Hikmah in the Quran – Part 1

It’s actually something Allah expects, every human being to be working towards we want to be able to access wisdom, we want to be able to live with wisdom. So what in the world is wisdom?
episode 1 we’re looking at the purpose of learning about wisdom
I’m going to start by describing what I’m gonna try to do with you guys and hopefully you’ll survive the evening, inshallah.

First of all I’m very happy to be back in Manchester and shall I get an opportunity to come back and visit you again after this too um but let me just start by introducing the agenda for this program, a week ago or more a couple of weeks ago I was in Germany and I was doing a lecture series on Suratul Al-Jumu’a and that’s part of a project that I’m working on full time for almost a year, now called Quran week.
So myself and my team we study A sura of the Quran a short Surah for about three weeks, we study it full time and then I go and do a lecture series on that Surah at some community in the world, and then as soon as that’s done, we start on the next Surah, and the next Surah, and the next Surah.

So this year we were working on we started actually from Surah Az-Zariyat and we’ve made it all the way almost Suratul Al-Jumu’a but when I was doing the lecture series on Suratul Al-Jumu’a the Ayah came that mentions wisdom, that Allah sent a messenger among the unlettered people,

هُوَ الَّذِي بَعَثَ فِي الْأُمِّيِّينَ رَسُولًا مِّنْهُمْ يَتْلُو عَلَيْهِمْ آيَاتِهِ
[62:02]

he recites Allah’s ayat to these unlettered people, وَيُزَكِّيهِمْ he purifies them وَيُعَلِّمُهُمُ الْكِتَابَ he teaches them the book وَالْحِكْمَةَ he teaches wisdom, and when we got to that portion of wisdom, I had so I’ve studied the subject before and I became a little more Curious than I was before looking into what Allah means by wisdom.

why is he saying okay he teaches them the book that sounds like the Quran, he teaches them the Quran, and then he mentions he also teaches wisdom, and so I wanted to take a deeper look at the word wisdom, I was very fortunate that one of the people on our team Dr sakib Hussain whose paper I will I’ll put a QR code on the screen tomorrow inshallah, so you guys can take a scan of it and you can get access to his paper too he did a PhD paper out of the University of Oxford on hikma in the Quran, and it’s it’s a 350 page exhaustive PhD paper, and I started reading it when I was in Germany, and I said there’s no way I’m going to be able to do, this while I’m in Germany, so I stopped I did I completed my series Suratul Al-Jumu’a but one subject was outstanding a good look at hikma in the Quran, and so I’ve been trying to do gather my own thoughts and kind of go through his PhD paper also, and discussing the subject with him, and I’ll tell you a little bit about my formula, because you guys I haven’t been to the UK for some time, and some of you are familiar with YouTube videos of mine I help you go to sleep every night, so you’re familiar.

But this recent project is about helping Muslims take a deep dive into the Quran. My Philosophy my my view has become that for the most part Muslims are not studying or engaging with the Quran deeply, and they feel like that’s something for Scholars to do, that’s not for us to do, right and but the thing is every Surah that Allah revealed was a gift for every human being on this Earth, and especially the Muslims, the Quran was not revealed for Scholars the Quran was revealed for Humanity, and when Allah asked us to contemplate the Quran deeply he didn’t ask some people to do that, he asked anybody who has a heart to do that, like everybody should be doing that.

the problem with that is it’s difficult and you feel like you don’t know enough or when you’re reading the translation you might get confused, or if you try to read tafseer to see it it feels disconnected or you don’t know how to make sense of it, or you don’t know what you’re supposed to get from that, how do you make sense of that for yourself, right. because it becomes kind of you know Scholars have their own geek language, they’re all nerd language like to speak in that language and that’s not the new normal people we don’t talk like that, like I try to think of myself as normal at times but the point is we don’t talk in that scholarly kind of language, right.

So okay I could give you a link to the PHD paper, but he’s gonna use words in there that I have to go to the dictionary every few sentences myself, you know every time I think I know the English language I read a paper by sakib Hussain and I’m reminded that I do not you people from Oxford man I tell you anyway.

So my job becomes I’m gonna do this research study and this exhaustive you know discussion with Scholars with people that are just way up here, and then I’ll try to figure out well if I was trying to explain this to an a board 16 year old, how would I do it?
right so how do I take this geeky stuff and then put it in language that the rest of us can actually make sense of and I’m only partially I’ll be honest with you, I’m only partially successful in that project, there are some things that are going to be they’re gonna they sound high level and they are how high level, let’s just there’s no way around it and so my goal inshallah is not to do justice to his paper or Justice to the topic.

I think I’m gonna take some of the most important pieces of that discussion of what I think every Muslim should know about wisdom in the Quran.
why is the subject important?
why is that such a big deal?
why is it so is it something really fundamental to our religion, like growing up you heard or you learned that the most fundamental things in your religion are five pillars for example, right.

So everybody knows how important those are, everybody knows how important Ramadan is or Hajj is and there’s you don’t have to be explained that that’s stuff is important prayer is important, is hiqma, is wisdom some extra thing for really old why these people, or is that something as important as the prayer or as important as Hajj or is it that fundamental, and I’m gonna try to argue that it’s actually one of the most important fundamental basis of our religion. it’s not something you get to when you get to a PhD level, it’s actually something Allah expects every human being to be working towards, we want to be able to access wisdom. we want to be able to live with wisdom.

So what in the world is wisdom?
how does the Quran define wisdom?
how did the Muslims who first became Muslim in the first couple of centuries of Islam?
how are they thinking about wisdom in the Quran?
right, there are also interesting questions about before the Quran came how are the Christians thinking about wisdom?
how are the Jews thinking about wisdom?
how were the philosophers before outside of religion, how are they thinking about wisdom?
how are the Arabs before Islam before the coming of the Quran, how are the Arabs thinking about wisdom, and the Quran come and the Quran has different audiences and different audiences have different backgrounds right, and how did the Quran come and talk about wisdom to people many of them have different definitions, don’t they.

So imagine if you’re sitting in the audience and there’s a there’s a Christian in the audience, and there’s a Jew in the audience, and there’s a Hindu in the audience, and I say prayer is important, if I say that prayer is important do you think each one of them will think of the same thing.
they’ll all have a different concept of what prayer is isn’t it.

So when I say the word wisdom, somebody who’s been studying philosophy, and they hear the word wisdom they have something else in their head, somebody else who’s been studying literature has something else in their head, they all have different definitions of the same word, and the Quran is using a common word even though people that were listening to the Quran, some of them were coming from Pagan religions like the mushrikun of Arabia, some of them were Christian some of them were Jewish, some of them were agnostic, you know some of them were just philosophers, they were just poets, and Allah is talking to all of them and by extension Allah is talking to all of us, right and he’s using this common word wisdom.

So it’s going to become an important thing for us to explore, so now I’m going to get into it I’ll give you a warning today is the boring day, tomorrow is the exciting day that’s the that’s the plan.
So my plan was to to just have you survive the boring material today. so that we can get to the juicy stuff tomorrow and that way I convince you to show up again, that was and this could totally backfire, this couldn’t be this could go so badly, because then you’ll be like this was so boring, I’m like I can’t do this again right so this is this could go either way but I’m willing to make that experiment happen Okay.

so let’s begin with some introductory comments, I usually don’t use Powerpoints and slides, I’ve started doing that more and more, I didn’t do this for you I did this for myself. So I just make sure I cover everything that I wanted to cover so if you’re going to try to take pictures of the slides that I show you and stuff, do it you’re never going to use it, I know you. you’re this is I mean it’s not gonna it’s not like oh let me look at the pictures I took of the screen and contemplate you won’t you’ll just go to tick tock and watch some cat play the piano or something that’s what you’re gonna do.

So be real okay, so anyway so let’s begin if you guys can show the screen the first thing, I want to show you is the mission given to the prophet صَلَّى ٱللَّٰهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ was to call people to Allah, right to call people to Allah’s way, simple enough but how did Allah tell him that, Allah says to him for example

ادْعُ إِلَىٰ سَبِيلِ رَبِّكَ بِالْحِكْمَةِ
[16:125]

call to the way of your master with hikmah, and I’m gonna use wisdom Loosely, call to the way of your master with wisdom. the mission of the Prophet صَلَّى ٱللَّٰهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ to call people to Allah, and Allah is saying You must do it with this one weapon, what’s that weapon?
wisdom, and actually the the with can be you have to do it wisely, so the way that you call people has to be full of wisdom, and the things that you’re gonna say, when you call people they have to be full of wisdom too.
what is it that you’re gonna say has to be wise, and the way you’re communicating has to be wise also. you know this is this is because I’m a student of psychology. there’s an element of psychology here, so let me explain that to you.

if I want a child to listen to me, there’s different ways I can tell a child to come here, or to sit down, right and some of you parents know what I’m talking about, right.
So if your child’s misbehaving or they’re not listening and you want them to sit down there are different ways you can do it, you can do if you’re from certain parts of the world, you can look at them and say why and that’s enough, right.
or if you’re a mom you’ll just say, I’ll tell your dad, that’s enough.

that’s enough reminder of the akhara for him, he’ll sit down right, or but you know what if you and the child listen to you, but what the child also now internalized is the only time I should listen is when there’s a threat, right so when there’s no threat then I have no need to what, I have no need to listen, now if I have some wisdom I might say how do I get this kid to sit down in a way, that even when I’m not here and I don’t want them to do this. they still won’t do it in my absence. that is not just me instructing that’s me trying to communicate with some level of what, wisdom.

that’s wisdom you can complete your husband and wife get into arguments not in Manchester, everywhere else this you guys are immune but you get into an argument and every time it’s the same conversation over and over and over again and after the 100th time you in your head you’re like, they just said this and you you’re thinking in your head, oh yeah well what about and then you know how to that sentence goes and you’ve used it 57 866 times before, and you know when you say that you know what the reaction is going to be and then what the counter you know the whole thing, you know this this is the same match it’s been played the same exact way several hundred thousand times, but you know what you’re like I gotta do it again, you know what that communication Lacks, wisdom.

it’s wisdom because you’re running into the same you’re not recognizing the pattern you’re not recognizing the
(13:30) problem so Allah is telling his messenger you have to communicate, telling people to come towards Allah is not enough, you have to tell people to come towards Allah using wisdom, you have to use wise words.

and by the way practically speaking if I’m speaking to a senior will I use the same words as if I’m speaking to a child, well I speak to a scholar the same way I’ll speak to a student, will I speak to a stranger the same way I’ll speak to a family member, no.

I have to look at the situation, I have to look at the person, I have to look at my place, I have to look at the context is this the right time all of that stuff right.

So you know what that means wisdom necessitates if you’re going to call to Allah you have to be really aware of the situation before you decide to communicate something.

So many moms come to me from around the world and this is I wish this wisdom every mother learns, I my son he used to listen to me my daughter she used to listen to me, I don’t know what happened. I don’t they don’t listen anymore, I keep telling them to pray and they don’t pray, I don’t know what can you tell them to pray, I was like yeah so when did they stop listening I don’t know, like can you please tell me when they stop listening once they became teenagers, how soon before uh like and by the way uh when did you get them a phone, can we can we look at some of the other factors that were part of this call and how do you tell them to pray, is such a beautiful way to call to the way of Allah with wisdom, right.

like prayer is supposed to be the most beautiful experience where a human being makes an attempt to connect with God, and now the moment somebody says prayer you hear your mother’s nag first, and you hear the call to Allah second, in fact you almost don’t even hear the call to Allah in your head you hear your mother’s nag first, and now you don’t want to pray because you’re so annoyed not with God, but with your mom, and your mom says maybe if I yell some more, it will work.

it’s a fundamental call, like imagine the these people these you know if you don’t know anything I have a lot of uh Arab friends that doesn’t justify what I’m about to say but man my Arab friends are they stubborn, Oh I thought pathans are stubborn, I’m pathans no Arabs man oof, and changing Arabs from the way they were to what they became, right to leave all of their culture, all of their practices to go against their family, to go against their elders, and to change the way that they did, you can’t just tell them to change and they’re gonna change, they were called towards Allah using some special secret sauce, and according to this ayah what is that secret sauce?

Wisdom, it’s it’s almost as if I’m trying to tell you the world changed, because dawah was done through wisdom, the world is the way it is we’re Muslim today, because the prophet lived by that principles.

So it’s I’m just trying to give you a taste of why hikama is important?
right so now let’s go a little further okay, now this is something called meccan chronology let me put that in normal language in the there’s two kinds of surahs in the Quran right, can you guys tell me what they are two kinds of surahs,
okay Makki and madani, not the ones I know and the ones I don’t no no that’s not what I’m saying I’m safe.