Iqra: The Divine Command for Knowledge in All Creation

The First Revelation: A Command to Read

As we know, to the Prophet ﷺ were the words:

Read, recite in the name of your Lord, the One who created you. Who created insan from a clot of blood. Recite, and your Lord is the most generous, the most noble. The One who taught with the pen. Taught insan that which insan doesn't know.

The very first revelation that Allah sent down upon the Prophet ﷺ was an order to recite. And from here, many of the scholars talk about how تَعْلِيم and عِلْم is one of those things that distinguishes insan from all other creatures.

Do Animals Also Learn?

But here, there is something that should be understood a little bit more in depth. Sometimes we think that it is human beings that exclusively have knowledge. That it is exclusively human beings, from all the other creations of Allah, that have the ability to learn and the ability to understand things.

But if you actually look around, that's not necessarily completely true. You look at other animals — animals also have the ability to learn. An animal that is born, many of these animals from the moment that they're born are able to walk. And from the moment that they're walking, they're learning from their parents. Whatever type of animal it is, that animal is learning, it's observing its mother, it's observing its father — the way they hunt, the way they find food, etc. That's learning, that's تَعْلِيم.

Allah speaks in the Quran about the bees:

That Allah has put within these bees, has inspired them — and it is Allah's divine قُدْرَة that is being manifested through these bees — how they're able to find pollen, how they're able to find the nectar, and how they're able to produce honey for human beings.

In fact, if you ever study — if there's anyone who's ever interested in being a beekeeper — alhamdulillah, we actually have a number of Muslim beekeepers even here in Chicago. There's one brother I was speaking to, and he was telling me that, subhanAllah, the queen bee is the one that directs the worker bees or the drone bees to find — to direct them where they could find the nectar from. SubhanAllah. There's this idea of تَعْلِيم that's there too.

The Ants and Sulayman ﷺ

Allah also talks about the ants in the Quran. When the army of Sulayman ﷺ is walking through a valley and there is an ant hill there, the queen ant speaks:

"O ants, enter into your dwellings, lest Sulayman and his army come and trample over you while they don't realize that you're here." But this was a mu'jizah that Allah gave to Sulayman ﷺ — that he was able to understand the words of that ant, and the communication of that ant. That was the mu'jizah of Sulayman ﷺ, as Allah bestowed him with a number of mu'jizahs.

He could speak to birds:

Where is Hudhud? When he was looking at the army and taking attendance — who's there, who's not there — he finds that among the birds, Hudhud wasn't there. He says, "Where is Hudhud? Why is he absent?" And so when Hudhud comes back, he reports: "I know something. I've come across something that you are not aware of, O Sulayman. I've come across a people that are ruled by a queen, and they worship the sun." This bird observed something, and that bird is communicating to Sulayman ﷺ.

Now you and I don't have that ability, but that ayah in the Quran tells us and shows us that these creatures, these animals, have the ability to learn.

What Distinguishes Insan from All Other Creation

So then what makes us different from the rest of the creation of Allah? Well, from the time that the bees were created, and whatever تَعْلِيم that they get, they can only do those couple of things that they're designed for. Have you ever seen a bee construct a hive that's different from the hives that they create? No.

The hive that they create and the honey that they create — there may be certain variations. Depending on the flowers and the nectar that the bees get, the color of the honey changes. I remember one time when I was buying honey from a friend of mine, he said, "What type of honey do you want?" I said, "What do you mean, what type of honey?" He said, "Do you want spring, summer, or fall?" I said, "What does that mean?" He said, "Well, depending on the flowers that are available during that season, that's what they get, and that changes the quality of the honey." For example, the springtime honey is a little bit lighter — it's less sweet, per se. It's sweet, but it's not as strong as the one that's produced in the summer. It just depends on the flowers.

SubhanAllah. And when I tasted, you could tell the difference. The color too was much lighter — the honey made in spring was lighter than the one made in summer. It's amazing, subhanAllah.

The difference between all other created animals and us is our ability to use that knowledge and to create from that knowledge. You look at human civilization and the development of human civilization. The houses that we used to live in hundreds of years ago — do we still live in similar houses? Well, some people may, based on whatever materials and faculties they have available to them. But where human beings have the ability, and where they can, they use their ingenuity to create things that, subhanAllah, in the past you could never think of.

And this is much more so with the Muslims as well. Because the Muslims were always inspired by this — اقْرَأْ بِاسْمِ رَبِّكَ الَّذِي خَلَقَ — and they were always guided by the Quran, always guided by the Sunnah.

Islamic Art and Architecture: A Manifestation of Guided Ingenuity

As an example, in the hadith it comes — the Prophet ﷺ said:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 5950; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 2109)

That the most severe of punishments that will be given on the Day of Judgment will be to those who draw pictures of animate objects and those who sculpt.

Where other civilizations in their places of worship you will find sculptures and paintings, in no masjid — insha'Allah — will you find any painting or any sculpture of any animate being. Rather, how did the Muslims take this ruling that the Prophet ﷺ gave, along with their ingenuity and creativity? SubhanAllah, the Muslim architecture of the world speaks for itself.

Go all the way to the east — search up masajid in China, and you'll see local architecture mixed with Muslim architecture. Go to Malaysia — the masajid in Malaysia are beautiful. Go throughout the Muslim world, all the way to here in the west where you have Muslims living and masajid like this. Go to Turkey, go to Morocco, look at the art, look at the architecture, subhanAllah. India, Pakistan — the Mughal Empire, what they developed, subhanAllah. It's a whole field of study now in colleges and universities: Islamic art. Where you have architecture and then you have the divine kalaam of Allah written in beautiful calligraphy. See, subhanAllah — within this dome, for example, the ayat of Allah, the ayat of Quran that are written. Divine revelation now brought into beautiful script.

This was the ingenuity that Allah gave insan — that insan, with the knowledge that he has, can produce, can make, can build, and can continue to build on top of that.

Transportation and the Limitless Creation of Allah

Where Allah speaks about transportation in the Quran:

You have these animals that Allah created for you. You use them for riding, you use them for what not. They help carry loads for you from one destination to another that you would not be able to do by yourself. Then Allah says, "And Allah creates that which you don't know yet."

SubhanAllah — we see as human beings continue and civilization grows. You have the industrial age and what not. SubhanAllah, today we're talking about flying cars. It's no longer something that's just theoretical — you're actually talking about it now. So that's what separates insan from all other creation of Allah: his ability to take the knowledge he has and produce from it. No other creature of Allah has that.

The Goal and Objective of All Knowledge

But what is the goal and objective of all of that at the end of the day? Is the goal of all this to just continue to build and continue to build? Well, you and I are not going to live that long to see all that will be built. So what's the goal at the end?

That's why in the ayah which I recited — اقْرَأْ بِاسْمِ رَبِّكَ الَّذِي خَلَقَ — Allah attached the word اقْرَأْ with something else: بِاسْمِ رَبِّكَ الَّذِي خَلَقَ. Your objective behind education, behind learning, behind تَعْلِيم is what? It is to connect yourself to the One who created you. If you cannot use that knowledge that you have, and that ability that you have, to connect you back to the One who created you — then what is the point?

Your example is like the example of the disbelievers that Allah gives in the Quran:

When it comes to the ظَاهِر — when it comes to the outward of this worldly life — they know everything about it. They know better than you and I. That's the reality. The non-Muslims, those who don't believe in Allah, they know about this dunya more than you and I do. But when it comes to the hereafter, they are completely ignorant, they are completely negligent of it.

And that is the extent of their knowledge. The extent of their knowledge is limited to the dunya. That's where you and I differ from those who don't believe in Allah. We recognize that part of our knowledge, part of our worldview, is that we believe in the hereafter. We believe that where we build in this life, we have to also build for the hereafter.

Prioritizing the Hereafter While Living in This World

Where we make sure that we are comfortable — that's part of human nature. Whatever means that you have, how do you try to make your living more comfortable? You know that your parents and grandparents went through many sacrifices. So what do you do now? What was their biggest thing? Probably your grandparents and parents always say, "We want better education, a better future for our kids." And it's not just Muslims — you always hear this across the board. Non-Muslims too: we want better for our children, we want better lives. That's human nature. It strives for living more comfortably — better, better, better.

But what's the limit? There's a limit when it comes to the dunya. But there's no limit when it comes to the hereafter. So the person who is intelligent, who has understanding, will recognize: as I'm doing whatever I need to in order to survive in this world, I cannot forget about the hereafter. In fact, I have to ensure that I prioritize the hereafter.

And that doesn't happen except through ta'lim, through education, through learning. Until that learning is not paired with Allah — with the dhikr of Allah, with the remembrance of Allah — then all that education will simply be limited to this world, to this worldly life. Any endeavor that we have, any education that we have — whether you're an engineer, a doctor, a lawyer, whatever — every single type of education is focused on this realm, this dunya, this world. That is it. Until the person does not pair it, does not connect it with Allah, all of it — its benefit is limited to this world only.

When the person connects it back to Allah — he could be in whatever profession — but he makes the niyyah: "Ya Allah, I'm doing it for Your sake." He's earning a halal income. Now that becomes a source of reward for him.

The Battle on the Field of Education

And our biggest challenge that we are facing today is on this field, on this ground — through education. Through education, the way we think, the way we are, who we are — our children, for example, go through schooling here. I completely understand and admit that it is not practical for every person to send their kids to a Muslim school. Understood. But it is something to think about.

Our children, for hours during the day, if they're going to public school — and then when they come home they're watching television — that is a type of education, that is a type of تَعْلِيم. It shapes the way they think, who they are, what their identity is. We have now a generation of Muslims here who, for example, sympathize with un-Islamic ideas. Ideas like LGBTQ — they're asking, "What's wrong with it? Two men want to get married, what's wrong with it? Two women want to get married, what's wrong with that? They love — it's all about love." Our kids sympathize. They may be afraid to share this with you, but they may hold these types of views. That's dangerous. That's un-Islamic.

"Why is it wrong for a person to change his gender? If he feels like he's a woman, then let him be." Now it goes to the extent where a person wants to identify as an animal — "I want to identify as a cat." You forget Allah, and then you forget yourself.

"Don't be like those individuals who forgot Allah, and because they forgot Allah, Allah made them forget themselves." They forgot their very identity — that you're a human being, that you're a male. Allah created you:

Either a male or a female. They are forgetting the very core of their identity. Allah created you — you are a creation of Allah. "No, I don't believe in God anymore." They forgot — this is a part of our identity. We believe that we were created, and that is part of our identity. We are makhluq. We are insan. We are created by Allah.

So all of that is due to education. So where you have all this education — what are we doing to combat it for ourselves and our kids? Are we educating ourselves? Are we educating our children? Are we providing them with avenues where they can understand these realities or not? That is why it is so important.

Taking Advantage of the Blessings Around Us

So where we have all of this progress — alhamdulillah, masha'Allah — this is مِن نِعْمَةِ اللَّهِ.

All of this is from Allah. Where, masha'Allah, if you're here in this city, you see madaris, you see masajid, you see ulama and what not. But we have to now take advantage. We have to take that advantage, seize the opportunity, and learn. Allah grant us tawfiq.

Announcements

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Our Dar al-Salam Tanweer Intensive Program — the Tadrees Integrated Program — will be starting on August 11th. You can apply now. Applications are open insha'Allah.

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Our weekly programs include the Tuesday Tafsir with Mufti Azimuddin, and the Thursday Salawat and Urdu Seerah Dars — both after Maghrib. And join us for our weekly journey through the Names of Allah — Saturday after Fajr, that will be tomorrow insha'Allah.

Sisters bi-weekly program — Seerah and Salawat. The next session will be July 20th from 12:00 to 1:45 pm.

Du'a Requests

Sister Malika passed away in Hyderabad, India. May Allah grant her forgiveness and raise her darajat. Please make du'a.

Keep the Muslims in mind. Part of our identity is to keep in mind Muslims around the world — there is a Muslim brotherhood. Allah created a type of bond between Iman. So wherever the Muslims are, whatever they're going through, we have that pain in our hearts for them, making du'a for them. How often are we making du'a? Whether it's Palestine, Lebanon, Syria — all over, wherever they are — it's part of our identity that we have ukhuwwah Islamiyyah.

May Allah grant us tawfiq to understand that, may Allah alleviate their difficulties and the trials that they are going through, and may Allah provide them with aid. Ameen.