curiousitycorner

by Raiiq Ridwan

Surah Hadeed is a surah that is sent specifically to revive hardened Muslim hearts. Allah is talking to the Muslim, rather than to all of humanity, asking him or her to reflect on His majesty and reminding him or her to return to His book.

In the middle of Surah Hadeed there are two verses which at face value look absolutely out of sync:

Has the time not come for those who have believed that their hearts should become humbly submissive at the remembrance of Allah and what has come down of the truth? And let them not be like those who were given the Scripture before, and a long period passed over them, so their hearts hardened; and many of them are defiantly disobedient.

Know that Allah gives life to the earth after its lifelessness. We have made clear to you the signs; perhaps you will understand. [Quran 57:16-17]

In the first verse Allah is talking about the believers. He mentions how the hearts of believers don’t submit to the remembrance of Allah. Allah warns of what happened to the people before Islam, and how they too were given a book but after a long period passed without proper reading, reflection, and understanding of the Book, their hearts hardened.

However, in the very next verse Allah tells of how He gives life to the earth after its death. Allah gives life to it by the virtue of rain, as He has mentioned in other places in the Quran. What does the rain have to do with dead hearts? How does Allah giving life to the earth have anything to do with dead hearts?

Bringing the heart back to life

Just as the rain gives life to the dead heart, the Book of Allah can bring hearts back to life, No matter how bad things have become, there is no need to be depressed. As dead as one’s heart may be, there is always a chance. The Quran can bring us back to life.

Humans could not have lived on fruits of the jungle alone. They needed agriculture, the bedrock of civilization. Agriculture produced food at a larger scale. It led to nomadic humans becoming settled in places to start villages. Soon cities began to sprout. And with more advancement, nations developed. Agriculture required farming, and farming required good irrigation.

And the irrigation depended on rain.

A farmer needs to direct the water in a particular way to deliver it to the crops. The water has been given to us by Allah, and Allah has given us methods for irrigating crops.

The Quran likewise is from Him, and we need to irrigate our hearts properly and deliver it to ourselves and the people around us in the right way. And once we do it properly, once we direct the “water of our hearts” in the right way, we will change ourselves.

When we change ourselves, we will be able to change families. And when families change for the better, society will change for the better, and when society changes for the better, the whole world will be a better place to live in. The Quran if applied in the correct way in our lives will not only give life to our dead hearts, but it will give life to our dead communities, and over time lead to a proper agent of change for our ummah. But, it all starts with the water— with the Quran.

And this requires patience as well. A farmer sees no progress for a long time. He plants a seed, and wakes up every single day for months upon months watering it. He has no idea if it will work, no idea if it will be beneficial and no idea if it will be profitable either. But he has to keep working on and on, trusting in Allah for it to work, and keep watering the seed.

However, a world of change occurs underneath the soil, and after months of hard work, suddenly the crop sprouts. When it does, it is wonderful.

The Quran coming down from Allah is compared to rain coming down from the sky. Just like it takes time for crops to grow after rain comes down, it takes time for our hearts to grow and for Islam to spring in our hearts after the Quran has taken a seat there. Our concern for now, for ourselves, and our families should be to get the water to our hearts.

Let us start.

The first step to building a relationship with the Quran is understanding what the Quran is telling us. Through that we will improve our relationship with Allah in prayer, and improve our relationship with the Quran as we understand it better. Start the 50% of Quranic words course with Understand Quran Academy today to water hearts, and to help water other hearts with the light of the Quran

 

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