Read it to the end..trust me!
Was'salaam
Shamira
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Way to The Quran <>
by Khurram Murad
Chapter 1: The Journey of Life
The Eternal, Living Reality
The Qur'an is the word of the Ever-living God; it has been sent down to guide man for all times to come. No book can be like it. As you come to the Qur'an, Allah speaks to you. To read the Qur'an is to hear Him, even to converse with Him, and to walk in His ways. It is the encounter of life with the Life-giver. 'God - there is no god but He, the Ever-living, the Self-subsisting (by whom all subsist). He has sent down upon you the Book with the Truth ... as a guidance unto mankind ...' (Al 'Imran 3: 2-3).
For those who heard it for the first time from the lips of the Prophet, blessings and peace be on him, the Qur'an was a living reality. They had absolutely no doubt that, through him, Allah was speaking to them. Their hearts and minds were therefore seized by it. Their eyes overflowed with tears and their bodies shivered. They found each word of it deeply relevant to their concerns and experiences, and integrated it fully into their lives. They were completely transformed by it both as individuals and as a corporate body - into a totally new, alive and life-giving entity. Those who grazed sheep, herded camels and traded petty merchandise became the leaders of mankind.
Today we have the same Qur'an with us. Millions of copies of it are in circulation. Day and night, it is ceaselessly recited. In homes, in mosques, and from pulpits. Voluminous exegetical works exist expounding its meaning. Words pour out incessantly to explain its teachings and to exhort us to live by it. Yet eyes remain dry, hearts remain unmoved, minds remain untouched, lives remain unchanged. Ignominy and degradation appear to have become the lot of the followers of the Qur'an. Why? Because we no longer read the Qur'an as a living reality. It is a sacred book, but it tells us something of the past only, concerning Muslims and Kafirs, Jews and Christians, the faithful and the hypocrites, who 'once upon a time used to be'.
Can the Qur'an, again, be a living, relevant force, as powerful for us now, 1400 years away, as it was then? This is the most crucial question that we must answer if we wish to shape our destiny afresh under the guidance of the Qur'an.
There appear, however, to be some difficulties. Not least of which has to do with the fact that the Qur'an was revealed at a certain point in time. Since then we have traveled a long way, made gigantic leaps in technological know-how, and seen considerable social changes take place in human society. Moreover, most of the followers of the Qur'an today do not know Arabic, and many who do have, little idea of the 'living' language of the Qur'an. They cannot be expected to absorb its idiom and metaphor, so essential to exploring and absorbing the depths of the Qur'anic meaning.
Yet its guidance, by its own claim, has an eternal relevance for all people, being the word of the Eternal God.
For the truth of this claim, it seems to me, it must be possible for us to receive, experience, and understand the Qur'an as its first recipients did, at least in some measure and to some degree. We seem to almost have a right to this possibility of receiving God's guidance in its fullness and with all its riches and joys. In other words, despite the historical incidence of the revelation in a particular language at a particular time and place, we should be capable of receiving the Qur'an now (because its message is eternal), capable of making its message as much a real part of our lives as it was for the first believers and with the same urgent and profound relevance for all our present concerns and experiences.
But how do we do this? To put it very forthrightly, only by entering the world of the Qur'an as if Allah were speaking to us through it now and today, and by fulfilling the necessary conditions for such an encounter.
<>***Read the rest and benefit...even a chapter a day...Tawfiq, insha'Allah!
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