
prevalent culture
There
is a prevalent culture among Muslims where they only view the Qur'an as
a way of gaining reward for reciting out loud the Arabic words
correctly. Such people think that they hold the Qur'an in high esteem,
but this only keeps them away from studying the Qur'an as they should.
Parents teach their children how to pronounce the Arabic words and send
their children to evening schools to learn to recite the Qur'an
correctly. Such people do not deny the importance of the Qur'an, but
their idea of the role of the Qur'an is extremely mistaken and shallow.
It is merely to either gain reward for each letter recited or to
validate Salah by reciting some short chapters. Members of this majority
group may even enjoy listening to recitations of the Qur'an, not
because of the message in the Verses, but to appreciate the melody, or
for relaxation purposes!
What
Islam is, is merely everything else they hear outside of the Qur'an.
Such people consider themselves highly religious, while they hold such
an ignorant approach to the Qur'an. They recite the Qur'an frequently,
but the recitation does not have any bearing on them. Then, they take
all their religious guidance from outside the Qur'an - they think those
practices amount to fulfilling their duty to the Qur'an. Many of such
ignorant people's ideas and practices are even against what the Qur'an
has to say, while they are not aware of it - or are aware of it
but deliberately ignore thinking about it, laying excuses such as 'I am
not knowledgeable enough' or 'I am a laymen, more knowledgeable people
have said this, who are you and me to question?'
Real
purpose of the Qur'an is to give
guidance :--
The
real purpose of the Qur'an is to give
guidance to the individual human being who has been created to worship
Allah. The Qur'an's guidance is in its meanings, not in the
pronunciations of its Arabic letters. The guidance of the Qur'an is a
mercy, cure and light for the true believers as it reveals many unknown
secrets such as Allah's power, reasons to happening of events around us,
and the true nature of Allah's religion. The Qur'an has been
necessarily made easy to understand. But this majority have been bereft
from this blessing, all while they are deceived into thinking they are
following religion perfectly as they are fulfilling their own idea of
what the purpose of the Qur'an is.
"We have sent down to you a Book containing your message. Do you not understand? " (Qur'an 21:10)
Thinking
one is fulfilling their obligations toward the Qur'an by simply
carrying out rituals such as prayer and fasting, without making the
effort to find out what the Qur'an actually says about religion is a
great deception. This is because the Qur'an is a Book to reflect upon,
to learn from and to gain the necessary insight and wisdom it gives to
be a real believer, this is a duty upon anyone who wants to be a Muslim.
One cannot possibly be a true Muslim without having necessary knowledge
and understanding of the Qur'an. If one only learns about the Quran
from books written about the Quran, written by people, and does not
feel the necessity to learn from the Qur'an directly himself, he is
only deceiving himself. Allah mentions this ignorant approach in the
words, " Or do you have another book which you study? " (Qur'an 68:39).
Worship
based on make-believing that Qur'an is being followed in the flow of
the majority and under blind trust of leaders without a personal
attachment to the Qur'an and knowledge of the Qur'an, holds little or no
value in Allah's sigh.