JIQ: Young Professionals

Rashed Hasan/MyLLife Team

11/9/2024

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Session 4: Summary and Discussion

Surah Al-Imran (v. 92-200) & Surah An-Nisa (v. 1-28)

What We Read and Process We Followed

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Session 4 Assigned Reading:

• Chapter 3: House of Aram (Surah Al-Imran) – v. 92-200
• Chapter 4: Women (Surah Al-Nisa) – v. 1-28
• A total of 136 verses - 1 hour at regular pace
• ~40 verses each weekly – dedicate 30-45 mins for reflective and deeper reading each week
• Consistent routine and building weekly rhythm
• Qur’an arrangement context
• Standard compilation - communal rules first - foundation of faith/goodness already understood
• Actual chronology – faith/goodness first, communal rules follows…

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Range of Topics Covered

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Surah Al-Imran:

• Extensive lessons from the Battle of Uhud (early win and then later failure, hypocrisy, forgiveness, good company, not to pre-judge)
• Essence of Charity (give from what you love for yourselves) – Sadaqah, Zakat, Responsible Giving (demand of Taqwa)
• Dietary rules (historical context – Jewish practices)
• Directive for Hajj
• True comment to Taqwa – follow your faith with good action
• Caution against disagreement that leads to disunity
• Best Community (Aspirational) – encourage/act on what is right, discourage/prevent what is wrong and maintain faith in God!
• Frequent address – O People of Faith, O Believers…(not O Muslims, inclusive call) – there are things you need to do beyond faith…
• Prophet’s conduct – gentleness, forgiving, consultative…

Range of Topics Covered – continued…

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• God’s tolerance for evils – to prove and separate good people from bad people
• Trials in life
• Abuse from those who are Jew, Christians, Hindu’s and atheists…
• Share your faith with others (not as missionaries but as practitioner of your faith and thru personal/communal interactions)
• Every soul will taste death
• Do not claim praise for what you do not do or deserve
• Reward from God – equally from male and female – one being from the other

Sura An-Nisa

• Mutuality of Men and Women
• Limited Poligamy in Islam
• Responsibility for orphan and Women (100+ Muslim men were killed in the two early battles of Badr and Ohund, leading to about 1000 orphans and widows)

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Range of Topics Covered – continued…

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• Introduction of Mahr as away for women to own property or items of value
• Inheritance to guarantee wealth for women
• Protection against false accusation against women – 4 witnesses
• Guard rails on who you can marry
• Opening doors from slavery to freedom

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Conversation…

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• Any verses that resonated with you and why?
• Observations/Reflections you want to share
• Questions you want to explore/ask

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These are profound statements (bayyanun) for mankind—a source of guidance and a word of caution for those who feel responsible to God and to fellow humans (muttaquin) (3:138)

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Highlights (v. 92-104) – maxim like verses

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• You cannot achieve true piety and righteousness unless you offer to others what you love for yourself.
• All food was lawful to the children of Israel, prior to the revelation of the Torah, whereas the Children of Israel made certain restrictions unto themselves (on their own accord).
• Indeed, the very first house of worship ever built for mankind is at Bakkah [same as Mecca], full of blessing, a guidance for the nations of the world, and full of insights and messages; a place where Abraham once stood
• Let it be known that Pilgrimage (hajj) is an obligation that each human being owes to ALLAH, whoever can afford it and find a way to it.
• Tell the People of the Book, “Why do you deny the messages from God? God knows the true intent of your activities.
• People of Faith: Be conscious of ALLAH, and be duty bound to God as it should be, and do not allow death to come to you prior to your full submission and alignment to God.
• Altogether, hold firm to your commitment to God, and do not move away from one another. Remember God’s grace on you all—you were enemies of one another, God brought your hearts together, and you became like brothers and sisters.
• Let there be among you a group dedicated to inviting all that is good, encouraging the doing of what is right, and discouraging what is wrong. These are they who will be successful!

Highlights (v. 105 -115) - Encouragement

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• Do not be like those who draw apart from one another with disagreement and conflicting views after the message has been conveyed in a clear way
• These are the messages from God, conveyed with truth, and God desires no injustice to His creation. To God belongs all that is in the universe and on the earth; to God all matters return for resolution!
• You are the best community created to benefit mankind, in that you encourage and participate in doing what is right, you discourage and refrain from what is wrong, and you truly believe in ALLAH.
• They (People of the Book) can never do you much harm (if you are on the right path); if they fight you and oppose you, they will not prevail and will not get any help.
• There are people among the followers of earlier revelations who recite and reflect on God’s message in the quiet hours of the night, and they truly adore and worship God.

Highlights (v. 116-134)

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• Neither wealth nor ties of affiliations can compensate for the consequence of disbelief
• O People of Faith, do not take into intimate confidence those who do not share your faith and show goodness to others; they spare no effort to undermine your success. They rejoice at your distress, and there is intense dislike for you in them as evidenced by what they say, and there is greater dislike in what is in their hearts.
• They cannot do you any harm, if you are patient in adversity and remain conscious of God. God, indeed, encompasses all their activities.
• O People of Faith, do not seek to benefit from usury, trying to double and redouble your money. Instead, focus on your responsibilities to ALLAH (attaqu) and to fellow humans—that is the way to achieve success.
• Be ever vigilant to secure forgiveness of God and to endeavor for a Garden that is as wide as the heavens and the earth combined—a Garden that is ever present for those who are responsible (muttaquin), those who help others during times of plenty as well as in times of difficulty and who control their anger and are ever ready to forgive others…

Highlights (v. 135 - 143)

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• …These are the people who, when they commit an act of indecency or injustice (to themselves or to others), they immediately ask for forgiveness from God, Who alone can forgive sins, and they do not persist in such acts knowingly.
• Do not lose heart or grieve—you will always prevail if you are true believers.
• If you feel that a misfortune has affected you (e.g., not winning the Battle of Uhud), a similar misfortune has touched your adversaries as well—it is by bringing this type of alteration of fame and fortune to people that God becomes aware of those who have demonstrated faith and establishes evidence for such faith. God certainly does not love the evildoers! He cleanses pure those who have faith of any evils (by such misfortune) and eventually destroys the works of those who deny the truth.
• Do you think that you will be rewarded with Paradise while God has not seen who among you strove hard for just cause, and persevered with patience? You thought it was easy to face difficulty and death in His cause, and now you have seen it with your own eyes before you!

Highlights (v. 144-159)

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• Mohammad is only a prophet, and all prophets had passed away before him. So, if he dies or is killed, will you then forsake your faith?
• Many prophets had to struggle, and with them (and after them) were men of God consciousness who struggled as well. They did not lose heart (or faith) for what misfortune came along their way, or became weak, or abased themselves (by submitting to falsehood or their adversaries). God loves those who are steadfast in adversity.
• Even if you had stayed home, for those whose death was ordained would have gone to their places of death. All these happened so that God might test what is in your hearts and continue to purify your intentions and commitments.
• It is indeed God’s mercy that you (the Prophet) are gentle to your followers. Had you been harsh and heartless with them, they would have moved away from you. Therefore, pardon them, seek God’s protection and forgiveness, and consult them in all matters of importance.

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Highlights (v. 160 -175)

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• If God helps you, then none can overpower you; but if God abandons you, then who can be there to come to your rescue?
• It is inconceivable for a Prophet of God to deceive, since whoever acts dishonestly will carry such evils with him to the Day of Resurrection, when every soul will face the consequence of its actions, and no wrong will be done to any soul.
• God certainly brought a favor to the faithful when He raised a Prophet from among them, who explains the revelations, helps them grow in purity, confers knowledge from the book of revelation and wisdom (in life), whereas before his arrival, people were lost in ignorance and evil.
• Those who die striving hard toward godliness (fi subil lillahi), do not think of them as dead. They are alive, receiving sustenance from their Sustainer.

Highlights (v. 176 - 186)

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• Those who continue to deny God and truth should not feel that God’s permission for their continuance in evil is good for them; rather, such respite only adds to their sinfulness. They will face humiliating suffering
• If you are niggardly with what ALLAH has given you out of His bounty, do not think it is good for you. No, it is a source of evil for you. On the Day of Resurrection, your niggardliness will manifest as a collar around your neck
• Every soul will suffer death. ALLAH will reward appropriately everyone on Resurrection Day. Anyone who can keep far away from the hellfire and get to enter Paradise on that day will indeed achieve success. The life of this world is nothing but pursuit of vanities.
• You will be tried regarding your person and possessions. You will also hear (and suffer) much abuse from those who were given books before and those who are polytheists, unless you exercise patience and focus on your responsibility (tattaqu) to God and to people. Such focus and commitment are matters of great resolution!

Highlights (v. 187 -200 )

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• (Remember) when ALLAH took a pledge from the people who received previous revelations: make this known to mankind, explain it, and do not conceal any of it.
• Be wary of those who pride themselves in what they have contrived and take pleasures in being praised for things they have not done.
• Indeed, the manner of creation, existence of the universe and the earth, and the repeated successions of the day and the night contain evidence of truth for those who pay attention and try to understand. These are those who are conscious of God in all hours that they are awake and, in all conditions, and reflect on the nature of creation of the heavens and the earth.
• In accepting their prayers, ALLAH answers, “I shall not let any of your work be without its reward, whether coming from a male or a female, one of you being from the other.
• Recognize that there are such people who follow previous revelations and who are true believers in God and in what has been revealed to you and what was revealed to them. They stand in awe of God and do not exchange God’s guidance for small gains in this world. They, too, will be rewarded in a like manner as you, and God is swift in taking accounts.

Highlights: Sura Nisa (Women) – V. 1

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O mankind, be mindful of your responsibility to ALLAH (attaqu) who created you from a single living being out of which He also created his mate, and from these two beings spread out all men and women. Keep your duty to God, remain conscious of your rights and obligations to one another, as you all have a common bond with God, and maintain the ties of fellowship among yourselves. Know that God is ever watchful over His creation.

Highlights: v. 3

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If you have reason to fear that you will act unjustly to such orphans (girls), then marry such or other vulnerable women (such as widows who lost their husbands in war) based on mutual understanding—one, two, three, or four. But if you fear that you will not be able to treat each with equal fairness, then marry one from such women or from those who are rightfully in your possession. This will more likely ensure that you do not deviate from the right path.

Highlights (v. 4 - 23 )

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• And give to the bride her marriage portion (i.e., mahr) in the spirit of a gift.
• Do not hand over the property to those orphans who are still weak of understanding while God has given you charge to maintain them…
• …And when such handover happens, bring witnesses to the transaction—but know that none can take accounts better than God.
• Whatever parents and near relatives leave behind, man will have a share in the inheritance and so will woman; however little or however much—each an appointed share.
• Grossly immoral and immodest conduct by your women should be verified by four direct witnesses.
• For those who believe, it is not lawful to try to inherit their wife’s property by restraining such women against their will;

Highlights (v. 24 - 28 )

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• Forbidden for a man to marry…
• If you are financially or otherwise unable to marry a free woman of faith, you may seek to marry a believing woman who is otherwise bound. God knows about your faith and the fact that each one of you is related to the other [whether free or bonded]. Then marry such bonded women of faith with permission from their masters, giving them proper mahr in marriage, and do not keep them as a mistress or as a secret sexual partner.
• God wants to explain things, especially those of the past, to guide you properly, and He turns to you in His Mercy. God is Ever Aware and Wise. God desires to show you mercy, whereas those who follow their lusts and passions want you to deviate from the right path. God wants to lighten your burden, since the human being is created weak.

Session 5: Dec 7^th (Sat at 11AM)

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• Link to reading - https://myllife.org/read/monthly-quran-readings.html/title/session-5
• Weekly rhythm – each week (reading/reflections)
• Perhaps keep a journal, if that is helpful

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