"By the morning brightness, and by the night when still, thy Lord has not forsaken thee; nor does He despise. And the Hereafter shall be better for thee than this life. And surely thy Lord shall give unto thee, and thou shalt be content. Did He not find thee an orphan and shelter, find thee astray and guide, and find thee in need and enrich? So as for the orphan, scorn not. And as for one who requests, repel not. And as for the blessing of thy Lord, proclaim!"
Quran, Surah 93
As Muslims we are supposed to read the Quran in its entirety every Ramadan, as well as, usually in a less structured way, a couple times during the rest of the year. As I've said, for me this is the best part of Ramadan. Sometimes during the rest of the year my life is so chaotic and I'm being pulled in so many directions I feel that I'm stealing time away to read the Quran and sometimes almost feel guilty for pushing everything and everybody to the side (obviously, I don't suppose this is the "correct" answer, and definitely not the company line, but I said from the beginning that I would speak from my heart, and as honestly as I could, during this year of self-reflection). During Ramadan everything slows down and things come much more into focus, and for me a big part of that is having more uninterrupted time to study the Quran. Not surprisingly you end up having different interpretations as you continue to delve deeper, and you also "discover" passages or sometimes entire surahs that didn't jump out the first (or second or third or fourth) time you read them. I'd hate to compare constantly re-reading the Quran to reading your favorite novel for a second or third time and discovering things that you simply missed before, but in some ways it's like reading your favorite novel for a second or third time and discovering things that you simply missed before. And this brings me to surah 93, sometimes rendered as "The Morning Brightness." I'm always drawn to passages in the Quran that decry inequality and which remind us to look after the disadvantaged; these were incredibly important issues to the Prophet and it's one of the chief things that drew me to Islam. In this surah we are reminded: "So as for the orphan, scorn not. And as for one who requests, repel not."
It's also difficult to read this surah without thinking about the Prophet's own life. As Nasr discusses in the Study Quran:
"The Prophet was orphaned at an early age. His father, Abd Allah, died while his mother, Aminah, was pregnant with him, and his mother died when he was six years old. After this he was under the guardianship of his grandfather, Abd al-Muttalib, until he died when the Prophet was eight years old. Then his uncle, Abu Talib, took responsibility for him and continued to protect him, assistant, him, and even restrain the people from harming him he began to declare the message of the Quran. He also found great refuge in his marriage to Khadijah, who was his most ardent supporter when the revelations first began."
The Quran is consistently concerned with issues related to orphans, and it's almost impossible to read it without relating it to the Prophet's own life. Of course, we're not really supposed to do that, because when you began to humanize or historicize the Quran you make the words even more poignant, but you potentially head down a slippery slope. These are supposed to be the words of God and not the life story of a man, albeit a remarkable one. But what does it even mean to talk about the words of God? In Islam, as in Judaism, we don't believe that God has a physical form, or a gender for that matter. When you say the words of God that brings to mind, unbidden, the image of a physical entity speaking those words, which is clearly not the case. While God is omniscient and omnipresent and eternal, God is also formless and not of this physical sphere. Would it make more sense to speak of the words of God as essential, transcendent concepts which are then given existence, at least in this world, through the efforts, and understanding, of the prophets? So, for example, if the essential concepts are Kindness and Love and Compassion, are they given expression through the words, and experiences, of Muhammad's own life? That is, his own life forms the metaphor for these eternal qualities. Essentially, you're passing everything through a physical, very human, medium. This is not a slight on the Prophet (PBUH), but is there a possibility that we're losing things in translation? And this is why I always kick back so hard against acts of hatred and intolerance based on a sentence in the Quran, or any holy scripture for that matter. In the Quran we have hundreds of pages and thousands of passages instructing us to be kind and compassionate and non-judgmental, but yet people, both inside and outside of the faith, will focus on one sentence to justify their intolerance or agenda. I think you read, and re-read, and study, and re-study, the Quran to understand Islam as a whole, to understand, as best we can, the essential, eternal concepts; the ones that survive the centuries, and the translations.
Quran, Surah 93
As Muslims we are supposed to read the Quran in its entirety every Ramadan, as well as, usually in a less structured way, a couple times during the rest of the year. As I've said, for me this is the best part of Ramadan. Sometimes during the rest of the year my life is so chaotic and I'm being pulled in so many directions I feel that I'm stealing time away to read the Quran and sometimes almost feel guilty for pushing everything and everybody to the side (obviously, I don't suppose this is the "correct" answer, and definitely not the company line, but I said from the beginning that I would speak from my heart, and as honestly as I could, during this year of self-reflection). During Ramadan everything slows down and things come much more into focus, and for me a big part of that is having more uninterrupted time to study the Quran. Not surprisingly you end up having different interpretations as you continue to delve deeper, and you also "discover" passages or sometimes entire surahs that didn't jump out the first (or second or third or fourth) time you read them. I'd hate to compare constantly re-reading the Quran to reading your favorite novel for a second or third time and discovering things that you simply missed before, but in some ways it's like reading your favorite novel for a second or third time and discovering things that you simply missed before. And this brings me to surah 93, sometimes rendered as "The Morning Brightness." I'm always drawn to passages in the Quran that decry inequality and which remind us to look after the disadvantaged; these were incredibly important issues to the Prophet and it's one of the chief things that drew me to Islam. In this surah we are reminded: "So as for the orphan, scorn not. And as for one who requests, repel not."
It's also difficult to read this surah without thinking about the Prophet's own life. As Nasr discusses in the Study Quran:
"The Prophet was orphaned at an early age. His father, Abd Allah, died while his mother, Aminah, was pregnant with him, and his mother died when he was six years old. After this he was under the guardianship of his grandfather, Abd al-Muttalib, until he died when the Prophet was eight years old. Then his uncle, Abu Talib, took responsibility for him and continued to protect him, assistant, him, and even restrain the people from harming him he began to declare the message of the Quran. He also found great refuge in his marriage to Khadijah, who was his most ardent supporter when the revelations first began."
The Quran is consistently concerned with issues related to orphans, and it's almost impossible to read it without relating it to the Prophet's own life. Of course, we're not really supposed to do that, because when you began to humanize or historicize the Quran you make the words even more poignant, but you potentially head down a slippery slope. These are supposed to be the words of God and not the life story of a man, albeit a remarkable one. But what does it even mean to talk about the words of God? In Islam, as in Judaism, we don't believe that God has a physical form, or a gender for that matter. When you say the words of God that brings to mind, unbidden, the image of a physical entity speaking those words, which is clearly not the case. While God is omniscient and omnipresent and eternal, God is also formless and not of this physical sphere. Would it make more sense to speak of the words of God as essential, transcendent concepts which are then given existence, at least in this world, through the efforts, and understanding, of the prophets? So, for example, if the essential concepts are Kindness and Love and Compassion, are they given expression through the words, and experiences, of Muhammad's own life? That is, his own life forms the metaphor for these eternal qualities. Essentially, you're passing everything through a physical, very human, medium. This is not a slight on the Prophet (PBUH), but is there a possibility that we're losing things in translation? And this is why I always kick back so hard against acts of hatred and intolerance based on a sentence in the Quran, or any holy scripture for that matter. In the Quran we have hundreds of pages and thousands of passages instructing us to be kind and compassionate and non-judgmental, but yet people, both inside and outside of the faith, will focus on one sentence to justify their intolerance or agenda. I think you read, and re-read, and study, and re-study, the Quran to understand Islam as a whole, to understand, as best we can, the essential, eternal concepts; the ones that survive the centuries, and the translations.
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