Be Guided!
There are those who say, “Just focus on practice. Practice what you know and don’t worry about learning more!”
But learning to understand the Qur’an isn’t a luxury— it’s essential. It’s still the most basic book given to us by Allah (swt) as guidance. If we neglect it how will we be guided?
Knowledge Even Better Than Worship
According to scholars, obtaining extra (nafil) knowledge is more rewarding than performing extra (nafil) worship.
“But why? Isn’t it enough to just pray, fast, and do hajj?”
If this were true, why did Allah reveal more than 6000 verses? Are they na’oozubilla— not worthy to ponder? Why are we asked to listen to the Qur’an daily, and more often in Ramadan? Is this only a meaningless ritual? One should come up with redundant verses or chapters (na’oozubillah) and ask Allah why he chose to reveal those extra parts (astaghfirullah). (I’m talking about basic understanding only, not of mutashaabihaat, etc.)
But Why Try to Understand the Whole Quran?
If we believe we don’t need the entire Quran, we may be deprived of guidance. Allah knows best and he gave us this book; to say that it’s not necessary to understand the whole book is to question His wisdom.
In our daily lives we’re faced with dozens of different situations. The Quran gives us a number of examples, stories, commands, and counsels to guide us. We don’t know where the solution to our problems is hiding, so we should keep reading and reciting it with understanding and ask Allah to guide us.
A Certain Guidance
He surely will guide us. After all, didn’t He reveal it as a book of guidance? We can certainly accept the help of scholars, but we should do our part, too, and always approach the Qur’an with an awareness of our own ignorance.
