The Quran As Al-Furqan: Distinguishing Truth From Falsehood

The Quran as Al-Furqan: The Divine Criterion

My dear respected brothers and sisters in Islam, respected elders and young friends, assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has blessed us with a Qur'anul Kareem, a source of guidance, a source of mercy. And this Qur'anul Kareem has many beautiful titles in the Qur'an.

Allah ta'ala uses these titles to describe His book. Sometimes Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala refers to it as a dhikr:

Verily, We have sent down this source of admonition, advice, a dhikr. And verily, We will protect it. So the Qur'an is a source of advice for us. It is advice from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to soften our hearts, to remind us about the purpose of our existence — where we came from, where we are going, and how we can please Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

The Title Al-Furqan

And there are other titles in the Qur'an. The one title that I wanted to speak about today as a reminder for myself and everyone is that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala refers to the Qur'an in His kalam as al-Furqan, the criterion. This ayah that we always hear in the month of Ramadan:

This is the month of Ramadan, in which the Qur'an has been revealed, as a source of guidance for all of mankind, clear evidence — signs of guidance are in this Qur'an — and it is the criterion.

Furqan comes from the root letters fa, ra, qaf — faraq — and faraq, even in the Urdu language, as of course in the original Arabic, means to distinguish, to demarcate, to show the difference. And this is the origin of the beautiful laqab and title that was given to Umar ibn al-Khattab radhiallahu ta'ala anhu, as al-Faruq — al-faruq alladhi yafruqu bayna al-haqqi wal-batil — the one who distinguishes between truth and falsehood. He himself, in his being, in his sifat, in his attributes, in his actions, in his statements, he was a distinguishing factor between that which is truth and falsehood.

He would uphold the truth and he would attack the batil, denounce the batil, refute the batil. So that is how he got the title al-Faruq. He was not someone who would remain quiet on the sidelines and let things slide, but he would always be promoting the haqq and he would be attacking the batil. That was the power, the strength Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala had given Umar radhiallahu ta'ala anhu, al-Faruq.

And this is again the title of the Qur'an — Furqan, the criterion. This is really, really important for us in this day and age to understand what this signifies and how important this is, and how we are so lucky and we should be so thankful to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for having this Furqan. The criterion that will define and distinguish between what is truth and what is falsehood, what is ethical and unethical, what is legitimate and illegitimate, what is permissible and impermissible.

All of these questions about our existence that the philosophers have been confounded with, have been pondering and reflecting on — what is the definition of morality, what is moral, what is immoral — these are the questions they have been grappling with since the beginning of time. The ancient Greek philosophers, Aristotle and Plato, and philosophers from ancient China, to different cultures, different religions, different ideologies throughout the centuries have been grappling with these questions. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has answered these questions in the Qur'an as it is al-Furqan.

The Sources of Knowledge

The human beings — Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has brought us into this world in such a condition that we have no knowledge to begin with. Our default is jahal, is ignorance. As Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says:

He is the one who has brought you forth from the wombs of your mothers. In what condition? You had no knowledge. You did not have any knowledge of anything. So this is how our default status is — not having knowledge, jahal.

The Physical Senses and the Intellect

Then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gave us multiple sources of acquiring knowledge, and there are multiple different levels of acquiring knowledge. Ibn al-Qayyim, at a very basic level, defines it as: a person responds to external stimuli, external stimulation, external observations, and he takes that information, processes it, and keeps it inside his mind. From outside, information is coming in to the inside. And the vehicles through which knowledge is transferred from the kharij to the batin — from outside to inside — are of course the five senses. So we gain knowledge through our eyes by seeing, our ears by hearing, by touch, by smelling — we gain information about our surroundings.

And ilm — علم — if you switch the lam and the mim around, keeping the same ayn in its own place, it will become amal. And amal is the exact opposite — naqlu shay min al-dakhil wa ithbatuhu fil-kharij — from inside, in our mind, if we make an intention, we have a plan, and then from inside we execute it through our body parts. Either we make our tongue move, or we make our hand or our feet move — that in reality is what amal is. So ilm is from outside coming inside — information — and from inside, the intention is implemented and manifested externally — that is amal.

Now, the knowledge of this dunya — the entire scientific knowledge that we have — is based on this same reality. The scientific method is that a person has an idea after observing phenomena; this is a hypothesis, and then he continues to test it, and it may become a theory, and after further extensive testing and ruling out other coincidental factors, it comes to a point where the theory turns into a law. This is the law of physics, this is the law of our existence. But subhanAllah, this is all based on research, all based on our interaction — what we see with our eyes, whether it is through the nanoscope, the microscope, or whether it is through the telescope, seeing things that are near, seeing things that are far, hearing things, observing things in the lab or outside in the field. So these are the external sources of knowledge, and this is the knowledge of the dunya that we acquire.

On top of these, there is another faculty that Allah ta'ala has given us. It is above and beyond the physical senses. For example, we see with our eyes something is burning — that is through basar, through our vision — or we smell the smoke. But there is something where a person does not see the fire, his finger is not in the fire, he does not touch the fire, but from a distance he sees in a valley that there is smoke wafting into the air — he will have the knowledge that there is a fire burning there without seeing it. So this is where on top of the physical senses there is an additional gift from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala — the quwwa of aqal, of our intellect — that pieces together the information, synthesizes it, and comes to new conclusions. So this is another higher source of knowledge.

The Highest Source: Divine Revelation (Wahi)

Now, as we are climbing the ladder — because there is a limit of what I can see, it has a hadd, after that I cannot see — then I may be able to hear behind the wall what is happening, but beyond that I may be able to decipher and determine it through my aqal. But then there are things that are wara' al-aqal — beyond the jurisdiction, beyond the limit of the intelligence. All the uqala of the world, all the intelligent people, all the philosophers of the world coming together cannot answer those questions.

And what is that ultimate highest source of knowledge which is even beyond the intellect? That source of knowledge is divine inspiration, divine revelation, emanating from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. In short, we call it wahi. And that wahi comes in two forms: one is the wahi which we make tilawah of and recite in salah, that is called wahi al-matlu. And there is another wahi which we do not recite in the salah, in the prayer, which is called wahi ghayr matlu. But both of them are divinely inspired. Both of them are actually divine. One — the words itself are divine — and the other one we can say is divinely inspired. Words of Allah and words of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam.

Terming the words of Rasulullah also as wahi — if this may surprise us or we may be hesitant — is it accurate? I know that kalamullah is wahi, but is it true that we can say that hadith are also wahi? No, that is not a stretch. Because it is very clearly stated in the Qur'an itself. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala Himself said in Surah an-Najm:

My beloved Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam — he does not speak from his desires. Whatever he says, whatever he utters, it is only wahi. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala used a particular structure in this ayah — first negating the Nabi's sallallahu alayhi wasallam speech of being from his own desire, and then He said in huwa illa wahyun yuha — it is nothing except for revelation. Meaning everything that he says is wahi.

Just like with the kalimah — if we say "Allah is my ilah," that is great, but it is not sufficient. Because the mushrikeen also believed in Allah. If you asked them, man khalaqa al-samawati wal-ard — who created the heavens and the earth? — yaqulunna Allah. The problem was they also believed in other idols: ma na'buduhum illa liyuqarribuna ila Allah — "We worship these other idols so they can bring us closer to Allah." But our kalimah is not just "Allah is my god." Our kalimah is la ilaha — there is no god — illa Allah — except for one Allah. So this is a structure where it gives us exclusivity — only one.

If a person says "you are my wife" — that doesn't negate the possibility of a second. But if he says "I have no wife, except for you" — that is very, very clear that there is no one else. So likewise Allah ta'ala says — whatever he says is nothing — negation — illa — the same illa of the kalimah, la ilaha illa Allah — that same illa — in huwa illa wahyun yuha — it is only revelation.

The Story of Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-Aas

And this is exactly what happened with Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-Aas radhiallahu ta'ala anhuma. The father, Amr ibn al-Aas, and the son, Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-Aas — both were sahaba of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam. Interesting trivia is that there was around twelve and a half to thirteen years of age difference between the father and the son, subhanAllah. So they would start their families quite young. Not that this was the most typical age difference, but it was even in that time worth noting — that is why it was recorded.

So this Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-Aas was a great zahid and abid, and his practice was that he used to write down everything that Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam was saying. And he had a written compilation — the first written compilation of hadith — called al-Sahifah al-Sadiqah, the truthful compilation and risalah.

So one day Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam saw him that he had stopped writing, he was not taking notes. And Allah ta'ala says in the Qur'an:

He is the one who taught with the pen. So where did your pen go? Because the knowledge is coming and flowing — and if you want to capture it, you have to write it down. That is why the scholars say: knowledge is like a hunted animal — you see it, wow, there's a deer, you just look at it, if you say "come here deer," it's not going to come, it's going to run away. So you just see it and it's gone. And if you want to capture it, if you want to trap that animal so that you can benefit from it, you have to write it down.

So Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam saw Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-Aas radhiallahu anhuma had stopped writing. So he asked him, "What happened? Where's your notebook? Why aren't you taking notes?" So then he said, "Ya Rasulullah, I was confused because some of my companions told me: what's wrong with you? When Nabi sallallahu alayhi wasallam is happy, what he says you write it down; when he's upset, you write it down; when he's talking to somebody, you write it down; when some guests come, you write it down; when he's talking to visitors, when somebody asks him a question, you're writing down everything. Just write down the speeches and the khutbah and don't write everything down." So I became confused — maybe I'm overzealous and I'm doing something that's not needed or not advisable.

So Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam said, "No, continue writing."

(Sunan Abi Dawud, Hadith 3646; also recorded in Musnad Ahmad)

"I swear by Allah, nothing will come out of these two lips but it is the truth." SubhanAllah.

The Unique Qualities of Divinely Revealed Knowledge

So this is the ultimate source of knowledge — wahi. Whether it is in the form of the Qur'an, which is matlu and we make tilawah of it, or the form of hadith, which we do not make tilawah of — that is the only distinction. Otherwise, both are from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. This is the ultimate source of knowledge, and this knowledge is different, unique, and of a higher level than all of the knowledge that we have of the world.

We have the knowledge from our physical senses, above that is the knowledge through our aqal and intellect, and above and beyond that is the knowledge that comes from divine inspiration. What are some basic differences?

First: The knowledge of this dunya will benefit us only in this world. The knowledge that is based on wahi will benefit us in this dunya, in the barzakh, in the hashar, and toward eternity in jannah, inshallah.

Second: The knowledge of this world is continually being updated and changed. It was a widely understood fact that the earth is the center of the universe — then we said no. We said the sun rises in the east and sets in the west — then we came to understand the earth rotates on its axis and has an orbit around the sun. So the knowledge of the world is continually being updated and changed, whereas the knowledge based on wahi never changes. It doesn't change, it never gets outdated. It never gets outdated because it's not dated. It is eternally relevant, universally applicable — wherever you may be, whenever the time may be. Inimitable, cannot be copied. Unparalleled, unchanging — eternally relevant word of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

Third: Whatever knowledge is based on wahi is yaqeen — conviction. And whatever we have of the knowledge of the dunya is zann — conjecture. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says:

There is absolutely no doubt — no scope of any doubt — in the Book of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And no scope of any doubt in our yaqeen, in our aqeedah, in our belief. That is a big difference between our belief and our practice. In our belief, there is no scope of doubt — nothing less than 100% is acceptable. And in our amal, we can never be 100%. Our amal will never be 100%, and our deen, our aqeedah, must never be less than 100%.

If a person says "I believe in 99.99% of the Qur'an" — it is equivalent to believing in 0% of the Qur'an. Effectively, they are both the same. Because there is no scope for doubt in the Qur'an. There is no scope for doubt in our belief. The belief must be 100%. And the practice can never be 100%.

Closing Reminder

May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow us to understand the difference between the ilm of the dunya and the ilm of the akhirah. And going back to what we began — the Qur'an is a Furqan, a criterion. And it will eternally resolve these issues once and for all: what is haqq and what is batil, what is truth and what is falsehood. And in this era of confusion, when people are looking for answers here and there, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has blessed us with such a book. It befits us that we should go towards it, study it, make tadabbur and tafakkur on it, learn it, so that we can benefit from it and spread this message to others.

Du'a

O Allah, heal our sick and the sick among the Muslims, and have mercy on our deceased and the deceased among the Muslims. O Allah, grant healing to our brothers and sisters who are oppressed in Gaza. O Allah, grant them beautiful patience. O Allah, be with them and be their helper.

We make du'a for Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Burma, and the entire Muslim Ummah. And we make du'a for Brother Muhyiddin Hanifa's father, who is sick — may Allah grant him complete shifa.