path of steadfastness, *Siratal Mustaqim*. And then, therefore, the rest of the Qur’an is the jawab. It is the acceptance of this dua. So in Surah Al-Fatiha, you ask for guidance. We ask, O Allah, “Ihdina Siratal Mustaqim.” What is the *Siratal Mustaqim*? That is the rest of the Qur’an. The rest of the Qur’an is teaching; is what Allah Subh’anaHu Wa Ta-A’la is teaching us. Now I’m not saying that obviously chronologically the way the Quran was revealed was not in this order. Surah Al-‘Alaq came first or rather some of the ayat of Surah Al-Alq, and then probably Surah Al-Muzzammil or something. But the point being that the final version of the Quran which we have, the sequence of the surahs, the way, the tarteeb of the Surahs, which is first, which is second, and so on. This is also from Allah Ta’ala; this is Wahi. Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam did not randomly put the Surahs together. He was guided, he was told, he was commanded to put them in this way. And therefore, when we say that the Surah Al-Fatiha is the first Surah of the Quran, this is true. And if we say that in Surah Al-Fatiha we ask Dua, that Allah, oh Allah, guide me to the path of righteousness, and then therefore what comes thereafter is guidance, Insha’Allah, this is also true. So we ask for the guidance.
Now, having asked for the guidance, what sense does it make that we ask for the guidance and when the guidance comes, we don’t follow the guidance? We do something else. When the guidance comes, we don’t even understand the guidance. Because the guidance is in a language we don’t understand. We don’t make the effort to learn that language. And this is a very, very big historical mistake mistake that we made, and may Allah forgive those who made this mistake in Southeast Asia where we did not give importance to the Arabic language. We used translations, we used Farsi translations, we used Urdu translations in the subcontinent, and then of course similarly in other places in Bangla we did Bangla translations; in Southeast Asia, in Malaysia and so on. We did, you know, Malay translations, Bahasa translations and so on. This was a very, very big mistake, major, major mistake. And because of that mistake, today we have a huge population of people who do not understand Arabic, who do not even make effort to learn Arabic. They think that just reading a translation is sufficient. I remind myself and you that yes, reading a translation is a good thing. We should read. If you don’t know anything, I think it is better than just reading the Qur’an without understanding the meaning at all, because that would be, you know, literally if you think about this: for somebody who does not understand the meaning of the Qur’an, if somebody says “Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen,” and then he says “Sare gama padha nisa,” what is the difference? This is the sound, that is the sound. That’s it, right? Somebody says, “I’m Hafiz Qur’an.” Are you Hafiz Qur’an or are you Hafiz of the sound of the Qur’an?
Hafiz of what? Because you don’t understand what you have made hifz of. And we see this so many times in Tarawih; you have the Hafiz leading the salah, and he makes a mistake and he does not know he has made a mistake. He makes a mistake but he does not know he made a mistake. And then when you correct him—I remember one specific incident which happened where the The Hafiz made a mistake, somebody behind him, I won’t say who, but they corrected him, he made the same mistake, he corrected again, he made the same mistake, finally he went into Ruku, and he finished his salah, and he said, “I’m sorry, I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.” I mean, it’s very sad to see that, and it was a big mistake, it was literally, it was changing the meaning of the ayah, so obviously, the person who’s correcting him, he also can’t keep quiet—he has to say if he because he knows—so the one who knows has to correct the one who does not know. So this is the problem. So now the reason i’m saying this is because it’s so important for us: let us learn Arabic language.
The first and foremost thing to do is to learn Arabic language. Very, very important. There’s no substitute for that. Don’t say “what you see”; after all, no. The problem is if you don’t re—if you do not understand the Arabic, you can never get to the source document. Now, the source document is the Quran. The closest you can get to the Kalam of Allah is by reading somebody’s translation. That translation is not the Kalam of Allah; that is the translation; that is the Kalam of the translator, of the Mutarjim. It is not the Kalam of Allah. And no matter how good the translation is, at the end of the day it is the word of a human being; it is not the word of Allah. So how tragic it is that when we have the word of Allah in our hands, we do not make the effort to learn the language so that we can understand—we can access the word of Allah directly, right? And I can tell you anyone who understands Arabic, you will know this: that the way when you read the Qur’an al-Kareem and you understand the meaning, the effect it has, the kayfiyyat it has on your heart, on your whole body, on your mind, in peace of mind and so on, there is no comparison to that compared to understanding just the or reading just the translation, right? You can read it in English, in Urdu, whichever language you want. There is simply no comparison. I won’t even say the difference between the heavens and the earth—*Zameen Aasmaan ka farq*, *koi muqabla hi nahi hai*—it’s not even a matter of saying *zameen aasmaan ka farq*; *zameen aasmaan ka farq bhi nahi*, *isse bhi badh kar hai*.
Between understanding the Arabic original and reading a translation, no matter how good the translation, so that’s why it’s very, very, very important for us to learn the Arabic language. Let us develop, you know, a love for the Arabic language; love for the Quran Al-Kareem; love the Arabic language because it is a language that Allahﷻ chose to use in his Quran. I won’t even go into all the arguments about after all we speak English and it is not our language and so on. All this is true. Leave that aside. The reason is we learn and we must learn the Arabic language because it is the language of the Quran. Because I want to understand Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala’s word the way he spoke it. The way he said it. In a manner which suits his majesty and grace. And then the same thing applies also to the Ahadith an-Nabawiyyah of Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam where when he spoke, when he said something, this is the Nabi Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam speaking right in many cases in the Ahadith Qudsiyyah and so on—he is literally saying “Allah said this,” right? In the other Ahadith it is his word but it is the word of the Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, and we know that this is also Wahy Ghayr Matluw, which we don’t do tilawat of in the salah but it is still wahi, and therefore to simply leave it aside uh or to read it in a way where the original uh you lose the original—this is definitely not something which we should be thinking about. We ask Allah to help us to learn the Qur’an, to learn the Arabic language, and so that with the the Kalam of Allah will hit our hearts and and thereby it will completely transform our lives.