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Another Miracle in the Qur’an: Doing Some Serious Math

And now let us do some serious math and discover yet another miracle of Islam, Muslim, the Qur’an and the Salaah: how God Almighty fulfils his covenant of protecting, safeguarding and preserving the Qur’an.

God Almighty got his beloved messenger, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, to make the reading of Surah Fatihah compulsory in all Salaah at all times. At the minimum – if you count the absolutely inescapable and compulsory daily requirement of Salaah every day – that comes out to 17 times a day. This is the Faraz Namaaz.

Then there is the minimum “extra” more or less 15 units that were always practiced by the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam. Add the two numbers together (17+15) and you get 32. That is how many times an average Muslim would recite Surah Fatihah on a daily basis in a 24-hour time period.

And now let us assume there are 1.3 billion (1,300 million) Muslims in the world today. Let us cut out the fraction and go with the round number one billion: 1000,000,000. And let us say, God forbid, 50 percent of them are slackers and don’t do their Salaah. You still are left with 500,000,000 (five hundred million) human beings scattered around the globe. Let us be even more conservative and say that, God forbid, only 10 percent of the Muslims do their Salaah on a regular daily basis. And you end up with a final, truncated figure of 100 million.

Now you multiply that 100,000,000 by a purely arbitrary number 10, representing the number of Raka’ats or units Muslims around the world pray every day, and you have a nice round one billion: 1000,000,000. That is how many times the Qur’an gets recited every day around the globe from memory – on the barest minimum. Not by priests and specialists, but by simple, ordinary human beings who happen to be Muslims.

But more likely the real numbers are at least double that figure – 2000,000,000 – if you raise the percentage of those who “pray” to 20 percent. The numbers thereafter begin to get even more staggering if you change the number of daily Raka’ats or units of Salaah from 10 to 20.

And then try using the number 32 (17 compulsory +15 strongly recommended). And then go on raising the percentage of those you think are actually likely to do their daily “prayers” regularly.

What do you get? I don’t know the numbers, but I do know this: you get a live, ongoing, unfolding, ever-living miracle of the Qur’an and Islam and Muslim in your hands.

You end up with a living and eternal proof of God’s promise that he shall preserve and protect the Qur’an. You get a piece of hard, irrefutable reality in your hands, not an unfathomable mystery.

Don’t you think that this is the only event of its kind in the world? That is why I call it a miracle.

What is clear is that this is one way in which Allah protects the Qur’an. And what is equally clear is that in protecting the Qur’an, Almighty Allah also protects the Sunnah – the way; the customs; the practices – of Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam.

Don’t You Think Salaah Is a Miracle – All by Itself?

To have the very practice of salaah go on year after year, decade after decade, century after century, millennium after millennium, day after day, in every part of the world … for all these 1400 years … if you find another instance like that let me know. I am all ears – and eyes.

One could have written the formula down and left it for posterity to discover in a cave after hundreds of years. One could have taught the secret to one or two or a handful of disciples who would have taken it with them to their graves. But then to make some thing like Salaat a mass practice through the eons and make it live for all these centuries and millennia – day after day, week after week, month after month, year after years, decade after decade in an unbroken chain of continuous and nonstop practice?

If that is not a miracle what is?

When a Muslim Steps Forward to Lead the Salaah

Did you know democracy, egalitarianism and human equality never had a better day or a more powerful expression than when a Muslim steps forward to lead a congregation in Salaah?

Imam in our daily usage is anyone who leads the Namaaz or Salaah. And that means anyone and everyone who happens to be a Muslim and happens to know a handful of the passages of the Qur’an that he can recite from memory during the Salaah.

Every Muslim an Imam: A Miracle of Human Equality

There are no priests or ordained holy men in Islam. There are only regular Muslims. And they all have the same power to lead the Salaah in congregation, as everyone else, provided they could recite parts of the Qur’an from memory, which practically all of them do.

That means every individual Muslim is a potential Imam. And that means doors of leadership are open before every Muslim at the highest levels.

Others may profess to make everyone equal as human beings. But this amazing system of human equality called Islam makes everyone an equivalent of an ordained priest or pastor or pundit or community leader.

And this right to be an Imam is something that no one can take away from an individual Muslim.

Correcting the Imam: A Miraculous Lesson in Freedom of Expression and Fearless Political Participation

Freedom of expression and the right of full and fearless social and political participation never had a better day than when an Imam makes a mistake while leading the congregational prayers, and one of the people lined up behind him loudly corrects him right on the spot.

At the same time, every Muslim who is “praying” behind an Imam – the man to whom the Muslim congregation has for the time being delegated the right to lead the “prayers” – cannot standby idly when the Imam – the leader – is making a mistake. Muslims must speak up to correct their leaders and to hold them publicly accountable.

So, social and political activism and engagement are more than mother’s milk to Muslims. They are Muslims’ natural, inalienable and God-given rights. They are also, at the same time, a “religious” obligation, as the world would call it, that their “religion” of Islam imposes upon them. As a result, Muslims, in any age or place, can no more surrender these rights, or turn their back on this duty, than they can give up Islam or turn their back on their “religion.”

Once again, democracy in the sense of holding leadership publicly accountable never had a better day than when a nameless Muslim publicly corrects the congregational leader during the Salaah.

A Miracle of Public Accountability: Imam Accepts Corrections

Not only that. The model of public accountability for leadership preached by Islam continues to unfold in the most miraculous fashion as the Imam accepts the correction coming from the congregation and adjusts his act of leading the “prayers” accordingly.

Alas, what sad days have Muslims brought upon themselves – and upon the world – that they have forgotten the rich heritage of social and political lessons their daily Salaah is supposed to instill in them!

So Muslims, Rejoice! And Work To Do Even Better!

So, Muslims, rejoice and feel good, your Namaaz was made in Heaven. It was lovingly fashioned by none other than the hand of God Almighty himself.

And he saw to it that you, such as you are, will continue to practice his Qur’an so long as you continue to practice your daily Salaah. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. That is why Salaah is the first to come and the last to go in the life of Muslims, whether as individuals or communities.

Yes, there is a great deal more in the Qur’an than Salaah – much, much more. There is a whole way of life waiting to be explored, internalized and implemented, in the life of everyone everywhere. But you have to start somewhere. And your Salaah, which quintessentially contains the seeds and the blueprints of that divine way of life in miniaturized and encrypted form, is as good a place as any to start.

Taking the Qur’an to Every Home and Heart That Needs It

So all you need to do, Muslims, is, maybe, to start out with the seed money that you already have in the bank – your daily practice of Salaat a la Qur’an – and build on it. Until such time as you have succeeded in taking God Almighty’s invitation of love, justice, decency, mercy, equality, service, security and compassion in the Qur’an to every human heart, home and habitation on earth.

That means taking the Qur’an and its message to every home and heart that needs it. And which one does not?

And that, indeed, is, as the Qur’an tells you, and as you should know yourself, the primary purpose of your creation – both as individuals and as nations, societies and communities. Wa li-dhaalika Khalaqahoom, says the Qur’an: “And it was for that that he created them.”

Miracles of the Qur’an Never Stop

We may stop counting anytime. But the miracles of the Qur’an never stop coming. Here are some more:

• The way God asks us in the Qur’an to seek his protection from Satan the accursed whenever we read the Qur’an and the way that Qur’anic command – A’oozu billahi minash-shaitanir rajeem – thereafter became the routine practical prelude of reading the Qur’an all over the world all these past 1400 years.

• The way all but one Surah or chapter of the Qur’an begins with the name of God, the most merciful, the most merciful, Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim, which itself is an Aayat taken directly out of the Qur’an.

• The way the first half of the Islamic creed – is that the right word? – or Kalimah is taken directly out of the pages of the Qur’an: La Ilaha Illallah.

• The way the second half of the Islamic creed – again, is that the right expression? – or Kalimah is, once again, taken out of the Qur’an: Muhammadur Rasulullah.

• The way these two parts of the Kalimah, from the pages of the Qur’an, have constituted a uniform core of the formally spoken Islamic creed throughout the world for all of the 1400 years of Islamic history.

• The way acceptance, internalization and recitation by individuals of this unified and uniform creed – La Ilaha Illallah, Muhammadur Rasulullah – accords them instant, full and unconditional membership in a global Islamic community that is above and beyond all considerations of race, color, gender or social status.

• The way this creed – La Ilaha Illallah, Muhammadur Rasulullah – then becomes the basis for creating a whole new nation in the world whose supreme allegiance is to God Almighty and his messenger and to humanity as a whole and not to narrow tribal, territorial, national, racial, gender, class or some other parochial, divisive and chauvinistic considerations.

What can I say? This is nothing but a peek into the kind of miracles that the Qur’an has to offer. All I can say is if you can keep on counting, the miracles of the Qur’an will keep on coming – regardless of the passage of time; regardless of the advancements in human knowledge, technology and understanding; and regardless of the culture or place or environment in which you may be located.

The Miracle of Seeing Is Believing

You can see that I am not talking here about “supernatural” events of the kind of a parting sea or a splitting moon or a man being raised from the dead. I am talking instead about a very different set of miracles – the Everyday Miracles of Islam, Muslims and the Qur’an in real time.

I am talking about the fact that there is any number of things about Islam and the Qur’an, and about the life of Sayyidina Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, as well as about the daily life of ordinary Muslims everywhere, that appear equally “implausible” or “unlikely” – and therefore miraculous. The difference is that they are not of the unseen or distant variety, but rather of the most visible and immediate kind, which you can personally observe and experience.

These are events that are there, visible and plain, right before our eyes. They are out there for everyone to see, to touch, to feel and to experience in their own personal life. They are not “religious” phenomena, but rather, they are facts of everyday life.

Therefore, to believe in them, it is not “faith” that you require but common intelligence on the one hand and a certain measure of personal integrity, courage and humility on the other hand. For it is a matter of taking seriously the testimony of your own senses and mind and believing what you see.

And what a supreme miracle this is in itself that you should be able to see for yourself these wonderful miracles of Islam – and of the Qur’an and Muslims – in all ages and places and cultures, as they unfold before you in real time.

So, maybe, the thought that Seeing Is Believing does make sense. At least in some cases. At least in this case.

END

(Final and revised version, September 17, 2006)

© 2006 Syed Husain Pasha

Dr. Pasha is an educator and scholar of exceptional 
talent, training and experience. He can be reached at DrSyedPasha [at] 
AOL [dot] com or www.IslamicSolutions.com.

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