You won't survive without this!

You Won't Survive Without This!

Tilawa — this word is so common, we use it day-to-day. We think tilawa means recitation. Tilawa is to recite the Qur'an in a beautiful voice.

But in the Arabic language, tala yatlu is to follow something. Tilawa means to follow the Qur'an in action. That's the original meaning of tilawa in the Arabic language.

And recitation was just a means to following the Qur'an. But we have become people who suffice ourselves with recitation. And the end goal — the action — it never happens.

Attachment to the Qur'an

Allah says the first step — if you want to be like these seven young men who protected themselves in an environment that was full of disbelief, in an environment that invited them to every evil — the first thing you need to do is you need to have an attachment to the Qur'an.

But that means you need to know the meanings of what is inside the Qur'an. Do not treat it like a book of melodies. Because this is what happened to people before you.

They sing the hymns, they recite the chapters and the scriptures. But little do they act on what's inside of it. Allah says there are illiterate people amongst them. For them, the scripture is just stories, empty hopes, a nice song to recite — play it in the car, put it on the bookshelf, decoration. But really, in their day-to-day life, in their buying and selling, in their marital affairs, in their family business, when they wake and when they sleep — it has no bearing on their life.

Allah says: first, if you want to survive, you need an attachment to the Qur'an.

Surviving as a British Muslim Community

And us as a British Muslim community — if we want to survive in this climate, where everything around us is inviting us away from our values — the first thing we have to give our children is an understanding of the Qur'an.

Yes, when a child is young, they need to know الف با تا — the Arabic alphabet. They need to know how to recite. But don't stop there. Why would you stop there? You only came halfway. You walked halfway down the pitch, and that's it — you pass the ball to the opposition. No, complete it. We need a goal. We need you to get to the end.

Teaching the Qur'an at Every Age

The end goal with the Qur'an — especially once a child reaches the age of seven, and they can understand and think and ask questions, and at school they're learning about geography and history and sociology — we need to talk to them about the meanings of the surahs of the Qur'an, starting with قُلْ هُوَ اللَّهُ أَحَدٌ.

Anybody in this room can explain قُلْ هُوَ اللَّهُ أَحَدٌ to a seven-year-old. It's not difficult. What you need to do is make it a story. You need to add some sound effects, some characters, some noises — and a seven-year-old will be very excited about this.

Your child reaches the age of 14, 15 — now you need to have deeper conversations with them about the Qur'an. If you explore the Qur'an, you can teach them and talk to them about it. But if you don't, your madrasah teacher is never going to do it. Imam sahib, shaykh, ma'alim — they are not going to do it. The meanings of the Qur'an is not something emphasized in our madrasah school systems. We as parents have to do it.

If we want our children to survive — and have that cave, and that good company, and that strong ethos, despite all the pressure — we have to give them the greatest weapon of all time: the weapon of understanding what is inside the Qur'an.