New Literature for a New Era

So the Qur’an came to us not only to be read,
And recited,
But also to be reflected upon and pondered.

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So, Muslims,
Devote some time each day
To reflect over the aayaat of the Qur’an,
And to consider their meaning and-
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implication.

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And so,

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Ask yourself,
Muslims!

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Even as you read the Qur’an,
And as you finish reading it.

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Ask yourself:
What are you prepared to do about it?
To understand its aayahs better?
Its many passages and parts?
Its many signs and markers for human life?

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And then ask yourself,
What plans do you have?
To share this gift and this joy with others?
This gift of divine signs?

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The sublime knowledge of the Qur’an?

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To share them with your family and friends?
With your neighbors and others?
With society and humanity at large?

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And then ask yourself:
What are you prepared to do?
What steps are you prepared to take?
To put the teachings of Qur’an in practice?

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To the extent you can?
At the pace you can?
In the place you can?
And in the manner you can?

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Using the most beautiful of means?
To achieve the most wonderful of ends?

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The ends which the Qur’an seeks,
And enjoins?

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For you.
And for everyone and everything else.

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Working by yourself, if you must.
Or working with others, if you can.
Working at the level of individuals.

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Or at the level of groups and organizations.
Or at the level of society’s institutions.

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But working,
Nevertheless,
Tirelessly and ceaselessly.

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Working how best you can.
For God does not burden people,
More than they can bear.

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He does not expect from them,
More than what is within their means to deliver.
For he is a loving and kind God,
Infinitely merciful.
The master and maker of this world,
And the master and maker of countless other worlds.

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And the most knowing and wise he is.

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He knows and he understands.
He knows your motives and your desires,

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Your weaknesses and your strengths,
Your skills and your abilities.

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He knows well what the tongues reveal,
And he knows the deception that lies in the eyes,
Just as he knows what the hearts conceal

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The most loving and compassionate God.
That is how he introduces himself,
In the opening part of the Qur’an.
As the most loving and compassionate,
As the most merciful and beneficent.

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In the name of Allah!
Says the very first part of the Qur’an.
Bismillah!

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That is what it is in Arabic.
In the language of the Qur’an.

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But who is Allah?

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You ask.

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For, it is your right to ask.
Human as you are.

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And as it is your nature to ask.
Human as you are.

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“The most merciful,”

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Comes back the answer.
“The most compassionate,
And the most beneficent.”
And the boundlessly loving?

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That is who Allah is.
God of the Qur’an.
God of humanity.
God of the world.
Everyone‘s God.
And God of everything.
The only one God there is,
Or could be.

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The most kind and merciful,
That is who he is.
That is how he introduces himself.
In the very first part of the Qur’an.
And at the beginning of every other Soorah thereafter.

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A Soorah!
An eclave of meaning and mercy,
Of divine bounty and guidance!

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A soorah!
Surrounded by the walls of mercy,
“In the name of Allah,

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The beneficent, the merciful.”
The wall of mercy that guards every single Soorah!
That surrounds and envelops every Soorah.
You have no entrance or admittance,
Into that enclave of mercy and bounty,
Save through this gate and over this wall of mercy.

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Through Bismillahir Rahamanir Raheem!

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Praise to him, says the opening part of the Qur’an.
Praise to Allah,
Lord of the worlds,
This world,
And many many other worlds.

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The worlds we know,
And those we don’t.

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The worlds that exist,
And those that don’t.-
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All praise to him,
Maker and master of the worlds.

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But who is he, really?
We ask.
What should we know about him right away?
Before we know more?
We wonder.

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Puzzled human queries.
Cries of souls in search.
Minds looking for answers.
For a glimmer of light.
To cut through the darkness’s that layer life.

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So natural,
And so human,
And so very real.

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Looking,
Searching,
Hoping and groping,
For a solitary promise of hope,
Across the wilderness of the unknown,
Beyond the fingers of human imagination to reach.

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Ar-Rahmaan!

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Comes the answer.
And Ar-Raheem!
Comes the answer.

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The most merciful,
The infinitely compassionate.

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That is who he is,
The beneficent and the compassionate,
Without bounds or limits,
Without origin or end.

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That is what the future holds,
He is the origin,
And he is the end.

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That is what packs the journey of life.
And of faith.

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Ar-Rahmaan!

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And Ar-Raheem!
Mercy!

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And even more mercy!
Hope,
Piled upon hope!

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And the Qur’an has barely begun.
It is not yet more than eight words old.

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But to that already old theme does it return,
The theme of Ar-Rahmaan!
And Ar-Raheem.
The theme of mercy and hope.

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So, Muslims!
To him that you must reach out!
To that unending source of mercy and hope.
And to his book,
The Qur’an.

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So, reach out to him,
And to his book.

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And reach out to him,
With his book.

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It is an amazing book.
This Qur’an.
Reading!

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That is what the Qur’an calls itself.
The Book!

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That is what the Qur’an says it is.

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And what wonderful reading it makes!
This Qur’an!

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And what a wonderful book it is!
Brought to us by a man,
Who never held a book in his hand.
Or saw one in his entire life.

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A man who never knew how to read.
Or how to write.

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And yet,

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“Reading!” is what this book calls itself.
And Recitation!

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And it calls itself “The Book.”

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And what a book it is!
There is nothing like it in the world.

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And this book talks about teaching humans.
This amazing book.
Coming down nearly 1400 years ago.
Not men,
Not women,
But humans.

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That is what it talks about:
“The Humans!”

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No “mankind” for or in this Qur’an.
It talks about teaching humans,
Teaching them what they did not know,

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And then it talks,
About teaching them by means of “The pen.”

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And this book has a chapter named “The Pen!”

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Yes,

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Coming down nearly 1400 years ago.
This book has a chapter called “The Pen!”

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And it talks about teaching “The Human!”
Not The Man,
Not The Woman.

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Certainly not The Royalty,
Or The Clergy,
Or The Nobility,

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But The Human.

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Such marked contrast?
Such sharp departure?
From humanity’s beaten track?
From everything known to everyone,
In every corner of this earth?
Those were the times,
Pretty much like our own times,

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Only a few short years ago,
When everyone, everywhere knew but one central theme?
And sang but one single song?
The song of The Man.
Man and Mankind!
That is how the human thought had it.
And that is how the human discourse had it.
Man and Mankind.

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But the Qur’an struck different theme.
The theme of the human.
The Human!

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Said the Qur’an.
And the Qur’an took a different road.
From every road known to humanity.

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The road of The Human.
Not of The Man.
Or Mankind.

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But of The Human?

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And yet,
The Qur’an does not ignore the woman.

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It clearly names the female,
Whenever and wherever it can,
As a separate category from the male.

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Distinct,
And yet deserving of the same consideration.

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What a book this Qur’an!
Fourteen centuries ago!
What a miracle!

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“Those men who submit to God,” it says.
“And those women who submit to God.”

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“And those men who believe,” it says.
“And those women who believe in God.”

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The Qur’an is even more clear and outspoken elsewhere.

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It says:
“Bad women are for bad men,
Just as bad men are for bad women.”

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“Good women are for good men,”

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It goes on.
“Just as good men are for good women.”

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What a standing miracle is this Qur’an!
For all those with eyes to see.
For all those with a heart to heed.

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Elsewhere it goes even further,
This amazing Al-Qur’an.

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“Whoever does a good deed,”

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It says,
“Be it a male or a female,
Provided they believe,
To them shall we give a beautiful life!”

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What a book this Qur’an!

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Who but God could say things like that?
Fourteen centuries ahead of the rest of the world!
God, the maker of man,
God, the maker of woman!
God, the creator, cherisher and sustainer of both genders!

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Only he could have said these things.

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For,

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At that time,
When the Qur’an came down,
This very idea was foreign to the humans.
To speak of the woman in the same breath as man.
This very language was new.

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Oh, how easily the humans lost this noble heritage!

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Oh, how novel and strange this idea remains,
Even to this day,
To so many humans,
Some among them professing Islam,
Reading the Qur’an,
And claiming allegiance to the Qur’an!

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How alien the culture of Qur’an appears to them!
And Oh, how willing they seem to sacrifice,
The liberating culture of Qur’an,
To the prison houses of their own national customs,
And tribal and histories!

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And what of the Pen?
The Pen?
And not just the human.
For that was the road the Qur’an took.
Fourteen hundred years ago.

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Coupling the human with the pen!

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Teaching The Human,
It said.
And that too with the means of The Pen?

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What language was this?
And what thought?
And what time during human history?

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Fourteen centuries ago?

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Where did all this come from?
Could it have come from a source that was human?

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Even slightly human?
Could it have its origin in anything other than God?

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And how?

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It boggles the mind.
It defies imagination.
It challenges the intellect.
It pushes the limits of the possible,
And the conceivable.

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The Qur’an does not have a chapter called The Sword!
Or a chapter called The Scepter.
Or a chapter called The Crown.
Or a chapter called The Men.

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Only a chapter called The Pen.

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Talk about a revolution!
A revolution in human thought,
And in human life,
And in human relations.

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And the Qur’an has yet another chapter,
Equally mind-boggling,
And equally revolutionary.

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A chapter called The People.
Not Man or Mankind!
Fourteen hundred years ago?

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Mankind in the Qur’an?
What has Mankind got to do with the Qur’an?

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The Qur’an has a chapter called The People.
Humanity, that is.
Not The Mankind.
Annaas is people,
Not mankind.

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But the Qur’an does not have a chapter called The Royalty.
Or The Clergy.
Or The Nobility.
Only Annaas!
The People!

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Only The People.

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Annaas!
It is a word the Qur’an uses over and over and over again.

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Never before had the world seen,
Anything like it.
Never before,
In the history of human thought,
Or discourse,
Such liberal use of this concept,
The concept of The People,
Had the world known.

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Not royalty,
Mind you,
Not clergy,
Not nobility,
But people.
The People!
Annaas!

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