Ramadhan Reflections 2015

In the Name of God, the Most Gracious, the Dispenser of Grace.

As fast as it came, Ramadhan is departing, leaving behind those who yearn for its return.  This year, I have had a scare when my aunt was in ICU.  I also heard news of the deaths of many a friend's relatives.  There is no guarantee that anyone, much less me, will meet the blessed month again or even meet the end of this Ramadhan as tonight marks the 29th night.

Unlike the past few years, alhamdulillah this year, I have been more settled as I have been blessed with a place to call my own.  It also means that quite a number of the Iftars are spent in solitude.  I, therefore, decided to take the opportunity this Ramadhan to vary my routine - or perhaps create a new routine.  I decided that I would focus on a particular Surah (memorise it, understand its meaning, internalise its teachings) and also continue the previous tradition of striving to finish a book.  Alhamdulillah, this year, I managed to finish a book - Reasoning with God by Khaled Abou El-Fadl and am three quarter into memorising Surah Ar-Rahman.  Inshallah, I will finish what I set out to do with Surah Ar-Rahman because Ramadhan is only the start of the journey.

What lessons have I learned from this Ramadhan, I ask myself as I prepare to bid goodbye to this cherished companion?  I think the one main lesson is 'Mizan' or balance.  Before I go into all sorts of philosophical rhetoric, the most recent thing about balance that God taught me is about physical balance.  I fell ill the last two days because I was so exhausted these past weeks - a combination of no sleep at night, 19 hours fast during the day and working (also travelling part of it) - I wasn't practising balance.  There has to be balance - my physical self has as much a right on me as my spiritual self.  And that was the wisdom of why God gave dispensation to travellers with regards to fasting.

Surah Ar-Rahman talks about God setting up the balance so that we shouldn't transgress the balance.  Not only that, we are urged to establish the balance in justice.  If not, then God will balance it for us (like when I fell ill) because Balance is a feature in all of God's creations and that Balance should be maintained.  I look at the world around me today and wonder if we have actually upset the balance and if reactions to our actions are actually God's way to redress the balance before the Final Hour.  I was watching a documentary a few days ago regarding how animals are adapting to our interference and encroachment of their territories.  By upsetting the ecological system, we upset the balance and yet the ecological system is adapting to compensate for it.  Being physics trained, I remember Newton's laws of motion - one of them being: for every action is an equal and opposite reaction, thus maintaining the balance demanded by God.  And so, you can see today with all the various extremism, it just breed more extremism in its counterparts.

Muslims are called by God to be the people of middle path (2:143):

And thus We made you a community of the middle way,  so that you should be witnesses over the people, and the Messenger a witness to you.

And what is beautiful is in the preceding verse, God talks about the straight path (2:142):

Say, "To Allah belongs the east and the west. He guides whom He wills to a straight path."

The straight path is therefore linked to the middle path - a path of balance.  Whenever I read this, I am reminded of the tightrope walker I saw earlier this month in the park, swaying slightly to one side then another as she walks across the rope.  Suddenly swaying too much, she fell off the rope.  Like a good tightrope walker, we need to maintain balance, perhaps leaning slight one way or another but never too far that we fall from that middle/straight path.

Today, there are many issues confronting the community - we cannot afford to forget this importance of a balanced response, that is grounded in justice and mercy.  As I finish reading the book "Reasoning with God," I was struck by a few passages he wrote on the importance of balance:

 Shari'ah is an ongoing discourse on how to be a good Muslim within a communal system and a metanarrative on being a good human being within a human society.  As the history of Islamic law guilds demonstrates, it is not important that Muslims agree on the same legal determinations or laws.  What is important is that they recognize shared common standards of virtue and godliness.  Ultimately, the constituent elements of these common standards are a subject for another book, but at a minimum, the ultimate objective is peace, repose, and tranquility (i.e. salam).  But this salam cannot exist without justice (qist), balance and proportionality (mizan and tawazun), and compassion, love and care for one another (tarahum, tahabub, and takaful)...A Shari'ah-oriented society reasons with God - it consistently visits and revisits the rational and textual indicators to stay on the sirat al-mustaqim (straight path) knowing full well that anyone who claims to have an exclusive claim over the sirat has by definition deviated from it.  As the Qur'an points out, the blessing of the sirat comes as an act of grace that can never be taken for granted.  Therefore, reasoning with God means endlessly searching and engaging the divine with the hope and belief in God's continued guidance and grave.

 The balance must comes from our continued interaction with God through 'rational and textual indicators' - which I take to mean interacting with and pondering over the Qur'an, the Sunnah and also the world around us, bearing in mind that the objective is 'salam' for and with all beings, including our own selves.  As Ramadhan, the month of the Qur'an, draws to a close, I remind myself that the balance within and without can only come through active participation and interaction with God, primarily through His Book, but also through every reminder He extends my way.  Passivity will only lead to the loss of balance...just as the tightrope walker lost her balance when she didn't correct herself after leaning too far.

May God continue to guide us to be on the middle path as we move beyond this blessed month.  Ameen.

Surah Ar-Rahman, part 1

In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Dispenser of Grace

This Ramadhan, I thought I needed to get back to Quran memorisation and to learning Arabic.  That said, I wanted to choose a Surah which has long fascinated me...Surah Ar-Rahman.

As part of my memorisation, I wanted to also appreciate and understand the meaning.  So I thought I would write my questions and reflections here as a way to reinforce my learning.  I will be breaking the Surah into several parts which I feel is natural.  It may not be the way scholars do it but this is to aid in my memorisation.

Part 1

بِسْم الله الرحمن الرحيم

الرحمن

علم القران

خلق الانسان

علمه البيان

The Most Gracious,

He taught the Qur'an

He created Mankind

He taught him Al-Bayan

I have always been fascinated by the order in which God revealed His favours and wondered if there is a significance to the order.  In this case, the Qur'an comes before the creation of man.  

Another question to note is God said He taught the Qur'an but didn't specify who to while in the case of Al-Bayan, He specifically mentioned that He taught it to mankind.  I deliberately omitted the translation of Al-Bayan as it is another fascinating concept.

Going back to the word taught, what does it mean that God teaches?  And what does it mean for those who He teaches?  

These are but some of the questions that can be asked of just 4 verses out of 77 in the Surah.  To answer my questions and give me more/better insights into these verse, I have relied on a number of sources: Nouman Ali Khan's lectures, Syed Qutb's tafsir, Maududi's tafsir, Muhammad Asad's translation and Qur'an corpus (word by word).

The first verse emphasises one quality of God which is Ar-Rahman, translated by Asad as The Most Gracious, inseparable from His Being.  The root word is the same as that of the womb.  Nouman Ali Khan mentioned of the Hadith Qudsi where God says He names the womb with His name.  In a sense, symbolically a mother's love, patience, nurturing and protective instinct represent a tiny window into the meaning of Ar-Rahman.  This then is the quality He brings into teaching.  It is interesting to note that recently several Singaporean teachers lost their lives in the Mount Kinabalu earthquake because they were protecting the students.  That protective instinct is a reflection of the quality of Ar-Rahman in a teacher.  Therefore, teachers should try to emulate the qualities of Ar-Rahman.

Teaching the Qur'an is the highest of His favours even before creation whether of man or anything else.  That is agreed by all the sources I have named above.  The Qur'an is the fulfilment of God's promise to Adam a.s. of guidance so as to have a small taste paradise (where there is no fear nor grieve) (2:38).  The Qur'an is not only the name of the Book but in Arabic, it is the superlative form of "reading".  So God taught the ultimate form of reading and that Qur'an is the embodiment of reading.  Nouman Ali Khan said that it is as if God is saying that a person has not truly read till he has read the Qur'an.  

So why has God emphasised that He taught the Qur'an?  Maududi explained that it was to remind that though the Prophet s.a.w. was the deliverer, it was God that is the ultimate source.  Therefore when we learn the Qur'an, our ultimate teacher is none other than God and we are His students.  With that realisation is the realisation of the covenant between teachers and students.  Quite possibly, most of us, myself most of all, forget about this covenant - the respect and obedience due to the teacher and the diligence, commitment and effort to study.  Most of the time, I skim through the Qur'an or read it hastily without any effort to understand it.  Or I would stop reading it for weeks or months...definitely that is not the attitude of a diligent student.  But "luckily" the Teacher embodies Grace and Mercy, ever welcoming when the recalcitrant student turns up again to "class".  Perhaps knowing our weaknesses that is why God chose to emphasise that it is Ar-Rahman who taught.  There is also another aspect to the teacher-student relationship and that is the student ought to emulate the teacher.  When the teacher is Ar-Rahman, so too should we as His students need to have that quality in us.

The other point is that it is not only mankind that He taught the Qur'an to.  In this Surah, (and a few others) we come to realise that there are other beings, namely the Jinns, which the Qur'an addresses.  That the Qur'an is not only mercy for us but for other creations too.  

Surah Ar-Rahman, Part 8

In the Name of God, the Most Gracious, the Dispenser of Grace.

Part 8.

كل من عليها فان

و يبقى وجه ربك ذو الجلل و الإكرام

فباى آلاء ربكما تكذبن 

Every person on Her will perish
But will remain the Face of your (singular) Lord, possessor of Majesty and Honor
Then which of the favours of your (dual) Lord will you deny

I have been trying to understand the verses in this section for a long time and alhamdulillah, this Ramadhan, more of their meaning have been made clearer.  I am sure that there are more to be learnt but for now, I am satisfied with some of my questions/confusion being answered.  Part of my writing this in my blog on this night, the 27th of Ramadhan, is to give coherence to the various understanding but also to share it with others as part of my amal (good deed).  May God accept it from me.

This part is the turning point in the Surah.  Before, God talks of the creation.  Here, the reminder is about the Hour and its inescapability.

"Everyone on Her will perish" is a good reminder to me.  It brings everything back into focus.  Remember earlier in Surah Ar-Rahman, there is an allusion to the clock ticking and the Hour draws near?  Well, even if we doubt of the Hour, the 'mini-hour' for each of us cannot be denied for everyone faces death.  A friend recently lost a relative, a little boy.  She shared with me what his five year old brother said, "It's okay, every heart will stop beating one day."  What wisdom from the mouth of a child.  We all face death, be it before the Hour or when the Hour arrives.

Then God reminds us that "will remain the Face of your Lord."  What is interesting is the use of the word وجه (Face).  In Surah 2 verse 115, this word is used in conjunction with the words "East and West," the singular version of the words mentioned earlier in this Surah.  In the book "An anothology of Qur'anic Commentaries," various commentators from different backgrounds and different ages within Islamic history discussed about the word وجه as with regards to that verse but perhaps we can learn a bit from a few of them:

Tabari mentioned that "Mujahid is reported to have said that there is the face of God [means] the qibla of God.
Tabrisi: "It is also said that it (there is the face of God) means 'there is God, knowing and seeing [all]'...there will remain the face of your Lord (Q.55:27) means that 'your Lord shall remain' [as reported] from al-Kalbi...
It is reported from Ibn Abbas and Muqatil: 'Or, [it could be that] b  means of wajh He is referring to His [very] essence.'

He is the first and the last.  God paints a picture when He alone remains. Yet, what is interesting is that His attributes of Majesty and Honour are mentioned when He is alone.  These two attributes are usually connected with the other, like when we say, "Your majesty" to a king or queen.  He/She need us to validate that he or she is 'your majesty'.  But here God is alone - Nouman Ali Khan says in his lecture that God is indicating by this that He does not need anyone else to possess Majesty and Honour (or His other attributes).  Basically, instead it highlights our utter dependence on Him and so our worship and constant praise of Him is not for His benefit but for ours.

How so?  It is connected back to the first verse - Ar-Rahman.  His mercy upon us.  Each one of our prayers, invocation (du'a), good deeds is a mercy from Him.  Adam fell from Jannah (heaven) and was removed from being in His presence.  We, as his children, have to make our way back into His presence and when you are far away from your loved ones, you yearn for being with them and anything that helps remind you of them is greatly appreciated.  This yearning for being in God's presence is eased through such deeds as mentioned.  For the more we do, the closer we get to Him because God says that for every step we take towards Him, He takes 10 towards us.

Therefore, how ungrateful is the one who forgets that his time will run out and he is still nowhere close to the Ar-Rahman.

Surah Ar-Rahman Part 7

In the Name of God, The Most Gracious, the Dispenser of Grace

Part 7

مرج البحرين يلتقين

بينهما برزخ لا يبغين

فباى آلاء ربكما تكذبن

يخرج منهما اللؤلؤ و المرجان

فباى آلاء ربكما تكذبن

و له الجوار المنشءت فى البحر كالأعلام 

فباى آلاء ربكما تكذبن

He has released the two seas (to flow freely so that) they meet together

Between the two of them is a barrier which they cannot transgress
Which of the favours of your Sustainer will you deny
He brought from them both pearls and corals

Which of the favours of your Sustainer will you deny

And His are the ships elevated in the sea like mountains

Which of the favours of your Sustainer will you deny

It is interesting to note that there is a theme of pairing in this Surah.  It started out by asking the oft repeated question to the two beings who have the ability to be ungrateful.  Then there are the two points of rising and two points of setting.  Now, it is about the two seas.  Later, as we will see, there are two jannah (heaven) and in them, there are things which again come in twos/pairs.  I am not sure if the mufasirs (the interpreters of the Qur'an) ever discuss this aspect, but the tafsirs that I have access to never really discuss the significance of it.  Perhaps, God will grant me the understanding of it one day.

Meanwhile, in terms of the sequence of these verses - they come directly after "The Lord of the two easts and the two wests."  However, here there is a focus on God's actions.  That He made the two seas, whatever they are, meet and that He brought precious items from them.  So a number of questions I had for this sections are:

1. what the connection between the seas and the preceding verse is

2. what the two seas are

3. why the emphasis on action and then switching back to "passivity" of ownership in the case of the ships.

4.  what the significance of the ships are

On the linguistic front, I noticed the words مرج and المرجان have the same root word as does the material from which Jinns are made in earlier verse (part 6).  Again, that is interesting because the root word denotes to mix two things together.  Is it significant that God use the words with the same underlying meaning for these three things?  

Nouman Ali Khan mentioned that the connection with the preceding verse is that not only is God the Lord of all we can see on the horizon but also beneath it.  If you ever dived, you would know that the underwater world is a really a world of its own, with a vividness that far surpass the land above.  Perhaps that is the explanation, but I am still not quite satisfied.  Especially when it is connected to the definition of the two seas being mentioned.  Some scholars say the two "seas" are that of salt water and unsalty/drinkable water.  Others speculated it was earthly and heavenly seas (e.g. At-Tabari).  In Al-Tustari (a Sufi tafsir), they are seas of the heart and of the self (nafs).

Whatever the interpretation of the two seas are, it is important to note on contrast.  Nouman Ali Khan contrasted the pearls and corals (small/tiny) with the ships (big and lumbering).  Yet, the tiny belongs in the seas and the big floats, by God's will.  Another set of contrast is that the two seas meet, yet are apart.  Because there is a barrier that God created between them.  Perhaps it is a lesson for us to understand that there are barriers which we have to respect and not transgress too.

In many ways, this section still holds many questions for me.  Perhaps, God will allow me more understanding of it.  

Surah Ar-Rahman Part 5

In the Name of God, the Most Gracious, the Dispenser of Grace.

Part 5.

و الارض وضعها  للأنام

فيها فاكهة وَالنَّخْل ذات الأكمام

و الحب ذو العصف والريحان

فباى آلاء ربكما تكذبن

And the Earth, He laid her for all creatures
In her are fruits and palm trees having sheaths

And grains with husks and scented plants.
So which of the favours of your Lord/Sustainer will you deny?

I am always amazed by these few verses, especially after learning Arabic (the little I know).  The One who taught us Al-Bayan paints a beautiful picture and engages our senses with just these few words.  

The use of وضعها always give me the impression of someone spreading something luxurious like an expensive carpet.  In this case, it is the Earth herself that God has laid out like a spread.  And who for but  للأنام.  The word, according to Lane's Lexicon, refers to all that is on the face of the Earth, or to those who have a soul/spirit, i.e. living things.  I had the opportunity to cut the grass in the garden the other day and notice how many different types of grass and plants, even weeds, with flowers and grain-like stalks, sharing the same space. There is a fresh scent in the air and I spotted a ladybug, spiders and a beetle. I am sure there are many other creatures which I didn't spot.  And I was reminded of the above verses that the Earth (and the garden being part of her) was for all creatures. The theme of balance continues here, even though it is not explicitly mentioned, in that everything is well balanced and has a place from the largest and most powerful to the tiniest and microscopic.  The eco-system of the various different places on this Earth works on the principle of balance, where too many of one species or another will upset the whole eco-system.  

Basically that sense of space and spaciousness is then augmented with a feast for the five senses.  For God painted a picture of an Earth full of فاكهة which most translate as fruits.  I have often wondered why this amongst other Arabic words for fruits was chosen.  Nouman Ali Khan clarified it for me - this word meant fruit which taste so heavenly that it brings a smile to one's face.  Checking Lane Lexicon, the word is associated with abundant and sweet fruits and with happiness and cheer.  Not only is the Earth full of فاكهة, She is also full of النَّخْل ذات الأكمام.  The word ذات signifies possession and my Arabic teacher once said, it not only signifies possession but also it is always associated with that characteristic.  In this case, we are talking about palm trees which would immediately bring to mind sheaths of fruits, be they dates or types where we derive palm oils.  These are the trees we always imagine when we think of places we liken to paradise such as Hawaii.  The senses of sight and taste are indulged in this verse.

Then there is my favourite verse - grains possessing/associated with husks and الريحان.  It brings back memories of running in the padi fields in my childhood and seeing my great uncles and aunts crop the padi and beat the rice grains out of the husks.  Have you ever touched the husks of grain?  Really lovely texture, velvety in some places and hard in others.  Then there was always this lovely scent in the air.  That is exactly what الريحان means.  It has the same root word as the wind/breeze and also the mercy of Allah.  Through these imagery are the senses of touch and smell invoked.

God is, in my opinion, saying not only that He has given all these bounties for us and other creatures on Earth, but also subtly reminding as of our senses and how they are a blessing.  After all, only with these senses can we enjoy these bounties.

Which leads to the final verse of this part - the refrain that will be repeated over and over again in Surah Ar-Rahman.  Which of His favours will we deny?  The Qur'an?  Our lives?  Al-Bayan?  Education? Time?  Justice and balance?  The Earth and its various creatures?  Our senses?  Nouman Ali Khan reminded in his lecture that our title is 'Abd' (Slave) and slaves are not entitled to anything.  Therefore everything that our Master, Ar-Rahman, bestows upon us is a gift for which we should be grateful for.  If we think we are entitled, then we are definitely denying His favour...may we be amongst those who are always grateful.