The Distinct Ummah
By Nouman Ali Khan | 2026-01-09T15:08:54.655014+00:00 | Topic: Community
The Distinct Ummah
Opening Praise and Testimony
All praise is due to You, O my Lord, until You are pleased. And all praise is due to You, when You are pleased. And all praise is due to You, after You are pleased. And all praise is due to You, forever and ever and ever.
All praise is due to Allah, Who sent down upon His servant the Book, and did not make it crooked. All praise is due to Allah, Who did not take a son, and did not have a partner in the kingdom. And He did not have a guardian from among the weak, and magnify Him greatly.
All praise is due to Allah, Whom we praise, and we seek His help, and we seek His forgiveness. And we believe in Him, and we put our trust in Him. And we seek refuge in Allah from the evil of our souls, and from the evil of our deeds. Whom Allah guides, no one can misguide. And whom He misguides, no one can guide.
We bear witness that there is no god but Allah, and that there is no partner to Him. And we bear witness that Muhammad is the servant of Allah and His Messenger. Allah has sent him with guidance and the religion of truth, so that He may make it prevail over all religion. And Allah is sufficient as a witness.
The Foundation of Truth
The truest speech is the Book of Allah. And the best guidance is the guidance of Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him. And the worst of matters are the newly invented ones. And every innovation is a deviation, and every deviation is in the Fire.
The Change of Qibla and Its Significance
Allah says in His noble Book, after I seek refuge with Allah from the accursed Satan:
"The foolish among the people will say, 'What has turned them away from their qibla, which they used to face?' Say, 'To Allah belongs the east and the west. He guides whom He wills to a straight path.'" (Quran 2:142)
"And thus We have made you a moderate nation that you will be witnesses over the people and the Messenger will be a witness over you." (Quran 2:143)
"And We did not make the qibla which you used to face except that We might make evident who would follow the Messenger from who would turn back on his heels. And indeed, it is difficult except for those whom Allah has guided. And never would Allah have caused you to lose your iman. Indeed Allah is, to the people, Kind and Merciful." (Quran 2:143)
The Legacy of Bani Israel
I want to share with you those verses where Allah congratulates us that we are an ummah by ourselves, a nation by ourselves, with a unique identity. Before these verses, AllahAzza wa Jal leads up to this argument, or this inauguration. There is a lot of conversation in this beautiful surah. The main conversation before this is a long track record of Bani Israel.
In Surah Al-Baqarah, Allah called the sons of Israel out. He started by saying:
"O Children of Israel, remember My favor which I bestowed upon you and that I preferred you over the worlds." (Quran 2:47)
And that I have given you preference over all the nations of the world. And if you are forgetting that favor, how do I remind you? And so Allah dedicates several passages in Surah Al-Baqarah, reminding the Israelites what He had done for them time and time and time and time again.
They messed up, and Allah helped them out. They messed up again, and Allah helped them out again, and again, and again. They even messed up with their messenger. They even started insulting their messenger. They even started questioning the instructions of Musa, peace be upon him, in his face. They even said the most obnoxious things like:
"We will never believe you until we see Allah outright." (Quran 2:55)
The Mountain Covenant and Their Disobedience
Later on, Allah mentions, then when the words were given to them directly, a group among the leaders of Israel were taken, and they heard the word of Allah. And they were told directly by Allah:
"Take what We have given you with determination." (Quran 2:63)
Allah held the mountain above them and told them, hold on to whatever we have given you with great might, with all the strength you have, hold on to the instructions, the Torah that we are giving you. And then Allah mentions that right after that, they forgot, and they turned around and they disobeyed.
Ibrahim's Legacy and Common Origin
So Allah makes a list of crimes, a list of mistakes that Bani Israel made. Then after all of that, Allah starts talking about Ibrahim, peace be upon him. After making a huge list of their errors, He starts talking about Ibrahim. The question arises, why?
One of the main reasons that the Jews of Medina did not accept the Prophet, peace be upon him, as the final messenger is because he was not from the children of Israel. He wasn't from among them. And Allah makes the argument, yes he is, because even your father is Ibrahim, and this is also a son of Ibrahim. He takes us back to the common origin. He takes Bani Israel back to the common beginning. Because if you argue he's not from the family, well you're from the family of Ibrahim and so is he.
So Allah takes them back to the origin. Then Allah mentions what Ibrahim told his sons. What Ibrahim then told to his children, What are you going to worship after I'm gone? What are you going to be obeying after I'm gone? And they said:
"We will worship your God and the God of your fathers, Abraham and Ishmael and Isaac - one God." (Quran 2:133)
The Lesson of Past and Present
The sons of Israel were being asked, Israel himself, Ya'qub (whose other name is Israel). He was asking his sons, What are you going to worship after I'm gone? And his sons, by the way, we call the Jews the sons of Israel, these are the original sons of Israel. They aren't even grandchildren of Israel, they're the direct sons of Israel. And they say, you know what, we're going to be worshipping Allah himself, just like Ibrahim did, and Ishmael did, and Ishaq did. Who did they mention? Ishmael. They themselves honored Ishmael. So Allah is telling the Jews, your own fathers honored Ishmael. How come you don't honor him? How come you don't consider his children a legitimate legacy?
After all of that, there's a sudden change. And before this sudden change happens, Allah says something really interesting that I want to bring to my attention and yours. He mentions this amazing concern of Ibrahim and Ya'qub. He mentions:
"That was a nation which has passed on. It will have [the consequence of] what it earned, and you will have what you have earned. And you will not be asked about what they used to do." (Quran 2:134)
The Responsibility of the Present Generation
That's a nation, they're already gone. They already left. They have whatever they earned. You're going to have whatever you're going to earn. Don't reminisce about the past and say, Oh man, we belong to the legacy of the Prophets. They were so awesome. We're not, but they were. And maybe just because we say they're so awesome, we should just kind of slide into Jannah ourselves. No, no, no, no, no. You can't dwell in the past and reminisce about the past and be proud of your past and say, because of that pride, we should be alright.
No, no, no. They earned what they earned. You are not going to be interrogated about what they used to do. You're not going to be asked. Even though we should know the story of Ibrahim, of Ishaq, of Ya'qub. We should know these stories. But Allah says, I'm not going to ask you what they did first. I'm going to ask you what you were up to.
Nations That Move Forward vs. Nations That Look Back
So you know, this brings me to a very important point. There are two kinds of nations. Nations that move forward and nations that just go backwards. And the nations that move forward are worried about their future. And the nations that go backwards, they only take pride in their past and they don't think anything about the future. And the Muslims are becoming more and more like that. All we think about is our past. Oh man, the times of Umar. So awesome. You're here now. We have to learn from that past but we have to put work towards our future. We have to think ahead.
The Change of Qibla: A New Identity
But now Allah does two things. He was talking to Bani Israel. He already told them, I gave you guys preference. I have given you preference over all other nations. And one of those honors that they had was that they had the qibla of Islam. That any believer would pray in the direction of Al-Masjid Al-Aqsa. Even the Messenger of Allah used to pray in the direction of Al-Masjid Al-Aqsa when he was living in Mecca.
But the interesting thing was, in Mecca, there's a house built by Ibrahim. And Allah has still kept the instruction because until Allah says otherwise, what was revealed to Musa is still valid. Our book confirms previous revelation. It doesn't contradict it, it confirms it. So unless Allah says you have to do differently, Al-Masjid Al-Aqsa is still the qibla.
But the Prophet did not want to put his back to the Ka'bah. So he used to pray in a way that he would be making sajdah in the direction of the Ka'bah, and in the same line, Al-Masjid Al-Aqsa. But what happened then is that the Prophet moved. He moved to Medina. And when he moved to Medina, he still has to
pray towards Al-Aqsa. He still has to pray towards Jerusalem. But this time, if he prays towards Jerusalem, his back is going to be to Mecca. Before he could align both of them up. Now he can't. Because Medina is in between both of them.
The Prophet's Silent Wish and Allah's Response
So he has to literally put his back to Mecca if he wants to pray towards Jerusalem. And this hurts his feelings. Because he knew that is the house built by his father, Ibrahim. That's the house of Allah built by his father, Ibrahim. He knew this. He knew this house. He didn't complain to Allah. He didn't complain to Allah.
Eventually, Allah did change the instructions and said, no, no, no. You no longer pray towards Al-Aqsa. Now you pray towards Al-Ka'bah. The new qibla of Islam is Mecca. The old qibla has been eliminated. The old qibla has been suspended.
The Reaction of the Foolish
You know when you suspend the qibla? When you suspend the qibla, concern goes to somewhere else. You make something else the center. Then it's a kind of humiliation. So when that happened, they were really upset. This ayah covers why they were so upset. The fools among the people. Allah calls them fools here. He says, fools among the people will say, what's wrong with these people? What turned them from their qibla? They used to pray in the same direction that we did and all of a sudden now they're praying towards Mecca? What happened to them? What are they up to?
The Deep Knowledge of the Jews
You know, this is something we should think about. The Jews of Medina did not recognize the Prophet as a messenger, right? They didn't accept Islam. They did not accept Islam. So if the Muslims are deviant, if the Muslims are not on the truth, whether they pray left, right, north, south, east, west, what do you care? Why should you care if they pray towards Al-Aqsa or not? You don't believe he's a true messenger anyway. But they knew that he is the messenger of Allah. Because they didn't want that attention of the messenger of Allah, and Allah's favor to turn from Al-Aqsa to Al-Masjid Al-Haram.
The Completion of Our Distinct Identity
So, you know, for example, Christians decide they're going to move their church this way or that way, what do the Muslims care? Us sitting in this masjid, whether we pray backwards or forwards, what do the Christians care? They don't care, it's a different religion. They're like, do whatever you want in there, I don't care. Why would the Jews care? Why would they even be so offended? Because they knew deep down inside this is the messenger. They knew deep down inside that is Allah's favor.
The Universal Message
And Allah mentioned in that ayah of Ramadan when He was making us distinct from the Jews, He said, this month is for all people. What did the Jews believe at the time? They believed guidance is only for their nation. Allah says, no, this guidance is for everybody. And He didn't just say you fast in a different month. He said you fast in a different month because the Qur'an is revealed in that month. This is the revelation now, not the old one. Now you have to follow this one. Now you have to follow the Qur'an.
Our Identity as the Middle Nation
What I'm trying to tell you is the changing of the qibla was the way by which Allah made us a unique nation. Allah made us different from the previous nations. He made us a separate identity. And when He made this big change in prayer, Allah Azza wa Jal says, Congratulations:
"And thus We have made you a middle nation." (Quran 2:143)
You guys have now become a nation of your own. A middle nation. You know there was a nation before us that worried so much about their spirituality that they even started doing things that don't even make sense because of their spirituality. And there was a nation before us that was so intellectual that their hearts became hard. They were all intellectual, no spirituality. On the other side there was a group that was entirely spiritual and they even denied their intellect. Allah made us balanced. We maintain our intellect and maintain our spirituality. This is one of the benefits of the middle nation. One of the many benefits.
The Great Responsibility: Being Witnesses
You know when you're congratulated on something you feel good about yourself. But the moment Allah congratulates us He puts a huge responsibility on our shoulders. And that is really the crux of what I want to share with you today. Not just that Allah made us a distinct nation but it's almost like a job. And so the moment you're given the title you're given your job description. This is what you have to do. He says:
"So that you may be witnesses over mankind." (Quran 2:143)
All of you have to bear witness against humanity. All of you have to bear witness against mankind. In other words, all of mankind is heading away from this deen. They're heading away from Islam. You have been made an ummah so you can bear witness, show the people what Islam is.
What Kind of Witnesses Are We?
And when they see Islam in your life, when they see Islam in your tongue, when they see Islam in your understanding, when they see Islam in your character, in your personality, in your business dealings, in the kind of student you are in college, the kind of high school student you are, the kind of family you raise, the kind of neighbor you are, when they see Islam like that and they still turn away from Islam, then Allah will say, you had a witness, these people are a witness against you, you saw the beauty of Islam and you still didn't come to Islam.
You are supposed to be a witness against all of mankind by becoming people of the middle ummah. This is what you and I are supposed to be. But you and I have to ask ourselves a really scary question: are we representing Islam in a way that anybody sees it and says this is an amazing religion, these guys are awesome, they always tell the truth, this guy doesn't even engage in inappropriate behavior, he's in college, he doesn't go partying, he doesn't let a filthy word ever come out of his mouth, he's so respectful to his teacher, he's incredibly respectful to his parents, she's so modest and kind and honest, how do they do that? Is that our character?
Our Business Character
When people work with us at our office places: this guy is always on time, whenever he says he's going to finish the project he finishes the project, he's so incredibly honest, this grocery store owner he's so insanely honest, if he gives me one gram more or one gram less of rice he hunts me down in the parking lot and says here take some more rice I think I gave you .01 grams less, I don't want to answer to Allah. Is that the kind of Muslim we are? Is that the kind of witness against humanity we've become?
The Sad Reality
Subhanallah how far we've come. I travel a lot. I graduated from business school a long time ago and I've had my share of experience doing business with Muslims, non-Muslims etc. I actually live in New York City, a very interesting place, you meet all kinds of people. People come to me and say brother I'm starting a business, I'm opening a restaurant, there's a Muslim brother I met at the masjid, I want to partner with him. I'll say run away. He's Muslim? I meet almost 200 Muslims all across America and if I talk about honesty, some brother comes up at the end: brother you're right, there was this brother I met, he was so religious, I used to look up to him, when we got into business he took my money and ruined my life. You know how many times I've heard that myself? How many stories like that?
And then people say these people, they act really religious, they look really religious and you know what? Even Muslims, the vast majority of Muslims aren't even that religious, forget attracting non-Muslims to Islam, most Muslims are turned away from Islam when they see religious people, people who at least look religious. These people are all fake, all these guys with beards, they're all just trying to show off, they really don't care about what they believe, all these mullahs.
Following the Path of Bani Israel
Forget attracting non-Muslims to Islam to be a witness against them, we're even becoming witnesses against Muslims. They know what they're like, they won't keep their word, they'll stab you in the back, they'll recite the Qur'an but they'll stab you in the back anyway. This is what we've become. This is what we've become.
And Allah Azza wa Jal warned us about a nation that came before that looked religious, that looked knowledgeable, that used to pretend to be very pious, and yet their dealings and their business dealings and their behind the scenes, all of it was backstabbing. That was Bani Israel. That wasn't us. Before Allah told us we're an ummah and we're honored as an ummah and we pray in the direction of the qibla, because this is what you shouldn't be guys, this is what you should not be. Now you're an ummah, now you're an ummah.
Self-Reflection
And look at the state of our ummah today. Don't even look across the Atlantic, don't even look at what's happening or the corruption that's there, let's look at ourselves, ask our own conscience: what kind of people are we? What kind of masajid do we run? What kind of schools do we run? What kind of Islamic organizations do we run? What kind of businesses do we run? How do we deal with our families? How fair are you to your wife? How fair are you to your husband? How fair are you to your business partner? How timely do you pay your employees?
You have to ask ourselves these really hard questions. This is against humanity but Allah didn't stop there. He said:
"And so that the Messenger will be a witness over you." (Quran 2:143)
The Messenger as Witness Against Us
It's a huge difference between saying the messenger of Allah will be a witness for you versus against you. Why did he say against you? He said that the messenger will be a witness against you. He will stand before Allah on the day of judgment like all of the other messengers.
You know, Isa, peace be upon him, stands on judgment day. If you read some of the madani surahs you'll find some really interesting conversation. Allah is very stern when he talks to Isa:
"Did you say to the people, 'Take me and my mother as deities besides Allah?'" (Quran 5:116)
Did you say that to people? And you wonder why is Allah so stern to Isa? He knows he didn't say that, why is he questioning Isa like that? You know why? Because the Christians who lived their entire life hoping that when the day of judgment comes, who will save us? Jesus will save us. So on the day of judgment they look around for Jesus and say, oh look, Jesus is right there, we're just going to hide behind him and he can deal with God. And Allah questions Isa in front of all of those who had their hopes with Isa. If he's getting questioned like that, what's going to happen to us? What's going to happen to us? All their hopes are shattered. Allah is not punishing Isa, he's shattering the hopes of those who commit shirk.
The Messenger's Testimony
What does Allah do to his messengers? The messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him. In Surah An-Nisa, the messenger of Allah asked Abdullah ibn Mas'ud, may Allah be pleased with him, and he said, I'm going to recite for you messenger of Allah, and he said, yeah, I'd love to listen to it. So he starts reciting Qur'an and the messenger starts listening, and he gets to the ayah:
"So how [will it be] when We bring from every nation a witness and we bring you, [O Muhammad] against these [people] as a witness?" (Quran 4:41)
Every nation and we will bring you as a witness against these people. This is a madani ayah. هَؤُلاءِ means these, not those. هؤلاء means these, right here, these Muslims. How will it look when I bring you oh messenger of Allah, I will make you testify against them, testify against your own nation, testify against the Muslims. What does that mean?
And by the way when the messenger heard it he was in tears, he's begging the sahabi: ("حسبك، حسبك" - "Enough, enough, stop, I can't listen anymore, I can't take anymore. I have to do that? I have to bear witness against my own nation? My own people?")
The Completion of the Messenger's Mission
Allah will make him testify. He will make him testify. What's the testimony he will make him take? You know the day when the messenger's mission was done he turned to the entire ummah, he said, did I do my job? Basically, did I do my job? Did I fulfill this mission? Did I deliver the message to you? And the
entire ummah says, yes you delivered it, you gave the amanah, you did it. Now that we testify to that, this ummah testified to that, that means his job is done, now the responsibility is ours.
So when Allah comes to him on judgment day and says, did you do your job? He says, yes, they agree that I did my job. So the only one left who didn't do the job is us.
It is so heavy, wallahi just appreciating this gives the Muslim a sense of responsibility like nothing else.
Comparison: Musa vs. Our Prophet
Before I tell you what it is I want to compare two things. Allah had given the messenger of AllahMusa, peace be upon him, a mission also, and when Allah had given him a mission on the mountain of Tur, the conversation between Allah and Musa happened. Allah had given him a mission and Musa immediately said: Allah's mission is really hard, they have an arrest warrant out for me:
"And they have upon me a [claim due to] sin, so I fear that they will kill me." (Quran 26:14)
They have a crime against me, I accidentally killed a guy. Even if I try to go talk to Fir'aun, because Allah told him, if you have enough courage, go to Fir'aun. Fir'aun is not sitting in a backyard somewhere, where is he sitting? In the palace. You have to go all the way through Egypt, through the guards, into the central palace inside the court and then talk to Fir'aun. How do you even get there if you're a criminal in that society? How do you even get there? He says, my tongue stutters, I get frustrated easily, my chest becomes tight, my tongue stops moving, can you send Haroon with me? Oh, I'm not going to let them kill me if they see me. He makes a whole list of problems. In Surah Qasas, he makes another list of problems. He makes another list of problems and so he says all of his problems and then Allah answers him and says, yeah, I'll take care of it. Come, don't worry about it, all done, all of your requests agreed, I'll take care of it.
The Silent Request of Our Prophet
Let's turn to Rasulullah, peace and blessings be upon him. I told you he used to pray in the direction of Al-Aqsa and it used to hurt his feelings having his back to Mecca. He didn't even ask Allah. He didn't ask Allah. Allah says:
"We have certainly seen the turning of your face, [O Muhammad], toward the heaven, and We will surely turn you to a qibla with which you will be pleased." (Quran 2:144)
We saw your face turning to the sky, we already saw it. Then we swear to it, there's no doubt about it whatsoever, we are changing it for you, a direction that makes you happy. This ummah has a new
The Weight of His Testimony
identity. And Allah describes the reason in the Qur'an: it will make the messenger of Allah happy. And he didn't even ask. He just did what? Turned to the sky and looked at the sky. That's all he did. And Allah changed the direction for billions of people on this planet. The way they're going to pray will change because this man looked at the sky. He didn't even say a word yet. He didn't even say a word. And that is how important he is to Allah. That is how much he matters to Allah. That he doesn't even ask and this happens.
The Weight of His Testimony
And now imagine that same messenger when he is brought on judgment day and he is made to speak against someone, when he is made to complain against someone. Do you think anybody can come as a defense attorney now? Anybody can be saved from that now? If he says even one word against somebody, what are they going to do in front of Allah? What are they going to do?
The Qur'an records:
"And the Messenger has said, 'O my Lord, indeed my people have taken this Qur'an as [a thing] abandoned.'" (Quran 25:30)
The messenger will say on that day: Master, this nation of mine, this Qur'an, they abandoned it, they left it abandoned, didn't care about it.
Our Relationship with the Qur'an
This is the testimony of Allah's messenger against his own people. This book, this book that we have printed with beautiful covers in glossy print sitting in every single masjid, this book took 23 years of the messenger's struggle. How much blood was shed? How much blood was spilled? How many insults did the messenger of Allah take? How many times was he beaten? How many times was he hurt? How many times did his family endure pain? How many times did he pass out in battle? How many days did he have to starve in his life so one day he can recite this book to us?
What have we done for this book? What kind of time have we given this book? "I'll read Qur'an when I've got time." "I don't have time right now." "It's too hard." "I get bored reading it." Do any of you ever say that? People standing in prayer yawning like "it's just 8 rakah today, it's just before Fajr, it's too much." Do you even realize what we have? How it got to us? Who made the struggles to get this book to us? Whose words these are?
The Warning from Bani Israel's Example
And so I want to leave you in these final minutes. I told you Allah talked a lot about Bani Israel and how they messed up, and then told us about us being an ummah. I want to leave you with just what Allah says about Bani Israel and their book - one of the most shocking things I've ever read, one of the most powerful things I've ever read:
"And among them are unlettered ones who do not know the Scripture except in wishful thinking, but they are only assuming." (Quran 2:78)
Among them, meaning Bani Israel, are (أُمِّيُّونَ - ummiyyun) - they don't even know how to read, they don't even know, they don't understand anything. (لَا يَعْلَمُونَ الْكِتَابَ - la ya'lamuna al-kitab) - they don't know the book. (إِلَّا أَمَانِيّ - illa amaniyy) - except wishful thoughts. All they know is wishful thoughts. In other words, they don't know what the book says, they think they know what it says, they think they know what it says, but they don't know what it says.
You've met Muslims like that? They don't know the book but they think they know what it says. "I think the Qur'an talks about this or that." "I'm pretty sure it's there somewhere." But no time to read it. Allah describes Bani Israel as: among them are unlettered people, they don't know the book except their own wishful thoughts. (وَإِنْ هُمْ إِلَّا يَظُنُّونَ - wa in hum illa yazunnun) - and they are making nothing but very confident assumptions. One thing is you're confident, you know you're making it up but you're really confident when you talk about it. You don't say "I'm not sure" but you talk like you're really sure even though you know you don't know what you're talking about, like you're a car salesman or something.
Ibn Abbas's Commentary
And so what does Ibn Abbas, may Allah be pleased with him, say about this ayah? Allah gave him understanding of deen. What did he say about this ayah? Allah described how is it that they don't know their book? Allah says they don't know their book, but Ibn Abbas wants us to understand what does that mean? He says:
(أَمَانِيَّ - amaniyy) - these wishful thoughts that Allah is talking about, that they don't really know, they just make wishful thoughts (يَعْلَمُونَهَا حِفْظًا وَقِرَاءَةَ بِلَا فَهُم فَهُمْ لَا يَدْرُونَ مَا فِيهَا إِنَّمَا يَخْتَصُّونَ عَلَى مَا يَفْعَلُونَ - ya'lamunaha hifzan wa qira'atan bi la fahmin fahum la yadruna ma fiha innama yakhtassuna 'ala ma yaf'alun)
"They know it by memorization and recitation without understanding, so they do not know what is in it, they only assume based on what they do."
He says what Allah says here is: all they do is memorize some of it and they recite some of it, that's it. They have no idea what's in it. They have no clue what's inside. They're very happy that it should be recited for them, otherwise they're okay, they don't care about it anymore, they don't even need to understand what it says.
A Mirror for Our Ummah
If you go around the educated, well-off, well-established, up-and-coming Muslim community in the United States - some of the smartest Muslims in the world live in the United States, some of the wealthiest Muslims in the world live in the United States, some of the brightest minds of Pakistan and India and Egypt and Algeria and Morocco and Indonesia and Malaysia live in the United States. From all over the Muslim world, people come here and do their higher studies, some of the smartest people we have.
Go to any Muslim community and ask the question: find me a group of people that recite a book, they like to memorize a book, they like it when it's recited, but most of them have no idea what it says. Can you find me a nation like that? Is that Bani Israel? Is that... who is that? Subhanallah, what a scary question to ask.
Ibn Abbas, may Allah be pleased with him, was not describing the Muslims. He was not describing the Muslims. He was describing Bani Israel. But you read his description, you stand there and you wonder: how are we going to stand in front of the testimony when Allah's Messenger says:
"Indeed my people have taken this Qur'an as [a thing] abandoned." (Quran 25:30)
When He says this nation abandoned Qur'an, this nation abandoned Qur'an, may AllahAzza wa Jal not make us of the people who abandoned the Qur'an.
A Message of Hope
You know, I don't just want to scare you and myself. This deen is full of hope. It is full of hope and it's never too late for anyone, never too late for anyone. And someone says "where do I start with Qur'an? It's such a huge book, it's so hard, I can't even recite one ayah properly, what do I do?"
Just think of one thing and I'll let you go. One thing. Don't listen to me, don't listen to anybody else, just listen to Allah:
"And We have certainly made the Qur'an easy for remembrance, so is there any who will remember?" (Quran 54:17)
Believe this word. AllahAzza wa Jal says: We have made this Qur'an easy, no doubt about it, we have made it really, really easy. I didn't say that, your teacher is not going to say that, Allah said it. But He only put a condition - it's not easy for everyone, it's not easy for everyone. He said لِلذِّكْرِ - only for people who want to remember Allah. If you want to remember Allah, Allah gives a guarantee: He's made it easy, that's His guarantee.
(فَهَلْ مِن مُّدَّكِرٍ - fahal min muddakir) - anybody out there want to remember me? Literally, is there anyone out there who wants to put some effort to remember me? Because I made it easy.
The Final Challenge
Now the challenge on us is: are we the people who want to remember Allah or not? That's really the challenge left.
May Allah make us the people of Qur'an like the messenger envisioned us to be. May Allah make us understand the beautiful legacy of the messenger of Allah. And may Allah help us appreciate the unthinkable gift, the unimaginable gift, a gift whose value cannot be replaced - that gift of Qur'an. May Allah help us, our families, our children, our men, our women, our old, our young. May Allah help all of us appreciate this powerful and beautiful gift. And may Allah truly help us become:
"A middle nation" (Quran 2:143)
"May Allah bless me and you with the wise Qur'an and benefit me and you with what is in it of verses and wise remembrance."