Etiquettes of The Quran: Decorating Our Homes | Mufti Abdul Wahab Waheed

Etiquettes of the Qur'an: Decorating Our Homes

السَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللَّهِ وَبَرَكَاتُهُ
نَحْمَدُهُ وَنُصَلِّي عَلَى رَسُولِهِ الْكَرِيمِ أَمَّا بَعْد

Dear brothers and sisters, when any of us purchase a house, rent an apartment, move into a new place, one of the first things that we aim to do is fill the house up. Buy sofas, make sure we have beds and there's decoration around the house. There's no empty spot left, so the house looks good. People put frames on their walls, a clock over here, so the house is physically not empty.

Whilst we are doing this, many a times we forget that the house not only needs to physically be full for it to be welcoming to people, it also needs to be spiritually full, so people can feel welcomed into our homes. And we remember to take care of one portion of this, one side of this, but the other side of the spectrum many a times remains ignored.

The Qur'an Brings Life to Our Homes

This is why the Prophet ﷺ tells us that in order for our homes to be full in regards to the spirituality, in the protection of it, the Qur'an needs to be recited. The Prophet ﷺ says:

(Sahih Ibn Hibban, Hadith 793)

That a house in which the Qur'an is recited in, the positive energy, the goodness that comes from the house becomes amplified. In a house in which the Qur'an is not as often recited in, the positive energy or the good that is in the house becomes covered — we don't give it a chance to come out and benefit people.

A house that has the Qur'an recited in it is a house which is alive. And a house that does not have the Qur'an recited in it is a house which is dead.

A Lost Etiquette: Reciting the Qur'an Together as a Family

And in this session of the etiquettes of the Qur'an, we'll be speaking about a lost etiquette — learning how to recite the Qur'an together as a family in our homes. Reciting it as a gathering, reciting it together. Not just the parents telling the children, "Did you recite yet?" or "Did you not recite yet?" But rather, allocating a specific time during the day where everyone is able to get together and recite the Qur'an.

This was an etiquette that the sahaba, the tabi'oon, the salafus salihin, held very strongly to themselves and their families — where they were able to engage with the Qur'an as a collective unit so that the benefit could also reach to them at a collective level, at a communal level, and not just at a personal level. And this can be said to be true not only for a family, but for an entire community — learning how to recite the Qur'an in a halaqah.

The Four Blessings of Gathering to Remember Allah

The Prophet ﷺ mentions:

(Musnad Ahmad, Hadith 17174)

Whenever a group of people get together to remember Allah — and the greatest remembrance of Allah is reciting the Qur'an and praying salat — there is a caller that calls out from the sky, and the caller says: as you are standing up, your sins are leaving your body, any sins that were committed that day. But rather Allah goes one step further and He says: all of your mistakes and your sins are replaced and substituted by good deeds. By doing what? By doing it together. By reciting the Qur'an together.

Another beautiful narration mentions that whenever we get together to remember Allah and to engage with the Qur'an as a collective unit — together as a family, the father, the mother, the daughter, the son are sitting together and reciting the Qur'an, maybe in a low tone, maybe together — one ayah is recited by one person, the next ayah by another, so we're learning and teaching each other at the same time — however it may be, Allah blesses that gathering, or in this specific context, blesses that house with four beautiful blessings.

Blessing One: Tranquility — السَّكِينَة

Allah says:

(Sahih Muslim, Hadith 2699)

Peace and tranquility engulf that gathering. Peace and tranquility fills the hearts of those individuals that are sitting in that gathering. So we leave that gathering at peace. We leave that gathering feeling good about ourselves. How many a times we sit in a gathering and we talk about whatever we may be talking about, and when we leave, we still have a sense of anxiety or we feel uneasy.

The first benefit of reciting it together — and this is an etiquette because it encourages each other, it motivates each other to continue reciting, it puts us on a schedule — is that Allah blesses us with سَكِينَة. The word for house in Arabic is مَسْكَن, from the verb سَكَنَ, which means to live and to reside, to live somewhere. The word سَكِينَة comes from the same root letters — السِّينُ وَالْكَافُ وَالنُّونُ — which tells us something very interesting: that a house is a place of living, is a مَسْكَن, as long as there is the quality of سَكِينَة within it. And if there is no سَكِينَة within it, the house does not feel like a home anymore — it's just a place, a structure with four walls.

So in order for us to bring back — not just the physical decoration of the house, the sofas, the frames on the walls — it is equally if not more important to make sure the house feels like a home. We need to be bringing سَكِينَة into the house, and that comes when we recite the Qur'an together.

Blessing Two: Mercy

(Sahih Muslim, Hadith 2699)

Mercy descends upon those individuals, mercy covers those individuals — that a family is being forgiven together, that gathering is being forgiven together.

Blessing Three: The Angels Surround Them

(Sahih Muslim, Hadith 2699)

When a group of people sit down to recite the Qur'an, angels are sent from the skies and they are told to search for these types of gatherings. And whenever they find these types of gatherings — just like how the stars are bright and they shine for the people on the earth — the narration mentions that the gatherings of the Qur'an shine like the stars for the people of the skies. So the angels notice that this gathering is lit up, there's a light coming from there — this must be a gathering of people reciting the Qur'an. And those angels rush towards that gathering, and when they sit in that gathering, they continue piling upon each other, on top of each other — there's no space left. In one narration it mentions that the wings of the angels are touching the people that are sitting in this gathering, until they reach Allah, and Allah — of course knowing what's going on — asks the angels: "What is this commotion? What's going on?" And they say, "Your ibad, Your people, are reciting the Qur'an or they are remembering You, O Allah. What do they want?" "O Allah, they want to be freed from Jahannam, they want to go to Jannah, and they want to be protected from the fire of Jahannam." Allah says: "Let it be known that Jannah has become wajib for them, has become incumbent for them, and being protected from Jahannam has been written for them" — just by sitting together.

We speak about the battle of Badr and say, "Wow, angels descended in the thousands." Similarly, we are able to feel that same blessing when we recite the Qur'an in our homes.

And there are narrations about different sahabah in this regard. There is a mention of a sahabah named Usaid ibn Hudair رضي الله عنه, where he was reciting the Qur'an and he had a horse behind his house. Every time he would recite, the horse was as if it was trying to get free from its reins, jumping very high and galloping. And every time he would stop, the horse would also stop moving around. After doing it four times, he stopped reciting. He came to the Prophet ﷺ the next morning and relayed the incident to him. And the Prophet ﷺ told him:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 5018; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 796)

"These were the angels that descended from the heavens so that they could also hear your Qur'an — they could hear your recitation. They came from the heavens." And he says, "If you had continued to recite till the morning, these angels would have been sitting outside of your house and people would have been able to see them." Just by reciting Qur'an in our own homes.

There is a narration about Bara' ibn 'Azib رضي الله عنه who narrates a different story — where a man was reciting Surah Al-Kahf and there was an animal outside of his house and the same thing happened. And the Prophet ﷺ told him: "Your recitation not only brought the mercy of Allah, it brought the angels down. And the animals are able to see angels. And when they saw the angels, they were getting scared or excited — and that is why they were jumping up and galloping around."

Blessing Four: Allah Mentions Us Among the Angels

(Sahih Muslim, Hadith 2699)

Allah mentions our name in the gatherings of those that are in the heavens, with the angels. What better gathering could our name ever be mentioned in?

Allah Takes Pride in Those Who Gather to Remember Him

There is a narration where the Prophet ﷺ walked into a gathering, and as he walked in, he asked them:

"What makes you sit here in the middle of the day? Why are you sitting here for?" And the sahabah said:

(Sahih Muslim, Hadith 2701)

"We are sitting here remembering Allah, thanking Allah, speaking about Allah's greatness, exalting the praise of Allah." And the Prophet ﷺ says to them:

"Do you swear to Allah that there is no other purpose of your sitting except for this?" And they responded in the affirmative: "There is nothing else that is making us sit here in the middle of the day." And the Prophet ﷺ says to them: "I did not make you swear and take an oath out of suspicion toward you. But rather:"

(Sahih Muslim, Hadith 2701)

"The reason why I asked you is because Jibreel ﷺ descended and he informed me that Allah is taking pride in you with the angels." That you said, "My people will not talk about me, they will not praise me, and they would cause corruption on the earth" — and you are the ones that praise Him. Look at them — they are reciting the Qur'an, they are talking about Allah. So Allah is taking honor, taking pride over what we are doing on the earth when we recite the Qur'an together in a gathering — maybe a family, maybe a group of friends.

Practical Ways to Bring This Etiquette Back

And we can go to the extent of saying that — sometimes I've seen people do this — where they have group chats of just Qur'an, where every single month they finish one Qur'an. Every single person has to recite one Qur'an per month. And if they have 10 people in that group chat, that group of friends finishes 10 Qur'ans in a month. We have so many group chats — countless group chats on WhatsApp. How many of them are helping us remember Allah? Not just continuous messages coming through with videos and snippets, but actually giving us tangible things to do.

Create a group chat. If you live in an area where you're not with your family, you don't have people around you, create a group chat with your family, with your friends, and say that every single day we will each recite a portion. And by doing so in one month, as a group, as a virtual group, we will complete 10 Qur'ans, or we will complete 5 Qur'ans. The same effects, we hope Allah will send down our way — the effect of those four things.

Another narration mentions that one day the Prophet ﷺ said to the companions:

"Did you see Thabit ibn Qays? Last night around his house, it was as if the clouds were lanterns — like around his house, it was all lit up. Like having street lamps right outside your house, and there are lamps in your driveway. His entire house was lit up." The sahabah said, "Ya Rasulullah, of course we want to know — why did his house have so many lights outside of it?" The Prophet ﷺ said: "It was because in his house, they were reciting Surah Al-Baqarah."

The narrator then mentions that he went to Thabit ibn Qays and asked him, "What were you reciting last night?" And he said:

"I recited Surah Al-Baqarah." And the light outside of his house had illuminated. And the light inside of his house was also present because of the recitation of the Qur'an as a family.

The Example of Abu Musa al-Ash'ari

You may think that perhaps at the time of the Prophet ﷺ, people didn't recite the Qur'an together — that's completely false. Sahabah would get together, sit in a small gathering, and open up the Qur'an and start reciting together, and that's how they would learn and teach each other.

There is a narration where a sahabi came to the Prophet ﷺ and said to him:

"O Prophet of Allah, Abu Musa al-Ash'ari رضي الله عنه has sat within a house, he was reading Qur'an there, and people just gathered around him — he started reciting and people just came." And so the Prophet ﷺ says to this man:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 5048; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 793)

"Is it possible that you can show me where that house is, and I can sit in a way that nobody can see me? I don't want them to see me. But I want to sit in that gathering as well." "Of course, Ya Rasulullah, we'll take you there." So the Prophet ﷺ is taken there, and he is made to sit in a spot where no one else can see him — no one can see him. And he just sits there, and he continues to listen to the recitation of Abu Musa al-Ash'ari رضي الله عنه. And later on he tells him: "You have been given the voice of Dawud ﷺ — the vocals of Dawud ﷺ."

But the point of the story is not to talk about the beautiful voice of Abu Musa. The point is that they used to do this. How many times has it happened that we go to gatherings — weddings, da'wahs, get-togethers — and there is everything in the world that is present there, but there is no mention of the recitation of the Qur'an? If anything, one person recites the Qur'an at the beginning of the gathering, and we think that will suffice for everything.

Wallahu a'lam — maybe it can. But how about we make a trend that when I have a da'wah in my house, at the beginning of it or at the end of it, we will sit together and recite Surah Al-Fatiha, we recite Surah Al-Ikhlas? If I get married, when I make everyone come to my marriage, I'll make it a trend — we can become trendsetters — that when they come and sit on the dinner table at my wedding, there will be a mus'haf of Surah Yasin sitting there, and they will open it up and recite it before the wedding begins. The wedding won't start with songs and dancing. The wedding will start with everyone sitting on a table and reciting Surah Yasin.

All of us deal with different types of issues with the evil eye, nazar, and hasad because we portray to them the best of our life. Make them come to our gatherings, make our friends come there, and make them sit in our gatherings beginning with the recitation of the Qur'an. And see the effect that will have in our marriage, the effect that it will have in our family.

Conclusion: Start Small, Start Today

This is an etiquette which has completely been thrown under the rug. That we recite on our own, whenever we want to recite — the effect will then only be with us. If we recite as a gathering, as a community, if we recite just as a family, we won't need to tell our kids to read, we won't need to instruct them to read, we won't need to force them to read. It will happen organically because we sit every single day as a family and read. We don't just sit every day as a family and watch TV or watch a drama — we sit every day and actually do this.

It's not that hard. It doesn't take that much time. It's just starting it. Once we start it, it becomes a sunnah in our life and we are able to benefit from this etiquette and receive all of those blessings that are given to people who remember Allah together.

May Allah make us amongst those that:

A. Understand the need of our house being spiritually decorated, and
B. Understand that it's not that hard — we can do it starting with small baby steps of five minutes a day.

Surah Al-Fatiha every day together as a family. The last ten surahs together as a family. Reciting Surah Al-Mulk together as a family. Reciting Surah Al-Waqi'ah together. All of this will have some form of an effect not only inside of our house but within all of our relationships.

May Allah give us the ability to act upon this, convey it to those that are in need of it — like all of us — that did not hear this or watch this, and allow us to continue connecting ourselves to the Holy Qur'an. JazakAllah khair once again for joining us on our Tuesday night sessions, and insha'Allah you benefit. Please make du'a for us and all of us at Miftah, and hopefully insha'Allah we see you again tomorrow night and the rest of the week and next Tuesday as well.