The topic that we're going to cover today is related to one word in Surah Al-Kahf which is where the story of Zul Qarnayn is related to us and it covers specifically about four verses in Surah Al-Kahf and it's the word sababan. Let's look at the verse, these are verses or ayah 84 and 85 of Surah Al-Kahf. Of course, the same word repeats a little later, couple of verses later, and then again a couple of verses later. “We have endowed him with special powers derived from the scripture, and we have granted him, out of every part of the scripture, a way of supplication as a causation”.
This word right here “makana lahou fi al Ardh” covers the word “ard” and we talked about Ardh in prior videos. Where we said the term “ard” according to the Abrahamic locution implies or indicates the scripture itself, specifically the composition or the text of the scripture. And we made an example of the insect called arada which eats the words or eats the parts of the text and leaves scribbles just like text. So, Ardh is the actual text of the scripture and please refer to prior videos where we talked about this.
“Makana lahou” again is a very specific Abrahamic locution term that means we have empowered him; we gave him the sort of the secrets or the inside information or the specific powers. Okay, so that's the translation, we have endowed him with special powers derived from the scripture. Of course, this verse and others, the one before it and a few verses or ayat after it are talking about Zul Qarnayn. I need to explain these concepts so when we get to the story we have laid down some foundation. because the story of the Zul Qarnayn is fairly complex unless we understand some basic terminology.
The ayah continues and we have provided him or granted him out of every part of the scripture sababan. I will come to the word sababan but let me comment on the word “kulli shayii”. Again, we have seen this before, when the word shayii in the Quran occurs, it is usually referring to a portion or a part of the book, al-kitab. And I know this is a generic term in the common Arabic language, but in the Abrahamic locution specifically the way it's used in the Quran very often it's referring to portions of the book itself, portions of the Quran itself, the text. Is this referring to Zul Qarnayn? And did he have a Quran? we will see this Insha’Allah in the future but for now just hold that thought. We provided him, we granted him special powers derived from the scripture so Zul Qarnayn had a scripture. This is clearly what it's saying in here, and we've granted him out of everything sababan, a way of supplication.
Again, this word sabab means two things, in the common Arabic language it means the cause as in causation, and that's what we're going to talk about today a little bit more. But, in in the Abrahamic locution and those of you who have seen the video regarding the hieroglyphics in the Quran, you know that in the Egyptian hieroglyphics, it shows somebody supplicating by raising their hand. So, their hand is pointing up, and this is exactly how we do supplication, Duaa, so this part of the hand is referred to as sabab. And you can imagine as this is the beginning of a highway connecting you to the heavens. And therefore, when you raise your hand as our beloved prophet SAW used to do you make supplication, you're connecting to the cause, the cause of all things. And this is a beautiful description based on this word sabab. So, we gave Zul Qarnayn the proper way to make supplication based on the scripture.
Think about this a little bit, so Allah SWT is identifying the most important gift to Zul Qarnayn that he was able to read the scripture, and he was able to decipher it, and extract from it supplication. This is so beautiful. I remember when I first learned this and I started learning how to make the right supplication using the Quran, it changed my life literally. It put me in a totally different world. This is what Allah SWT is teaching us, so the sabab is the way to do supplication.
Now, quickly the next ayah, the verb atbaa means he had some followers, he had some others following the same way. That means Firaoun had Mussa and his people followed. That means he had others follow in the same way of doing supplication based on this Ardh or scripture. But, it also means causation and this is the tricky part this is the link that I want to share with you today. I need you to pay attention, we're only going to do a couple of minutes on this, so I hope this is not too heavy for most of you, but Insha’Allah if you're focused this is very easy.
The concept is we know that there are causes and effects in this world, it's called the laws of nature. For example, when you drop a ball from the roof of the 10 story building, the ball will fall to the ground. That's called gravity, so that's one of the laws of nature. There are laws, so the cause of the ball falling down is gravity. So, that's called cause and effect. You know if you hold a lighter and you have a ball of cotton, it will burn, it's cause and effect. The fire caused the burning. So, comes along a scholar, a Muslim scholar, first person to challenge this concept, his name was Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali, he died in 1111 common era and in his one of his famous books, he gave this example, he gave this example of the cotton ball and the fire, and he recognized or realized that the fire itself is not the cause, Allah is the cause behind it, so Allah is the cause of all causes. So, if you say that gravity is a law of nature, well the question is why is it there? To this day, most scientists don't know why two bodies attract each other, they just know it's gravity. It's called gravity newton defined it and defined its laws. But they really don't know why? so science deals with the how? with the measurements, with the rules that allow us to understand such things, but we never understand why? Why is it there? Why does the apple fall from the tree instead of going upward? And so on. We know it's called gravity that's the cause, but that's the visible cause, what's the real cause for gravity itself? And so Al-Ghazali said Allah is the cause of all causes; Allah is the cause of everything that happens. And therefore, he said if you hold the fire to the cotton ball, if Allah does not want it to burn, it would not burn. And this is the example given in the case of Ibrahim as in the Quran, where his people threw him in the burning building and Allah SWT ordered the fire to stop functioning with its burning property. So, Al-Ghazali also gave the example that we see miracles happening every day which violate the laws of nature, we often hear of a toddler who fell out of a high building and then reached the floor and he was not hurt or she was not hurt. And we hear of various miracles of that nature. There is always a case to be made that these laws of nature are not constant are not permanent, they're not the cause by themselves. There's something behind them that cause them to act or to function the way they function in the way we perceive them.
All right, fast forward 1776 or earlier, David Hume, a famous Scottish philosopher also analyzed the concept of cause and effect and he determined with very powerful logic and very simple logic, that there is no such thing as causation. In other words, what he says the fact that you watch the sun rise every morning, does not mean it's going to rise tomorrow. Therefore, all of our notions of cause and effect is built on habit, not necessarily because we know that these things will happen again. So he calls this the fallacy of induction. In other words, he's saying if the ball falls down because of gravity, it doesn't mean that the next time you throw it down, it's going to fall down. There is absolutely no logic that tells us “because it happened in the past, it shall happen again in the future”. He realized this, and he calls this “the fallacy of causation”. The causation doesn't exist and then he says: Well we probably have to rely on what we can observe which is the causation, the laws of nature, because that's all we got. And then he went on in his life to do other things.
Fast forward to 1950s 1960s, a beautiful Turkish scholar called Saeed An-Nourassi, and he says: Not only miracles happen when events violate the normal laws of causation, Badih Al-Zaman Saeed An-Nourassi says: Every time an event takes place, according to causation, that you understand, that itself is a miracle. Miracles are not only the exceptions, Saeed An-Nourassi says: Every event happens because Allah wills it to happen. And if Allah stops willing that event to happen for just a fraction of a second, the whole universe will fall apart. This is the conception of a beautiful idea that is expressed by Saeed An-Nourassi, he says: The understanding of submission to the creator and sustainer of the universe, necessitate that we keep this concept in our mind all the time, everything that happens in front of our eyes, every time we do something and we expect it to happen, and then it does happen, that is a miracle. Because Allah is interfering right then and there, to let you know that he's with you. I found that idea so spiritually moving and it changed my outlook on life totally. It is not just miracles that are miracles, every regular event is itself a miracle, every time you observe something functioning according to the laws of nature, that is Allah showing you his power.
And therefore, we go back to the very first verse when Allah SWT is teaching us about Zul Qarnayn, he taught him the verses or the ayat from the scripture to allow him to learn how to communicate with Allah SWT. Yes, you have to learn the laws of nature. Yes, you have to understand all the causes and effects and master them and prepare plans and lay out activities and do the best you can to go along with these laws of nature that you know about. But, at the end of the day, supplication and your connection with Allah SWT will trump all of these things. If we learn how to connect with the scripture that Allah (swt) gave, us we have a connection with the cause of all causes. And a true monotheist person really understands this, internalizes it, and makes sure that he lives it every second of his life. I ask Allah SWT that this brief lesson was useful to you and then we make the Duaa that we always make.
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Does god sit on a throne? How does god communicate with us? And what about the abrogation of the verses or the Ayat of the Quran والمنسوخ الناسخ ?
What's Yusr? As we know, Zul Qarnayn talked about Yusr. We're also going to talk about mental frameworks, cognitive schemas, we're going to talk about abrogation, Al- عarsh we're going to define it in detail with all the evidence, and we're going to talk about Al- عarsh of the queen of Sheba and we're going to talk about Al- عarsh of the king in the story of Yussuf as. The part of Al-Yusr or Yusr, and all of us memorized the Surah Al Sharh. Yusran = means ease, so it's when it's associated with speech it refers to ease of understanding by the receiver. This is the exact word it's used in Surah Al-Kahf 18, where Zul Qarnayn is responding after Allah SWT gives him a choice and he says ... Zul Qarnayn said: "we shall reveal to him, about our matter, according to his existing cognitive readiness" That's the translation of what it literally means to say something that's easy for the others to understand, we're going to develop a little bit more information about this, and it's kind of a little bit advanced, it deals with cognitive psychology.
But all of these concepts are really important so that we can develop ourselves in the process of getting ready to receive the stories from the Quran. So, just to confirm, this is not a reference, this is not an authoritative source for us. In this hadith from al-bukhari it's a relatively questionable hadith according to their methodology, but according to our methodology we accept it because it really confirms what we're going to see and you will see for yourself. This is an example where they made a certain hadith weak, daaif or the word they used is mawkouf, that means in the transmission chain there's a problem. According to our methodology, it confirms exactly what the Quran says and therefore, we find that it is very likely that this is related through Ali Bin Abi Taleb from the prophet SAW. Ali Bin Abi Taleb is reported to have said: "Talk to people according to what they're able to learn or to know. Would you like that Allah and his messenger might be belied?" In other words, this is a discouragement from saying things that people are not able to understand. In other words, their cognitive abilities are not able to receive what is being said and this is exactly the issue that we're focused on here.
When we say Yusr it relates to the receiver's cognitive ability to understand, and this is a key point because this is consistent in the Quran. Whenever the word Yusr is related to divine guidance or to speech any kind of speech it is generally referring to the ability to receive.
Cognitive Psychology deals with how we learn the developmental models especially, in adults, but also in children. The word framework or schema is used in that field to define the mental set of conditions and assumptions that restrict or facilitate our comprehension. What is that? It is how we reflect internally everything that we perceive so when we see something such as a dog, how do we recognize that it is a dog? Well we have a mental model, a framework that says it's an animal with four legs and sometimes it barks so for example, if a child just learned that concept of a dog and you happen to take that child on a trip and you go by a farm, that child if they've never seen a cow, they may think the cow is a dog. Why? Because it's the same framework, that's the mental framework they have, it's an animal with four legs. The mental framework is basically a container in which you deposit new information to match or you grow such container when you realize new information, when you receive new information. The container that mental model the template that you keep in the back of your mind, that's called schema, that's called framework.
So what is the schema? What is this a framework? like I said, it's a mental container that is hidden, it's in the back of your mind and it helps you understand or identify or classify the type of information you see. When you see a shadow in the middle of the forest, and you're alone, your mental framework says run, because immediately, there's some flag that went on that says this could be a risk, a threat, so you run. And another example is when you wear glasses, if you wear colored glasses, let's say red glasses, well the red glasses allow the red light to come through, but all other colors of the color spectrum are deflected, the glasses don't allow the other colors to come through, so you only see red. Therefore, you see the whole world red. This is an example. It sorts of approximates what a schema does. It is like internal glasses that are in the back of your mind and that filter all the information you see and it helps classify it helps provide you quick access to information. well those schemas are really important to us.
The Quran talks about the concept of Yusr that we talked about is actually making the information you tell people easy for them to pass through their framework or their schema. That's the definition of Yusr. and also when the Quran talks about “we have made it easy for their mental frameworks to remember it”. It’s organized, this is one of the miracles of the Quran, it is organized in a way that makes it easy to recall and remember. The mental frameworks, the biologies of our brains and our neural networks are structured to receive the sentences and the Ayat of the Quran very easily and to remember them.
See how we're going to deploy the concept of schema to understand more about the Quran. I’m going to give you three examples. I want to describe a dragon fruit; this is a special unique Asian fruit. I want to describe its taste to someone, and I say well it's a cross between the kiwi fruit and the strawberry, it tastes somewhere in between. And that other person says well I don't know kiwi and I don't know strawberry. Assuming that he's never tasted strawberry and then we have a problem because I don't have a way to relate the taste of the dragon fruit to that person unless I figure out a mental framework, a schema that would suit my language, my locution. And therefore, the locution I speak has to match their mental framework their schema. So this is one example.
I tell you the following story, there is a man who put on a mask and a glove and there's another man running home. What is the first thing that comes to your mind? Well that's going to be fashioned by your mental framework, your schema, your cognitive framework. If you tell me the first thing that came to your mind is there's a robbery going on, that's your mental framework sort of imposing specific details on top of what I said. All I said is there's a man who has put on a face mask and a glove and another man is running home that's all I said. You added, you filled in additional details based on the best schema that allows you to make sense of what I said.
Well, if you are a part of the American society or any kind of society like Japanese that is very familiar with baseball lingo, with baseball locution, that example immediately hits home for you so to speak, because in the baseball language you have the catcher who wears the face mask and who wears a glove and you have a runner who usually runs very fast toward home plate and while running toward home plate that runner wants to get there without being touched by any of the other team players. It’s the same exact story, there's a man wearing a face mask and a glove, and another man is running home.
It translated into two different interpretations based on your own schema. This is exactly what the Quran is teaching us about, when it talks about Yusr. I’m going to give you a third example.
The third example is - visiting a software company - and a friend invite for lunch in the company cafeteria - I said: that's fine. And my friend says: just watch this, the cook actually is a very lovely old man, really old, I mean, wrinkled face and you know gray hair all the way and but smiling, and you know a jolly kind of person everybody loved him and clearly in a happy mood and so we got close and my friend says: Hey Jim why are you so happy all the time? and Jim says: It's my wife. And he says: I didn't know you're married. and the guy Jim said: I’ve been married for 40 years and she still turns my software into hardware. And everybody of course goes laughing. I hope you got the joke. It's a light joke, it's not really naughty, and you notice I didn't use any naughty words. I only use the word wife software hardware and the guy has been married for 40 years. What made that joke so funny to you? Children who are watching do not have the framework to map the words we used into a funny image that makes them laugh; They don't understand that story at all. But you ended up laughing, and it's not me who has said anything naughty, it's your own mental framework who is naughty. As you see, the framework is very important to help us filter everything we receive but it could also restrict what we understand, so it has a dual use and by the way, if you have not noticed what I just did, I actually, just made you realize that your own framework interfered in understanding the story, and this is how frameworks work, this is how schemas work. This schema is really important for us to realize how it affects everything we understand.
Let's apply it to some of the things that we've seen already in our studies regarding the Quran. When we talked about Hur, in the video labeled are there 72 virgins? The mental framework that we worked with was totally different than the mental framework, the cognitive framework that those who did Tafseer used. Their mental framework was focused on certain types of details that they read into these words. But when we read these words, we read them from a different mental framework, and therefore, we reached conclusions that are not laden with false assumptions or presumptions. This is an example. So, when we talked about exposed his leg again, we translated the language of the Quran into a mental framework that's more suitable, reflective of the respect and the eminence we ascribe to Allah SWT.
Another example is the word or the verb ضرب as in the verse that says فاضربهن strike them (about the women). Of course, they immediately go to the interpretation of the word ضرب which is to hit or to strike, but if you review the Quran and you build your mental framework according to the language of the Quran, you find that the verb ضرب has nothing to do with strike. As a matter of fact, the verb is used in so many metaphorical, non-physical contexts that is very often easy to understand if you just become familiar or habituated with the type of uses that the Quran assigned to the verb ب ضر .The meaning of فاضربهن is to separate from them. Of course there are more details than this we're just presenting some examples of how the mental framework, the schema can significantly affect how you look at the words and you understand and you absorb the interpretations or the descriptions of the words that Allah SWT is using in the Quran.
All right, so what happens to the famous phrase that is often translated wrongly, he sat on the throne, that's absolutely wrong, as we will see. If we just reflect the right mental framework and apply it according to the definitions of the Quran, everything changes. And this is exactly what we've been doing with this methodology. To remind you, the methodology allows us to fix our mental framework. In other words, as we said before the Quran is like a software, it changes us, it literally changes which mental framework we employ when dealing with the Quran. If you're dealing with the Quran and the methodology of the Quran itself properly, you immediately reset your mental framework to the right focus, to the right use, you deploy it in the proper way.
All right, so the question is: Does the Quran address this concept of framework, of schema? And of course the answer is yes. And you're going to see it, I want to introduce the concept of Ayah, we've talked about this many times before, Ayah does not mean verse, it's not the text itself, does not mean a miracle, of course it's not a miracle, because the Ayah is just a sign, it points you in the right direction, it's a clue. Signs are perceived in our cognition, in our mental realm, the signs are not in front of us, the signs are received, (you know you see an image and that image is translated into the concept of dog in your head in your mind. I hope this is clear). Ayah does not reside in the text on the pages, Ayah resides inside your mind, and I keep pointing to my head by the way but there's no evidence whatsoever that it is in the head. I’m just using it because my hand is free in front of the video. Very well, so it's not just on the pages of the Quran, so I’ll give you an example, let's say, you're driving in a foreign country, you've never been there, and you see a road sign and you could easily pass by it and not understand what that specific road sign means to that country. If you were a local person that sign, that icon that is on the traffic sign will immediately register a specific meaning in your head. That specific meaning was supplemented by the schema that that local person has for the traffic signs. Whereas, you are a foreigner to that country that traffic sign doesn't mean anything to you. I hope this is clear we're going to keep moving.
What does the Quran say about this? Well it turns out that there is a word that has been woefully grossly misunderstood and misinterpreted by our scholars unfortunately. And that word appeared in Surah Al-Hajj, Surah 22, verse 52, so we're going to deal with it in detail. I need you to be patient, because this is really phenomenal and remember what we're doing here is not just providing the results of the work, we're providing you with the way to think and reflect and extract evidence, extract clues from the Quran.
It is the bayinat, remember bayinat are the instruments not just the evidence, the instruments of extracting evidence. So, we're going to see how strange sometimes the bayinat and the Quran are. The Ayah from Surah Al-Hajj 22:52 says: Whenever we sent a messenger or a prophet before you or Muhammad, whenever he wished ahead of revelation he made a wish, he longed for something, shaitan would cast shaitan's ways into the “oomniyyatihi”, I’m going to leave that word for just a few seconds until we analyze it, and then Allah would abrogate what shaitan cast and then Allah would clarify the discernment of his signs and Allah is the provider of knowledge, the authority over discernment. This is the rough translation; we're going to dive a little bit deeper.
But, first I’m going to focus on one key word which is this word right here ينسخ when you see this, it is clearly indicating abrogation, meaning elimination, meaning removal, meaning cleansing, meaning nullification, clearly, the meaning is very clear, the context is so clear, there's no doubt. Abrogation is the meaning or is the indication of the word ينسخ so we do not accept just an opinion of people who say نسخ means to copy or to duplicate, that's not correct. Because the Quran is clearly using it in this verse to mean to abrogate, to remove whatever the shaitan has cast into oomnyyatihi.
Oomnyyatihi you see it in here, with the red arrow has this little squiggly mark, right at the top, whereas, the Arabic word oomnyyatihi, and you can read the English transliteration for it, you see that there is a shadda on the ya, in the in the Quranic word. This word is not an Arabic word, it does not fit any morpheme, it is not in any dictionary, some people use it in the wrong way, but according to the pure Arabic, it is not there, it is not an Arabic word, it is a variation, it looks similar to oomniyatihi with the yellow arrow. Unfortunately, most books of Tafseer use this word in their interpretation, and the same with all the translations, all of them, every single one of them use this word to refer to this word, but the Quran is using this word right here with the red arrow with the shadda on the ya. And we pronounce it oomnyyatihi, we stress the ya in the middle. That's not an Arabic word so what happened? Well their mental framework was there must be something that caused the reciter to say it that way, because remember at the beginning the Quran was not always written. It was mostly transmitted orally. Most translators and interpreters (of course translators came much later) and they built on their translations upon the interpretations, the Tafseer, but the books of Tafseer, all of them, all of them, refer to omnya, which is a wish, whereas, the Quranic word is “oomnyyatihi” not a wish. What is that? Well according to our methodology, we have discovered that sometimes the Quran concatenates words, it takes two words and puts them together and comes up with something new, something that sounds similar to something you're familiar with, but it's totally different. In this case the word oomnyyatihi is a concatenation of two words (Om – Niyatihi) two different words. Please those of you who are Arab speakers just be patient and listen, I’m going to give you the evidence, I’m not speaking from vainglory and from fanciful opinions, I’m speaking based on very deep research. I’m going to show you the evidence for yourself, and you're going to be amazed because you did not know this and no one has told you this. So, oomnyyatihi literally is a combination of om which means mother, and niyatihi which means his intention. In other words, oomnyyatihi is the mother of his intention, which is what we refer to as the framework, the schema. That's the basis of all of your intentions.
Let me give you an example, if someone has built a mental framework based on success equal money, success equal material possessions, as they say in some countries, he who dies with the most toys win. This is a mental framework. A lot of people today in the world are living their lives based on this schema, that person anytime he wishes for anything, it has to be aligned with that mental framework, success equal money, the mother of his intention, that's the mental framework from which everything emanates. Remember, when we have such a mental framework, we're not aware of it most of the time it's there, it's in the back of our mind, it's a schema that we've built over the years from experiences, from people who educated us, from the culture in general. But, it has created this residue that has an impact, colored glasses that impacts everything we do. So, you look at one of the latest presidents in the united states, and you immediately recognize what his mental framework or cognitive schema was all about without naming names, of course. All right, so let's take some examples is this true?
Is this a valid way that the Quran provides bayyan? Is this an instrument that we can use to come up with evidence? Let's look at a couple of verses and I laid out a couple of verses in here for you. The first two are really amazing, really, truly amazing. The first two are referring to the story of Mussa (as), when he came back from meeting the angels and receiving the Torah on the mountain, after they exited Missr. Of course, the story of the calf, the golden calf. And there was a conflict between Mussa and Haroon, his brother and there was a dialogue. During that dialogue, Haroon called Mussa a certain label, that label is son of a mother. This exact same scene is provided in two different places, one in Surah 20, and another one in Surah 7, and the exact same dialogue, with one variation in the spelling many of you have asked me what's the point of providing copies of similar scenes from the same story but in different places in the Quran? This is one of the purposes. And this also proves that the actual spelling of the Quran was supervised directly by prophet Muhammad SAW, as he was taught by Allah SWT this proves definitely he was not illiterate he knew how to spell, because he was instructing them to write it this way and that way.
Why is this so important? Because it's the same scene, the exact same dialogue coming out of the same mouth, of the same person, the same expression spelled two different ways. One in Surah 7, as you see, separate two words and one is combining, concatenating the two words in one word, which tells us the Quran is teaching us, this is one of the bayinat, this is one of the instruments where you guys should look for evidence. Therefore, when we look at oomnyyatihi that idea should occur to us, that's part of the methodology, that's part of how your software has reprogrammed you to see such evidence. If your software has not programmed you to accept this evidence, you would read it, pass it by, and you would say no there's a mistake in here.
That's exactly what happened with the books of Tafseer. Let's look in Surah Al-Insan, chapter 76, Surah 76, Ayah 18, Allah SWT is describing the benefits or the pleasures that al-Abraar the scrupulous enjoy in Jannah. I’m not going to talk much about Jannah, but we've talked about Jannah in the past and we said there are four types of Jannah. One of them is in this life for people who are muttakoon and scrupulous Abraar and they work very diligently on interpreting the Quran, and the verses of the Quran, and extracting the terminology salihat from the Ayat of the Quran. Allah SWT describes that they drink from a fountain in such Jannah and that fountain is called salsabila. And that word right here, as you see it, where I’m moving the mouse, salsabila is not an Arabic word, has nothing to do with Arabic language, none of the interpreters, none of the Tafseer books said that this is an Arabic word, and they all made up their own way of coming up with an interpretation for it. But using what we just did which is the bayina of concatenating two words, we are able to break it up into two words, sal sabila, those who are Arabic speakers among you immediately recognize what this means, sal it's a command that means ask, sabilan means your way, your way to information is to ask questions.
Allah SWT is telling us if you want to be in this Jannah, and you want to drink from this fountain, you have to ask questions as a way to receive guidance. In one Tafseer al-kashaf for a scholar called Azamakhshari. Azamakhshari report at the bottom of a page, when he is discussing the same Ayah that I showed you in here, the same Ayah 76:18. He says: It was reported that some people heard through a chain all the way to Ali Bin Abi Taleb, that this word salsabila is actually a concatenation of two words sal sabila. And then Azamakhshari, this Tafseer scholar continues “and this is not correct as it appears”, and he dismisses this piece of information, and he does not accept it as a bayina, as an evidence to extract knowledge and indications and Ayat from the Quran. Therefore, they kept struggling to figure out what salsabila and they're still struggling to this day. Most of the books of Tafseer don't have a clue what it means. They provide hunches and opinions but it's not as we explained it in here. To ask questions as a way to get to the indications and the true Ayat, remember Ayat live in your mind Ayat are not on the pages. All right, so we've covered quite a bit so far, let's go back to the verse where we were discussing the concept of oomnyyatihi, which is the framework or the schema. Let's analyze this verse one more time, so Allah is teaching prophet in the Quran: Whenever we had sent a messenger or a prophet before you, whenever he wished ahead of revelation, meaning he was jumping ahead, he was claiming or hoping to receive something in the revelation. That's an opportunity for shaitan to come in and corrupt the schema, corrupt oomnyyatihi. And Allah (swt) says: But we protect those messengers and prophets by abrogating what the shaitan has cast into oomnyyatihi, and then we repair and then we provide good guidance, good discernment for our signs toward that messenger or that prophet. Allah (swt) is teaching prophet Muhammad (saw) that Allah was watching out to protect the messengers and the prophets from any kind of interference that is initially caused by their own longing, their own wishes. So you wish for something good for your people, of course, every prophet and messenger wants to do that, but if you're jumping ahead Allah (swt) has a way to catch your own mistake as a prophet and as a messenger, please pay attention to this, because we were told that we were taught that every prophet, every messenger was perfect, it's not true. It's right there “tamanna” if he wished and then shaitan enters and modifies the schema. Once the schema is modified, it can replicate, it can provide a lot of problems going forward, it can cause a lot of problems, going forward as you can see. This concludes the part about this one verse, so we come back and continue with the concept of abrogation, and we confirmed that's what it means. So does abrogation mean نسخ ?Absolutely. Now question is: is it referring to abrogation of the verses, of the Ayat of the Quran, the physical textual segments, the sentences of the Quran, or is it referring to the Ayat in our mental framework? And I think you already know the answer and this is where they went wrong in interpreting the concept of نسخ yes there is نسخ the Quran confirms it, the Quran provides a clear context to explain that it is abrogation, it's not copying, but they misunderstood the domain where نسخ happens, the field, they applied نسخ to the Ayat of the Quran and in the process belied our dear prophet (saw). Because, our prophet (saw) could not have made © The Marvelous Quran 2021. This is copyrighted material. Duplication or copying or sharing without prior written approval is strictly prohibited. 11 the mistake and keeping some of these Ayats after they have been abrogated. Allah (swt) clarifies this in another couple of verses (Ayat) that we're going to cover. So, it does not mean to copy, clearly. Let's continue, this one verse is really important, and I want you to pay attention because we're applying another principle here, principle of the methodology, Ayah 45:29, the typical translation, if you open any translation or interpretation, they're fairly consistent “This here is our book testifying against you, in truth: We have been keeping a record of all that you used to do”. This is supposedly a scene on the day of judgment, so let's ask this question and I want you to be careful in how you ask it, and how you think about it. Allah (swt) according to the Tafseer and according to the translations is saying “we have kept a record of your actions”, now, is Allah's knowledge eternal and perfect or not? If it is, why does he need a record? Tough question, daring question, of course, we're not challenging Allah (swt), we are fully confident that Allah's knowledge is eternal and perfect, and therefore, their interpretation is wrong. It cannot be this meaning there is no way that Allah (swt) would say “oh we kept a record about all of your deeds, all of your works” there is no way. The Quran would never say that because Allah's knowledge is always perfect, so it could not be that we have kept a record. Therefore, we have to analyze what does this word نستنسخ we have done نستنسخ .All right, so this is the challenge, this is how you stop, you observe, you discover, and you ask daring questions, and you say it cannot be that the way they interpreted it is correct. We have to find another interpretation that's more suitable. We ascribe to Allah (swt) the eminence that’s do him. Let's do the analysis and we will dive into it. First I want to give you a very brief lesson in nahu, just related to one specific topic, it's called hamzat al salb w al izala w al nafi, what does that mean? The letter Hamza, when it comes at the beginning of a verb, it flips its meaning, it takes away from its meaning and provides a negative opposite meaning to the original verb. I’m going to give you a couple of examples. This is from one of the famous books the verb to oppress or to exceed his rights, قسط , when you enter the hamza, it becomes أقسط it becomes the exact opposite, he is just, he implemented justice, just by adding hamza the indication of the verb switched and it became the opposite. Here's another example, very famous mistake, extremely popular mistake, and many of the so-called internet preachers and internet superstars are now making this mistake and misleading a lot of people. From Surah AlBaqarah 184 those who cannot bear it, shall have the ransom of feeding a person in need, so the verb is often misinterpreted by those who want to claim that fasting is not required, and they misinterpret this verb because of this exact same problem. youtikounahou is from the past tense taka, and the present tense is yatoukou. I apologize, it's not going to take very long, but I want to make sure that I’m convincing my Arabic speaking brothers. Please be patient for just one more minute, we'll be over. Taka, yatoukou: to bear. Ataka, youtikou: not to be able to bear, the opposite. Just by adding hamza in here, you have this verb youtikou, which means you're not able to bear so those who are not able to bear fasting should pay or should provide or offer a compensation. The same thing now with the verb نسخ this is why we're doing this lesson. نسخ , أنسخ we said نسخ to abrogate, أنسخ is to strengthen or to fix or to make it more firm. Instead of eliminating it, nullifying it, actually make it more firm. This verb is possibly derived from this version of the verb أنسخ which means to strengthen. so now it makes sense if we change the context a little bit. You go back to the verses, to the Ayat of that verse right here and you immediately recognize this translation is exactly the opposite of what is intended, the exact opposite of what was intended. Let me prove it to you. The translation based on this linguistic analysis is “this here is our book” and notice the word “here”. “here” is often referred in the Quran to mean this dunya, in this life. This scene is not from the day of judgment; it's referring to something in this life. I know the context appears to be, the earlier verses appear to be on the day of judgment but it's not, if you keep reading you will find that you're back in this life. It is very confusing to some people but it's not confusing at all if you sit and reflect on it a little bit and you find out no, no, no, no, this is referring to this book, this Quran, this here is our book, our Quran proclaiming against you in truth, meaning we have told you exactly what to expect, we have told you exactly what we are expecting of you, and then the verse, the Ayah continue we have been having others نستنسخ because this this version of the verb أنسخ which is we take this one from it means to request somebody else to do it, to request somebody else to strengthen all that you used to work. In other words, this Ayah is saying whatever wrong terminology you have developed and extracted and you insisted on being a beliar, you refuse the evidence that the Quran is giving you, and you refuse the methodology from the Quran and you made up your own ways, your own sources, your own authoritative references as we discussed in several other videos before Allah (swt) is saying: “Our book gave you the warnings, you refused them and then we had others either angels or other humans strengthen the conclusions that you falsely reached, you erroneously reached” changes the meaning totally has nothing to do with making copies of your deeds. Of course, Allah does not need to make copies of your deeds: Allah's knowledge is perfect already. We don't need to worry about that concept being misinterpreted. Here, we resolved several concepts by just a little bit of linguistic analysis and a little bit of confidence and ascribing to Allah his due reverence his due eminence they did not ascribe to Allah is due eminence and reverence. And as you see when we apply the methodology with © The Marvelous Quran 2021. This is copyrighted material. Duplication or copying or sharing without prior written approval is strictly prohibited. 13 these principles of certainty, of reflection, of applying the linguistic analysis that our mandated in the Quran itself, then we reach the right conclusion and it's very easy to understand what's going. Now, we get to the famous Ayah from Surah Al-Baqarah 2:106, this is the beautiful interpretation that is the conclusion or the result of this research on نسخ because it puts everything in perspective. Remember, I said that Ayah resides where? Ayah is not on the paper, Ayah is in your cognition, in your mental framework or the results of your own mental framework. So if you see a sign in the text, it jumps at you as something beautiful, something indicative, a clear clue that you're learning something new, as we just did with the verb نسخ we've analyzed it and we received a beautiful conclusion that's a sign, Ayah. Now, look what happens, when we apply this new knowledge, this new revelation that just came to us from Allah (swt), as a result of this analysis, and as a result of the certainty principle, that is part of the methodology, then this Ayah makes perfect sense. Watch this, it's like magic, it changes the meaning totally. Any sign that we abrogate, where? in your own worldview, in your own schema, in your own mental framework or make you forget, we shall bring deeper understanding out of it or a deeper understanding from another one like it. so what is this talking about? Now, you see when we analyze the earlier Ayat about نسخ we learned from those, and then we're bringing that information to here. This is applying learnings from other Ayah to this Ayah. This is exactly what this Ayah is talking about. We shall bring deeper understanding out of this one or a deeper understanding from another one related to it, like it, and then we bring it in here. Now, the word خير has been also misinterpreted, they translated it, and interpreted it as better but sometimes, it's not just better it means in the Quran, it's used to mean deeper understanding, as in the Duaa that Mussa (as) made in Surah Al-Qasas: My lord I am in deep need, in desperate need for any deep understanding that you provide me. So this deeper understanding is also part of the indication of the word خير so it's not just better, it is also deeper understanding. So if you put deeper understanding in this translation, we shall bring deeper understanding out of it, the one that we abrogated, where abrogated in your own mental scheme and not in the Quran itself. So yes, there is abrogation, yes, it is indicated in the Quran, but it's in your own mind not in the words of Allah (swt) on paper. I don't know how they could excuse themselves for thinking that there is such abrogation in the Quran. so Allah (swt) continues: Did you not know that Allah provides measured apportionments of elucidation, of guidance, of interpretation, guidance, help atop every part of the Quran ؟ Remember, the word شيء we've talked about this several times now the word شيء when it occurs in association with learning, with knowledge, it's always referring to Ayat of the Quran, the physical Ayat of the Quran, the text. So Allah (swt) is saying: Don't you know, don't you remember that Allah apportionment for everything you learn so he gives you the guidance and the learning in small chunks that you can handle “Yusr” that's exactly why we started with the word Yusr at the top of this video. So I hope now you appreciate that we have a beautiful consistent understanding and interpretation of all of these Ayat, and they all fit beautifully, and they point in the direction of this concept of schema, the schema or the conceptual, or the cognitive framework that animates everything that we think about. so now, we can really move forward to the new concept of the throne al-arsh. Al-arsh is I’m going to give you the answer and then we're going to detail it, but just to make sure that you're not kept in suspense. Al-arsh is a word used in the Quran in over two dozen Ayat and it means world view. What's world view? We talked about a schema, which is one way to like we said, dog has four legs, and it's an animal, and it barks, and that's one schema. It represents one concept. Well a human being has anywhere between ten thousand and a hundred thousand schemas. Anything from values, to what you consider the nature of god, to how god interferes in this world, philosophical ideas, financial concepts, definitions of success, values that you apply, how you deal with your neighbors, with your relatives. Every single possible piece of knowledge is contained within a container called the schema, the collection of all of these schemas is al-arsh. You're going to go: Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! this has nothing to do with the throne that they told us about, absolutely has nothing to do with it. Where do they get the word arsh equal throne? You should know the answer. Because, their schema immediately went to what they were familiar with, they were living under the rules of these kings and rulers who ruled the Muslim world. That was their world, this is everything they thought about. To them arsh is a piece of furniture upon which the king sits. They could not get this out of their schema and they reflected it back upon the text and the interpretation of the Quran. The Quran provides us a very clear interpretation as you will see. We're going to give about five or six different examples you're going to see it fits beautifully because this makes perfect sense. It is combining all of these concepts into one clear conclusion. In the language of philosophy sometimes, they use German words because they're more clear. In here it's weltanschauung. Weltanschauung is the word which roughly means worldview, which sometimes people use mental constitution. All of these words are almost equivalent, but I’m going to use weltanschauung because those of you who are going to jump ahead and don't watch this next couple of slides, will not understand what we're talking about, so hopefully you will stay with us and you will continue. A weltanschauung is a comprehensive conception or theory of the world your whole world view how you perceive the world when you're born as a child you don't have such a weltanschauung but slowly but surely you develop a complete comprehensive weltanschauung and this continues all the way until you're in your 20s and you start being an © The Marvelous Quran 2021. This is copyrighted material. Duplication or copying or sharing without prior written approval is strictly prohibited. 15 active adult so it's a collection of all cognitive frameworks and schemas that silently animate your perception, your understanding, your judgment, your decisions, and all of your actions. Everything that you do sprouts from this weltanschauung this is al-arsh. Why do we say this? And how does it apply to the Ayat? We're going to see. Al-arsh could be at the individual level, al-arsh could also be at a group level, society in general, and it's called culture or it could be at the organizational level so in management it's called organizational culture. So I’ll give you a quick example, some companies don't mind if an employee comes a little late, some companies are very strict, different cultures. Some companies are very heavy on making sure women and men are assigned equivalent number of roles, and so, on that's part of their culture. Some companies don't have that; they have other things. They are very strict about and so on… So different companies or different organizations or different societies have different collections of weltanschauung. Collectively, that becomes the social or the group weltanschauung, so you go to a country, just to make a quick example, you go to a country, like you know any of the Muslim countries, I’m not going to name anyone, and it is very common to see women covered, covering the hair in general, for Muslim societies is a very important cultural aspect and they relate it to religious values that they hold and that's legitimate for them because it's part of their weltanschauung. Now, you go to china for example covering the hair is not that important, however, covering the feet is absolutely important. So women do not show their feet in china they don't mind showing the hair, and so on… that's part of their weltanschauung. I hope this is clear so we'll deal with some examples. The first example relates to the story of the queen of Sheba we've covered this a little bit earlier, in an earlier video but we're going to extend that story a little bit more and talk specifically about al-arsh. In that other video, I told you don't ask me about al-arsh because we're going to discuss it later and here we are. We are discussing it now. So let's fit that concept of weltanschauung upon the verses of the Quran and see if they make sense. “I found a woman ruling over them and she has been taught of all parts of the scripture”. Remember, we affirmed last time that she was not a monotheist but she believed in god, and they had a scripture, both. So here we're confirming this again, “she has been given of everything of a scripture and she has a wellestablished world view or weltanschauung”, “I found her” this is the hood-hood speaking. Remember, the hood-hood is not a bird, we said this is not a hoopoe bird as is explained in the books of Tafseer and the translations. We said we will talk about it some other time, so we'll leave it at that. so this is hood-hood © The Marvelous Quran 2021. This is copyrighted material. Duplication or copying or sharing without prior written approval is strictly prohibited. 16 speaking. He says: “I found her and her people submitting to the messenger al-shams”. Remember, we talked about al-shams. You see now while we're building one step at a time, one piece of information, a little bit at a time, so we don't make it too overwhelming for you, and then we continue with the videos one at a time, we're heading toward the understanding of the full stories that we're dealing with. “I found her and her people submitting to the messenger as an intercessor, intermediary to Allah and shaitan embellished their works in the scripture, and thus he obstructed them from the correct path, and they cannot seek divine guidance. Would they not submit to Allah? He's asking a question why would they not submit to Allah who brings forth all that's hidden in the samawat and ard. We talked about ard but we will leave samawat till later. Basically, it's the layers of understanding, the layers of comprehension that are built into al kitab. We talked about the difference between kitab and Quran. Quran is the actual text, the kitab are the meanings contains all the messages behind the text that are extracted from the text. Kitab is layered into seven layers, seven samawat, we will talk about this Insha’Allah in a in an upcoming video. “Would they not submit to Allah who brings forth all that's hidden in the samawat and ard, and who knows what you hide and what you expose. So the hood-hood is clearly understanding what his mission is and why he's objecting to what the queen of Sheba and her people did. and then he continues Allah there is no deity but him should be the only lord of the well-established world view so now we have the use of the arsh twice. At the beginning “and she has been taught all parts of the scripture and she has a well-established world view”. It's not necessarily correct world view, he's saying it's a wrong world view but it's well-established. The whole society is trained on this world view aazim, magnificent but it's wrong because it's built on the wrong assumption of assigning a messenger al shams as an intermediary between people and god. So al hood-hood recognized this cannot be right, this is built on a false assumption, on an erroneous assumption, and he's telling Suleiman, this is their problem. and furthermore, he says something really critical. Watch this Ayah 24, in Arabic he says: This mistake they made, they fell into that trap of putting the messenger as an intermediary between them and Allah allowed shaitan to block them, to, to obstruct them from the correct path. This is so significant, because this one erroneous mistake your world view, your weltanschauung becomes wrong, all built in the wrong way. And therefore, you are blocked from the correct path and you cannot seek divine guidance. This is so critical. Remember, we said yahtdadoun does not mean they're guided, they cannot even seek the right guidance. So this gives us a beautiful or significant principle here which is: if you want to be among those who are guided first you have to seek guidance, and if you want to see guidance you have to have the right voltage on. © The Marvelous Quran 2021. This is copyrighted material. Duplication or copying or sharing without prior written approval is strictly prohibited. 17 I hope this is clear which means that you also need to clear all of your frameworks, all of your schemas and make sure you don't accept wrong pieces of information. Now, do we have hope that we can clear and cleanse are mistaken or erroneous weltanschauung. Of course, this is why we read the verses up above about abrogation, so this all fits in beautifully. Allah (swt) will help you abrogate the wrong messages or the wrong information that are part of your erroneous world view. What do you have to do? You have to work the verses you have you have to believe and work the Ayat of the Quran and extract the correct terminology. This is why we're doing all of this. And this is why we're saying this is divine this علم علم is divine. This is not something I invented, this is something exposed to us by Allah, and we cannot keep it to one person, and let it be contained with even one small group, it has to be passed to all mankind. This is a gift to all mankind, not just to me and that's why I’m on the mission to distribute this knowledge as far and as wide as possible. “would they not submit to Allah who brings forth all that's hidden”. Now, you understand this is exactly what we're talking about because the schemas are all hidden, they operate on you without your knowledge, they operate on you and infect your decisions, and impact your perception, and make your understanding wrong. All of these things, are part of the schemas. Like we said at the beginning schemas have two purposes. They can they can help you understand or they can obstruct you from understanding and if you have the wrong schema you have an obstruction. And therefore, you cannot see. And this is the beauty of this concept. This is why Allah (swt) tells us: “we have not transgressed against them, they have been transgressing against themselves”. Those schemas are up to you to maintain and to fix. Think of yourself as a farmer. A farmer who has these plants, these shrubs, Allah (swt) sends you the rain, but you have to keep trimming those shrubs, make sure there are no bugs and insects on them. If there are some extra branches you reduce the energy drawn by these wrong branches so that you can focus the energy on the right branches and so on… So you have to keep working the verses, the Ayat of the Quran so that you can keep trimming and properly preening and preparing these verses for a correct understanding, and you never stop. This is a long life occupation, this is why I said in the past a couple of videos, this is our primary occupation, this is the best gift to mankind. We have to keep working on it because the construction of these schemas are not up to us. We do the damage, Allah (swt) helps us do the abrogation, and the cleansing. And I certainly hope you get this beauty or the beauty of these concepts and these are real, these are not imaginary, these are right there, in the Ayat in front of us. If we believe the Quran, this is our mental world model, world view, we step forward toward Allah (swt) by engaging the Quran. Allah reciprocates with bounties of gifts and beautiful understanding and cleansing of the world view that may have some bugs in it. © The Marvelous Quran 2021. This is copyrighted material. Duplication or copying or sharing without prior written approval is strictly prohibited. 18 Finally, I just want to make a note that as you notice there is no physical throne. And therefore, in the story of the queen of Sheba no physical throne was moved. We are not covering that part of the story, I freed and all of that stuff and I told you keep those details till later please don't write me in the comments about … and how did he move it and all of that. There is no physical throne it's all world view, it's a mental cognitive model, weltanschauung. And Suleiman understood al-arsh that was blocking and obstructing the queen of Sheba and her people and when she came to him, he was able to converse with her at her level, understanding her world view, just like we saw Yusr. So Zul karnayn was speaking using Yusr to the people, and Suleiman was able to speak using Yusr to the queen of Sheba. When she understood the mistakes she had made, it was very obvious for her, of course, we made mistakes, so what? now Alhamdulillah we are guided, we praise Allah (swt), she immediately turned to the proper submission, to the proper Islam with Suleiman. So this is the beauty of this whole story, and now you can see how all of these concepts come together, and form a coherent unity tawheed. This is the whole point of tawheed, that we integrate all of these concepts because they're coming from the same source (Allah (swt)), everything has to fit beautifully. If we don't seek this tawheed of understanding that means there's something wrong in how we view our relationship with the one Allah, with the one god. I hope this makes sense. So we're going to continue with a couple of critical examples, just to wrap up this concept. I’m not going to come back to the concept of al-arsh so I want to finish this issue Insha’Allah. The second example is from Surah Yussuf and there if you read the Tafseer it's all over the place, it's really confusing, there is no evidence for it. And now with this understanding of al-arsh, it makes perfect sense, you see the king became a Muslim with Yussuf. He submitted to Allah (swt) and when Yaacoob and Yussuf all came together and the king was Muslim he raised abbawayh who are the abbawayh? Ibrahim and Isaac because they're mentioned right there in Ayah I believe five or six I can't remember exact number of Surah Yussuf, those two forefathers are the founders of monotheism for that branch of Ibrahim, of the descendants of Ibrahim. So to the king these were his two forefathers, his teachers, his predecessors. He took the values that they taught, and made them above the weltanschauung of the people of Missr. He's the king and he used this new system of thinking, this new world view, to teach everyone in Missr. That's what it means, he raised his two spiritual forefathers, including all of their teachings, and their values atop the state's world view, meaning he established the values of Ibrahim and Isaac over the weltanschauung of Missr which tells us clearly that he implemented broad educational programs. It wasn't just “okay let's do it”, no they implemented very careful deliberate spreading of this new weltanschauung. I hope you get the point. I hope you get the hint of what I’m talking about. Example number three, by the way there are dozens of examples and I chose just a few just to represent the idea and that hopefully this will convince you that we are on the right path. Again, I showed you the linguistic references I showed you all of the you know methodological concepts that we're applying and now we're doing verification. Does this concept really make sure with all observations we have? So in Surah Al-Aaraf number seven, verse number 137 Allah (swt) describes what happened to Firaoun and his people afterwards and he says: So we destroyed what Firaoun and his people used to fabricate and what collective indoctrination they used to carry out. now why did I use indoctrination in here? Because Firaoun and his people were not creating a good arsh. They were creating the wrong arsh, the arsh or the that allows the oppressor to dominate over his people. And that's why I included the next quote this is from Bantu Stephen Biko, a famous south African liberation movement leader who has assassinated 1977. There's a beautiful quote that I like a lot and I often use it and I wanted to put it in front of you. He says: The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed. So therefore, this is what Firaoun and his people were creating, they're creating a weltanschauung in the mind of the oppressed, the masses that allowed Firaoun and his people to benefit at their expense, and to stay in power at their expense. Now, you understand why the king and the story of Yussuf wanted to do the right thing and Allah honored his mention by remembering him in the Quran. Such a beautiful touching mention about the king. All right, so in conclusion, al-arsh is my and your silent weltanschauung. Set of mental frameworks and cognitive schemas that animates my perception, your perception understanding judgment decisions and actions. And finally, I want to say something critical, when Allah (swt) says عرشه as we are going to see, why is he attributing arsh to himself? Because of course, everything is his creation, so it is your weltanschauung and you have influence over it with what you do of the works and extracting of the references and the terminology and so on and so forth, and choosing the authorities and the references and the sources of information, but at the end of the day it's his. Allah (swt) created it. Allah (swt) maintains control over it as we shall see. So let's go to the next example, how does Allah provide us direct guidance using this concept of arsh. I’m going to introduce one new concept, and then we will put them all together. Example number five in Surah 13 verse 17, I’m not going to translate the whole thing because we need to focus on just a couple of key points, he brought down liquid from sama. Remember, sama is what's above you in terms of understanding, so Allah (swt) is representing metaphorically the guidance that comes from Allah as liquid that comes or water that comes metaphorically above you of course. So Allah (swt) brought down liquid or water from sama and valleys flow in apportionment now these valleys is this guidance that comes and they follow the traces of what? You should be able to answer this question, your schemas are represented by these values and whatever this new guidance comes down, it either follows the right schema, and makes it richer and happier and healthier or it follows the wrong schema, and your schema rejects the guidance. Remember, we represented the schema with colored glasses so Allah gives you the right guidance but your colored glasses are rejecting it. Therefore, Allah gives you the guidance and this is what we've been saying all along Allah gives the guidance to every single human being all the time all the time non-stop he did not create us and forget us he created us and is constantly guiding us. But, it is our own weltanschauung that's corrupt, just like colored glasses, they don't allow all the hues of guidance to come through. So we selectively accept some, and we selectively reject some, or we reject everything. “We have not transgressed against them but they were transgressing against themselves”. This is a representation here this fluid or water that comes down and nourishes the schemas that you have, the weltanschauung that you have. Now, because of your schemas may be corrupt in some ways, Allah (swt) is representing this corruption with the foam, the froth that builds on top of the liquid that flows through these valleys. The froth builds on top as to what benefits mankind it remains with what you understand of al-ard, of the scripture. Now, we understand Allah (swt) provides us guidance and if our mental framework, cognitive schemas are correct, these schemas keep building into more and more beautiful understanding, more comprehensive understanding of the whole ard, the whole scripture. These are the metaphors that are included in these verses. These are the words of my lord. how do you explain these words? It is your schema; it is your weltanschauung. Let's go to another example. Example 6, now the word على confuses a lot of people, they imagine this throne, piece of furniture sitting on top of the water, it's not. And the weltanschauung was established upon the divine liquid, we just talked about liquid, that is brought down from above. So Allah (swt) sends us this nourishing fluid represented by the word ماء which means life by the way. So he revives us constantly just like he's a farmer taking care of his plants and wants us to grow in the right direction in a healthy way with the correct schemas but the choice is up to us he gave us the choice. he gave us the free will. and therefore, when we apply it correctly, we benefit with his gifts and his guidance. But, when we apply it in the wrong way or reject it then don't blame Allah (swt) because Allah (swt) is always bringing down rain and water upon your weltanschauung. Another example, and this is the one that we've been waiting for. Does Allah sit on a throne? And now it should be very obvious, the translation of this sentence is established he established balanced governance over the weltanschauung that animates you. So his arsh is in you and every one of us has a arsh © The Marvelous Quran 2021. This is copyrighted material. Duplication or copying or sharing without prior written approval is strictly prohibited. 21 for Allah (swt) and created by Allah. So there's no god sitting on a piece of furniture somewhere in the heavens. That mistaken image is not worthy of his eminence. Arsh is part of us, that is our worldview, we nourish it, we cleanse it, we work on it, Allah provides more and more beautiful guidance to help us stay on the right track and allow us to grow and develop tezkia of this weltanschauung. So he established balanced governance over the weltanschauung that animates you. How did he do this? He did two things, he established the rules and the structures that are part of your own creation that enable your comprehension and that restrict your perception, those are part of the rules, every part of creation is subject to rules. The governance of those rules belong to Allah (swt). but yet, you have the full freedom to cleanse it and grow it correctly, and prepare it, and prune it, and keep it clean, or you have the freedom to destroy it. “He is successful who is trying to grow it correctly and he is going to be a loser deceived person who tries to suppress it”. The second part Allah (swt) responds: In proper measure whenever we go to seek guidance from him, with intentions that are pure, we try to seek the right information, the right guidance, learn as much as possible, keep our cup as empty as possible and as submissive to the receiving from Allah as possible, and then Allah (swt) would respond these are all the verses we just saw. So that's how he established balanced governance over the throne. So he gives you in the right apportionment, he doesn't overwhelm you, gives you a piece at a time, as much as you can handle Yusr. But, he also, is right there whenever you need it just ask for it with sincerity and you're going to see all sorts of calcification go away with the help of Allah. Finally, a quick gift, Surah Al-Sharh Allah (swt) tells us… You notice the word Yusr which is what we started with at the top of this video, which is the ease of comprehension, and it's a beautiful image that I want to share with you, it's different than what they told us, what they taught us. So with every obstacle we run into Allah (swt) is assuring us that you have an opportunity to improve your weltanschauung. So there is a better Yusr, and he repeated it twice in the same Surah. That's all I’m going to say about it, if you want to stop the video and watch it in detail that's fine. But basically, to summarize this part “where I trip is where the treasure is” so when you run into challenges, immediately, run toward Allah because that's a perfect opportunity to seek guidance and to repair some of the erroneous weltanschauung that has misled you to cause this problem in the first place. Why didn’t earlier scholars develop this علم based on what the Quran is telling us very clearly? I think the answer is very clear by now, because their mental frameworks came short they just assumed the wrong assumptions. they were they were misleading themselves, and as a result they not only misled themselves, but they misled others. And then after them groups many groups, many generations of people to © The Marvelous Quran 2021. This is copyrighted material. Duplication or copying or sharing without prior written approval is strictly prohibited. 22 this day, who still insist we have to follow them. wrong weltanschauung, wrong arsh, they are corrupting our arsh, the arsh that Allah (swt) created and that Allah (swt) established for him to have governance on. No, they don't want Allah to have governance over, they want themselves to speak instead of Allah. So this is the damage that these early reports about early scholars produced and we are still living with the same problem. This is also why scholars are not ready to understand these interpretations, they don't understand these concepts. I looked very hard for anyone who understands philosophy, who understands cognitive psychology, who understand historical methods, who understands abstract algebra for set theory, because there's a lot of algebra and set theory in the Quran groups and sets and this group is this, this group is this, and there's an intersection between them and so on. There's all sorts of new sciences that our scholars are not educating themselves in and they're neglecting these sciences and they're sticking to the old books that were written 1200 years ago, and they're insisting that this is Islam, and they're doing more harm to Islam because of their actions, unknowingly of course. We don't assign any intentions or bad intentions to them but ignorance is not an excuse for misrepresenting Islam, and we need to stop this. So we, you and I have a lot of work to do, we have a lot of work to do, and I need your help and this is what I need your help with: First of all, I promise you this divine علم has not been revealed to us today so that it extinguishes in the next month or a year or decade. Allah (swt) revealed this divine علم for a purpose. Allah (swt) wants something better for mankind and you have a role to play, so here's what I’m asking you to do. I’m asking you to immediately download these video segments as soon as possible just in case, and I think you know what I mean. Help us spread the word about this channel, make sure that you help me and help the team reply to the vicious comments that we're receiving on the comment streams. Enter the comment stream, spend as much time or as little time you have, and try to identify those strollers you know, who are trolling who are just leaving really nasty, hateful, crude comments and help respond to them in a good way, in a polite way of course, in line with the morals and manners of Islam. And then also, if you have access to any scholars or any leaders in your community make sure they see these videos and get it in front of them so we can get some interaction. We start spreading this علم as soon as possible. And then finally, if you have the time or if you have other means of supporting us please contact us on the email in front of you marvelousquran@gmail.com I apologize this video is very long and as you see it's very heady and it has a lot of information in it and we covered a lot of ground, and hopefully it will be useful to you. I thank you very much for watching!
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