The Sunni Association in Iraq / Abandoning the Quran
In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
Abandoning the Quran
All praise is due to Allah, the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing, and prayers and peace be upon His Prophet, the bearer of glad tidings and the warner. As for what follows:
Abandoning the Quran is an old affliction that the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, lamented, as Allah Almighty informed us by saying: "And the Messenger has said, 'O my Lord, indeed my people have taken this Quran as [something] abandoned.'" Who can bear the complaint of the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, to his Lord? And there is no might nor power except with Allah, the Most High, the Great. Ibn Al-Qayyim mentioned in the book "Al-Fawa'id" five types of abandoning the Quran, which are:
1. Abandoning listening to it, believing in it, and paying attention to it.
2. Abandoning acting according to it, even if one reads and believes in it, ignoring its lawful and prohibited mandates.
3. Abandoning ruling by it in matters of the religion, both fundamental and subsidiary.
4. Abandoning contemplating it, understanding it, and knowing what the Speaker intends by it.
5. Abandoning seeking healing and remedy by it for all diseases of the hearts and their cures. All of this is included in the saying of the Almighty: "And the Messenger has said, 'O my Lord, indeed my people have taken this Quran as [something] abandoned.'" Even though some forms of abandonment are less severe than others.
There are many reasons for this abandonment, including:
1. Lack of belief in the Quran and denying it inwardly.
2. Ignorance of its meanings and aspects of its miracle.
3. Being engrossed in worldly life and heedless of the Hereafter.
4. Listening to music and musical instruments.
5. Having long hopes and procrastination.
6. Arrogance in learning the Quran.
7. Being preoccupied with other than it.
Even among some preachers, students of knowledge, and warriors, the preoccupation with other than the Quran is evident. They may sacrifice their lives but do not care to recite the Quran despite being able to, or they get busy with other sciences, and perhaps with disputes and arguments, thinking themselves busy or deluding themselves into thinking they are pure. Whoever sees themselves as pure and righteous should look at the condition of the predecessors. Imam Malik said: When the righteous are mentioned, woe to me and spit. Sheikh of Islam Abu Bakr Ibn Ayyash, the reciter, used to complete a recitation every day and night for forty years and recited more than fourteen thousand completions in his house, saying: "O my angels, pray to Allah for me, for you are more obedient to Allah than I." Yusuf Ibn Asbat was asked: "What do you supplicate with when you read the Quran?" He replied: "What do I supplicate! I seek forgiveness from Allah for my shortcomings seventy times," and he would say: "O Allah, do not despise us." Ibn Abi Al-Hawari said: "I am amazed at Quran readers; how can they sleep when they have the Quran? By Allah, if they knew what they carried, sleep would fly from them out of joy for what they were granted." And it was asked about a man who sleeps with the Quran but does not act upon any of it, and he said: "That man uses the Quran as a pillow." Ibn Al-Qayyim said (Nazm Al-Qala'id: 14): "When you see a man exchanging the worthless for the valuable and selling the magnificent for the trivial, know that he is foolish."
Yes, among us are those who do not miss a human message of seriousness or jest and neglect the decisive word. They wake up and sleep on social media with phones, Twitter, Facebook, and WhatsApp. That is people's portion, so where is the right of the Lord of the people? If the servant's love for his Lord were true, he would feel estranged from those who do not remind him of Allah and flee from those who distract him from Him as one flees from a lion. How astonishing for those who claim love; do they need someone to remind them of their beloved?
The solution is easy, and the reward is great. In Sunan Abi Dawood, from Abdullah Ibn Amr, the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, said: "Whoever stands (in prayer) with ten verses will not be recorded as one of the heedless. And whoever stands with a hundred verses will be recorded as one of the devout. And whoever stands with a thousand verses will be recorded as one of the Muqantireen." The Muqantireen, with the opening or kasra of the ta, are those with
great rewards or deeds.
Surah 'Abasa is 42 verses on a single page, and Surah Al-Waqi'ah, despite its brevity, is 96 verses. The juz' of Tabarak and 'Amma contain 995 verses. Do not let laziness hold you back, especially in Ramadan, the month of the Quran, in which the Quran was revealed. Blessed is he whom the Merciful has guided, who taught the Quran.
