Reflections

Day 3/Juz 3

“(Remember) when the wife of ‘Imran said: “O my Lord! I have vowed to You what is in my womb to be dedicated for Your services, so accept this from me. Verily, You are the All-Hearer, the All-Knowing.” [Aal ‘Imran: 35]

Before Maryam was even born, her mother did something incredible. She dedicated her unborn child to be in the worship of Allah `azza wa jall. She had a vision to give birth to a child who will lead, guard, and be the custodian of the holy places of worship. And if you recall, these lofty and responsible positions were only held by men at that time. But Allah wanted to teach a powerful lesson to the whole of Mankind; a lesson which He previously taught the Angels when He created Adam and they commented on the nature of Man to cause corruption (see 2:30). A lesson that can be summed up in just a few words: that indeed, Allah knows what is best, and we simply don’t. 

So He gave her a girl, and she was consequently named ‘Maryam’ (meaning ‘devout worshipper of God’). 

Despite her cry of surprise (‘O Lord, I have given birth to a girl!’), her mother stuck to her promise, and indeed Maryam went on to became from the few (if not, only) women who held a lofty position in the church at that time. And so Allah fulfilled His Promise, and He blessed not just her, but her offspring too (‘Isa), and used them to bring forth a miracle into the world and lead the masses under a Messenger.

One last thing that’s interesting about this, is that Maryam’s mother discovered a secret that many of us still fail to grasp… Whenever you do a good deed, or whenever you wish for something to be made good, ask Allah to firstly accept it. Ask for acceptance because when Allah accepts something, He makes it blessed and He makes it good. Because you see, Allah is al-Tayyib; He only accepts what is good.

Taqabbal’Allahu minna wa minkum salih al-a’mal (May Allah accept our and your good deeds) ameen!

Source

How to Remember Surah Takwir

Bismillāh

Surat Takwir was the only surah I had a problem with in Juz amma, up until I developed a strategy to remember it.

I was doing my normal review one quiet morning after fajr, and when I got to this surah I recited. And after reciting it, I stopped and told myself that I was going to re-learn it properly this time. Fortunately for me I already wrote by the side of the page, a list keywords in the surah. Allāh made it very easy and I could picture a story using the keywords in my head.

I used to find it very difficult to remember the first seven verses. So the keywords for those verses are:

1. al-shamsu (the sun)

2. al-nujūmu (the stars)

3. al-jibālu (the mountains)

4. al-ʿishāru (the full-term she-camels)

5. al-wuḥūshu (the wild beasts)

6. al-biḥāru (the seas)

7. al-nufūsu (the souls)

The story goes like this: 

The sun¹ and the moon² collide at the top of a mountain³. Then a camel⁴ climbs atop of the mountain and finds wild beasts⁵. All this is surrounded by a sea⁶.  And this makes any soul⁷ that sees this very scared because he can’t find refuge on the mountain (he is going to get killed) and he will drown in the sea.

I hope this helps. And if it doesn’t May Allah make it easy for you to come up with a way to remember it.

TQS