This term and next, we’re working through Surah al-Kahf. This week: ayat 17 - 20.

If the ayat feel too long to read in one sitting, break them down. Take one small portion and work it until it’s fluent. Then move to the next. Slow is fine. Stopping isn’t. Consistency beats intensity — every time.

Tajweed Tuesday is part of our Quran at Home programme. Every Saturday, our students meet in person with their teachers. But Quran learning shouldn’t be bound by madrasah walls, so during term we release two videos a week to support parents teaching at home: Tajweed Tuesday, and Tafseer Thursday.

Subscribe to our Substack to follow along.

We are studying Al-Ghayah wa’t-Taqrib, a classical short-form manual of fiqh written by Imam Abu Shuja’. Despite its brevity, this small text has been memorised and studied for close to a thousand years — from Cairo to Java, West Africa to Hadramaut. We are now continuing that same chain of transmission here in Western Australia.

What Is Fiqh?

• Literal meaning: deep understanding

• Technical meaning: ma’rifatul ahkam al-shar’iyyah — knowledge of the rulings of the Shari’ah

• These rulings apply to the af’al al-mukallafin — the actions of a mukallaf, a person legally responsible before Allah

Mukallaf = someone the Shari’ah holds responsible. A child in a car who isn’t wearing a seatbelt isn’t fined — the responsible adult driving is. In the same way, the rulings of fiqh apply to those who are accountable (typically, those who have reached puberty and are of sound mind).

The Five Categories of Rulings (Al-Ahkam al-Khamsah)

Every human action falls under one of five rulings:

1. Wajib (Compulsory)

• Do it → reward. Don’t do it → sin.

• Examples: the five daily prayers, Hajj

2. Mandub / Sunnah (Recommended)

• Do it → reward. Don’t do it → neutral (no sin).

• Examples: washing three times during wudu, the two rak’ahs of sunnah before salah, fasting on Mondays and Thursdays, showering on Fridays

• Important: reward for a sunnah requires intention. Showering on Friday only counts as the sunnah if you intend it — and it must be done on Friday itself, not the day before.

3. Mubah (Permissible)

• Do it → neutral. Don’t do it → neutral.

• Examples: drinking water, eating, reading a book, breathing

• This is the default and largest category. The original ruling of anything is Mubah. To move something out of Mubah into wajib or haram, evidence is required.

4. Makruh (Disliked)

• Do it → neutral. Don’t do it → reward.

• Example: eating with the left hand (for someone able to use their right); eating something smelly like garlic or onions and then going to the masjid

5. Haram (Prohibited)

• Do it → sin. Don’t do it → reward.

• Examples: drinking wine, eating pork

Case Study: Rulings Can Change with New Circumstances

Two examples from the class discussion show how a ruling on the same category of item can shift as knowledge or context changes:

Smoking

Smoking was historically classed as makruh, on the same basis as garlic — an unpleasant smell. Doctors did not originally know with certainty that smoking was harmful to health; some even believed it had a calming effect. It was only in the past century, once it was conclusively established that smoking causes lung cancer, that many scholars reclassified it as haram — because causing harm to oneself is haram, and smoking was now proven to cause serious harm.

Coffee

Coffee has an interesting history in Islamic scholarship:

• Coffee beans were first eaten in Ethiopia before being ground into a drink.

• A Yemeni scholar, Sheikh Ali bin Umar al-Shadhili, repeatedly asked Allah for the strength to pray qiyam al-layl (night prayer) like the pious predecessors. He was inspired in a dream to grind and boil the coffee bean. It helped him stay awake for dhikr and night prayer — so coffee became strongly linked with worship.

• Imam al-Haddad of Hadramaut said the clinking sound of coffee cups would make shaytan flee — meaning that coffee became associated with gatherings of dhikr.

• As coffee spread to Mecca and beyond, some scholars observed young people becoming very animated after drinking it and grew concerned. Coffee’s Arabic name, qahwa, is also an old word for wine — which added to the suspicion. Some scholars declared it haram.

• The dispute was settled in a memorable way: scholars who held that coffee was haram were invited to a gathering where coffee was served without them knowing what it was. They enjoyed its effects — clarity of mind and energy — and once told it was the very drink they had prohibited, they retracted their ruling.

• Coffee was also banned for a period in parts of the Christian world. Coffee houses later became historically significant as centres of discussion and, in some places, political change — in contrast to pubs, where alcohol limited clear thinking and planning.

Lesson: Mubah is the default of all things. Mubah can shift to wajib (e.g. drinking water becomes obligatory if withholding it endangers life) or to haram (e.g. a permissible game becomes haram if it causes someone to neglect their prayers).

Revision: The Four Types of Water

Before moving on, we revised last week’s material on water, the subject of the first chapter of most fiqh texts — Purification (Tahara).

Why does every fiqh text begin with purification?

Purification of the body mirrors the deeper objective of all worship: purification of the heart. On the Day of Judgement, neither wealth nor children will benefit a person — only a sound heart returned to Allah, and a soul that has been purified rather than corrupted.

The Four Types of Water

• Mutlaq — pure and purifying. Naturally occurring water: rain, sea, river, well, spring, snow, hail (the seven natural waters).

• Mushammas — pure, but disliked (makruh) to use on the skin in specific conditions: water heated by the sun in a metal container in a hot region. It remains makruh only until it cools; a plastic container causes no such concern.

• Musta’mal — previously used water. Still pure and fine to drink, but it has already been used to lift a hadath (in wudu or ghusl) and cannot be used to lift a hadath again. The same applies to water mixed with something pure that changes its taste, smell, or colour (e.g. coffee, soap, lemon) — it stays drinkable, but can no longer be used for wudu or ghusl.

• Mutanajjis — impure water, contaminated by najasah (impurity). Cannot be used for wudu, ghusl, drinking, or washing — unless its volume reaches two qullah (roughly 200 litres), in which case a small amount of najasah does not affect it, provided the water’s colour, smell, or taste has not changed. If it has changed, remove the source of contamination and the water may be purified again.

This Week’s Practice: Polishing the Heart

The Prophet ﷺ said that everything has a polish, and the polish for the heart is dhikr (remembrance of Allah). This week’s homework is to recite the following daily, ideally before sleeping (roughly 10 minutes in total):

1. Astaghfirullah al-’Azim (”I seek the forgiveness of Allah, the Most Great”) — 100 times

2. Allahumma salli ‘ala Sayyidina Muhammadin wa alihi wa sahbihi wa sallim(sending blessings on the Prophet ﷺ) — 100 times

3. La ilaha illallah (”There is no god but Allah”) — 100 times, followed once by Muhammadun Rasulullah (”Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah”)

Students should track which days they complete this, ready to discuss next week.

Key Terms Glossary

• Fiqh — Islamic jurisprudence; knowledge of the rulings of the Shari’ah

• Mukallaf — a person legally responsible/accountable under Shari’ah

• Wajib — compulsory

• Mandub / Sunnah — recommended

• Mubah — permissible/neutral (the default ruling)

• Makruh — disliked

• Haram — prohibited

• Tahara — purification

• Mutlaq water — pure, naturally occurring water that purifies

• Mushammas water — sun-heated water in a metal container (makruh to use on skin while hot)

• Musta’mal water — previously used water; pure but cannot remove hadath again

• Mutanajjis water — water contaminated by impurity (najasah)

• Najasah — ritual impurity

• Qullatayn / two qullah — a measure of water volume (approx. 200 litres) above which small impurities don’t contaminate the water

• Dhikr — remembrance of Allah

Self-Test Questions

1. What are the five categories that every human action falls under?

2. Give one example each of a wajib act and a mandub act.

3. What is the default ruling (the category everything starts in) for any action or object?

4. Give one example of something that started as makruh and later became haram, and explain why the ruling changed.

5. List the four types of water and give one distinguishing feature of each.

6. How much water (in litres) is generally needed for small amounts of najasah not to contaminate it?

7. What three phrases of dhikr were set as this week’s homework, and how many times should each be recited?

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What al-Mulk means

Al-Mulk carries two meanings, and both are correct: kingdom, and dominion. We met the root already in al-Fatihah, at maliki yawmid-din — also recited maaliki yawmid-din. Malik is the king; mulk is the kingdom. So this is the surah of the kingdom.

Makki and Madani

Surahs divide into Makki and Madani — revealed before the Hijrah, or after it.

This is not a division of geography. A Makki surah need not have been revealed in Mecca, and a Madani surah need not have been revealed in Medina. Surah an-Nasr is the clearest case: idha jaa’a nasrullahi wal-fath, revealed in Mecca, about the conquest of Mecca — and counted as Madani, because it came after the Hijrah.

The two categories carry different characters, and we can tell them apart without knowing a word of Arabic.

A Makki surah rhymes. It is poetic in sound before it is anything else. Listen to Juz 30, which is almost entirely Makki — ‘Amma yatasa’alun. ‘Ani-n-naba’i-l-‘azim. Alladhi hum fihi mukhtalifun — there is a metre to it. Easy to recite, beautiful to recite, and harder to understand, because Makki vocabulary is higher-grade and does not recur much elsewhere in the Quran. These are words Arabs today do not use daily.

Madani surahs run to longer ayat, and the meaning is more accessible.

Al-Mulk is Makki. Beyond that we cannot be precise — we rarely know the exact year a surah came down. But the content leans heavily towards warning rather than description of Jannah, and many of the mufassirin read that as late Meccan, when the persecution of the Quraysh had turned violent and stubborn. Early Mecca encourages. When years of encouragement have not moved people, the warning comes.

What the Makki surahs are for

Two things, mostly.

Aqidah, which covers three areas. Ilahiyat — Allah and His attributes, and the ayat against shirk. Nubuwwat — establishing the truthfulness of the Prophet ﷺ, including the stories of the prophets before him, which follow an almost identical template: a man respected before prophethood receives revelation, begins to preach, and is opposed by the rich and the powerful. And sam‘iyat — what we can hear of but cannot see.

Why do our scholars separate that third category from the first, when we cannot see Allah either? Because the existence of the Creator and the truth of prophethood are established by rational necessity as well as by revelation. There is no equivalent argument establishing that Jannah must exist. What we have is this: reason and revelation together establish that He is our Creator and that He sent revelation to Muhammad ﷺ. So when the Prophet ﷺ tells us there is an Akhirah, we believe him. Everything of the hereafter sits in this category.

Akhlaq is the second, and the kind of conduct the Makki surahs address is the kind we recognise innately, through fitrah.

Some good is known only through revelation — we know salah is good because Allah revealed it. Fasting, the same. But charity needs no revelation to be recognised: receive someone’s charity and we feel it. The same in reverse. Nobody needs to be told stealing is wrong, because even a thief does not like being stolen from. Nobody needs to be told murder is wrong — a murderer will fight for his own life.

The Makki surahs strengthen that innate sense. They return again and again to feeding the poor, honouring the orphan, protecting the weak.

Which leads somewhere worth sitting with. More than sixty percent of the Quran is Makki — and the bulk of the Quran does not legislate. It does not discuss hijab, or Hajj, or the rulings we tend to treat as the measure of religiosity. The bulk of the Quran is about character.

This is why the Prophet ﷺ said: I was sent only to perfect noble character. The Sharia revealed later in Medina strengthens those characters — but the characters themselves were built in Mecca.

So a religious person is not measured by how many raka‘at he prays, though prayer is obligatory. Not by the length of his beard, though the beard is Sunnah. The Prophet ﷺ said the best of us is the one best to his family, and that the best of people are those most beneficial to people. That is akhlaq.

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This term and next, we’re working through Surah al-Kahf. This week: ayat 11–16.

If the ayat feel too long to read in one sitting, break them down. Take one small portion and work it until it’s fluent. Then move to the next. Slow is fine. Stopping isn’t. Consistency beats intensity — every time.

Tajweed Tuesday is part of our Quran at Home programme. Every Saturday, our students meet in person with their teachers. But Quran learning shouldn’t be bound by madrasah walls, so during term we release two videos a week to support parents teaching at home: Tajweed Tuesday, and Tafseer Thursday.

Subscribe to our Substack to follow along.

The surah

• Al-Baqarah means the cow.

• 286 ayat — the longest surah in the Quran.

• Nicknamed the peak of the Quran (Sanam al-Quran).

• Surah Al-Baqarah and Surah Ali Imran are twin surahs. If you read them, study them, memorise them and act on their lessons, they will come on the Day of Judgement as clouds — shade on a day when there is no shade except the shade of Allah.

• The surah has nine parts. We are in Part 1: Types of People.

Ayah 1 — Alif Lam Mim

What does it mean? There is a meaning, but we do not know it. Our answer is: Wallahu a’lam — Allah knows best.

We may not know the meaning, but we can learn the wisdom behind it.

1. It is a surprise call.
The Prophet ﷺ was unlettered — he did not read or write. A person who does not read or write does not recite alphabets. So the fact that he recited letters was a surprise in itself.

There is a second surprise. Listen to Arabs speaking their own language — they do not speak in tajweed. But the Prophet ﷺ recited Alif Lam Mim with full tajweed rules. A strange combination of letters, recited in a way no one spoke. It caught the audience’s attention immediately.

2. It is a challenge.
Poetry was the highest art form of the Arabs at that time. When the Quran came, they refused to accept it was from God — they said Muhammad ﷺ made it up, or learned it from somewhere.

So Allah opens with letters: Alif Lam Mim. Alif Lam Ra. Qaf. Ha Mim. Ya Sin. The same alphabet you have. Go and produce something like it.

3. It is a gate of humility.
There are things our minds can fully understand, and there are things beyond our minds. Before we can receive guidance, we have to accept that limit.

Example: Why is Fajr two rak’ah, but Dhuhr and Asr are four? Fajr is at a quiet time when you have space; Dhuhr falls in a rushed 20-minute lunch break at school. Why not make them equal? Wallahu a’lam. We obey.

Does “wallahu a’lam” mean we obey blindly? No. We arrive at obedience through reason:

• The universe cannot exist without a creator.

• That creator cannot himself be created — there must be an uncreated Creator.

• A Creator who made a universe this complex and this beautiful must be wise.

• When someone infinitely wiser than you tells you to do something — you do it.

We accept Allah through revelation and through reason. Once that foundation is in place, obedience follows. That is the gate of humility.

And we are still allowed to look for the wisdom. Two rak’ah at Fajr — you are fresh, you do not need much. Four at Dhuhr — you are hungry, tired, and about to become “hangry,” so you stop and reset. Four at Asr — before you carry your work stress home to your family, you offload it onto Allah first. Iyyaka na’budu wa iyyaka nasta’in — You alone we worship, and You alone we ask for help.

Who are we asking? The Creator of everything. Next to Allah, how big is our problem? This is why a person of prayer can walk back to their problem and face it — you are not facing it alone.

Ayah 2

ذَٰلِكَ الْكِتَابُ لَا رَيْبَ ۛ فِيهِ ۛ هُدًى لِّلْمُتَّقِينَ

“That is the Book, no doubt in it, guidance for the people of taqwa.”

• Dhalika — that

• al-Kitab — the Book

• la rayba fihi — no doubt in it

• hudan lil-muttaqin — guidance for the people of taqwa

The link to Al-Fatihah. In Al-Fatihah we made the du’a: Ihdinas-siratal mustaqim — guide us to the straight path. We asked for guidance. Allah answers immediately: the guidance is in this Book.

Guidance for everyone, or only for some? In ayah 185 of this same surah, Allah says the Quran was sent down as guidance for all mankind. Here in ayah 2, it says guidance for the people of taqwa.

The offer is open to everyone. The people of taqwa are the ones who take the offer up.

New Material: What Is Taqwa?

The literal meaning

Taqwa comes from the root waw – qaf – ya, which carries the meaning of protection.

Because taqwa also contains an element of fear, the literal meaning is: protective fear.

Protective fear vs paralysing fear

• Fire in the building. Protective fear: you get out. Paralysing fear: you freeze — or you film it for TikTok.

• Exam next week. Protective fear: you start studying. Paralysing fear: “que sera sera” — you give up.

• The difference. Protective fear moves you to act. Paralysing fear stops you from acting.

Note on the snake example from class: standing still is the correct response to an Australian snake, because they are not hunting us — they bite out of fear when they feel threatened. That is a considered decision, not a freeze.

Fear on its own is not enough. If you find out at 9pm that there is a test tomorrow morning and you decide there is no point trying, you are still afraid — but the fear has paralysed you.

This is why taqwa needs the two wings we studied earlier: fear and love/hope. Without hope you will not move. Taqwa is not just fear — it is fear balanced by love.

What are we protecting ourselves from?

When Allah uses the word taqwa in the Quran, it means: protect yourself from Allah’s anger and His punishment, and move towards His mercy and forgiveness.

In practice: what Allah told you not to do — don’t do it. What Allah told you to do — do it.

Story time: Umar and Ubayy ibn Ka’b

Who is Ubayy ibn Ka’b? One of the Companions the Prophet ﷺ named as the best reciters of the Quran — if you want to hear the Quran as Jibril brought it, listen to these people. When Umar ibn al-Khattab established Taraweeh in congregation, he appointed Ubayy as the first Taraweeh imam. Ubayy recited so long that the Companions would lean on the walls and pillars of the masjid, and the prayer would end just in time for a small meal before Fajr.

The conversation:

Umar ibn al-Khattab asked him, “What is taqwa?”

Ubayy answered with a question: “Have you ever walked through a path full of thorns?”

Umar said, “Yes.”

“How did you do it?”

Umar said, “I would lift my garment and walk carefully.”

Ubayy said: “That is taqwa.”

Arab dress is long and flowing. On a thorny path you gather it in, and you watch every step — so your clothes are not snagged and your feet are not cut.

That is life. Every step, you are aware: Is this bringing me closer to Allah, or further away? Would Allah be pleased with this, or angry?

The technical meaning

Literal meaning = the dictionary meaning.
Technical meaning = the meaning in context.

Example: the word site. Literally, a place. Say it to a builder and he means a construction site. Say it to a web developer and she means a website. Same word, different technical meaning depending on context.

So for taqwa:

• Literal: protective fear

• Technical: mindfulness of Allah

Being constantly aware of whether something is beloved to Allah or disliked by Him, and whether a decision takes you towards Him or away from Him.

A person of taqwa will be guided by the Quran, because that is where you find what Allah loves, what He dislikes, what He made obligatory and what He made forbidden.

Ayah 3 — The Signs of Taqwa

Taqwa is in the heart. The Prophet ﷺ said, “At-taqwa ha huna” — taqwa is here — pointing to the chest. You cannot display it. But it produces signs, and the signs can be seen.

الَّذِينَ يُؤْمِنُونَ بِالْغَيْبِ وَيُقِيمُونَ الصَّلَاةَ وَمِمَّا رَزَقْنَاهُمْ يُنفِقُونَ

“Those who believe in the unseen, establish the prayer, and spend out of what We have provided for them.”

1. They believe in the unseen (yu’minuna bil-ghayb)

Every pillar of iman involves something unseen:

• Allah — we cannot see Him.

• Angels — we cannot see them.

• Books — we can hold a mushaf, but we did not see Jibril bring it down. That process is what makes it different from every other book.

• Prophets — the Companions could see Muhammad ﷺ the man. What they could not see was him receiving revelation, and that is what made him a prophet.

• Day of Judgement — not yet seen.

• Divine decree (qadar) — never seen.

Remember the three dimensions of the religion — the what, the why, and the how. Iman is the why: the root system. You do what you do because you believe Allah commanded it.

2. They establish the prayer (yuqimunas-salah)

Belief is invisible. Prayer is what that invisible belief looks like when it comes out.

3. They spend from what Allah has given them (wa mimma razaqnahum yunfiqun)

Not “what they earned” — what We have provided them. The wealth was never theirs to begin with.

Next Week

We continue with the details of ayah 3, and aim to reach ayah 5 — unless our guest speaker joins us, in which case Islamic Studies runs instead.

Key Terms

• Wallahu a’lam — Allah knows best

• Taqwa — literally: protective fear. Technically: mindfulness of Allah

• Muttaqin — the people of taqwa

• Ghayb — the unseen

• Sanam al-Quran — the peak of the Quran

Questions to Test Yourself

1. What does Al-Baqarah mean, and how many ayat does it have?

2. Give the three wisdoms behind Alif Lam Mim.

3. Translate ayah 2 into English.

4. What is the difference between protective fear and paralysing fear? Give one example of each.

5. What did Ubayy ibn Ka’b compare taqwa to?

6. What is the difference between a literal meaning and a technical meaning?

7. Name the three traits of the people of taqwa mentioned in ayah 3.

8. Why is belief in the Quran still “belief in the unseen” when you can hold a copy in your hands?

This note is a companion to the video. Watch for the full explanation; use this to hold the structure in your mind.

Why this surah matters

Rasulullah ﷺ taught that Surah al-Kahf is our protection from the Dajjāl — the great deceiver who comes as the greatest trial to humanity near the end of time. Every prophet from Nūḥ عليه السلام onward warned their people about him. But because Prophet Muḥammad ﷺ is the last messenger, with no prophet to come after him, he was given something extra: not only the warning and description, but the protection. And that protection is in this surah.

The Dajjāl will be given powers that appear divine — controlling the weather, appearing to raise the dead — until he claims godhood and commands people to worship him: worship me and receive the world’s wealth; refuse and go hungry. Against this, we recite Surah al-Kahf every Friday.

Reciting in Arabic earns the reward (ten ḥasanāt per letter) and the barakah. But the Qur’an was sent as guidance — so understanding the surah adds a further layer of protection. That’s what we’re doing this term.

The reason for revelation (Asbāb al-Nuzūl)

The Quraysh, doubting the Prophet ﷺ, went to the learned People of the Book in Yathrib for questions only a true prophet could answer. They were given three:

• Tell us about the sleepers of the cave

• Tell us about a ruler who reigned from east to west

• Tell us about the soul (the rūḥ)

The Prophet ﷺ said, “Come tomorrow and I’ll answer” — but Jibrīl did not come. Days passed; in some narrations, close to two weeks. The first two answers came in Surah al-Kahf; the third, about the rūḥ, in Surah al-Isrāʾ.

The lesson in the delay: Allah revealed “And never say of anything, ‘I will do that tomorrow,’ except [when adding], ‘if Allah wills.’” The future belongs to Allah — so when we speak of it, we say In shā’ Allāh. And note: In shā’ Allāh has become a polite “no” in much of the Muslim world. That’s a misuse. If you intend to do something, say it and mean it. If you don’t, learn to say no plainly.

The structure: four stories, four tests

The surah’s four main narratives map onto the four tests the Dajjāl will bring — each story teaching us how to survive its test.

1. The Sleepers of the Cave (Aṣḥāb al-Kahf) — the test of FAITH
Young men, some said to be sons of ministers with comfortable lives, commanded to worship idols. The scholars gave up, the leaders gave up — but they chose to flee the city to protect their īmān. Allah preserved them in sleep for 309 years. The lesson: protecting our īmān comes before everything in this world.

2. The Owner of Two Gardens (Ṣāḥib al-Jannatayn) — the test of WEALTH
A rich man who assumed there was no ākhirah — this world is all there is. Two reminders: rizq comes from Allah, ar-Razzāq, not from any system or deceiver in this world — so never disobey Allah for worldly gain. And wealth is not a sign of Allah’s love or of success in the ākhirah.

3. Mūsā and al-Khiḍr — the test of KNOWLEDGE
Mūsā عليه السلام — the greatest prophet to that point, leading the largest ummah, first to receive a scripture — was asked who was most knowledgeable and answered that it was himself. Allah said: no. However knowledgeable you are, there is always someone who knows more — and ultimately, Allah is the Most Knowing. Fitting for our own age, drowning in information.

4. Dhul-Qarnayn — the test of POWER
Not his name, but a title. A ruler over a vast empire, east to west, who remained a humble servant of Allah and never turned tyrant. The test: what will you do when Allah gives you power? A pressing question when humanity has never been more powerful.

This week’s practice

Recite Surah al-Kahf this Friday. If you can’t manage the whole surah, recite the first ten and the last ten ayat. If not that, at least the first ten — the ones we’ve been practising since Tajweed Tuesday, so they should be flowing beautifully by now.

See you next Thursday, in shā’ Allāh.

We begin with the first ten ayat. Today’s focus is the Tajweed; the meaning comes Thursday.

A few things we cover in the video:

• Qalqalah — bouncing the qāf, ṭāʾ, bāʾ, jīm, dāl in sukūn. ʿabdihī, yajʿal — a clean bounce, not a spread sound.

• Ikhfāʾ in anzala — the nūn read lightly through the zāy.

• Reading the tanwīn — a slightly misaligned tanwīn signals a merger (Qayyimalliyunzir); a perfectly aligned one is read clear (ajran ḥasanā).

Almost a page, so take it easy. Three ayat today, three tomorrow, three the next day. Consistency beats intensity.

See you Thursday for Tafsir Thursday.

1. The name

Al-Baqarah means the cow.

The surah is named after the account of the Israelites who were commanded to slaughter a cow. This is the only place in the Quran where that account appears.

How surahs are named

• Allah reveals the name directly, and the Prophet ﷺ states it.

• The surah is named after its opening words or letters.

• The surah is named after something unique within it. Surah Alif Lam Mim As-Sajdah takes its name from both its opening letters and the sajdah it contains.

• Some surahs carry more than one name, given by the Companions.

2. Length and nickname

286 ayat — the longest surah in the Quran.

The Prophet ﷺ called it Sanam al-Quran: the peak of the Quran. Note that the nickname is not “the longest.” It is “the peak,” and the image of a mountain explains why.

A mountain is hard to climb

286 ayat is not Surah Al-Ikhlas. Studying this surah is a climb, and it is meant to be one. The same is true of memorising it: those who complete Al-Baqarah find Ali Imran comparatively easy afterwards, and An-Nisa merely difficult.

A mountain gives you the view

From the summit you see the whole landscape at once. From the top of Al-Baqarah you see the whole shape of the religion, because every subject in Islam is addressed somewhere in this surah.

The limit of the view: from a summit you see the bay, but not the animals moving in it. Al-Baqarah gives the outline of the rulings, not the detail. Marriage and divorce are treated at length in An-Nisa; here they appear in outline. But the detail is difficult to place if the outline has never been seen.

3. The nine parts

1. The types of people — ayat 1–20. The Quran is sent as guidance, so the first question is who it is guidance for, and what kinds of human being exist.

2. The first command — ayat 21–29. The Quran speaking about itself, and the reason to follow it.

3. The first human — ayat 30–39. Prophet Adam.

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We began the year not with prayer, but with water.

The book is Matn al-Ghāyah wa al-Taqrīb — “The Goal and the Path” — better known simply as Matn Abī Shujāʿ. Its author was a judge, Qāḍī Abū Shujāʿ Aḥmad b. al-Ḥusayn al-Aṣfahānī, from Isfahan in what is now Iran. He is buried in Madīnah, and by some accounts lived to 160. His friends asked him for something small: the fiqh of the Shāfiʿī school, clearly categorised and numbered, easy enough for a beginner to memorise. He gave them about twenty pages. Those twenty pages have been taught from Cairo to Java, from West Africa to Ḥaḍramawt, for a thousand years.

In the Name of Allah, Most Kind,

The Merciful to heart and mind.

All praise to Him, the Lord of all,

Who answers every humble call.

Peace and blessings without end

On our Master Muḥammad — mercy and light —

Whose guidance turns our darkness bright.

And to his family and companions dear,

And all who hold his guidance near.

A thousand years, or nearly so,

A judge in old Isfahan, you know,

Named Aḥmad — Abū Shujāʿ by fame —

Took up his pen in Allah’s name.

His friends had asked him: “Write us small,

A book a child could learn in all,

That gathers Shāfiʿī’s wise way

On how to fast, to give, to pray.”

He wrote al-Ghāyah wa-l-Taqrīb —

“The Goal and Path” — short, sharp, and deep.

From Cairo’s domes to Java’s shore,

From West Africa’s far door,

From Mecca’s hills to Hadhramaut,

This little book was learned by rote —

Teaching young and teaching old

How to live as Muslims should:

In ṣalāh, in zakāh’s care,

In fasting and the Hajj’s prayer.

And now we try, in English rhyme,

To pass this gift through space and time —

Our turn to hold what others bore,

A thousand years, and now one more.

O Allah, accept this humble try,

Forgive its faults — and hear our cry:

Join us with those who walked before:

The seekers at Your sacred door.

Where fiqh sits

Everything in Islamic studies goes back to Ḥadīth Jibrīl: islām, īmān, iḥsān.

Islām is what a Muslim must do — the five pillars. Īmān is what a Muslim must believe — the six articles. Iḥsān is what a Muslim must feel: that you worship Allah as though you see Him, and if you cannot see Him, you know that He sees you.

Islām is the body. Īmān begins in the mind and moves to the heart. Iḥsān is heart and soul. Or: īmān is why, islām is what, iḥsān is how you perfect it.

Each dimension became a science. The first became fiqh.

Why we learn through a madhhab

Someone always asks: why not just learn the fiqh of the Prophet ﷺ directly?

That is exactly what we’re doing. Imām al-Shāfiʿī learned from the Tābiʿīn, who learned from the Ṣaḥābah, who learned from the Prophet. He did not invent a new wuḍūʾ. What he provided was structure.

Consider the alternative. How many verses of the Qurʾān discuss wuḍūʾ? Essentially one — Sūrat al-Māʾidah, verse 6. And it tells you to wash your face and arms, wipe your head, wash your feet. It does not tell you what breaks your wuḍūʾ. For that you go to the hadith — of which there are somewhere over fifty thousand. Without a madhhab, you would need to sift all 6,236 verses, then all fifty thousand narrations, then sort every result into obligatory and recommended, yourself, before your next prayer.

A madhhab is a peer-reviewed system for practising the religion. One scholar establishes it; others do independent research and arrive at the same conclusion; they write commentaries, notes, corrections, summaries. It has been running for twelve hundred years. It is not the work of one man.

You can see the review process in the physical shape of the books. A matn — twenty pages, meant for memorising, no verses or hadith in it, just rulings. Then a sharḥ, a commentary, which explains and supplies the evidence: twenty pages becomes two hundred. Then students’ marginal notes are collected into a ḥāshiyah: two hundred becomes two thousand. Then someone says this is too long, and summarises it back down to fifty — and the cycle begins again.

So why water first?

Almost every fiqh book opens with purification, and the reason is simple: the most important act of worship is ṣalāh, and purification is its key. Bad wuḍūʾ, bad prayer. And wuḍūʾ needs water. So we are preparing to pray — by learning about water.

The waters fit to purify
are seven kinds — now learn them by:
the rain that falls from clouds above,
the rolling sea we’ve come to love,
the river’s flow, the well’s deep store,
the bubbling spring from earth’s own floor,
the melted snow that mountains keep,
the hail that falls from heaven’s deep.

Seven — and one way to hold them all: every one of them either falls from the sky or comes out of the ground. Naturally occurring water. Sea water counts. Well water counts. If you are stranded in the Australian Alps, melted snow counts.

Four kinds of water

Muṭlaq — pure, purifying, not disliked. The seven waters, as they naturally are.

Mushammas — sun-heated. Still valid, but disliked:

When sun has warmed it in a pot
of metal, in a region hot,
and used upon the skin, not cloth,
then caution stays the prudent’s path.
A plastic jug? No harm at all —
only metal makes this call.

Note the conditions stacking up: metal, sun, hot climate, on the skin. A plastic bucket in a Perth winter is not mushammas. A metal drum left out in a 43-degree week is. Move it into the shade for half an hour and, on one view, the dislike lifts with the heat.

Mustaʿmal — used, or altered. Water that has already lifted a ḥadath has done its work; it cannot do it twice. You may drink it or water your plants with it. And water mixed with something pure that changes its taste, smell or colour has also left the muṭlaq category: coffee, soap suds, salt water for a mouth ulcer, sugar in a glass. All fine to drink. None of them will do for wuḍūʾ.

Which raises the sea again. Isn’t sea water salty? Yes — but that is how it naturally is, and that is the whole test. Sea water is muṭlaq. Sea water with coffee stirred into it is not.

Mutanajjis — impure:

Fourth — mutanajjis, the impure:
When najāsah mixes in, for sure
The water’s blocked from every use —
No wudūʾ, ghusl, no drink, no wash.

Unless its volume’s truly vast —
Two qullahs is the measure passed.
About two hundred litres’ store
Means small najāsah taints no more —
Unless its colour, smell, or taste
Has shifted; then the rule’s replaced.
Remove the cause, restore the rest,
And the water passes again the test.

Two qullahs is five hundred ritl Baghdādī in the classical books — roughly two hundred litres today, though you’ll see 180 and 190 depending on which conversion the author took.

Below that threshold, a single drop of impurity ruins the water. Above it, impurity only ruins it if the taste, smell or colour actually changes. This is why we drink from rivers and make wuḍūʾ from a sea that fish live their whole lives in. Volume.

And in those bays where dolphins are herded and killed until the water runs red — that water is mutanajjis, because the properties have changed. Then the tide comes in, the cause is removed, and the water passes the test again.

That was the whole first lesson: what water is.

This is the most important surah in our lives. We recite it at least seventeen times a day — and there has to be a reason Allah asks that of us. The whole reason we sit with it is to see how seven short verses, recited so many times that they almost slip past us, are actually a map for how to live.

We began by going back over the verses we’d already covered, because the later ones don’t land without them.

Bismillah — In the name of Allah

The first thing to notice is that Bismillah isn’t a complete sentence. “In the name of Allah” — and then what? In Arabic this is a shibh jumla, a fragment. The sentence is left open on purpose, and you complete it with your action.

That’s why the Prophet ﷺ said that anything important begun without Bismillah is cut off from blessing. When you say it, you’re invoking Allah’s help before you’ve even started.

From that one word, three things follow.

First, it’s a filter. When you put Allah’s name on something, the wrong things become hard to do. I mentioned the Indonesian sheikh who was asked whether smoking is makruh or haram. He refused to give a fiqhi answer. He simply asked the man: can you say Bismillah before you smoke? The man said no, of course not, it wouldn’t be appropriate. Then you already know the answer. Put a Bismillah in front of a thing, and you find out very quickly what it’s worth.

Second, it’s a mindset. When you do something in the name of someone great, you raise your game. A footballer plays differently for his country than for his local club — the colours change how seriously he takes it. So when a Muslim acts in the name of Allah, he doesn’t do things half-heartedly. The Prophet ﷺ told us Allah loves itqan — excellence, doing a thing to the best of your ability. You see it in the smallest acts, like taking wudu carefully without wasting water, and you see it across the whole of Muslim civilisation. Walk through the old mosques of Andalusia and look at the detail in the calligraphy, the care in every surface. That care begins at Bismillah. Allah is beautiful, and He loves beauty.

Third, it’s our source of barakah. Because we’re invoking Allah’s help, we stay humble when we succeed — we know it was His work through us, not our own greatness — and we stay calm when we fail, knowing there may be something better in it. We’re not euphoric in success or crushed in failure. We did it Bismillah, and we leave the outcome to Him.

Alhamdulillah — All praise is for Allah

Then comes gratitude — and gratitude, it turns out, is the real engine of human happiness.

There’s a study I keep coming back to, out of UC Berkeley and UC Davis. They took people struggling with depression and split them into groups. One group received nothing. One received medication. One was given gratitude work — every day, write down the things you’re thankful for. After a month, the group that did nothing got worse, the medicated group improved, and the gratitude group improved just as much as the medicated one.

But the follow-up study found something sharper. Gratitude has pillars. To be grateful you need three things: the beneficiary (you, the one receiving), the benefit (the thing itself), and the benefactor (the one who gave it).

When a friend buys you a kebab, all three are obvious — you know exactly who to thank. But who do you thank for good rain on a morning you love? For the parents you didn’t choose? For children born healthy? You had no hand in any of it. The Bureau of Meteorology reports the weather; it doesn’t send it.

This is why, for those who removed God, the gratitude eventually collapses — the mind quietly asks, who am I actually thanking? It’s no accident that the self-help shelves are filling with crystals and auras and the old paganism is creeping back. People are reaching for a power to thank and finding nothing there.

We already have the answer. Alhamdulillah. And the fact that Allah even taught us who to thank is itself a thing to be grateful for — which is why it becomes an endless loop. Alhamdulillah for the Alhamdulillah.

Rabb al-’alamin — Lord of all worlds

So who is this we’re thanking? Allah is Rabb — and Rabb doesn’t just mean Lord. It carries the meaning of nurturing. Not a creator who set the universe running by its own laws and stepped back, but One who creates, sustains, and nurtures every moment. And al-’alamin — everything that exists besides Him.

Then immediately: ar-Rahman, ar-Rahim.

Why mercy again, so soon after Bismillah? Because it isn’t repetition. Imam al-Tabari disliked calling anything in the Qur’an repetition — we repeat ourselves only when we’ve run out of better things to say, and Allah never has. The mercy here is placed deliberately. The word Rabb — Lord, Master — can stir fear; this is a power that can do anything to us and we can do nothing back. So the instant that fear rises, Allah answers it with love. He is not a Lord laying traps so you’ll trip and fall into the fire. Every law He sets is for our benefit, not His — if all eight billion of us turned away tomorrow, it would take nothing from His majesty, and only harm ourselves.

This is the balance the scholars call khawf and raja’, fear and hope. Lean only on hope and you grow careless; lean only on fear and you despair. Rabb al-’alamin and ar-Rahman ar-Rahim, side by side, hold you upright.

Maliki yawm id-din — Master of the Day of Judgment

This verse is read two ways — Malik (King) and Maalik (Owner) — and here is something worth understanding about our recensions. The different readings of the Qur’an don’t contradict each other the way variant manuscripts elsewhere might. They complete each other.

A king and an owner aren’t the same. I own this iPad — I don’t call myself its king. As owner I can use it, lend it, smash it, and no one can question me; I control every detail. But you don’t own a country, you reign over it — a king sets the laws that govern the whole. The owner handles the detail, the king handles the big picture. Allah is both. On that Day He sets every rule — who speaks, who goes where, when it begins — and He holds every single soul down to the smallest detail.

And notice the word din. Allah could have said yawm al-qiyamah. He chose din, which in Arabic is one vowel from dayn — debt. Religion and debt are bound together, because the reason we worship at all is a debt of gratitude we owe Him.

The Prophet ﷺ embodied this. He prayed through the night until his feet swelled, and when Aisha asked why — when Allah had already forgiven him entirely — he answered: should I not be a grateful servant?

That’s the summit. People worship for different reasons. Some out of fear of the Fire — valid. Some to bargain, O Allah, I have an exam — also valid, also sincere. Al-Ghazali called these levels: the slave who obeys out of fear of beating, the merchant who trades. But the highest is the one who worships out of sheer gratitude, moved by love.

An easy way to check where you sit — I use it on myself. Look at how you set your alarm for Fajr. If sunrise is 7:15 and I set it for 7:00, just enough to make the prayer before it’s lost, I’m moving out of fear of missing it. The one moved by gratitude sets it for 5:00 — time for tahajjud, some Qur’an, then Fajr. Same prayer. Very different relationship.

And this debt isn’t only with Allah. The Day of Judgment is the day all debts are settled — including the ones we owe each other. The Prophet ﷺ told us of the true bankrupt: a man who arrives with a mountain of good deeds, sees his scale, thinks he’s bound for Paradise — and then the people he wronged come forward. He cheated me. He hit me. He slandered me. His good deeds are handed out one by one until they run dry, and when they’re gone, their sins are loaded onto him instead. He started rich and ended in ruin.

So al-Fatihah reminds us, seventeen times a day, that everything we do is being counted. This is why the Qur’an says prayer restrains us from indecency — at Fajr you’re reminded twice, at Dhuhr four times, before the day can pull you off course. Maliki yawm id-din. Settle your debts before they’re settled for you.

The turn

Up to here, every verse has been about Allah — describing Him, praising Him from a kind of distance. Then the whole surah pivots.

Iyyaka na’budu wa iyyaka nasta’in — You alone we worship, You alone we ask

In Arabic you’d normally begin with the verb. Allah front-loads iyyaka — “You” — and that inversion is where the word only comes from. It isn’t written in the verse; it’s created by the word order. Only You we worship. Only You we ask. And He says it twice, to drive it home.

Then look at na’budu. We translate it “worship,” and we shrink that to rituals — prayer, fasting, dhikr. But its root means slave. A slave has handed over his freedom; he doesn’t get to say no, not this one. So this is far bigger than the window of prayer. Every part of life — how we work, how we rest, how we treat people, how we entertain ourselves — belongs to Allah.

People hear “slave” and recoil. Translators reach for “servant” instead, and even that’s going out of fashion. But enslaving yourself to Allah is the one freedom that’s real — because we are never as free as we imagine.

Ask a child almost anywhere in the world to recognise the golden arches and they can, often before they can read. They link it to happiness — the happy meal did its work. But be honest: is that the best burger you’ve ever had? Is that the best playground in your city? The parks in Perth are better. We didn’t choose to want it; a marketing machine chose for us.

Or take diamonds. You “need” one to propose — except diamonds are neither rare nor precious. They’re abundant; the scarcity is manufactured. The entire idea was a De Beers campaign from the 1920s, and it reshaped what a whole civilisation believes love requires.

Even right and wrong get sold to us. Things shift from forbidden to acceptable not because the science changed but because someone with deep pockets lobbied hard enough. A hundred years ago, women in Perth dressed almost like Muslim women — high collars, long sleeves, covered ankles. A century later they’re barely clothed, and it’s called freedom. Yet the bikini was designed by a man. How is that liberation?

So iyyaka na’budu hands us a fixed point. Our right and wrong, our values, our whole standard comes from Allah alone — and that’s exactly what makes us stable when everything else is being marketed at us. We reaffirm it seventeen times a day.

And iyyaka nasta’in — only You we ask for help. Of course we ask people for help too. But a believer knows that if someone helps me, the help still came through Allah. When I drink to quench my thirst, it isn’t the water doing it — it’s Allah, using the water as His means. Even so, the Prophet ﷺ told us that whoever doesn’t thank people hasn’t truly thanked Allah. So this isn’t an excuse to skip past gratitude to the person in front of you. Thanking them is part of thanking Him.

Ihdina as-sirat al-mustaqim — Guide us the straight path

Now, finally, we ask for something. And of everything a person could ask the Lord of all worlds for — wealth, relief, rescue — the prayer lands on guidance.

And there’s no “to.” If Allah meant guide us toward the path, the Arabic would include ila. He leaves it out. Professor Quraish Shihab puts it well: if you ask me the way to the musalla, I can point — out the door, left, right, right again. That’s directions, and goodbye. But ihdina sirat al-mustaqim, with no ila, is the other kind — come, let’s go, I’ll walk you there myself. So we’re not asking Allah to show us the path from a distance. We’re asking Him to walk it with us — every step, every decision, sometimes hour by hour.

Then the word sirat itself. Arabic has several words for path — sabil, tariq — but sirat is a wide one. Its root means to swallow something whole; a sirat is broad enough to swallow crowds. This matters. The straight path isn’t a narrow ledge for our group alone. It’s vast. Whoever prays as we pray, faces our qiblah, eats our slaughter — the Prophet ﷺ called that person a Muslim. We can disagree sharply on creed and method and still not expel one another from the path.

And within that one wide road there are subul — lanes. Allah says of those who strive, We will guide them to Our ways — plural. Some people reach Allah most easily through prayer; sunnah prayers come light to them. For others it’s fasting beyond Ramadan, or teaching, or feeding the poor, or caring for orphans and single mothers. Different gifts, different lanes, same road.

Which means I have no business looking down on anyone. I might memorise more Qur’an than the next person and assume I’m above him — when he may be carrying half his community on his back while I spend my time reciting. Allah handed out different talents on purpose. Use yours as your lane to Him, and leave the contempt behind.

The path of those blessed — and the two who lost it

Allah doesn’t leave the path abstract. He names who’s already on it: the path of those You have blessed. Elsewhere He tells us who they are — the prophets, the truthful, the martyrs, the righteous. So this road isn’t some untrodden wilderness we have to hack through. People have walked it ahead of us. Find your heroes among them.

We’re built to follow heroes — it’s why influencers now out-earn the executives of the platforms they post on. So Allah meets that instinct and points it somewhere worthy. We should know our prophets. We should know the siddiqin — Abu Bakr, the certified truthful. The martyrs — Umar and Uthman. The righteous companions, each one.

If our children can name all eleven players on a football team but not the ten companions promised Paradise, something has gone wrong in the home. I’m not against knowing the players — some people can tell you the exact weight of the racquet Federer uses, custom-made, not the commercial one. Fine. But then let’s also know the length and weight of our Prophet’s sword. The more we know our heroes, the more we love them, and the more we want to become like them.

Then the final turn: not the path of those who earned anger, nor of those who went astray. The classical scholars sometimes named specific groups, but I prefer the reading that looks at character — and it ties the whole surah together.

Look back at the seven verses. The opening ones — Bismillah, Alhamdulillah, ar-Rahman ar-Rahim, Maliki yawm id-din — are verses of knowledge. They tell us things. The later ones — only You we worship, guide us — are verses of action. We do something with them.

So the two who lose the path are:

• The one who has knowledge and refuses to act on it — that’s the one who earned anger. He knew and chose not to.

• The one who acts without knowledge — that’s the one astray. All effort, no guidance, lost despite his sincerity.

There’s a hadith — discussed by the scholars, used by al-Mundhiri to spur us — where the angels come first for those who knew the Qur’an and didn’t live it, before the idol-worshippers, and when those people protest, the answer comes: are the one who knew and the one who didn’t know the same? Disobedience out of knowledge is heavier than disobedience out of ignorance.

The complete surah is both together: knowledge and action. You know, and you act on what you know.

Seven verses. And the Prophet ﷺ told us this is a conversation — every time we recite it, Allah answers, line by line:

When you say Alhamdulillahi rabbil ’alamin, Allah says: My servant has praised Me. When you say ar-Rahman ar-Rahim, He says: My servant has glorified Me. And when you say ihdina sirat al-mustaqim, He says: This is for My servant — and for him is what he asked.

That’s the conversation we have with our Lord at least seventeen times a day. Tonight we finally heard the whole of it.

One more thing

At the end of tonight’s class, I opened something I’ve been building for a while.

It’s called Grounded — a way to actually learn the Qur’an you recite, instead of reading a translation once and forgetting it. It follows the same shape as the class itself: you learn an ayah, you recall it, and then you ground it in a daily habit. One ayah a day. About fifteen minutes.

We start, of course, with al-Fatihah — the same surah we’ve just finished.

It’s been in private beta with my own students at Qaswa, who’ve been on it for a while now — competitive enough that some of them stay up at night trying to climb the leaderboard, only to wake up and find they’ve been overtaken. Tonight I opened it to the UWA cohort as the next group in.

If you’re a paid subscriber to this Substack, you’re next in line. I’ll be sending invitations before long, and you’ll be among the first outside these classes to join.

Stay tuned. Next month, a new surah.Here’s the fuller version. Every point gets room to build the way it did in the room, and the app section now places UWA correctly — Qaswa students were already on it, UWA is the second cohort.

Last week we paused at ayah 25, in the middle of a sustained portrait of al-Walīd ibn al-Mughīra — the father of Sayyidunā Khālid ibn al-Walīd, and one of the leading poets of Quraysh.

For all his hostility, al-Walīd could not stay away from the Qur’an. In the dark of the night he would slip out of his house and stand quietly outside the…

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Today is Thursday, which means it’s time for Tafsir Thursday. What we’re going to do today is explore the meaning and extract the lessons from the ayat of the week — ayat that we recited on Tuesday.

This term, Term 2 of 2026, we are studying Surah Al-Muddathir. In the first week we looked at the overview of Sur…

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Both surahs open with the Prophet ﷺ being addressed by a state, not a name — the wrapped one, the cloaked one. The reason is human and tender. When the Prophet ﷺ first received revelation, he was terrified by his encounter with Jibreel. He rushed home to Khadijah and said, Zammiluni, zammiluni — cover me, cover me. Blanket me. Allah addresses him in that moment of vulnerability, and from that vulnerability calls him to a mission.

Qum — but this time, to warn

Both surahs contain the command Qum — stand up. In Al-Muzzammil it is Qumi al-layla illa qalila — stand up at night except for a little. Stand up to pray. Stand up to recite the Qur’an. Stand up to do the inward, spiritual work that prepares the heart.

In Al-Muddathir it is something else:

يَا أَيُّهَا الْمُدَّثِّرُ ۝ قُمْ فَأَنذِرْ

O you who are wrapped up, stand up and warn.

Stand up — and warn whom? Your people. Your community. It is not enough that a Muslim is good only to himself, that he believes in Allah and prays and that is it. He sees evil and closes his eyes, keeps quiet. That is not the prophetic mission. The night prayer of Al-Muzzammil exists so that you have the strength to stand up in Al-Muddathir and speak.

You cannot pour out into your community what you have not first received in the quiet of the night.

Five commands for the messenger

After Qum fa-andhir, Allah gives five short, weighty commands. Each is a piece of equipment for anyone carrying the prophetic mission.

1. And your Lord — glorify Him

وَرَبَّكَ فَكَبِّرْ

In Arabic, the verb usually comes before the noun. The natural order would be Fa-kabbir Rabbak. But Allah inverts it: Wa Rabbaka fa-kabbir. Putting your Lord before the verb is not a stylistic accident — it restricts the action. Glorify only Him. Make great none other than Him.

This is a message of tawhid. The prophetic mission begins with La ilaha illa Allah. The Prophet ﷺ was speaking to a community of pagans — there were more than 360 idols around the Ka’ba, one for every day of the year — and the first warning he was told to deliver was this: there is no god but Allah. Glorify only Him.

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A few rules surfaced again and again. Heavy Ra after a fatḥah or ḍammah, produced by raising the back of the tongue, never by pouting the lips. Throat letters given their proper place — the kha in khalaqtu, the hamzah in yu’thar. Idghām with ghunnah in mā lam mamdūdā, but iẓhār with no ghunnah at all in in hādhā. Qalqalah on the dāl of adbara, hams on the kāf of wastakbar — a bounce versus a small release of air.

The reminder I keep returning to: ten minutes a day beats one hour once a week. Consistency beats intensity.

See you on Thursday for Tafsīr Thursday, in shā Allāh.

There’s a moment in Hajj most people only think about as a logistical headache — the stoning of the Jamarāt. Crowded, hot, exhausting. You queue up, you throw, you move on.

But behind that act is one of the most instructive scenes in our religion. And it happens to a father and a son, thousands of years before any of us were born.

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Ibrāhīm ﷺ waited decades for a child. He was an old man — the only worshipper of Allāh in his world. Just him, his wife, and his cousin Lūṭ. That was the entire ummah.

He made duʿāʾ. Allāh gave him a son.

And then, as soon as Ismāʿīl reached the age the Qurʾān describes as **بَلَغَ مَعَهُ السَّعْيَ** — old enough to walk with him, work with him, hike with him, that beautiful pre-teenage age where the father is still the hero — Allāh told Ibrāhīm in a dream to slaughter him.

I want you to sit with that for a second.

Not as a young man tested with his own life. As a father, tested with his only son. Allāh wasn’t asking him for everything. Allāh was asking him for the *one thing* most dear to him.

This is the test that meets you in fatherhood. The test of whether Allāh comes before everything — including the people you love most.

Both of them passed. Both submitted. The son said:

> يَا أَبَتِ افْعَلْ مَا تُؤْمَرُ ۖ سَتَجِدُنِي إِن شَاءَ اللَّهُ مِنَ الصَّابِرِينَ

>

> *O my dear father, do as you have been commanded. You will find me, in shāʾ Allāh, among the patient ones.*

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Now here is the part I want you to focus on.

On the way to the slaughter, Iblīs came. And what he whispered wasn’t crude. It was clever. He listed every sacrifice Ibrāhīm had already made: *You were thrown into the fire. You were exiled. You migrated. You circumcised at an old age. Hasn’t Allāh asked enough of you? And now your only son?*

Ibrāhīm ﷺ didn’t argue. He didn’t debate. He didn’t even just make duʿāʾ for protection.

He bent down. He picked up seven pebbles. And he threw them.

*Allāhu Akbar. Allāhu Akbar. Allāhu Akbar.*

Then he moved.

Iblīs came again, at a second spot. Seven more pebbles. *Allāhu Akbar.* He moved again.

Iblīs came a third time. Seven pebbles. *Allāhu Akbar.* And Iblīs left, and didn’t come back.

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Every Hajj, two to three million Muslims re-enact this. We throw stones at three pillars. We say *Allāhu Akbar.* We move on.

But I think most of us don’t realise what we’re commemorating. We’re not just throwing rocks at a symbol of evil. We’re rehearsing a *method*.

**Ibrāhīm didn’t only make duʿāʾ. He picked up stones.**

This is something I think about a lot. We have a tendency, when something is hard, to make duʿāʾ and then sit down. As if duʿāʾ alone is the entire toolkit. As if Allāh wants nothing more from us than our words.

But Allāh gave us hands. He gave us bodies. He gave us pebbles. He wants to see what skin we have in the game. Not just our tongues — our *physicality.* He wants to see us bend down, pick something up, and throw it.

Make duʿāʾ. *And then act.*

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The second thing Ibrāhīm did was even more underrated.

**He moved.**

He didn’t stay at the same spot and keep throwing. He moved to a new location. And then another.

This is huge. Because the lesson is: your environment shapes you. You cannot defeat the whisper of Iblīs while standing in the same place that lets him whisper.

We have a principle in Islam — *al-jārū qabla al-dār.* The neighbour before the house. Look at your neighbourhood before you look at the property. The Prophet ﷺ said a person is on the religion of their closest friend. The one you spend the most time with — that’s who you become.

So when we ask Allāh to protect us from a sin, from a bad habit, from a toxic relationship, from a destructive workplace — and then we go right back into the same room, with the same people, in the same scroll, on the same screen — we are standing where Ibrāhīm refused to stand.

Move. Move your body. Move your house. Move your friendship circle. Move your phone out of the bedroom. If you keep falling asleep when you open the muṣḥaf, don’t read in bed — find a chair, find a desk, have a cup of coffee.

Don’t try to outlast Iblīs from his own territory. Pick up the pebbles, throw, and walk somewhere else.

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Here’s what gives me hope.

Ibrāhīm ﷺ moved *three times.* And then Iblīs left. He didn’t come back.

That’s the promise embedded in this story. If you keep throwing and you keep moving, eventually the whisper gives up and goes looking for someone else. The struggle isn’t infinite. It just feels infinite when you stand still.

And the ending of Ibrāhīm and Ismāʿīl’s story is the ending of every story where someone gives Allāh everything: nobody died. Allāh replaced the sacrifice with a great one. The son lived. The father was honoured. The act was immortalised in our worship until the end of time.

When you put Allāh first — really first, not in a sentimental way but in a *here are my hands, here are my pebbles, here is the room I’m walking out of* kind of way — you don’t lose. Barakah flows through everything you touch.

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So this Dhū al-Ḥijjah, even if you’re not at the Jamarāt this year, take the lesson home with you.

What is your Iblīs whispering at you right now? What’s the pebble you need to pick up? And — this is the harder one — *what is the spot you need to move from?*

Throw. Then move. Throw. Then move.

He gives up before you do.

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*With duʿāʾ for those making Hajj this year, and for those still building toward it.*

This term, Term 2 of 2026, Grounded begins its study of Surah Al-Muddathir. Last term covered Surah Al-Muzzammil, and these two surahs reflect each other in meaning. Before opening the ayat itself, this first session steps back to map the landscape — where Al-Muddathir sits in the early revelation to the Prophet ﷺ, and what each surah was teaching him in sequence.

The Cave and the Cry for Guidance

At around 35 years old, the Prophet ﷺ began withdrawing from his community into spiritual seclusion. He would travel about five kilometres from Makkah to the cave of Hira, following a pattern set long before him by Ibrahim عليه السلام and his family.

The Makkah he was withdrawing from was a city in moral disrepair. He could see the disease, but could not yet see the cure. So he would isolate himself, reflect, and pray for a way out — not just for himself, but for his people.

When he was 40 years old, the answer came.

The First Revelation: Iqra — Read

The first revelation was the opening five ayat of Surah Al-’Alaq, beginning with the command:

اقْرَأْ — Read.

Pause on what is happening here. The Prophet ﷺ was unlettered. He was sent to a community that was overwhelmingly illiterate — some scholars say you could count on the fingers of both hands the number of people in Makkah at that time who could read and write. And the very first word Allah revealed to this man, in this place, was a command to read.

This was revolutionary in human history.

Before this moment, reading was largely the reserved privilege of the scholarly and the clergy — priests and religious authorities who needed access to scripture. A normal person, even a king, often did not need to read; they had scribes for that. Reading was an elite, ceremonial activity.

Iqra democratised reading. It pulled it out of the temple and the palace and placed it in the hands of every believer. Allah did not first command the Prophet ﷺ to pray, to fast, or to perform Hajj. The first command — to him, and by extension to the Muslim community — was to read.

Muslims have to be readers. This is the first command.

The Second Revelation: Al-Qalam — The Pen

After this first encounter, the Prophet ﷺ was terrified. He thought he was losing his mind, that he was seeing things, that he had been touched by jinn. He went home and Khadijah رضي الله عنها calmed him down.

Then came Surah Al-Qalam:

ن ۚ وَالْقَلَمِ وَمَا يَسْطُرُونَ

Nun. By the pen and what they write.

The nun is one of the disjointed letters whose meaning only Allah knows. But the rest of the ayah is clear: an oath by the pen and what it writes. The reference is to the pen of the Lawh al-Mahfudh — but the message to humanity is the elevation of writing.

There is a difference of opinion among the scholars about which surah was the second revelation — Al-Qalam, Al-Muzzammil, or Al-Muddathir. The position taken here is that it is Al-Qalam, for two reasons.

First, Surah Al-Qalam contains the ayah:

مَا أَنتَ بِنِعْمَةِ رَبِّكَ بِمَجْنُونٍ

You, by the favour of your Lord, are not mad.

The Prophet ﷺ had just walked away from the cave terrified that he was going crazy. Before any further mission could be loaded onto him, Allah needed to settle his heart: you are not mad. This is real. This is the answer to what you have been asking for.

Second, the message of the pen and what is written sits naturally next to Iqra. First read. Then write. Allah is establishing the foundations of a literate ummah before He establishes anything else.

A Civilisation Built on the Pen

This focus on reading and writing wasn’t just a private spiritual instruction to one man — it shaped a civilisation.

A clear example is the Battle of Talas in 751 CE. When the Muslims defeated the Tang Chinese army, among the prisoners were craftsmen who knew the secret of papermaking. Until that point, paper was a closely guarded Chinese technology. Through those captives, papermaking entered the Muslim world — Samarkand, then Baghdad, then across North Africa and into Andalusia, and from there into the rest of Europe.

The world before mass paper was a world of parchment and scroll — expensive, ceremonial, reserved for royal edicts and palace records. The world after was a world where ordinary people could own books. The intellectual explosion of the Islamic Golden Age — the libraries of Baghdad, the universities of Cordoba, the translation movements — was built on this foundation.

The first command was Iqra. The second oath was by the pen. Acquiring and preserving knowledge isn’t just useful for humanity. It is a religious command.

The Third Revelation: Al-Muzzammil — The One Wrapped Tightly

After reading and writing comes Surah Al-Muzzammil:

يَا أَيُّهَا الْمُزَّمِّلُ ۞ قُمِ اللَّيْلَ إِلَّا قَلِيلًا

O you who is wrapped up. Stand the night, except for a little.

Muzzammil describes someone wrapped tightly in their cloak — the kind of wrapping you reach for when you’re shivering, when you want to be held by your blanket. The Prophet ﷺ had come home shaken, and pulled his cloak tightly around himself.

And in that state, the command came: stand the night.

This is the command for spiritual work. Qiyamul layl. Take the knowledge that has been given to you — iqra, al-qalam — and turn it inward first. Transform yourself before you try to transform anything else.

This is where revelation begins its real work on the believer: not in the marketplace, not in the public square, but at night, alone, standing before Allah.

The Fourth Revelation: Al-Muddathir — The One Covered

And then comes the surah Grounded begins this term:

يَا أَيُّهَا الْمُدَّثِّرُ ۞ قُمْ فَأَنذِرْ

O you who is covered. Stand up and warn.

Muddathir is a softer wrapping than muzzammil. Muzzammil is the tight, terrified wrap of someone shivering. Muddathir is the more relaxed cover — like the blanket you pull over yourself on these cooler autumn nights in Perth, not clutched, just resting on you, comfortable.

And the command this time is different. Qum fa-andhir — stand up and warn your people.

This is community work.

Notice the sequence Allah is teaching:

1. Iqra — read.

2. Al-Qalam — write.

3. Al-Muzzammil — work on yourself in the night.

4. Al-Muddathir — go out and work for your community in the day.

Read and write. Acquire knowledge. Turn that knowledge into self-transformation. Then take that transformed self into the community and contribute.

A good Muslim is not someone who simply sits at home reciting Quran, doing tasbih, doing dhikr, fasting, and isolating from the world. Those things are essential — non-negotiable, in fact. But the next question is always: how does this benefit the rest of creation? What is the contribution to the community?

The Two Cannot Be Separated

There is a tendency to split these two — to treat the spiritual person and the activist as different categories. Islam fuses them.

The Prophet ﷺ taught this fusion in a single hadith, narrated by Abdullah ibn Salam — a Jewish rabbi in Madinah who heard the first lecture and immediately recognised the signs of the final messenger. The Prophet ﷺ said:

يَا أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ، أَفْشُوا السَّلَامَ، وَأَطْعِمُوا الطَّعَامَ، وَصِلُوا الْأَرْحَامَ، وَصَلُّوا بِاللَّيْلِ وَالنَّاسُ نِيَامٌ، تَدْخُلُوا الْجَنَّةَ بِسَلَامٍ.

O people, spread peace, feed the hungry, maintain family ties, and pray at night while people are sleeping — you will enter Paradise in peace.

Look at the structure of that hadith. Three of the four instructions are outward — spread peace, feed people, connect family ties. These are daytime acts, community acts, the work of being among people. Only the last — pray at night while people sleep — is solitary spiritual work.

The day is for community work. The night is for spiritual work. The night recharges the day. The day expresses what the night built.

Spreading peace is tiring. Feeding people is tiring. Holding broken family relationships together is tiring. Where does the motivation come from? It comes from the night — from the extra Quran, the extra dhikr, the ayat of Jannah and Jahannam read in the silence when everyone else is asleep. That motivation then spills out into the next day’s work.

The Maxim of the Scholars

The scholars of this ummah captured this balance in a maxim worth memorising:

Knowledge without practice is like a tree that bears no fruit.

Practice without knowledge is craziness.

A reader who never acts is a barren tree. An actor who never reads is a danger — to himself and to everyone around him.

Surah Al-Muddathir lands precisely here. By the time this revelation comes, the Prophet ﷺ has been told to read, told to write, and told to stand the night and work on himself. Now, finally: stand up and warn your people.

This is where Grounded picks up next week, opening the first ten ayat of Surah Al-Muddathir, إن شاء الله.

This Week’s Take-Home

Audit your own balance this week. Ask honestly:

• Reading and writing — am I taking in knowledge, or has my intake quietly stopped?

• Self-work — what am I doing in the night that no one else sees?

• Community work — what am I doing in the day that benefits people beyond myself?

If three of these are strong and one is empty, that’s the one to start with this week.

See you Tuesday for Tajweed Tuesday, and next Thursday we dive into the surah.

Welcome back to Tajweed Tuesday! We are back after a long break. This term insha Allah we will be reading Surah al-Muddaththir.

Remember to practice your Quran daily, even if it is only 10 minutes. Consistency always beats intensity. And when practicing remember that, slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Slow down and read smoothly. Only speed up once you are smooth.