Website: www.aaiil.uk
Heart-melting
power of the Quran
Friday
Khutba by Dr Zahid Aziz,
for Lahore
Ahmadiyya UK, 14 October 2022
“If We had sent down this Quran on a mountain, you
would certainly have seen it falling down, splitting apart because of the
fear of Allah. And We set forth these parables to people that they may
reflect.” — ch. 59: Al-Hashr, v. 21 |
لَوۡ
اَنۡزَلۡنَا
ہٰذَا
الۡقُرۡاٰنَ
عَلٰی
جَبَلٍ
لَّرَاَیۡتَہٗ
خَاشِعًا
مُّتَصَدِّعًا
مِّنۡ
خَشۡیَۃِ
اللّٰہِ ؕ وَ
تِلۡکَ الۡاَمۡثَالُ
نَضۡرِبُہَا
لِلنَّاسِ لَعَلَّہُمۡ
یَتَفَکَّرُوۡنَ
﴿۲۱﴾ |
“And if there could be a Quran with which the
mountains were made to pass away, or the earth were split apart, or the dead
were made to speak — indeed, the commandment is wholly Allah’s.” — ch. 13, Al-Ra‘d,
v. 31 |
وَ لَوۡ اَنَّ
قُرۡاٰنًا
سُیِّرَتۡ
بِہِ
الۡجِبَالُ
اَوۡ
قُطِّعَتۡ
بِہِ
الۡاَرۡضُ
اَوۡ کُلِّمَ
بِہِ
الۡمَوۡتٰی
ؕ بَلۡ
لِّلّٰہِ
الۡاَمۡرُ
جَمِیۡعًا ؕ |
In these verses, by “mountains” are
meant people who are hard set in their ways and beliefs, and when truth is
placed before them, and preached around about them they stand in its way like
mountains. The first verse indicates that such stubborn opponents of Islam will
themselves bow down before the power of the Quran. The only force they will be
facing would be that of the Quran, and not any physical force. In explaining
the meaning of this verse, the Founder of the Ahmadiyya Movement, Hazrat Mirza
Ghulam Ahmad writes that for a person to be accepted by Allah and to love Allah
he must give up all pride and arrogance and thinking of himself as high and
mighty, like a mountain falling to the ground. And “splitting apart” of the
mountain means that, like a structure or building which is reduced to rubble,
he must break his previous wrong pattern of behaviour which identified his
personality. The second verse indicates that Allah can make the Quran move
mountains out of its way, meaning the opponents of Islam, make it open their
hearts, which is the meaning of splitting the earth, and give life to the
spiritually dead.
In this khutba
I will go through some events which occurred during the life of the Holy
Prophet Muhammad and which show the effect of the Quran on people. The Holy
Prophet once mentioned that a time will come when knowledge, meaning the
knowledge of the Quran, will be taken away from people. One of the Companions
was surprised and said: “How could it disappear from us when we read the Quran
and teach it to our women and children?” His question shows that it was a
common, daily practice in the generation of the Companions to read the Quran
and to teach it, not only to men, but also to women and children. In other
words, the Quran was taught to every Muslim, male or female, young or old. The
Holy Prophet replied to that Companion that the Jews and the Christians still
have their scriptures but they do not benefit from them (Tirmidhi, hadith 2653).
So when he had said that knowledge of the Quran will disappear he did not mean
that the Quran would be lost — people would still possess the Quran — but they would
not be deriving any benefit from its knowledge. It is reported in another
hadith that a woman Companion said that she memorised Surah
Qāf (ch. 50) of the Quran by just hearing the Holy Prophet recite it
during every Friday khutba over a period of one or two years (Sahih
Muslim, hadith 872, 873). This again shows that women were also keen to learn
the Quran.
Another
incident is as follows. When Muslims were being persecuted by the Quraish at
Makkah before the Hijra, and emigrating to Abyssinia (modern day
Ethiopia), Hazrat Abu Bakr decided to emigrate also. Just after leaving, he met
a man called Ibn Ad-Daghnah who was the chief of another tribe. He asked Hazrat
Abu Bakr where he was going, and Hazrat Abu Bakr replied: “My people have turned me out and I
would like to travel in the earth and worship my Lord”. Ibn
Ad-Daghnah told Hazrat Abu Bakr that a man like him, who was so charitable and helped
other people so much, should not leave, nor should he be turned out. So he took
Hazrat Abu Bakr back to Makkah and told the Quraish leaders that a man of Abu
Bakr’s qualities should not have to leave Makkah. The Quraish leaders accepted
that he could stay at Makkah as someone living under the protection of Ibn
Ad-Daghnah, but they imposed the condition that if he wants to pray and recite
the Quran he must do so only inside his house, and not do it publicly, because, they
said: “we fear that our sons and our women might be tempted by it”. Hazrat Abu
Bakr agreed to that condition and did not pray or recite the Quran outside his
house. Later on, he built a mosque in
the courtyard of his house and started saying his prayers and reciting the
Quran there. He could now be heard outside. Since he used to start weeping when
reciting the Quran, the women and youngsters of the Quraish passing by would
gather and look at him. The Quraish complained to Ibn
Ad-Daghnah that Hazrat Abu Bakr was breaking the terms of the agreement which required
that he could only say his prayers and recite the Quran inside his house. They
told him that they were worried about their youngsters and their women falling
under the spell of the Quran. So he should go and tell Hazrat Abu Bakr to
either stick to the agreement or to revoke the protection of Ibn Ad-Daghnah
over him. When Ibn Ad-Daghnah conveyed this to Hazrat Abu Bakr, he said to Ibn
Ad-Daghnah: “I revoke your protection and I am satisfied with Allah’s
protection”. Just shortly after that, the Holy Prophet was permitted by Allah
to perform the Hijra and leave Makkah, and Hazrat Abu Bakr went with
him. What this incident shows is that the Quraish leaders were afraid that
their youngsters and their women would be influenced by listening to the Quran
and also seeing the effect it had on Hazrat Abu Bakr of making his heart melt.
You
will all have heard the well-known incident that the Quraish leaders offered
the Holy Prophet certain worldly temptations if he would agree to stop his
preaching of the oneness of God. One of their chiefs, ‘Utbah ibn Rabī‘ah,
said to them: “I will go
to Muhammad and make some proposals to him which if he accepts, we will give
him whatever he wants, and he will leave us in peace?” He went to the Holy
Prophet and said: “If what you want is money we will gather it for you out of our
property so that you may be the richest of us; if you want honour, we will make
you our chief so that no one can decide anything except you; if you want kingship,
we will make you king. If this ghost which comes to you [meaning the angel
Gabriel], which you see, is such that you cannot get rid of him, we will find a
physician for you, and exhaust our means in getting you cured, because it often
happens that a familiar spirit gets possession of a man until he can be cured
of it.” The Holy Prophet heard his offer patiently and then read to him the
beginning of ch. 41 of the Quran which is called Ḥā Mīm.
‘Utbah listened attentively till the Holy Prophet finished with a prostration
at the end of verse 37. The Holy Prophet then said to him: “You have now heard
this. What you now do is up to you.”
When ‘Utbah returned to the Quraish
chiefs they noticed that his expression had completely altered, and they asked
him what had happened. He said that he had heard words such as he had never
heard before, which were neither poetry, spells, nor witchcraft. “Take my
advice and do as I do. Leave this man entirely alone for, by God, the words
which I have heard will achieve great importance. If other Arab tribes kill
him, then others will have rid you of him; if he is successful over the other Arabs
tribes his rulership will be your rulership, his power will be your power, and
you will be prosperous through him.” They told him that he had fallen under the
magic spell of Muhammad. He answered: “You have my opinion, you must do what
you think fit.” Hearing the Quran made such a deep impression on ‘Utbah that he
gave the Quraish chiefs the advice to leave the Holy Prophet alone to get on
with his mission. He returned such a changed man that the Quraish chiefs said
he had fallen under the Holy Prophet’s magic spell.
Then
there is the well-known event of the conversion of Hazrat Umar to Islam. He was
originally a stern opponent of Islam. He was also of a very harsh nature. His
sister, whose name was also Fatima, and her husband Sa‘īd ibn Zaid, became
Muslims and concealed this fact from Umar. A man called Khabbāb often used
to come to Fatima to read the Quran to her. Again, we see from this that women
were as much interested to learn the Quran as men were. One day Umar heard that
the Holy Prophet Muhammad with forty of his Companions, including women, were
gathered in a house. He decided to go there and kill the Holy Prophet. He said:
“Muhammad has split up our tribe, mocked our customs and insulted our religion
and their gods, so I am going to kill him.” But someone told him: Check your
own family first, your sister and her husband have become Muslims. So he went
to see his sister and her husband. Khabbāb was there teaching them Surah
Ṭā Hā (ch. 20 of the Quran) from some written pages.
Hearing that Umar was approaching, Khabbāb hid in another room and Fatima
hid the pages under her thigh. But Umar had heard the sound of the reading. He
was furious and grabbed her husband. When Fatima tried to defend him, he struck
her as well, and she was hurt. She then admitted that they were Muslims and
will remain Muslims no matter what he does to them. Umar saw that she was
bleeding and was sorry for his action. He then said: “Give me this page which I heard you
reading so that I may see what it is which Muhammad has brought.” Reading it,
he said: “This is a fine and noble talk.” His enmity to Islam turned
into devotion for Islam, and his hatred was changed into admiration just by
reading those few verses. Then Khabbāb came out of hiding and told Hazrat Umar
that last night the Holy Prophet had prayed to Allah that may Islam be
strengthened by the conversion of a certain person or by the conversion of
Umar.
Again we see here how a mountain, a
proud and haughty man, crumbled and split into pieces when confronted by the
Quran, and we also see the crucial role a woman played, who had accepted the
truth earlier than him, in his acceptance of Islam. Let us pray that the words
of the Quran bring down more mountains and make them humble human beings, ameen.
Website: www.aaiil.uk