Reading the Quran VS Understanding its meaning

Society Religion & Philosophy
1

Growing up Muslim in any part of the world requires one to learn the ways of our religion. The basic principles the prayer the important religions days and events and of course the Holy Book the Quran. Parents wanting their children to adhere to the religion do their utmost best to put them in religious institutions or get a private tutor or online programs so that their children might learn to “read” the Quran. Now learning to read the Quran is one thing but especially the Pakistani community leaves out the understanding portion of the Quran completely. Kids learn to memorize the entire Quran so much immense knowledge but without proper understanding of what they’re memorizing.

The reasons given for this can be “Oh the Quran is too difficult to understand and its a tedious process.”, other reasons are “There are certain things that children aren’t meant to understand at that age from the Quran”. When I hear about these things It really boggles my mind that you would push a child to read the entire Quran but would not want them to understand certain parts of it. That is the most high form of hypocrisy one could practice. The reason why people grow up as institutionalized worshipers and not spiritual individuals is because of this dichotomy. How many of you reading this could say that you have read and understood the Quran fully? How many of us can claim the meaning behind Surat Ya’sin or Surat Al Alaq. How many of us can instead of taking bits and pieces of the Quran, understand it from the beginning to end.

This is the reason why people grow up to believe in Peer Faakirs because they have never been given a path to God. To them God was a book they read in Arabic and probably did not understand much. Following the obligatory prayers and fasting and their religion is done and understood. This cycle has continued, from parent to child and so on. We have to make an effort to understand the Quran fully with the Sahih hadith.

Please discuss, and also forgive me if I have hurt anyone’s feeling while writing this.

2

Re: Reading the Quran VS Understanding its meaning

Peace McPendo

I agree with your sentiments for the importance of understanding Al-Qur'an Al-Majeed ... Can anyone say they fully understand it? I hope no one is that arrogant ... not even the biggest scholars. I was particularly drawn to your claim:

The reason why people grow up as institutionalized worshipers and not spiritual individuals is because of this dichotomy - (i.e. the fact that they know the Qur'an off by heart and do not understand it).

What this claim is saying is that "No institutionalized worshipers are spiritual individuals", please clarify is this what you really mean? Do you really believe that institutionalizing worshipers removes their ability to be spiritual? Or more fully are you saying that hifzulQur'an without meaning actively removes being spiritual?

3

Re: Reading the Quran VS Understanding its meaning

We the non-Arab Muslims should make efforts to learn Arabic so we can understand Quran when it is recited.

Just to add something here on Quranic language here that I learned when I started listening to Tafseer.
The last book from Allah was sent in Arabic for a reason. It is mentioned in Quran also. Allah preserved not only the actual word He SWT sent through Jibreel Ameen, but also preserved Arabic language in its original form. Though the language today spoken in Middle East is a modern one with hundreds of words borrowed from other languages (just like any language that goes out of its original home) when more and more non-Arab nations adopted Islam. But the classic Arabic in which Quran was revealed is still intact surrounded with cross references to thousands of text, poetry and narrations from pre and post Islamic era. This makes it easier to understand the specific word or analogy used in Quran and expands the beauty and eloquence of Allah's words. Some scholars say (like Dr. Asrar Ahmed and his references to salafs) that the language of Quran is in its purist form which was spoken in rural areas by Bedions. Since the trade centers like Makkah and Yeman had words from other langagues added into Arabic, the text in Quran was uniformally understood by the whole Peninsula as it was in Classic Arabic. The same language the poets would write their poetry and come to Makkah annually for the competition and the winner would get the title of Abu or Khatam ul Shura (not sure which one) and his poetry would be hung on Ka'aba as an honor. The poets would come from all corners of the Arabian Peninsula and that is why the classic language had retained its form for decades before Quran was revealed. Call it Allah's logistical plan for delivering its message and protecting it. Though there were different Qira'at in different areas, but those were mere differences of accent (which is normal for a language spoken on such a large geographical area and tribal life style).

This is why Quraish, when they didn't accept Islam, were so affraid to listen to Quran, since they knew the power and eleqounce of the language (beside the Haq in the message ) used in Quran.

At our local mosques a lot of middle age people showed their interest in learning Quranic Arabic. A Doctor who served in KSA for a long time (originally from Pakistan) has volunteered and is now conducting Arabic language class on Sundays. I think similar efforts should be made and I believe a lot of people will come forward who wants to learn the language of Quran.

4

Re: Reading the Quran VS Understanding its meaning

whilst it is difficult to understand the Quran fully, i agree.. many of us are guilty of just reading as opposed to understanding it, even a little.

5

Re: Reading the Quran VS Understanding its meaning

Don't feel guilty for "just reading" the Qur'an - just reading the Qur'an might be enough to save you ...
Have love for the Qur'an - Know it is the Word of Allah (SWT) ... how can such a thing be considered harmful?

6

Re: Reading the Quran VS Understanding its meaning

not just reading and understanding the Qur'aan e kareem but also to act on it's teachings as much and as best to our ability, both physical and mental.

every aspect has it's sawaab...just reading the Qur'aan is in itself a great reward, understanding it carries even bigger rewards and finally becoming a living Qur'aan is the ultimate goal of every Muslim.

May Allah give us taufeeq and hidaaya to do MORE rather than LESS. let's be mutaqqi in our real life.

7

Re: Reading the Quran VS Understanding its meaning

I agree that understanding what the Qur’an teaches is very important. Learning to read the Qur’an is also very important and cannot be undermined as it’s an integral part of salaat. Also, reading Qur’an, even without understanding what is being read has its own virtue and it’s tilawat is a source of guidance in and of itself. One of the reasons I see why it’s not common to also study the meaning is that with the limited time people devote to it, learning the proper tilawat is given higher priority. Also, to teach someone, they would have to be fairly mature to understand things like the background and context for the ayaat, if a command was amended or abrogated. When it comes to reading and memorizing, kids can do that and start at a time when they’re not too busy with things like school. We’re able to fill immediate needs of having huffaaz and imams.

This type of thing is also done in academics–when we start to learn multiplications, we’re memorizing the tables at first. We learn a bunch of different formulas in math/physics/chemistry without understanding why they make sense. We are later able to figure it out, but we are taught it anyway before we can really make sense of it, so that we can still make use of it without having a full understanding of it. A lot of these principles will start making sense to us in due time, but we don’t have to wait for it in order to make sense to us before we can start benefiting from it. I’d say it’s the same principle there. Back in the day, I remember we had to import huffaaz to be able to have taraweeh where we could actually complete a reading of the Qur’an. Now we are able to fulfill these needs from our own areas or masajid. Also, I’ll say it’s a wrong assumption that people who have dedicated time to study the Qur’an beyond nazara (which a lot of parents only send their kids for to complete a single reading) don’t know anything about its message.

What do you mean by institutionalized worship and peer fakeers? Are you referring to this topic? I’m not clear on what the problem is that you’re saying about them. My conclusion from that topic was that some people are just looking for shorcuts especially in matters related to deen and do not want to invest effort to learn and practice things even as basic as praying regularly. If that’s also what you’re referring to, then I think it’s a long shot that they’ve even learned to properly read the Qur’an. If not, could you please elaborate? The concept of a peer isn’t a problem in and of itself. The fact that a bunch of fakes have sprung up, sure, but you can say that about any profession or field.

8

Re: Reading the Quran VS Understanding its meaning

I sort of agree with bro KKF ...

But I have a cautionary point to make too.

Reading the Qur'an with belief in it is a great reward ... Acting upon whatever little we have understood from the Qur'an with belief in it is also a great reward ... But understanding the Qur'an in and of itself is neither good nor bad ...

This way the people who have Arabic as a natural language have an unfair advantage or the non-Muslims who study it would be better than Muslims who don't. Rather the layman who only understands a small verse here or there and acts upon it is better than the individual who understands a lot of it and acts upon a small portion of it, because he does not have a fair excuse.

So this proves that knowledge in and of itself can be both a burden and an honour ... But it is only an honour if the actions are according to that knowledge. I would go to the extent to say that a Muslim who treats the Qur'an with respect and reads it often with love without understanding it, is better than the person who only reads the translation in order to understand it and treats it like any other book.

The first thing we need to sort out is our relationship with Al-Qur'an ... Our Attitude towards it. This should be done at an early stage. Then we can memorise as much as possible because the child's mind is better at memorising at this stage. Then we can begin to learn Arabic and sit with people who can teach The Qur'an's message to us. Eventually we can try to understand the Arabic of the Qur'an ... The translations are both a good and a bad thing ... I would suggest people try to learn Arabic first, but in the inability to do that I would then say they should sit with a study group one or two members of who have a strong basis in grammar and vocabulary to help the group along, while they do a parallel study of Arabic and at least three translations side by side.

9

Re: Reading the Quran VS Understanding its meaning

Captain Obvious yes ...

Even when we develop language skills naturally small children first parrot sounds without understanding and then they develop meanings later on ... My kids are constantly saying things they don't really understand ... But they learn it due to a sense of familiarisation with the patterns of speech ... Later they will start to use it in context and the meaning dawns on them gradually. They have to be corrected that no you can't say "dude" to your dad that is rude, you can only say it to your brothers or friends and so on. He worked out that he can use the term for people, but didn't quite get the subtlety of which person it is allowed with ... So eventually he will develop that mannerism and the same applies to the Qur'an ... Even more so because it is high Arabic much higher than anyone is capable of reproducing.

10

Re: Reading the Quran VS Understanding its meaning

i didn't mean it in its most literal sense. but it wouldn't hurt us to take a little bit more time to try and understand a little bit of the Quran that's all.

11

Re: Reading the Quran VS Understanding its meaning

That is exactly what I mean Psyah. Being an institutionalized worshiper keeps you away from the true love of God and you become a "Lakeer Ka Fakeer". That is the reason why we have hatred among Shai/Sunni. People get up and start killing each other because someone said something wrong about their "sect". People have lost respect and love for their religion. People have forgotten how to be tolerate each other. Firkha baazi is rampant and that is due to the fact that people do not understand the core meaning of the Quran.

12

Re: Reading the Quran VS Understanding its meaning

That is erroneous. No where in the Quran has it written that "merely" reading it would guarantee salvation. Never once has the Prophet PBUH ever started that only reading the Quran would guarantee heaven. Never once in the Quran has it written that ONLY reading it would suffice. Please brother encourage muslims to understand the Quran rather than just tell him "its ok, koi nai parhna bhi aik hi baat hai". Thanks.

13

Re: Reading the Quran VS Understanding its meaning

I personally feel that your observation of Muslims is right, but the reasoning of it to do with not understanding the Qur'an is not accurate. There is a far more fundamental reason ... They must first understand what the scripture represents before they try to understand scripture ... Also they must also empty themselves of self worth before they gain knowledge, because that is what leads to self-righteous crimes in the name of Islam to do otherwise.

14

Re: Reading the Quran VS Understanding its meaning

So what is your opinion of the Mercy of Allah (SWT)?

I didn't guarantee anything either ... But sometimes there is more hikmah in stating things the way I did ... And if you wish I can show you how what I said is very much a part of our faith. But I fear you have read the Qur'an and you are telling me that none of this is true ... So is this up for discussion?

15

Re: Reading the Quran VS Understanding its meaning

I agree, there should be pressure on reading at least the translation, if they don't speak/ understand classical Arabic.
Yes we might not understand the complete meaning behind it, but better to at least understand what you're reading than to only recite.

The same can be said for prayers. Yes, you do get "sawab" for praying... but are you understanding the duahs you're making? The Surahs that you're reciting, do you understand what they are explaining?

And how about pronunciation... Those of us fortunate enough to learn tajweed understand how incorrectly we were/ are pronouncing the words. Not intentionally, of course. It goes back to the surahs/ duahs being drilled into our heads/ memorized, without proper comprehension.

16

Re: Reading the Quran VS Understanding its meaning

Brother Hikmah in Arabic means wisdom. And I absolutely agree with you that it is part of our faith. But Hikmah is meant to be understood and absorbed and not superficially memorized. You see if you read a book of science without understanding any meaning behind it, understanding any formulas that are associated with it or experiment whats written in it, can you say that you understand science?

Now the word science is another word given to the nature which Allah has set up in his great wisdom. Just like he created the material world and set up rules regarding it he also set up a spiritual and religious realm and there is indeed science associate with that as well. How can we say that if we read and i mean only read the wisdom of Allah without understanding it, how can we seek to get near him? We may fix our pronunciation and learn to read zer and zabr properly but the knowledge and wisdom that those zer zabr convey is lost to us.

We can read as much as we can. Unless we understand then we are overlooking a very massive part of our religion. Where ever the arabs went they instilled their language on the muslims not because they wanted arabic to over take their native languages but because so that the muslims would understand the arabic knowledge and the muslims knowledge which they have gathered throughout the ages. I feel that when Pakistan was created there should've been a law that every muslims Pakistani must learn to speak write and understand arabic. Then perhaps we could've been more in tuned with our religion.

17

Re: Reading the Quran VS Understanding its meaning

Nothing is said or done by Allah without any end goal or purpose. So Allah did not create the universe and things in it and send the revelation for no reason at all.

The question we need to ask ourselves is, why Allah created the universe and things in it. The answer to this question cannot be had without having an explanation of things from Allah himself. That is because the only one who can tell us why he said or did something is the one who said or did something. This is why the need for reading his revelation and understanding it.

If we have this end goal in our minds and start reading the quran then we will come to understanding of the quran.

The understanding of the quran is a process that has various stages in it. The first one is being able to read the message in its original language and the next one to be able write it as well. After that comes stage of learning the vocabulary of the quran and for that one has to get some good dictionaries. This is very important for anyone be one arab or non-arab.

The next stage is knowing things about arabic language itself ie stages it passed through as well as about transmission of the quranic text.

The other main things is having information and understanding about things in general about things the quran talks about. This mainly involves social context, political context, economic context, religious context, scientific context and deen context.

Anyone who has not been through education systems or has not read things in depth and width sufficiently will find it very difficult to understand the quran. It is like you have a child and you give him the quran to make sense of it without knowing much about anything. This is the main reason why ummah is in a very bad confusion because they they can understand the quran without having knowledge of things upon which understanding of things the quran talks about depends.

As for the benefit of the effort made about the quran, only an ignorant person will deny that. Even learning to read arabic and teaching it to others is at least taking us in the right direction. Likewise going to school and learning is equally beneficial because when we will sit with quran to understand it our school and university education will prove very handy. So learning all kind of information and trying to understand things is very useful because it provides us with ground for going to next stage. If nonmuslims were uneducated you will have huge problem educating them about the message of the quran but because they already know a lot as basis it is only a matter of putting the quranic message to them as it should be done and they are convinced.

Our main problem is we are not doing enough to educate ourselves so that stands as abarrier for us in trying to educate others. On top of that we have divided education as religious and secular which is very wrong way of doing things. Education is all about self awareness and awareness about universal realities and then comes the stage of divine revelation and its awareness.

So people should educate themselves and help others become educated and break down barrier that hinder people from educating themselves. It is because unless people are educated enough they cannot realise the purpose of divine revelation therefore they can never get out of troubles they have created for themselves due to adopting harmful and destructive ways of life. All this because without heavenly guidance mankind are blind and without wide and deep life experiences ie self collecting information and self effort in trying to make sense of it mankind are also blind. In fact without self awareness and awareness of universal realities mankind are as if they have no brains, senses and bodies. It is as if they do not exist and do not matter.

In short none can understand quran without first understanding about oneself and other existing things. Because you build up your understanding of new things by drawing from your already understood things ie your life experiences you have already had.

In short all knowledge is interconnected and helps learn further. A chain is as strong as its weakest link.

18

Re: Reading the Quran VS Understanding its meaning

The task of understanding the Qur'an is with the ulema and it is on them to spread the knowledge about it in words the layman understand ... The Muslims just have a general duty to learn Arabic ... that much I can agree with ... But when a person learns Arabic ... Please don't go around claiming one understands the Qur'an or the fact that they understand Arabic is itself a form of ibadat.

19

Re: Reading the Quran VS Understanding its meaning

Brother when I said that if one learns arabic I meant that they have a general idea of what the Quran is about.

20

Re: Reading the Quran VS Understanding its meaning

So in that case we are aligned ... My shuyukh say that we should ourselves learn and send our kids to learn the fard-ul-ain.

These are:

1) Tajweed
2) Memorisation of about 1 Juz of the Qur'an
3) Arabic grammar functional
4) Aqeedah basic
5) Basic Fiqh (5 pillars methods, rules and fadzail)

With these in place we have covered all our other fard in the religion ...

If we choose to study the Qur'an we are advised to do from the Arabic and we may use translations to support but never restrict to a single version.

It is not enough to read a translation and then claim we have understood the Qur'an or even studied it. Reading a single translation from beginning to end in my estimation is less important than memorising a few Surah's without meaning ... Because at least those few surahs will enable us to complete the pillar of salat. According to the fukaha we do not need to understand the Qur'an during Salat, yes it is helpful, but not necessary ... Reason being ... There are parts of it no one can understand ... Such as Alif, Laam, Meem ... And there are rakahs and whole prayers read in silence behind an imam ... What they say regarding intention is the niyyah, that we pray facing kabah as qiblah, of such and such prayer, to connect with Allah ... And during the prayer in order for it to be valid we only need to have a moment of a thought about Allah (SWT) and the Salat is valid. Of course if we have all of the fard-ul-ain in place we can enjoy a superior excellent prayer, but the entry level prayer is quite simple and the scales tip in favour of memorisation rather than meaning.