This is the state of someone that has abandoned the Quran: called out by the Prophet Muhammad, raised up blind, and snitched on by your own body.
This is the state of someone that has abandoned the Quran: called out by the Prophet Muhammad, raised up blind, and snitched on by your own body.
Ramadan is mentioned in the Quran one time. In this verse, Allah says, “The month of Ramadhan [is that] in which was revealed the Qur’an, a guidance for the people and clear proofs of guidance and a standard of what is right and wrong. So whoever sights [the new moon of] the month, let him fast it (Quran, 2:185)”.
Allah pairs Ramadan by being the Month of the Quran! The Prophet Muhammad said that the Quran will intercede for a person on the Day of Judgment saying to Allah, “O Lord, I deprived him of his sleep at night, let me intercede for him” (Musnad AhĚŁmad 6589).
The first words revealed to the Prophet were “to read” but we put the Quran on the shelf in our homes, collecting dust as our hearts become rusty. The Quran was not made for the shelf but it was made for the self and Abu Darda has said, to remove the rust of our hearts, we must recite Quran (Shu’ab al-Imān 503).
We have so many excuses as to why we don’t read the Quran. We say there is no time but we go out with our friends to the coffee shops. We say we can’t read Arabic but we have time to learn for school. We say we don’t understand it but there are translations. If you can memorize a song in a few minutes, what is stopping us from memorizing the Word of Allah?
Allah says in the Quran, in a powerful verse: “And the Messenger has said, ‘O my Lord, indeed my people have taken this Qur’an as [a thing] abandoned'” (Quran, 25:30). Imagine that. The messenger is going to say to Allah that Muslims have abandoned the Quran. Firstly, the Prophet Muhammad is calling out to Allah. Can you imagine all the sacrifices that the Prophet and the companions endured to fight for the Quran and its message? People have died for this message. The Prophet was stoned in Taif just preaching the words of the Quran and was covered in blood so much so, that his slippers were soaked with his skin and his skin peeled when he removed his slippers.
1400 years later, a message that came from above the heavens – the direct word of Allah – and we still don’t follow, nor do we read it. So the Prophet Muhammad will call out to Allah because of this, highlighting that these were Muslims, “my people”, that have abandoned and migrated away from the Quran.
The word that Allah uses is “hatha” when describing what the Prophet Muhammad will say. In the Arabic language, “hatha” means an object that is within reach. In contrast “dhalika” means an object far away, as used in Surah Al-Baqarah, but “dhalika” is translated to “this” instead of “that”: “This is that Book about which there is no doubt, a guidance for those conscious of Allah” (Quran, 2:2). The reason “dhalika” is used here is because the Quran was not revealed in a book so it is an object that is far away.
In the verse pertaining to the Day of Judgement, Allah is saying that the Quran will be so close to the Prophet Muhammad, that it will used as evidence and he will say “this book was abandoned by you”. Even for those who read it, the Quran needs to be read, memorized, used in our lives, reflected on, and listened to. Allah says in the Quran: “But whosoever turns away from My Message, verily for him is a life narrowed down, and We shall raise him up blind on the Day of Judgment” (Quran, 20:124). So you ignored the Quran, Allah will raise you up blind, and your body starts to snitch.
Allah says in the Quran: “On a Day when their tongues, their hands, and their feet will bear witness against them as to what they used to do” (Quran, 24:24). Your hands cry out and tell Allah they never flipped the pages of the Quran. Your heart says it was never softened by the Words of Allah. Your eyes say they never cried by the Words of Allah and project everything that you have seen, and the Quran would not be found. Your ears will be rewinded and will play back everything you heard, and the Quran will not be found. This is the state of someone that has abandoned the Quran: called out by the Prophet Muhammad, raised up blind, and snitched on by your own body.
We need to love this book. We need to build a relationship with this book. Like the rain that falls to clean dirt and nourish the plants, the Quran was sent down to clean our hearts and to nourish it. Spend five to ten minutes a day reading it and memorizing at least one verse a day so by the end of the week, you have memorized seven verses.
Let’s make a habit, going into the Month of the Quran, to “iqra”, read. To use the blessings that Allah gave us, our eyes, ears, voices. To use the ease of access to the Quran that we have now, where it would have taken people years ago to travel days to gather verses, we now can click and have the entire Quran in any language, read to us, word by word broken down. To allow the Words of Allah to penetrate our hearts and souls and understand the Message that Allah has sent to us to learn and benefit from. To allow the Quran to intercede for us on the Day of Judgement instead of being used as evidence against us.
