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.

Before we go forward, it helps to see the shape of what we have been reading.

Surah Al-A’raf is a Makki surah. Its primary audience was the Quraysh of Makkah. Its central argument is historical: look at the nations before you. Contrast this with Surah Al-An’am — also Makki, also addressing the Quraysh — but that surah makes its…

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Imam Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali mentions that the pious predecessors would spend six months after Ramadan asking Allah to accept their deeds — and the remaining months begging Him to let them witness another one. That’s the rhythm. Gratitude, then longing. Never stagnation.

But the Qur’an gives us something even more precise than that rhythm. It gives us a transition.

In Surah al-Baqarah, the discussion of Ramadan begins at ayah 183 — *kutiba alaykum al-siyam* — and runs through to ayah 187. Then, immediately, in ayah 189, Allah says:

**يَسْأَلُونَكَ عَنِ الْأَهِلَّةِ**

*They ask you about the crescent moons.*

The companions asked Rasulullah ﷺ about the significance of the moon’s phases — crescent to full, waning and returning. Allah answered that the moon exists so that humanity can track time. So we know when a month begins and when it ends. (I understand this topic is sensitive in Perth. We’ll leave that there.)

But then, immediately, Allah connects this to Hajj.

“Qul hiya mawaqitu li al-nas wa al-hajj.”

The crescents are time-markers for people — and for Hajj.

The transition is beautiful. One act of worship ends. The next one begins. No gap. No off-season. The life of a believer is simply moving from one ibadah to the next. The same Lord we worshipped in Ramadan is the same Lord who governs every moment outside of it. Ramadan ending doesn’t mean the haram becomes negotiable again, or the wajib becomes optional. We have a new aim now.

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Now, not everyone can perform Hajj. It’s a mathematical impossibility. Two billion Muslims, roughly two million pilgrimage spots per year — the number has been reduced since COVID. Do the maths. It would take something like 700 years before every Muslim alive today gets a turn. That’s why Hajj is the only pillar where Allah specifies man istata’a ilayhi sabila — for those who are able. Ability is a condition.

But the mindset still applies. The transition from one ibadah to the next is for everyone.

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There are so many dimensions to Hajj worth unpacking. But I want to focus on one moment — a snapshot — from the stoning at the Jamarat.

The backstory is Sayyidina Ibrahim عليه السلام. He was commanded by Allah, through a dream, to sacrifice his only son at that time, Isma’il. And when he told his son — and Allah recorded this exchange in the Qur’an — Isma’il responded with full submission: *ifʿal mā tu’mar* — do as you have been commanded. You will find me among the patient.

But Isma’il set conditions. He said: don’t do it in Makkah, because if I scream, my mother will hear and it will break her heart. And make sure the blade is sharp so it’s quick.

(Side note to the sons in the room: if your father knocks on your door and says he saw a dream about slaughtering you — dial 000. These days, the worst our fathers do is say, “Son, wake up for Fajr.” And even that’s a struggle.)

Father and son walked about five or six kilometres from Makkah to Mina. And at each of the three stations along the way, Iblis appeared. He whispered. He cast doubt. He said: *You’ve done enough. You built the Ka’bah. You migrated from Iraq to Jerusalem to Makkah. You’ve sacrificed so much already. Why this? Just say no.*

At each station, Ibrahim took seven pebbles, threw them in the direction of Iblis — *Allahu Akbar* — and moved on.

After the third station, Iblis left and never came back.

Falamma aslama wa tallahu li al-jabin. When both of them submitted fully — the father resolute, the son’s forehead on the stone — Allah called out. The test was fulfilled. A great sacrifice was sent in Isma’il’s place.

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Thousands of years later, during the Hajj of the Prophet ﷺ — Hajjat al-Wada’ — as he was riding his camel towards the Jamarat, he told Sayyidina Abdullah ibn Abbas: get me some pebbles.

Ibn Abbas picked up pebbles about the size you could flick between your thumb and index finger. Our scholars later said: about the size of a chickpea.

Rasulullah ﷺ took them and said: yes, get more of this size.

And then he addressed the community. He said:

**يَا أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ، إِيَّاكُمْ وَالْغُلُوَّ فِي الدِّينِ**

*O people, beware of extremism in religion. For nations before you were destroyed because of extremism in religion.*

Think about that. This is a moment about picking up a rock. A small, mundane, physical act. But Rasulullah ﷺ saw the teaching opportunity and seized it.

Because it’s easy to go overboard here. You’re reliving what Ibrahim went through. You’re stoning Iblis. A chickpea-sized pebble? That’s not going to cut it. You want to find the nearest cricket club, practice your bowling, and make sure Iblis doesn’t come back next year.

But no. The Prophet ﷺ said: this is the size. Not too big — you’re not hurling rocks. Not too small — you’re not flicking grains of rice. Just right. The balance.

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So where do we draw the line on extremism?

I was speaking to some of the high school students at Qaswa about the practices of our predecessors in Ramadan. Imam al-Shafi’i would complete two full readings of the Qur’an every day during Ramadan — one in the day, one at night. That’s sixty khatam in one month.

The students said: that’s extreme, isn’t it?

I said: well, how do you define extreme?

Let’s pull out our phones. Check the screen time. How many hours on TikTok? How many on Instagram? People are clocking seven, eight, ten hours a day staring at a screen.

Now imagine we could transport Imam al-Shafi’i into 2026. We tell him: Muslims today stare at a glowing rectangle for ten hours a day, getting no benefit, and it’s actually harming them.

He would say: that’s extremely stupid, isn’t it?

So who defines what’s extreme? Rasulullah ﷺ does. Because he is the most balanced of humanity. The mark of this Ummah, as Allah describes it in the Qur’an: ummatan wasata — a balanced nation.

When three companions each decided to push further — one would pray all night and never sleep, one would fast every day and never break it, one would worship and never marry — the Prophet ﷺ said: I am the one with the most taqwa among you. Yet I pray and I sleep. I fast and I break my fast. I worship and I marry. This is my sunnah. Whoever turns away from my sunnah is not from me.

Everything has a right. Your body has a right — good nutrition, good rest. Your family has a right. Allah has a right over you in worship. Giving every aspect its due — that’s balance.

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Let me sketch a few dimensions of this balance.

Balance in belief. Islam respects both revelation and reason. We believe because Allah told us to believe — in Him, in the angels, in the books, in the prophets, in the Last Day, in qadar. These are revelatory matters.

But our tradition also respects the intellect. Look at how Ibrahim عليه السلام argued with his people in Surah al-An’am. He didn’t just say: stop worshipping your idols because Allah says so. He engaged their logic. Idols you carved with your own hands — you made them, and now you bow to them? They don’t speak, don’t benefit you, don’t harm you. Why?

And then the stars. He observed the kawkab — a beautiful star — and said sarcastically: this is my lord? But when it set, he said: I don’t love things that disappear. God can’t be present at some times and absent at others. I need God every moment.

Then the moon appeared, full and bright. He said: this is my lord? But when it set, he said: *if my Lord had not guided me, I would certainly be among those who are astray.*

Notice the shift. In the first argument, Ibrahim used pure logic — God can’t appear and disappear. But in the second, he acknowledged that arriving at the worship of Allah requires revelation. Intellect can deny what is not God. But to know who God is, you need guidance.

Imam al-Ghazali captured this beautifully. He said: revelation is like the sun, and reason is like eyesight. Without the sun, there’s nothing to see. But without eyesight, you can’t appreciate the light. Both together — that’s how you see.

If you rely only on revelation, your faith works fine within a Muslim bubble. The moment it’s challenged from outside, it crumbles. If you rely only on reason, you can conclude that God must exist — but you’ll never arrive at which God, or how to worship Him. Both, hand in hand. Ummatan wasata.

Balance in practice. There are people so focused on the physicality of worship — how to raise the hands, where to place them, how to stand — that they forget the deeper purpose. Prayer isn’t calisthenics. When Allah says aqim al-salah li dhikri — establish prayer to remember Me — He’s pointing to something beyond movement.

Every act of worship in Islam is meant to produce beautiful character. The Prophet ﷺ said: I was only sent to perfect noble character. If the more religious we become, the harsher our behaviour gets — something is broken. The balance is off.

Allah tells us that prayer prevents shamelessness and evil. Yet we see people who pray, and in the same breath they double-park on someone without a care. The same tongue that recites Qur’an goes on to slander. The same hands that move in salah take what doesn’t belong to them.

How? Because the spiritual dimension was missing. If you truly stood before Allah in prayer — before the Creator of the heavens and the earth and everything in between — there has to be an after-effect. If you get called to the CEO’s office and told off, you’ll behave well for at least a few days. Now multiply that. You stood before the Lord of all worlds. You spoke to Him. Surely the effect lingers.

And just as it starts to fade — Dhuhr arrives. Then before it fades again — Asr. Then Maghrib. Then Isha. Then sleep, then Fajr. The cycle continues. This is why prayer stops you from evil. You keep checking in with Allah. You keep reporting back.

But strip away the spiritual dimension, focus only on the mechanics, and it loses its purpose.

On the other hand, there are people who say: my heart is good, I don’t need to pray. As long as I’m kind, the rituals are for other people. But then — who are you actually worshipping? If you abandon what Allah prescribed and follow only your own moral compass, you’re worshipping your own nafs.

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This is the lesson of the chickpea.

One nation before us fell into extremism through legalism — everything became so complicated that they abandoned practice altogether. Another fell through spiritualism — everything was about love, no boundaries, no halal or haram, just accept and you’re saved. The religion dissolved. Nothing was left.

Islam sits in the middle. As Imam al-Ghazali said: khayru al-umur awsatuha — the best of affairs is the middle path.

The Prophet ﷺ reminded us, standing at the Jamarat, pebbles in hand: don’t fall into extremism. The size of a chickpea. Not too much. Not too little. Just right.

May Allah protect us from extremism in religion. May He grant us the strength to live by the Sunnah — balanced in every dimension, following our Prophet ﷺ externally and internally.

Quick Recap

We’ve been tracing a pattern. Prophet Nuh was the first Prophet to fac…

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For those who missed the Ramadan series, all the posts are on Substack at groundeddaily.substack.…

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Most people do not struggle because they lack sincerity. They struggle because their approach to change cannot survive ordinary life.

They begin with good intentions and genuine resolve, but they build their practice around ideal conditions — time, energy, focus. When life becomes busy, tiring, or unpredictable, the structure collapses. Guilt follows. Then discouragement. Often, withdrawal.

This approach may work briefly, but it rarely holds over time.

Change in Islam is not built on motivation, but on what can be maintained. The Prophetic way does not start with intensity. It starts with steadiness.

A Grounded life is not about dramatic transformation. It is about learning how to live faithfully within real life — with its limits, pressures, and interruptions — without burning out or slowly drifting away.

To do this, we need an approach that accounts for weakness, distraction, and inconsistency. We call this approach STEADY.

STEADY is a simple framework for beginning. Not perfectly, but properly.

⸻

S — Start Small

A journey of a thousand miles begin with the first step. One of the clearest principles in the Prophetic way is that consistency matters more than intensity.

What is done regularly settles into the heart. What is done occasionally, no matter how impressive, does not.

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Today is a day of celebration. Today we are happy. Today we are joyous.

But if you look into the global geopolitical events at the moment, it is hard for us to be joyous. It is hard for us to celebrate. Palestinians are still being killed daily, still facing genocide. The Middle East is burning. Iran is under illegal attack by the US and Israel. And now we see yet another part of the region falling into war.

It is hard for us to be joyous, because the Prophet ﷺ said: if you don’t care about this Ummah, you are not from among us.

So how are we to celebrate?

The Boulder in the Darkness

To understand celebration in a time of conflict — when the future looks bleak and it’s easy to fall into despair — I want to take you back 1,442 years.

The Muslims in the nascent city of Madinah, having migrated there only five years earlier, were now under attack by all of Arabia. The largest army the Arabs had ever assembled. The Quraysh from the south. The Ghatafan from the north. The Jews of Khaybar joining the coalition.

The Prophet ﷺ consulted his companions, and Sayyidina Salman al-Farisi suggested a strategy the Persians would use when outnumbered: dig a trench so the enemy cannot breach through.

The Prophet ﷺ accepted the idea and commanded the companions to dig at the most vulnerable point of Madinah. He joined them in the digging. It was winter. It was cold. Food was scarce. They were hungry. They were exhausted. Yet they had to keep digging — for survival.

In the darkness of that trench, they struck a boulder they couldn’t break through. They called the Prophet ﷺ. He came — dusty like everyone else, hungry like all of them. He took the shovel and struck the boulder. A third of it crumbled. A spark flew. He said: Allahu Akbar — I saw the palaces of Yemen. Yemen is given to my Ummah.

He struck again. Another third crumbled. Another spark. Allahu Akbar — I saw the keys of Rome given to the Ummah.

He struck a final time. The boulder shattered completely. Allahu Akbar — I saw the Sassanid Empire given to the Ummah.

In times of darkness — when it is easiest to fall into desperation and give up hope — the Prophet ﷺ inspired the Muslims. He told them there is a bright future for the Ummah. All we need to do is work hard and persevere in the path of Allah ﷻ.

And here is what’s remarkable: the Prophet ﷺ passed away before any of it came true. Yemen had not yet been given. The Sassanid Empire had not yet fallen. Half the Byzantine Empire had not yet come under Muslim rule.

But the companions did not despair. They did not give up because it hadn’t happened yet. They understood that when Allah promises something — lā yukhliful mī’ād — He never breaks His promises. All we need to do is fulfil our part.

The Tried and Tested Recipe

What is our part? Allah tells us in Surah Āl ’Imrān. The secret behind the victory of the Ummah — regardless of number, regardless of material strength — is two things: ṣabr and taqwā.

If you have ṣabr and you have taqwā, Allah will send down thousands of angels to help you.

And in the month of Ramadan, we trained exactly that.

Ṣabr by day. And ṣabr here is not passive patience. It is not sitting quietly and doing nothing. In Arabic, ṣabr carries the meaning of steadfastness, perseverance — staying on the path regardless of how difficult it is, doing the right thing no matter how challenging.

We did that in Ramadan. Allah told us no water, despite 40-degree heat. And this Ramadan, we saw those 40-degree days. We said no to water. We held the course until Maghrib. At 3:30 in the morning, we dragged ourselves up for suhoor, prayed tahajjud, prayed Fajr despite the weight of sleep. That is ṣabr.

Taqwā by night. This is our direct line to Allah ﷻ — where the heart connects to Him in prayer, in tarāwīḥ, in Qur’an, in tahajjud, in adhkār, in du’ā.

These two — ṣabr and taqwā — are a tried and tested recipe for 1,400 years. When the Ummah returns to them, Allah grants victory.

Look at the history. The greatest victories came in Ramadan. Badr — 313 against 1,000 — in Ramadan. The Conquest of Makkah, the Prophet’s greatest political victory — Ramadan. Qādisiyyah, the fall of the Sassanid Empire — Ramadan. The fall of Iskandariyyah at the hands of ’Amr ibn al-’Āṣ — Ramadan.

Victory after victory. Because Ramadan produces the two ingredients Allah asked for.

Celebrate. It’s an Act of Worship.

Islam is a religion that celebrates our fiṭrah. Allah who created us understands our wants, our likes, our nature. He knows we like to eat good food. He knows we like to dress well. He knows we like to be with our families and friends.

So He legislated a day where dressing nicely is rewarded. Eating good food is rewarded. Sharing laughter with loved ones — within the boundaries of the Sharī’ah — is rewarded.

What kind of religion is this? Everything we love, Allah rewards us for it.

The Prophet ﷺ said that one of the most beloved deeds to Allah is to bring happiness to the heart of a believer. When we share happiness, when we cause others to be happy, when we create joy in the community — Allah loves to see that.

And there is no better place to start than with the children. Especially the ones who fasted this year — in the heat, in public schools where their friends had cold drinks and ice cream at recess. They had ṣabr. They held on to their religion. They stood steadfast without wavering.

Today is the day we celebrate them. We put joy in their hearts, smiles on their faces. Spoil them a little. Allah will reward you for it.

The Work Ahead

Today we celebrate our graduation from Ramadan. We stand shoulder to shoulder and declare: Allahu Akbar. God is greater than our worries. Greater than our troubles. Greater than all the problems the Ummah faces.

When we make du’ā, we say: Yā Allah, our problems are big — but You are Allahu Akbar.

The Ummah needs ṣabr. And ṣabr is not passively waiting for miracles, not sitting around hoping angels appear. It is hard work. What do we need to do to strengthen the Ummah? What planning, what skill sets, what community building needs to happen? Let’s do it together.

And at night, we maintain the line — prayer, Qur’an, du’ā, that personal direct relationship with Allah ﷻ. Taqwā.

We ask Allah to accept all our deeds in Ramadan. To grant us ṣabr and taqwā. To make us the people of change who bring glory back to the Ummah. To grant relief to our brothers and sisters who are oppressed everywhere — in Palestine, in Iran, in Lebanon, in Syria, in Yemen, in Sudan, and in every place.

اللهم آمين

Eid Mubarak.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Make full use of it. The best du’a for Laylatul Qadr is Allahumma innaka afuwwun tuhibbul afwa fa’fu anni ya Kareem — O Allah, You are the Pardoner, You love to pardon, so pardon me. Keep returning to it tonight, and especially at suhoor time. Allah mentions in the Quran a special rank for those who make istighfar in the early hours before dawn: wa bil ashari hum yastaghfirun. Some of our scholars would dedicate that time between the sunnah of Fajr and the salah itself entirely to istighfar — a hundred times, quietly, consistently. Do that tonight.

And in your du’a, ask Allah not to make this our last Ramadan. Ask Him to grant us another.

A few reminders: tomorrow night — Thursday, the eve of Eid — is our potluck iftar at Qaswa House. Doors open at 6pm, iftar around 6:35. Bring a plate to share. The kids will have games and activities, weather permitting. Friday is Eid prayer at MacDougall Park in Como — takbir at 8, prayer at 8:30.

And this tafseer series continues. We will pick up Surah Al-A’raf every Thursday night at Qaswa — Maghrib together, some dhikr, tafseer, then Isha and dinner. 7pm. Starting this coming Thursday. If you want to follow the surah through to the end, come join us.

Hadramaut, Nusantara, and the People of ’Ad

We began the story of Prophet Hud last night. He was sent to the people of ’Ad — a civilisation that lived in Hadramaut, Yemen, not far from the city of Tarim.

Hadramaut holds a special place in the hearts of Malay Muslims. It is the origin of the Hadrami scholars and traders who brought Islam to the Nusantara — the vast Indonesian archipelago. They came not with armies but with akhlaq. They traded honestly. They treated people beautifully. And when people asked why — why are your manners like this, why are you so trustworthy — they would explain: because I follow the teaching of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. That is how Indonesia became the largest Muslim country in the world without a single Arab army ever setting foot on its soil.

Thousands of years before any of that, ’Ad was there. A people of extraordinary power. Allah says to them in this surah: We increased you in your creation — strength, stature, capacity. They built civilisations. The Quraysh of Makkah knew about them. They took pride in them as ancestors. And so when Allah tells their story in the Quran, He is speaking directly to the Quraysh: this is who you are proud of. Look what happened to them when they rejected their Prophet.

The Message Never Changed — Only the Details

Prophet Hud stood before his people and said: O my people, worship Allah. You have no god other than Him.

The same words as Prophet Nuh. The same words as every prophet before and after. From Adam to Muhammad ﷺ, the core of the message has never changed: La ilaha illallah. Tawheed. Worship only Allah.

But the details of the Sharia — how that worship is expressed, what the laws look like, the specifics of punishment and obligation — those have changed across time. And that is not God changing His mind. That is God being perfectly calibrated to the people He is speaking to.

Every generation is different. The laws of previous nations were stricter, harsher. The tawbah for shirk in the Sharia of Musa, for instance, required death — the only atonement for major sins was the taking of life. Christianity inherited this concept and built the doctrine of atonement around it: the idea that someone must die for sin to be absorbed. Our belief is different — no one carries another’s sin, and Allah does not need anyone to die on His behalf in order to forgive. He is Al-Afuww. He simply pardons. Islam came with the lightest sharia of all the prophetic traditions: even shirk, the gravest of sins, requires only sincere tawbah and the shahada.

Why lighter? Because humans have become softer over time. That is simply true. My mother cycled ten kilometres to school each morning without complaint. My father hunted birds with a slingshot as a child, cooked them himself, and came home with his stomach half full before his parents knew anything about it. Today, children cry when they watch someone slaughter a chicken.

People change. Allah knows this. The Sharia adapts. But the tawheed does not move.

Some things remain constant from Adam to Yawmul Qiyamah: worship Allah alone, honour your parents, maintain good character, care for the orphan and the poor, speak kindly to people. The details of how — the minimum of zakat, the specific forms — may be calibrated to time and place. The principles themselves are eternal.

Why Hud Said Something Different From Nuh

Here is something small but worth paying attention to.

When Prophet Nuh called his people, he said: I fear for you the punishment of a great day. He had to tell them what was coming — because they had never seen collective divine punishment before. Nuh’s people were the first community to be destroyed. There was no precedent. The warning had to be explicit.

But when Prophet Hud called his people, he said something different: Do you not have taqwa? He did not need to spell out what the punishment looked like. Because the people of ‘Ad still remembered. The great flood was not ancient history to them — it was recent memory, passed down through their ancestors. The story was fresh. All Hud had to do was point to what they already knew: don’t you remember what happened? Are you not afraid?

This is the Quran being precise in a way that rewards attention. The surface looks similar — a prophet calling his people to Tawheed, the elite rejecting him. But the language shifts in exactly the way historical context demands. And when you notice those shifts, as Professor Sayyid Naqib Al-Attas — who passed away just days ago, may Allah grant him the highest Jannah, one of the greatest Muslim thinkers of our age — always said: the Quran is not a book for lazy people. It rewards those who think, who ponder, who are willing to ask why.

Al-Attas spent his life arguing that after colonisation and the fall of the Ottoman Caliphate, Muslims should not paste Islamic varnish over Western philosophical frameworks. He said the answer had to come from within the tradition itself. His work gave birth to institutions like IIUM — the International Islamic University Malaysia — and ISTAC. His book Islam and Secularism remains essential reading for anyone serious about Islamic education and worldview. We lost a giant.

Al-Mala’ — Then and Now

As with Nuh, the first to reject Prophet Hud were al-mala’ — the rich and powerful elite. But there is a subtle and important difference. In the story of Nuh, the Quran simply says al-mala’ min qawmihi — the chiefs of his people rejected him. In the story of Hud, it says al-mala’ alladhina kafaru min qawmihi — the chiefs who disbelieved from his people.

Why the extra qualification? Because not all the chiefs of ’Ad rejected Hud. Some of them believed. The memory of the flood was still close enough that some of the powerful had held on to their fear of Allah. So Allah was precise: it was specifically the disbelieving chiefs who called Hud a fool and a liar — not all of them.

The pattern of al-mala’ rejecting the truth is a constant across every prophet’s story in the Quran. It repeats so often it cannot be coincidence — Allah is drawing our attention to a structural reality of power. The elite benefit from the existing order. A prophet comes and says the order is unjust, that the weak deserve protection, that no one is above accountability. The elite’s wealth and status depend on that order remaining intact. So they fight back.

And the masses, generally, follow whoever is loudest and most visible.

The Prophet ﷺ said that every prophet before prophethood worked as a shepherd. Including him ﷺ. Because you learn people management from managing sheep — you learn how to lead those who follow instinct and momentum, who drift toward whoever is in front of them.

We think we have escaped this. We are in 2026. We have the internet. We have access to every idea in human history. Surely we are not sheep.

And then you walk into a supermarket. Milk and bread — the things almost everyone needs — are placed at the furthest possible corner. You have to walk past everything else to reach them. The placement is not accidental. It is psychologically engineered to make you spend. Children love McDonald’s not because of the food but because that golden arch has been placed in their visual field since before they could speak, associated with happiness, associated with play. We did not choose to love it. We were led there.

The top influencer on Instagram earns more than the CEO of Instagram. The top creator on YouTube earns more than the CEO of YouTube. We have simply replaced the ancient al-mala’ with a new one — one that reaches us through screens instead of town squares, but shapes our choices just as effectively.

This is why La ilaha illallah is not just a statement of theology. It is a declaration of independence. I submit to Allah alone. My thinking is shaped by what Allah has revealed. My standard for acceptance and rejection is not whatever the powerful say, not whatever is trending, not whatever algorithm is currently deciding what I see. It is La ilaha illallah, Muhammadur Rasulullah ﷺ.

That is the only real freedom.

Prophet Hud Responds

The disbelieving chiefs called Hud a fool and a liar. He responded with quiet dignity: O my people, there is no foolishness in me. I am a messenger from Rabbil Alameen — the Lord of the universe.

Every prophet, before prophethood, was known for their intelligence and their beautiful character. The people of ’Ad knew Hud. He was from among them — akhahum Huda, their brother. The accusation of foolishness was not sincere. They knew he was not stupid. They knew he was not lying. They rejected because they did not want what he was calling them toward.

We will continue the story of Prophet Hud next Thursday at Qaswa insha’Allah.

A Final Word Before Eid

Twenty-nine nights. Alhamdulillah.

Whatever we managed this Ramadan — however much or little — we ask Allah to accept it. We ask Him to forgive us for the nights we wasted and to count among our good deeds the nights we tried. We ask Him not to make this our last Ramadan. We ask Him to let us meet the next one with stronger roots, deeper iman, and better character than we had when this one began.

Taqabbalallahu minna wa minkum. May Allah accept from all of us.

The tafseer of Surah Al-A’raf continues at Qaswa every Thursday night, 7pm. A paid subscription includes the Surah Al-A’raf Study Guide and Workbook.

A few housekeeping notes: Thursday night — the eve of Eid — we will have a potluck iftar at Qaswa House starting at 6pm, with iftar around 6:35. Bring a plate to share. The kids will have activities while the adults eat. After that we’ll pray Isha together and do takbir to welcome Eid.

Friday is Eid prayer at McDougall Park in Como. Takbir at 8, prayer at 8:30. And yes — since Eid falls on a Friday this year, the question of Jumu’ah comes up. The Shafi’i position is that Jumu’ah remains obligatory for those living in the city. The Hanbali reading gives the option to skip it for those who came from outside the city, but holds that the Imam must still lead it. Since we live in the city and the masjid is not far, I’ll keep my khutbah to 10 minutes and the prayer short so everyone can go and celebrate.

This tafseer series continues after Ramadan on Thursday nights at Qaswa — 7pm, finishing with Isha and dinner around 9 to 9:30. If you want to follow Surah Al-A’raf through to the end, come join us.

Was the Flood Global or Local?

We ended last night at the great flood. Today I want to address the question that comes up every single time I teach this story to kids in Australia.

Were kangaroos on the ark?

And before you smile — it is actually a serious theological question. The Bible says the flood was global and every species of animal was taken two by two. That immediately creates a problem: Australian animals are unique. Kangaroos, wombats, possums, platypuses — they exist nowhere else on earth. How did they get to Prophet Nuh to board the ark? And how did they get back to Australia afterwards without leaving any trace of themselves along the way?

This level of specificity is precisely why many scientifically-minded people struggle with the biblical account. The Bible gives exact dimensions for the ark, an exact timeline, an exact animal count — and when those details collide with scientific and geographical reality, the whole thing becomes very difficult to hold.

The Quran does not work that way. And that difference matters enormously.

Three Readings

Our scholars hold two broad positions on the flood of Nuh, and I want to offer a third that I find most compelling.

The first position: it was a global flood. The argument rests on the generality of certain Quranic ayat — particularly in Surah Hud — where the language is broad enough to suggest the entire earth. Allah saved Nuh and those with him and destroyed everyone else. “Everyone else” could mean all of humanity everywhere.

The second position: it was a localised flood, specific to the qawm of Prophet Nuh. The theological argument is straightforward — Nuh was sent to his people. The punishment was for their rejection. Why would Allah destroy people in Australia, people in the Americas, people who had never received a messenger and had no idea any of this was happening? That is inconsistent with the divine justice we know from the Quran. Allah does not punish people who were never warned.

The third reading — and this is where it gets interesting — is that the flood was localised geographically, but effectively encompassed all of humanity, because at that point in history, all of humanity lived in roughly the same place.

Anthropological evidence suggests that when we trace humanity back 50,000 to 60,000 years, we find our ancestors concentrated in one region — having migrated out of Africa and settled in and around the Fertile Crescent. At the time of Prophet Nuh, the human race was still young. Its population was geographically concentrated. A great flood in that region could have destroyed virtually all of humanity that existed then — without covering the entire physical globe. And when the Quran says Allah took animals onto the ark, it was not every species on earth. It was the animals of that community. The sheep, the cattle, the camels — the practical animals you would need to rebuild your life after the waters receded. Not giraffes. Not hippos. Not kangaroos.

The Story That Made Me Stop

What makes this third reading extraordinary is the evidence you find when you look at how widely the flood story appears across human cultures — especially cultures that had zero contact with each other.

The Aztecs of Mesoamerica were completely isolated from the Old World until the 15th century. And yet they have a flood story. A man named Coxcox went before the Creator God, complained about the wickedness of his people, and the Creator sent a great flood to cleanse the earth. Coxcox survived on a raft. When the waters began to recede, he sent a bird out — and it returned with signs of land. Identical in structure to the story of Nuh. Same moral arc. Same divine response. Same bird.

And then there is the story from the Kimberley.

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By the account of many companions and the opinion of many scholars, the 27th carries the highest probability of being Laylatul Qadr among all the odd nights. There is no guarantee — the Prophet ﷺ told us to hunt through all of the last ten. But if any one night has the strongest case, it is this one.

The companions would dress nicely on this night. Apply perfume. Their wives would wonder — where are you going? And they would say: I am welcoming a very important guest. Because after the passing of the Prophet ﷺ, Jibreel only comes to earth once a year — on the night of Al-Qadr. Tanazzalul mala’ikatu warruh. The angels, led by Jibreel, descend.

And the Prophet ﷺ said: if your eyes could see, on this night there would not be a single empty space on earth. Every spot, every gap, filled by angels. Recording. Witnessing. Think about that. Every angel comes down tonight — and what they record about you is entirely in your hands.

The name Al-Qadr also comes from constriction — qaddara — because the earth, as vast as it is, becomes constricted by the sheer number of angels filling it. And in Surah Dukhan, Allah tells us this is the night when all divine affairs are distributed — the decree for the coming year is announced to the angels. Rizq. Life. Death. The angel of provision gets his list. The angel of death gets his. Every angel receives their assignment for the year ahead.

Think of it like budget night — the night before the Prime Minister tables the budget, if you have something to submit, that is the time to submit it. Between the Luh Mahfuz and the angels receiving their instructions, tonight is when our du’a can be most profound. We make our requests before the roster is handed out.

This is not a precise theological description of how divine decree works — nothing is comparable to Allah. But it helps us feel the weight of what this night is. Make du’a tonight. Make it seriously. And please — make du’a for me and my family as well.

What We Established Last Night

We began the story of Prophet Nuh. He made da’wah for 950 years to the first people in human history to worship idols. The idols started innocently — statues built to commemorate five pious people who had died. Remembrance became veneration. Veneration became worship. Generations passed, the original intent was lost, and what began as tribute ended as shirk.

This is why Islam is strict about statues — not children’s toys, not Superman figures your kids kick around the room, but the veneration of figures, the careful display of them, the collecting of them. The trajectory has been seen before. It doesn’t always end in shirk, but the path that leads there started exactly here. The fiqh rule exists because of history.

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Da’wah Without Self-Interest

Prophet Nuh stood before his people and said: I fear for you the punishment of a great day.

Not: I want to be your leader. Not: follow me and I will give you power. Not: I have a new system and it will make us great. He was afraid — for them. His da’wah came entirely from love and concern for the people he was sent to.

This is the sunnah of every prophet. And it is the standard for everyone who inherits their work.

If you are teaching Islamic studies, running a halaqah, leading a masjid programme — the moment you stop caring about the people in front of you, the moment it becomes about status or position or income, you have lost the plot. In Australia especially, there is almost nothing to gain materially from Islamic work. In Malaysia, a good hafiz leading taraweeh can earn 30,000 ringgit in a month of Ramadan. Here, you are lucky if the costs are covered. Sometimes the teacher pays out of pocket just to keep things running.

So why do it? Because you care about the akhirah of the people in front of you. Because you are afraid for them, the same way Prophet Nuh was afraid for his people. That is the only motivation that sustains this work.

Al-Mala’ — The Elite Always Push Back

The first people to reject Prophet Nuh were al-mala’ — the rich and powerful elite of his community.

This is not a coincidence. It is a pattern. You will find it in the story of every prophet in the Quran, repeated so consistently that Allah is clearly drawing our attention to it. The rich and powerful elite reject the prophet. Every single time.

Why? Because the prophet brings a new system. And the elite benefit from the existing system. They have built their wealth, their influence, their status within the current order — and now someone is standing up and saying: this order is wrong. You are oppressing the weak. You are exploiting the poor. The system you have constructed for your own benefit is not the system Allah approves of.

Of course they push back. You are clearly misguided. That was what the mala’ of Nuh’s people said. It is what every elite says to every prophet who threatens the status quo.

Prophet Nuh responded: I am not misguided. I am a messenger from the master of the universe. And I am giving you sincere nasiha.

Nasiha — sincere advice. Not paid advice. The Arabic distinction is precise: if you are paid for your advice, you are a mustashar, a consultant. If you give it freely, from care, that is nasiha. The prophets were giving nasiha. Wa ana lakum nasihun amin — a sincere and trustworthy advisor. Unpaid. Uncorrupted. Answerable only to Allah.

Feudalism, Communism, and Why Humans Need Revelation

The pattern of al-mala’ rejecting the truth is not limited to ancient history. It is the pattern of human political organisation without divine guidance.

What did feudalism look like? Kings and courts doing as they pleased. Peasants with no land, no rights, no voice — working someone else’s fields for nothing. The system existed entirely to serve those at the top.

And what was the extreme human response to feudalism? Marx. Communism. Abolish all class structures. Everyone equal. Everyone paid the same regardless of talent, effort, or contribution.

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Quick announcements: Eid will be this Friday insha’Allah, based on ANIC’s announcement. Qaswa will be praying at MacDougall Park in Como. Takbir starts at 8, prayer at 8:30. Setup is at 7:30 — the more hands the better. Bring a prayer mat or picnic mat, and a plate to share is very much welcome.

Tonight is also a Sunday eve, which means tomorrow is a public holiday. No excuses. Sleep early, wake up at 3am, pray, read Quran, make du’a, do your adhkar. Then sleep after Fajr and sunrise. Use it.

Allah Has Been Making His Case

Before we go forward, let me zoom out for a second.

The passage we’ve been in started at ayah 54. Before that, we had the conversations of Yawmul Qiyamah — the people of Jannah calling out to the people of fire, the people of A’raf watching both sides, the people of fire begging for a drop of water and being turned away. Allah was essentially laying out the map: these are the stations. Jannah. Jahannam. A’raf. Choose one. Pick your lane and start walking.

Then from ayah 54, Allah pivoted. He said: you’ve seen the destinations — now let me tell you who your Lord is. He is the One who created the heavens and earth. The sun, the moon, the stars — all running on His command. And once you know that, He gives you the next step: call on Him. Make du’a. With humility on the outside and fear and hope on the inside.

And now — if that still isn’t enough — He says: look around you.

A paid subscription includes a free digital copy of the
Surah Al-A’raf Study Guide and Workbook.

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Two Revelations, Both Meant to Be Read

Allah has sent us two books.

The first is masthoor — the written. That’s the Quran. The second is manzoor — the observed. That’s nature. And our scholars tell us that both must be read together. If you read only the Quran and never engage with nature, you’ll be left behind as the world advances — because in the study of nature, properly done, you find your way back to Allah. And if you only engage with nature and ignore the Quran, you’ll have wonder without guidance.

Both. Together. That’s the prescription.

This is why our prayer times are tied to the sun and our fasting is tied to the moon. Islam is the only religion that makes you interact with the physical universe five times a day. But most of us have outsourced that interaction to an app. Which is fine — until two apps give different iftar times and then my WhatsApp fills up with the same question every Ramadan.

Go outside. Look at the horizon. That’s when Maghrib is.

Once in a while, find the Qibla with the stars. In WA, if you look for Orion’s Belt, that’s your east. Know when prayer time starts from the position of the sun. I make every student who comes through my class do this at least once. I don’t know if they remember it years later. But I hope they remember that they looked up at the sky and found their way to Makkah without an app.

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Before anything else — stay out of the arguments about moon sighting. Online or otherwise. This is not the time. There is a hadith that the Prophet ﷺ was once shown the exact night of Laylatul Qadr and was on his way to tell the companions — when he found them arguing among themselves. And Allah caused him to forget it. That knowledge was lifted because of the dispute. Arguments in the community literally cost us Laylatul Qadr. Don’t be that person. Not in these last few nights.

Quick Recap Before We Move Forward

Last night we covered the four adabs of du’a from ayat 55 and 56:

The external two — tadarru’, humility of body and word, and khufya, keeping your voice low and not screaming at Allah. The internal two — khawf, fear that Allah might ignore us the way we’ve been ignoring Him, and tama’, that deep aching hope that He — and only He — can answer.

Both pairs working together. The outside and the inside. The posture and the heart.

And then ayah 56 ends with a statement that stopped us last night: inna rahmatallaahi qaribun minal muhsineen — indeed, the mercy of Allah is near to those who are muhsineen.

We said we’d come back to it. So let’s.

Who Are the Muhsineen?

Ihsan. We go back to Hadith Jibril — the hadith where Jibril came to the Prophet ﷺ in the form of a man and asked him about Islam, then Iman, then Ihsan. And the Prophet ﷺ defined ihsan as: to worship Allah as if you see Him. And if you cannot see Him — know that He sees you.

That feeling of being permanently, completely seen. Not watched in the surveillance sense. Seen in the sense that matters — that Allah knows. That nothing is hidden. That what you do alone in the dark is exactly as real as what you do in front of people.

A person with ihsan finds it hard to misbehave. Because wherever they go, they carry that awareness. They are, if anything, better in private than in public — because they’re not performing for anyone. They are performing only for Allah.

The Prophet ﷺ is the living example. When he led the jama’ah in prayer, he kept it relatively short. He was always conscious of who was behind him — the elderly, mothers, children. He would actually turn and look at the congregation before beginning prayer, taking stock of who was there, adjusting accordingly. When Mu’adh ibn Jabal once led a prayer and launched into a long portion of Surah Al-Baqarah, the Prophet ﷺ pulled him aside after and said: ya Mu’adh, what is this fitna? There are people behind you.

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But when the Prophet ﷺ prayed alone? Abdullah ibn Abbas narrated that he prayed behind the Prophet ﷺ one night. First raka’ah — Surah Al-Baqarah. Second raka’ah — Surah Ali Imran. Ibn Abbas eventually had to break his wudu, renew it, and come back. The Prophet was still praying. No audience. No performance. That is ihsan.

And then there was the lady of the bukhur. There was a woman at the Prophet’s masjid whose duty was to bring incense and make the masjid smell beautiful. No name recorded. Just her role, quietly, faithfully. One night she passed away. She was washed, shrouded, and buried before Fajr — the companions didn’t want to disturb the Prophet ﷺ over someone they considered insignificant. After Fajr he turned around, noticed she was absent, and asked where she was. They told him. He said: why didn’t you wake me? And then he went to her grave and prayed Salatul Janazah over it.

The cleaner. The incense lady. He noticed. He cared. He went. That is ihsan expressed outward — toward the people around you.

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This is the night we’ve been hunting for all year. So do extra. Make lots of du’a. Don’t waste a minute of it.

And as it happens — alhamdulillah — the ayat we reach tonight in Surah Al-A’raf are about du’a itself. About how to make it, what should be in our heart when we make it, and why it is the very heart of all worship. Allah has a way of doing that.

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Now That You Know Who He Is — Call Him

We spent two nights on ayah 54. We talked about the six stages of creation, about Prof. Jenkins’ framework, about matter and antimatter, about why physicists keep stopping just short of saying “God” — and why that has everything to do with European trauma and nothing to do with the evidence.

The point was this: Allah introduced Himself. He is the one who created the heavens and the earth. The sun, the moon, the stars — all operating under His command. And this matters because now ayah 55 opens with a natural next step.

You know who your Lord is. So call Him.

Ud’u rabbakum tadarru’an wa khufya.

Call your Lord with tadaru’ — with humility — and khufya — quietly.

The Outer and the Inner

Tadaru’ captures two things at once: humility on the outside and humility on the inside. Both. Together.

The external side — your body posture when you make du’a. You don’t stand chest out, arms crossed, making demands. You beg. And the way we beg is with our palms open, raised to the sky. The Prophet ﷺ taught us this. And he said that Allah is — and I want you to sit with this — embarrassed when His servant raises his hands to the sky and then puts them back down empty.

That’s not to say Allah owes us anything. He doesn’t. But it tells you something about how much He loves to hear from us. He is waiting for us to call. He wants us to call. So when we raise our hands, He will not let us lower them without answering.

The Prophet ﷺ when making du’a would look downward — hands raised, gaze lowered. The qibla of salah is the Ka’bah. The qibla of du’a is the sky. But in moments of great need, moments of complete brokenness, he would raise his hands high and look upward. Not demanding. Just — there is no one else. There is nowhere else to turn. Ya Allah.

Then there is khufya — quietly. The companions were once marching and making du’a at the top of their lungs. The Prophet ﷺ told them to bring it down. Your Lord is not deaf. He hears you.

So the outer dimension of du’a: humble posture, lowered voice.

But there is also the inner dimension — and that comes in the next ayah.

What Du’a Feels Like on the Inside

Ayah 56: Khawfan wa tama’an. Make du’a with fear and longing.

We talked about tama’ a few nights ago in the context of the people of A’raf. In Malay it means greedy — but in Arabic it means something different. It means a deep, intense desire for something. You want it so much. So tama’ in du’a means you are making du’a with a genuine ache for it. Not going through the motions. Actually wanting.

And khawf — fear. What are we afraid of? Not that Allah won’t answer. But that we are not worthy of the answer. That we might be arrogant enough to think we’ve earned it. The khawf keeps us humble. It stops du’a from becoming a transaction — Ya Allah, I’ve been to taraweeh 23 nights straight, so now give me what I want, or I’m not coming tomorrow. That is not du’a. That is negotiation.

Khawf and tama’. Fear and hope. These two things together are not just for du’a — they carry us through our entire journey to Allah.

Think about what happens when they get out of balance. If a person only has fear — only reads the ayat of punishment, only thinks about Jahannam, only focuses on their sins — they will break. They’ll reach a point where they think: everything I do is wrong, Allah is going to throw me into the fire anyway, why bother? So they give up. The fear, without hope, destroys.

And if a person only has hope — only focuses on Allah’s mercy, only reads about forgiveness — they get lazy. Why worry about halal and haram? Allah is Ghafurul Rahim. He’ll forgive me. The hope, without fear, makes you complacent.

You need both. Fear reminds you that Allah is Al-Muntaqim — the Avenger, the One who punishes, the One who has full power over Jahannam. Hope reminds you that He is Ghafurul Rahim. And when those two things live in your heart together, you keep moving. You don’t collapse, and you don’t drift.

Du’a Is the Essence of Every Ibadah

Here’s something that might reframe how you see worship.

After spending all of ayah 54 introducing who He is — after all of that — the next instruction Allah gives is not pray. Not fast. Not give zakat. It is: make du’a. Why?

Because the Prophet ﷺ said: al-du’a mukhkhul ibadah — du’a is the marrow of worship. The core. The essence. Every act of worship, properly understood, contains du’a within it.

What is the most important part of salah? The Prophet ﷺ said: there is no salah without Surah Al-Fatiha. So what is Al-Fatiha about? Strip away the opening praises — Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen, Al-Rahman Al-Rahim, Maliki Yawmid-Din — those are the adab. You praise Allah first before you ask. You don’t walk up to someone and say I need five hundred dollars before you’ve even said hello. You warm them up. You acknowledge them. Then you drop the ask. And the ask in Al-Fatiha is one thing: Ihdina As-Sirat Al-Mustaqim. Oh Allah, keep us on the straight path. The entire prayer — seven times in every raka’ah — is that one du’a. Put me back on the path.

And fasting? The Prophet ﷺ said: whoever enters Ramadan and leaves it without their sins being forgiven, Allah curses them. That means the entire month of fasting is one extended du’a: Ya Allah, forgive me. Every hunger pang is that du’a. Every moment of thirst. Every night of taraweeh. All of it is saying: Ya Allah, I am broken, I need You, forgive me.

Al-du’a mukhkhul ibadah. When you understand that, you understand why du’a comes before everything else in this ayah.

Don’t Spread Corruption After the Earth Has Been Set Right

Allah ends ayah 56 with something that reaches far beyond our personal worship: do not spread corruption on earth after it has been set right.

Ba’da islahiha. After its reform. After its repair. The earth has been made good. Don’t undo that.

This is bigger than just don’t harm people. Our responsibility is to all of Allah’s creation — human beings, animals, plants, the water, the land. Allah follows this immediately with the image of wind carrying rain clouds across the sky, dead earth suddenly turning green after winter — that is Allah’s islah. He repairs the earth constantly. Who are we to corrupt what He keeps restoring?

The Prophet ﷺ once saw a companion using excess water while making wudu. He asked him: what is this waste? The companion said: is there waste in wudu? I’m doing ibadah. And the Prophet ﷺ said: yes. Even if you are making wudu in a flowing river.

A flowing river. 1,400 years ago, people could not imagine that human beings would ever have the capacity to destroy something as vast and powerful as a river. And yet here we are — post-industrial revolution, with water undrinkable in country after country, because we corrupted it. The Prophet ﷺ saw it coming. The instruction was already there.

Even at war, Islamic rules of conduct prohibit cutting down trees and burning crops. If we cannot corrupt the environment in war, what is our excuse in times of peace?

Qaribun Min Al-Muhsineen

Allah ends with: indeed the mercy of Allah is near to those who are muhsineen — those who are excellent, those who do ihsan.

We’ll pick this up tomorrow insha’Allah and explore what it means that Allah’s mercy is specifically close to the muhsineen — and what that tells us about the standard we should be reaching for.

Before diving into the final ayah of Surah Al-Muzzammil, a timely reminder — tonight is the 23rd night of Ramadan. The last ten nights are upon us, and the Prophet ﷺ told us to hunt for Laylatul Qadr in these nights, especially the odd ones. Tonight is one of them.

So what should fill these nights? Extra raka’at. Extra Quran. Extra dhikr. And the best du’a for this occasion comes to us through Sayyidatuna Aisha (رضي الله عنها), who asked the Prophet ﷺ: if I encounter the Night of Al-Qadr, what should I say? He replied: “Allahumma innaka ‘afuwwun tuhibbul ‘afwa fa’fu ‘anni” —

“O Allah, You are the Most Pardoning and You love to pardon, so pardon me.”

Now, there’s an important distinction here between ‘afw and ghafar. When we say astaghfirullah and ask for Allah’s forgiveness (ghafar), the record of the sin remains — but the punishment is cancelled. The deed is still in the books on the Day of Mahshar, but Allah will not punish us for it.

Al-’Afw is something else entirely. It is when the record is expunged altogether. Wiped clean. As if the sin never happened. This is why the Prophet ﷺ said that whoever fasts sincerely and prays during the nights of Ramadan — and catches Laylatul Qadr — will have all their past sins forgiven. They exit Ramadan like the day they were born. No record of sins whatsoever.

It’s just a few nights. Sleep a little less. Yes, there will be tiredness — that’s okay. This is our training. Don’t miss a night that is greater than a thousand months, greater than 83 years of worship.

Where We Left Off — The Arc of Surah Al-Muzzammil

The surah opened with a command: stand up at night, pray, and recite the Quran. Why? Because the day is full of heavy tasks — spreading truth, standing for justice, enduring hardship — and the strength to carry all of that comes from the spiritual work done at night. Reading about Jannah motivates. Reading about Jahannam sobers. The connection to Allah realigns everything.

Then came the warning through the story of Fir’aun — richer, stronger, more powerful than the Quraysh, yet destroyed in an instant when he rejected Prophet Musa. Then the terrifying imagery of Yawmul Qiyamah: skies torn apart, children’s hair turning white from sheer terror. And finally, the choice: believe and take the prophetic path, or reject and face the consequences. Every choice carries a consequence.

Now the surah circles back to where it began — Qiyamul Layl — but this time with something remarkable: mercy.

Allah Knows Our Weakness

The original command was demanding. Stand up most of the night — two-thirds, or at least half, or at the very minimum a third. The Prophet ﷺ did this every single night, without exception, even while travelling, even during battle. But Allah knew that the rest of the ummah would struggle.

Allah says: “Indeed, your Lord knows that you stand less than two-thirds of the night, sometimes half, sometimes even less than a third — and so do a group of those with you.”

Allah is the One who measured the length of night and day. Some seasons, the nights are long and Qiyamul Layl is easier — in Perth during winter, Maghrib comes in at 5:15 and Fajr isn’t until around six. Plenty of time to sleep and still wake up. But in the peak of summer, when Fajr is at 3:30? That’s a different story. Allah knows all of this.

And so He says: “He has forgiven you.” Qiyamul Layl is fard upon the Prophet ﷺ, but for the rest of us, Allah has already shown mercy and lifted that strict obligation.

But Don’t Abandon It Altogether

Here’s the key — just because the full obligation has been eased doesn’t mean doing nothing is an option. Allah says: “So read what is easy for you from the Quran.” Stand up for even two raka’at. Read whatever surahs have been memorised. Carve out even a small portion of the night for spiritual work.

This is a fundamental principle in Islam: what cannot be accomplished entirely should not be abandoned in totality. Islam doesn’t teach perfectionism — it’s not 100% or nothing. It teaches consistent effort. The Prophet ﷺ said that the most beloved deeds to Allah are those that are consistent, even if they are small. Two raka’at every single night outweighs a marathon session once a month.

And this, by the way, is one of the great purposes behind memorising the Quran — so that those surahs can be recited in prayer. Al-Kahf, Al-Mulk, Al-Baqarah — they come alive when recited standing before Allah at night.

The Three Excuses Allah Accepts

Then Allah provides specific concessions. First: those who are sick. Illness isn’t a choice — when rest is needed for recovery, Allah says it’s okay.

But then come two more categories that are remarkable, because they are things people can choose — and Allah still grants them as valid reasons for doing less Qiyamul Layl.

The first: those who travel the earth seeking Allah’s bounty — meaning those who are out working, doing business, building economic stability. The second: those who fight in the path of Allah, defending the religion and the community.

These two are placed in equal standing. Working hard to earn a living is given the same weight as defending the faith. That is extraordinary. It tells us something profound about how Islam views economic productivity — not as a worldly distraction, but as an act valued by Allah Himself.

The Prophet ﷺ said the best rizq is what a person earns from their own effort, and he pointed to Prophet Dawud (عليه السلام) as the example — a prophet, a king, and yet also a blacksmith who worked with iron and ate from the labour of his own hands.

Ibn Umar expressed this beautifully. He said the best deaths he could wish for were two: martyrdom in the path of Allah, and dying on a business journey — on his camel, with his trade goods, on his way to earn a living. Because this ayah puts them side by side.

Islam Wants Muslims to Be Wealthy — But With Purpose

The encouragement to work hard and build wealth doesn’t come without direction. Islam doesn’t say: get rich so you can buy the fanciest car, then a fancy island, and once you run out of things to buy on earth, spend a trillion dollars trying to conquer Mars.

Islam says: be rich, but that’s not the end goal. The ummah becomes strong when Muslims have economic power and an akhirah mindset. With wealth, the community can build schools, support students in critical fields, fund long-term projects. This is Sadaqatul Jariyah — continuously flowing charity that keeps giving long after the initial contribution.

There’s a telling hadith in Imam Al-Nawawi’s Forty Collection that captures this tension perfectly. The poor companions once came to the Prophet ﷺ and complained: “Ya Rasulullah, the rich have taken all the extra reward! They pray like we pray, they fast like we fast — but they can give charity from their surplus wealth, and we can’t.” The Prophet ﷺ reassured them that dhikr — saying SubhanAllah, Alhamdulillah, Allahu Akbar — is also charity. The poor companions went away happy. But a few days later? The rich started doing dhikr too. Now they had both. The poor came back and said: what about us now?

The point isn’t to vilify poverty. The Prophet ﷺ went on to explain that there is charity in every good act — helping someone onto their ride, carrying someone’s load. But wealth opens doors that nothing else can. Zakat, the pillar of Islam, is only payable by those who have wealth. And the framing matters: it’s not that the wealthy have to pay zakat — they get to pay zakat. Without wealth, that entire pillar of Islam is inaccessible. And hajj is the same.

The story of Sayyidina Uthman (رضي الله عنه) at the Battle of Tabuk drives this home. He donated so generously — horses, camels, wealth — that the Prophet ﷺ said: “Nothing Uthman does after this will harm him.” Guaranteed paradise. And Uthman wasn’t living in poverty. He had luxuries. But look at the scale of what his wealth allowed him to do for the ummah.

At the same time, Islam doesn’t expect anyone to give 100% away. The best charity, the Prophet ﷺ said, is what is spent on family — on spouses, on children. The balance is always there: spend on yourself, on your family, and on the ummah for the sake of the akhirah.

The Beautiful Loan

Even with all these concessions, Allah says: still, read what is easy from the Quran. Establish your salah. Pay your zakat. Don’t let the extras overshadow the foundations — a hundred raka’at of Qiyamul Layl mean nothing if Fajr is missed. Generous charity donations mean nothing if zakat is neglected. The obligatory always comes first.

Then comes a stunning phrase: “And give Allah a beautiful loan (qard hasan).”

A qard hasan is a loan with no deadline for repayment and no interest. Every good deed — every act of worship, every charity, every kindness — is a loan to Allah. And here’s the beauty of it: Allah doesn’t need our loan. He owns everything in the heavens and the earth and everything in between and beyond. He could simply say: “That’s Mine, I gave it to you, give it back.”

But in His mercy, Allah understands human nature. He understands that people are wired to think in terms of profit and return on investment. So He frames it as a transaction: give Me a loan, and I will surely repay you — multiplied many times over. In human transactions, demanding extra on a qard is riba. But with Allah, He is the One promising to multiply the return. It’s the ultimate ROI.

And what can a person invest with? Two things: wealth or skills. Both require Muslims to be hardworking.

It’s All For Us

Allah then makes something clear: whatever is sent forth for the akhirah, it’s essentially for our own benefit. Allah doesn’t need our investment. Every command He gives is for our sake, not His.

And there’s a profound observation embedded here. As humanity lives more and more comfortably — materially, physically — mental health continues to decline. The richer the country, the higher the rates of depression and anxiety. Why? Because life without purpose erodes the soul. When everything is easy and comfortable, humans lose their sense of direction.

Islam solves this by providing a purpose so enormous that no amount of wealth or comfort can make it irrelevant: getting to Jannah. How do we get there? That question structures every day, every decision, every effort. It keeps life purposeful no matter the circumstances. And when the community works together with that shared purpose, everyone rises.

Ending with Istighfar

The surah closes with a command to seek Allah’s forgiveness. Wastaghfirullah — make istighfar. There are two dimensions to this.

First, the timing. The pre-dawn hours — suhoor time — are the best time for istighfar. Allah praises those who seek forgiveness in the early morning. For those already awake for Qiyamul Layl, this flows naturally.

Second, there’s a subtler reason. Sometimes, in the middle of worship and good deeds, something dangerous creeps into the heart. A feeling of: “I woke up for Qiyamul Layl. I read Surah Al-Kahf in one raka’ah and Surah Al-Mulk in the next. I’m amazing.” Or after giving a large charity: “I’m so generous. Look at what I gave.”

This is kibr — arrogance — and it’s one of Shaitan’s favourite tricks. When he can’t stop someone from doing good deeds, he tries to spoil the deed through the intention. So the surah ends with the antidote: astaghfirullah. Centre yourself. Realign the intention. “Ya Allah, if there was any misalignment in my heart, I seek Your forgiveness.”

Indeed, Allah is Most Forgiving and Most Merciful.

The Complete Message of Surah Al-Muzzammil

And with that, Surah Al-Muzzammil comes to a close. Its message is beautifully complete: stay up at night, even a little. Pray. Read Quran. Let that spiritual recharge fuel everything in the day — the work, the earning, the serving of the ummah. Islam is a religion of balance: worship at night, work hard in the day. And in between, give everything its right. The body has a right — rest, nutrition, exercise. Family has a right — time and attention. And Allah has a right — acts of worship.

Fulfil all those rights. That’s the straight path.

Your Action Steps This Week

1. Make the du’a of Laylatul Qadr every night. Memorise “Allahumma innaka ‘afuwwun tuhibbul ‘afwa fa’fu ‘anni”and repeat it abundantly in the remaining nights of Ramadan. Understand the difference — this isn’t just asking for forgiveness, it’s asking for a complete clean slate.

2. Do something every night, even if it’s small. If two raka’at is all that’s manageable, pray two raka’at. If one page of Quran is what’s realistic, read one page. Don’t let the inability to do everything become an excuse to do nothing.

3. Reframe how work fits into worship. This ayah places earning a livelihood alongside fighting in the path of Allah. Approach work this week with the conscious intention that economic productivity is an act Allah values — and use what is earned to benefit family and community.

4. Audit the foundations before the extras. Before adding more nawafil, make sure the obligatory salah and zakat are fully in order. The extras don’t compensate for gaps in the foundations.

5. End every night with istighfar. After Qiyamul Layl, after du’a, after any act of worship — close with astaghfirullah. Let it be the safeguard against arrogance creeping into the heart through the very deeds meant to bring closeness to Allah.

May Allah grant us the strength to apply the lessons from Surah Al-Muzzammil — to pray at night, recite the Quran, and work hard in the day for the benefit of the ummah. May Allah allow us to enter Jannah with the Prophet ﷺ and with the Sahaba.

Next week, inshaAllah, we begin Suratul Muddaththir. Don’t forget — tonight is the 23rd night. Qiyamul Layl. Stay up extra. Make lots of du’a.

Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.

Quick reminder before we get into the tafseer: Zakatul Fitr is wajib on every Muslim — $20 per head this year. It’s due before Eid prayer, so don’t leave it to the last minute. If you’re not sure where to give locally, I’ll post the details for MWSC — Muslim Welfare Support Centre — in the Qaswa Community Group.

Six Days — Picking Up From Last Night

We were in the middle of something last night and I want to finish it properly.

Allah created the heavens and earth in six days — sittati ayyam. We established last night that no classical scholar ever read this as six 24-hour days. The word yawm in Arabic simply means a span of time — an epoch. Allah Himself uses the same word elsewhere in the Quran to mean 1,000 years, and in another place 50,000 years. The six-day literalism came from the Protestant Reformation, not from Islamic tradition, and it quietly seeped into some Muslim circles when logic (mantiq) got stripped out of the curriculum.

So what do the six days actually mean?

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One of my teachers — Professor Muhammad Mahdi Jenkins, formerly Gary Jenkins, a nuclear physicist turned psychologist who eventually became Muslim — spent years building a theory that maps the six stages of cosmic creation to the Quranic account. Is this the traditional tafsir? No. But does it violate the Arabic, contradict established tafsir, or conflict with what the Prophet ﷺ or the early generations said? No. So it sits within the acceptable range of new tafsir.

Here’s what the physics looks like:

Stage one: light. The universe began as a singularity — a point of infinite density containing intense concentrated energy. That energy expressed itself across the entire electromagnetic spectrum. When we say light, don’t just picture what your eyes can see. Visible light is actually a tiny sliver of the full electromagnetic spectrum. The rest — radio waves, microwaves, X-rays, gamma rays — is all light we cannot see. That was stage one.

Stage two: particles. When energy exceeds E=mc² — energy equals mass times the speed of light squared — matter emerges. The first particles came into existence. But here’s where it gets interesting. Physics tells us that whenever matter is created, equal amounts of antimatter are also created. And when matter meets antimatter, they annihilate each other. Cancel out completely. Leave nothing but energy. By pure theory, nothing should exist in this universe — because every particle of matter should have been cancelled by its antimatter counterpart.

And yet. Here we are.

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