SURAH AN-NAS
All praise be to Allah Almighty, peace and blessing be upon the Prophet (PBUH) and all the companions who are adherents of the righteous path until the Judgment Day. Tonight we shall encounter one important surah of the Qur’an. In most scenarios when the Qur’an is mentioned we also say the adhimushan, or the Noble, which means that it is considered a significant renewal or we can even say the Noble Qur’an. We say this as a sign of respect we have towards the sacred word, the words which represent the connection and the unification of the sky and of the Earth. There is one ontological division amid the sky and the earth before the arrival of the Prophet (PBUH), this is the period when man almost entirely forgot the voice of the sky and had lost the humane within him.
Creation, before attaining this distinct shape standing amid the sky and earth, in other words of the substance and meaning, it dwell in unification in the presence of Allah the Almighty. With the earthly or corporeal representation, the soul walked divorced from the origin and rejoiced with the body, metaphysics divorced from the physical, yet they never abandoned each other. As a result, the body is in solitude for the soul as well as the soul is found in solitude for the body. The soul is put in this world to meet the body. When (metaphysics) the spiritual state surpasses onto this world, it meets the soul, and even at that state the body continuously seeks to experience the predestined dimension of the eternal unification with Allah the Almighty. Sin, is one element which serves as a separator between the soul and the body, it thus loses this unification, divorces the sky from the earth and descends the Qur’an as a book in a very dangerous period when the separation of the sky and earth occurred, bringing division amid the body and soul, it thus arrives by introducing to people the path of becoming anew part of that union which shall introduce peace. Since the abyss between the soul and body grows more visible, as well as amid religion and the world – these two terms religion and the world, Faqir (term existing among Sufis referring to one person in need of God, and one who does not have anything. Usually used to refer to Sufi leaders) does not generally use this term only for descriptive purposes I am saying this to you in order to make it more clear, otherwise Islam does not separate the world with religion. Islam does not distinguish the sacral with the profane under no circumstances whatsoever, not even in science, for instance in Islam there is no religion which is profane and science which is characterized as religious, also as much as a Hafez has sawab – reward- when memorizing the Al-Baqarah surah, as much sawab has a student of mathematics when he learns of mathematical quandaries with which he will later enlighten the world and shall help others be acquainted with God, for the primary purpose of each activity of man in this world is to be acquainted with Allah the Almighty. Otherwise everything else in this world does not behold value, precisely to this there is no sacral and profane, and there is no religious and worldly. When the student of mathematics resolves a mathematical problem, he conducts zikr – deity of God alike when a person says Lā ʾilāha ʾillā-llāh or SubhanAllah or when one says Alhamdulillah or Allahu Akbar. It is precisely to this why Muslims have never perceived religious and worldly as separated.
There is one book in Albanian now translated from Bosnian, those of us who are little older in generation have read it in Bosnian (the original is in English) written by Thomas Arnold, The Spread of Islam in the World (the books which I will mention during the lectures it is good to have them remembered, for if you enter one library you would have what to look for; that is the reason why Faqir mentions the names of the books and authors, so when you travel somewhere you will have in memory at least a number of tittles which you could look for regarding matter of the existential life). Thomas Arnold, as I said, has one book regarding the history of the spread of Islamic religion and in his book the author says, at the point when religion became part of only the imams, it began to turn, to walk back to history, the time when religion was represented by “shoe makers”, that’s precisely what he says in his book, and that is why I paraphrase him, he means that even then when the ones in such behavior including the shoemakers have represented religion, religion has walked forward. For this reason I say to you that in Islam there is no religious architecture and profane architecture, as an example in the world literature “hammam is one public bath” considered as profane architecture, yet in Islam hammam is not just worldly proclaimed, since gusl is fards – obligatory, abdast is also fards; being purified is an ibadah – worship of God just as namaz is– praying; for this reason the Prophet (PBUH) says: “ purity in cleanness is from faith or purity is half the faith”. Precisely to this, when you see one who is not clean and claims to be a Muslim, do not take his word for granted, for he is lacking half of his iman if he does not have that viridity. – that is, man walking astray from his origin and his essence.
The soul cannot be separated from the body, and this division has been enabled in the “period of the proletariat of science”, (proletariat in science is the historical materialization which begins with Saint Simon, Auguste Comte in the XIX century. It is the period of keeping man focused in the limited scope of his senses, when our senses are limited to the extent which nowadays, if one takes away our logic and our memory, and prior to this asks us: what is there that exists? For those of us which are here, from the dimension of the senses, this room exists, for that is the extend which we can hear, perceive, the extent to which we can touch and smell, and it means that if we do not have the memory telling us that we have touched something and thus we grew aware of its existence, our eyes have recorded something and have affixed it in our memory, and then for us only this room exists, where we are currently found). As there are material interruptions for the senses, there are intellectual interruptions for reason, it is not only us Muslims how claim this, Plato also states the above delineated, when we discern the intelligible, means, the various platforms of intelligence, of the intellectualism of the mind, we claim that each platform of the mind has its limits. A child who is in the first grade, cannot be given a university medical level book to read, for the child cannot comprehend the written material, or give a newborn meat for lunch, only because the parent wishes to feed him. We understand that man is put in designated limits. The materialist existentialism, in center of existence assign man and perceives the world as anthropocentric. (Arthropod in Greek refers to man whereas anthropocentrism assigns man in the center of existence and surrounding all things around him). The post French revolution period, from 1780 and forth, established man as centric and do you know what happens with this perception: man is relative, Faqir is relative like Metin – a being, since what I believe and hold dear as good, I dedicate that good doing only for myself that it will be good or little if I am in predisposition for a even enclosed surrounding, but this does not mean that the same is beneficial or good for the Chinese, it does not mean it is good for the Arabians, the English, the American or the Spanish and so forth…
Science and the scientific perception, since it is not science to blame but the manner we approach science, culture, art, knowledge, politics and work – deeds in general, when assigns man in center, the latter begins to pull the valuable, preferential things towards himself and thus focuses on the things which best suite his personal interest. Among us here today perhaps there are students of economy, and those of you might best know that the epicenter of theory of Smith in economy is to establish man in center and mainly man’s individual interests. Churchill, based on Smith’s theory claims that “we have everlasting interests among us, but we do not have everlasting companions”. This theory has potential to be productive in a particular surrounding, but it is not for man, it is not humane at all.
Islam does not commit this distinction under no circumstance. When one listens to the Qur’an being recited, or let us put it this way, when man intervenes, this reflects that the situation has severely worsened and we are found among the moments when the sky is found afar from the earth. Until the arrival of the Prophet (PBUH), Allah the Almighty has intervened through the other revelations, like Adam, Abraham, Musa, Jesus… the final prophet Muhammad (PBUH) has endorsed the revelation of the Qur’an and post him there shall not come any revelation or messenger, but instead the interventions of God shall be manifested in different ways. Even post the final revelation the contact of God with the universe continues, inferably each event, occurrence which takes place has its own spiritual dimension. Those of you who are young might not know, but our grandmothers or our mothers, when there would be a thunderstorm they would say SubhanAllah. Whereas the newer generations began to think that a thunderstorm would merely be a process of physics and there is nothing spiritual about it, but even the greatest physician would be scared at the moment when the thunderstorm would befall, this shows that there is also a spiritual dimension to it. Each event, occurrence which is manifested has its spiritual dimension, this is both true for the social occurrences as well; perhaps one of you might have read the book by Emile Durkheim Le Suicide (Suicide). Durkheim is one French positivism sociologic therapist. In the abovementioned book the author says: “Suicide is not one psychological occurrence, but it is rather sociological, which means that psychological elements are not the ones leading to suicide. In certain occasions there are experiences, but his theory claims that suicide is a sociological event, since when man cannot confront his spiritual domain which he has veiled for a long time, the latter begins to experience distress and if he does not interfere with adequate spiritual feeding, he shall then inject food which might appeal as good but shall not be as such in essence and this shall only further deport him in the vague spiritual abyss. As such is alcohol, drugs and as final suicide. This is not claimed by a Muslim nor a Christian, instead one who is entirely materialist would claim such a thing. Henceforth it means that the abyss, these divisions, the heftier they become the more man ostracizes from himself or we can also use the contemporary term for this word “alienation”, and it shows that to man his self becomes foreign, he does no longer know who he is, and then God intervenes. Even in our society, for instance those who know little of religion, when they are attached to a distress and only then they reach for an imam to heal him, but they tend to forget that then depression reaches for them, healing in such fashion will not do any good. Such situation cannot be fixed for such a grand precipice requires a time to heal, there is savior but there is no savior for charlatans, and among our community here there are many of those found in every sphere. It is instead favored than when those people are in crisis, it is best to work with them in full conscience, for the abyss cannot simply be infused with soil, since for many years we have excavated and now with a mere shovel we want to enclose the abyss, this is simply impossible.
These sacred interventions, which tonight shall be our matter of discussion, begins with the word “Kul”. “Kul” is the imperative form of the verb Kale of the Arabic language, it is imperative and it is directed to the Prophet (PBUH). Allah the Almighty descends the Revelation to the Prophet (PBUH) through Gabriel, He has done so with all the other messengers. (The Arabic version of the name Gebrail is Jibril. In the recent periods our collogues begin using these Arabic naming. For example they say thawab instead of sawab. Sawab is a word which has attained meaning as such in the Albanian, Turkish and Persian languages. There is no need to use it as thawab, as much as there is no need to call Gabriel, Jibril, for the words have taken root in the English, Albanian languages, alike the word television which has become part of our language as well as the Macedonian and Turkish language regardless of which language we are referring, but I am now speaking in English/ Albanian thereupon I said it in English /Albanian).
Allah the Almighty descends the revelation through Gabriel and in such fashion brings it to the Prophet (PBUH), and the first message, the first contact is the Prophet (PBUH) and he had said: “Kul “(Say). The Prophet (PBUH) today is not physically among us, but spiritually he is. He claims this by the following Hadith: “I am in that gathering where my companions mention my name”, we are now mentioning the Prophet (PBUH) and we send him blessings to God (this is an obligation for each Muslim for when the name of the Prophet is mentioned the person ought to say: “May peace and blessing be upon the Prophet (PBUH) and his prudent family”). Despite that he is not physically here, this edict of the Qur’an is directed to us as well, since I just read the Qur’an and when I opened the Qur’an the first word which was told to me was: “Kul” or Say. Even when one of you reads the Qur’an, it says to you Say, even with you here it sets the direct link amid the earth and the sky and thereupon, automatically, the depression which has its place amid the sky and the earth is renewed, since Allah the Almighty says to you “Kul” and hence you are assigned a dialogue with the Creator.
None of the other religions have this discourse of intuit, but not the rational discourse of the “discoursive mind” which is greatly used in the recent periods, in reality this is mainly used in the contemporary times. Postmodernism seeks to abandon this “discursive mind”. Several times I have mentioned whether you have ever thought of Richard Gere, one famous actor, why he kisses the hand of Dalai Lama? (Dalai Lama is a priest of the Tibetan Buddhism, and yet Richard Gere kisses his hand). This is one symbolism, a thought that the West has remained without an idea, has remained without a soul. Technology has brought the mind to rely upon it and has put man astray from his origin, it has alienated him from himself, and has left him hungry. This is precisely the reason why the actor kisses Dalai Lama’s hand.
We still do not see this situation here in this part of the world, but it will approach us as well. We still have our mothers and grandmothers who read the Qur’an, but did you know that among the Albanians in Albania, Kosovo and even Skopje, in a number of families, there are people who seek spiritual tranquility in “Yoga”. The person is in need of a soul and instead he seeks to contemplate it with “Yoga”, and we have here the father of Yoga in Islamic Tasawwuf, we have the father of Yoga and Dalai Lama in the “Masnawi” of Mawlana Jalal al-Din Rumi, in Ghazali and so forth. The problem is not merely with those who need to actualize, to accept the matter, but the problems stands also with the ones who need to present the matter; the problem is a mutual one. When one party will blame the other, things will not take a positive shape. When there is regression in one part of our lives, stagnation, and when we have a statue quo, then the blame is mutual. If one society is cataclysmic, Besar, Alaydin can be still outstanding, but their society is still not in prosper. Thereupon society is one crucial element and Allah the Almighty as he speaks on the Qur’an turns to us as well.
Musa a.s is one of the highest in rank as a prophet of Allah the Almighty, to whom the revelation was descended by God. (There are four books descended by God: the first is Tawrat which descended to Musa (PBUH), today the Jews have the altered version of Tawrat known as the: “Torah or Talmud”. The second revealed book is Zebur, which descended to Davud (PBUH). This is a book with religious songs, ilahi, and the altered version used by Christians and is known as “Psalms”. The third reveled book is Injil or by the Christian version Injil or the New Testament which is one part of the Bible. The final descended book is the Qur’an, for the Muslims. With the coming of the Qur’an the previous books are revoked, abrogated, alike when with the coming of Jesus the law of Tawrat, Musa (PBUH) was abrogated aside from the jurisdictional orders which have continued from Tawrat and hither, alike with the descend of the Qur’an the previous books have been abrogated. Musa (PBUH) is one messenger of God which is known to have talked with God. One is Musa (PBUH) and second is our prophet Muhammad (PBUH) who in al-Miraj received a number of verses directly from God. From these verses there are two verses from Surah Al-Baqarah (285-286), which we read after the namaz of Jatsi and thereupon they have high value, most of you have heard, there are 12 verses of the Najm Surah, it is good if you consider reading these verses of the Surah Najm, they are very important verses.
Musa (PBUH) one day had asked Allah the Almighty and had turned to him with these words: “God I am talking to you now, will there come another one until the Day of Judgment who will speak with You and who will be closer to you than I?” Allah the Almighty said to him: “Yes, there will be the adherents, Muhammad’s (PBUH) unmet, when they will read the Qur’an they will be closer to me than you now, as you are having a dialogue with me. This shows that reading the Qur’an and answering this decree with the word: “Kul” enables man to enter in a dialogue with the Creator, and this is the greatest pleasure, the highest experience (but not reading the Qur’an without any regard, as sometimes when we pray in Tarawwi, aiming to finish faster; read faster and to finish faster, this is not how the Qur’an is read, do you know how the Qur’an is read? Those who know how to read Arabic, it is better to read one page in Arabic one page in Albanian / English, it is enough for one night, there is no need to make hatma for one year, we can do it for ten years who can prevent this, but one page in Arabic then one page in Albanian, Bosnian, in English, in French and Turkish, whichever language you know best read that one page in that language, and moreover think on the message which the sacred word brings to us).
Oftentimes people read the Qur’an with skepticism, prejudices, with specific bias glasses they read and thus they only see what they prefer to see. There once was a man who went to Imam Abu Hanifah, and had said to him that he wished to see Muhammad (PBUH) in his dream. Abu Hanifah told to him to eat an entire pie with a lot of salt and then he could see the Prophet (PBUH) in his dream. The man put a lot of salt in the pie, and in his dream he dreamed of water source, lakes, rivers and as he woke up he went to Abu Hanifah and told him what he had seen in his dream. Abu Hanifah told the latter: For what your soul longs for, that is what you will see in your dream. Your soul was in desperate need for water, and to that reason you had seen water sources in your dream, if you soul was in such desperate seek for the Prophet (PBUH) you would have seen him.
In the world today there reigns the wrong image of Islam, as a result of a very dangerous prejudice for the religion of God. For this image, in essence Muslims are to blame, but this does not release from blame the others, since the world is a mutual place for a mutual life and engagement of all people. Islam is a religion of peace, war is undertaken only then where there is no other path, but it does this solder to solder, man to man, the Muslims do not commit to a pretentious war. The social strive of Muslims for a social and humane integration of mankind is the greatest war for the true believer of Islam.
In one of my PhD examinations, one professor of mine, greatly respected, Mustafa Tahral, inshaAllah God grants him goodness in life, asked us a question, he said: “What do you think, how should Muslims respond to an atomic bomb, what is the method with which we can defeat our enmity who are stronger than us in military force?”
Firstly let us think of a more powerful destructive tool than an atomic bomb, this is precisely how the contemporary man thinks, whereas our dear professor said: “Muslims should be in seek of a tool which will deactivate the atomic bombs, since we are not here to kill people as the atomic bomb perishes half of the world, and should we also kill half of the humankind?”
Thereupon in order for us to seek the tool which shall prevent the atomic bomb, we ought to work and be dedicated to the hearts of people, and this my dear friends cannot be done in groups. Alij Izetbegovic has left us with a very good word, may he have peace, he would say: “If we didn’t achieve to establish the Islamic state, then who is preventing us from forming the Islamic family, who is preventing us from making a person be a Muslim”. Thus embracing one’s heart is enough for attaining a place in heaven.
As a result, not in big groups but there is one person, that person foremost ought to be us, and then among our family members and only afterwards amid those who are more far, distant from us.
Thank you.
