we declare Your Perfection above and beyond all: we have no knowledge whatsoever except what You have taught us. No doubt it is You, and You alone that is all Knowledgeable and all Wise. (al-Baqarah, 32)

Friday, April 15, 2011

Amazing facts about the Quran - the book of balance

One of the the themes of the Quran is balance. Allah balances our motivation by telling us to aspire for Jannah, informing us a lot of its great features while at the same time warns us of Hellfire and what a terrible return it is.

This theme can be seen very well in the very first surah in the Quran, the Fatihah. In the Fatihah, we declare Allah as our Lord and we His slaves. We declare his Mercy but also acknowledge his authority. Finally, we ask Him for guidance, the path of which whom He had favoured and ask him to make us not among those who earn His wrath and those who are lost.

On this theme, there are some claims that through a corpus study, some related words are mentioned in the Quran in an equal amount. For instance, the word dunya (this world) and akhirah (the hereafter) is mentioned the exact same number of time throughout the Quran, and so does life and death, day and night, angels and devil, and so on.

Unfortunately, I don't have the resources nor the capacity to confirm any of these claims, so even I would say take the info with a grain of salt. Wallahua'lam - Allah knows best.

I can however, show something that is way more amazing. This occurs in the second surah of the Quran, surah Al-Baqarah, the longest surah in the entire Quran. In this surah, Allah honours us by inaugurating the Muslims as an ummah - a nation - in the beginning portion of ayat 143 of the surah :

وَكَذَٰلِكَ جَعَلْنَاكُمْ أُمَّةً وَسَطًا لِتَكُونُوا شُهَدَاءَ عَلَى النَّاسِ وَيَكُونَ الرَّسُولُ عَلَيْكُمْ شَهِيدًا
Thus have We made of you an Ummah justly balanced that ye might be witnesses over the nations and the Messenger a witness over yourselves (2: 143)

The word that Allah describes the Muslim ummah in this ayat is وَسَطًا which can be translated as middle, balanced, or just - a concept that is at the heart of the teaching of Islam. As I've mentioned earlier, Allah describes our ummah with this word in ayat number 143. Now check out how many ayaat there are in total in surah Al-Baqarah. 286 ayaat. Have you noticed it? Even the position where Allah describes our ummah as a justly balanced nation is perfect - right in the middle of the surah!

SubhanAllah.

2 free comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear Najib,
Did you write this piece yourself? I'm impressed. You strike the right 'balance' between rational and logical. Not a tad of irrationality and illogicality. Just the right balance! Well-written and observed!!


Mdm F

Quran said...

Great explanation about the amazing facts of Quran.Well Quran is a complete book of God for human being and it is complete code of life,one should read it and follow the teaching of Islam. As Allah balances our things in more motivated way and tells us the right path to live and know the good and bad deeds in life.

 
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