 I wanted to say a few things about the importance of learning language, especially in the wider context of scripture. So Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la He says, Indeed, we revealed it as an Arabic Quran in order for you to understand. So Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la He revealed the Quran and He revealed it in Arabic as an effective means by which we might understand His religion, or more specifically, according to Imam Al-Razi, His Tuhid. Of course the master science or the master discipline is theology. Knowing Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la there is no greater knowledge and the most important principle of Islamic theology is Tuhid, monotheism. So ultimately Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la specially chose Arabic as a means of revealing himself to humanity. Such is the status of Arabic in our tradition. Sayyidina Umar, radiallahu anhu, he said, For indeed, learning Arabic is from your religion. Another tradition related by Imam al-Bayh haqi, Sayyidina Umar said, Learn Arabic for it fortifies the aqal and increases one in muru'ah. It fortifies or strengthens the intellect and increases one in nobility and valor and virtue. Imam Shafi'i, he said, whoever learns Arabic, his disposition becomes gentle. He becomes a gentleman or she becomes a lady, more civil, more studious, more intelligent, more contemplative. In other words, they begin to resemble the Arabian Prophet, the Prophet Muhammad, sallallahu alaihi wa la alaihi wa sallam. The Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam was the most baliq and most fasih of the Arabs. He was the most eloquent and most rhetorically gifted of all the Arabs, and his beautiful and majestic words continue to echo throughout history, generation after generation. From a secular perspective, he's the most quoted human being in human history. He has to be because they attribute the Quran to him. So the Quran and the hadith, he's easily the most quoted man in history, in addition to being the most praised human being who ever lived. You might say that Jesus' peace be upon him is more praised. The problem is the vast majority of historians do not believe that Jesus' peace be upon him ever claimed to be God. So praising Jesus as God is actually something that he himself would have repudiated, and according to the Quran, he will repudiate. But back to Arabic. As our president, Sheikh Hamza, may Allah protect him, has said, the Arabic language is the sineqwanan of the Islamic tradition. In other words, it is the essential condition, the essential ala or tool through which we access our tradition at a deeper level. If someone doesn't know a word of Arabic, he could still adequately understand the basics of this religion in translation. That's the beauty of this religion. It's a universal religion, but scholarship and a more sophisticated engagement with our tradition requires knowledge of the Arabic language. Arabic is the key. Miftaah ulum. Reading the Quran in Arabic with understanding is a totally different experience than reading in translation. It's like looking at something in one or two dimension as opposed to three dimension. It's like watching a film on a 1970s 12-inch black and white television compared to watching the same film remastered on a movie screen in color in 3D. Same film, but a totally different experience. It's an experience of the divine. Reading the Quran in the very words chosen by Allah SWT with or without understanding is a type of theophany. It's an experience of the divine. And we know that it is the sunnah of Allah SWT to choose particular things from his general creation. So from the universe made up of 10 to the 80 atoms, Allah SWT chose and exalted the human being, al-insan, Bani Adam, about 120 billion human beings he has chosen so far. From the Bani Adam, the human race, he chose al-Anbiyah, the prophets, 124,000, some say only men, others say men and women. And from the prophets he chose the Rasul, the messengers, 313. From the messengers he chose the five, the messengers of firm resolve. These are the arch apostles, if you will, like there are arch angels, the chief apostles. Who are they? Nooh alaihi salam, Ibrahim alaihi salam, Musa alaihi salam, Isa alaihi salam and our master Muhammad sallallahu alaihi salam. And from these five he chose as his beloved, his Habib, our master Muhammad sallallahu alaihi salam. The best of creation. Sayyidu walali Adam. And the prophet sallallahu alaihi salam was an Arab. He spoke Arabic. We did not send a messenger except that in the language of his own people. So Allah chooses, inna allah astafa Adam wa Noohan, wa al-ibrahim wa al-imran al-al-alamin. Allah swt chose Adam and Noah, he chose the house of Abraham and the house of Imran. And then from the house of Ibrahim alaihi salam he chose Ismael alaihi salam. The prophet sallallahu alaihi salam said, inna allah astafa Kinana, Kinana min waladi Ismael, that Allah swt chose Kinana from the descendants of Ismael alaihi salam, wasstafa Qureishan min Kinana. And he chose Qureish from Kinana, wasstafa Hashiman min Qureish, and he chose Hashim from Qureish, wasstafa ni min bani Hashim. And he chose me from the Hashimites. The chosen of the chosen of the chosen of the chosen of the chosen al-Mustafa, al-Mustaba, al-Mukhtar, sallallahu alaihi wa al-Ali wa salam. And so the Quran, the final revelation of God was revealed in Arabic. Allah swt chose the Arabic language. So Arabic is a sacred language. It's not an accident that if you rearrange the tri-literal root letters of the word ilm, you get amal, action. Because a true alem, a true knower puts his ilm into amal. A true knower puts his knowledge into practice. These terms are related. There are Jewish professors of Islamic studies all around the country. Some of them with double PhDs, but these are not ulama, why? They don't put their knowledge into practice. Change the haroof. Once again, you get lama, light, luster, radiance, resplendence, brilliance, aji, knowledge plus action equals light, ilm plus amal equals lama. This is a sacred language. There are many examples like this. We have Arabic professor here who knows much more than I do. He can show you many of these things. And usually languages have a durwa. They have a peak or a pinnacle or height of eloquence. So for English, it was the Elizabethan and Jacobian eras, the time of Shakespeare who died in 1616 or the King James Bible of 1611, also called the authorized version, both of these significantly influenced the English language more than any other texts. For Hebrew was probably the 10th century before the common era, the beginning of the Davidic dynasty. According to most critical scholars of the Bible, several passages of the Tanakh or Hebrew Bible were written during this period, like the creation story of Genesis chapter two, and probably many of the Psalms. For Greek, it was the time period known as Archaic Greece, the Odyssey, the Iliad, the Theogony, so the ancient pre-presocratic poets Homer and Hesiod, but also later writers of the classical Greek period like Herodotus and Plato, the standard Greek curriculum at the time of the composition of the New Testament in the first century CE included the works of Homer and Herodotus, so the educated Koine Greek writers of the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, as well as educated Hellenized Jews of the period, such as Philo of Alexandria and Paul of Tarsus, would have read and studied Homer and Herodotus and very likely Plato and Aristotle. For Arabic, it was the Hejaz and the late antique, especially the sixth and seventh centuries of the common era. That was the peak of their language, the flourishing of the Shu'ara. This was a time in the Qur'an and as I said in the last Khutbah, the Qur'an remains to this day the gold standard of Arabic literature. It remains an unclassifiable, sui-generous Arabic text, a one-of-a-kind and totally unique and inimitable masterpiece. Nothing comes close to its eloquence, style and exceptional impact upon humanity. It is a Mu'ajiza Khalidah. It is an everlastingly incapacitating phenomenon for anyone who attempts to imitate or surpass it. Professor Muhammad Abdul-Halim, he said, one overriding objective of the Qur'an is to speak with penetrating words. So I want to give you a few basic but specific examples of how the Qur'an makes this amazing impression upon the listener. The Qur'an is an ocean of rhetoric. In a final research paper for one of your classes, you might use one or two rhetorical devices and feel pretty good about yourself. The Qur'an is an ocean of rhetoric. One such rhetorical device is called il-tifat, or sudden change. For example, Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la says, قَدْ نَرَادِ قَلْلُبَ وَجْهِكَ فِي السَّمَى. We see you turning your face to the sky فَلَانِ وَالْيَنَّكَ قِبْلَ تَرْضَاءَ هَا. So we will turn you towards a qiblah that pleases you. SubhanAllah, the Prophet ﷺ looked at the sky with a request in his heart. The Sama'a is the qiblah of dua. Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la changed the prayer qiblah to please his Habib ﷺ. فَوَلْي وَجْهَكَ شَطْرَ المَسْجِدِ الْحَرَامِ So turn, فَوَلْي سِنْغِلَرْ وَجْهَكَ كَافُ الْخِطَابِ Singular. Turn your face toward the inviolable mosque. Then without skipping a beat, Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la says, وَحَيْثُ فَوَلْي وَجْهَكُمْ شَطْرَ So wherever you all are, turn your faces toward it. You see what happened, sudden change. Allah went from addressing the singular to the plural, from the Nabi to the nation. Why? According to the ulama to highlight the close, intimate relationship between the Prophet ﷺ and his ummah. So not only does this ayah demonstrate the closeness of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la to his Messenger ﷺ, Allah changed the prayer qibla to please his Habib. But it demonstrates the closeness of the Messenger to us that we are mentioned in the same divine breath as it were with the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. We also find Ilti Faat in the Fatiha along with another powerful rhetorical literary characteristic of the Qur'an, known as syntactical variants. In the same ayah, Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la says Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem, Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen, Ar-Rahmanir Raheem Maliki Yawm al-Din. So far, the abd is praising Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la in the third person. He is speaking about Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. But then suddenly, Now the abd is speaking directly to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. And not simply na'buduka wa nasta'eenuka, but iyaka na'budu wa iyaka nasta'een. So not only do we have Ilti Faat, we have the direct object or object pronoun fronted for emphasis and restriction, the consequence of which is a theological reformation. So that from this ayah, we move from a pre-Islamic, jahali, hinotheism to a restorative, Abrahamic monotheism. Because if it said na'buduka wa nasta'eenuka, the pre-Islamic Arabs would have said yes, we also worship Allah and ask Him for help. But iyaka na'budu, only you, ya Allah, do we offer ibadah wa iyaka nasta'een. And with only you, ya Allah, do we practice isti'ana. True monotheism, restored by such a powerful and impactful use of language, a statement that we recite in every unit of prayer at least 17 times a day. Think about that. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala commands us to make tada'bur of the Quran. The Quran also employs ellipsis as a method of making an impact. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, kathabad thamudu bi-taghwaha. The thamud denied or belied out of arrogance. Denied what? Belied what? The verb is transitive, but the object is not mentioned, it is elided. Why? Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala wants the audience to think about its meanings, to ponder upon its discourse. When the Quraish in Mecca heard this verse about the thamud, their minds would have filled in the blank. What is the conceptual direct object? What or who did the thamud deny their messenger? Oh, that's what we're doing. They would have said, they should have said. The Quran forces us to think about its discourse. Another type of syntactical variance is the fronted predicate in a declarative sentence. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, lakad kafara ladzina qalu inna allahahu wal-masiha bn-mariam. Qulfa ma yamliku minallahi shay'an in arada yuhlika al-masiha bn-mariam. Wa ummahu wa man fil ardi jami'a wa lillahi mulku al-samawati wal-arad. Wa ma beinahuma yakhluku ma yasha wa allahu a'la kulli shay'in qadir. So after Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala repudiates the divinity of Isa a.s. He gives us a declarative sentence in which the predicate is fronted to communicate absolute exclusivity wa lillahi mulku al-samawati wal-arad. To Allah alone belongs the dominion, the kingdom, the sovereignty of the universe, the cosmos. The phrase, the heavens and the earth and all between is a symmetric expression that denotes the cosmos. It's also found in the Hebrew Bible. The sovereignty, the supreme power and authority of all creation only belongs to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Nobody else, not Isa a.s. Nobody else, this is the import of the sentence. The syntax itself teaches us something about Christian theology, about what Christians believe before repudiating it. The syntax of the Quran teaches us something about Christian theology. This is amazing. So obviously knowledge of the Arabic language enriches our understandings of the Quran. I would also argue that knowledge of the languages of Ahl al-Kitab also enrich our understandings of the Quran. That knowledge of biblical linguistics give us the ability to nuance some of the ayat of the Quran and even defend the Quran against the attacks of polemicists. So this is related to something called apologetics which does not mean you apologize for being a Muslim. This is a branch of theology that seeks to defend the religion from attacks. It comes from apo logia which literally means to speak away, to speak away objections, to speak away the shubu hat. And it seems to me that it's important, especially for us as Muslims in the West, to have a broader understanding of Judeo-Christian tradition and history because the Quran has something to say about that tradition and history. I'll give you an example with respect to our Christology. What is Christology? Christology means the study of Christ, the Messiah. The word Christ comes from the Greek Christos which is a little translation of the Hebrew mashiach, meaning the anointed one. In the Quran, one of the titles of Isa A.S. is al-Masih, the Christ, the Messiah. I remember once after a lecture several years ago a couple of sisters approached me and said, they were very concerned and they advised me never again to say the word Christ when referring to Isa A.S. So I said, why not? And they said, oh, you don't know, you should know this. The word Christ comes from crucified. So I pointed out to them that the word Christ is from Greek, crucified is from Latin anyway. They're not actually related. Now a question we get all the time from non-Muslims, at least I get all the time, is the following. What do you mean as a Muslim when you say Jesus is the Messiah? You see, many people think the word Messiah is synonymous with God or divine savior. Other people think the word Messiah must denote some sort of political office, military leader or king. So this is where a broader religious and linguistic literacy will help us compellingly articulate and defend our beliefs. How so? Well, in the Tanakh, in the Hebrew Bible, in the scriptures of Bani Israel, there are three types of Messiahs. Three types of people are called Messiah, kings, priests and prophets. So the title Messiah is an honorific title which denotes being chosen or highlighted by God. When you anoint something, you highlight or illuminate it. When I make mascha over my head during wudu, I'm anointing my head with water. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said that he saw Isa A.S. in a vision circumambulating the Ka'ba, wa yaqtulu raasahu ma'an and his head was dripping with water. So there are king Messiahs, priest Messiahs and prophet Messiahs among the Israelites. The king Messiahs were descendants of David. The priest Messiahs were descendants of Aaron, but Isa A.S. was neither. The tribe is taken from the father. And Isa A.S. did not have a father. He's neither Davidic nor Aaronite. So what is he? Inni Abdullah, a tani al-kitaba, wa ja'alani nabiya. So he was a prophet Messiah. What's the textual evidence for prophet Messiah? In the King James Version of the Bible, the most popular Bible translation in the world, Psalm 105.15 sounds like this, touch not mine anointed and do my prophets no harm. So on the surface, the verse seems to say that there's one anointed, one Messiah, and then there are the prophets who are mentioned as a separate and distinct category. One Messiah and many prophets touch not mine anointed and do my prophets no harm. Two distinct categories. So it seems, but English is not the language of the Tehillim of the Psalms. It's Hebrew. Meanings can be manipulated with translations. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says in the Quran, wa inna minhum la fariqan ya lawuna al-sinatuhum bil-kitab. It's a very a-jeeb ayah. And there's a section from the people of the book who twist their tongues about the scripture. Now lisan means language in Quranic Arabic, also in biblical Hebrew. The phrase, the Jews refer to the Arabic language as laishan qaidar, lisanu qaidar, the tongue of Qadar, one of the sons of Isma'il a.s. They twist their translations with respect to their scripture, i.e. Bible, li tahsabuhu minal-kitab so that you might think it's part of the Bible or the scripture. Wa maahu wa minal-kitab, but it's not part of the scripture. Wa yuqooluna hua min indillah and they say, this is from Allah, wa maahu wa min indillah, but it is not from Allah. Wa yuqooluna aalallahi l-kidhiba wuhum ya'lamun. They are a lie against Allah and they know it. It's amazing. The Quran is so perfect, so succinct, Allahu Akbar. And we know every tarjama is in reality a tafsir. So what does the original Hebrew, Psalm 105-15 say? It says, al-tig'u bimashikhay binavi'ay al-tare'u do not touch my anointed ones, plural, my messiahs, plural. Do not harm my prophets. So this is called a bi-member segment in synonymic parallelism. If you've heard that before, we touch this. There's a section in Ulum al-Qur'an where we get into this. It's very common in Semitic rhetoric, especially Hebrew lyrical poetry, especially in Psalms and Proverbs. In other words, the second line is just a restatement of the first line. Like Proverbs 16-8, pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall. You see? It's saying the same thing. It's like if I say to my wife, I love you so much. I adore you intensely. The second member or line, I adore you intensely, is just another way of saying, I love you so much. It's synonymic parallelism. So do not touch my anointed ones, plural. In other words, do not harm my prophets. So you see in this verse, the prophets are the anointed ones. The Mashi'iqim are the Navi'im. And Aisa al-Islam is a prophet messiah. And he is the prophet messiah, par excellence. Why? Because he announced the coming of our master Muhammad sallallahu alayhi sallam. This is the essence of the good news, the gospel. Gospel means good news. This is the essence of the injil, the ewangelion that he brought. How do you say gospel in Hebrew? Bisar, the cognate is Bushra, wambu basheran, and to give you good news, and to give you the gospel, be Rasulin of a messenger, Ya'ati min ba'adi, of a messenger who's coming after me, ismuhu Ahmad sallallahu alayhi sallam. Let me give you another example. I found Muslim literacy of the broader quote Abrahamic tradition can nuance the Quran and clarify our beliefs in the face of detractors. So there are some modern critics, be they Ahl al-Gitab or atheists, who attack the Christology of the Quran. These critics and polemicists claim that the Quran is sort of a mishmash of various Christian opinions about Jesus. Peace be upon him without any real consistency. And obviously again for them, the author of the Quran is the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam. Now in the Quran, Isa alayhi sallam is called the word of God. So these critics point out that while the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam denied the divinity of Jesus in the Quran, he also called Jesus the Logos. And in John's gospel, the Logos is God, N. R. K. N. H. Lagos. In the beginning was the word, the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God, John 1-1. Now again, the vast majority of historians maintain that it is highly implausible that the historical Jesus of Nazareth, peace be upon him, believed himself to be divine in any way. And while the Quran does correctly deny the divinity of Jesus, it seemingly accidentally referred to Jesus as the Logos, the word of God. And so the Quran is also saying something implausible here about Jesus. In other words, the Quran is inconsistent in its Christology. This is the argument. So how do we respond to this? Is the Quran affirming that Jesus, peace be upon him, is the Logos of John's Gospel? So here again, a little knowledge of biblical languages and broader religious history will help us defend the Quran. And by the way, issues like this are causing some Muslims to leave the millah. They can't solve them. Education is key. So when the Quran says, Jesus is a word from God, right? Kelimatum minallah. It is the angel who announces this to Maryam, alaihi salam. So Jesus's title, word from God or word of God is related to his miraculous birth. So that's number one. It has nothing to do with his supposed hypostatic or personal pre-eternality. And this is significant because I would argue that the Quran here is not borrowing a middle platonic term or concept like the Gospel of John apparently does. But rather the Quran is continuing the established Jewish miracle birth literary tradition. How so? Well, in the book of Genesis, 1814, Sarah laughs and says, how shall I have a child when I am old or in the Quran? Ya wa ila ta. Alidu wa na ajuzun. Wa hadha ba'ali sheikhah. Inna hadha ra sheikun ajeeb. But what do the angels say to Sarah and Genesis? In the Torah, is anything too hard for the Lord? Is anything too hard for the Lord? Is anything too hard for the Lord? Is anything too hard for the Lord? But that's English. That's a translation. In Hebrew, it says, hay pala il me adonai davar. Literally, is any word too hard for the Lord? Davar means word, kalima. In Greek, this is translated as khrima, not lagas. But what does davar mean in the context of Genesis? It means an edict, a matter, or a decree. So what are the angels actually saying to Sarah? Is anything that God decrees? Is any affair that God wills too hard for him to do? This is the meaning. In fact, Wilhelm Jacenius, in his famous lexicon, says that one of the words in Arabic that is equivalent in meaning to davar is amar, a ta'jameena bin amrillah, as the angels say to Sarah in the Quran. Do you wonder at the decree of Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala? Okay, so in the Quran, when the angel says to Mary, inna allaha yubashiruki bi kalimantin minhu, God gives you glad tidings of a word, a davar from him. In the Jewish context, the first century Jerusalem, how would Mary have understood this? In the Jewish context, the first century Jerusalem, how would Maryam alaihi salam would have understood this? Context is king. Mary would have understood this as God decreeing some weighty affair, some important matter for her, because Mary knew the Torah. When Maryam alaihi salam says to the angel that no man has touched her, the angel says, idha qadda amran fa inna ma yakululahu kun fa yakun. Whenever God decrees a matter, an amar, an affair, a davar, a khreema, he says to it be and it is. So Jesus, peace be upon him, is that davar, that khreema, that amar, that kalima. So amar and kalima are basically in the Quranic discourse regarding Jesus, peace be upon him, synonymous. They parallel each other. Or in Surah Maryam, the angel says to Mary, wakana amran ma qadiyah, it was a matter decreed. In other words, it was a word decreed. So the Quran tells us how it's using the word kalima with respect to Jesus, peace be upon him. Not in the Greek, hinotheistic, Johanin sense, but in the contextually proper monotheistic Jewish sense. So a word of God means something that God decreed. So the Quran's epithet for Isa alayhi salam, a word of God is not at all equivalent to the Johanin lagas, but rather the tanakhi davar, translated khreema in the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. Here's another Christological example. So Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala says in the Quran that Isa alayhi salam was aided with the Holy Spirit. Wa a'atana Isa b-d-mari'am al-bayinat wa a'ayidnahu bi-ruh al-Qudus. So here the critics claim again that the Quran is affirming a trinitarian idea while also denying the divinity of Jesus. The Quran is confused again, they say. But the truth is the Quran is not confused. The critics are confused. If Isa alayhi salam said in the first century that he was being aided by Ruh Akkadosh, by Ruh al-Qudus, what did he mean context as king? Did he mean the third person of a triune deity? Did the Jews in the first century, Palestine, believe in the divinity of the Holy Spirit, and thus the trinity? I would say no, that's an anachronism. The phrase Ruh Akkadosh is used several times in the Tanakh, once in the Psalms and a couple of times in Isaiah. So Psalm 5111, it says, do not cast me away from your presence, nor take away from me Ruh Akkadoshaka, your Holy Spirit. And this again is a bi-member segment in parallelism. The second line is just a restatement of the first line. Do not cast away from me your presence, do not take away from me your Holy Spirit. So then the phrase Ruh Akkadosh is an expression that denotes the presence of God's power. It denotes the presence of God's power by which he accomplishes his divine will. Now the presence of God's power can certainly become manifest in the form of an angel. In fact, in Psalm 89, the angels are called Qadoshim, the Holy Ones, or the Holy Spirits. So again, just as we saw with Jesus' peace be upon him, being a word from God, a divarmi adonai, a kalimatum minallah, the Quran also restores and reinstates the true meaning of the Hebrew phrase Ruh Akkadosh, purifying it of its shirk. It uses it properly, according to its context, as both a way of clarifying our Christology and correcting the errors made by Ahl al-Kitab. The key to all of this is language. The key to all of this is language. Study language, learn Arabic. It is from your deen. I'll say this in Arabic.