Ethical Lessons from the Quran, part 2

Ethical Lessons from the Quran, part 2 

مَّآ أَصَابَكَ مِنْ حَسَنَةٍ فَمِنَ ٱللَّهِ وَمَآ أَصَابَكَ مِن سَيِّئَةٍ فَمِن نَّفْسِكَ وَأَرْسَلْنَـٰكَ لِلنَّاسِ رَسُولًا وَكَفَىٰ بِٱللَّهِ شَهِيدًا

Nisa, 4:79 “Anything good that happens to you is from God; anything bad happens to you is from yourself.  We have sent you [O Muhammad] as a messenger to all people; God is sufficient as a witness.

Nowadays, devoting a certain number of hours a week to learn Arabic is not enough to get the Grammar rules required to study and understand the Quran thoroughly.  Most of us in the US are reading the Quran from an Arabic text that has been translated into English to the best of any translator’s capacity and lived experiences. Some simply study the translations of the Quran for blessings, nothing more, nothing less.  

The translators did their part according to their comprehension and abilities. We cannot blame any translators for missing out important points pertaining to my living conditions, and experiences.  We appreciate their work, but the nature of the translation from an original Arabic text into any other language, cannot convey the deep meanings of the original text, let alone a text like the Quran.  For example, you write a lovely text to a friend, whose native language is English, expressing your concern for them in a language other than English.  Even a simple letter from that text which expresses something is not easy to translate, including the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, for they cannot justify that which you wanted to communicate to the friend by writing that text message.  In this regard, AI or any other translating tool cannot communicate with our feelings meant in that text message.

Let us understand this case better by simply taking one letter from the Arabic word, which has many meanings.  For example, from the verse above, the word “faa” has much more than 10 meanings.  According to the context that the word is used in, it gives a slight flavor to the general meaning of that word.  If you miss it, then you miss the message of the text that you are studying.  Similarly, the Arabic word “ma” used before the word “asaabaka” meaning “Anything that happens to you” has many meanings based on the context.  There is different usage of the word “ma”, and it makes a change to the general meaning of the sentence.  Therefore, to give full justice to the translation and our human existential concerns, we must study Quranic Arabic seriously; perhaps full time daily, rather than as one course weekly.  Again, we all appreciate the work of translators as it gives a general idea, but not the big picture.  

The Quran can be studied from various perspectives such as it being a book of guidance, a book of law and a book of human social justice, just to name a few.  The great scholars that the Islamic heritage had were all children of their time.  Therefore, we cannot expect the scholars to make commentary or explain the Quran from their time period, specialty area and bring it to the 21st century living conditions.  At the same time, belittling their work is not doing justice to their sincere initiatives.  We must admit that those Islamic scholars were great in their time, and we must benefit from their work.  We must bear in mind that if we are reading 18th century work now, it has a background of many centuries ago that was applicable at that time.  For example, Ibn Sina was the great Islamic Medical Scholar. His work has been taught in Europe for 700 years as the foundational medical textbook.  Now, in this era, the first-year medical students do not need the textbook of Ibn Sina as every scholar writes books according to his/her era.  We respect his work, but we do not need it anymore.  He initiated the discipline of medicine, we must study it, learn from it, and update it with the requirements of our century.  

All the scholars are great, but again, every scholar is the child of their time, and they tried their best to advance in their subject area.  We cannot expect the scholars to make commentaries on the Quran and explain it to this generation.  They tried their best to understand the Quran according to the conditions of their time.  

Let us come to our era, the 21st century.  Unfortunately, there is no great commentary on the Quran with many volumes of work like the work of the past scholars.  Why is that? Also, why is this introduction needed?

Our aim in these classes is to study the verses from the Quran and see the English translation in general and start questioning:  How can I apply the main message of the text that I am reading in the English language to my practical and social life without an imitative way?  We must understand the reason behind anything that we hear and must confirm it.  Some people from a specific Muslim cultural background will get alarmed with our approach to understanding the Quran.  They will question us and think that we are rationalizing the Quran.  By no means are we doing that, rather we are looking for the wisdom in the Quranic message.  Does the Quranic message make sense to me, and how can I apply it to my practical life now?

The questions that are being asked while reading any verse are meant to initiate an understanding of the subject, to help us pinpoint the important points which draws and catches our attention.

For example, in the verse above, how do we define bad and good?

It means that there is a point that I need to pay attention to.  It means that I need to reflect upon how I am interpreting events in my life?  It means that I need to define for myself the real meaning of good and bad according to the teachings of the Quran.  We try to get the answers according to the context of the teachings of the Quran.  What is the main mission of the Quran?  

What is God teaching me in the Quran?

Initial Answer: That which I cannot learn by studying this world.  For example, I can study and learn how to grow tomatoes by studying this world.  That is not the mission of the Quran.  From my practical life whatever I learn is not the mission of the Quran.  The main mission of the Quran is to teach me what is impossible for me to learn if the Quran was not sent!

In the Quran, we find that there are so many verses that are constantly repeated.  Most of those verses are obvious to human reality.  For example, we all know that we must take care of the orphans.  So why would God bother to teach me something that I already know?  What is the real teaching that God wants me to learn from the Quran?  Even people who do not listen to the Quran know to take care of the orphans.  Oh God!  Why do you tell me something which I already know since You say in the Quran that by its own nature, the Quran will teach me something that I do not know, and I need this guidance, that is why I am being spoken to, to be taught something that I can learn.  Therefore, to take care of the orphans is not the teaching of the Quran. In the Quran, the word “orphan” means a lot of things as it relates to the whole universe.  So, what is God teaching me in the Quran by referencing “orphans”?

What is an orphan? 

Common answers: Someone who is abandoned and does not have guidance from parental figures.

The above answer is not wrong, but it is only one small aspect out of many aspects.  According to the Quran, an ant walking on your trouser is an orphan because it does not have a father and mother to protect it.  Who is going to protect the ant that you may kill without knowing, realizing that it is a created being? Who is going to protect the ant by the claim that it is an annoying useless creature? With such acts, are we not insulting the creation of the ant? The ant is created with dignity and honor by its Creator to declare His qualities.  By creating the ant, the Creator of the ant is letting us know that “I created the ant to declare My qualities and introduce Myself to you?  It is a messenger to you, and you killed the messenger”.  

Let us understand the case of the ant with a practical example.  What happens if you kill the ambassador of a country?  The country will declare war with you.  Similarly, if you kill an ant, you are declaring war with its Creator.  In the Quran, the word “orphan” does not simply imply human creation but the whole universe is included in it.  The things in the universe are not meaningless things that evolved by themselves. This attitude is an insult to the Creator of the universe.  According to the Quran, every individual person is an ambassador of the Creator, the Arabic word “khalifah” for caliph means this.  We must study these concepts of the Quran and deeply analyze them by relating it with our practical lives.  By drawing our attention to the orphans, the purpose of the Quran is to help us establish the relationship between each created being and the Creator of the universe.

Another aspect that is missing while studying the Quran is to keep in mind that we have many expectations.  Human beings cannot be satisfied with anything, even if we have the whole universe at our disposition.  For example, if a rich person gives you a 10-story building as a gift in New York City, what are you going to do with the rest of the floors?  One floor is more than enough to accommodate your mundane quotidian routines, you can only occupy a small place to sleep.  The building may provide comfort on a temporary basis where you can be happy but until death.  However, can a 10-floor building give you eternal happiness? No!

If you have the whole universe, what are you going to do with the universe for human beings ultimately need eternal happiness.  I want to be happy and satisfied according to the capacity of my human feelings.  Can anything satisfy my human feelings in this world?  That is where the Quran comes in, where God says that I am going to guide you on how to find your way to satisfy your human feelings; that is why you need me as your Creator to get guidance from. For you cannot be satisfied by yourself within the conditions of this universe.  Now, the Quran guides me with how to satisfy my human feelings that seek eternal satisfaction.

It may not be that easy for some to grasp the Quranic message in this way because we are not used to reasoning in this way.  At the same time, we are not saying that our capacity to grasp is low.  The principle to understand the Quranic message is that we must know what we are reading and try to benefit from it to receive and get guidance from our Creator, the One who created me.  Remember these principles:

1. By definition, the Quran says that I am the Speech of your Creator as the Owner of the whole universe.  The Lord of the universe is speaking to me as my Creator, Owner.  What would you expect from this Lord?  Speak to me in a way that I will understand.
2. This is an Arabic language, because the first addressee of the Quran were Arabs, but our Creator is speaking to us in a human language.  Whoever you are speaking to, you will speak to them in their native language, as we are all speaking English here. 
3. I must read the verses and ask the question: what are you telling me my God? That means that I should not read the verses just to get information about what the verse is saying only but what it is saying to me now, how I can apply its message to my practical life now.
4. The word “ayah” means not only a verse, but it also means a sentence of the Qur’an, and the act of creation, each of the miracles created by God to confirm that the prophets are employed by God, just to name a few obvious references to what it can mean.  It also means that God is speaking to me at my level, within my capacity, i.e. each of my human characteristics also means an “ayah” within myself.  سَنُرِيهِمْ ءَايَـٰتِنَا فِى ٱلْـَٔافَاقِ وَفِىٓ أَنفُسِهِمْ حَتَّىٰ يَتَبَيَّنَ لَهُمْ أَنَّهُ ٱلْحَقُّ “We shall show them Our signs in the universe and within themselves, until it becomes clear to them that this is the Truth…” (Fussilat, 41: 53)

In the Quran, God is speaking to human beings as the Creator of every human being.  Each human being is an individual with unique characteristics, as God is referred to as “fard” i.e. a Being with its unique personality . وَلَقَدْ جِئْتُمُونَا فُرَٰدَىٰ كَمَا خَلَقْنَـٰكُمْ أَوَّلَ مَرَّةٍ “And now you have returned to Us, one by one individually, as We created you at first…” (An’am, 6: 94). That is also how God has endowed a unique personality to each created being.  Just as the ant has its own unique personality, which distinguishes it from a frog, for example.  God mentions in the Quran that He has created each being different from the others. The Quranic message speaks about all of us, including the ant and the frog as His created beings.  We can find Quranic verses speaking to the need of my individual characteristic experienced now at this very moment.  That is, we can all say that my Creator is speaking to me now and continuously taking care of my existence now as we are all changing.  Our responsibility is to communicate with our Creator by asking Him, what are You trying to tell me now!  That is how active and dynamic our relationship with reading the Quran ought to be.  Sadly, if you read the Quran as a text which was revealed 1400 years ago, then you are not reading the Quran, rather a textbook of ancient time, which is not relevant to you.  God is revealing the Quran in a certain space-time does not mean that He created the universe once, and now left the universe to its own working since then.  Rather, the universe is continuously changing, and He is the One to change the universe, hence, the Quran is being revealed continuously to conscious human beings.

While God is continuously speaking to me by creating all my cells, and taking care of all my needs, He is revealing Himself to me through the Quran.  At the same time, He is also creating the cells of all beings in existence.  Our reality is that 10 years ago, we were a different person.  As God is continuously changing me, and creating me anew, His Speech must also reveal its new message to me.  Let us delve into the verse:

Nisa, 4:79 “Anything good that happens to you is from God; anything bad happens to you is from yourself.  We have sent you [O Muhammad] as a messenger to all people; God is sufficient as a witness.

The first addressee of the Quran is definitely prophet Muhammad (pbuh), but the message does not stop there, it extends to all of us right now.  We must apply the message in our living and share it with others as much as we can.  

1. How do you define “bad” and “good”?  What are your criteria for bad and good?

The Quran speaks to me about what I need for guidance.  Otherwise, to achieve results for my worldly expectations and desires, I can learn it by studying the universe.  For example, I clean a dirty spot which makes me happy and is considered a good act; we are all given the quality to like cleanliness.  The verse is not disqualifying this as a good act only.  What is important is that I must look for bad and good from the point of view of the purpose of creation.  

According to the Quran which deals with the purpose of creation, what is a good act?

Answer: Anything that brings you closer to your Creator.

For example, while drinking water, Jane acknowledges that she is created with the sense of thirst, the water is created to quench her thirst, and our body is created in need of water.  The next time we sip on water, we must reflect upon how water is perfectly arranged to dissolve in our bodies, and the One who created me with the need is satisfying me.  Why?  Because only through this way I can recognize Him as my Owner and the Owner of the water, including the universe.  If you drink water to fulfill the purpose of your existence which is recognizing who your Owner is, then this action of drinking water becomes, according to the definition of the Quran, a good action. It is not the water satisfying me but the Creator of water is satisfying me by creating me and the water. According to the definition of materialist people, drinking water is good because it keeps you healthy.  But human health stays with us for about 100 years.  After 100 years, the body disappears, hence bodily health for a certain time cannot be the purpose of our existence.

The purpose of my existence is to be satisfied in my existence, in my feelings with my Creator.  Drinking water is a means to a healthy body, and the Quran encourages us to give an infinite dimension to this relationship between me and the water.  How?  Drinking water is a means to acknowledging the  Creator of me and the water, that is why I am here.  I have been given this sense to acknowledge this Creator.

Who can teach me how to live my life in order to fulfill the purpose of my existence besides the Quran?  In pure sense, the Quran directly targets this point of belief i.e. acknowledgment of the Creator of the universe, referred to as “tawheed”. Taking the drinking water example, even if you satisfy your body for 800 years, at the end, the body will disappear. Without acknowledgement of the Creator, I am not fulfilling the purpose of the existence of my body together with my myriad senses which look for permanent satisfaction, hence it becomes a bad action.  

It may seem strange the way we are analyzing the case from these verses.  If it does, then we should first do some introspective analysis of the self.  Let us define ourselves before jumping into what is a good action and what is a bad action.

How do you define yourself?  Go and ask yourself, who am I?  Let us self-reflect on our own being. Why am I here in this world?  How come I am here in existence?  What is the purpose of my existence?

There are 2 ways to define yourself:

1. Based on the various disciplines that we study; we are told to entertain our lives here until we die.  Is there a discipline who studies and tells you to look for satisfaction not until you die but beyond death?  The commonly known disciplines such as Psychology, Physics, Sociology, Philosophy… none of them talk about how to attain eternal satisfaction for our human needs.  We must think about our existence: Am I the only body? How do I define myself?  I have feelings, which is referred to as “rooh” or spirit in the Quran.  What is the capacity of my spirit?

Before understanding the message of the Quran properly, we must first try to understand who we are as created beings?  Only then I can be aware that my Creator is giving me guidance that I cannot find in this world.  That is, I must first define myself and for what purpose do I need guidance for?  

Many seek guidance to live in this world but mostly for their bodily needs and worldly concerns. For example, I would not seek guidance to pick an outfit to attend a wedding.  If that is so, then the definition of the purpose of my existence is to take care of my bodily appearance.  The Quran does not guide me here because that is not the purpose of the teachings of the Quran.  For trendy outfits, you must consult the fashionistas of this era.  The Quran only provides us guidance when it comes to our human needs which are endless and which cannot be satisfied by anything  in this world.  For example, how to seek eternal happiness and satisfaction can only be obtained from Quranic teachings.  

We must try our best to attain Quranic guidance to the best of our capacity, however, to embark on seeking guidance for our existential journey here, the Quran reminds us of audhu billahi minashaitann nirrajeem i.e. I seek refuge in Allah from Satan the accursed.  What does this mean?  The evil side of understanding myself and the world should be put away, so that I can sit in front of my God speaking to my spirit, my feelings and my real human side.  

We cannot expect the message of God to teach me how to live a healthy life.  We cannot get nutritional advice from the Quran.  God has taught through His creation and our feelings tell us to consult the specialized people in the subject of nutrition for attaining good health.  However, the Quran says that you must consult Me with how to have a healthy, satisfied spirit, human feelings, and happy understanding of my reality.  Everything is meaningful for you because they are created by the One who knows you.  For example, when you look at the sunset, you will say that the Creator of the universe is presenting to me what He is doing.  The setting of the sun is a message from our Creator letting us know that we are being taken care of after a long day of working, so we can have a peaceful night.  I know that your body needs rest and sleep.  When you look at the sunset and you feel happy that your God is taking care of your needs, then you are communicating with the sunset as a good deed.  If you think about eating dinner, then use the same acknowledgment that Your owner is taking care of you, rather than just devouring your dinner like a hungry beast.  If you do not get any message from your Creator, then you do not get any enjoyment in your life.  You eat, sleep and get hungry again.  Similarly, you can keep shopping until you drop.  What type of fulfillment for your spirit can you get from such deeds?!

Thus, a good deed from the Quranic perspective is anything that helps me feel close to God and realize His presence in my life, which is called in the Quranic language  حَسَنَةٍ “hasanah,” and the most common usage of the form “ihsan” , coming from the root word حَسَنَ “hasana” and its another form أحسن “ahsana”..

What is “ihsan”?

Islamic scholars define it, by taking it from a famous Hadith narration, as “worshiping God as if you are seeing Him, although you don’t see Him, be aware that He sees you.”  Going back to the act of drinking water, the One who sees me, has prepared my needs, intellectual power to reason about these needs, and follow the order in creation to fulfill these needs.  

Let us make this understanding more practical.  Is there a difference between a beloved friend offering you water with his/her own hand versus you fetching water from the well?  Yes. The same logic applies when you acknowledge God while drinking water, it is as if God offers you water with His own hands.  Can you imagine the Owner of the universe offering you water?!  Such awareness and communication with God brings about a great feeling!!  We must practice this acknowledgment as much as we can!!!

2. Is not everything created by God good?  What does “anything bad happens to you is from yourself” mean?  Am I the cause of “bad” things?

If we think about it, we do not contribute anything to the creation of this universe.  When we plant a seed, we are watchful during the beginning stages for the plant to survive, until it grows into a lush fruit bearing tree for years and I don’t have to do anything. Similarly, in the ocean, we can just catch fish without giving existence to anything and working for their growth.  Everything is freely created for us; we are just consuming it as much as we can.  Similarly, when we eat food, every nutrient gets distributed into our digestive system with such perfect management.  I must realize that these are all opportunities for us to stay in acknowledgement and communication with our Creator. If I don’t recognize my Creator then I am at fault not using my given abilities to recognize my Creator.

If you deem an act to be bad in creation, then this false interpretation is from your end.  Let us say that a place gets hit by a hurricane.  We all know that hurricanes are bad for our worldly lives, but what is the purpose in the existence of the creation of this hurricane?  All your life, let’s say 65 years of your life, the ocean water was calm and perfectly fulfilling its duties. Have you questioned this perfect arrangement and acknowledge its Creator to the point of communicating with Him?  No one can guarantee the perfect harmonious fulfillment of duties that we observe.  Usually, we start taking things for granted when we become familiar with things, and that spoils us to the point of making us lazy with acknowledging the Creator of the universe.  Then, one day our Creator slightly shakes us, so we get alerted about staying in communication with Him.

The creation of everything has a purpose, and if once in our lives we experience something that we consider to be bad, then we must realize that I have been taken care of all this time, and now my Creator is communicating with me that He is the One who is taking care of all my needs.

The sense of deeming something to be bad is my perception.  This sense of not liking is given to us for a purpose to understand that we have been served by the Lord of the universe for all the years of our lives, and everything was deliberately prepared and arranged for us to get in contact with Him. How much have I recognized Him in all those years?

Let us take another example, at the age of 18 years old, John’s mother stopped preparing breakfast for him so that he can start learning how to take care of himself.  John reacts to his mother’s decision that not having breakfast ready is a bad act.  Is it so?  No, John needs to be taught to make his own breakfast so he can take care of his life as an adult. This is something good for John to grow up.  Similarly, the Creator of the universe, our Lord is always there addressing our needs for us, everything is perfectly arranged but we may forget about it, which is bad and we need to be reminded occasionally. That is the purpose of the teaching of the Quran.  When we drink water forgetting that God is offering the water, that act without any acknowledgment of the Creator is bad, because the purpose of creation is not fulfilled.  That is an insult to the Creator, as if the Creator is doing something meaningless.  That is my bad if I ignore my Creator through His act! The purpose of the Qur’an is to teach me this aspect of my life that I cannot learn from anywhere else.

3. Why does the verse mention here “We sent you as a messenger”?

The Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) presented the message to us is beyond question.  We accept that he delivered God’s message to humankind.  The Arabic word for message is “ayah”.  Similarly, everything in the universe also carries and brings messages from its Creator to conscious human beings.  In this sense, everything in the universe is a messenger. Recall the example of the ant earlier.  When we receive the message from God, we share it with other human beings, that is how creation functions.

4. What does God being a witness mean in the context of this verse?

Whoever is creating and arranging everything for us continously must be Conscious, Aware, Knowledgeable, Powerful to be continuously creating. The universe is perfect in its existence, and my human capacity is created perfectly adjusted to communicate with the Creator through the universe. This Creator must be ever watchful over all of His creation. 

Let us finalize this understanding with one analogy.  When you take a course at a university, there is a final exam at the end.  What does the final exam mean?  You are presenting to the teacher what you learned in the course.  Similarly, with every transaction of our day, we end it with the ritualistic prayers and the acknowledgment of what we learned about our Creator through our interaction with His creation. The Creator of the universe has set us free to attend the class, listen to the teachings, work on assignments, and study for the finals where I will present to my Creator what I have learned from these “signs” that He prepared for me. It is obvious that I will present what I have learned to my Creator not to teach Him as if He doesn’t know, but I will be rewarded by Him as much as I appreciated His teachings.  It is as if my Creator is watching me with the decisions that I am making about my seriousness of learning in the course.  

Finally, we must be careful that we are created with a free will to decide to acknowledge or not to acknowledge the Creator of the universe as He deserves to be acknowledged.  Also, we are free to take notice or ignore the messages that are being sent to us.  It is as if the universe is a witness to our sincerity of learning in the course.  Although it may seem that no one is watching our acts and attendance, the Creator of the universe is watching!  Therefore, let us be on guard with our decisions of acknowledging the Creator of the universe the way He deserves to be acknowledged.