Learning Arabic and Tajweed

Learning Arabic and Tajweed

Opening Salutation

(السَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللَّهِ وَبَرَكَاتُهُ - assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh)

Opening Khutbah (Khutbat al-Hajah)

All praise belongs to Allah. We praise Him, we seek His forgiveness and His guidance. We seek refuge in Allah from the evils of our own ego. Our own ego. And the evil results of our own bad deeds.

Anyone whom Allah guides, then no one can lead him astray. And anyone whom Allah leaves to stray, then there is no one that can guide him. And I bear witness that there is nothing worthy of worship and no gods in reality, except Allah, the one and only.

And I bear witness that Muhammad, the son of Abdullah (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) is his slave and his final messenger.

Opening Verses

Allah says what could mean in the Quran:

"All you who believe, fear Allah. Remember Allah. Respect Allah. As it is His right to be feared, remembered and respected. And don't any one of us die, except that we die as Muslims."

"All mankind, everyone now, all mankind, fear your Lord. Be conscious of your Lord. And if you don't know who your Lord is, He tells you. The one who created you all from one soul, Adam. And created from that soul, its mate, Eve. And raised up from just two of them, many men and women. And fear Allah. Fear Allah. And fear Allah, the one whom you're asking for. And don't cut ties with the wombs that bore you. Indeed Allah above you all, is laying in watch."

"All you who believe. Again, all you who believe. This is not only a khitab, not only is Allah calling the believers, but it's like saying, if you really believe. So you can include yourself, or you can exclude yourself. All you who believe, be conscious of your obligation. Be conscious of your accountability to Allah. That you will meet Allah. And you will be questioned about everything that you did here. And in light of this consciousness, then say a word, that leaves your mouth, and is like an arrow. It penetrates the issue. Don't just beat around the bush."

But before you feed someone your words, taste them. Understand that you will hear this again. Many times we say things and we think, that it's the proper thing to say. But it's the only thing that is, it's what we want to say. It's not the way it should be said. And we don't want to say it the way it should be said, because of our egos.

Because we feel, that we can say it in a particular way. And then when the people reject our statements, we say they're wrong for rejecting the truth. When in actuality, they're not rejecting the truth, they're rejecting the ugly attitude, that is swarming around the truth.

As one person said, that if you bring someone the best meal, the most delicious meal you can possibly imagine, but if you put it in a garbage can, and you deliver it, no one will want to eat it. So fear Allah, be conscious of Allah, and know:

"Know that you've not been ordered to do anything, except try your level best. This is what it means when we say مُخْلِصِينَ لَهُ الدِّينَ People erroneously, they just say the word translated, sincerely. No, but what does sincerely mean here? It means that you try your level best. And everyone's level best is different."

"For what they've been provided with, they spend. So Allah gave you not only wealth, He gave some people intellect. He gave some people brawn. From whatever you've been getting, you spend it ۚفِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ You do your level best."

Maybe the man that gave three dates gave more than the man that gave 3,000 rupees. Maybe. Maybe the man that showed up and worked all day gave more than the man that gave 4,000 rupees.

So, from what they have been provided, they do their level best. So then, taste your words before you feed them to someone, and understand that you will stand before Allah. And if you fear Allah, if you're conscious of Allah, prior to you speaking, and you say a word that penetrates the issue, Allah has promised you a reward in obedience to His command.

He said:

"He will rectify your affairs. This means, something that you intrinsically, something that you originally did wrong, He will make it right for you. And how many times have we done something wrong, we say, oh, just make it right, and it becomes right, and then we think, oh, I was slick. I was smart. When in actuality, Allah answered your dua. You made a blatant mistake, and you got away with it."

You think this is the shaitan coming to marginalize the mistake, coming to make you more ungrateful to your Lord. So instead of you saying الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ الَّذِي أَنجَانِي The one who saved me from this particular fitna that I caused with my own hands, we say, it wasn't that bad. It wasn't that bad, so that we can become ungrateful.

And this is one of the tricks of shaitan. So Allah says, He will rectify your affairs and forgive you your sins and whomsoever. Here is an isharah. Here is some more direction that Allah has given us with the Quran. And whoever is already obeying Allah and already obeying his messenger has already achieved the highest aspirations anyone can possibly hope to achieve.

Why is this mentioned here? And Allah knows best. But what we can tell is that from our nature, we want the dunya. We want the best of anything. Does anybody want some junk? Anyone that want to live in a burnt out place? Everyone wants to live in a mansion. Everyone wants to have a palace. Everyone wants to have the best of everything, the best food, the best clothes.

So Allah is telling us, whoever is already obeying Allah, if you are in the obedience of Allah and you're already obeying his messenger, you've achieved everything that anybody could possibly hope to want. That's the example, that's the guidance that we're getting.

Introduction

As for what follows, that everybody has to understand. And this is the purpose of this conversation tonight.

Everybody has to know that the best speech is the speech of Allah, the Quran. The speech of Allah. And the best guidance is the guidance of Muhammad (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam). And this cannot be lip service.

This cannot be rhetoric. And everybody has to understand that the most evil of affairs are those things that we, our individual self, introduce into our lives. Those things that have not been regulated. Those things that are not within the parameters of Islam.

The hudud of Allah are wide and expansive. We have room to do whatever we need to and would want to do.

But then, when we want to work outside the parameters, that's when things break down. We wouldn't take a computer in this computer information age and use a computer in a way that is not regulated for that computer to use. Because automatically we know that you're going to break the computer. You're gonna lose your investment. It's not going to work.

We are a creation. We've been created by Allah (جل جلاله - Jalla Jalaluhu). And He knows best how we should operate. And if we operate outside of the way that He created us, then we will break down. And this breakdown may not be something perceptible to human understanding. Because our intellect, ya ikhwan, is limited. It has a ceiling. But our ego abounds.

And so we believe that anything that we can't understand or perceive with our limited faulty intellect, it doesn't really exist. But the spiritual stain of sinning, the spiritual stain of ghafla, and ghafla is being unmindful. This is the fundamental number one thing people go to hell for. Not caring. Not giving a damn. That's what it is.

They don't care. It's not important. They've marginalized. And this is why Allah says to remember to be conscious. Don't be unconscious. Shaytan is called al-khanas.

One of the meanings of al-khanas is that his nose is propped up like a pig's. Do you know why? His nose is propped up because his nose is pressed hard on the hearts of man. He's smelling. And he's sniffing. And he's waiting to hear fear. And when he smells fear, when he smells forgetfulness, he jumps in the body.

And as the Messenger of Allah (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) said, he runs through the body of man majjara jara. He runs through the body of man like his blood. So he's just sniffing and waiting for you to forget. To become unmindful.

So we have to have taqwa. We have to be diligent and have sabr, which means to be always persistent about what our life is here for. Because if not, we will constantly stain our souls. We will constantly stain our deen. And then things will start to break down.

Sinning and lying, it stops up your livelihood. Disobedience to parents, it slows your life span. It lessens your life span. These are things that are happening that we don't even, we can't perceive. So we have to, if we believe, if we believe, understand what the perimeters are.

Main Body: The Importance of Reading the Quran

The situation with us is very simple. And the simplicity of Islam is what makes it confusing to many. If I were

to say, who wants to be a good Muslim? Raise your hand. It's not a khutbah. If you want to be a good Muslim, raise your hand. Let me ask you then, what's the first order in the Quran?

Not even that, what's the first word in the Quran? Tell me. I can't hear you. Louder please. Is this one? Yeah, louder. No, iqra.

(اقْرَأْ - iqra)

What is it? Everybody say it. What does (اقْرَأْ - iqra) mean? What is it telling you to read?

So how many of us are following the very first word? The notion in this khutbah, this lecture we're having today, the importance of Arabic and tajweed. Now here we are in Sri Lanka.

More than five centuries ago, and I'm not here just to tell you your own history. But more than five centuries ago, the Sri Lankan people were well known for their fiqh and the study of the Arabic language. This was a place that this was known. This was a quality that was known from the people here in Sri Lanka and the Maldives Islands.

The very first thing that Allah chose to tell us was what? (اقْرَأْ - iqra) read. Read what? The Quran. How can you do that without knowing the Arabic language? Some might say, well it doesn't mean read, it means recite. Well you still have to recite in the Arabic language. So that demands, we have a rule in fiqh.

Whatever the ruling is, for one thing, in order to do that thing, whatever you have to do to attain that thing, it also has the same ruling. For example, if we have to offer salah, and there is no salah without wudu, if it's farid to offer salah, then the ruling on wudu is also farid. Because we have to have wudu in order to make the salah.

So Allah has told us to read the Quran. He's made it the very first word in the book (اقْرَأْ - iqra) read

The Historical Context: Colonialism and Arabic

And the very first thing that the Europeans did when they came to this island was to stop up and to wipe out the study of the Arabic language. Now that's an interesting point that you all should look at. They were unable to establish these islands or any place as a colony without stopping the many universities and the different madrasas all over the island that were teaching the Arabic language.

Without stopping them, there was no way they were going to colonize the island. Why? Because first of all, in order to stop you from learning your deen, they must cut you off from the source. I said that these islands were known for their fiqh.

How many fiqh books are in the English language? We might have not more today than we had 500 years ago. But there are still not that many fiqh books in the English language. So how familiar, how much access can you get to your deen if you don't know the Arabic language?

The Revolutionary Act: Reading the Quran Daily

So I tell you if you want to establish an Islamic community the most revolutionary thing that you can do is pick up the Quran every day for 30 minutes. I challenge you to pick up the mushaf or if you don't read Arabic pick it up in English and read for just 30 minutes a day. That's approximately 10 pages.

10 pages of the Quran in Arabic is half of a juz. If you read 10 pages a day in 2 months you will finish the whole Quran. If you finish the whole Quran every 2 months how many times a year don't count Ramadan will you finish the Quran? How many times? Six and a half. Because if you count Ramadan you do the whole Quran in Ramadan and then you have another month and so then you finish the Quran.

If you finish the Quran six and a half times a year even if you never memorize you never look to memorize it where will you be in 3 years with the Quran? Where will be your memory of the Quran and its injunctions in 3 years? How many of you have been Muslim for 3 years? Raise your hand. That's everybody in this room.

Where do you think you would be if for the last 3 years you just spent 30 minutes a day? You can't find 30 minutes? How many of you got email? Raise your hand if you have email. Raise your hand if you have voice messenger and text and all that other nonsense. You have all of that? How much time a day do you spend texting? How much time a day do you find answering your emails? Or reading the paper without the same stuff regurgitated over and over again. The date just changes. It's just a new person saying the same thing.

The Power of Quranic Stories

If you're into those superstars they took away the real superstars because did you know that half the Quran are stories? Half the Quran. Why is that? Allah knows best but we know that stories are easy to remember. And for

this reason people when they read stories they remember them and they find themselves reenacting these stories in their mind. And in the stories that Allah gives us is Ibra. It's an example. It's a censor. It's guidance. It pushes towards good character.

But what the stories of the Kufa do and that's why they spend a lot of money on Hollywood, in Disney. They spend billions upon billions of dollars giving you these fake lying stories that busy your mind. They give you these fake lying examples that make you think that the thief is the best person in the world. Always the one who is the biggest criminal. He's the superstar. And so by the end of the story you're seeing yourself in line with this volume. This oppressor. This zany. And you don't even realize it.

And that's why they follow it up with nice HD TV and color. And you sit down and watch this television for more than 30 minutes a day. And it just dwindles your existence away. And you find yourself dreaming and thinking about people who really do not exist. And the stories are lies. And they give you no solution that is viable for a person that is conscious that he will die, be raised back up and maybe even tortured in his grave.

He gives no solutions. And then you find people loving these superstars. But as one person said, the more you learn about the reality of this superstar the more you despise him. The more you realize how despicable these people are. These actors. And you don't want to have anything to do with them.

But the more you learn, the more you read the Quran. And you see and you hear. And the stories of the Quran are brought to life in your daily life. Every day you read a little bit of Quran. Just a little bit. It's the speech of Allah. It's a miracle.

Whenever we want to talk to Allah, we make dua. But who on the planet can get Allah's words, can get Allah to speak to them? Which religion can claim they can get their Lord to speak directly to them? Ours.

Whenever we want to hear the words of Allah, all we have to do is read the Quran. And Allah is giving you His words directly, exactly, special for you, for me, and for everyone else. It's much better than any of the stories we can see on TV.

As much as they can make it dramatic, there's no more story more dramatic than the story of Yusuf. Allah tells us in the Quran it is the best story ever retold. Over and over again. It has drama. It has love. It has deception. It's a very exciting story. You can read it over and over again and get viable solutions in your everyday life.

What do you think would happen to you? How would you change if you listened and read the Quran on a daily basis and the words of Allah are moving in your consciousness? And so that's in the forefront of your mind. And you start to imagine yourself like Jafar. You start to think about Uzair. You start to think about Isa ibn Maryam these great prophets of Allah.

And I don't mean Jafar being a prophet of Allah. I'm just mentioning him along with the other ones. And the reason why I mention him, because he has one of the most exciting stories when he went against 400,000

Romans and lost the physical battle. But we see he was martyred. And that's a very adventurous, very marvelous story to listen to.

But what do they give you? They give you a movie, 300. And they implement some of the history of the Muslims. They mix it with their history in order to lie to you. And to get you wrapped up in this. So you want to be a Roman and you don't want to be a Muslim.

The Practice of the Sahaba

So how many people said they want to be good Muslims? Did you know that the Sahaba they felt that you were sinning themselves if they let 40 days pass and they did not read the Quran? I'm not talking about 40 days pass and they did not read something from the Quran if they did not complete it. And the weakest of them used to complete the Quran every 60 days.

Meaning 10 pages a day. And some of them used to complete the Quran every month. And did you know some of them used to complete the Quran every 10 days, reading with their eyes. And then most of the Sahaba most of the Sahaba used to finish the Quran once a week.

Now to us we say that's impossible. But is it? What are you doing with your time otherwise? The problem is we don't see it helping us in our daily life. Because if we did we would find time to do those things that would give us success in this dunya. Because that's what we do with our time, isn't it right? We feel that we need to learn about computers to be successful so we find time in our daily life to learn more about the web. We learn more and more about it. So that we can be successful.

But Allah has told us and His Messenger, He said the best guidance is the guidance of the Quran. And in that is an example for us. If you believe Him. If you do not believe Him, then busy yourself with something else. And we will see who will really be successful.

Because this world is an illusion. And those that look like they lose sometime here are really successful. We have the story of one of the Sahaba. A Kafir ran up behind him and stabbed him with a spear and lifted him up to the sky. And when the Sahaba was going up he said, I won! I won! And he kept rising up and up and up until he disappeared. And the Kafir said he stole my victory. I stabbed him in the back and he screamed, I won! With so much conviction and more happiness than I did for stabbing him. This is the reality of the Muslim.

So if you believe that Muhammad (صلى الله عليه وسلم) told you the truth. If you believe that Allah guided you, then follow the very first example. Read the Quran. Is that something major? Yes. That's why it's the first thing they took away from you. That's why it's the very first thing they made sure you did not know how to do anymore. Is read.

Time: Our Chief Investment

So you want to do something revolutionary? You want to change the world? It takes consistency. It takes diligence. Every half of the Quran he has to read Quran every day. And I tell you brothers you feel like people are stealing your time. If they distract you from that 30 minutes. If they distract you from it you want to get away from them.

Why? Because you realize that shaitan can come and use all types of things to distract you. If you were here at the khutbah today I said, know that the chief investment the chief investment of the slave is his time. is his time. Who can give me 5 minutes of their life? Can anybody? And I can't give you a second.

The most precious thing we have, ya ikhwan is our time. So if he wastes his time busying himself with things that do not concern him and he doesn't spend his time storing up with it. A reward for himself in hereafter. Saving for that real day. The inevitable event. The day of standing. He's wasted his chief investment. His time.

And for this reason we find the prophet saying from the beauty of a man's Islam He leaves those things that don't concern him. Leave that alone. Mind your business. Not just stay away of it. Mind it. Like a shepherd minds his flock. Mind your time.

Take advantage of five before five. Ultimately your life before your death. The prophet was constantly warning us. Two blessings. Most of the people don't even realize the blessing. They're cheated.

Maghboonun is a very comprehensive word. It means that the person doesn't know the value of the thing he has in his hand. So he sells it or gives it away for cheap. He got beat. He was ignorant and naive. He tried to sell sand on the beach. So he's maghboon. He was cheated out of his wealth.

What are these two blessings? Good health. Good health and free time. And Allah says:

Note the word khair. He said there is no khair. No khair. In most of the people a najwa is a private conversation. What are we doing on these things? What do we do? LOL. Laughing out loud. Saying something foolish a lot of times. There's no khair in most of our private conversations. That's what Allah said.

And when you find a fatha, لَا خَيْرَ when there's a لا and then there's a fatha at the end of it, this means no shape, form, or fashion. It is the most extreme type of negation. That's why we say لَا إِلهَ and we don't say لَا إِلْهُنَ. There is no God whatsoever. No types of God. No little God. No big God. No fake God. No God.

لَا خَيْرَ. No khair whatsoever. In most of the people's private conversations.

"The only khair is the one who is أَمَرَ بِصَدَقَةٍ Who is commanding someone to spend in a charitable way. And spending does not mean monetarily only. A smile to meet your brother with a happy face is sadaqa. Making dua

is sadaqa. Bending down to help someone do something is sadaqa. إِلَّا مَنْ أَمَرَ بِصَدَقَةٍ or مَعْرُوفِ "

Reference: Quran 4:114

And the مَعْرُوف what does Allah say?

"You're the best nation raised up out of all the nations. Commanding the people to do what is مَعْرُوف. مَعْرُوفِ is easily recognized as good but it means the sharia. It means what is recognized as Islamic law. أَمَرَ بِصَدَقَةٍ or مَعْرُوف or إِصْلَاحٍ بَيْنَ النَّاسِ or rectifying the situations between the people. Rectifying that means teaching. That means giving nasiha. This is all those type being counseling people. All these types of things are rectifying the situations between."

Reference: Quran 3:110

Allah says there's no khair in most of your conversations. So then the messenger of Allah said:

(Source Name)

"Whoever believes in Allah on the last day, again include or exclude yourself. مَن يُؤْمِنُ بِاللَّهِ whoever believes in Allah on the last day فَلْيَقُلِ الْخَيْرَ let him say what is khair. We already defined it in the Quran أَوْ لِيَصْمُتْ or let him shut his mouth."

Reference: Sahih al-Bukhari 6475, Sahih Muslim 47

And Ali said the hustle with us is we don't talk. The fundamental principle of us, we don't speak. We don't speak if it concerns us or it doesn't concern us. They said well we understand when it doesn't concern us. What about when it concerns us? We only speak when it concerns us and the right time and the right place and the right language.

Remember we said earlier taste your words before you give them to someone. You have to hunt for the right words. You have to hunt for the right situation and circumstances and the right place. Just because you have a gun and a round doesn't mean you shoot. You have to get out of the forest and get around the trees and get a clear shot.

Likewise you're hunting for the right opportunity to speak to your brother your brother your mother your wife your son your neighbor because in the end of things all the different petty reasons that we find not to speak properly all boil down to our ego. All boil down to me. What I felt like and what I felt entitled to do.

So there's no khair in most of the conversation. So when all these things come together then we speak. And this is because Imam Ali said Every particular place has its particular type of speech.

Practical Method for Reading Quran

Now I'm not telling you and advising you to read Quran and not tell you how to do it. This is what you do. You see how big these phones are? These phones, you get a mushab that is not much bigger than that. You use the exact same mushab everyday. And you get a string and you put it you tape it onto that mushab so you can put it, sometimes the string pops you have to get a nice string to put in there.

Don't get a braided one because it winds up ripping the pages. So get a flat one and you stick it in this mushab and you go day by day. Whenever you get a free moment, you sit down and you read what little you can read everyday. It used to take some people 45 minutes to read one page. But now in less than 30 minutes they can read 10 pages. You have to start somewhere.

And if you don't know how to read then learn how to read. Just like you learn how to do anything else on the internet. You go find somebody. You don't have to like them. How many of you liked every one of your teachers? So it's not a condition that you like the person. It's only a condition if they have what you need.

If this is going to get you into jannah, then who cares? Reading the Quran is very important in the life of the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - ṣallā Allāhu 'alayhi wa sallam). We find that the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - ṣallā Allāhu 'alayhi wa sallam) he used to gauge his own companions based on how much Quran they knew. Did you know that?

Look what the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - ṣallā Allāhu 'alayhi wa sallam) did after the battle of Badr. When it was time to bury those shuhada, those martyrs, he asked which one of them knows more Quran? And whichever one knew more Quran, that's the one that got the best place in the grave. That's the one that got put in the ground first. He was giving preference to the one that knew less.

And if that's not enough encouragement for you to read the book, and if it's not enough encouragement that allows the first thing he told you, the very first thing, and you have to understand, if you're going to tell somebody something, you're going to consider, what's the first thing I'm going to tell him?

Then understand this, your place in Jannah is determined by how much Quran you know. Did you realize that? Or do we put this thing out of its proper context? On Yawm al-Qiyamah, after, let's ask Allah to let us into Jannah. اللَّهُمَّ أَدْخِلْنَا فِي الْجَنَّةِ مِنَ الْآمِنِينَ. But after we get inside of Jannah, now Allah is going to say, you can now recite and rise. There's different levels of Jannah.

Recite and rise. And your place in Jannah will be at the last ayah that you recite. Recite like you used to recite in the dunya. But if you never recited, but you used to sit at home and watch the telelight of your vision, the television, the idiot box, and you became a couch potato, and you can tell him about all the programs, about these silly people making zina, the one backbiting, the one stealing, the guy that's telling jokes that are lies.

You can follow all this for season after season, but you can't tell him what is Surah Yaseen talking about? What number is it? How many ayah? Something simple? What's the story behind Surah al-Masad? What are these

Learning Tajweed

simple things? Why don't we know them? Do we have to go to some jamia? Do we have to go study in Mauritania for six years to learn these things? No! They're available here, right before you, in the musha.

So I encourage you brothers, make it your business to read the Quran every day. Believe me, it will change not only this life, but it will determine your situation in the hereafter. Get a small musha, big enough for you to read the pages, not too small. Get the page holder and make a tape it or staple it too.

Another thing I would suggest for you to do, I see people they pray the two rakah when they come in and they sometimes they pray after. Open the mushaf and recite while you're praying. If you're not praying the fardh salah, you can read the Quran in your salah. I know people say, oh this is strange. Well listen, there's a rule. Some people say, well I never heard that before.

Well then you learned something. Because if you only hear those things that you already knew, then you never learn anything, right? So now I'm trying to teach you something. That you can stand in your salah and read the Quran if it's not the fardh salah. If it's not fajr or dhuhr or asr or maghrib or ishaf, you can read the Quran in your salah. And this is something that is mustahab. This is something that is encouraged for you to do.

Why? Because you'll read more and the salah that has more Quran reciting in it is better than the salah that has less. You'll memorize more by doing this technique. Yes, some people will think you're strange. Some people will say, haram alaik. They'll say it's haram. But is it really haram? Some people say it's haram to make tuwaf. Some people say it's haram to be Muslim. We're going to listen to them? We follow this deen and this deen has come to make clarity how to go about doing things. This is my advice for you.

Learning Tajweed

No, I want to add one more thing here. Those people that can already read Quran, don't settle for not learning tajweed. You know, this whole thing we were mentioning tajweed in here. Tajweed is from the root word .جَوَّدَ جَوَّدَ is the word we find جَيّد. We do something good.

So to do something in a really good way is called tajweed. As it applies to the Quran, it applies to reciting each letter. Giving each letter حَقَّهَا. To give each letter its proper respect. It's not learning all this whole big litany of things, but if you just learn how to recite each letter properly, then this is what will make you recite the whole Quran because the smallest part of the Quran are the letters. And all the letters put together make words. And the words make ayah.

So focus. I'm trying to give you a direction to focus on with your tajweed. Focus on mastering the letters. And then after that, focus on learning where to stop. And where you can start.

When Ali ibn Abi Talib was asked, what is the proper recitation of the Quran? He said it's مَعْرِفَةُ الْحُرُوفِ . Okay? تَجْوِيدُ الْحُرُوفِ وَمَعْرِفَةُ الْوُقُوفِ .I'm sorry

He said it is perfecting the recitation of each letter and knowing where you can stop. You understand that? And all the rules of stopping are based in the Arabic language. So you see where the importance of the Arabic language comes in again?

Now where do we start with learning the Arabic language? Again, you have to start with the letters. Because the smallest part of the language is the letters.

Using Technology to Learn Quran

What can you do these days? Nowadays we have all this internet. You have on the internet, they have these programs that you can just go to the website and for free listen to the qari recite. What I suggest to people all the time and what we do in the states, we get the cd player. You know? And the cd player, we buy the cds of like I say, about five different qura. Sude, siya, huwayt. Hayyat. You know, we get these different, menshawi. You know, we get them and we play one until the end of the quran.

What do we do? We get our mushaf and every day, sometimes we do it between maghrib and isha. Most times we do it before fajr or right after fajr depending on the time that the fajr comes in. And what time most of the people have to go to work.

And we play the quran following this qari and we follow him reciting ten pages. Follow him reciting. When the ten pages close, we hit stop. We remember where we are. We close the book. We got our ten pages. We go about our life. The next day, we pick up again. Follow it. Until we get to the end of the mushaf with that qari. Okay? And then after that, we get a new qari and get in there. And we continue to do this every day.

And it becomes our hobby. Our habit. Is this a good hobby and habit? Yes. It's a hobby that Allah has encouraged you when he told you, recite like you used to recite in the dunya. Telling you and giving you inshara. Giving you some type of direction of what you should be doing in dunya.

And it's amazing that the stories that you read and the advice that you're getting in the quran every day, it's as if, it's directly to everybody individually. And you need that advice. It's just the thing you needed that day. And it stays with you better. And of course it sounds better in your head than when you open your mouth. But that's a different thing.

You don't have to be Abdul Basit to recite. You just have to recite. You know the one who recites the quran with difficulty and he stammers and he stutters with it, he gets a double reward. He gets a better, not a better but a double reward. Where's the one who, he recites it really good. Then he's like an angel. Like the noble angels that are scribes. So this is a beautiful nimah and the best hobby that you can have.

The Best of People

And I say it's the best hobby, why? Because Allah's messenger (صلى الله عليه وسلم - ṣallā Allāhu 'alayhi wa sallam) he said:

خَيْرُكُمْ مَنْ تَعَلَّمَ الْقُرْآنَ وَعَلَّمَهُ

"You see the word خَيْرُكُمْ the best of you. Now everybody here wants to be the best. Nobody wants to be a loser. The messenger of Allah said خَيْرُكُمْ the best of you. Are the ones مَنْ تَعَلَّمَ الْقُرْآنَ the one who studies the Quran. He didn't say the one who was the best at the Quran. He said the one who is in the active of studying the Quran. And this is a lifelong mission."

(Sahih al-Bukhari 5027)

Because there are so many aspects that you can study the Quran. How many surah begin with the name of يَوْمِ الْقِيَامَةِ How many surah are the names of prophets? How many surah are the names of animals? Okay? How many surahs are different events that happen? It's just one aspect.

How many surahs end with the letter ? How many surah end with رَ or or ? And so you start to think about these things. The beauty of the Quran. Listen.

How many of the stories of the prophets are in there that are not named? Okay? Not the stories of the prophets that are named. And how many stories about other than prophets? Like قَارُونَ. How many do we do? Like we realize that when you study the story of قَارُونَ you realize that قَارُونَ was Musa's cousin.

But it doesn't say that in the Quran. And that when Allah swallowed him up, it was in front of everybody. Thousands of people. And why did he swallow him up? He swallowed him up because he challenged the right of هَارُونَ . We don't really hear about هَارُونَ in the Quran, but he's there. When Allah appointed هَارُونَ to be the chief priest of the Jews.

قَارُونَ said well I got the most money. And he brought his men. And they tell me as a delegation, I should be the chief priest. And Allah swallowed him up and sent down lightning from the sky and it killed those other men. And هَارُونَ was appointed as the chief priest. And Musa, his brother, his little brother, was the prophet.

So these are exciting stories that we sometimes know nothing about, but they're right there in the Quran. They're right there. That we could read and take lessons for these things.

Closing

أَقُولُ قَوْلِي هَذَا وَأَسْتَغْفِرُ اللَّهَ لِي وَلَكُمْ

I say everything that I've said and I don't mean to disrespect anybody. And I don't want anybody to think that I feel any different than any one of you. Guys, you're my brothers. I'm so happy to come and meet you. All the

way over this side of the world and learn and meet a culture that has such a rich Islamic heritage as this country does.

In this very exotic and far away place, comparative to the rest of the world. And I haven't found anybody here except they had a face of brotherhood. I haven't met anybody with a frown. And I haven't felt anything but a sense of security and safety and brotherly love. So I want you to know that I love you for the sake of Allah. By Allah, I swear by Allah I love you all for the sake of Allah and I only want for you what I want for my own son and what I want for my own self.

وَاللهِ الْعَظِيمِ I swear by Allah if you recite the Quran every day just one page a day you begin with that. I swear by Allah in one year you'll be a different person. In one year. I swear in 90 days you'll be a different person. Trust it. Try it.

أَقُولُ قَوْلِي هَذَا وَأَسْتَغْفِرُ اللهَ لِي وَلَكُمْ وَلِسَائِرِ الْمُسْلِمِينَ وَالْمُسْلِمَاتِ فَاسْتَغْفِرُوهُ إِنَّهُ هُوَ الْغَفُورُ الرَّحِيمُ

"I said everything and if I've offended anyone please forgive me. I don't want to come over here and get no sins from nobody."

السَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللَّهِ وَبَرَكَاتُهُ

END OF KHUTBAH