 As-salamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh Alhamdulillah, Lord of the Worlds Alhamdulillah, who has gathered us around the commemoration of his book Alhamdulillah, who has given us the Tawfi'ah and the wherewithal, the means to come to tonight's talk in order to reconnect ourselves and recommit ourselves to the reading of his book to the approach of the book of Allah SWT with the Adnos, Adab and Eriket and to recommit ourselves to taking this book seriously Allah SWT says to Sayyidina Yahya Ya Yahya, khudim kitada biqhua O Yahya, take the book with all of your strength take the book with all of your might with all of your power take this book and we have come together insha'Allah tonight in order to recommit ourselves to the book of Allah SWT with all of our strength, with consistency over time if we have not made a serious commitment to the book of Allah before tonight then tonight insha'Allah we will leave this talk in a state other than that in which we came and that is to not be included among those people whom the Prophet was made to have said in Quran say my people have taken this Quran and departed from it they have departed from this Quran so we do not want to be among them insha'Allah so we pray that Allah SWT bless us to say those words that will inspire us insha'Allah to be able to take this word very seriously the most blessed woman in all of this year in my humble opinion is Umm Aiman Barakah Umm Aiman Barakah Umm Aiman she was there when the Prophet SAW was born she was there when he was born and 90% of the narrations that mention her name when her name comes in the narration it says Umm Aiman and by the way it's always sort of like in said parenthetically Umm Aiman she was the one who was the caretaker of the Prophet SAW she reared him and tahdunu means to hold him so she was the one constantly carrying him but also carrying for him and then the narrations continue so Umm Aiman whenever her name comes up 90% of the time and by the way tahdunu Rasool Allah or tahdunu Rasool Allah she was there from the day he was born till the day he died his entire life his entire life was under her watchful eye she witnessed every single stage of the Prophet SAW's growth into full manhood and all those struggles in between she was there in the Makken phase she was there in the Median phase and she was there at the very end when Allah swt took the Prophet SAW from this world she was there and her first reaction while everyone was in such a state of hysteria where Umar al-Dur'an who was wielding his sword whoever says that the Prophet SAW is dead will meet this sword of mine and then he falls to his knees Imam Ali al-Salam didn't come out of his house he didn't even come out of his house for days devastated and Umayman her reaction was of course she was grievous for the Prophet SAW but her first reaction was that Qutiyat al-Akhbar al-Sana in Qataat al-Akhbar al-Sana that the news from the heavens has now been severed her connection was with the Book of Allah SWT and that was her greatest grief was now the Quran is not going to have any more verses from the Book of Allah SWT revealed that's the last we're going to hear from Jubeel al-Sana that's the last we're going to have in terms of these gifts that are coming to us from the heavens above that was her connection and her connection was lost once the Prophet SAW passed in terms of a fresh new revelation coming right so when we come together today insha'Allah to be able to recommit ourselves like I said to the Book of Allah SWT we know that there are certain companions that the connection that they had to the Book of Allah SWT was like a lifeline it was like a lifeline it was like their sustenance just like you couldn't imagine not eating for days that would bring you death they couldn't imagine being cut off from the Book of Allah SWT that would bring them utter death it would bring them utter death so there's a spiritual life that needs nourishment just like our physiological bodies need that nourishment but not to get too much into the talk I was just reminded of Ulma Aiman as we were saying salawat on the Prophet SAW so there's a benefit to technical difficulties sometimes so alhamdulillah we're gathered to continue in this workshop that we have going the marvels of the Quran we're talking about seven keys to unlocking 70 meanings and last time we were here we went through three of those keys and just by way of a recap what I wanted to share was what those keys were today we're talking about remove your sandals and we're going to get into that what exactly that means but the seven keys that I had prepared there are many many more keys to unlocking many many more doors of meaning we talked about coherence the coherence of the surahs the way that the surahs are arranged and the way that the verses are arranged within the surah and how there's a connection between the surahs and there's a connection even within the surah between how the surah begins and how the surah ends and then there's a connection to how one surah ends and how the next surah begins and we talked about that and how that informs our reflection on the book of Allah SWT and in that light I wanted to share just one more example if you will and this is going to be a brand new example for those of you who were there in attendance how many people were there the first time? a good number of you right and people who are fresh today how many? a greater number so this is how we talked about how every surah has a relationship with the next surah and how the end of one surah has a relationship to the beginning of the next surah and how the beginning of one surah has a relationship to the end of that same surah and how the verses in the surah there's a coherence that in the arrangement and all of that comes from the Prophet SAW but there's one ayah in itself one ayah that also has a circular orbit around itself one ayah and that ayah is none other than ayat al kursi so if you allow me to actually go through this ayah and just show you give you a taste for those of you who missed out on the first half of this section and for those of you who would like to just add one more detail this is one ayah that is broken up into nine breaths if you will nine breaths and if you look at the ayah itself it's an orbit around itself just like we talked about everything is in an orbit swimming ayat al kursi we talked about surat yusuf and how surat yusuf is the only surah that is told from beginning to end and even that surah is circular it's in an orbit around itself because it begins with a vision and it ends with the fulfillment of that vision well there's one ayah in the book of Allah SWT that I was able to find there may be many more ayahs like this that also is in an orbit around itself and that is ayat al kursi the very heart of ayat al kursi is right in the middle but if we look and we look all the way at the bottom Allah SWT is introducing himself in this surah Allah there is no god but He the living the eternal or the living and the self subsisting and it ends with and He is the exalted the supreme so you see that where the ayah begins it ends it begins with the attributes of Allah SWT and it ends with these attributes of Allah SWT that everything is from Allah and in Allah and for Allah and to Allah you see everything is Allah Allah He is the kulla ayat al kursi right to quote Imam al Ghazali He is all in all and then it moves from the attributes of Allah no slumber or sleep can seize Him and if we look down at the bottom and He feels no fatigue in guarding and preserving them do you see the connection though that no slumber nor sleep can seize Him and at the bottom toward the bottom right what happens what is said He doesn't feel fatigue He is not wary in preserving them in preserving the heavens and the earth the next verse and then the corresponding verse do you see how it's color coded I made it color coded for your benefit so you can follow where I'm going am I going too fast everyone following what I'm doing I'm on the red now right so His are all things in the heavens and on earth right His are all things in the heavens and on earth right His throne extends over the heavens and the earth you guys following and then the next verse who is there who can intercede in His presence except as He permits and then nor shall they encompass anything of His knowledge except as He wills so the structure of this is the same it's only by the permission of Allah that anyone can intercede and it's only by the will of Allah that anyone can have any share anything of His knowledge that Allah can give them anything of His knowledge so here the structure is the same and Allah will and His permission are what is awaited for anyone to intercede or even to know anything and then at the very heart look at this at the very heart of the ayah He knows that which is in front of them and that which is behind them right so this is like it's the midpoint right it's the midpoint that which came before and that which comes after in this very verse Allah knows it in this very same the heart of the verse is a midpoint that separates that which comes before from that which comes after and He knows that which comes before and that which comes after so you have incredible structure in this verse where everything is sort of revolving around this one point remember we said that it's tawaf it's just circling around itself right this verse is in tawaf around itself the very middle which is in orange the green is in tawaf around the orange the red is in tawaf around the green the blue is in tawaf around the red and the black is in tawaf around the blue do you guys see that if you would paint this this ayah in an image and the entire Quran is like this the entire Quran is like this and we gave many examples of that when we met Allah so that's coherence that's one of the keys to unlocking 70 meanings right that's one of the keys to unlocking infinite meanings so I wanted to give that to you as a gift I hope that you will accept insha'Allah Allah SWT the very next thing that we talked about is grammar and morphology the importance of knowing grammar and morphology in order to have accurate reflections on the book of Allah SWT we're not doing tafsir we're only doing tadabbo we're talking about the art mastering the art of tadabbo mastering the art of reflecting the book of Allah SWT and then we talked about etymology etymology meaning the roots the root structure of words and so when I say for example excuse me we say we say asr is time by time mankind is in loss but the beautiful thing about asr is that it means it means to squeeze it's time that is squeezed it's time that is squeezed out of our out of our days without perceiving it without even feeling it and that was the subject of today's khutba that we gave today we talked about that that is etymology approaching the book of Allah SWT and the verses through the root structure of the words and how that will impact our reflection so it's not just time by time mankind is in loss there's a specific distinction about this time there's a connotation that this time has that will allow us to experience a little bit more of the meanings in depth so when I think when I think asr I'm also thinking asr I'm thinking juice I'm thinking asad I'm thinking a hurricane all this that is being squeezed out of the skies and squeezed out of the clouds and orange it's like time is being squeezed out of my hands time is being squeezed out of my life and I don't even feel it by that time that I'm losing mankind is also in loss and the first thing that mankind loses is time so we talked about etymology and now tomorrow we're going to discuss orthography how the Qur'an is written how the verses of the Qur'an are written how certain words are written exactly the same the exact same word it's pronounced the exact same way it means the exact same thing but it's written in two different ways why is this way it's the same word why is it written in two different ways and what can I gain from that in terms of my personal reflection right how do we reflect on that what does it mean in terms of our personal reflection we believe that that came from the prophet asr we'll talk about elliptical speech we'll talk about speech where in English if I were to write this out in English I would get a red mark I would get an X on my I would probably get a C or a B- or a C or a D because it's an incomplete sentence well the Qur'an is elliptical Allah SWT when He reveals a lot of things are left for us to figure out and how does that impact our reflection as well if I have an if statement if I say if you if you go to the store period so in English that doesn't go, that doesn't fly but it flies in Arabic and oh how it flies when Allah SWT speaks in those terms Allah SWT when He takes us to those realms and He just leaves us hanging suspended He takes us all the way out of this world takes us into the heavens above and He leaves us there suspended with our own imaginations to figure out the rest and that's that's that's the elliptical speech that we're going to cover that's going to affect our reflection as well concentric pauses where we pause in the book of Allah SWT that also sometimes depending on the Qura'at you're going to stop in a different place you'll read the same verse but in Hafs you'll stop here in Wajsh you'll stop here and how that changes the meaning and how that impacts our reflection as well then we'll talk about transition how you're reading about something and then all of a sudden it's talking about something else you're reading about two people and then it uses the verb for one or you're reading about three people and it uses the verb for two or it goes from second person to first person to third person to passive voice all in the same breath and what that means for our reflection how it seems like it's hitting you from all these different corners and it doesn't read like a story where one speaker is telling a narration it's coming from all different quarters and that itself is going to affect our reflections and then we'll talk about the prophetic dialects of eloquence how the prophets address their Lord and how the prophets address their peoples what we can glean the lessons that we can glean from how the prophets discourse with their people and how the prophets address their Lord and we're going to talk about the four prophets Prophet Muhammad SAW but we're going to talk about Sayyidna Nuh, Sayyidna Ibrahim Sayyidna Mousa and Sayyidna Isa A.S the the the prophet those of resolute will and then for the prophet Muhammad SAW we have all of the hadith the hadith they tell us all the dua they give us that other all the dua they show us the adab of the prophet SAW with his Lord and all the rest of the hadith show us his adab with all the rest of creation so we're going to skip the prophet SAW in that session but what we wanted to speak about today was remove your sandals and this comes from a verse in which Allah SAW says in Surah Taha the title for this session was taken from this verse that when so when he came to the fire he was summoned Mousa verily I am I am your lord so remove your sandals you are in the sacred valley of dua incredible verse incredible verse Mousa is Mousa is the one to whom Allah SAW spoke with words Mousa SAW had this intimate conversation with his lord right and you can imagine Jubeel SAW just waiting from Adam SAW all the way to Mousa and he is the angel of revelation and this is the prophet that Allah SAW chose to address directly with words and he spoke and he spoke Allah SAW spoke to Mousa with words right and so this powerful, powerful passage Allah SAW catches Mousa by surprise he takes Mousa by surprise Mousa goes he goes to the mountain and he seeks a fire and he says maybe I will see Ali I will give you a letter from her or I will go to the Jews and perhaps I will come with a torch I will bring back light for us to continue on our journey or maybe I will find some guidance there some guidance there oh Moses the guidance that we found on that mountain Ya Mousa the guidance that we found on that mountain and did the story of Mousa has that really reached our hearts when he got to that mountain this was the first words that Allah SAW addressed his slave Mousa and he says I am the Lord I am the Lord Ya Mousa it was called out even though Allah this is we are getting into transition here transition where it is passive voice and then it goes to first person so we will talk about that tomorrow but you have passive voice it was called out Nudia who called out Allah called out but it's Nudia it's not Nadeh too it's not I called out it was called out Ya Mousa indeed I am I am your Lord the first thing he says to Mousa I am your Lord so take off your shoes I am your Lord indeed I am indeed I am I am your Lord so take off your shoes move your sandals I am your Lord so take off your shoes Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar I am your Lord so remove your sandals I am your Lord come correct I am your Lord approach this thing with total adab I am your Lord know where you are where you are you are in the sacred valley of Tua and every time we open the book of Allah SWT indeed I am your Lord so take off your shoes I am your Lord I am your Lord so take off your shoes you are in the presence of Allah you are in the presence of your Lord so take off your shoes the first thing that Allah SWT said to any man for years and years for hundreds maybe thousands of years between Adam and Mousa to receive his speech the first thing he is told to do is to remove his sandals and the power it said about the prophet SAW SAW how does it begin say Fatiha to me Fatiha to me Salam Alaaikum Allaat La Al-Kurbi Nudiya Musa Iqlani Alika Iqlani La Al-Kurbi Allaat This entire creation is the sandal of Muhammad it has exults it has been raised up All of the creation is under its shade. Moses, when he was called to a tour, was ordered to take off his sandals. And Ahmed, and Ahmed, when brought near, was not commanded to remove his sandals. Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. I am your Lord, so take off your sandals. Remove your sandals. You are in the Sacred Valley of Tua. Every time we open the Book of Allah, we are in the Sacred Valley of Tua. Every time we open the Book, we are in the Sacred Valley of Tua. And that Book, when we open it up, there are immediate surrounding in sacred space. It's sacred space. You choose a space that has no impurities, just like you're in Salah. And you yourself are in a state of purity. Have you not ascended the mountain of Tua? Have you not ascended with Musa alayhi sallam to get some guidance and to take it out like a torch? Like it was some kind of a torch? It's a torch. Allah, it's a torch. Kamam Allahi Nuwaf. The speech of Allah is light. And so when we come to this mountain, we have to come correct. And that is the subject that I want to share with you today is the etiquette, outward and inward. We have outward etiquette and we have inward etiquette. So we'll begin with the outward. And that has to do with wudu, facing the qidla, protracted recitation, adorning one's voice, and the circuit cycle, right? The cycle of the circuits. And then inwardly, we'll talk about the origin of the word, exalting the speech and the speaker, having presence, reflection, investigation, focus, personalization, and finally ascension, insha'Allah. So, Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim, the very first of these etiquettes is to have wudu. Allah SWT says, إنه لقرقان كن في كتاب مكنول لا يمسه إلا المطاهر It is a generous recital. In a well preserved tablet, only those who have been purified shall have access to it. And it doesn't say, لا يمسه إلا المطاهرون It says, إلا المطاهرون It doesn't say those who have purified themselves, it says those who have been purified, right? Because purification, purification comes from Allah SWT, purification comes from His Prophet, SAW. He is the one who is sent to purify us, with verses to purify us, right? We do not purify ourselves, right? We do not purify ourselves, we are purified, we are purified. And when we engage wudu, the wudu purifies us. It's not that we have purified us with our wudu. The wudu is what purifies us, right? So, from the very beginning, it puts us in a posture of other humility before Allah SWT, seeking that purification and recognizing that the purification only comes from Allah. Like Dr. Omar said, that one's perception of one's own growth stunts his growth, right? The minute you perceive that you are growing, you have stunted your own growth, right? None? So wudu, indeed it is a generous Qur'an, a generous recital, in a well-preserved tablet. Only those who have been purified shall have access to it. The scholars, they mentioned that la yamasu hu illa mutaharun, right? That the hu here goes back to the lawful mahfoor because it's the most recent thing mentioned in the verse, the well-preserved tablet. This it, no one will have access to it except those who have been purified, right? And it doesn't go back to the Qur'an, it goes back to the lawful mahfoor which means who are the mutaharun then? Who are those who are purified? Because I don't have access to the lawful mahfoor, right? I don't have access to the well-preserved tablet, right? No one here, I don't think, has access to that, right? So who are the mutaharun? The angels, right? The angels. The angels, they are the ones who are mutaharun and they are the ones who have access to the well-preserved tablet, right? Jibril A.S. would take from the verses in the well-preserved tablet and he would bring them down to his beloved Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, right? And he would go back and forth between the lawful and the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, right? So the angels, they have access to the well-preserved tablet but things are known through analogy. Things are known through analogy. And just like that noble Qur'an that has so much to give, it's generous Qur'an, kareem. It is a generous Qur'an, it's a generous recital. It's in a well-preserved, it's in a concealed, Kitab al-maknoun, it's in a concealed book. It's a concealed book and no one has access to that concealed book that love, that love al-makhul. Inna hu la Qur'an kareem, fi kitab al-maknoun la yamasu ilal mutaharun. It is in a concealed book and no one will have access to that concealed book which is the love al-makhul except those who are purified. And through analogy then, the Qur'an, which is what we recite, it will give us of its generosity but it is in a concealed book. It is concealed, that those meanings are concealed from us and only those who have been purified among us will have access to the generosity of this recital. Only those who are... And so the analogy then is between the angels and the human being. The angels and the Muslim, right? And the angels are created from what? Light. Light, from Nuwuf. The angels are created from Nuwuf. The Muslim, in order to even touch the book which conceals the generosity of the Qur'an, the Mus'af, right? Which conceals the generosity of the recitation. In order to even touch it, what do we have to do? We have to make wudu. We have to be in a state of wudu. What is that wudu though? What is that wudu? That wudu, what is the word wudu even come from? No, not da'u. Wudu comes from three letters. What are they? Wao, Daad, Hamza. Wao, Daad, Hamza. Wa Da'a. Wa Da'a, which means a glow. But somebody said da'u. And da'u is if you switch the letters between Wao, Daad, Hamza, you get Daad, Wao, Hamza. And that means what? A light, right? So the word wudu means to glisten. It means to glisten in the Arabic language. And what did the Prophet ﷺ say about those who among his ummah, how he would be able to recognize us, insha'Allah. What did he say? From the traces of light, right? From the light, from the traces of their wudu. Will he be able to recognize us, insha'Allah? He will be able to know who is among his ummah because of the light from the traces of their wudu. And so we have in this analogy, when we make wudu, when we perform wudu, we are not just merely bathing our limbs with water. Rather, we are, we're not washing our limbs with water. Rather, we are bathing our souls with light. Daad is wudu. It's not just merely washing our limbs with water. It is bathing our souls in light. And once we're able to do that, then whom do you think we resemble? The angels, right? We become like that, we become angelic. We become angelic in those states. And now we have been purified. And perhaps now when we sit with the Book of Allah, we will have access to the generosity of the Qur'an. The generosity of what we recite. All of these meanings that are just waiting to unfold themselves for us, that we will have access to these meanings when we approach the Book of Allah SWT with wudu, right? We become more angelic. And just like the angels have access to the Qur'an through the, in the Lohi Mahfud, we will have access to the meanings of the Qur'an in the Mus'haf, insha'Allah. So to approach the Qur'an within a state of wudu, right? This is the very first thing to do. Second thing is to face the qiblah. Facing the qiblah, right? And facing the qiblah, this is not just a physical orientation, right? This is not a physical orientation. That qiblah, that direction of our prayer, that is the very birthplace of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. That's where this entire revelation comes down, right? Starts to come down. It comes, it begins in Makkah and then it ends in Medina. And we are facing both Makkah and Medina when we face our prayers, right? We're facing that general direction, right? So when we actually face this qiblah, then we have placed ourselves in the places where these verses came down fresh. And so, orienting ourselves to these blessed places, these two blessed cities, means that we are now in that space. We are now in that space. And when we recite the verses, it's as though the verses are being recited to us anu and afresh, and we were there with the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam in Makkah, receiving it, and in Medina receiving it. When we face the qiblah, when we face the qiblah, right? And not only that, not only are we experiencing these verses as they are coming down, because we have placed ourselves in Makkah and Medina, but we have also placed ourselves in the shade of Bayt al-Ma'mur, which is above the Ka'bah. Which is above the Ka'bah, right? And we have connected ourselves to Ibrahim al-Isra'at, who is the one who made dua for Makkah, that it thrive and that it be preserved under the watchful eye of Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala. So now we have placed ourselves under the protection of Sayyidina Ibrahim al-Isra'at. And our souls exalt, our souls flee from this life into the realm of the angels that are surrounding the Bayt al-Ma'mur, that are going around the Bayt al-Ma'mur. This Bayt al-Ma'mur, 70,000 angels circled it in a day. And after that day is over, they enter it never to leave and they are replaced by another 70,000 angels every single day. Every single day. So when we face the Qidla, we are connecting ourselves to that reality, to that reality. And we are connected through Ibrahim al-Isra'at through a string of prophets from Ibrahim all the way to the Prophet ﷺ. We are now ready to receive this barakah. We are now ready to expose ourselves to the Subahat Nuri, right? To the incandescent light of the barakah of Allah SWT as they descend with every single ayah, with every single verse. Now, I don't know what that means. What is that? Twenty minutes left? We're not going to have a Q&A session. So we'll add another half hour? Twenty minutes and then we have ten minutes. So we have a half hour to finish. I'm just not going to do it. We just finished, okay, so very... That's why I'm worried about it. Okay, Bismillah, Bismillah. Okay, so I didn't realize that. So, I'm maybe not. You said it was a long line. Protracted recitation, which is very odd because we're going to have to speed through this although the recitation has to be protracted. You've got to be slowed down. Slow down and... Slow down your recitation. So that's what we're going to say. And very quickly, we're going to try to convince you to slow down. So the Prophet, SAW, when he was first receiving the revelation, the Prophet, SAW, would move his tongue quickly. And Allah SWT revealed the verse telling the Prophet, SAW, as he... So this is one of the verses that the Prophet, SAW, had to memorize as he was moving his tongue quickly to be able to memorize that you need to slow down. You need to slow down. But the Prophet, SAW, was in such... He was so worried that he might forget some of these verses that he was... As he was hearing them, he was reciting them quickly and over and over and over again in order not to let them go from him. Right? And Allah SWT revealed this verse Don't move your tongue to make haste therewith. But it's collection. And its recitation is upon us. It's upon Allah. This is on Allah. So when we recite it to you, follow its recital. Meaning embody its recital. And Aisha came later on and she says, Can I follow the Quran? His character was the Quran. Embodied its recital. Your embodiment of its recital is the preservation of the book. Your embodiment of the recitation is the preservation of the book. And more than that, it is upon us to clarify and elucidate it for you. To make it clear for you. To give you the meanings beyond the recitation, beyond the revelation, beyond the verses. To explain it to you. To give you understanding of it. And a lot of times we also make haste reciting the book of Allah SWT. We also recite the book of Allah SWT very, very quickly. And it's usually two surahs in our prayers. In unison now. In unison, if you're going to pray two rakahs. In unison, everyone, in one voice, tell me, what is the first surah of the first rakah? After if I tell you how well it is. Surah Tal Al Ikhlaas. Qulhu Allah. And in the second rakah, in unison now, all in one voice. In unison, it's Surah Tal. Surah Tal, everyone? Salat Nas. I'm still not knowing. We all know the surah that we're talking about. Surah Tal, thank you very much. Thank you very much. Surah Tal Al Ikhlaas. Surah Tal Al Ikhlaas, Surah Tal Al Ikhlaas. You've never read that in a book? You've never read that that was mustahab? You've never read that a single sahabi has ever done that? You've never read that that was in the sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ? But that is a communal sunnah, all across this world. In every country, all across this world. Trying to get through it as fast as possible. Because we are entering into a conversation with Allah that we do not want to have. And so the adab in the recitation of his book is to slow it down. Slow it down. Allow it to permeate. Allow it to penetrate. Allow it to transform. If you're in my presence, and there's a lot of people who just don't want to talk to me, don't want to have a conversation with me, and I can see in their body language, that you would really rather be in your car right now going to your next thing to do. How do I feel? How do I feel turning my back against someone else? How do I feel? If I'm in a conversation with you, and I start to give you all those cues, like turning to the side like this, or moving back a little bit, or looking at my watch, or checking my texts, you know that I don't want to have this conversation with you. And that is how we are in our prayers. That is how we are in our prayers. Reciting the book of Allah's Parallel, in the fastest way possible, in the shortest Surah as possible, in order to get through the prayer, in order to get to that Salam. And once we say that Salam, it's very difficult to sit down in any Tasbih or Taqneer or anything like that. Right? If we didn't even want to have the conversation, we're definitely not going to sit down for the pleasantries afterwards. Okay? So, we're contracting the recitation, slowing it down. They said that the Prophet ﷺ, whenever he recited the Qur'an, they said that it's as though they could count the words. It's like they could count the words as he was reciting them. And the recitation, I'm just going to plug this real quick. Right? The recitation is the Maaliki madad, which is the right, you know where I'm going, which is the recitation of Imam Walish, Annatha, right? That is the preferred recitation of Imam Maalik, which means that that is most likely the way that the Prophet ﷺ himself recited it, because this is all of Medina that's reciting this way. It's very, very slow. It's very slow. There's a lot of the Mudud, right? If you get the six beats on the Mudud, on most of the Mudud, you've got to go for six, right? And then the shorter ones, which are two and a half, they're four in Wajj. Right? So, you take your time with it. You take your time with it. And we were just led in Samad by a master of Wajj, right? And you listen to Wajj, how it's recited, that you're not going anywhere anytime soon. No? So, you might as well just enjoy it while you're here. Enjoy it, right? Like the scholar in the book, he says, Salat al-Muqarrabin, he said, in the prayer, in the prayer, you cannot eat, you cannot drink, you cannot talk, you cannot do any of these things. They're all haram. Allahu Akbar, you can't do any of that stuff. And you know that for the next five minutes, you have nothing that you can possibly do except this prayer. So, you might as well get the most out of it. There's nothing else you can do at that time. So, get the most out of it. Be present. Be present in that prayer. Slow down. Slow down. Because what is the difference between a three-minute prayer and a four-minute prayer? It could be life and death. Finishing Maqrib in three minutes, an average of a Raq'a per minute, or finishing it in five minutes. That could, it could transform everything. Just two more minutes in the prayer. Transforms everything. And you say, you know what? I actually feel closer to Allah. I feel my, my heart feels stronger. My, my Imam feels deeper. And then it's slowing it down and gets us there. So, I have any adab with the book of Allah's Parantala to slow it down. Adorning one's voice, reciting with correct tajweed, learning tajweed, and reciting with that tajweed. The Prophet ﷺ said, that whoever doesn't recite the Qur'an melodiously is not among us. Right? He's not one of us. Right? And one time, when she was late coming home to the Prophet ﷺ one day, and the Prophet ﷺ said, What has withheld you, O Aisha? Aisha said that I was coming on the way and I heard the recitation of this one man and I couldn't stop. I couldn't, I couldn't continue. I mean, he just, he confounded me. I was mesmerized by his recitation. And so what did the Prophet ﷺ say? Said, Take me to where he is. And there they went out, right? And the hadith and narration says that the Prophet ﷺ has stayed there for a long time listening to this Sahabi. A very long time passed by and he's just this, the Prophet ﷺ is listening to the verses from the Sahabi that were revealed to him and he's listening to it in this Sahabi's voice as he's praying tajweed. For a long, long time it goes by and the Prophet ﷺ is just sitting there amazed at this recitation and he says to her, Praise is to Allah who has made one like him among my Ummah. Taking pride in this Sahabi, right? One of the other Sahabas they were, they said, Sayyidina Umar and the others, they said, Abimousa, it was Abimousa and Sayyidina Umar Ibrahim said to Abimousa, recite from the book of Allah ﷻ for us and he recited. Up until the time for Salah had almost got to its halfway point and you get into the Daruri time, right? Another plug for the Maikimala. You start to get into the Daruri time, right? The necessary time where it's actually sinful to allow the prayer to go into the necessary time, right? You have to pray in the optional time very early in the prayer and so they said, As-salāya, Ameer al-Mu'minīn, as-salā' Salā'u Ameer al-Mu'minīn, as-salā' and he says, Awalasna fi-salā' He says, prayer, it's time for prayer. He says, are we not in prayer? Listening to Abimousa. This Abimousa, when the Prophet ﷺ the Prophet ﷺ was walking by and they had asked Abimousa to recite the Qur'an and the Prophet ﷺ was walking by and he heard him and he stood behind him and he didn't know he was there. And so the Prophet ﷺ just listened and listened and listened until he was done reciting. He turned and he saw the Prophet ﷺ, right? And he said, If I knew that you were standing right behind me l-habbar tuhu l-laka tahbira I would have recited it for you in the most elegant of fashion. I would have really just I would have performed it for you. I would have painted it for you in my recitation. Now? And this is how the Prophet ﷺ said to Abu Bakr and said, Nā'umar al-A'nūn, If you want to hear the Qur'an moist, fresh as it was revealed then take it from Ibn A'un Hant from Ibn Mas'ud take it from him, right? Because when he recites it he reminds me the most and I'm paraphrasing here where he reminds me of how I received it is what he's saying. If you want to hear it fresh, moist as it was revealed, he said then take it from Ibn Mas'ud. So the recitation, when we recite when we recite we are to attempt to recite it in the way that it was revealed to the Prophet ﷺ. We are to attempt to recite it in the voice in which the Prophet himself, ﷺ, may have heard it for the first time. That is our attempt that when I recite the Book of Allah I am trying to re-enact that moment that the Prophet himself heard it from Jibri'in ﷺ. So I give it its due. I give it its due. The Prophet ﷺ said about one of his companions, he said He said he said that this one, this Sahabi was given one of the flutes of the family of Dawud ﷺ in the way that he recited the Book of Allah ﷺ. Taking pride in their voices. Now. And then the next thing that we want to share inshaAllah is the circuit cycle. The circuit cycle. The cycle in which we do the khatam of the Qur'an. The cycle, right? How many juz are there to the Qur'an? How many parts are there to the Qur'an? Thirty, right? Thirty parts. Originally how many parts were there? Among the Sahabah. Seven, exactly. And those were the first three verses, Surahs of the Qur'an. The first three Surahs of the Qur'an were the first part, right? The next five verses of the Qur'an was the second part. The next, what? The next? Okay. Wake up, wake up, wake up. So the first three Surahs of the Qur'an comprise the first part. The next five Surahs of the Qur'an comprise the second part. The next seven Surahs of the Qur'an comprise the third part. The next nine Surahs of the Qur'an comprise the fourth part. The next 11 Surahs of the Qur'an comprise the fifth part. The next 13 Surahs of the Qur'an comprise the sixth part. And then the rest of the Qur'an is the Mufassal and that's the seventh part. So you had several companions who would recite, who would do their whole entire Khatam in seven days. Ubayy ibn Ka'am, Sayyidina Uthman ibn Affan, Ibn Mas'ud, Zayid ibn Thabit, these Sahaba they had a Khatam of the Qur'an every Juma'at, every seven days. There are some people who have a Khatam of the Qur'an every day. A Khatam of the Qur'an. Some people go three days and do a Khatam of the Qur'an, they read ten Juz a day. Some people go seven days and that was the Khatam of Sayyidina, the four that I had mentioned. Some people go what? Every fourteen days. So Imam al-Ghazali says that you have two extremes, two extremes. He says that you have every thirty days on one extreme and every three days on another extreme. He said these are extremes, thirty days, which is one Juz a day, that's an extreme, you don't want to neglect the Book of Allah into that extreme. And then three days, you don't want to do any less than three. He said ideally it's seven days, ideally it's seven days. And for the students, if you have a student who is pursuing knowledge, a teacher who is constantly busy in knowledge and in Dawah and in Risaleh, then the license is there for them to complete the recitation in fourteen days, in two weeks. It's okay for them to do two weeks. So basically two Juz a day, two Juz a day, two Juz a day, sorry about that, two Juz a day. But he said if it gets to forty days, he said if it gets to thirty days, you have neglected the Book of Allah. Other scholars said forty days and you've neglected the Book of Allah. If you haven't done a Khatam in forty days. So we need to get on a regular pattern with the Book of Allah, regular schedule. And if it's difficult, Allah SWT will reward you twice for every difficulty, right? Those who struggle through the Book of Allah, I know of a woman who quit her job just to be able to do a Juz a day. She quit her job. She lived in Allentine, one of my neighbors. She used to work. She was making a lot of money alongside her husband. And she said, you know, I'm done with this work. I'm feeling that I'm neglecting the Book of Allah and I'm a little bit slow in the recitation. So I don't want to go back a day to work. And she has never, she's never let thirty days go by without doing a Khatam of the Khatam. No? These people are among us, they're among us, right? But it takes for dedication and commitment and a love and a desire to draw a poster to Allah through the recitation of this book. And so we go through the, we get to the, or the inward etiquette through the Book of Allah, obviously we are out of time, perhaps we can cover this tomorrow, tomorrow morning as the opening session. I'm thinking, we have ten or fifteen minutes and how much do we have? I mean, we have fifteen minutes of Salah. Huh? Which is at nine. Which is at nine? Fourteen minutes. Fourteen minutes? Yeah. Are there questions, are there comments, or do you want me to continue? In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. The inward now, the inward etiquette that we should have with the Book of Allah SWT, all of that was outward, all of that was the outward, right? But now the inward etiquette that we should have with the Book of Allah SWT. The very first is the origin of the words, right? And this is wrapped up into exalting the speech and the speaker. So I'll give this together, that Imam Ja'far al-Sadaq, al-Sadaq says, Wa-Llahi l-Lakad ta-jalla Rabbukum fi-kanamihi wa-lakin la-yussoon. He says, I swear by Allah, Allah has manifest, your Lord has manifest Himself in His speech. But you do not perceive it, but He has manifest Himself in His speech. And one of the proofs of that is that Allah SWT says, لو أنزلنا هذا القرآن على جبل, لرأيته خاش يعن وتصدع من خشة الله. Had we revealed this Quran to a mountain, you would have seen it in utter reverence. Totally pulverized to powder from the fear of Allah SWT. We think an example, مضربها للناس العلم يتذكرون. These are the parables that we mentioned to people in order that they may reflect. That this book comes from Allah SWT. And exalting the speech means that we exalt the speaker himself. That exalting the speech means that we exalt the speaker. And just like the Qur'an has, excuse me, and this finds voice in a lot of the, you have, اكرم ابي جهد, right? اكرم ابو جهد, right? You guys know who Abu Jahl is. Now look at this son, look at this son. That whenever he found the Qur'an in the time of Prophet ﷺ, the writing of it happened in his life. And the scribes would write it on palm fibers or strips of leather, right? Or hide of animals, right? Strips are the strips of their palm fiber or bones, right? Animal bones, right? And اكرم ابو جهد, whenever he saw any of this material passing from one hand to another, he would faint, he would faint. And when he would come to, they would say, what happened, what happened? He said, اِنَّهُ كَلَامُ رَبِّ, اِنَّهُ كَلَامُ رَبِّ. This is, it's the speech of my Lord, it's the speech of my Lord. He was in a state of utter witnessing that these are the, these are the very, the very parchment, these are the very materials that contain on them the letters that represent the speech of Allah ﷺ. And we can never lose sight of that fact that these are just not just our ordinary words. We cannot take these words for granted. This Qur'an is Jesus raising the dead from their graves. This Qur'an is the red sea parting right before our very eyes. It's the moon splitting. This Qur'an is Ibrahim ﷺ in the fire. Just imagine if you saw a fire right now, I'm a man right in the middle of it. And he's untouched, unscathed. And he's in utter peace. And an angel comes to him and says, what do you want? He says, nothing from you. He says, ask and you shall be given. He says, I don't have anything to ask of you. كُولِ بَلْبَنْ وَسَلَامَنَ عَلَى عِبْرَهِمْ Say, that Allah ﷺ said to the, to the fire, be cool in a sense of peace and tranquility for Ibrahim. So do you think the angel had anything to offer after that? And this is that Qur'an. This is that, this is that miracle of the Prophet ﷺ. It's an abiding miracle. It's an abiding miracle that the Lord of the heavens and the earth has placed in our possession the symbols that contain the meaning of his speech. And that is in our possession. It's in our notebooks. It's in our tablets. It's in our phones. It's in our purses, in our wallets. It's in our cars, it's in our homes, it's on our shelves. This Qur'an comes from our Lord. It comes from our Allah ﷺ who created the heavens and the earth. You look out there and you see the stars and you're just mesmerized by the stars. It's so beautiful if you see the stars on a black, black night. And you see the mountains and the, the, the, the the airbage and the clouds and the sun and the moon and the Creator behind all of that. And then you have His very words in your hands. You have the words of the one who created all of that. You have that in your hands. And you've memorized it in your hearts. You've memorized it and you can recite it. What Creator blessing is there than that? Um Aiman had a point. She said it's, it's going to be cut off. Now we, we, we, we've got, we've gotten all where we're going to get. And that's why she grieved. That's why she grieved. So to have access to that and to have the blessing and the gift that Allah ﷺ gave you, His words. You have a piece of, you have a piece of, of, of Jannah in your, in your, in your, in your, in your, in your hands. This Qur'an, this is a piece of Jannah because it is a reflection, an accurate reflection. A replica of that which is written in the, in the well-preserved tablet. You have that. Who else has anything that is preserved in the well-preserved tablet? Any, who, who has that in their possession? The Ark of the Covenant, they don't even know where it is. Huh? The Ark of the Covenant is in our hands. It's in our hands. This Qur'an. This Qur'an is every, it's a, it's, it's a mirror of what is there in the well-preserved tablet. And Allah ﷺ chose you for that. So to exalt that in our hearts is everything. To exalt that in our hearts. Exalting the speech and the speaker. To have presence with Allah ﷺ, to have presence. To be there in the moment. That when these verses, when you're reciting these verses, you're actually imagining, and this was, this was one of the most, in the most, you know, there's a brother here who made the Alhamdulillah with me, right? And we just spent the Alhamdulillah together in November, right? That was a blessed, blessed trip that we took. As I was there in Raouda, and I did not, Allah ﷺ thought it was very generous to me. Very generous. And I was listening to the iman recite. And right to my left. Right to my left was the, was Habibi Rasulullah ﷺ. Right to my left there was the wall. And then across the wall was, was his, his grave. Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. I'm not talking about when you're reading him, facing him. I'm talking about in the Raouda, where he is, this is the wall. And this is where he would have raised the curtains on the, on the, the, the, one of the last days of his blessed life to take one look at the people in the Raouda. And I was right there. And as the iman was reciting in the Salaat, I was thinking the entire time the Prophet ﷺ is hearing these verses recited. And how is he, pray tell, experiencing the, the recitation of these verses that were revealed to him? And do they, and does this voice sound familiar to him? Does it remind him of Abu Musa or Salim or Ibn Mas'ud? Because that is a reality of experiencing the Qur'an that none of us have, but just try to imagine it. And being there is different. Being there is different. Sayyidi Tariq, he's, he, he, you know, what can we say in his presence? What can we say in his presence? The last time he was there, not the last time, maybe a few months ago, he was there and he addressed the Prophet ﷺ. I hope you don't mind me sharing this. He addressed the Prophet ﷺ in the last time, maybe a few months ago. How many months ago? Four months ago? One, no, not the last time, but this December. And he said to the Prophet ﷺ, he said, نَسْتَأْتِنُكُمْ يَا رَسُولَ اللَّهُ نَظُرُ أَهَالِينَ فِمْنَ عُودُ إِلَيْكُمْ He says, I seek your permission, O Rasulullah, just to go visit my family and my children and to come back, inshaAllah. Right? Where is his family and his children? Here in Northern California. So he sought the permission of the Prophet ﷺ just to come back, just to see his family and then come back to the, come back home. And after he sought permission from the Prophet ﷺ, he has made Omran three or four more times after that. Right? How many more times? Four times. Huh? Yeah. And he's invited to go. When are you going again? April. So he's going back home again and again and again to the Messenger ﷺ. No? Salallahu alayhi wa alayhi wa sallam. So there's a reality, there's a reality to the recitation of this book and then when we face the Qibla, we are connecting ourselves to all of that, to the place, to the places where these verses would come down one after another. And wherever the Prophet ﷺ was when he received the verse, is the Sacred Valley of Tua. Wherever he came, wherever that verse found the Prophet ﷺ, that is a piece of the Sacred Valley of Tua. Fakhlamna alayk. So remove your sandals. You're in Makkah, you're in Medina. You're in Makkah in Medina. So when we face the Qibla, inwardly we're there. We're there with the Prophet ﷺ. These verses that we're reciting, we're imagining that we're there with the Prophet ﷺ as he's reciting.