Reflections and Lessons from the Humanitarian Trip to Kenya

Alḥamdulillāh, all praise and thanks belong to Allah ﷻ, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful. We praise Him, we thank Him, and we seek His help and forgiveness. We bear witness that there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah ﷻ alone, and that Muḥammad ﷺ is His servant and final messenger.

Alḥamdulillāh, I recently had the honor of joining a humanitarian trip to Kenya organized by Helping Hand for Relief and Development (HHRD) alongside some remarkable scholars and leaders — Shaykh Nomaan Baig, Dr. Jihad Safir, Imam Fateen, Shaykh Gyasie, Ḥafiẓ Shaheer from YM (Young Muslims), and Shaykh Yūsuf Bakeer. It was a trip that profoundly touched our hearts, opened our eyes, and renewed our sense of gratitude, compassion, and responsibility as believers.

A Journey of Witnessing and Reflection

Allah ﷻ says in the Quran: “Have they not traveled through the land so that they may have hearts by which they reason, or ears by which they hear?” (Sūrah al-Ḥajj, 22:46) Although this verse is addressed to the non-believers of Makkah, the moral and lesson apply to us as believers as well. Traveling for the sake of Allah ﷻ — to witness the condition of His servants, to serve, to bring relief, to learn — is not a vacation; it is an act of worship. It is an opportunity to see the world through a lens of gratitude and to let that vision transform our hearts.

Over the course of just a few days, we witnessed scenes that will stay with us for a lifetime — scenes of hardship, resilience, faith, and hope.

Day 1: The Medical Camp in Garsen

Our first day took us to Garsen, a rural area near Malindi. We joined a free medical camp where HHRD provided essential healthcare to more than 500 people in a single day. We met patients who had walked for miles under the scorching African sun to see a doctor — something we often take for granted. We met families carrying children in their arms, waiting patiently for hours, just to receive basic care and medicine. We spoke with local doctors and nurses — committed men and women who work tirelessly with limited resources, driven by a sense of mission and compassion. Every patient had a story — a story of endurance, faith, and dignity.

As we moved through the tents, greeting patients, observing the consultations, and meeting volunteers, I couldn’t help but think of the Prophet ﷺ, who said: “Whoever relieves a believer from one of the hardships of this world, Allah will relieve him from one of the hardships of the Day of Judgment.” (Muslim) The visit was not just about distributing medicine; it was about distributing mercy. It reminded us how blessed we are — to have healthcare, clean water, food security, and safety. Yet these blessings often go unnoticed until we see those who live without them.

Later that day, we joined the water-trucking program serving internally displaced families and nearby communities. Many residents walk long distances every day under the relentless sun just to fetch a few gallons of water. We helped distribute clean water, and we listened to people share their stories — stories of drought, displacement, and perseverance. At one site, we saw families filling their containers from an HHRD-donated collapsible tank, grateful for a resource most of us rarely think about when we turn on the tap.

It was a moment of deep humility. The Prophet ﷺ said: “The best charity is giving water to drink.” (Aḥmad) Water — the source of life — becomes a symbol of divine mercy. Every drop we distributed was a drop of hope.

Day 2: Compassion, Dignity, and Opportunity

Day two was even more transformative. It showed us how compassion, dignity, and opportunity — when combined — can transform lives.

1. Children With Disabilities Program (CWDP)

We began the morning at the Children With Disabilities Centre, where a rehabilitation session was already in progress. The center was filled with warmth and life — children engaging in therapy, learning to walk, smile, and play. We participated in sensory stimulation activities, spoke with caregivers, and listened to parents describe how their children’s lives had changed. One mother told us, “Before this center, my child could not move or speak. Now, alḥamdulillāh, she can sit, smile, and call me Mama.” That single word — Mama — carried more emotion and meaning than volumes of books. It was a testament to human perseverance and divine mercy.

The Prophet ﷺ said: “The most beloved people to Allah are those who are most beneficial to others.” (Ṭabarānī) And we saw that benefit manifest before our eyes — through trained therapists, specialized care, and the compassion of those who give for the sake of Allah.

2. Wheelchair Distribution (CPRP)

We then had the honor of distributing specialized wheelchairs for children with cerebral palsy and other similar conditions. I will never forget the sight of a child sitting in a simple wheelchair — smiling, laughing, and waving — while their parents’ eyes filled with tears. It was a simple wheelchair, yet it represented freedom, independence, and dignity. For these families, it was not a piece of equipment — it was hope.

As we handed over each wheelchair, I thought of how the Prophet ﷺ would personally serve and uplift those in need — carrying things for widows, comforting the poor, and showing love to children. True leadership, he taught us, is service.

3. The Basic Health Unit (BHU)

Next, we toured the Basic Health Unit with Br. Abubakar and Dr. Ayman, who explained how the facility operates. It serves over 1,000 patients every month — people who would otherwise have no access to healthcare. We met patients in waiting areas, nurses in small but well-organized wards, and a dedicated team that provides essential services with minimal resources. It made me reflect on how barakah multiplies when sincerity is present. Even limited means, when used sincerely for Allah, can accomplish so much.

4. Skills Development & Livelihood Program (SDLP)

We then visited the Skills Development and Livelihood Centre — a space buzzing with energy and purpose. Students were learning trades — tailoring, IT, cosmetology, electrical work — skills that empower them to earn a dignified livelihood. Later, we met graduates in the local market: a young man who opened an electronics shop, another who started a book and photocopy business, and a young woman proudly running a henna and beauty studio. Each one told us, “Because of the skills I learned, I can now support my family. I don’t need to rely on anyone else.”

It reminded us of the Prophet’s ﷺ words: “The upper hand is better than the lower hand.” (Bukhārī, Muslim) Self-sufficiency, dignity, and productivity are not just economic goals — they are spiritual virtues. Empowering others is one of the highest forms of sadaqah.

5. Education Support Program (ESP)

We also met a young Education Support Program student — a bright, confident girl who had just completed her 12th grade and was preparing to pursue a nursing diploma. She said, “My dream is to serve my community the way HHRD helped me.” That single sentence captures the true spirit of sadaqah jāriyah — charity that keeps giving, transforming one life after another, generation after generation.

Lessons and Reflections

This trip taught us countless lessons — lessons that echo the Quran and Sunnah, but now engraved in our hearts through experience.

1. Gratitude (Shukr) - We often complain about what we don’t have, while others thank Allah ﷻ for far less. Seeing families smile despite poverty teaches us that true wealth is contentment. “If you are grateful, I will surely increase you.” (Sūrah Ibrāhīm, 14:7) Gratitude turns scarcity into sufficiency and blessings into barakah.

2. Compassion (Raḥmah) - The Prophet ﷺ was described as “a mercy to the worlds.” This trip reminded us that compassion is not sentiment — it’s action. It’s seeing a need and responding to it. Every medical camp, every wheelchair, every drop of water — that is mercy in motion.

3. Dignity (Karāmah) - Helping others is not about pity — it’s about restoring dignity. The programs we witnessed — health, education, livelihood — all centered around empowering people, not creating dependency. That is the Prophetic model of charity.

4. Responsibility (Mas’ūliyyah) - When Allah ﷻ blesses us, it comes with responsibility. Our comfort, our resources, our education — they are trusts (amānāt) that we will be asked about. “And then you will surely be asked that Day about the blessings you enjoyed.” (Sūrah al-Takāthur, 102:8) To see suffering and remain indifferent is to forget our purpose as the Ummah of mercy.

5. Hope (Rajāʾ) - Despite immense challenges — poverty, drought, disability — the people of Kenya radiated hope. Their faith was unwavering. Their smiles sincere. They reminded us that hope is not the absence of hardship; it’s the presence of īmān.

Closing Reflections

Traveling with Helping Hand for Relief and Development was not just a trip — it was a spiritual journey. It reminded us what it means to serve humanity for the sake of Allah ﷻ, to live with empathy, and to give with sincerity.

We returned home with hearts heavier yet softer — filled with appreciation, humility, and resolve. And we remembered the saying of the Prophet ﷺ: “The most beloved deeds to Allah are those that bring happiness to others.” (Ṭabarānī)

May Allah ﷻ allow us to be among those who bring joy, relief, and hope to His servants. May He make us instruments of His mercy on earth. And may He accept this trip from everyone involved as an act of sincere worship.

Āmīn, ya Rabb al-ʿĀlamīn.

Wa-ṣallallāhu ʿalā nabiyyinā Muḥammad wa ʿalā ālihi wa ṣaḥbihi ajmaʿīn.

The Great Synthesis or a Gradual Convergence? Rethinking the Origins of Islamic Legal Theory Part 4

Part 4 – Beyond Synthesis: Why a Full Merger Never Occurred

From Proximity to Persistence

By this point in the series, two claims should be clear. First, the familiar picture of early Islamic legal history as a battle between ahl al-raʾy and ahl al-ḥadīth, resolved only through al-Shāfiʿī’s “Great Synthesis,” exaggerates the distance between these camps. Second, figures commonly cast as archetypes—whether rationalists or traditionalists—turn out, on closer inspection, to be methodologically closer than later narratives suggest.

Yet acknowledging this proximity does not mean that the two approaches ultimately merged into a single, unified method. A closer look at post-convergence jurisprudence shows that important differences persisted, especially in how jurists evaluated hadith.

How Far Did the Convergence Go?

Christopher Melchert’s account improves on Hallaq’s dramatic narrative by emphasizing gradual convergence rather than abrupt synthesis. Jurists associated with ahl al-raʾy increasingly adopted hadith as the primary material of law, learned methods of isnād comparison, and took up hadith criticism to resolve contradictions. At the same time, ahl al-ḥadīth jurists refined their legal reasoning, employing dialectical tools and accepting a division of labor between transmission and jurisprudence.

Yet this description risks overstating how far the convergence went. While Ḥanafī jurists did adopt many traditionist techniques, they did not abandon the raʾy-based criteria by which they evaluated legal evidence. What emerged was overlap, not unification.

A Test Case: Taʿummu Bihi al-Balwā

One of the clearest indicators that a full synthesis never occurred is the Ḥanafī principle of taʿummu bihi al-balwā—the idea that matters of widespread, unavoidable concern cannot rest on solitary reports (āḥād). If the Prophet had legislated a binding rule on such an issue, knowledge of that ruling would necessarily have circulated widely among the Companions.

A well-known example concerns reports suggesting that touching a woman invalidates ritual purity (wuḍūʾ). While such reports are accepted by many traditionist jurists, the Ḥanafīs rejected them. Their reasoning was not a denial of hadith authority, but a judgment about transmission and practice. Touching one’s spouse is an ordinary, recurring aspect of daily life. Had it invalidated wuḍūʾ, the ruling would have been publicly known, widely practiced, and uncontested. Its transmission through only a handful of reports signaled, for the Ḥanafīs, that it lacked legal force.

Here, raʾy does not override revelation; it evaluates the plausibility of transmission in light of communal reality.

Two Ways of Evaluating Hadith

This example reflects a deeper methodological divide. Even after adopting isnād criticism, Ḥanafī jurists continued to distinguish between external defects in transmission (al-inqiṭāʿ al-ẓāhir) and internal indicators (al-inqiṭāʿ al-bāṭin)—such as conflict with general legal principles or established practice.

A hadith could be rejected not because its chain was weak, but because its content clashed with inductively derived norms of the Qurʾān and Sunna. These raʾy-based evaluative criteria had no equivalent in traditionist methodology and remained operative long after the supposed convergence.

Why “The Great Synthesis” Misleads

Describing this process as a “Great Synthesis” obscures more than it reveals. What occurred was not the replacement of two opposing systems with a unified third, but a gradual narrowing of distance between approaches that were already closer in practice than later polemics suggest.

Jurists borrowed techniques, shared vocabularies, and responded to common scholarly pressures. But they did not surrender their distinct ways of reasoning. The result was convergence without collapse.

Rethinking the Labels

This also casts doubt on the usefulness of the labels ahl al-raʾy and ahl al-ḥadīth themselves. As Joseph Schacht noted, these were not self-conscious schools with fixed boundaries, but often polemical designations. Treating them as polar opposites exaggerates difference; treating their interaction as a completed synthesis overstates unity.

A spectrum model captures proximity better—but only if it resists assuming an endpoint of full convergence.

Why This Still Matters

How we tell the story of Islamic law’s origins shapes how we imagine the tradition today. If the law emerged from rupture resolved by synthesis, then disagreement appears as deviation. If, however, it emerged from proximity, overlap, and negotiated difference, then plurality is original—not a problem to be solved.

The early jurists were not choosing between reason and tradition. They were negotiating how transmitted texts function within lived legal reality. Recognizing this yields a more historically honest—and intellectually usable—inheritance.

Islamic legal theory, then, is neither a battlefield nor a monolith. It is a tradition of disciplined disagreement, calibrated reasoning, and enduring diversity.

Conclusion

This study has argued that the conventional narrative of early Islamic legal history—framed as a sharp opposition between ahl al-raʾy and ahl al-ḥadīth, resolved through al-Shāfiʿī’s “Great Synthesis”—overstates both the depth of the original divide and the extent of its eventual resolution. While modern scholarship has already begun to move away from a rigid dichotomy, the prevailing accounts still tend to assume that convergence entailed a substantive merger of methods. A closer examination of legal doctrine, however, suggests otherwise.

By analyzing Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal’s legal reasoning as preserved in the Masāʾil of Isḥāq b. Manṣūr al-Kawsaj, this paper has shown that even the most celebrated traditionist of the third/ninth century employed analogical reasoning in practice. Aḥmad consistently extrapolated underlying principles from Prophetic precedents and extended them to novel cases involving labor contracts, agency, bequests, and transfers of ownership. His use of analogy complicates portrayals of him as radically opposed to “human reasoning” and calls into question the claim that later Ḥanbalīs departed from his method by adopting qiyās. Rather than a rupture, their systematization appears as a development of reasoning already present in Aḥmad’s jurisprudence.

At the same time, the paper has argued that acknowledging this proximity does not entail affirming a full synthesis. Drawing on Ḥanafī legal theory, particularly criteria such as taʿummu bihi al-balwā and internal indicators of textual weakness (al-inqiṭāʿ al-bāṭin), it has shown that raʾy-based evaluative frameworks continued to play a decisive role in hadith assessment even after the widespread adoption of traditionist techniques. While Ḥanafīs increasingly relied on hadith and employed isnād criticism, they did not relinquish their distinctive criteria for determining legal authority. This persistent divergence indicates that convergence occurred at the level of tools and vocabulary, not at the level of underlying epistemic commitments.

These findings suggest that the development of Islamic legal theory is better understood as a process of gradual convergence without collapse. Jurists associated with both ahl al-raʾy and ahl al-ḥadīth responded to shared intellectual pressures, borrowed methods from one another, and narrowed their differences over time. Yet they did not arrive at a single, unified method of legal reasoning. The continued operation of raʾy-based principles alongside traditionist hadith criticism reveals a legal culture characterized by calibrated disagreement rather than synthesis.

Reframing the history in this way has broader implications. It challenges narratives that cast plurality as a later aberration or a problem resolved through methodological unification. Instead, it suggests that diversity in legal reasoning was constitutive of the tradition from an early stage. The early jurists were not divided between “reason” and “tradition” as mutually exclusive options; they were negotiating how transmitted texts, communal practice, and interpretive judgment function together in the production of law.

In this light, the opposition between ahl al-raʾy and ahl al-ḥadīth appears less as a clash of incompatible schools than as a spectrum of methodological emphases within a shared legal project. The history of Islamic legal theory, then, is not one of dramatic rupture followed by synthesis, but of enduring plurality managed through disciplined reasoning—a feature that remained central to the tradition well beyond its formative period.

The Great Synthesis or a Gradual Convergence? Rethinking the Origins of Islamic Legal Theory Part 3

Part 3 – Melchert’s “Gradual Synthesis” and Why the Starting Point Was Already Close

Introduction

In Part 1, we saw why the story of a pitched “war” between ahl al-raʾy and ahl al-ḥadīth remains attractive: it gives us a clean origin story for uṣūl al-fiqh and a heroic role for al-Shāfiʿī. In Part 2, we complicated that polarity by revisiting Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal (d. 241/855). Even the archetypal traditionist reasons by extending Prophetic precedent to new cases—often by a practical, text-anchored analogy.

This installment turns to Christopher Melchert’s influential article, “Traditionist-Jurisprudents and the Framing of Islamic Law.” Melchert offers a subtler alternative to Hallaq. Rather than a decisive “Great Synthesis,” he describes a gradual convergence: ahl al-raʾy becomes more ḥadīth-grounded; ahl al-ḥadīth becomes more juristically sophisticated. That’s an advance.

But even here, I think we can push further: Melchert still overstates how far apart the two camps were at the outset. When we read the legal and doctrinal evidence closely, the differences look less like opposites and more like degrees—and sometimes differences of genre, audience, and scholarly performance rather than method.

Ideal Types, Not “Guilds”

A major strength of Melchert’s account is his conceptual move: he treats ahl al-raʾy and ahl al-ḥadīth as ideal types, not tightly bounded guilds. That matters, because early juristic life was not organized by enforceable party membership. Scholars studied with many teachers, moved across regions, and argued strategically depending on setting.

Melchert is also right to observe that contemporaries sometimes speak as if there were two recognizable tendencies. He cites figures like Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ and later authors who frame juridical disagreement as a struggle over method. The key question is not whether the labels existed, but what they actually capture about legal practice.

Difference #1: “Ḥanafīs Rarely Cite Ḥadīth” — or They Don’t Need To

Melchert’s first major marker of divergence is that early Ḥanafī works (especially “internal” didactic texts) often cite the opinions of Abū Ḥanīfa and his circle without regularly supplying Prophetic reports.

But this can be explained without positing a stark methodological divide.

1) Genre and audience

If a work is internal, didactic, and school-forming, its function is to transmit doctrine, not to litigate every proof-text. Students learning a school’s positions do not require a courtroom-style evidentiary apparatus on every line. A doctrinal primer is not a polemical disputation.

2) A key Ḥanafī stipulation makes citation redundant

You highlight something crucial: Ḥanafīs often insisted that acceptable ḥadīth—especially in matters of broad communal need—must be widespread and known among jurists. If so, constantly quoting such reports can be redundant. The legal point is not “we have no ḥadīth,” but “the proof is already public and embedded in juristic knowledge.”

So the contrast “they rarely cite ḥadīth” can exaggerate what is often a contrast in presentation, not necessarily in underlying legal reasoning.

Difference #2: Incomplete Isnād — or Contextual Isnād

A second marker of divergence, for Melchert, is that early Ḥanafī citations sometimes include incomplete isnāds, while traditionist jurists tend to cite full chains.

But as you point out, even traditionists do not always cite full chains in every context. The formality of isnād presentation shifts with compilation type, audience, and purpose. If Aḥmad can relate ḥadīth casually without isnād in one setting and with full isnād in another, then the same variability among Ḥanafīs cannot by itself demonstrate a categorical divide.

You also note something especially telling: Ḥanafī jurists like al-Shaybānī can and do criticize a report precisely because it is mursal or not properly ascribed—showing that continuity of transmission mattered to them, and that they were capable of full isnād practice when the stakes required it.

In other words: this looks like a difference of degree, and sometimes a difference of circumstance, not a difference of kind.

Difference #3: “No Ḥadīth Criticism” — except when they do it

Melchert’s third difference is the strongest: he argues that early Ḥanafīs do not perform ḥadīth criticism in the traditionist sense (chain comparison to evaluate consistency in transmission), even if they use critical vocabulary like thiqa.

Your counterexample is decisive: al-Shaybānī’s discussion of conflicting tashahhud reports shows him comparing transmissions from the same authority, identifying error (awham), and privileging the corroborated transmission. That is functionally very close to the basic practice Melchert associates with the traditionists.

So if early Ḥanafīs can do isnād comparison when resolving contradictions, the claim that they lack criticism “like the ahl al-ḥadīth” becomes too blunt. Again: proximity appears earlier than the convergence story suggests.

The Other Side: Did the Traditionists Really “Refuse to Define the Law”?

Melchert also describes an ahl al-ḥadīth tendency to let contradictions stand rather than resolve them by preference—especially when harmonization is not available within transmitted materials. This is plausible as a disposition: caution toward speculative resolution.

But here too, evidence from Aḥmad complicates the picture. Your example from ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad’s questions—where Aḥmad proposes interpreting general/specific Qurʾānic texts through the Sunna and then selecting what “has parallels” (ashbah) in prophetic material—shows that Aḥmad did not merely suspend judgment. He offers a method.

That method presupposes:

layered meaning (ẓāhir, ʿāmm, khāṣṣ)
interpretive mediation by Sunna
principled preference grounded in resemblance and analogical extension

Those are not the tools of someone simply refusing to define the law. They are the tools of an early jurist practicing proto-legal theory.

Why This Matters

Melchert improved the conversation by trading Hallaq’s dramatic dialectic for a spectrum and a slow convergence. But if the starting point is already closer than he assumes, then “convergence” is less a dramatic process of two alien methods becoming one—and more a story of shared juristic habits taking different emphases, then becoming more formalized and self-conscious over time.

Which raises the larger question: if they were already proximate, what exactly changed in the third/ninth and fourth/tenth centuries? What converged—and what never did?

That’s the focus of Part 4.

Looking Ahead

In Part 4, we zoom out and state the thesis directly: the early divide was real but not binary. We then show that even after “convergence,” some Ḥanafī criteria for evaluating ḥadīth—especially internal indicators (al-inqiṭāʿ al-bāṭin), taʿummu bihi al-balwā, and non-contradiction with general legal precepts—remain major points of tension with traditionist approaches. The end result is not a “Great Synthesis,” but an enduring pluralism with overlapping methods.

References

Christopher Melchert, “Traditionist-Jurisprudents and the Framing of Islamic Law,” Islamic Law and Society 8, no. 3 (2001): 383–406.
Wael B. Hallaq, The Origins and Evolution of Islamic Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
Joseph Schacht, The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1950).

Yā Ḥayy Yā Qayyūm!

﷽

الحمد لله والصلاة والسلام على رسول الله

وعلى آله وصحبه أجمعين ومن تبعهم بإحسان إلى يوم الدين

اللهم اجعلنا منهم

We begin by mentioning the Name of The One True God, Allāh, The Infinitely Caring, Eternally Compassionate. We sincerely praise and thank God to the highest extent, and ask Him to bless, protect, honor, and compliment our Prophet and Messenger Muḥammad, his family, his companions, and those that diligently follow them until the end of times. Dear God, please include us from amongst them.

Yā Ḥayy Yā Qayyūm

This is one duʿāʾ (prayer and supplication) I have been very into this Ramaḍān.^{^[1]} May Allāh ﷻ respond to all our prayers, āmīn!^{^[2]}

‎ يَا حَيُّ يَا قَيُّومُ بِرَحْمَتِكَ نَسْتَغِيثُ أصْلِحْ لَنَا شَأْنَنَا كُلَّهُ وَلاَ تَكِلْنَا إلَى أَنْفُسِنَا طَرْفَةَ عَيْنٍ

O Ever Living! O Maintainer! We desperately beg for Your Help through Your Compassion: Please fix every aspect of our lives and make all of it good. Please do not leave us alone to our own selves for even the blink of an eye!

Explanation of Words

حَيُّ “Ever Living”

The beautiful name of Allāh, “الْحَيّ - The Ever Living,” can mean:^{^[3]}

The One Who has eternal life without beginning or end, who does not die.
Allāh ﷻ^{^[4]} called Himself “Al-Ḥayy”^{^[5]} not due to Him having life, but because He is the planner and controller of everyone’s life.
The “life” He ﷻ has is an attribute (ṣifah) of His.
He gave Himself that name, so we accept it.

قَيُّومُ “Maintainer”

The beautiful name of Allāh, “الْقَيُّوم - The Maintainer,” can mean, “The One Who is in charge and responsible (qāʾim) for the provision, protection, and well-being of everything.”^{^[6],^[7]}

بِرَحْمَتِكَ نَسْتَغِيثُ “We desperately beg for Your Help through Your Compassion”

The term istighāthah (اسْتِغَاثَة) refers to desperately begging and pleading. It comes from the word gayth (غَيْث) which means rain. Within the Qurʾānic recitation of (at least) Ḥafṣ ʿan ʿĀṣim^{^[8]}, there is a connotation of “good, helpful, beneficial rain” via gayth as opposed “rainstorms and punishment” via maṭar (مَطَر), which also literally means rain.

The connection between rain and desperate help is not hard to miss. Rain and water are critical resources for human survival. When humans face droughts, their crops and animals begin to die, which means they (the humans) start to die. The most desperate call for help is from one hoping to not die. When a human begs for rain, they are essentially begging for life. Thus we see the emphasis in saying “We desperately beg for Your Help” as opposed to just “We ask for Your Help” which could have been simply referred to with istiʿānah (اسْتِعَانَة) - asking for help (ʿawn - عَوْن) - or even just duʿāʾ (دُعَاء), supplication.

However, the whole point of this phrasing is that this is an entirely next level of duʿāʾ. The connection between istighāthah to Allāh ﷻ who is Al-Ḥayy and Al-Qayyūm are also not hard to miss. He is the Ever Living, and we are pleading for life. He is the Mainter, and we are pleading to Him to continue to take care of us.

It is also prefixed with “bi-raḥmatik - via Your Gentleness”. What can be said about Allāh ﷻ’s Raḥmah? That can be its own book. In short, it is His infinite and eternal kindness, gentleness, compassion, and softness - all in a way that is befitting of His Perfection, Grandeur, and Majesty. So we beg Him ﷻ, that, out of Your Raḥmah, please help us and save us. The fact that it comes first — meaning, “بِرَحْمَتِكَ - via Your Gentleness” comes before “نَسْتَغِيثُ - We desperately beg for Your Help” — indicates a level of emphasis (tawkīd) and importance (ihtimām). Meaning, we specifically beg You, O Allāh, and hope that You respond, out of your Raḥmah, because You are Al-Raḥmān (Infinitely Caring) and Al-Raḥīm (Eternally Kind).

أصْلِحْ لَنَا شَأْنَنَا كُلَّهُ “Please fix every aspect of our lives and make all of it good.”

Allāh ﷻ knows best, but it might be possible to piece this part into the duʿāʾ in one of two ways:

We desperately beg for Your Help by asking You to fix every aspect [...]
1. Thus the istighāthah becomes the mode in which we are asking
We desperately beg for Your Help. And also, please fix every aspect [...]
1. Thus the “fix - أصلح” becomes a new thing we are asking for

The verb aṣlaḥa (أَصْلَح) means to fix, repair, mend, reform, and rebuild (among other meanings).^{^[9]} It comes from ṣalāḥ (صَلَاح)^{^[10]} which means something is good, healthy, righteous, proper, and thriving.^{^[11]} The opposite of which is fasād, which is ruin, corruption, depraved, and immoral.^{^[12]} Allāh ﷻ forbids us twice in The Qurʾān, “وَلا تُفْسِدُوا فِي الأرْضِ بَعْدَ إِصْلاحِهَا - Do not ruin the earth/do not be evil on earth/do not spread immorality on earth after the fact that it has already been healthy, thriving, and pious.”^{^[13]}

When we ask for iṣlāḥ (improvement, mending, and rectification), we are asking for Allāh ﷻ to keep us good and healthy in all ways (spiritually, physically, emotionally, etc). Allāh ﷻ also tells us that a consequence of taqwā (keeping our duties towards Allāh and safeguarding ourselves from punishment) and properly speaking the truth (qawl sadīd), is that He ﷻ will “يُصْلِحْ لَكُمْ أَعْمَالَكُمْ - mend and improve your actions for you”^{^[14]} Meaning He ﷻ will: (a) make your action correct, (b) remove any hint of bad from your deed, (c) allow you to continue doing more good, and (d) accept it from you.^{^[15]} Here, however, we are particularly asking that our affairs - all aspects of our lives - be good, wholesome, and pious for us. Be it worship, family, work, relaxation, anything. Lastly, the “كُلَّهُ - kulllah” meaning “all of it”, refers to every part and aspect of our lives. For example:

We ask for improvement (iṣlāḥ) in our Worship
1. Allow us to obey You, O Allāh, more and better
2. Allow us to beautify our ritual worship (ṣalāh, dhikr,^{^[16]} tilāwah^{^[17]})
3. Save us from arrogance, showing off, ostentation, pride
4. Save us from disobedience, evil, immorality
We ask for improvement (iṣlāḥ) in our Family
1. Improve our family lives
2. Increase the love and harmony
3. Remove the hatred and jealousy
4. Save us from hurting each other
5. Save us from sinning together
6. Allow us to be eat, sleep, function with ease
We ask for improvement (iṣlāḥ) in our Work
1. Allow our work to be permissible
2. Save us from impermissible (ḥarām) income
3. Make our work beneficial for the world
4. Make our work easier, with less stress and anxiety
5. Resolve any financial issues
6. Increase our income so we can work less and worship and donate more

وَلاَ تَكِلْنَا إلَى أَنْفُسِنَا طَرْفَةَ عَيْنٍ “And please do not leave us alone to our own selves for even the blink of an eye!”

This part is something else. Of course, Allāh ﷻ never fully “leaves someone alone” since He is always watching and fully aware, and He decreed everything, so everything is already going according to His divine plan. But this is better understood as, “do not entrust us to our own selves”, “do not make us wakīls (in charge) of our own selves”, “do not leave us to our own selves”, “do not abandon us”, “do not forget us”, “do not stop helping us, protecting us, blessings up, taking care of us”. If Allāh ﷻ actually “ignored” us for even the blink of an eye (which does not apply to Him, He ﷻ is beyond perfection for such an idea to even be theorized about Him), we would not just die, we would just cease to exist. Every subatomic particle that makes up every fiber of our being would stop existing. We exist only through His Will, Choice, and Power. Subḥan-Allāh - How beyond perfect is Allāh! That also falls under Him being Al-Ḥayy and Al-Qayyūm.

We highlight, “إلَى أَنْفُسِنَا - to our own selves” to highlight we are powerless, ignorant, and arrogant. We may think we know what is best, but we do not. Even if we knew what is best in theory, we simply are not capable of doing it unless Allāh ﷻ helps us. We are not worthy wukalāʾ - people to be entrusted with. We can do that in a worldly sense because someone needs to take on physical and material responsibility. But we are definitely deficient. And why would I choose to be under my own care and guardianship when I can be under Allāh ﷻ’s care and guardianship?

Lastly, we specify, “طَرْفَةَ عَيْنٍ - for even the blink of an eye.” Even for a second. What can change in such a short time? A throne (ʿarsh) can be transported from Yemen to Juerlsuem.^{^[18]} The entire world can be destroyed in the time it takes for us to close our eyelids and reopen them. We could be dead. Everyone around us could be gone. We are so weak, reliant, and dependent on Allāh ﷻ that we cannot exist without Him for even the shortest span of time. Even an infant, no, even a literal fetus could last for at least a few moments without their mother, and a moment cannot exist without Allāh ﷻ. Just the mere thought of “us”, “we”, or “I” cannot even be imagined without Allāh.

Notes & Sourcing

This duʿāʾ has only been narrated in the singular form. I made it plural at the start of the article. Here is the singular wording found in books of aḥādīth: “يَا حَيُّ يَا قَيُّومُ بِرَحْمَتِكَ أَسْتَغِيثُ أَصْلِحْ لِي شَأْنِي كُلَّهُ وَلَا تَكِلْنِي إِلَى نَفْسِي طَرْفَةَ عَيْنٍ.”^{^[19]} The full narration is as follows. Anas ibn Mālik (raḍiya Allāh ʿanh^{^[20]}) said that The Prophet ﷺ^{^[21]} told his daughter Fāṭimah (raḍiya Allāh ʿanhā), “مَا يَمْنَعُكِ أَنْ تَسْمَعِي مَا أُوصِيكِ بِهِ أَنْ تَقُولِي إِذَا أَصْبَحْتِ وَإِذَا أَمْسَيْتِ - What is stopping you from listening to what I’m advising you to do? You should say the following when you wake up every morning and when you go to sleep every night.” After which he ﷺ said (the quoted duʿāʾ), “يَا حَيُّ يَا قَيُّومُ بِرَحْمَتِكَ أَسْتَغِيثُ أَصْلِحْ لِي شَأْنِي كُلَّهُ وَلَا تَكِلْنِي إِلَى نَفْسِي طَرْفَةَ عَيْنٍ.”^{^[22]}

There is another version with a slightly different beginning. Anas ibn Mālik (raḍiya Allāh ʿanh) said: We were in the Masjid with The Prophet ﷺ until sunrise. Then the Prophet ﷺ left the Masjid and I followed him. He ﷺ said, “Let’s go visit Fāṭimah bint Muḥammad.” We went to her house, and saw that she was sleeping laying down on her side (نَائِمَةٌ مُضْطَجِعَةٌ). The Prophet ﷺ asked her, “يَا فَاطِمَةُ مَا يُنِيمُكِ هَذِهِ السَّاعَةِ - What’s wrong? Why are you sleeping right now? She (raḍiya Allāh ʿanhā) replied, “مَا زِلْتُ الْبَارِحَةَ مَحْمُومَةً - I have been sick the entire night.” So he ﷺ said, “فَأَيْنَ الدُّعَاءُ الَّذِي عَلَّمْتُكِ - Where is the duʿāʾ I taught you?” She (raḍiya Allāh ʿanhā) replied, “نَسِيتُهُ - I forgot it.” So he ﷺ said, “قُولِي - Say: [the same duʿāʾ quoted above].”^{^[23]}

There is yet another version of this duʿāʾ that only has the first part, “يَا حَيُّ يَا قَيُّومُ بِرَحْمَتِكَ أَسْتَغِيثُ .” Anas ibn Mālik (raḍiya Allāhʿanh) said: If the Prophet ﷺ was in a difficult situation, he would say: [duʿāʾ].^{^[24]} Also, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd (raḍiya Allāhʿanh) said: If the Prophet ﷺ was experiencing some sadness or worry, he would say: [duʿāʾ].^{^[25]}

There is one last version worth mentioning, “اللَّهُمَّ رَحْمَتَكَ أَرْجُو وَلَا تَكِلْنِي إِلَى نَفْسِي طَرْفَةَ عَيْنٍ وَأَصْلِحْ لِي شَأْنِي كُلَّهُ لَا إِلَهَ أَلَا أَنْتَ.” The Prophet ﷺ said, “The duʿāʾ a distressed person (makrūb) should make is: O Allāh, I really hope for and desire Your Compassion (Raḥmah). Do not leave me alone to my own self for even the blink of an eye. Please fix every aspect of my life and make all of it good. There is no god except You.”^{^[26]}

Other versions with slightly different wordings also exist.^{^[27]}

اللهم فهمنا

ربنا زدنا علما

اللهم فقهنا في الدين وعلمنا التأويل

اللهم معلم آدم وإبراهيم ومحمد علمنا مما علمتهم

اللهم ارزقنا علما نافعا وحكمة بالغة

اللهم افتح علينا فتوح العارفين

يا فتاح يا عليم

اللهم صل وسلم على رسولك المصطفى الكريم

وعلى آله وصحبه أجمعين ومن تبعهم بإحسان إلى يوم الدين

اللهم اجعلنا منهم

Written primarily on the 23^rd of Ramaḍān 1445 AH.

Credits to Editors

May Allāh ﷻ reward those who helped write and edit this, including, but not limited to, Shaykhah Ayesha Syed Hussain.

Footnotes

Ramaḍān 1445 AH / 2024 CE ↑
Arabic phrase for, “O Allāh, respond to this prayer!” ↑
Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ Al-Bayān s. 2 a. 255 ↑
Unicode for jalla jalāluhu, meaning: His (God’s) Majesty is exalted and far above everything else ↑
Al-Qurʾān Sūrah Al-Baqarah 2:255 ↑
Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ Al-Bayān s. 2 a. 255 ↑
There is an entire discussion about “The Greatest Name of Allāh” (Ism Allāh Al-Aʿẓam - اسم الله الأعظم) that I wanted to briefly touch on, but I did not get a chance. I was just going to bring a few really amazing points that I only came to know of after reading some of Allah: https://www.meccabooks.com/products/allah-an-explanation-of-the-divine-names-and-attributes ↑
One of the 10 cannonical recitors of The Qurʾān ↑
Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān Al-ʿArab: صلح ↑
Not to be confused with ṣalāh (صَلَاة), which is ritual prayer ↑
Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān Al-ʿArab: صلح ↑
Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān Al-ʿArab: صلح ↑
Al-Qurʾān Sūrah Al-Aʿrāf 7:57, 7:85 ↑
Al-Qurʾān Sūrah Al-Aḥzāb 33:71 ↑
Siddīq Ḥassan Khān, Fatḥ Al-Bayān s. 33 a. 71 ↑
Remembrance and mention of Allāh ↑
Recitation of The Qurʾān ↑
Al-Qurʾān Sūrah Al-Naml 27:40 ↑
Refer back to the translation mentioned at the start of the article. The only difference would be the change from “We” to “I.” ↑
Arabic phrase for, “May God be pleased with him.” Used primarily for the Ṣāḥābah (companions of the Prophet ﷺ). ↑
Unicode for ṣallā Allāhu ʿalayhi wa sallāma, meaning: may Allāh (God) bless, honor, and preserve the legacy of Prophet Muḥammad. ↑
Al-Bazzār, Al-Baḥr Al-Zakhkhār (Al-Musnad): Musnad Abī Ḥamzah Anas ibn Mālik #6368, Al-Nasāʾī, Al-Sunan Al-Kubrā: K. ʿAmal Al-Yawm wa Al-Laylah B. Nawʿ Ākhar #10330, Al-Kharāʾiṭī, Makārim Al-Akhlāq B. Mā Yustaḥabb li Al-Rajul min Al-Qawl idhā Aṣbaḥa wa Amsā #873, Ibn Al-Sunnī, ʿAmal Al-Yawm wa Al-Laylah B. Mā Yaqūl Al-Rajul idhā Aṣbaḥa - Nawʿ Ākhar #48, Al-Ḥākim, Al-Mustadrak ʿalā Al-Ṣaḥīhayn K. Al-Duʿāʾ wa Al-Takbīr wa Al-Tahlīl wa Al-Tasbīḥ wa Al-Dhikr #2000, Al-Bayhaqī, Al-Asmāʾ wa Al-Ṣifāt: Huwa Al-Ḥayy Lā Ilāh Illā Huwa [...] #213. These chains are ḥasan (good/acceptable) at best. ↑
Al-Ṭabarānī, Al-Duʿāʾ B. Al-Duʿāʾ li Al-Faqr wa Al-Saqam #1046, Al-Ṭabarānī, Al-Muʿjam Al-Ṣaghīr B. Al-Khāʾ: Man Ismuh Khālid #333, Al-Ṭabarānī, Al-Muʿjam Al-Awsaṭ B. Al-Khāʾ: Man Ismuh Khālid #3565, after which he says, “لَا يُرْوَى هَذَا الْحَدِيثُ عَنْ أَنَسٍ إِلَّا بِهَذَا الْإِسْنَادِ تَفَرَّدَ بِهِ نَصْرُ بْنُ عَلِيٍّ”. For more details in their authenticity, see Al-Ṭabarī’s Al-Muʿjam Al-Awsaṭ under #3565 and Nūr Al-Dīn Al-Haythamī’s Majmaʿ Al-Zawāʾid wa Manbaʿ Al-Fawāʾid v. 10 p. 180-1 #17408, saying, “رَوَاهُ الطَّبَرَانِيُّ فِي الصَّغِيرِ وَالْأَوْسَطِ مِنْ طَرِيقِ سَلَمَةَ بْنِ حَرْبِ بْنِ زِيَادٍ الْكِلَابِيِّ عَنْ أَبِي مُدْرِكٍ عَنْ أَنَسٍ وَقَدْ ذَكَرَ الذَّهَبِيُّ سَلَمَةَ فِي الْمِيزَانِ فَقَالَ: مَجْهُولٌ كَشَيْخِهِ أَبِي مُدْرِكٍ وَقَدْ وَثَّقَ ابْنُ حِبَّانَ سَلَمَةَ وَذَكَرَ لَهُ هَذَا الْحَدِيثَ فِي تَرْجَمَتِهِ وَفِي الْمِيزَانِ: أَبُو مُدْرِكٍ قَالَ الدَّارَقُطْنِيُّ: مَتْرُوكٌ فَلَا أَدْرِي هُوَ أَبُو مُدْرِكٍ هَذَا أَوْ غَيْرُهُ وَبَقِيَّةُ رِجَالِهِ ثِقَاتٌ”. ↑
Al-Tirmidhī, Al-Jāmiʿ K. Al-Daʿawāt Bāb #3524, after which he says, “قَالَ أَبُو عِيسَى هَذَا حَدِيثٌ غَرِيبٌ‏ وَقَدْ رُوِيَ هَذَا الْحَدِيثُ عَنْ أَنَسٍ مِنْ غَيْرِ هَذَا الْوَجْهِ”. Ibn Al-Sunnī, ʿAmal Al-Yawm wa Al-Laylah B. Mā Yaqūl idhā Ḥazabhu Amr #337. — Both these chains have عَنْ يَزِيدَ الرَّقَاشِيِّ عَنْ أَنَسِ بْنِ مَالِكٍ, but “يَزِيدَ الرَّقَاشِيِّ” is weak. ↑
Ibn Abī Al-Dunyā, Al-Faraj Baʿd Al-Shiddah #47, Al-Bayhaqī, Al-Daʿawāt Al-Kabīr: B. Al-Duʿāʾ ʿinda Nuzūl Karb aw Ghamm #190, Al-Bayhaqī, Al-Asmāʾ wa Al-Ṣifāt: Huwa Al-Ḥayy Lā Ilāh Illā Huwa [...] #215 ↑
Al-Bukhārī, Al-Adab Al-Mufrad B. Al-Duʿāʾ ʿinda Al-Karb #701, Abū Dāwūd, Sunan Abī Dāwūd K. Al-Adab B. Mā Yaqūl idhā Aṣbaḥ #5090. — Alḥamdulillāh, all praise and thanks belongs to Allāh! We have a version narrated by the ḥadīth legend, Al-Imām Al-Humām Amīr Al-Muʾminīn fi Al-Ḥadīth Al-Bukhārī (d. 256 AH - raḥimahu Allāh - may God bless him), so we are good! ↑
Ibn Abī ʿĀṣim, Al-Āḥād wa Al-Mathānī #2925 ↑

Sūrah Al-Dukhān (#44) Part 2: Mūsā ﷺ, Pharoah, and Tearless Skies

﷽

الحمد لله والصلاة والسلام على رسول الله

وعلى آله وصحبه أجمعين ومن تبعهم بإحسان إلى يوم الدين

اللهم اجعلنا منهم

Sūrah Al-Dukhān (#44) Part 2: Mūsā^{^[1]} ﷺ^{^[2]} and Firʿawn^{^[3]}

Part 1 and Part 2

I had no intention of discussing the opening of Sūrah Al-Dukhān (#44). I actually wanted to talk about Sūrah Al-Dukhān 44:29, “فَمَا بَكَتْ عَلَيْهِمُ السَّمَاءُ وَالأرْضُ - The skies and the earth did not cry over the the drowned Pharaoh and his army.”^{^[4]} But that would require a brief backstory of Prophet Mūsā ﷺ given in this Sūrah, which meant it would be nice to briefly explain the opening of the Sūrah! Of course, it is always appropriate to go through the opening of a Sūrah to get the context in which Allāh ﷻ^{^[5]} speaks about something. Below is a very brief timeline of Prophet Mūsā ﷺ before the drowning of Firʿawn (Pharaoh)

Brief Timeline of Prophet Mūsā ﷺ and Firʿawn (Pharaoh)

The Pharaoh (Firʿawn) rules Egypt (Miṣr^{^[6]}). He has enslaved the “Israelites” aka Banū Isrāʾīl^{^[7]} aka the progeny of “Isrāʾil” [ʿabd Allāh,^{^[8]} slave of God] aka the Prophet Yaʿqūb^{^[9]} ﷺ. The Israelites migrated from Kanʿān^{^[10]} to Egypt from the time of Prophet Yūsuf^{^[11]} ﷺ.^{^[12]}
Mūsā ﷺ, an israelite, is born. Allāh ﷻ commanded his mother (Umm Mūsā^{^[13]}) to put him in a basket and then place that basket in the Nile river.^{^[14]}
The basket reaches the wife of Pharaoh (Firʿawn) who then tells him they should take him, baby Mūsā ﷺ, as their son. Mūsā ﷺ grows up in the household of Pharaoh.^{^[15]}
Mūsā ﷺ grows up. One day, he sees someone from Banū Isrāʾil (his people) fighting with an Egyption. Mūsā ﷺ comes to help, but accidentally kills the Egyption. The next day, Mūsā ﷺ sees the same Isrāʾīlī guy in another fight with another Egyptian, and realizes the Isrāʾīlī is the problem maker. The isrāʾīlī then tells the Egyptian that Mūsā ﷺ killed someone yesterday. Mūsā ﷺ flees Egypt.^{^[16]}
Mūsā ﷺ goes to Madyan,^{^[17]} gets married, and lives there. He then leaves Madyan with his family (ahl^{^[18]}), at which point he gets revelation from Allāh ﷻ. Allāh ﷻ tells Mūsā ﷺ that he must now preach to Pharaoh.^{^[19]}
Mūsā ﷺ goes to Pharaoh, and Pharaoh rejects. Many years go by - perhaps even four decades - with Mūsā ﷺ continuing to preach. The nine signs occur (staff to snake, glowing hand, frogs, lice, blood, etc).^{^[20]}

The above is what proceeds - implicitly and/or explicitly - the passage in Sūrah Al-Dukhān (#44).

Qurʾānic Passage of Prophet Mūsā ﷺ and Firʿawn (Pharaoh) in Sūrah Al-Dukhān (#44)

فَدَعَا رَبَّهُ أَنَّ هَؤُلاءِ قَوْمٌ مُجْرِمُونَ (٢٢) فَأَسْرِ بِعِبَادِي لَيْلا إِنَّكُمْ مُتَّبَعُونَ (٢٣) وَاتْرُكِ الْبَحْرَ رَهْوًا إِنَّهُمْ جُنْدٌ مُغْرَقُونَ (٢٤) كَمْ تَرَكُوا مِنْ جَنَّاتٍ وَعُيُونٍ (٢٥) وَزُرُوعٍ وَمَقَامٍ كَرِيمٍ (٢٦) وَنَعْمَةٍ كَانُوا فِيهَا فَاكِهِينَ (٢٧) كَذَلِكَ وَأَوْرَثْنَاهَا قَوْمًا آخَرِينَ (٢٨) فَمَا بَكَتْ عَلَيْهِمُ السَّمَاءُ وَالأرْضُ وَمَا كَانُوا مُنْظَرِينَ (٢٩)

“So he (Mūsā) prayed to his Master, ‘These people (Pharaoh and his army) are criminals!’ (So his Master answered his prayer and said,) ‘Take My slaves at night (and leave Egypt); all of you will be pursed.’ (... Once they get to the sea, and the sea splits, and Prophet Mūsā ﷺ and the believers make it across... Allāh says,) ‘and leave the sea as is; they (Pharaoh and his army) are a drowned army.’ ... How many gardens and rivers did they leave behind? How many crops!? How much great land!? How many luxuries and delights that they used to indulge in did they leave behind!? That is how we hand it (all of those luxuries) over to another community. The sky, nor the earth cried for them. They (Pharaoh and his army) were not given any extra time.’”

فَدَعَا رَبَّهُ أَنَّ هَؤُلاءِ قَوْمٌ مُجْرِمُونَ “So he (Mūsā) prayed to his Master, ‘These people (Pharaoh and his army) are criminals!’”

Prophet Mūsā ﷺ preached and preached, showed them miracle after miracle, yet experienced too many broken promises of “we will believe if ...” from Pharaoh. As Allāh ﷻ says, “وَلَمَّا وَقَعَ عَلَيْهِمُ الرِّجْزُ قَالُوا يَا مُوسَى ادْعُ لَنَا رَبَّكَ بِمَا عَهِدَ عِنْدَكَ لَئِنْ كَشَفْتَ عَنَّا الرِّجْزَ لَنُؤْمِنَنَّ لَكَ وَلَنُرْسِلَنَّ مَعَكَ بَنِي إِسْرَائِيلَ - Ever time a miraculous calamaty befell them (Pharaoh and his council), they would say, ‘O Moses! Pray to your Master for us (or on our behalf)! If you save us from this calamity, will will totally believe, and we will free Banū Isrāʾīl and let them go with you!’”^{^[21]} Decades have gone by. Promises have been broken. Pharaoh has repeatedly lied. The believers still undergo mockery and torture. At this point - after decades of beautiful patience and perseverance - Mūsā ﷺ begged Allāh ﷻ to put an end to Pharaoh and his evil people.^{^[22]} The āyah here simply states that Mūsā ﷺ said, “أَنَّ هَؤُلاءِ قَوْمٌ مُجْرِمُونَ - they are criminals!” So he did not “ask” for anything. Perhaps we can infer his desire to leave Pharaoh, to be free of his tyranny and torture, to be relieved of his duty of preaching to him because - in Mūsā ﷺ’s best judgment - Pharaoh will not believe. We see that verbalized in Sūrah Yūnus (#10), “وَقَالَ مُوسَى رَبَّنَا إِنَّكَ آتَيْتَ فِرْعَوْنَ وَمَلأَهُ زِينَةً وَأَمْوَالا فِي الْحَيَاةِ الدُّنْيَا رَبَّنَا لِيُضِلُّوا عَنْ سَبِيلِكَ رَبَّنَا اطْمِسْ عَلَى أَمْوَالِهِمْ وَاشْدُدْ عَلَى قُلُوبِهِمْ فَلا يُؤْمِنُوا حَتَّى يَرَوُا الْعَذَابَ الأَلِيمَ - Moses said, ‘Our Master! You gave Pharaoh and his council wealth and luxuries in this life so would (as a test) drive humanity away from Your Path!^{^[23]} Our Lord! Destroy their wealth! Harden and seal their hearts so that they do not believe until they see the painful punishment (of their drowning).^{^[24]}’”^{^[25]}

فَأَسْرِ بِعِبَادِي “‘Take My slaves at night (and leave Egypt)’”

Allāh ﷻ responded to his prayer. Allāh ﷻ addresses Mūsā, “فَأَسْرِ بِعِبَادِي - Take My slaves at night (and leave Egypt),”^{^[26]} which is the response to Mūsā ﷺ’s duʿāʾ.^{^[27]} The verb “asrā”^{^[28]} means to travel at night and the same word is used for night journey of the Prophet Muḥammad ﷺ,^{^[29]} and the same word is used in every occurrence of this event mentioned in The Qurʾān.^{^[30]} The addition of “لَيْلا - at night” is only mentioned in this Sūrah (Al-Dukhān #44). — May Allāh ﷻ open up my heart and mind to know why this detail is only mentioned here, āmīn^{^[31]}.^{^[32]}

إِنَّكُم مُّتَّبَعُونَ “You (O Moses and your people, the Israelites) will be pursed!”

Allāh ﷻ does tell Mūsā ﷺ that it will not be an easy escape - “إِنَّكُم مُّتَّبَعُونَ - you will be pursed,”^{^[33]} meaning Pharaoh and his army will chase after you. The details of the chase are mentioned in Sūrah Al-Shuʿarāʾ (#26).^{^[34]}

Cut Scene to Sūrah Al-Shuʿarāʾ (#26):^{^[35]}

فَأَرْسَلَ فِرْعَوْنُ فِي الْمَدَائِنِ حَاشِرِينَ (٥٣) إِنَّ هَؤُلاءِ لَشِرْذِمَةٌ قَلِيلُونَ (٥٤) وَإِنَّهُمْ لَنَا لَغَائِظُونَ (٥٥) وَإِنَّا لَجَمِيعٌ حَاذِرُونَ (٥٦) فَأَخْرَجْنَاهُمْ مِنْ جَنَّاتٍ وَعُيُونٍ (٥٧) وَكُنُوزٍ وَمَقَامٍ كَرِيمٍ (٥٨) كَذَلِكَ وَأَوْرَثْنَاهَا بَنِي إِسْرَائِيلَ (٥٩) فَأَتْبَعُوهُمْ مُشْرِقِينَ (٦٠) فَلَمَّا تَرَاءَى الْجَمْعَانِ قَالَ أَصْحَابُ مُوسَى إِنَّا لَمُدْرَكُونَ (٦١) قَالَ كَلا إِنَّ مَعِيَ رَبِّي سَيَهْدِينِ (٦٢) فَأَوْحَيْنَا إِلَى مُوسَى أَنِ اضْرِبْ بِعَصَاكَ الْبَحْرَ فَانْفَلَقَ فَكَانَ كُلُّ فِرْقٍ كَالطَّوْدِ الْعَظِيمِ (٦٣) وَأَزْلَفْنَا ثَمَّ الآخَرِينَ (٦٤) وَأَنْجَيْنَا مُوسَى وَمَنْ مَعَهُ أَجْمَعِينَ (٦٥)

“(Once Pharaoh got word of the escape of Moses and Banū Isrāʾīl) Pharaoh calls out to gather an army from the surrounding lands (under his reign). (Pharaoh incites them by saying,) ‘(These Israelites) are just a small group of bandits! They have done nothing but infuriate us! We are and have been on alert to save ourselves from their evil plans.’ (Allāh comments,) ‘(As a result) We drove Pharaoh and his council out of Egypt. We drove them out of their gardens and rivers; out and away from their treasures and fertile land. And as easily as that, We (will) let Banū Isrāʾīl take over those lands.’ [Back to the chase.] Pharaoh and his army caught up to Moses and his followers in the morning. (Moses and the believers have reached a large body of water and cannot go any further.) When the two groups (Banū Isrāʾīl and Pharaoh’s army) see each other, the followers of Moses exclaim, ‘We have been caught (and captured)!’ Moses responds by proclaiming, ‘Not a chance! My Master is with me, and He WILL guide me!’ (At that point,) We (Allāh) inspired Moses, ‘Hit the body of water with your staff, O Moses!’ (When Moses did that) The body of water split (into two) and each half was like a giant mountain. And We (Allāh) gathered (each of the groups) together. (We - Allāh - got all of Moses’ followers together in preparation to pass through the split of the body of water, and We - Allāh - gathered and regrouped Pharaoh’s army together as they approached Moses and his people.) We (Allāh) saved Moses and his followers (by allowing all of them to safely pass across the body of water).”

Back to Sūrah Al-Dukhān (#44).

وَاتْرُكِ الْبَحْرَ رَهْوًا “‘Leave the sea as is’”

Allāh ﷻ gave Mūsā ﷺ the command - as has come in Sūrah Al-Shuʿarāʾ - “اضْرِبْ بِعَصَاكَ الْبَحْرَ - Hit the body of water with your staff, O Moses!” After Mūsā ﷺ struck the water with his staff, “فَانْفَلَقَ - the body of water split”^{^[36]} and “فَكَانَ كُلُّ فِرْقٍ كَالطَّوْدِ الْعَظِيمِ - each split section was like a towering mountain”^{^[37]} with a dry walkable patch of earth in between. After the believers from Banū Isrāʾīl crossed, Allāh ﷻ told Mūsā ﷺ to “وَاتْرُكِ الْبَحْرَ رَهْوًا - leave the sea as is.” - Why? What does this mean? The scenario is as follows.

Mūsā ﷺ and the believers just crossed through a dry patch (yabas^{^[38]})^{^[39]} between the towering “mountains” of water. All the believers have made it across. Now they see Pharaoh and his army about to enter the water. It is most likely at this point when Allāh ﷻ tells Mūsā ﷺ to leave the sea as is. There is an athar^{^[40]} “quote” from Qatādah^{^[41]} (d. 118 AH - raḥimahu Allāh^{^[42]}) that when Mūsā ﷺ and the believers crossed the sea,^{^[43]} Mūsā ﷺ^{^[44]} did not want to pathway in the sea to remain, fearing that Pharaoh would be able to “cross the sea” just like they did.^{^[45],^[46]} That is why Allāh ﷻ told him to leave the water as is, and to not strike the body of water with his staff again so that is does NOT “re-form” just yet, so that Pharaoh and his army could be drowned.

Allāh ﷻ’s Divinely Perfect Plan

What a beautiful thing to note about the perfect limitless divine wisdom of Allāh ﷻ. Any human would think, “I hope the sea goes back to normal so that Pharaoh cannot cross it and is thus unable to catch up to us.” We would want Pharaoh to be stuck on the other side of the sea while we escape. But Allāh ﷻ is Allāh - How Perfectly Perfect is He! This was the prime opportunity to let Pharaoh be fully deluded in his arrogance, to destroy Pharaoh and his army, AND to show the believers that they have been destroyed, drowned, and killed in front of their very own eyes! If the water re-formed, Pharaoh would not have crossed. But, he could have come up with some other plan to go after the Muslims. He could have built ships. He could have swam. He could have, and probably would, have tried something. And some believers would always have the looming thought of “Pharaoh and his army are still out there searching for us,” filling their lives with fear and endless paranoia.

Instead, Allāh ﷻ gave Pharaoh and his army an opening: a chance to cross. Why Pharaoh still rejected Allāh ﷻ after seeing the water split is a sign of his own ignorance and arrogance. Pharaoh choosing to cross is only out of his ignorance and arrogance. So he crossed - and when him and his entire army were in between the towering mountains of water - the water collapsed on all of them, “ثُمَّ أَغْرَقْنَا الآخَرِينَ - Then, We (Allāh), drowned those who were left (Pharaoh and his army).”^{^[47]} All of this is happening as the believers are watching safe and dry. They are eye witnesses to the literal death, drowning, and destruction of their oppressors, and the oppressors of believers and generations before. They saw their dead corpses floating on the surface of the sea. Lifeless. With no chance of life like what could be seen by someone who has physically killed their enemy on the battlefield; the enemy may have a few breaths, they might be able to be bandaged up. But for Pharaoh and his army, they were clearly dead. Even though Pharaoh did utter that he was a believer on his dying breath, “حَتَّى إِذَا أَدْرَكَهُ الْغَرَقُ قَالَ آمَنْتُ أَنَّهُ لا إِلَهَ إِلا الَّذِي آمَنَتْ بِهِ بَنُو إِسْرَائِيلَ وَأَنَا مِنَ الْمُسْلِمِينَ - Then, as Pharaoh was drowning, he said, ‘I believe that nothing is worthy of worship except for The One Whom Banū Isrāʾīl in, and I am a Muslim!’”^{^[48]} Pharaoh’s “statement of belief” did not matter because he said it as he was dying (gharghar): as the unseen realm (al-ghayb) became the seen realm (al-shahādah) for him. That is because the Prophet Muḥammad ﷺ said, “إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَقْبَلُ تَوْبَةَ الْعَبْدِ مَا لَمْ يُغَرْغِرْ - Allāh will accept a person's repentance as long as they repent before their soul starts to leave their body (gharghar).”^{^[49]}

For these believers that underwent such generational oppression, Allāh ﷻ brought a level of ease to their hearts in this world through their witnessing of the death of Pharaoh and his army. That was, no doubt, from the infinitely wise and divine plan of Allāh ﷻ. However, seeing the death of oppressors is not always a part of the perfectly wise and perfect plan of Allāh ﷻ. As Allāh ﷻ tells His beloved Prophet Muḥammad ﷺ in Sūrah Al-Zukhruf, “فَإِمَّا نَذۡهَبَنَّ بِكَفَإِمَّا نَذْهَبَنَّ بِكَ فَإِنَّا مِنْهُمْ مُنْتَقِمُونَ أَوْ نُرِيَنَّكَ الَّذِي وَعَدْنَاهُمْ فَإِنَّا عَلَيْهِمْ مُقْتَدِرُونَ - Either We (Allāh) will take you (O Prophet) away (by taking your soul). If so, know that We are fully capable of taking revenge against them (the disbelievers of your people). Or We will show you what we have in store for them (lit. what We have threateningly promised them). If so, know that We are fully capable of carrying it out against them.”^{^[50]} The Prophet Muḥammad ﷺ did teach us a duʿāʾ (prayer) in which he ﷺ asked Allāh ﷻ to allow him to see the death of his oppressors. He ﷺ said, “اللَّهُمَّ أَصْلِحْ لِي سَمْعِي وَبَصَرِي وَاجْعَلْهُمَا الْوَارِثَيْنِ مِنِّي وَانْصُرْنِي عَلَى مَنْ ظَلَمَنِي وَأَرِنِي مِنْهُ ثَأْرِي‏ - O Allāh, keep my sight and hearing sound and strong, and allow them to always be healthy and well. Help me and support me against those who have wronged me. Allow me to and let me live to see the day I get them back, avenge myself, get revenge, and see their downfall.”^{^[51]}

We pray that Allāh ﷻ grants us all the ability to see the end of Zionism, CCP, Hindutva, and all other oppressive powers with our own two eyes, and that He saves us from having anything to do with - let alone promote - any evil or oppression, āmīn.

Back to the āyāt at hand...

إِنَّهُمْ جُنْدٌ مُغْرَقُونَ “They are a drowned army”

This could have been said by Allāh ﷻ to Mūsā ﷺ, or it could be Allāh ﷻ’s commentary after the fact to us. If Allāh ﷻ told it to Mūsā ﷺ at that time, He ﷻ is explaining why, and perhaps also comforting Mūsā ﷺ that, “leave the sea as is, but do not worry, they are not going to reach you.”

كَمْ تَرَكُوا “How much did the leave behind!?”

Next, Allāh ﷻ moves on to discuss the entire pharaoh-kingdom left behind. He ﷻ also briefly talks about this before their drowning in Sūrah Al-Shuʿarāʾ.^{^[52]} Look at what they left behind! “كَمْ تَرَكُوا” How many things did they leave behind? The implied meaning is that they “left” behind so many things. So many great wonderful things. They did not choose to leave them there, but they left their homes and riches, hoping to return after tasting sweet “revenge” — even though it cannot be considered revenge since Mūsā ﷺ and Hārūn ﷺ never intended to harm them, rather they (Mūsā ﷺ and Hārūn ﷺ) were harmed for their attempts to try and save pharaoh and his people from Hell! What did Allāh ﷻ chose to highlight? They left behind:

جَنَّات - gardens
عُيُونٍ - rivers
زُرُوع - crops, farms, orchards
كُنُوز - treasures^{^[53]}
مَقَام كَرِيم - noble/generous land, meaning: (a) the land owned by great noble people and/or (b) valuable fertile beautiful land
نَعْمَة - luxuries and delights, كَانُوا فِيهَا فَاكِهِينَ - that they used to enjoy and indulge in. The “فِيهَا - in” can refer to “نَعْمَة - luxuries and delights,” or it can refer to everything just mentioned above

كَذَلِكَ وَأَوْرَثْنَاهَا قَوْمًا آخَرِينَ “That is how we hand it (all of those luxuries) over to another community.”

Allāh ﷻ mentions that this is the process that He ﷻ uses to give ownership and control of land, resources, and luxuries to other people. People reject and disobey Allāh ﷻ, as a result they are given time to get their act together. If they persist in their disbelief and oppression, they can be destroyed. After their destruction, Allāh ﷻ can hand over - as “inheritance”^{^[54]} - the land, resources, and luxuries to others who are deserving of it. In this case, it is most likely referring to Banū Isrāʾīl.^{^[55],^[56]}

Now... The āyah that was the reason for writing these articles...

فَمَا بَكَتْ عَلَيْهِمُ السَّمَاءُ وَالأرْضُ “The sky, nor the earth cried for them.”

This is Allāh ﷻ’s comment after Pharaoh and his army were drowned. What does it mean that, “The sky, nor the earth cried for them.”? Al-Shaykh Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khan Al-Qinnawjī (d. 1307 AH / 1890 CE - raḥimahu Allāh) summarizes the lengthy discussions into three main points:^{^[57]}

No creature from the skies (angels and jinn), nor any creature from earth (humans, animals, etc) cried over them (ahl al-samāʾ wa al-arḍ^{^[58]}).
This was said to disgrace them (Pharaoh and his army) because they used to brag that the sky and earth would cry at their death because - they thought - they were so great.
The sky itself and the earth itself actually did not cry over them. That was mentioned because the sky and earth do cry when certain people die.

Try Crying of the Sky and Earth

This is the main concept I wanted to write about, and is the reason this article and the previous article were written. What follows is, for the most part, a summary of Shaykh Al-Mufassirīn (Senior Exegete) Al-Imām Al-Ṭabarī (d. 310 AH - raḥimahuAllāh) discussion on this āyah in his legendary Tafsīr, work Jāmiʿ Al-Bayān.^{^[59],^[60]}

Firstly, the “crying” (bukāʾ^{^[61]}) of the sky refers to the reddish horizon. Secondly, the sky and earth “cry” for 40 days after the death of a pious believer. The sky cries because every human has a gate (bāb^{^[62]}) through which his or her dhikr (remembrance and mention of Allāh) and good deeds (ʿamal ṣāliḥ^{^[63]}) goes up through, and their sustenance (rizq^{^[64]}) comes down through that very gate. So when a pious believer dies, that gate is closed, and thus the sky begins to cry because all the beautiful good deeds that would pass through it have come to an end.

This is related to the āyah from Sūrah Fāṭir, “إِلَيْهِ يَصْعَدُ الْكَلِمُ الطَّيِّبُ وَالْعَمَلُ الصَّالِحُ يَرْفَعُهُ - good words (i.e., dhikr) (try to) go up to Allāh whereas good deeds carry them up (to Allāh).”^{^[65]} As such, when we remember and mention Allāh ﷻ on our tongues (dhikr^{^[66]}), we can understand that it “tries/wants”^{^[67]} to go up (yaṣʿad^{^[68]}) to Allāh, but it cannot. But when a formal complete good deed is done, for example ṣalāh^{^[69]} (the ritual prayer), that ṣalāh will carry (yarfaʿ^{^[70]}) the dhikr up to Allāh ﷻ. It has also said that angels (Malāʾikah^{^[71]}) carry up the dhikr.^{^[72]}

The great companion (ṣaḥābī), ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd (raḍiya Allāh ʿanh^{^[73]}), said that as our actions and adhkār^{^[74]} are being taken up by an angel, other angels look at it and inquire about it; if it is good - and it will be good because it is on its way up - they pray for the “sender” (aka doer) of those words and actions. They are then taken all the way up to (ilayh^{^[75]}) Allāh ﷻ, and presented to Him ﷻ. Kaʿb adds on and says that the dhikr remains there around the ʿarsh (throne of God)^{^[76]} and it buzzes around the ʿarsh like the buzzing of bees, while the good deeds are stored away and saved (as khazāʾin^{^[77]}).^{^[78]}

Subḥān-Allāh! We may often wonder “how” our adhkār and good deeds “function”, how they are recorded, and/or how they will be shown and presented. But our dhikr will keep “playing” and will continue to be audible as it continues to hum and buzz the beautiful praises and perfection of Allāh ﷻ! Hopefully forever! So I say:

سُبْحَانَ اللهِ وَبِحَمْدِهِ! الْحَمْدُ لِلهِ! لَا إِلهَ إِلَّا اللهُ! وَاللهُ أَكْبَرُ! تَبَارَكَ اللهُ! سُبْحَانَ اللَّهِ وَبِحَمْدِهِ سُبْحَانَ اللَّهِ الْعَظِيمِ

How far beyond perfect is Allāh because all praise and thanks belongs to Him! All praise and thanks belongs to Allāh. Nothing is worthy of worship except The One True God, Allāh! Allāh is Far Greater! How blessed is Allāh! How far beyond perfect is Allāh because all praise and thanks belongs to Him! How far beyond perfect is Allāh, The Perfectly Supreme!

Al-Imām Al-Ṭabarī (raḥimahhu Allāh) continues to say and quote that the earth also cries because that pious believer would do good deeds: good deeds that the earth witnessed, and was the place from which the good deeds ascended into the sky.^{^[79]} We often think about people crying over us when we die. However, some people cry out of human nature. Not everyone cries over the death of someone because that person was a great individual. Also, people do not know the sincerity (or lack thereof) of others. So someone may cry over a relative that always took care of their finances, but in reality that charity was out of arrogance. But, perhaps, the sky and earth - like angels - can see a little beyond that (not that they know our thoughts and deepest intentions, but perhaps they have some insight into one’s true intentions). Just imagine and internalize: the place you used to pray will cry over you. That piece of earth and carpet will miss you and your worship. Your muṣḥaf (physical copy of the Qurʾān) will miss being read by you. The walls will miss hearing your duʿāʾ (supplication and prayers). Your phone will miss the kind words you would tell your family. Your sink will miss your wuḍūʾ (purificatory ablution). The transistors in the server farms that processed your donations will cry because you are no longer alive to donate!

Secret Generosity

There are a number of stories about ʿAlī ibn Al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (d. 94 AH - raḥimahu Allāh wa raḍiya ʿan abīh wa jaddih^{^[80]}) - the great-grandson of the Prophet Muḥammad ﷺ - and the people of Al-Madīnah. People used to think he was stingy. Separate from that, there were a number of households in Al-Madīnah that were very poor and could not afford food. But every morning, those poor households would find food outside of their house. That was a daily occurrence for years, yet they never knew who brought the food there. But when ʿAlī ibn Al-Ḥusayn (raḥimahu Allāh) passed away, the “daily delivery” of food on their doorstep stopped, and they realized it was him who used to drop off that food every night for years.^{^[81]}. It is said that he himself (raḥimahu Allāh) would carry bags of bread on his back to deliver, and that the morning he died, over a 100 homes did not have bread in the morning.^{^[82]} We can imagine those families crying. But what about the sand of Al-Madīnah, the walls of those homes, the moon that saw him, the sandals he walked in as he would walk at night, the clothes he wore, the mill he used, the oven he used... All crying over him because they no longer get to see and take part in his sincere charity (ṣadaqah). Raḥimahu Allāh.

وَمَا كَانُوا مُنْظَرِينَ “They were not given any extra time.”

Pharaoh and his army were not given any more time than what Allāh ﷻ had already allotted for them. There is no, “if only we had more time;” we only get what we are going to get. No injustice was done. No second chances. They were not given a second more - nor less - of life than they were predetermined to have, not even to make tawbah^{^[83]} (turning back to Allāh); they missed their chance. Rather, when the divinely decreed scheduled time of punishment and death came, it came.

اللهم فهمنا

ربنا زدنا علما

اللهم فقهنا في الدين وعلمنا التأويل

اللهم معلم آدم وإبراهيم ومحمد علمنا مما علمتهم

اللهم ارزقنا علما نافعا وحكمة بالغة

اللهم افتح علينا فتوح العارفين

يا فتاح يا عليم

اللهم صل وسلم على رسولك المصطفى الكريم

وعلى آله وصحبه أجمعين ومن تبعهم بإحسان إلى يوم الدين

اللهم اجعلنا منهم

Written primarily on the 22^nd of Ramaḍān 1445 AH.

Credits to Editors

May Allāh ﷻ reward those who helped write and edit this, including, but not limited to, Shaykhah Ayesha Syed Hussain.

Footnotes

Arabic for Moses. In Arabic: موسى ↑
Unicode for ṣallā Allāhu ʿalayhi wa sallāma, meaning: may Allāh (God) bless, honor, and preserve the legacy of Prophet Muḥammad (or whoever is mentioned, in this case, Prophet Moses) ↑
In Arabic: فِرْعَوْن ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-Dukhān 44:29 ↑
Unicode for jalla jalāluhu, meaning: His (God’s) Majesty is exalted and far above everything else ↑
In Arabic: مِصْر ↑
In Arabic: بنو إسرائيل ↑
In Arabic: عبد الله ↑
Arabic for Jacob. In Arabic: يعقوب ↑
Arabic for Canaan. In Arabic: كنعان ↑
Arabic for Joseph. In Arabic: يوسف ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Yūsuf #12, Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Ghāfir #40 ↑
In Arabic: أم موسى ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah ṬāHā #20, Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-Qaṣaṣ #28 ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-Qaṣaṣ #28 ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-Qaṣaṣ #28 ↑
In Arabic: مدين. It could, perhaps, be around the modern day city of Midian. ↑
In Arabic: أهل. But the intended meaning here is literally just his wife. ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah ṬāHā #20, Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-Qaṣaṣ #28 ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-Aʿrāf #7, Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-Isrāʾ #17, Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah ṬāHā #20, Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-Qaṣaṣ #28 ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-Aʿrāf 7:134 ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Yūnus 10:88 ↑
Another way to translate this would be, “You gave Pharaoh and his council wealth and luxuries in this life because of their evil and misguidance!” or “You gave Pharaoh and his council wealth and luxuries in this life, and so now they are away from Your Path!” See Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ Al-Bayān s. 10 a. 88 ↑
Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ Al-Bayān s. 10 a. 88 ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Yūnus 10:88 ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-Dukhān 44:23 ↑
In Arabic: دُعَاء ↑
In Arabic: أَسْرَى ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-Isrāʾ 17:1 ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah ṬāHā 22:77, Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-Shuʿarāʾ 26:52, Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-Dukhān 44:23 ↑
Arabic for “Dear God, respond to this prayer (duʿāʾ)!” ↑
I have a tiny feeling within myself that the use of laylan here is the Qurʾānic hint that the Biblical Passover is a fabricated story. For more information, see Shaykh Hamza Karamali’s “Exposing the Passover” (link: https://youtu.be/K2MhYqfWLCM?si=MkRTtNzn_EJ_uBNO). ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-Dukhān 44:23 ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-Shuʿarāʾ 26:52-68 ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-Shuʿarāʾ 26:52-66. The last two āyah’s were skipped here to proceed with additional details mentioned only in Sūrah Al-Dukhān (#44) ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-Shuʿarāʾ 26:63 ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-Shuʿarāʾ 26:63 ↑
In Arabic: يَبَس ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah ṬāHā 22:77 ↑
In Arabic: أَثر ↑
He is Qatādah ibn Diʿāmah Al-Baṣrī Al-Sadūsī (raḥimahu Allāh). He is from the greatest of scholars and teachers of his generation. He is a senior scholar in Tafsīr (Qurʾānic Exegesis) and Ḥadīth (Prophetic Narration). He was blind from birth. He is from Al-Ṭabaqah Al-Thālithah (the “3^rd generation”). For more, see: Al-Dhahabī, Siyar Aʿlām Al-Nubalāʾ v. 5 p. 269-283 ↑
Arabic for “May God have mercy and compassion on him” ↑
I, the author, have preferred to use the term “body of water” throughout the article since there is a discussion in regards to what baḥr (body of water) was split. The most common view is that it was the Red Sea. Some scholars - those who opine that Banū Isrāʾīl did re-enter Egypt shortly after this major event - believe it was the Nile River itself. ↑
Qatādah does not mention a source for this. Perhaps, and Allāh knows what is true, this could be a simplification, and it was his followers that had a feeling of worry and urgency, and they were making comments among themselves and/or to their Prophet Mūsā ﷺ to hit the body of water so that returns to the way it was. ↑
Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ Al-Bayān s. 44 a. 24 ↑
Qatādah probably got this from “Irāʾīliyyāt” (Judeaca) ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-Shuʿarāʾ 26:66 ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Yūnus 10:90 ↑
Al-Tirmidhī, Jāmiʿ: Kitāb Al-Daʿawāt #3537 ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-Zukhruf 43:41-42 ↑
Al-Bukhārī, Al-Adab Al-Mufrad: Bāb Duʿāʾ Al-Rajul ʿala man Ẓalamahu #649-650. Ḥadīth #650 has the following wording, “اللَّهُمَّ مَتِّعْنِي بِسَمْعِي وَبَصَرِي وَاجْعَلْهُمَا الْوَارِثَ مِنِّي وَانْصُرْنِي عَلَى عَدُوِّي وَأَرِنِي مِنْهُ ثَأْرِي‏” ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-Shuʿarāʾ 26:57-58 ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-Shuʿarāʾ 26:58 ↑
In Arabic: إرث (irth) or ميراث (mīrāth) ↑
Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ Al-Bayān s. 7 a. 137 ↑
I need to do more research, but something is unclear to me. I am not aware of Banū Isrāʾīl going back to Egypt. Rather, they were supposed to go to Al-Quds (Jerusalem), and enter The Holy Land (Al-Arḍ Al-Muqaddasah) as stated in Al-Qurʾān Sūrah Al-Māʾidah 5:21. So then, what is the reference to “We hand it over as inheritance”? Al-Ṭabarī explains that ِAl-Qurʾān Sūrah Al-Aʿrāf 7:137 refers to them getting Al-Quds (Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ Al-Bayān s. 7 a. 137). Siddiq Ḥasan Khan says that some people have said, “Banū Isrāʾīl never returned to Egypt, thus the heirs in this āyah are not Banū Isrāʾīl. But that is a really weak opinion.” (Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khan, Fatḥ Al-Bayān fī Maqāṣid Al-Qurʾān s. 44 a. 28) Allāh ﷻ knows best. — اللهم فقهنا في الدين وعلمنا التأويل! ↑
Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khan, Fatḥ Al-Bayān fī Maqāṣid Al-Qurʾān s. 44 a. 29 ↑
In Arabic: أهل السماء وأهل الأرض ↑
Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ Al-Bayān s. 44 a. 29 ↑
It should be noted that Al-Ṭabarī quotes these details from Ṣāḥābah (companions of the Prophet ﷺ) and Tābiʿūn (students of the ṣaḥābah), and thus there is little to no attribution to the Prophet ﷺ. ↑
In Arabic: بُكَاء ↑
In Arabic: باب ↑
In Arabic: عمل صالح ↑
In Arabic: رِزْق ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Fāṭir 35:10 ↑
In Arabic: ذِكْر ↑
the “try/want” is my explanation to piece the different explanations of the ṣaḥābah and tābiʿūn together into a single cohesive explanation ↑
In Arabic: يَصْعَد ↑
In Arabic: صَلاة ↑
In Arabic: يَرْفَع ↑
In Arabic: مَلَائِكَة ↑
Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ Al-Bayān s. 35 a. 10 ↑
Arabic phrase for, “May God be pleased with him.” Used primarily for the Ṣāḥābah (companions of the Prophet ﷺ). ↑
Plural of dhikr ↑
In Arabic: إليه ↑
In Arabic: عَرْش ↑
In Arabic: خزائن ↑
Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ Al-Bayān s. 35 a. 10 ↑
Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ Al-Bayān s. 44 a. 29 ↑
May God have mercy and compassion on him, and may God be pleased with his father (Al-Ḥusayn the son of Fāṭimah raḍiya Allāh ʿanhā the daughter of the Prophet Muḥammad ﷺ) and his grandfather (ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib) ↑
Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, Al-Zuhd: Zuhd ʿAlī ibn Al-Ḥusayn #928 p. 137 ↑
Ibn Al-Jawzī, Ṣifah Al-Ṣafwah v. 1 p. 355 ↑
In Arabic: تَوْبَة ↑

Sūrah Al-Dukhān (#44) Part 1: Laylah Al-Qadr

﷽

الحمد لله والصلاة والسلام على رسول الله

وعلى آله وصحبه أجمعين ومن تبعهم بإحسان إلى يوم الدين

اللهم اجعلنا منهم

Sūrah Al-Dukhān (#44) Part 1: Laylah Al-Qadr

حم (١) وَالْكِتَابِ الْمُبِينِ (٢) إِنَّا أَنزلْنَاهُ فِي لَيْلَةٍ مُبَارَكَةٍ إِنَّا كُنَّا مُنْذِرِينَ (٣) فِيهَا يُفْرَقُ كُلُّ أَمْرٍ حَكِيمٍ (٤) أَمْرًا مِنْ عِنْدِنَا إِنَّا كُنَّا مُرْسِلِينَ (٥) رَحْمَةً مِنْ رَبِّكَ إِنَّهُ هُوَ السَّمِيعُ الْعَلِيمُ (٦)

“Ḥā Mīm. I swear by the clear and clarifying book! No doubt We, yes We, revealed it on a blessed night filled with increasing goodness. (I/We swear that,) no doubt We, yes We, are a Warner! On that night, every planned, wise, and decided matter is clarified and dispatched as a command from Us. No doubt We, yes We, are a Sender of messengers. (The revealing of books and sending of messengers is) compassion from your Master. No doubt He, yes He, is Eternally Hearing, Eternally Knowing.”^{^[1]}

حم “Ḥā Mīm”

These are “ḥurūf muqaṭṭaʿah”^{^[2]} or “broken letters”, meaning that they are individual letters from the Arabic alphabet that do not make up a word. There is much that can be said, but simply put, it has the possibility of serving the following few goals (among others).

Firstly, it is an address to the Arabs of Makkah. You have known this man, Muḥammad, for 45 years now. You know he never got a formal education, and that he for sure does not know how to read or write. But here he is, quoting letters of the alphabet to you. You only know the alphabet if you learn formally. So that means he is getting an education. But that begs the questions: who is teaching him? The answer? The One True God, Allāh ﷻ^{^[3]} via The Archangel Jibrīl ﷺ^{^[4]} (Gabriel).

Secondly, do you Arabs not claim to be the apex race when it comes to language, composition, style, rhetoric, and depth of meaning? But here you are, stumped, duped, and dumbfounded by some letters?!

With both of those possible reasons in mind, a practical application is born. In The Qurʾān, these broken letters are just about always followed by a mention of The Qurʾān itself and its Greatness. However, there are a few “half” exceptions, such as:

In Sūrah Maryam (#19), Allāh ﷻ starts by saying, “‎كهيعص ذِكْرُ رَحْمَتِ رَبِّكَ عَبْدَهُ زَكَرِيَّا - Kāf. Hāʾ. Yāʾ. ʿAyn. Ṣād. This is a mention of the kindness (raḥmah) of your Master, Allāh, upon His slave Zachariah.”^{^[5]} Perhaps we can still consider this a mention of The Qurʾān since it is The Qurʾān that is doing the mentioning. The Prophet ﷺ has no other access to his story other than what Allāh ﷻ revealed to him in The Qurʾān.
In Sūrah Al-ʿAnkabūt (#29), Allāh ﷻ starts by saying, “الم أَحَسِبَ النَّاسُ أَنْ يُتْرَكُوا أَنْ يَقُولُوا آمَنَّا وَهُمْ لَا يُفْتَنُونَ - Alif. Lām. Mīm. Do people really think they can just say, ‘We believe,’ and as a result they will be left alone without being tested?”^{^[6]} Perhaps this can also work because a part of belief (āmannā) is belief in The Qurʾān.
In Sūrah Al-Rūm (#30), Allāh ﷻ starts by saying, “الم غُلِبَتِ الرُّومُ فِي أَدْنَى الْأَرْضِ وَهُمْ مِنْ بَعْدِ غَلَبِهِمْ سَيَغْلِبُونَ فِي بِضْعِ سِنِينَ - Alif. Lām. Mīm. The Byzantine Empire has suffered a major defeat in a neighboring region. However, in just a few years, The Byzantine Empire will have a decisive victory over the Sassanid Empire.”^{^[7]} Perhaps this also pans out because this prediction of the downfall of the Sassanid/Persian empire was a Divine Qurʾānic Prediction. The Byzantine Empire suffered a major loss, not only as stated by The Qurʾān, but also as witnessed by the Arabs. But The Qurʾān, with Divine Confidence, stated that within 3-9 years^{^[8]} the Byzantine Empire will come back as a victor. If this actually did happen - which it did - it will be a proof of the veracity of The Qurʾān.

وَالْكِتَابِ الْمُبِينِ “I swear by the clear and clarifying book!”

As discussed earlier, broken letters are followed by the mention of Qurʾān. That is exactly what happens here. Allāh swears by The Qurʾān: the clear and clarifying (mubīn^{^[9]}) book. This is an oath (qasam^{^[10]}) taken by Allāh ﷻ. After swearing by something, the point at hand (jawāb al-qasam) will be made. For example, if someone says, “I swear to God (wallāhi^{^[11]}) I did not eat that apple!” then their statement “I swear to God” is the qasam (the swear), and their statement “I did not eat that apple” is the jawāb al-qasam^{^[12]} (the point of the swear). When Allāh ﷻ says, “يس وَالْقُرْآنِ الْحَكِيمِ إِنَّكَ لَمِنَ الْمُرْسَلِينَ - Yā Sīn. I swear by the perfectly knit commanding book of wisdom (i.e., The Qurʾān) that you (O Prophet Muḥammad ﷺ) are from those who have been sent!”^{^[13]} then the statement of Allāh, “وَالْقُرْآنِ الْحَكِيمِ - I swear by the perfectly knit commanding book of wisdom” is the qasam, and “إِنَّكَ لَمِنَ الْمُرْسَلِينَ - you are from those who have been sent!” is the jawāb al-qasam. There is a very deep study of what Allāh ﷻ swears by depending on what point He is trying to make. May Allāh ﷻ open our hearts and minds to get even a taste of that. Āmīn!^{^[14]}

إِنَّا أَنزلْنَاهُ “No doubt We, yes We, revealed it”

The repetition within “We, yes We” comes from the fact that Allāh ﷻ stated the pronoun “We” twice in addition to a particle of emphasis (inna^{^[15]}). This is often lost in translation due the repetitive nature, but it detracts from the multiple layers and modes of emphasis utilized by Allāh ﷻ. The verb “anzala”^{^[16]} means to send something down from above. It is most often used with (a) revelation, and (b) rain. There is much that can be said, but to keep it short, just like Allāh ﷻ sends rain down from above to bring the dead earth back to life, He ﷻ sent The Qurʾān, which is revelation and guidance, down from above to bring the dead soulless human back to life and faith.

فِي لَيْلَةٍ مُبَارَكَةٍ “on a blessed night filled with increasing goodness.”

Allāh ﷻ continues and says that He sent it, meaning the clear and clarifying book (The Qurʾān) mentioned in the previous āyah on a “blessed night”.^{^[17]} The word “mubārakah”^{^[18]} means something that is divinely blessed, and has barakah placed inside of it by Allāh ﷻ.^{^[19]} We often translate barakah as “blessing”, and despite the mental connection made, we fail to understand what barakah and blessings truly are. The term barakah refers to an increase in good. We can understand it in this very simple example: one person can eat an entire pizza and not feel satisfied, whereas another person (of similar size and metabolism) can eat a couple slices and feel extremely satisfied. We are not focused on the quantity, rather the quality, as well as the ability for us to do or experience more with less via blessings and an increase in goodness from Allāh ﷻ.

The preposition used is technically “in” (fī^{^[20]}) but in English we say “on a certain night” as opposed to “in a certain night.” How this night is blessed and has an ever increasing amount of goodness is beyond our comprehension, but one possible way will be discussed shortly.

What Night is This?

Which night is this “blessed night”? There are two main opinions as quoted by Shaykh Al-Mufassirīn (Senior Exegete) Al-Imām Al-Ṭabarī (d. 310 AH - raḥimahuAllāh)^{^[21]}: (1) Laylah Al-Qadr^{^[22]} (The Night of “Al-Qadr”,^{^[23]} to be explained later) or (2) Laylah Al-Niṣf Min Shaʿbān^{^[24]} (i.e., the 15^th night of the 8^th Hijrī month named Shaʿbān^{^[25]}). He, as well as the vast majority of scholars^{^[26]} go with the former, that Laylah Al-Qadr is being referred to. This is because Laylah Al-Qadr is in Ramaḍān,^{^[27],^[28]} and without a doubt, some aspect of The Qurʾān’s revelation took place in Ramaḍān since Allāh ﷻ says, “شَهْرُ رَمَضَانَ الَّذِي أُنْزِلَ فِيهِ الْقُرْآنُ - Ramaḍān is the month in which The Qurʾān was revealed.”^{^[29]}

Three Aspects of Laylah Al-Qadr

Allāh ﷻ informs us of three aspects of Laylah Al-Qadr in Sūrah Al-Qadr (Sūrah #97):

“لَيْلَةُ الْقَدْرِ خَيْرٌ مِنْ أَلْفِ شَهْرٍ - It is better than 1000 months.”^{^[30]} This is a clear way it is mubārakah, with increased goodness.
“تَنزلُ الْمَلائِكَةُ وَالرُّوحُ فِيهَا بِإِذْنِ رَبِّهِمْ مِنْ كُلِّ أَمْرٍ - Jibrīl and the angels come down, with their Master’s permission, brining the decree of Allāh.”^{^[31]} This can also be an avenue of increased goodness due to the number of angels.
“سَلامٌ هِيَ حَتَّى مَطْلَعِ الْفَجْرِ - It is nothing but protective peace until Fajr.”^{^[32]} Which is yet another clear way of it being mubārakah, since there is extra “سَلامٌ - protective peace.”

إِنَّا كُنَّا مُنْذِرِينَ “(I/We swear that,) no doubt We, yes We, are a Warner!”

Again the repeated use of the pronoun “We” along with a particle of emphasis (inna) is used. Allāh ﷻ is emphasizing the point that He ﷻ is a warner (mundhirīn^{^[33]}), either in and of Himself, or via His sending of messengers or revealing of scripture. This has also been explained to mean, “We are instilling fear of our punishment.”^{^[34]} Warnings and ensuring things that need to be feared are feared are necessary for people to get their act together. This life is a test, and that must be conveyed to humanity. The consequences of this test, be it Heaven or Hell, must also be clarified. Thus the warning and instilling of fear is not just justified, but necessary, and even a manifestation of His Compassion (raḥmah^{^[35]}) as we will see in a couple āyāt.

The “(I/We swear)” at the beginning of the translation is there because it is most likely the reason the oath was taken on The Qurʾān earlier, meaning it is the jawāb al-qasam. However, others have said that the oath was taken to prove that the revelation took place on a blessed night, even though the qasam is usually not on or by the thing being proven in the jawāb al-qasam (i.e., Allāh swearing by The Qurʾān that He revealed The Qurʾān).^{^[36]}

فِيهَا يُفْرَقُ كُلُّ أَمْرٍ حَكِيمٍ أَمْرًا مِنْ عِنْدِنَا “On that night, every planned, wise, and decided matter is clarified and dispatched as a command from Us.”

We have seen from above that the blessed night being discussed is Laylah Al-Qadr - The Night of Al-Qadr. Let us now define and discuss the word “qadr” and its possible meanings.

Four Meanings of “Qadr”

Taqdīr & Qadar: Decree, Ordain, Decide
1. “ذَلِكَ تَقْدِيرُ الْعَزِيزِ الْعَلِيمِ - That is the set defined decree of (Allāh) The All Respected Authority, All Knowing.”^{^[37]}
2. “وَخَلَقَ كُلَّ شَيْءٍ فَقَدَّرَهُ تَقْدِيرًا - He (Allāh) created everything, and precisely defined their details.”^{^[38]}
3. “وَكَانَ أَمْرُ اللَّهِ قَدَرًا مَقْدُورًا - Every decision and command of Allāh is a decided decree that will truly happen.”^{^[39]}
4. “إِنَّا كُلَّ شَيْءٍ خَلَقْنَاهُ بِقَدَرٍ - Without a doubt, We (Allāh) have created everything with decided details.”^{^[40]}
Qudrah: Power, Might, Ability
1. “إِنَّ اللَّهَ عَلَى كُلِّ شَيْءٍ قَدِيرٌ - Without a doubt, Allāh is is fully able, capable, and has the power over every single thing.”^{^[41]}
Qadar & Qadr: Amount, Value, Worth
1. “عَلَى الْمُوسِعِ قَدَرُهُ وَعَلَى الْمُقْتِرِ قَدَرُهُ - Upon divorce, wealthy husbands are financially responsible to give a ‘departing gift’ to their ex-wife according to their fiscal ability, and less-well-off husbands are financially responsible to give a ‘departing gift’ to their ex-wife according to their fiscal ability.”^{^[42]}
2. “قَدْ جَعَلَ اللَّهُ لِكُلِّ شَيْءٍ قَدْرًا - Allāh has set specific durations of the post-divorce waiting period (ʿiddah) for various scenarios of divorce.”^{^[43]}
3. “وَمَا قَدَرُوا اللَّهَ حَقَّ قَدْرِهِ - They (humanity and/or disbelievers) have not valued Allāh to His True Infinite Worth.”^{^[44]}
Qabḍ: Tighten, Constrict, Limit
1. “فَقَدَرَ عَلَيْهِ رِزْقَهُ - So then Allāh limited and restricted his provisions...”^{^[45]}
2. “وَمَنْ قُدِرَ عَلَيْهِ رِزْقُهُ - As for the one whose wealth is limited...”^{^[46]}

With that in mind, we see how the āyah in question from Sūrah Al-Dukhān, “فِيهَا يُفْرَقُ كُلُّ أَمْرٍ حَكِيمٍ أَمْرًا مِنْ عِنْدِنَا - On that night, every planned, wise, and decided matter is clarified and dispatched as a command from Us” falls perfectly in line with the first meaning of qadr which is decree.

Four Meanings of “Ḥakīm”

Next we can examine “ḥakīm”,^{^[47]} often translated as “wise”. That is a correct translation depending on the context. Here, ḥakīm is being used as muḥkam,^{^[48]} which means planned and decided.^{^[49]} Muḥkam stems from the verb iḥkām^{^[50]} which means to perfect something. It is also related to hukm which means verdict. So we can actually piece all four meanings together:^{^[51]}

Decreed and Decided: Muḥkam
Perfectly Planned: Muḥkam
Executed Verdict: Ḥukm
Wise: Ḥikmah

Divine Decree from Allāh

The decree that is “yufraq”^{^[52]} - meaning “carried out” or “dispatched” - is a perfectly planned, decreed, and wise command from Allāh ﷻ and Allāh ﷻ alone. As Allāh ﷻ says, “أَمْرًا مِنْ عِنْدِنَا - as a command from Us.” Everything He ﷻ does is like that. But on this night, His Decree is “yufraq”, meaning “handed off” or “dispatched” to the angels for the coming year.^{^[53]} We know that these decrees are sent to the angels because Allāh ﷻ says, “تَنزلُ الْمَلائِكَةُ وَالرُّوحُ فِيهَا بِإِذْنِ رَبِّهِمْ مِنْ كُلِّ أَمْرٍ - Jibrīl and the angels come down with the decree of Allāh.”^{^[54]} Despite the angels’ involvement and their coming down, it is not their decision, choice, or plan; it is a command (amr^{^[55]}) from Allāh ﷻ alone, and via His Permission (idhn^{^[56]}).

إِنَّا كُنَّا مُرْسِلِينَ رَحْمَةً مِنْ رَبِّكَ “No doubt We, yes We, are a Sender of messengers. (The revealing of books and sending of messengers is) compassion from your Master.”

Again, the repeated use of the pronoun “We” along with a particle of emphasis (inna) is used. Allāh ﷻ is emphasizing the point that He ﷻ is the sender of messengers (mursilīn^{^[57]}). He ﷻ is a warner (mundhirīn), as mentioned before, either in and of Himself, or via His sending of messengers. He ﷻ highlights that again. Also, Allāh ﷻ does not just send human messengers (i.e., prophets [nabiyy^{^[58]}] and messengers [rasūl^{^[59]}]) but also angels (who are also referred to as “sent” beings). Both of these meanings work because revelations were sent to a human prophet to teach and convey. Those revelations were conveyed to their respective human prophets via the angel-messenger Jibrīl (Gabriel). Additionally, in this co-context of decree and Laylah Al-Qadr, Allāh ﷻ has sent angels to carry out His Decree. All of this: the revealing of books, sending of angel-messengers, sending of human-messengers, giving of warnings, instilling of fear, and His Decree are all an act of His Compassion (raḥmah), a show of His kindness and gentleness. That is because, without all of this, humanity would not be aware, with certainty, that a life after death exists, wherein judgment will determine one’s fate of Heaven (Jannah^{^[60]}) or Hell (Jahannam^{^[61]}).

إِنَّهُ هُوَ السَّمِيعُ الْعَلِيمُ “No doubt He, yes He, is Eternally Hearing, Eternally Knowing.”

Allāh ﷻ ends this introduction by reminding us that He is Al-Samī^{^[62]}: He has, does, and always will hear absolutely everything. He is also Al-ʿAlīm^{^[63]}: He has, does, and always will know absolutely everything. There is nothing that goes on in existence except that He ﷻ is completely aware of all of the details. He sees every single thing, and He ﷻ knows every single thing. This serves not only as a reminder to humanity of Allāh ﷻ’s infinite perfection, but also ties in to Allāh ﷻ’s warnings and His kindness and compassion (raḥmah). We humans should strive to obey Allāh ﷻ in hopes of earning His kindness, because we know that He ﷻ sees everything we do. Just like that, we should strive to avoid His disobedience in hopes of saving ourselves from His punishment, because we know that He sees everything we do.

اللهم فهمنا

ربنا زدنا علما

اللهم فقهنا في الدين وعلمنا التأويل

اللهم معلم آدم وإبراهيم ومحمد علمنا مما علمتهم

اللهم ارزقنا علما نافعا وحكمة بالغة

اللهم افتح علينا فتوح العارفين

يا فتاح يا عليم

اللهم صل وسلم على رسولك المصطفى الكريم

وعلى آله وصحبه أجمعين ومن تبعهم بإحسان إلى يوم الدين

اللهم اجعلنا منهم

Written primarily on the 21^st of Ramaḍān 1445 AH.

Credits to Editors

May Allāh ﷻ reward those who helped write and edit this, including, but not limited to, Shaykhah Ayesha Syed Hussain, and Munir Eltal^{^[64]}.

Footnotes

Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-Dukhān 44:1-6 ↑
In Arabic: حُرُوف مقطَّعةٌ ↑
Unicode for jalla jalāluhu, meaning: His (God’s) Majesty is exalted and far above everything else ↑
Unicode for ṣallā Allāhu ʿalayhi wa sallāma, meaning: may Allāh (God) bless, honor, and preserve the legacy of Prophet Muḥammad (or whoever is mentioned) ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Maryam 19:1-2 ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-ʿAnkabūt 29:1-2 ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-Rūm 30:1-3 ↑
Meaning, within 3-9 years of the revelation of this verse, not necessarily between the major loss and major victory. ↑
In Arabic: مُبِين ↑
In Arabic: الْقَسَم ↑
In Arabic: وَاللهِ ↑
In Arabic: جَوَابُ الْقَسَم ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah YāSīn 36:2-3 ↑
Arabic phrase for, “O Allāh, respond to this prayer!” ↑
In Arabic: إِنَّ ↑
In Arabic: أَنْزَلَ ↑
In Arabic: لَيْلَة مُبَارَكَة ↑
In Arabic: مُبَارَكَة ↑
Al-Rāghib Al-Aṣfahānī, Mufradād Alfāẓ Al-Qurʾān: برك ↑
In Arabic: في ↑
Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ Al-Bayān s. 44 a. 2 ↑
In Arabic: ليلة القدر ↑
In Arabic: الْقَدْر ↑
In Arabic: لَيْلَة النِّصْفِ مِن شَعْبَان ↑
In Arabic: شَعْبَان ↑
Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ Al-Bayān s. 44 a. 2, Ibn Al-Jawzī, Zād Al-Masīr s. 44 a. 2, Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khan, Fatḥ Al-Bayān fī Maqāṣid Al-Qurʾān s. 44 a. 2 ↑
In Arabic: رَمَضَان ↑
Despite some disagreement beyond the scope of this article ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-Baqarah 2:185 ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-Qadr 97:3 ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-Qadr 97:4 ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-Qadr 97:5 ↑
In Arabic: مُنذِرِینَ ↑
Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ Al-Bayān s. 44 a. 3, Ibn Al-Jawzī, Zād Al-Masīr s. 44 a. 3, Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khan, Fatḥ Al-Bayān fī Maqāṣid Al-Qurʾān s. 44 a. 3 ↑
In Arabic: رَحْمَة ↑
Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khan, Fatḥ Al-Bayān fī Maqāṣid Al-Qurʾān s. 44 a. 3 ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-Anʿām 6:96, Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah YāSīn 36:38, Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Fuṣṣilat 41:12 ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-Furqān 25:2 ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-Aḥzāb 33:38 ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-Qamar 54:49 ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-Baqarah 2:20, Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-Baqarah 2:109, Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-Baqarah 2:148, Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Āl ʿImrān 3:165, Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-Naḥl 17:77, Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-Nūr 24:45, Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-ʿAnkabūt 29:20, Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Fāṭir 35:1 ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-Baqarah 2:236 ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-Ṭalāq 65:3 ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-Anʿām 6:91 ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-Fajr 89:16 ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-Ṭalāq 65:7 ↑
In Arabic: حَكِیم ↑
In Arabic: مُحْكَم ↑
Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ Al-Bayān s. 44 a. 3, Ibn Al-Jawzī, Zād Al-Masīr s. 44 a. 3, Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khan, Fatḥ Al-Bayān fī Maqāṣid Al-Qurʾān s. 44 a. 3 ↑
In Arabic: إِحْكَام ↑
Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khan, Fatḥ Al-Bayān fī Maqāṣid Al-Qurʾān s. 44 a. 3 ↑
In Arabic: يُفْرَق ↑
Al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ Al-Bayān s. 44 a. 3, Ibn Al-Jawzī, Zād Al-Masīr s. 44 a. 3, Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khan, Fatḥ Al-Bayān fī Maqāṣid Al-Qurʾān s. 44 a. 3 ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-Qadr 97:4 ↑
In Arabic: أَمْر ↑
In Arabic: إِذْن ↑
In Arabic: مُرۡسِلِینَ ↑
In Arabic: نَبِيّ ↑
In Arabic: رَسُوْل ↑
In Arabic: جَنَّة ↑
In Arabic: جَهَنَّم ↑
In Arabic: السَّمِيع ↑
In Arabic: الْعَلِيم ↑
Check out his work at: https://heavenlyorder.substack.com/ ↑

O Allāh! Save us from Hell!

﷽

الحمد لله والصلاة والسلام على رسول الله

وعلى آله وصحبه أجمعين ومن تبعهم بإحسان إلى يوم الدين

اللهم اجعلنا منهم

O Allāh! Save us from Hell!

A common duʿāʾ (prayer and supplication) that is made and heard in Ramaḍān is, “اَللَّهُمَّ أَعْتِقْ رِقَابَنَا مِنَ النَّارِ - O Allāh! Free our necks from the fire!” It has been one my top 3 duʿāʾ this Ramaḍān.^{^[1]} May Allāh accept this prayer (duʿāʾ) from us! Although the wording of this prayer is not one that the Prophet ﷺ^{^[2]} explicitly taught, it stems from numerous related prayers Allāh ﷻ^{^[3]} and the Prophet ﷺ did teach us about seeking protection from The Fire/Hell.

First, in The Qurʾān, Allāh ﷻ repeatedly quotes the duʿāʾ of believers, and many of them explicitly include a mention of asking Allāh ﷻ to protect them from the punishment of Hell, “قِنَا عَذَابَ النَّارِ - (Our Master!) Protect us from the punishment of Hell!”^{^[4]} Allāh ﷻ also quotes the Angels making a similar duʿāʾ for the believers, “قِهِمْ عَذَابَ الْجَحِيمِ - Our Master! Protect them (the believers) from the punishment of the raging fire (of Hell)!”^{^[5]}

Second, the Prophet ﷺ prayed for refuge and protection from Hell in his daily adʿiyah^{^[6]}. He ﷺ would regularly say as he got ready to sleep, placing his right hand under his right cheek, “اللَّهُمَّ قِنِي عَذَابَكَ يَوْمَ تَجْمَعُ عِبَادَكَ - O Allāh! Protect me from Your Punishment on the day You resurrect Your servants (meaning the day of judgment).”^{^[7]} He ﷺ would make a similar prayer every morning and evening, “اللَّهُمَّ إِنِّي أَعُوذُ بِكَ مِنْ عَذَابٍ فِي النَّارِ - O Allāh! I take refuge with You from the punishment of Hell!”^{^[8]} He ﷺ also taught others to make similar duʿāʾ, “وَلَوْ كُنْتِ سَأَلْتِ اللَّهَ أَنْ يُعِيذَكِ مِنْ عَذَابٍ فِي النَّارِ أَوْ عَذَابٍ فِي الْقَبْرِ كَانَ خَيْرًا وَأَفْضَلَ - If you ask Allāh to protect you from the punishment of Hell and the punishment of the grave, that would be better.”^{^[9]} Also from a daily routine mindset, we see in a weak narration that the Prophet ﷺ said, “إِذَا صَلَّيْتَ الصُّبْحَ فَقُلْ قَبْلَ أَنْ تَتَكَلَّمَ اللهُمَّ أَجِرْنِي مِنَ النَّارِ سَبْعَ مَرَّاتٍ فَإِنَّكَ إنْ مُتَّ مِنْ يَوْمِكَ ذَلِكَ كَتَبَ اللهُ لَكَ جِوَارًا مِنَ النَّارِ فَإِذَا صَلَّيْتَ الْمَغْرِبَ فَقُلْ قَبْلَ أَنْ تَتَكَلَّمَ اللهُمَّ أَجِرْنِي مِنَ النَّارِ سَبْعَ مَرَّاتٍ فَإِنَّكَ إنْ مُتَّ مِنْ لَيْلَتِكَ كَتَبَ اللهُ لَكَ جِوَارًا مِنَ النَّارِ - When you are done praying Fajr, say the following seven times before speaking to anyone, ‘O Allāh! Save me from The Fire!’ If you happen to die that day, Allāh will mandate your protection from The Fire. And similarly, when you are done praying Maghrib, say the following seven times before speaking to anyone, ‘O Allāh! Save me from The Fire!’ If you happen to die that night, Allāh will mandate your protection from The Fire.”^{^[10]} In another narration, the Prophet ﷺ said, “مَنْ سَأَلَ اللَّهَ الْجَنَّةَ ثَلاَثَ مَرَّاتٍ قَالَتِ الْجَنَّةُ اللَّهُمَّ أَدْخِلْهُ الْجَنَّةَ وَمَنِ اسْتَجَارَ مِنَ النَّارِ ثَلاَثَ مَرَّاتٍ قَالَتِ النَّارُ اللَّهُمَّ أَجِرْهُ مِنَ النَّارِ - If someone asks Allāh for Jannah (Heaven) 3 times, Jannah will say, ‘O Allāh, enter this person into Jannah!’ If someone asks Allāh to save them from Hell 3 times, Hell will say, ‘O Allāh, save this person from Hell!’”^{^[11]}

Third, and specific to Ramaḍān, the Prophet ﷺ said, “إِذَا جَاءَ رَمَضَانُ فُتِّحَتْ أَبْوَابُ الْجَنَّةِ وَغُلِّقَتْ أَبْوَابُ النَّارِ وَصُفِّدَتِ الشَّيَاطِينُ - When Ramaḍān arrives, the gates of Heaven are wide open, the gates of Hell are locked shut, and the devils and evil spirits are chained.”^{^[12]} In a weaker version, he ﷺ is said to have added on, “وَيُنَادِي مُنَادٍ يَا بَاغِيَ الْخَيْرِ أَقْبِلْ وَيَا بَاغِيَ الشَّرِّ أَقْصِرْ - And a caller^{^[13]} will announce: ‘O Seeker of good, Come! O Seeker of bad, stop and cut it out!’”^{^[14]} And in another weak version, the Prophet Muḥammad ﷺ is narrated to have concluded by saying, “وَلِلَّهِ عُتَقَاءُ مِنَ النَّارِ وَذَلِكَ كُلَّ لَيْلَةٍ - Allāh frees people from the Fire (i.e, Allāh grants people salvation from Hell because of their efforts in Ramaḍān). That happens every single night of Ramaḍān.”^{^[15]} When we put all of these together — that is, Allāh saving people from Hell in Ramaḍān and a daily litany of seeking protection from The Fire — it is clear why a believer would be constant in saying this prayer of, “اَللَّهُمَّ أَعْتِقْ رِقَابَنَا مِنَ النَّارِ - O Allāh! Free our necks from the fire!”

This month - Ramaḍān - is such a blessed month. These last 10 nights are such special nights. These odd nights from the last 10 nights are such wondrous nights. These are nights that, if utilized properly, can be the means of our freedom, salvation, protection, and distancing from Hell! What more can we ask for in these last few nights? What more can we hope for? If we have been freed from Hell, the only other place for us to go is Heaven - Jannah. Which one of us does not want to go to Heaven? The Prophet ﷺ himself implicitly taught this. When his wife — our mother — ʿĀʾishah (raḍiya Allāh ʿanhā^{^[16]}) asked him what she should say if she thinks it is Laylah Al-Qadr^{^[17]}, he ﷺ replied, “قُولِي اللَّهُمَّ إِنَّكَ عَفُوٌّ تُحِبُّ الْعَفْوَ فَاعْفُ عَنِّي - Say, ‘O Allāh! You are The Forgiver. You love to forgive. So please forgive me!’”^{^[18]} Being forgiven, and having our sins totally erased and wiped away is the required step to not enter Hell, thus, allowing us to enter Jannah through Allāh ﷻ’s Grace. So we can imagine that our prayer of, “O Allāh! Free our necks from The Fire!” is essentially saying, “O Allāh! Free our necks from The Fire by forgiving us and accepting our good deeds!”

That ḥadīth of our mother, ʿĀʾishah (raḍiya Allāh ʿanhā), clearly highlights the importance of duʿāʾ in the last 10 nights. We often (rightfully) focus on the recitation (tilāwah) of Qurʾān, night prayer (tarāwīḥ or qiyām al-layl or tahajjud), and charity (ṣadaqah) in these nights, but we need to teach ourselves to pause from the “actions” and focus on “simply” coming to Allāh ﷻ and begging Him. Yes, duʿāʾ itself is such a great action of worship (ʿibādah). So great actually that Allāh ﷻ used duʿāʾ and ʿibādah interchangeably when He ﷻ said, “وَقَالَ رَبُّكُمُ ادْعُونِي أَسْتَجِبْ لَكُمْ إِنَّ الَّذِينَ يَسْتَكْبِرُونَ عَنْ عِبَادَتِي سَيَدْخُلُونَ جَهَنَّمَ دَاخِرِينَ - Your Master said, ‘supplicate to Me (duʿāʾ) and I will respond to you. Without a doubt, those who are too arrogant to worship and enslave (ʿibādah) themselves to Me will soon enter Hell in a humiliated manner.’”^{^[19]} Expanding on that, the Prophet ﷺ said, “الدُّعَاءُ هُوَ الْعِبَادَةُ - Supplication (duʿāʾ) is worship (ʿibādah)”, after which he ﷺ recited the āyah above.^{^[20]} In a weaker version, the Prophet ﷺ also said, “الدُّعَاءُ مُخُّ الْعِبَادَةِ - Supplication (duʿāʾ) is the core and essence of worship (ʿibādah).”^{^[21]} But not only that, Allāh ﷻ mentioned an entire āyah about supplication (duʿāʾ) in the section of Ramaḍān in The Qurʾān.^{^[22]} There are only five āyāt in the section, Sūrah Al-Baqarah 2:183-187, and right in the middle of that discussion, Allāh ﷻ brings up duʿāʾ. He ﷻ says, “وَإِذَا سَأَلَكَ عِبَادِی عَنِّی فَإِنِّی قَرِیبٌ أُجِیبُ دَعۡوَةَ ٱلدَّاعِ إِذَا دَعَانِ فَلۡیَسۡتَجِیبُوا۟ لِی وَلۡیُؤۡمِنُوا۟ بِی لَعَلَّهُمۡ یَرۡشُدُونَ - When My slaves ask you (O Prophet Muḥammad) about Me, I am near. I respond to the call of the caller when they call. So they should respond to me (by trying to obey Me) and believe in Me so that they can find clarity and guidance.”^{^[23]} This is mentioned right after Allāh talks about Ramaḍān being the month in which The Qurʾān was revealed, fasting for the entire month, and making up missed days due to illness or travel. And it is right before Allāh teaches us the rules of fasting and spiritual retreat (iʿtikāf). Subḥān-Allāh - How far beyond perfection is Allāh! It is as if, no it actually is, something He ﷻ put in the middle of that discussion: supplication (duʿāʾ) must be the central core of Ramaḍān and fasting. There is also a huge emphasis placed on making duʿāʾ before opening the fast.^{^[24]} There is a huge emphasis placed on praying Witr in congregation (jamāʿah)^{^[25]} which includes an entire portion dedicated to making duʿāʾ to Allāh (qunūt). We are encouraged to engage in worship the entire night, and the last third of the night as a bare minimum, begging Allāh in duʿāʾ.^{^[26]}

As Ramaḍān comes to a close, we may feel sad. Some of us are on track to complete the goals we set out at the start of the month. Others among us realize we will fall short. But regardless of which group we fall into, we are all going to miss the blessings and sweetness of this month. And so we should ask ourselves, what can I put my full energy and focus into? What do I have to accomplish before Ramaḍān ends? What is on my “bucket list”? The greatest thing we can achieve is being freed from Hell and entering Heaven. So let us all have that goal in mind. Although we will not know if we actually got that until the Hereafter, let us work for it like we have never worked for anything in our entire life. Every goal in life is finite. The success of salvation from Hell is eternal. Your future self will undoubtedly thank you.

With every āyah of Qurʾān you read, beg Allāh, “save me from Hell!”
With every penny you donate, beg Allāh, “save me from Hell!”
With every fast you open, beg Allāh, “save me from Hell!”
With every prayer (ṣalāh) you pray, beg Allāh, “save me from Hell!”
With every sin you commit, beg Allāh, “save me from Hell!”
With every smile you show to a fellow Muslim, beg Allāh, “save me from Hell!”
With every date you give to your family and friends, beg Allāh, “save me from Hell!”
With every hour spent at work providing for your family, beg Allāh, “save me from Hell!”
With every moment spent taking care of your children or parents, beg Allāh, “save me from Hell!”
With every sin you avoid, beg Allāh, “save me from Hell!”
With every nap you take, beg Allāh, “save me from Hell!”
With every pro-justice and anti-oppression post, like, share, and/or comment you make, beg Allāh, “save me from Hell!”
With every single good thing you do, beg Allāh, “save me from Hell!”

Explanation of Words

اَللَّهُمَّ - O Allāh!

This phrase means, “يا الله - O Allāh!” It is of the many ways we address our God, Allāh. We are calling out to Him, speaking to Him, and in this context, begging Him.

أَعْتِقْ - Free

This verb aʿtaqa refers to freeing a slave. As a rule of thumb, whenever “slavery” is mentioned in Qurʾān, Aḥādīth, and other Islamic works, be sure to divorce that concept from the unimaginable levels of white supremacy, oppression, and evil associated to Western European Slavery, and especially American Slavery.^{^[27]} If a slave is owned by so-and-so, the act of removing that slave from slavehood and from the possession of so-and-so is through iʿtāq - our word in question. It is to no longer be subject to those circumstances of slavehood and to be free from bondage. We as Muslims are no doubt the slaves of Allāh. Whether we like it or not, He is our Master, and we are His slaves. The best human beings are those wear their slavehood to Allāh ﷻ as a badge of honor and dignity. Thus, we never ask (nor is it even possible) for someone to ask to be “free from Allāh”. But, Hell is the worst possible place imaginable, and we do not want to be chained and shackled in Hell. Allāh often describes the people of Hell as captives and prisoners (mujrim) in shackles undergoing punishment.^{^[28]} Our hope is to have nothing to do with Hell, punishment, or any kind of captivity in the Hereafter.

رِقَابَنَا - Necks

This is the plural of raqabah, meaning neck. This is a term often used to refer to an entire human being, specifically a slave. That is because it is common in Arabic to refer to a whole by a part. For example, in English we say, “your face” but we actually intend “your entire being”. So “neck” refers to an “entire individual”, and is then used for someone whose neck is owned via slavery. Within the Qurʾān, Allāh always uses the term raqabah when referring to slaves that are supposed to be freed.^{^[29]} This is in contrast to the word unuq (pl. aʿnāq) which also means neck, but has a connotation of punishment and evil.^{^[30]} We can imagine someone taking full control over us if they have control over our necks. It is a human weak point. We do not want to ever have shackles around our necks, let alone in Hell. And we also do not want our necks, let alone our entire bodies in Hell.

مِنَ النَّارِ - from The Fire

The name Al-Nār literally means “the fire”, but refers to Hell. Its heat, terrors, and blazing flames are things we want nothing to do with. We want absolutely nothing to do with Hell. We do not want to be in it, be close to it, smell it, feel it, or even see it. May Allāh ﷻ save us from it completely, always and forever, āmīn.

As the days and nights of Ramaḍān 1445, have a mindset of, “O Allāh! I want to be free from Hell!” and proceed to live such a life.

Side Points

One of the judges of Makkah from the tabʿ al-tābiʿīn^{^[31]}, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Al-Raḥmān (raḥimahu Allāh^{^[32]}) was known to have a very short neck. One day, he was making the said duʿāʾ^{^[33]}, when a woman passed by him and jokingly remarked, “Hah, what neck?”^{^[34]} I mention this to highlight that this prayer - despite not having been taught by the Prophet ﷺ - was still said by the scholars of the earliest and best generations. Also, there are some people who think it is not appropriate to use this duʿāʾ since they assume it implies that we are already in Hell. This is an incorrect assumption, and multiple reasons for saying this duʿāʾ have been mentioned earlier.^{^[35]}

اللهم فهمنا

ربنا زدنا علما

اللهم فقهنا في الدين وعلمنا التأويل

اللهم معلم آدم وإبراهيم ومحمد علمنا مما علمتهم

اللهم ارزقنا علما نافعا وحكمة بالغة

اللهم افتح علينا فتوح العارفين

يا فتاح يا عليم

اللهم صل وسلم على رسولك المصطفى الكريم

وعلى آله وصحبه أجمعين ومن تبعهم بإحسان إلى يوم الدين

اللهم اجعلنا منهم

Written primarily on the 26^th of Ramaḍān 1445 AH.

Credits to Editors

May Allāh ﷻ reward those who helped write and edit this, including, but not limited to, Shaykhah Ayesha Syed Hussain.

Footnotes

Ramaḍān 1445 AH / 2024 CE ↑
Unicode for ṣallā Allāhu ʿalayhi wa sallāma, meaning: may Allāh (God) bless, honor, and preserve the legacy of Prophet Muḥammad (or whoever is mentioned) ↑
Unicode for jalla jalāluhu, meaning: His (God’s) Majesty is exalted and far above everything else ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-Baqarah 2:201, Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Āl ʿImrān 3:16, Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Āl ʿImrān 3:191 ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Ghāfir 40:7 ↑
Plural of duʿāʾ ↑
Al-Tirmidhī, Jāmiʿ: K. Al-Daʿwāt B. Minh #3398 (قَالَ هَذَا حَدِيثٌ حَسَنٌ صَحِيحٌ), Al-Bukhārī, Al-Adab Al-Mufrad: B. Yaḍaʿu Yadah Taḥta Khaddih #1215, Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ: #709 (same wording, but in this narration, the Prophet ﷺ said this after ṣalāh) ↑
Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ: #2723, Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ K. Al-Daʿawāt B. Al-Istiʿādhah min Fitnah Al-Ghinā #6376 (this narration does not mention morning or evening, but just says the Prophet ﷺ would often say this prayer which a slightly different wording, “اللَّهُمَّ إِنِّي أَعُوذُ بِكَ مِنْ فِتْنَةِ النَّارِ وَمِنْ عَذَابِ النَّارِ - O Allāh! I take refuge with You from the tests of Hell and the punishment of Hell!” ↑
Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ: #2663 (this also contains the back story) ↑
Al-Nasāʾī, Al-Sunan Al-Kubrā: K. ʿAmal Al-Yawm wa Al-Laylah B. Thawāb man istajāra min Al-Nār Sabʿ Marrāt baʿd Ṣalāh Al-Ṣubḥ Qabl an Yatakallam #9859, Al-Ṭabarānī, Al-Muʿjam Al-Kabīr: B. Al-Mīm: Muslim ibn Al-Ḥārith ibn Badal Al-Taymiyy #1052, Ibn Abī ʿĀṣim, Al-Āḥād wa Al-Thānī: Al-Rijāl Al-Ḥārith ibn Muslim Al-Taymiyy #1212. There is a slightly different wording found in: Abū Dāwūd, Sunan: K. Al-Adab B. Mā Yaqūl idhā Aṣbaḥ #5079. These narrations also contain some weaknesses. ↑
Al-Nasāʾī, Al-Sunan: K. Al-Istiʿādhah B. Al-Istiʿādhah min Ḥarr Al-Nār #5521. Other versions: Ibn Mājah, Al-Sunan: K. Al-Zuhr B. Ṣifah Al-Jannah #4340, Al-Ṭabarānī, Al-Duʿāʾ: Bāb Suʾāl Al-Jannah fī Al-Duʿāʾ #1310-2. Other version that mentions 7 times instead of 3 times: Al-Ṭayālisī, Musnad: Wa Mā Asnadah Abū Hurayrah: Abū ʿAlqamah #2702 ↑
Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ #1079. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ K. Al-Ṣawm B. Hal Yuqāl Ramaḍān aw Shahr Ramaḍān ... #1898-9 (with the wording “إِذَا دَخَلَ شَهْرُ رَمَضَانَ ... وَسُلْسِلَتِ الشَّيَاطِينُ”). Muslim also brings another narration with the wording “وَسُلْسِلَتِ الشَّيَاطِينُ” ↑
Most likely an Angel (Malak) ↑
Al-Tirmidhī, Jāmiʿ K. Al-Ṣawm ʿan Rasūl Allāh ﷺ B. Mā Jāʾa fī Faḍl Shahr Ramaḍān “حَدِيثٌ غَرِيبٌ لاَ نَعْرِفُهُ ... إِلاَّ مِنْ حَدِيثِ أَبِي بَكْرٍ”, Al-Nasāʾī, Sunan K. Al-Ṣiyām B. Dhikr Al-Ikhtilāf ʿalā Maʿmar fīh “قَالَ أَبُو عَبْدِ الرَّحْمَنِ هَذَا خَطَأٌ”, Ibn Mājah, Sunan K. Al-Ṣiyām B. Mā Jāʾa fī Faḍl Shahr Ramaḍān ↑
Al-Tirmidhī, Jāmiʿ K. Al-Ṣawm ʿan Rasūl Allāh ﷺ B. Mā Jāʾa fī Faḍl Shahr Ramaḍān “حَدِيثٌ غَرِيبٌ لاَ نَعْرِفُهُ ... إِلاَّ مِنْ حَدِيثِ أَبِي بَكْرٍ”, Ibn Mājah, Sunan K. Al-Ṣiyām B. Mā Jāʾa fī Faḍl Shahr Ramaḍān ↑
Arabic phrase for, “May God be pleased with them.” Used primarily for the Ṣāḥābah (companions of the Prophet ﷺ). ↑
Night of Decree and Value. For more information see: https://iokchess.com/journal/seminary/surah-dukhan-part-1. ↑
Al-Tirmidhī, Jāmiʿ: K. Al-Daʿawāt ʿan Rasūl Allāh ﷺ Bāb #3513 (قَالَ هَذَا حَدِيثٌ حَسَنٌ صَحِيحٌ). Very minor differences in wording are found in: Al-Nasāʾī, Al-Sunan Al-Kubrā: K. ʿAmal Al-Yawm wa Al-Laylah B. Mā Yaqūl idhā Wāfaqa Laylah Al-Qadr #10642-5, Ibn Mājah, Sunan: K. Al-Duʿāʾ B. Al-Duʿāʾ bi Al-ʿAfw wa Al-ʿĀfiyah #3850. ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Ghāfir 40:60 ↑
Al-Bukhārī, Al-Adab Al-Mufrad: K. Al-Duʿāʾ B. Faḍl Al-Duʿāʾ #714, Al-Tirmidhī, Jāmiʿ: K. Al-Daʿawāt ʿan Rasūl Allāh ﷺ B. Minh #3372, and Jāmiʿ: K. Tafsīr Al-Qurʾān ʿan Rasūl Allāh ﷺ B. wa min Sūrah Al-Baqarah #2969, and Jāmiʿ: K. Tafsīr Al-Qurʾān ʿan Rasūl Allāh ﷺ B. wa min Sūrah Al-Muʾmin #3247 (قَالَ أَبُو عِيسَى هَذَا حَدِيثٌ حَسَنٌ صَحِيحٌ), Abū Dāwūd, Sunan: K. Al-Witr B. Al-Duʿāʾ #1479, Ibn Mājah, Sunan: K. Al-Duʿāʾ B. Faḍl Al-Duʿāʾ #3828 ↑
Al-Tirmidhī, Jāmiʿ: K. Al-Daʿawāt ʿan Rasūl Allāh ﷺ B. Minh #3371 (قَالَ أَبُو عِيسَى هَذَا حَدِيثٌ غَرِيبٌ مِنْ هَذَا الْوَجْهِ لاَ نَعْرِفُهُ إِلاَّ مِنْ حَدِيثِ ابْنِ لَهِيعَةَ) ↑
For more about this Qurʾānic passage: https://iokchess.com/journal/seminary/ramadan-is-coming/ ↑
Al-Qurʾān: Sūrah Al-Baqarah 2:186 ↑
Abū Dāwūd, Al-Sunan: K. Al-Ṣawm B. Al-Qawl ʿind Al-Ifṭār #2357-8 ↑
Or praying it in the first place, according to some scholars ↑
For more about Ramaḍān practices: https://iokchess.com/journal/seminary/ramadan-is-coming/ ↑
A couple notable Muslims have written on this topic in recent years, please refer to their book(s) and article(s). ↑
Al-Qurʾān: 13:5, 14: 49-50, 19:86, 34:33, 40:71, 69:30-32 ↑
Al-Qurʾān: 4:92, 5:89, 58:3, 90:13 ↑
Al-Qurʾān: 17:13, 17:29, 8:12, 13:5, 24:4, 34:33, 36:8, 38:33, 40:71 ↑
The generation after the tābiʿūn (students of the ṣaḥābah - companions) ↑
May Allāh have compassion on him ↑
In the singular form: “اللَّهُمَّ أَعْتِقْ رَقَبَتِي مِنَ النَّارِ - O Allāh! Free my neck from The Fire!” ↑
Al-Khaṭīb Al-Baghdādī, Al-Faqīh wa Al-Mutafaqqih v. 1 p. 140-1 ↑
Al-Shaykh Ibn ʿUthaymīn (d. 1421 AH / d. 2001 CE - raḥimahu Allāh) was asked about this as well, and he said there is no issue at all. See: Ibn ʿUthaymīn, Liqāʾ Al-Bāb Al-Maftūḥ v. 122 p. 30 ↑

The Great Synthesis or a Gradual Convergence? Rethinking the Origins of Islamic Legal Theory Part 2

Part 2 – Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal Reconsidered. Traditionist or subtle reasoner? Rethinking the archetype of textual rigidity

Introduction

Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal (d. 241/855) is often remembered as the uncompromising voice of the ahl al-ḥadīth: a champion of transmitted reports, suspicious of speculation, and hostile to human reasoning in law. Wael Hallaq, for example, paints him as surpassing even al-Shāfiʿī in his rejection of rationalist methods, a jurist whose legal vision was “too austere and rigid” to last. For Hallaq, the later Hanbalī school only survived by softening Aḥmad’s harsh traditionalism and “adopting analogy” (qiyās), which Aḥmad allegedly abhorred.

This portrait, however, deserves scrutiny. While Aḥmad certainly privileged hadith over speculative reasoning, evidence from his student Isḥāq b. Manṣūr al-Kawsaj (d. 251/865) complicates the notion that he was a radical literalist. Al-Kawsaj’s Kitāb al-Masāʾil ʿan Imāmay Ahl al-Ḥadīth preserves a wide range of questions he posed to Aḥmad. In these exchanges, Aḥmad consistently reasons from Prophetic precedent to address novel situations, often extending rulings by analogy. What emerges is not a jurist allergic to reasoning but one who employed it cautiously and faithfully, tethered always to the authority of hadith.

Extrapolation from Khaybar

Al-Kawsaj once asked Aḥmad if it was permissible to remunerate a knitter for his work on a garment by giving him a percentage of its ownership. Aḥmad responded: “Everything like this, such as yarn, a house, a mount (dābba), or anything given to a laborer who receives a third or a fourth of ownership as compensation, is treated like the event of Khaybar (fa ʿalā qiṣṣa Khaybar).” Here Aḥmad alludes to the famous hadith concerning the agreement after the battle of Khaybar, where Muḥammad contracted the Jews to cultivate the land and, rather than being paid wages, they received half the harvest.

The original precedent involved an agricultural *muzāraʿa* contract, yet Aḥmad extrapolates its rationale and applies it to an entirely different craft—knitting. In his reasoning, any contract where the laborer is compensated through partial ownership of the product is valid. This ruling demonstrates his use of analogy to extend the principle of Khaybar beyond agriculture, applying it to crafts, real estate, and other services.

Reasoning through Proxy Contracts

In another exchange, al-Kawsaj asked about a man who entrusts a good (māl) to another for safekeeping (*istawdaʿa*), and that trustee then sells it for himself to make a profit. Aḥmad replied that the profit belongs to the owner of the commodity, citing the hadith of ʿUrwa al-Bāriqī concerning sheep.

According to the hadith, the Prophet gave ʿUrwa a dinar to purchase a sheep. Instead, ʿUrwa purchased two sheep with the dinar, then sold one of them for a dinar, and returned to the Prophet both the sheep and the extra dinar. The Prophet prayed for blessing in ʿUrwa’s transactions. From this precedent, Aḥmad reasons that an agent who profits while violating the terms of his commission does not own the profit; it belongs to the one who appointed him.

Al-Kawsaj then asked about a different case: a laborer in a *muḍāraba* contract who profits while contradicting the financier’s terms. Aḥmad again appealed to the hadith of ʿUrwa, declaring that the profit in such a case belongs to the financier. Thus, Aḥmad extends the principle derived from the sheep transaction to both safekeeping (*wadīʿa*) and *muḍāraba*. This demonstrates how he uses a single Prophetic precedent to adjudicate multiple unprecedented situations.

Bequest and the One-Third Rule

Al-Kawsaj also asked Aḥmad about the amount a person should leave as a bequest at death. Aḥmad answered that it should be restricted to a third of his wealth. When asked further about a man who bequeaths to non-relatives, whether the wealth should instead revert to relatives, Aḥmad replied in the negative. He allowed the bequest to non-relatives but insisted it be limited to one-third, with two-thirds returning to relatives.

His reasoning rests on the hadith of ʿImrān b. Ḥusayn. A man, upon his death, manumitted all six of his slaves, leaving no other wealth. When the Prophet heard, he rebuked the man, gathered the slaves, and divided them into three groups of two. He then cast lots, freed two, and returned the other four to slavery. From this, Aḥmad inferred the principle that manumission at death may not exceed one-third of one’s wealth. He then extended the principle to bequests in general, reasoning that just as manumission is capped at one-third, so too are other posthumous transfers.

Partial Exclusions in Sales and Manumission

In a further case, al-Kawsaj cites a question about a man who sells his female slave but stipulates that if she is pregnant, the child remains his. Aḥmad answered by recalling that Ibn ʿUmar once manumitted a female slave but excepted what was in her womb. Aḥmad then declared: “Sale and manumission, according to me, are similar.”

By equating the two distinct acts of transfer, Aḥmad reasoned that if a partial exclusion is valid in manumission, it is likewise valid in sale. This demonstrates how he used analogy to bridge distinct but related legal categories, extending rules beyond their textual base.

Beyond “Rigid Traditionalism”

Taken together, these examples complicate the image of Aḥmad as radically anti-reason. Far from rejecting reasoning altogether, he engaged in it frequently, though cautiously, and always anchored in transmitted precedent. His jurisprudence reveals a rudimentary but active use of analogy, suggesting continuity with later Hanbalī methods rather than rupture.

If this is the case, then later Hanbalīs did not “betray” their founder by adopting analogy. Rather, they elaborated and systematized practices already latent in his approach. His condemnations of qiyās, therefore, must be understood as directed against speculative reasoning that disregarded hadith—not as opposition to analogy altogether.

Condemnations of Qiyās Revisited

Aḥmad is indeed reported to have condemned qiyās. But when examined closely, his condemnations target a very specific practice: treating qiyās as an independent fourth source of law, especially when it conflicted with a sound text. His well-known maxim, “How can analogy be made when a hadith exists?” is best read as a warning that analogy must never override revelation.

Yet in cases where no explicit text applied, Aḥmad did not hesitate to reason by analogy, as the foregoing examples show. Thus, he opposed qiyās as a competitor to hadith, but embraced reasoning as a faithful extension of revelation. This distinction—between qiyās as speculative source and qiyās as embedded reasoning—is essential to appreciate his true jurisprudential stance.

Aḥmad’s Relationship to Qiyās in Context

When compared to his contemporaries, Aḥmad’s position becomes clearer. Abū Ḥanīfa and his circle openly embraced raʾy and istiḥsān, theorizing them as indispensable tools of law. Al-Shāfiʿī, for his part, codified qiyās in his Risāla, granting it formal recognition as a source of jurisprudence.

Aḥmad charted a more cautious course. He avoided formal theorization, resisted speculative system-building, and confined himself to reasoning grounded in hadith. Yet in practice, he did what other jurists did: extrapolate principles, extend rulings, and resolve new cases with analogy. This makes him, in effect, methodologically conservative but substantively pragmatic.

He thus stands closer to the middle of the spectrum between ahl al-raʾy and ahl al-ḥadīth than either extreme suggests. Rather than a rigid literalist, he emerges as a careful traditionalist who nonetheless reasoned dynamically when precedent demanded it.

Why This Matters

Reconsidering Aḥmad’s jurisprudence shows that even the most traditionist of early jurists was not averse to reasoning. The distance between ahl al-raʾy and ahl al-ḥadīth, therefore, was narrower than the sharp dichotomy often presented in scholarship. Instead of a radical rupture healed only by al-Shāfiʿī’s “Great Synthesis,” what we see is an ongoing continuum of methods already converging in practice.

This insight also repositions Aḥmad in the genealogy of Islamic legal theory. His method illustrates that the synthesis of reason and tradition was not imposed from outside upon reluctant traditionalists, but emerged organically from the interpretive practices of the traditionists themselves.

Looking Ahead

In Part 3, we turn to Christopher Melchert’s analysis of “traditionist-jurisprudents.” Melchert offers a subtler picture than Hallaq, describing a gradual convergence rather than a sudden synthesis. Yet even his account may overstate the distance between the two camps at the outset.

References

- Wael B. Hallaq, The Origins and Evolution of Islamic Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
- Isḥāq b. Manṣūr al-Kawsaj (d. 251/865), Kitāb al-Masāʾil ʿan Imāmay Ahl al-Ḥadīth Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal wa-Isḥāq b. Rāhwayh, ed. ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbd al-Muḥsin al-Turkī (Cairo: Dār Hajar, 1411/1990).
- Christopher Melchert, “Traditionist-Jurisprudents and the Framing of Islamic Law,” Islamic Law and Society 8, no. 3 (2001): 383–406.

A Journey of Witnessing and Reflection

Day 1: The Medical Camp in Garsen

Day 2: Compassion, Dignity, and Opportunity

1. Children With Disabilities Program (CWDP)

2. Wheelchair Distribution (CPRP)

3. The Basic Health Unit (BHU)

4. Skills Development & Livelihood Program (SDLP)

5. Education Support Program (ESP)

Lessons and Reflections

Closing Reflections

Part 4 – Beyond Synthesis: Why a Full Merger Never Occurred

From Proximity to Persistence

How Far Did the Convergence Go?

A Test Case: Taʿummu Bihi al-Balwā

Two Ways of Evaluating Hadith

Why “The Great Synthesis” Misleads

Rethinking the Labels

Why This Still Matters

Conclusion

Part 3 – Melchert’s “Gradual Synthesis” and Why the Starting Point Was Already Close

Introduction

Ideal Types, Not “Guilds”

Difference #1: “Ḥanafīs Rarely Cite Ḥadīth” — or They Don’t Need To

1) Genre and audience

2) A key Ḥanafī stipulation makes citation redundant

Difference #2: Incomplete Isnād — or Contextual Isnād

Difference #3: “No Ḥadīth Criticism” — except when they do it

The Other Side: Did the Traditionists Really “Refuse to Define the Law”?

Why This Matters

Looking Ahead

References

Yā Ḥayy Yā Qayyūm

Explanation of Words

حَيُّ “Ever Living”

قَيُّومُ “Maintainer”

بِرَحْمَتِكَ نَسْتَغِيثُ “We desperately beg for Your Help through Your Compassion”

أصْلِحْ لَنَا شَأْنَنَا كُلَّهُ “Please fix every aspect of our lives and make all of it good.”

وَلاَ تَكِلْنَا إلَى أَنْفُسِنَا طَرْفَةَ عَيْنٍ “And please do not leave us alone to our own selves for even the blink of an eye!”

Notes & Sourcing

Credits to Editors

Footnotes

Sūrah Al-Dukhān (#44) Part 2: Mūsā[1] ﷺ[2] and Firʿawn[3]

Part 1 and Part 2

Brief Timeline of Prophet Mūsā ﷺ and Firʿawn (Pharaoh)

Qurʾānic Passage of Prophet Mūsā ﷺ and Firʿawn (Pharaoh) in Sūrah Al-Dukhān (#44)

فَدَعَا رَبَّهُ أَنَّ هَؤُلاءِ قَوْمٌ مُجْرِمُونَ “So he (Mūsā) prayed to his Master, ‘These people (Pharaoh and his army) are criminals!’”

فَأَسْرِ بِعِبَادِي “‘Take My slaves at night (and leave Egypt)’”

إِنَّكُم مُّتَّبَعُونَ “You (O Moses and your people, the Israelites) will be pursed!”

Cut Scene to Sūrah Al-Shuʿarāʾ (#26):[35]

وَاتْرُكِ الْبَحْرَ رَهْوًا “‘Leave the sea as is’”

Allāh ﷻ’s Divinely Perfect Plan

إِنَّهُمْ جُنْدٌ مُغْرَقُونَ “They are a drowned army”

كَمْ تَرَكُوا “How much did the leave behind!?”

كَذَلِكَ وَأَوْرَثْنَاهَا قَوْمًا آخَرِينَ “That is how we hand it (all of those luxuries) over to another community.”

فَمَا بَكَتْ عَلَيْهِمُ السَّمَاءُ وَالأرْضُ “The sky, nor the earth cried for them.”

Try Crying of the Sky and Earth

Secret Generosity

وَمَا كَانُوا مُنْظَرِينَ “They were not given any extra time.”

Credits to Editors

Footnotes

Sūrah Al-Dukhān (#44) Part 1: Laylah Al-Qadr

حم “Ḥā Mīm”

وَالْكِتَابِ الْمُبِينِ “I swear by the clear and clarifying book!”

إِنَّا أَنزلْنَاهُ “No doubt We, yes We, revealed it”

فِي لَيْلَةٍ مُبَارَكَةٍ “on a blessed night filled with increasing goodness.”

What Night is This?

Three Aspects of Laylah Al-Qadr

إِنَّا كُنَّا مُنْذِرِينَ “(I/We swear that,) no doubt We, yes We, are a Warner!”

فِيهَا يُفْرَقُ كُلُّ أَمْرٍ حَكِيمٍ أَمْرًا مِنْ عِنْدِنَا “On that night, every planned, wise, and decided matter is clarified and dispatched as a command from Us.”

Four Meanings of “Qadr”

Four Meanings of “Ḥakīm”

Divine Decree from Allāh

إِنَّا كُنَّا مُرْسِلِينَ رَحْمَةً مِنْ رَبِّكَ “No doubt We, yes We, are a Sender of messengers. (The revealing of books and sending of messengers is) compassion from your Master.”

إِنَّهُ هُوَ السَّمِيعُ الْعَلِيمُ “No doubt He, yes He, is Eternally Hearing, Eternally Knowing.”

Credits to Editors

Footnotes

O Allāh! Save us from Hell!

Explanation of Words

اَللَّهُمَّ - O Allāh!

أَعْتِقْ - Free

Sūrah Al-Dukhān (#44) Part 2: Mūsā^{^[1]} ﷺ^{^[2]} and Firʿawn^{^[3]}

Cut Scene to Sūrah Al-Shuʿarāʾ (#26):^{^[35]}