 Assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi. I would like to share a few thoughts about how we can develop a stronger relationship and a closer relationship with the Quran. We know that this is the month of the Quran. This month of Ramadan is the month of the Quran. Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala tells us in the Quran, شهر رمضان الذي انزر فيه القرآن. The month of Ramadan that the Quran was revealed in it. And so we know from looking at the biography of the Prophet ﷺ that he focused more on the Quran during this month and read it more, twice with Jibril ﷺ. We find the early generations, the Sahaba and the Salaf, they would read the Quran in other parts of the year, but they focused and they turned their focus onto the Quran. And this is something that I found when I was studying in West Africa in the Mahdara of Marabat al-Hajj. One of my teachers before Ramadan came, it was my first Ramadan, he asked me, he said, Rami, what are you going to study in Ramadan? And I had not thought about it the way he was looking at it and the way the culture there, drawing from the early generations is, I said, well, I'm going to continue studying my fiqh, the book that I had started. He said, Rami, this is the month of the Quran. And so I encourage you to memorize Quran. And if you're going to study something else, have it about purification of the heart. And that's what I did. I memorized Quran during the week. And on the weekends, I did extra readings on books on purification of the heart, the tongue, specifically by Sheikh Mohammed Molloud. It's a book that I was going over in the Halakha series before the lockdown there at MCC and the community. And it was the best Ramadan ever or one of the best Ramadan's ever that I experienced. And so every Ramadan, we should do whatever we can to turn our lives back to the Quran, to recite it more. And each person is going to have a different way of turning to the Quran. For some people, it's reciting it themselves. For some people, it's learning how to recite it. For some people, it's listening to it. For some people, it's studying the tafseer. For others, you know, whatever it might be, every Ramadan, we should draw that much closer to the Quran. And again, it can be in many, many different ways. What I wanted to share in these series that I'm going to do, this will be the first of four videos, is to talk about one element of the Quran that really amazed me when I learned about it. And this is something that we have to remember that according to one of the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, that the Quran has secrets, that every generation will uncover some, some of those secrets. So we know that in terms of rules, ahkam, and belief systems, itiqadat, and our aqida, those have already been derived. We don't have to approach the Quran and say, oh, what this hadith means is that there are rulings that can change, or maybe the early generations didn't know about it. No, we know that the rules were already discussed. But there are other subtleties. There are other subtleties of the Quran that every generation, there's something that you can uncover in your generation. So when you approach the Quran, approach it like that, like it's an adventure to try to find out what is another mystery or a secret of the Quran that I can have access to. So what I wanted to share with was about this concept called ring structure, or ring composition, which it's studied in literature in terms of looking at literature, whether it's biblical and religious texts, or even if it's literature going back from the Greek literature onwards, but looking at how things are presented. And when I first heard about it and started looking at some of the verses and how they show there is this mirroring pattern to the Quran, it really blew me away. And there's a number of articles. We'll link some in the description in the video here. But if you look at some of these images, and even if you're watching while you're watching the video now, I know some people like to multitask. You can put ring structure for on or ring composition for on and just type on images and look at the images of some of these. I'll be discussing to Surah Al-Baqarah and Ayatul Kursi about this during this video. So what the idea is, is that when you look at the Quran, there is a structure to it. You know, sometimes some people when they start reading the Quran, especially if they're looking coming from other traditions where they see the Bible being presented in a very chronological order, then they come to the Quran and they see, well, why is it, why does it move from here to there, it moves in a different pattern. But there is a pattern. And some of the early scholars noticed this and they wrote books about this, Al-Razi wrote about this and others. They noticed that there are patterns. And so they started trying to identify what are their patterns. Like if you notice at the end at Surah, the last juzah of the Quran, juzah amma, a lot of the surahs are actually in pairs. And so each surah matches up in terms of the theme with the surah that goes after it. And this is why some of the scholars said it's good to recite surahs from that juzah immediately after each other so that we can keep the structure. So to jump right into Surah Al-Baqarah and we've just gotten through finishing this Surah Al-Baqarah a few nights ago. And it's the longest surah in the Quran. But there is a theme there. There's many themes there. But let's look at it the way that those who, the researchers who are looking at ring composition or ring structure in the Quran. So what ring structure is, is you look at, it could be A, B, C, D, C, B, A or A, B, C, D, E, D, C, B, A. It goes down and then it goes and then it mirrors itself. And so the A's in terms of themes will match up. The B's will match up. The C's will match up. The D's will match up and if it's E. And then what they're showing to is that the core central theme that is there, everything's leading up to that central theme and then it mirrors itself back. So let's look at Surah Al-Baqarah. We just got finished listening to it or reading it in our tarawih prayers just a few nights ago. So the first theme in A is believers versus disbelievers. So there's that presentation of who are the believers and the disbelievers. And the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam challenges the disbelievers to produce a surah and God gives life and resurrect. So that's A, basically the idea of believers and unbelievers. Let's go to B. B is Moses delivers law to the children of Isra'in. So we hear a lot of those stories. We are hearing the stories of Benny Isra'in and Moses' interaction and going to the mountain and coming back, all of that. So he's delivering the law to the children of Isra'in and the children of Israel. They're reluctant to sacrifice a cow. That's B. Then C comes as Ibrahim was tested. There was the test of Ibrahim. The Ka'bah was built by Ibrahim and Ismail and they make a prayer that their descendants submit to God and they actually make a prayer which is the prayer of the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. That's why he says, I am the dua of my father Ibrahim alaihi sallam. So we got A, believers versus unbelievers. B, Moses and delivering the law to Benny Isra'in. C, Ibrahim was tested. He builds the Ka'bah and D. This is the central element or this is where it begins to mirror back. The Ka'bah is the new prayer direction built by Ibrahim and Ismail. Sorry, the Ka'bah is the new prayer direction. This is a test of faith and encouragement to compete in good deeds. So if you remember, the original Ka'bah was for the Muslims to face Jerusalem and the Prophet, it was hard for him because he loved Mecca and he wanted it to turn back and Jerusalem sacred to who? To the Muslims, but also to the Benny Isra'in. And so now Allah was telling us about Benny Isra'il and the story of Benny Isra'il and the tests that they experienced and what they went through and their Qiblah, which is Jerusalem, now for the Muslims is changed to the Ka'bah. So that's the central is the changing of the Qiblah. Now it mirrors backwards. So the sea, the next sea, Muslims will be tested and instructions about pilgrimage to Mecca and warning not to worship ancestors and multiple gods. So this sea goes back to Abraham because it says Muslims will be tested and the instructions on the pilgrimage to Mecca. Well, the first sea was Abraham was tested. See Muslims were tested, Abraham was tested. The Ka'bah is built by Ibrahim and Ismail and it's mirrored in that next one as the instructions on the Hajj and not to worship the ancestors, meaning Allah is telling the Arabs, stay on faith because that's what your grandfathers, Ismail and his father, Ibrahim, that's what they were calling you to. And then B, the next B, the Prophet delivers law to the Muslims. The first one was Moses delivers law to the, to Benny Isra'il and the Muslims are encouraged to enter Islam wholeheartedly and this mirrors the theme or the subject of the Benny Isra'il being followers of Musa and believers in God, but they also slaughter or they also, they, when they were ordered to slaughter the cow, which the surah is mentioned after, they didn't do it. So Allah is telling us, this is what Benny Isra'il did. They were submitters to their religion, but they didn't submit at that moment completely. So we want you as Muslims to submit completely. And then A, believers encouraged in the struggle versus the disbelievers. So some of those early interactions between the Muslims and the disbelievers, the Quran is telling us to have that steadfastness. And then Ibrahim challenges the king, the rising of the sun and then God gives life and resurrects. So this A at first was believers versus disbelievers. The prophet challenges the disbelievers to produce a surah. Ibrahim's challenge was Abraham challenges the king to affect the rising of the sun. Try to do that because the king asked him, what is your Lord? My Lord gives life and death. It's like, I can do that. And he killed one servant and let one go. He said, well bring the sun from the west as Allah brings it from the east. So Ibrahim gave him a challenge that he couldn't do. And the prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam gave a challenge to his people, bring a surah that they couldn't do. So if you look at the mirroring of this, it's amazing and it gives us that much more understanding of the Quran as we're following along, realizing there is, and this story is affecting us, even if we don't understand this, but it gives us that much more appreciation. It's like studying astronomy. You look up at the stars, the skies are beautiful, you look and you're amazed by the stars. But when you understand astronomy, you have a deeper appreciation. And one of the names of verses of the Quran, Ayat is actually Najm, is a Najm and Nujum. In fact, some of the scholars said, when Allah swears by the Mawaqah and Nujum, the places or the setting of the stars and all, he's also swearing by the places that those stars, meaning the Ayat were revealed. So this is taken from a book called Structure and Quran Interpretation by Farin F-A-R-R-I-N who's a scholar and a researcher of literature, Arabic literature and the Quran specifically and he eventually became Muslim. And there's others who have discussed this online and done some of the images that show that. Now you have this entire surah follows this pattern and even within the surah, you also find smaller areas where there's ring structure within that. So if we look at Ayat al-Kursi and there's an image there that shows how Ayat al-Kursi also follows this. So the first part of it is Allah is saying, Allah, there is none worthy of worship except he, the ever living, the ever watchful. It mirrors directly to the last part of the ayah and he is the most high, the most supreme. We take the next one. Neither drowsiness nor sleep overtakes him. That mirrors the second to last and their preservation tires him not. The third part of the surah, to him belongs whatever is in the heavens of the earth. That's mirrored to the third to last section of the ayah. His throne extends over the heavens and the earth. Fourth part of the ayah, who is there that can intercede with him except by his permission, mirrored by and they encompass not a thing, his knowledge of his knowledge except for what he wills and right there in the middle is the core, the heart of this ayah. He knows what is before them and he knows what is after them. So SubhanAllah, take a look at that, the article that's linked, it has these images. It shows the structure that I discussed about surah al-Baqarah and there's other surahs as well in the next video. I'll discuss some more ayahs and if you're interested, you can look at ring structure in the Quran or ring composition in the Quran and you can learn more about this. Jazakumullahi khayr, may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala draw us all closer to his book and may he give us better understanding of his book and may he give us implementation of his book. Jazakumullahi khayran wassalamu alaykum wa rahmatullah.