November 14, 2012 Morning Class Ayah 4 Allah is the most generous and out of His mercy He made the pen a mean for teaching and learning His creation ( the pen is a wasila by Allah creation learning. ). So to teach His Man was created very weak and dependent and then how Allah elevated his status by teaching him the knowledge. Allah brought the insaan from the womb of the mother not knowing anything ( hearing, the seeing and the heart ( to receive knowledge ( )and then made for him the ) and made these as means ) and then made easy for him the means and ways 1
of learning ( learning is the pen. ). One of the means of receiving the knowledge and What did Allah Sunnah teach the human? The Quran and the What is the significance of pen in learning? By the pen (1) it will preserve the knowledge; (2) everything will be accurate because everything will be written; and (3) it will be like a messenger for the people and will take their place instead of telling they will write, representing them, especially when people are far away. Different means of knowledge and learning but the first and the most important is the pen. Iqra used twice in these 4 ayahs showing the importance of learning and knowledge, one to tell us to read by putting the reliance on Allah and then in the third ayah to read and Allah pen. will teach out of His generosity and will bring the means; one of them being the Ayah 5 2
Who teaches us? Only Allah teaches us and what does He teach us ( ); out of His generosity and mercy He teaches us things which we did not know because we were born (came out of mother s womb) ignorant, without knowing anything. The three means needed for learning; hearing, seeing and the heart, were given by Allah. Before we did not know anything about Quran, Sunnah, faith; anything, man was completely ignorant, Allah taught us out of His fadal and karam with means. We cannot really thank Allah as much as He deserves, cannot reward Him because He is self sufficient for all the favours bestowed upon us, the knowledge being the most important mercy. Till here the first 5 Ayahs were revealed together in the first revelation on Prophet Muhammad. Ayah 6 But instead of being grateful for all the mercies and favours of Allah upon us, not all of us are grateful to Allah. is meaning in fact and then an emphasis is 3
means indeed that human is that is exceeds his limits ( ). As human we have limits/borders set by the legislation; haram and halal, dos and donts; given by Our creator but we cross our limits. Within the limits are the belief and the halal, allowed things and acceptable deeds but outside the boundaries we see the disbelief, haram and unacceptable deeds, this is when human cross their limits. We need to be humble and grateful to Allah but because if we don t learn and don t gain the knowledge then we will not know our boundaries and will do, overflow, cross the limits. Why does man exceed his limits: in Ayah 7: the reason for this transgression is given Ayah 7 When we see this type of man, we see him thinking that he is selfsufficient from Allah ( ), a man to be within the limits he should not feel self-sufficient or independent, he should feel depending on Allah, should feel the need of Allah and realize his helplessness without Allah. When he feels himself that he 4
can do anything with the means, he does not feel the need of Allah for sustenance, for forgiveness, this is called ; he feels that he is rich by himself. This is the reason behind him exceeding the limits. He thinks he owns the means and the intellect which are sufficient for him and he feels self-sufficient from Allah and exceeds his limits and become arrogant. means rope in Arabic ( ), it s just a mean not the goal in itself. Everybody is poor and we need Allah in all times, in times of richness and poverty, in times of health and ailment, in times of comfort and distress, whatever the conditions are we are always in need to Allah, that s why we need to always remember that we were nothing when we came out of our mother s womb, ignorant and week. A Muslim believer never thinks that he is self-sufficient from Allah for even a blink of an eye ( ), he uses the means but never relies on them e.g. use the pen but always remember that knowledge is a provision from Allah and use the medicine but the health can only be given by Allah. He knows he has weaknesses and cannot do anything by himself. This is a true believer ( ), never feeling self-sufficient from Allah ( ) 5