"You cannot Afford to Ignore It"

Dear Reader,

As Ramadaan is fast approaching (Hurray!!), I just thought I'd share a video with you, dear reader, that I saw a few years ago. Subhanallah, it had a profound, almost life changing, effect on me. And all because I decided not to ignore It. Please watch, it'll only take a 3 minutes of your life. Thank you.   

Since watching this video, I have been making a slow but continuous effort to,Inshallah,memorise most of the Qur'an. But not just as it is, but with it's English meaning too. So that when I recite a Surah or ayah off-by-heart, I know exactly what I'm saying. And I think that, even if one does not know the Arabic language, it is at least better to read/learn a reliable translation of the Qur'an, in the language you are most comfortable with. 

The importance of this struck me most, during my recent visit to Pakistan, when I stayed a night in my grandfather's village. It is the custom of all the village girls, to come every morning and learn the Qur'an from my grandmother. As noble as this deed is, and I pray that she gets rewarded for it, I couldn't help but notice that these 15 or so girls (between the ages of 3-10 years old) were reciting the Qur'an as if they were sing-song nonsense-words, with many mispronunciations and no love/understanding of what they were doing. It was a thing they did because their mothers did it before them, because it was the custom, because they had to do it or they couldn't go out to play. 

This made me incredibly sad. When these girls grow up, what are they going to teach their children about Islam? If their husbands beat them and treat them badly, then say its permissible in Islam, they will have no way to fight back and tell them that it is not, because they do not know what the Qur'an or hadiths say. If someone with some standing in the community tells them that it's part of their religion to go and put flowers on the graves of their ancestors and pray to them. They will do it, unaware of how wrong that is. All because they do not know, for themselves, what the Qur'an or hadiths actually say.

And this isn't just a problem in that particular village. No. It's a cultural problem in the entirety of Pakistan, that arises from ignorance of the religion and ignoring the religion. 

But lets look at it this way. Say your signing a contract, whether its for a loan, a house, a job etc.... We always read the terms and conditions so that we know what is expected from either party. Just like that, the Qur'an is our contract with God (swt). And just like any other contract, it clearly states what is expected of us, what the benefits are for fulfilling the conditions and what will happen to us if we break the terms of the agreement. But this is the ultimate contract as it quite literally concerns our entire lives, where the rewards are extremely bountiful and the consequences dire.    

That is why we cannot afford to ignore it. And if we do not ignore it, we cannot afford to keep it to ourselves

Nida