In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds, and may Allah bless our Master Muhammad and his family of Tahrir.
Well, before I start, I have to say one thing about Sheikh Asadi sitting here. I'm a bit embarrassed actually because it is his humbleness and Islamic behaviour sitting here.
Otherwise, I have to be sitting there listening and he teaching. Anyway, InshaAllah, if I make any mistake or if I need corrections or comments, Sheikh would help me inshaAllah.
Okay, we were talking about Bismillah, Ar-Rahman, Ar-Rahim and we wanted to talk about Ar-Rahman and Ar-Rahim which are two attributes of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Well, I put it with capital Ar-Rahman and Ar-Rahim.
Now, the root word for both these attributes is Ar-Rahma, which is Mercy.
But what is the difference between these two? Well, lexically first, what these two would denote according to lexicons and what is the difference between the two with regards to this Ar-Rahma?
Now, both of them are conjugates for exaggeration that they say siqhatul mubaligha. They want to show the extensiveness, the expansion of this Rahma in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
So, this is going according to, if we say, well, the root is Rahma, which is like Fa'ala or Fa'ala, and Rahman is Fa'alan and Rahim is Fa'il.
And as I said, both of them exaggerate the attribute of Rahma in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, but in different ways. Okay, usually when we have words exaggerating an attribute in Arabic,
if they have different conjugates and different forms, they exaggerate that meaning or that attribute in different ways.
Now, Ar-Rahman exaggerates that Rahma in the sense of its generality and extensiveness, inclusiveness to all.
So, when we say Ar-Rahman means someone who has Rahma generally and that Rahma includes everyone and everything.
And Rahim would exaggerate that attribute in Allah in the term of its continuation and permanence.
So, when we say Rahim, it means he has Rahma continuously and permanently.
Now, we know that he doesn't have Rahma permanently for everyone. Of course, these believers are deprived of Rahma of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala on the day of judgment.
So, this permanence of Rahma should only relate to selected people, to, well, a group of people.
And that's why they say this Ar-Rahim when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala describes himself, Ar-Rahim means having Rahma on special people permanently.
This Rahma is not going to stop at any place or any moment of time. And Ar-Rahman is the general Rahma.
That's why we have a Hadith from Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq, a very nice description of the difference between these two attributes, which both denote Rahma.
He says, Ar-Rahman ismun khas l-sifatan am.
This is a special name because you don't call anyone Rahman. You call them Rahim but not Rahman.
And if someone calls their son Rahman, it's a mistake. Usually it's not used, but for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
So it's a special name for Allah. In other words, you wouldn't call someone who is very merciful to be Rahman.
Never you say to a human being that he is Rahman or she is Rahman. But Rahim, yes. Human beings could be Rahim.
So this is special for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq said this is a special name only for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, but it has a general meaning.
It means it encompasses everyone and everything, Ar-Rahman.
But this one is a general term, a general name. It is used for human beings and for Allah in the same sense.
But it denotes Ar-Rahim, a very special attribute of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
It means it does not include everyone. Allah is not Rahim to everyone. He is Rahman towards everything, but not Rahim towards everyone.
Certainly he is not Rahim to his enemies. Not because of course he sees his enemies to be great or something.
But because they are deprived of this special Rahma and mercy of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Now let's see how these words are used in the Quran. They exactly are used in the same sense as we just described and as Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq described in the Hadith.
Now we have several verses in the Quran in which these two terms appear, Ar-Rahman and Ar-Rahim.
But I only mentioned two or three examples. In Surah Maryam, we have one very clear implementation of this meaning which we just talked about Ar-Rahman.
It says, قُلْ مَنْ كَانَ فِي الضَّلَالَةِ Of course, I write the Arabic for the benefit of those who know how to read or write Arabic.
فَلْيَمْدُتْ لَكُ الْرَّحْمَانُ مَدَّى حَتَّى إِذَا رَأَوْ مَا يُعَدُونَ
Say whoever is astrayed in Ayah number 75, Surah Maryam, Surah 19, whoever is astrayed, من كان فِي الضَّلَالَةِ, God would nevertheless pour upon them from His Providence.
فَلْيَمْدُتْ لَهُ الْرَّحْمَانُ مَدَّى And of course, we will see that He is pouring His Providence to everyone, to Kafir and to mu'min in this world, but until a certain time.
حَتَّى إِذَا رَأَوْ مَا يُعَدُونَ Until the time they see what they are promised, which is امَّا العَذَا وَأمَّا السَّاعَة And then that Rahmah is stopped from them.
Its Providence is stopped from them. So Rahmah is used as we just described and as it is according to the lexical meaning and according to the Hadith which is mentioned.
Now Raheem of course in Quran explicitly it is mentioned in Surah Ahzab for example it says
وَكَانَ بِالْمُؤْمِنِينَ رَحِيمًا He is Raheem towards mu'mineen. This is verse number 43 of Surah Ahzab.
وَكَانَ بِالْمُؤْمِنِينَ رَحِيمًا And of course this is only one example. We have lots and lots of examples
which Allah mentions that He is Raheem only to mu'mineen not to others.
For example in Surah Tawbah just one more example. In Surah Tawbah I think it is verse number 117 or something like that.
لَقَدْ تَابَ اللَّهُ أَلَى النَّبِيِّ وَالْمُهَاجِرِينَ وَالْأَنصَارِ الَّذِينَ اتَّبَعُوهُ فِي سَعَةِ الْأُسْرَةِ مِن بَعْدِ مَا كَادَ يَزِيبُ غُلُوبُ فَرِيقٍ مِنْهُمْ ثُمَّ تَابَ عَلَيْهِمْ لِيَتُوبُواْ
إِنَّهُ بِهِمْ رَأُوفٌ رَحِيمٌ He says of course this is about the battle of Tabuk and he says Allah accepted the repentance of the Prophet and muhajirun and ansar
and of course he mentions Prophet just to console muhajirun and ansar who made a mistake in that battle just saying that okay all of you are one
and nabi and muhajirun and ansar after they well they wavered on their faith when they wanted to go to war and then he said
إِنَّهُ بِهِمْ رَأُوفٌ رَحِيمٌ He is ra'uf and raheem towards them towards mu'min and now this rahmah which is for mu'mineen
it doesn't have any limit and any boundaries I mean the more you are a believer the more your faith increases the more this rahmah falls upon you
and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala talks about some people some prophets saying that we entered them into our special rahmah
وَأَدْخَلْنَاهُمْ فِي رَحْمَتِنَا وَأَدْخَلْنَاهُمْ فِي رَحْمَتِنَا We made them to enter into our rahmah and that rahmah is of course something which is not understood by us
because maybe most of us are deprived of that special rahmah when that rahmah comes you change completely you are changed into a completely different person
you see things very differently the eyes are opened the spiritual eyes are opened because that is all due to the rahmah of Allah because whatever we see whatever we hear
is by his help isn't it I mean even now that I'm seeing you looking at you it's not me who's seeing you I mean who am I what is my soul my soul is not independently capable of seeing things
we see things through him okay now this is a very limited sight I just see physical things if my faith increases my eyes opens wider and the heart of heart the eyes of heart opens wider and wider
and in this sense that's Rahmah which now Allah is aiding us through it would increase towards us now having said this it means that Rahmah has no obstacle to towards it but ourselves
that Rahmah still is general okay like the Rahmah which is in Ar-Rahman it is still general but we ourselves deprive our souls from entering into that Rahmah
and that Rahmah of course is the Rahmah with which Allah aids the prophets the saints A'imah alayhumu s-salam is there is here but the point is that we don't let ourselves to enter into that Rahmah
and enough of this now so Rahman and Rahim now why these two attributes are mentioned in the beginning of every verse because Allah wants to say that well Ar-Rahman whatever you do
even when you commit sins when you turn away from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala you are in the boundaries of his Rahmah and rulership and he is providing for you whatever you do and especially if you want to go towards him
he is very merciful he accepts everyone well provided you want to go you want to return to him I just want to cite one example of two creatures which is very very typical of what I am saying
the example of Shaytan and the example of Adam alayhi s-salam both of them were very well creatures of Allah with rationality with rational understanding and Allah had favoured not to both of them to Shaytan and to Adam alayhi s-salam
now when they were expelled both of them Adam felt that he is out of the Rahmah of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and he wanted to go back so he said
Arabic
now what about Shaytan if Shaytan would have said the same thing if he had said this he would have also received the same things from Allah to go back but what did he say who knows what did he say
you made me to go astray and I will make your service to go astray so he didn't want to go back if he wanted to go back the door was opened the Rahmah was there this Rahmah we say it's special it's not inclusive
but it is not inclusive in the terms that not everyone wants to include themselves into that Rahmah but if they want if any of kuffar of Musharikul if they want to go back to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that Rahmah is there to to to retrieve them to redeem them and take them up towards Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
okay enough of this now we come to the Surah itself but not of course very exactly because we have to talk about Yasin first well the Surah has lots of bumps in it I mean from Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim and then we have to go to Yasin and explaining
explaining Yasin takes some time of course so I don't think we could today get to other verses of the Surah now of course Yasin has no meaning as you know these are disjointed letters it's it is Ya and Shin so you don't know the meaning what is the meaning of Yasin
we have some some things in the Rawa'iyat and I will talk about them later on but from the Quran we don't get any clear meaning for this word Yasin now there are other words other disjointed letters in the Quran which if we put them together they are 14 altogether
14 letters like for example Alif Lam Meen we don't know what's the meaning or Alif Lam Ra we don't know what's the meaning or like for example Qaf now these words come in different numbers for example first of all they are mentioned in all together in 29
Surahs of the Quran so from 114 Surahs you find 29 Surahs in which these disjointed letters which we don't know the meanings would show up and would appear at the beginning of those Surahs they are not in the middle of any Surah well that's some some sort of relief because otherwise you would have much more trouble to understand okay what is what does it mean I mean coming
these disjointed letters coming in the middle of the Surah they are all mentioned in the beginning of Surahs like Surah Baghla Arif Lam Meen Dhaliq Al-Kitab La Ra'iba Fi or like Surah Dukhan Alif Lam Ha Meen Wal Kitab Al-Mubeen for example and as I said there are 14 letters so out of 28 Arabic letters because in Arabic they have only 28 letters out of those 28 letters half of them appear in
the beginning of some Surahs which have led some exegesis to speculate about okay why 14 out of 28 so Allah wanted to mention half of the alphabet and leave out the next half and all of which are just speculations not getting us anywhere really near to understanding what these are now I don't know if anyone would
ever know what these these words might mean what these letters might mean because they are not words actually they are letters just put together certainly you have heard many things about the interpretation of these letters but to tell you the truth really none of these theories
mentioned about these letters would satisfy a rational mind I mean because we don't have anything categorically mentioned by the Prophet or by Ayam Ali and we have different Jawa'at from Ayam but again they are contradictory to each other so we could not rely on any of them related to these letters
now there are more than 20 theories mentioned by interpreters and exegesis about these letters what they might mean or what they might donate what they might denote to reciters of the Quran in terms of better understanding of the book but as I said none of these theories are really
satisfactory I just mentioned a few of them well the most general thing is that these are from Mutashabahat no one knows the meaning of them but Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala so these are from Mutashabahat
yeah and yeah I was I was going to write in English the ambiguous verses now of course the ambiguous verses in the Quran which are mentioned in the beginning of surah Ali Emran
itself is ambiguous so if you want to to try to explain them we need a few sessions to talk about ambiguous verses but anyway some exegesis say that these are from Mutashabahat which is of course not very correct because Mutashabahat are the verses which have an apparent meaning
but we do not understand what is the real meaning of them what is the deeper meaning of them they apparently they do not explain something very clear although the sentence is clear but we don't get the real meaning very clearly that's why they are called Mutashabahat
but these disjointed letters have no apparent meaning at all there are not words to have meanings so we have to forget about this that these are from Mutashabahat okay the second is what is mentioned by most of the exegesis and Zamakhshari for example the great Sunni exegete the great Mu'tazili exegete has said that
most of the exegesis believe in this interpretation for these disjointed letters is that they are named of the surahs that appear this is the surahs which these letters appear in front of them so for example Alif Lam Mim is a name for surah Bagara or say another name for surah Bagara
therefore we have some other surahs which have different names several names sometimes for example surah Mu'min is also called Qaafir isn't it or surah Dah is also called surah Insan now they say okay surah Bagara is also called surah Alif Lam Mim
and in one very special case surah Sajdah they say because we have two surahs for Sajdah so they say Alif Lam Mim Sajdah or Haa Mim Sajdah so the name of surah Sajdah is actually Alif Lam Mim not surah Sajdah
but the difficulty with this is okay surah Bagara has Alif Lam Mim the name Alif Lam Mim surah Sajdah has the name Alif Lam Mim and many other surahs or surah Rahat has the same the name Alif Lam Ra whereas Alif Lam Mim Ra not surah Rahat
surah Yusuf has the name Alif Lam Ra and surah Ibrahim has the same name Alif Lam Ra and so on so several surahs would have the same name now they say okay it's not a big deal several surahs have one name
okay we ask them then what's the point of putting these disjointed letters at the beginning of these surahs and moreover what not all surahs have this kind of different name which is a kind of unconventional name with other name going along with other name
so this is not a satisfactory theory as well the other theory which is mentioned by one of the orientalist this is very funny well I didn't want to mention this because it's so so funny that it just makes me laugh
he says he says this is the name of the authors of these surahs because these surahs are written with by different authors so every author has put an acronym of his name in the in the beginning of the surah so surah Baqarah and surah Ankabut and surah for example
well one other surah we have start with Alif Lammi they are all written by the same person and surah Kaaf Ha-Ya'-Ayn-Sin is written by another person but of course we could not specify these people because they have just put their acronyms here not their name
well this is very funny of course but it tells us about the difficulty of understanding these disjointed letters which are at the beginning of every verse every surah in these 29 surahs now the other theory which is very common reported from Ibn Abbas reported from some of our emma alayhi s-salam and as I said because these are reports and have counter reports so we could not rely very much on them is that these are acronyms of other authors
acronyms of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala so I don't put numbers because some of them I don't write these are acronyms of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala so Allah starts these surahs with his own name in a sort of acronym so for example Alif Lammi means
ana I Allah I am Allah I alamu and I know well not named actually but a sentence explained describing Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala but the point is this is very actually a whimsical interpretation of these they have taken Alif from the beginning
of this word and Lam from the middle of this word and Meem from the end of this word and they have all put it together and say it means ana Allah I alamu for example or they say Alif Lam Meem Ra means ana Allah I alamu wa ara
okay you could take any any letter from this ara to put it there and they have put the middle word because well they have no other explanation for it so this is also not a very convincing theory about these disjointed letters in the Quran
or they say about Kaf Hay'in Saad at the beginning of surah Maryam he says well Al Kaf Men Al Kafi well he says Kafi Hadi Hakim Ali Sadik and this is Kaf Hay'in Saad and then because they didn't find an Alif in the beginning and an Lam so they couldn't say
Ana Allahul Kafi Al Hadi Al Sadik so they have just put these attributes consecutively one after the other so not very not not very convincing now there's another beautiful theory about this which is put forward by Sa'id Ibn Jubair one of the
the successors one of the Tabain which was a great exegete he says look you have Alif Lam Ra okay and you have Haa Meem right in the beginning of surah 40 to 46 you have Haa Meem and then you have Noon in the beginning of surah Qalam
what is it? Al Rahman isn't it? so if you put them together you come you end up with the name of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala okay but these three well they go together very smoothly very nicely they form Al Rahman but how about others?
I mean you couldn't make anything out of others really and he says okay that's true but the point is we don't know how to put them together and if we know how to put all these 14 letters together we come we end up with Asmul A'zam for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
but this is of course just a speculation there is no proof for this and you could say okay some Shi'aats have put all these together and they have ended up with this very nice sentence
these are 14 letters coming at the beginning so the path of Ali is the truth and we hold to it and this is very nice all coming together
all these 14 letters coming together and now some of the Sunni say no why do you say it's like this? put it Saratu Sunnah Habqun Nataba'uh okay it gives the same thing of course we have an extra Aleph here okay never mind about that because we have lots of Alephs here
but well it gives the same meaning as well because Saratu Ali Saratu Sunnah and both is Haq and Winnum Circle or Nataba'uh but these are whimsical kind of putting these 14 letters together to find out the sentence
but certainly no one has been able to put these together to find a name for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala or an attribute as Sayyid Ibn Jubay says so we just dismiss this other theory
okay what is left for us? just some other plausible theories I mentioned some say these are just Qasams Allah swears by these letters
well what's the point of swearing by something which we don't know what it is at all and because when you swear by something it means that is a very precious thing or it is highly esteemed either for the one who hears it or for the one who utters it
and of course the letters we don't know what it means for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and for us it has no meaning okay so we have to discard this theory as well
the second theory which is very common among the exegesis of the Quran is that at the beginning I mean at the beginning of Islam okay the Kuffar were hearing the verses of the Quran from the prophet
but after they came to understanding that these are very dangerous and no one should listen to them so in the surahs who come at the beginning of mission of the prophet these are the ending surahs of the Quran
we have no disjointed letter in front of them okay but as Islam progressed and advanced and influenced more people then of course Kuffar wanted to put something as a kind of reasonable argument against it
and when they couldn't they just said okay we go to the sessions in which prophet recites the Quran and we clap and we show them we don't let him to recite the Quran
and this is mentioned of course in the Quran
they said do not listen to the verses of this Quran and interrupt it by something which is laugh or by clapping and shouting so in this case you might win over the prophet
now at this junction at this juncture of time the style of the surahs changed how Allah is instead of starting from a verse right away he started with these disjointed letters
and they were confused they didn't know what they mean so they just wanted to listen what comes next and in this way they were defeated in their ploy well this is very simplistic to think about it
I mean after two or three surahs coming down like this they would have known that this is a new tactic by the prophet for example and they would have to well continue with their old tactics
so not very plausible again and many other things I don't want to go through all those now so what do they mean we don't know
we have many different theories but we don't know what do they mean now there is one we could okay we could find out some clues which tells us
well not of course taking us to the real meaning of these words just give us some flavor of what they mean or what Allah has meant by them okay just some flavors not the true meaning of them
now look for example this is the 15th surah of the Quran
sorry, Wal Quran Al-Majeed, I'm thinking about Surah Yasin so Wal Quran Al-Majeed so I swear by the glorious Quran okay Saad this is the 38th surah of the Quran Wal Quran
the dhikr the Quran which has remembrance in its fold and Yasin Wal Quran Al-Hakim
okay they all talk about the Quran and they give one attribute of the book we talk about the attributes of the Quran later on is there any possible relationship between these these letters of Saad Yasin
there should be some some relation because all then goes straight away into Quran and Quran Al-Majeed and Quran Al-Dhikr and Quran Al-Hakim this has led Allah to speculate on these words he says we really don't know what they mean but we might have some speculations about them
and that is the every letter is denoted is allocated a bunch of me a bunch of related meanings and concepts to them for example every surah starting with Alif Lam Ra has a bunch of concepts related to it if you go through the surah you will see there are a bunch of concepts related to
well you couldn't find it first but if you go through other surahs starting with Alif Ram Ra okay if you go through two three surahs starting with Alif Lam Ra then you would find that there are
then you see that there are some concepts which commonly appear in these surahs starting with Alif Lam Ra now if you go to a surah starting with Alif Lam Meen you see the concepts have changed but there are again common concepts so there are some concepts related to Alif some concepts related to Lam and some concepts related to Meen
which appear in these surahs and then you have to find for example a surah starting with Alif Lam Meen Saad all the concepts coming up in surah Baqarah and the concepts coming up in surah Saad so they are quite related in the sense that you have to find these concepts common concepts
surah Saad of course talks about there are a limited amount of concepts in it and surah A'raf is starting with Alif Lam Meen Saad has a limited number of concepts but those concepts should not exceed the concepts coming in surah Baqarah and the concepts coming in surah Saad
so we could relate these surahs with each other in a sense of course when you come to practice it it gets very difficult now there is one thing did the prophet get any meaning out of these?
now the point is I think the most plausible theory which is of course mentioned among the theories is that these are meant only and only for the prophets not for all it is not meant for us to understand them
there are clues at the beginning of every surah maybe as Ayatullah as Allama Tabataba says to give the whole concepts very briefly when Allah mentions Alif prophet know what kind of concepts are going to be in this surah
so that he knew the explanation of the whole surah with the flavor of Alif and with the flavor of Lam or when a surah started with Saad he knew how to explain and understand the surah with this flavor of Saad
so you might say they are like keywords by which I mean like a computer if you have a keyword you could enter a bunch of information which other people could not enter it
now if you recite the surahs without all these things it's okay you could go very smoothly and you understand everything but if you have this keyword with you you might have a totally and different completely different understanding of everything that goes in the surah
which are the deeper deeper deepest meaning coming along with the verses of the Quran and that is why we are told no one would understand the Quran but the one to whom the Quran is addressed
only the one who's addressed by the Quran would understand of course the exact meaning of these verses and this would tell us that of course Quran is not something with one layer of meaning which everyone would understand
of course there is a layer of meaning and there are deeper layers of meanings which as we advance in our spiritual development we might understand them but the only person who really understands what is meant by these in the true sense of the word is the prophet
having the clues having these keywords putting it in front of these words at least into these 29 surahs putting them in front of these 29 surahs and getting the exact meaning of these surahs as I said this is again a speculation we do not really know what these mean
the prophet the ayamah did not wish to explain it for us because these are the secrets which are not meant for us secrets meant for other people for people who are of course addressed by the Quran
now about Yasin which is a disjointed letter disjointed which are disjointed letters in the Quran we have other specific theories as well
let me see if I have just omitted anything now this one thing interesting which I have been pondering upon since long time you see we have three surahs starting with Tarsin and Tarsinin
which surahs are these who knows yeah Naml starts with Tarsin 27 and Naml and Shuara 26 and Qasas 28 start with Tarsin mean okay now look how these surahs start I mean there is a pattern in all these as I said we just get a flavor of how these might mean
we start surah Shuara like this Tarsin mean
Taka ayatul kitabil mubeen okay and surah Naml we started with Tarsin Taka ayatul quran wa kitabin mubeen
and again surah Qasas starts with Tarsin mean Taka ayatul kitabil mubeen
okay we have a missed mean here and a Quran added here so when something is missed here something should be added in the surah as I say these are all speculations okay
we are not going to get anywhere by these kind of speculations just trying to approach the subject from different points
now Tarsin mean Taka ayatul kitabil mubeen these are the verses of the clear book these are the verses of the clear book both with mean when the mean is lost here it says these are the verses of Quran and the clear book
and if we go through these two as we might find concepts coming up in these two which are not well concept might come up in this one which are not explained in these two because this mean would suffice for the prophet to understand
what kind of concepts he should have from these verses from these surahs okay enough of this now going to Yaseen
Yaseen has a as I said specific explanation and that is we have in in many ahadith that Yaseen is the name of the prophet
yeah I think I have to find this
yeah I think I have I have somehow misplaced the page about the Yaseen anyway they say we have in hadith that prophet said I am called by seven names
from Allah SWT that is Muhammad SAW and Ahmad and Taha and Yaseen and the leader and the minister and Abdullah
okay Alhamdulillah I didn't miss anything else because I was looking for this hadith so he says Yaseen is one of my names and Taha is one of my names so if if this hadith is reliable is is true then Taha and Yaseen should not be counted as disjointed letters of the Quran
of course still we have to say that okay this is a kind of acronym for the prophet not a true name for the prophet that's why we have exodus saying Yaseen means Yaseed
oh you the the noblest of of his people okay or in Almidhan we have Allah SWT explained I don't know whether he has it from any hadith or not saying that
oh you who listen to the wahh okay and Ibn Abbas says that it means ya insan and insan well seen taken from insan and it is again by insan again the prophet is meant so we have something
special about the Yaseen being the name of the prophet and in many hadith for example in many ad-iyah for example we have the Haqq Taha and Yaseen which of course if this is true then they mean I ask you
on the authority of Taha and Yaseen which is the prophet so this is a specific thing about the Yaseen now I think this is enough about the disjointed letters and about the Yaseen specifically
and inshallah from next week I hope we would start the the proper verses of surah Yaseen was allah o ala Muhammadan wali-i-tahili
and I have a few verses on the lady type of jit and the penta left there but it will kick my in three the part today
yeah
can I just ask is there any relationship between bismillah ar-rahman ar-rahim and these letters that we're talking about as well
apparently not because bismillah ar-rahman ar-rahim appears in the beginning of all surahs except tawbah but these letters appear only in the beginning of 29 surahs so I don't even could establish any kind of relationship
but just to continue with that is it that possibly bismillah ar-rahman ar-rahim has a different meaning for each surah not just the same meaning like we have as translated and that I mean just arbitrarily there may be
yeah this is a theory put forward by some exegesis especially allah wa ta'wa ta'bai actually advocates this kind of idea that's in well I remember also imam khomeini in one of his interpretations of the quran
I heard him I haven't seen him seen it in any of his books he said that bismillah ar-rahman ar-rahim might have a different meaning for every surah and this means what does this mean is that when you say
I begin or I recite by the health of the name of allah subhanahu wa ta'ala so seems to me that the concepts in different surahs are different so you have to seek help from different names of allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
for different concepts or for different worships and so on and so forth so for example if you start surah al-hamd with bismillah ar-rahman ar-rahim probably with a specific name you would start and you seek help with that specific name
but when you start say for example surah al-arrah with bismillah ar-rahman ar-rahim you have to seek help from a different name of allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that is what they mean by bismillah ar-rahman ar-rahim having different meanings in different surahs and every bismillah is particular to that surah
and this has a jurisprudential consequence because they say well some of ulama of course not most of them and do not be confused with this and carry on saying bismillah ar-rahman ar-rahim in any way you want I mean do not be fussy about these things
but they say for example when you start a surah after hamd when you want to start surah say idha ja'a nasrullah and you have to say bismillah ar-rahman ar-rahim with the intention that you want to start surah idha ja'a nasrullah
now when you say bismillah ar-rahman ar-rahim and you change your mind now you want to recite surah qul huwa allahu ahad then you have to repeat bismillah ar-rahman ar-rahim again this is the consequence of this kind of idea
sorry for hogging it just to continue with that maybe that is what makes that's what the two letters for example yaseen gives the true meaning of bismillah ar-rahman ar-rahim backwards if you see what I mean so the prophet could actually understand what bismillah ar-rahman ar-rahim meant in that situation which would mean great name maybe
yes that's that's a good speculation that's possible I think we have to add these to into the books our exegesis yeah that's that's very nice yeah yeah
you said that there were certain people in the Quran which Allah says about them are these people just prophets or are they people who share common characteristics and do we know more about these kind of characteristics and can we ever aspire to be of that category of
yes we can enter that's rahmah inshallah if we try hard this is a category of muqarrabun not the prophets only and muqarrabun as you know are of four categories prophets, sadaqeen, shuadaa and salaheen
and maybe maybe if we try very hard we could become we could enter the last category of as-salaheen inshallah and then these are the people who are entered in that rahmah and that rahmah is called to be the true ni'mah of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
which we actually beseeching to to give us that ni'mah or to guide us towards the path of those people having that ni'mah we say ehdna s-saraat al-mustaqeem s-saraat al-lazeena an'amta alayhim
lead us to the path of those upon whom you have favoured eh you you have bestowed your favour and that favour is the rahmah and that rahmah of course is only for al-mukarrabun it is possible for us but well it needs lots of efforts
inshallah maybe we would we will talk about this in in in a independent session yeah
alaikum alaikum salam I'm just wondering did alamattabatubai speculate about the different categorisations that the letters refer to like alif lammeem
you mean independently going on telling that you know you were saying that the different letters refer to surahs which talk about different concepts yes when did he speculate on on that
yeah he has speculated well I didn't elaborate on that but I have written here some of his speculations for example he says that
letter mem whenever we see letter mem we see that there is the concept of denying any kind of doubt about the book and it comes in the beginning right from the be like alif lammeem dhali kal kitabu la raiba fi
and you find this in all those surahs which have the letter mem denying any doubt about the book and he says for example when we have letter ra we have usually or in all cases
this letter to be followed by telka ayatul kitab or something like that which talks about these being the verses of the Qur'an and well he doesn't elaborate much more because it's very difficult
he has somehow through very hard examination of the different surahs have found out found about these and if we well try hard we might find concepts and this would be a very very good undertaking if some of you would like to go through all these surahs
somehow categorize the concepts coming up in the surahs and relate those concepts to these letters to see if we could come up with a new theory about these letters
when the listeners of the washi did not understand anything did they not really ask the prophet like for example the muqati'ats sometimes they would wait for the Arabs to come and ask were these muqati'ats so very well understood by the listener that we have got no record?
no probably they weren't understood otherwise for example we would have a kind of unanimous idea or somehow unanimous idea about them at the time of tabi'un at least which were very very scrupulous about writing anything they had heard from the companions about the exegesis of the Qur'an
but since they don't come up apparently well there is speculation that they have asked the prophet and the prophet have not answered them or have told them that these are the things which are secrets of the Qur'an
and we have in our ahadith that these are secrets of the Qur'an maybe the prophet have told them that these are secrets and they have just thought that they shouldn't ask about them anymore
or they might have thought that this is a new style of literature in Arabic language will be taking these having these disjointed letters at the beginning of surahs
we actually in some interpretations of the Qur'an we have people going back to the Arabic literature finding some sort of similar style that in some poetry and in some prose people use disjointed letters
and they wanted to say that okay this was a common style of literature in Arabic but those instances mentioned are really different because they come in the middle of a poetry for example
or they are meant for a specific letter which are used as acronyms and the hearer would have known what that would mean
this is a totally new style used by the Qur'an and the strongest is that the companion would have asked the prophet and he had told them that these are secrets
In your last lecture you said that one of the duties of the prophet was to explain everything when he said these are the secrets did people just leave it at that?
yeah of course this is one of the very strange things which has happened in the history of interpretation
which we don't have any reliable hadith from the prophet about these things
and well it might come to the mind that why didn't Ashab ask or why didn't the prophet himself explain
so we just might speculate that the prophet had told them these are secrets otherwise yes this is one of the strange things which has happened in the history of exegesis
that we don't have any reliable hadith from the prophet we have hadith from our Ahmadi but from the prophet nothing is there
Okay if I am allowed to ask a second question what were the kalimahs that Allah SWT taught Adam and Hawa?
well we have in our hadith that Allah actually well Adam had somehow seen there are great names related to the arch of Allah SWT
and these names were Muhammad Ali Al Hasan Hussain Fatima and Allah told him that if you ask me through these names I would retrieve you
but well this is a report this is a hadith and it has a completely plausible meaning but we might speculate about other things
for example Allah taught him a dua through which he could repent and make tawbah and well it doesn't make much difference actually
because in that spiritual world when you go above the time I mean when you go above the time Adam knows about Karbala as he knows for example about his own circumstances
as for example the angels knew or the sheytan knew that human beings are going to be resurrected and going to hell or to paradise
okay it was above the time at that point of time and Adam might have known about these names they were not created yet
but when you go above the time the whole concept of where or will or are is really changed
so it is quite plausible that Adam was taught about those names through which he could seek help of Allah SWT
sorry the Mufassir want to talk about Rahman and Rahim as sifah as attributes
but looking at Rahman in the Quran we tend to find Rahman used as a proper name just as Allah is used as a proper name
whereas you don't find the other attributes of Allah as used as proper names
do the Mufassirun at all distinguish Rahman in that way from the other attributes or do they still continue to be just another attribute of Allah
yeah it is an attribute but used as a proper name as I mentioned from the hadith that this is a special name meaning it is a proper name for Allah having a general meaning
so that's why they say you couldn't call anyone to be Rahman this attribute is not going to be given to anyone because it's a proper name of Allah
and in the Quran we have quledu allaha awidu ar-rahman call him Allah call him Rahman it makes no difference ayyamma tad'u falillahi al-asma'u al-husna
so we could say Ar-Rahman is like Allah but there is one difference Allah is the name given to the essence of God
comprising all the attributes of God in it without actually elaborating on them but Ar-Rahman is a proper name in the sense that it uses the most spectacular and the most pervasive attribute of God
to call him by a word which is the proper name of God so in this sense you could say this is different from other attributes but otherwise no it is an attribute of God
it is not a proper name in the sense that Allah is a proper name for Allah subhanaw ta'ala
I think you mentioned that maybe at the time of the prophet people might not have probed into the letters but maybe the time of the Ayma they might have
because the time of the Ayma was a longer period where there was a lot of thinking coming into the Islamic civilization
so later on when the people were trying to find out what the letters meant and did they not ask the Ayma about those meanings because I am quite sure no
because there is a longer period of time other than just a short period of time of the prophet
so they have asked and we have lots of Hadith from Ayma in this regard but as I said they actually insinuate different meanings and different theories which would leave us again
on the square one because then we don't know what these letters might have meant because the theory that these are acronyms for Allah subhanaw ta'ala is mentioned by Ayma
the theory that these might be named of the Surahs is mentioned the theory that this is just to calm down Kuffar from interrupting the prophet is mentioned
so we don't really know the origin of these reports and since they are reports and counter reports we could not rely on any of them
and this is why you find exegesis like Allah wa ta'ba ta'ba is saying that okay we have no reliable theory about them
discarding all the Ahadith about these disjointed letters
Asalamu alaikum wassalam I heard of two of this group of letters from ulama and I want to know what your opinion is about it
one is attributed to Imam Hassan al-Askari and Imam al-Asr jallaah faraj-ul-sharif about kaaf haa-ya-in-saat that kaaf is Karbala and haa is Hussain etc etc
and the other one is Alif Lam Mim at the beginning of Surah Baqarah where this alim gave a very plausible explanation what it could mean and why it means alim Muhammad
what is your opinion on that
well alim Muhammad I don't think we have it reported from the prophet from Ayma alayhumasalam but kaaf haa-ya-in-saat we have it reported from Ayma
but as I said this is a report which has counter reports so in the exegesis of the Quran when we want to interpret the Quran
in a reliable kind of type of way we could not rely on these ahadith I mean we could make take them as a kind of possibility
but again since we have counter reports we could not make sure that these are the real meanings of these disjointed letters
okay
hello yeah can I ask you something
I was going to say something sir
just I want to mention the one possibility is may is famous between our alama as these joined letters in beginning of some surahs as you said 29 surah
it is to challenge the Arab of Ja'iliya that time when that's you know that's alif la ameen plus form your language and this is Quran revealed by these letters
and you can't do that because that's from Allah subhanu ta'ala I don't know it
yes this is this is another very plausible theory and I have put it down here but I just skipped because I thought the time would not allow us to go through it
yes the famous theory is that Allah wants to convey to us and to kufar as well that these verses of the Quran which are the everlasting miracle of the prophet
are made up of these very simple letters like alif la ameen and alif la amra and when prophet actually challenges them to bring surahs and verses like this
they could have done so if this was not a miracle by the same letters and since they couldn't actually put together these letters in this very beautiful way
and the way which is full of wisdom then it shows them that this is from Allah subhanu wa ta'ala but again I mean we come with difficulties here
why for example in the beginning of some surahs it come it doesn't come why they are repeated for example in some surahs so any theory we go through we find a difficulty and a loophole
yes he wanted to ask something more
I just wanted to ask when you say counter reports does that mean that there is one set of reports that are contraindicating another that means is that what you mean when you say counter reports
that means one interpretation is directly opposite to another report and therefore we cannot counter either of them
they are not all unified not directly opposite but they put forward different theories so I mean one theory say these are acronyms of Allah subhanu wa ta'ala
the other theory says these are names of surahs which of course do not comply with each other this is what I mean by counter reports
ok wasallalla ala muhammadan wa ala al ta'ala