Grounded

1. Quick Recap: Where We Are

We are working through Surah Al-Baqarah, and by now the introduction should be second nature.

* Meaning of the surah: The Female Cow

* Number of ayat: 286

* Place of revelation: Madinah — this is an early Madani surah, one of the earliest revealed after the Hijrah

Surahs are classified by when they were revealed, not simply where:

* Makki — revealed before the Hijrah

* Madani — revealed after the Hijrah. A surah can even be revealed physically in Makkah, but if it came after the Hijrah, it is still Madani.

Virtue of the surah: On the Day of Judgement, Surah Al-Baqarah and its “twin,” Surah Aali ‘Imran, will come like clouds to protect those who used to recite them.

2. The Nine Divisions of the Surah

Surah Al-Baqarah can be organised into nine broad sections:

* Types of people

* First command

* First human

* First nation

* Prophet Ibrahim

* New nation (and all its laws — prayer, fasting, hajj, family, and so on)

* Politics

* Finance

* Conclusion

3. Recap of Category One: The People of Taqwā

* Taqwā = mindfulness of Allah. This definition comes from the well-known exchange involving Ubayy ibn Ka’b and the imagery of walking carefully along a thorny path.

* The traits of the people of taqwā are described in Ayat 2–5.

* The final word of Ayah 5 is al-Muflihūn — “the successful ones.”

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4. Understanding “Success”: Fā’iz vs Muflih

Arabic has more than one word for success, and the distinction matters.

* Fā’iz — the one who wins a competition. There is a single winner; everyone else, however well they did, is not the fā’iz.

* Muflih — comes from the root falāḥ, which we hear every day in the adhan and iqamah: “Ḥayya ‘ala al-falāḥ” (”Come to success”).

The imagery of falāḥ is agricultural — it is the success of a farmer at the point of harvest. This carries two lessons:

* It is not a competition with others. If one farmer harvests 100 kilos and another 200 kilos, both have still had a genuine, good harvest. Everyone can be a muflih by their own effort and criteria. It is a competition with yourself, not with your neighbour.

* It requires delayed gratification. You plant today but do not harvest tomorrow. You nurture the plant and wait, putting in the work in the interim.

5. Delayed Gratification in This World and the Next

Success in the akhirah comes much later — you plant now and harvest then. But the same discipline that earns success in the akhirah also brings success in this world.

* The marshmallow test: children who could wait for a larger reward tended to be more successful later in life; many who could not delay gratification struggled.

* Delayed gratification is what lets a student study now and play later, or read Qur’an now and read for leisure afterwards. Sometimes you have to grind and do the less-fun things in order to succeed.

Taqwā trains this exact characteristic in us.

6. Category Two: Al-Kāfirūn (Ayat 6–7)

Having covered the people of taqwā, we now turn to the second category of people: the kuffār (disbelievers), described in Ayat 6 and 7.

Two Layers of Meaning

Words carry at least two kinds of meaning: a literal meaning and a technical meaning.

Literal meaning: The root kafara means to cover, to bury. Literally, a kāfir can describe a farmer — the one who takes a seed, digs a hole, places it in, and covers it over with soil.

* When the farmer is planting (covering the seed), the action relates to kufr(covering).

* When the farmer is harvesting, that is falāḥ.

This gives us the picture behind the word: a kāfir is someone who receives something good (a seed) and chooses to bury it, cover it, and ignore it — “if I don’t see it, it’s not there.”

Technical Meaning

The technical meaning splits into two:

* Qur’anic meaning — someone who receives something good (guidance, Islam) and deliberately buries and rejects it.

* Fiqhī (legal) meaning — simply a non-Muslim.

7. The Qur’anic Kāfir: Al-Ghazālī’s Conditions

When the Qur’an describes the kāfir being punished in the Fire eternally (khālidīna fīhā), it is not speaking about every single non-Muslim. It refers to a very specific person: one who was properly shown Islam and knowingly rejected it.

Imam al-Ghazālī, in Al-Iqtiṣād fī al-I’tiqād, outlines the conditions for someone to be a kāfir in this Qur’anic, punishment sense:

* He receives the da’wah in a reasonable manner — presented properly and appropriately, not through yelling, insults, or a careless “become Muslim or burn” thrown at someone.

* His doubts and questions are answered.

* He is given time to think and consider.

* After all of this, he still rejects it.

A key point on condition one: in a world where the media so often portrays Islam in a bad light, many people have never genuinely encountered it in a reasonable manner. Simply living near a masjid does not count.

This is why our conduct matters so much as a minority. We are ambassadors of Islam.When a person behaves badly — parking carelessly at the masjid and blocking a neighbour, for example — people don’t blame the individual; they blame “the Muslims” and assume it reflects Islam itself.

8. Fiqhī Definition vs Qur’anic Definition

These two definitions do different jobs:

* The fiqhī definition is black and white. You are either a Muslim or a non-Muslim. A Muslim is someone who affirms the shahādah — belief in Allah and in the finality of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. It determines legal rights and responsibilities in this world.

* The Qur’anic definition concerns the akhirah and rests on reasonableness — which is subjective and known only to Allah.

A note on the sinful Muslim: a Muslim who does not pray is still a Muslim — a sinful, bad Muslim, but a Muslim — so long as he does not deny that prayer is wājib. Denial of what is clearly obligatory is a different matter from laziness or weakness.

Why the distinction matters in practice

Because reasonableness is subjective, we deal with people according to the fiqhī definition, and we leave the akhirah to Allah according to the Qur’anic definition.

* When a Muslim dies, there are four obligations upon the community: wash, shroud, pray over, and bury.

* For a non-Muslim, this checklist does not apply.

9. What We Cannot Say

We cannot point to any specific individual and declare he is going to the Fire — because we do not know whether al-Ghazālī’s conditions were met, whether his doubts were answered, or whether he accepted Islam at the very end. These are matters of the unseen, left to Allah.

* We may speak in general terms: as a group, those who do not believe in Allah and His Messenger ﷺ will not enter Jannah.

* We may not specify a named individual, because that person may not have met the conditions.

On making du’ā: we may make du’ā for a non-Muslim while they are alive, but once they have passed away as a non-Muslim, we draw the line and do not make du’ā for them. This does not mean we insult or condemn — we remain neutral and respectful.

Two real examples make the point. Telling a grieving friend that his deceased father is “going to Jahannam” is wrong both in manners and in belief. Likewise, when a convert grieving his non-Muslim mother was told at the masjid that “she died a kāfir, she is in the Fire,” that statement was wrong on both counts: disrespectful, and theologically presumptuous, because no one knows her final state.

10. The Only Exceptions

We only declare a specific person to be in the Fire when the Qur’an itself tells us so. The clearest example is Abu Lahab, named in a whole surah as bound for the Fire. Others, such as Fir’aun, are also identified in the Qur’an.

The reverse holds too: we do not guarantee Jannah for any specific person unless the Qur’an states it. In both directions, the final judgement belongs to Allah.

Our real concern should be our own standing before Allah — not passing verdicts on where others will end up.

In shā’ Allah, we continue with Ayat 6–7 next week.

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It’s Tuesday, so it’s Tajweed Tuesday — where we break down the tajweed rules from the ayat our students learn on Saturday at Qaswa Madrasah.

This term and next, we’re working through Surah al-Kahf. This week: ayat 27 - 31.

If the ayat feel too long to read in one sitting, break them down. Take one small portion and work it until it’s fluent. Then move to the next. Slow is fine. Stopping isn’t. Consistency beats intensity — every time.

Grounded is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Quick Recap

* Meaning of the surah: “The Female Cow.”

* Number of ayat: 286.

* Nickname: The peak (summit) of the Quran.

* Virtue: On the Day of Judgement, Al-Baqarah and Ali Imran will come and shade their companions.

On dividing the surah: We are studying Al-Baqarah in nine parts. This division is a teaching aid created by scholars to help us navigate the surah — it is not divine. The order of the surahs themselves (Al-Baqarah, then Ali Imran) comes from Allah, but splitting a single surah into portions is a human tool. Others divide it into five, twenty, or a different number; none of them are “wrong.”

Part 1 covers the groups of people. We are almost finished with the first group: the people of taqwa.

Ayah 1 — Alif Lam Mim

Three lessons drawn from the opening letters:

* 1. To attract attention.

* 2. A challenge to the Arabs. If you don’t believe the Quran is from Allah, here are the very letters it is built from — produce something like it. After 1400 years the challenge stands unmet. This is not accepted on faith alone; it is historically established, because the height of Arabic eloquence was during the Prophet’s ﷺ time, and no one then could match it.

* 3. A lesson in humility. Humans do not know everything; our intellect has a limit.

Ayah 2 — Guidance for the People of Taqwa

The Quran is guidance for the people of taqwa. This links back to our central dua in Al-Fatihah — Ihdina as-sirat al-mustaqim (”Guide us to the straight path”).

Working definition of taqwa: mindfulness of Allah

Where this definition comes from: the well-known image of walking a path lined with thorns and lifting your garment to avoid being caught. That image was given by the companion Ubay ibn Ka’b, in answer to Umar ibn al-Khattab.

Taqwa is internal — you cannot see it directly — but it shows through certain characteristics, listed in the ayat that follow.

Ayah 3 — Three Characteristics of the People of Taqwa

* 3.1 — Belief in the unseen (al-ghayb).

* 3.2 — Establishing prayer (yuqimuna as-salah).

* 3.3 — Charity: “and from what We have given them, they spend.”

Why “from what We have given them” matters: everything we own comes from Allah. Allah is Al-Ghani, the Most Rich, who owns everything. If you spend the way He asks, He can give you more — His wealth is unlimited and does not run out. The Prophet ﷺ said the one who gives charity will never become poor.

⚠ Arabic to verify before publishing: the Arabic for ayah 3 (belief in the unseen, establishing prayer, and spending) arrived with encoding errors in the transcript and has been rendered in English only. Paste in clean Arabic if you want it displayed.

Ayah 4 — Belief in Revelation

Two further characteristics:

* Belief in what was sent down to you — the Quran.

* Belief in what was sent down before you — the previous scriptures.

The previous scriptures

Four scriptures total, including the Quran — so three before the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, in order:

* Tawrah — revealed to Prophet Musa.

* Zabur — revealed to Prophet Dawud.

* Injil — revealed to Prophet Isa.

Understanding the Bible

Living in a globalised world, it helps to understand the landscape of the largest religion, Christianity — close to Islam in numbers. So: which of the three scriptures is the Bible?

None of them, exactly. The Bible is not a single book — it is a collection of books. (The word itself relates to biblio, “book,” as in bibliophile and bibliography.) It contains a changed and combined version of these earlier revelations.

The Bible has two major parts:

* The Old Testament — also known as the Jewish Bible. A Jewish person referring to “the Bible” means only this. Its three major sections are abbreviated Tanakh:

* T — Torah (believed to be what was revealed to Musa).

* N — Nevi’im (the Prophets).

* K — Ketuvim (the Writings). Zabur = Psalms sits here, as a book within this section.

* The New Testament — mainly the Gospels plus letters.

* Four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. These are gospels according to each name.

* Letters: written by Paul to the early Christian communities (e.g. the Corinthians) — his written guidance in reply to their questions.

Injil = “good news.” “Gospel” also means good news. The Injil we believe in is the Gospel of Isa — which we do not have today. What exists are gospels according to Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John. The first three are called the Synoptic Gospels and broadly agree; John often tells a different story. Historically these were written well after the named figures, in Greek, while Prophet Isa spoke Aramaic — and several authors never met him.

Contrast: the preservation of the Quran

The Quran reaches us in two independent ways that reinforce each other:

* Unbroken chain of transmission. We recite exactly as the Prophet ﷺ recited — including points of articulation and the length of each sound (e.g. reading a madd at two, four, or six harakat). A reciter’s certificate can be traced back through an unbroken chain to the Prophet ﷺ.

* Archaeological evidence. The oldest known Quran manuscript, the Birmingham Quran, held at the University of Birmingham, was carbon-dated (announced 2015) to around the time of the Prophet ﷺ. It reached Birmingham via Iraq during the British occupation and sat unidentified in the archives until a PhD student recognised it.

Side note — early Arabic script. In the Prophet’s ﷺ time Arabic was written without dots or harakat, so words were distinguished by context. A famous (unverifiable) story tells of the governor Hajjaj ibn Yusuf receiving an undotted letter that could read either uqtul (”kill”) or aqbil (”receive”) — prompting the later introduction of dots. Even today dotting isn’t fully standardised: in the Moroccan script, for example, qaf takes a single dot and final noon is written without one.

How we relate to the Bible

We believe in the original Tawrah, Zabur, and Injil as revelation. Regarding the Bible in its modern form, we hold that it contains both truth and questionable material. The Prophet ﷺ guided us: you may narrate from the Israelite sources without sin — neither believing 100% nor rejecting 100%. Where it contradicts the Quran, the Quran is Muhaiminun alaih — it stands over and supersedes the rest, because its authenticity is guaranteed. This does not mean we disrespect the Bible; it still contains revelation from Allah.

Ayah 5 — Certainty in the Akhirah & True Success

The final characteristic: the people of taqwa are certain about the akhirah. Certainty is the operative word — not vague hope, but conviction.

This certainty changes behaviour. If you are sure Allah sees you and that there are real consequences in the akhirah, you act well in public and private alike, whether or not anyone notices — because Allah knows and will compensate.

The akhirah mindset = delayed gratification

We already accept short-term discomfort for long-term reward: you study now (even though games are more fun) to earn good grades, a good job, and a good life later. That is a long-term view. Now scale it up — life on earth is roughly 80–100 years; the akhirah is forever. A smart person accepts a little discomfort now to secure eternal good.

Just as someone serious about becoming a doctor takes biology and prepares deliberately, someone serious about Jannah does the actions that lead there. Saying you want Jannah while doing none of the work is only dreaming.

The Marshmallow Test. In a well-known study, young children were left alone with one marshmallow and told that if they waited about 15 minutes without eating it, they’d get a second. Some ate immediately; some resisted and doubled their reward. Tracked into adulthood, many who couldn’t wait struggled in life, while many who waited did well. The lesson: delayed gratification is a strong predictor of success. A Muslim, trained through prayer and charity to work now for reward later, should find this second nature.

The king in the masjid (an illustrative story, chain unverified). A hooded king prayed Fajr with only a handful of people, then rewarded every person present with a free Hajj. The next morning the masjid overflowed — but the king…

Quran at Home. Each week we take some ayat from the Qur’an. On Tuesday we read them and learn their tajweed. On Thursday we look into their meaning and draw out lessons we can live by.

Why Surah al-Kahf

Rasūlullāh ﷺ encouraged us to recite Surah al-Kahf at least once a week. It protects us from the Dajjāl and from the fitnah — the trials and systems — of the Dajjāl. The Dajjāl may not be here yet, but read the surah closely and you will see the signs of what he represents already around us.

If you cannot read the whole surah, read the first ten ayat and the last ten. If you cannot manage that, read the first ten. Better still, memorise the first ten — it is not long, barely a minute or a minute and a half to recite, yet it carries barakah, protection, and a meaning that is profound when you reflect on it.

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Where we are in the story

Last week we stopped at ayah 15, with the young men of the cave — the Aṣḥāb al-Kahf. Allah tells us plainly that they were youth: a group of young men who, when the whole village gave up and submitted to the tyrant of the day and worshipped idols, refused. They would not obey the creation in disobedience to the Creator. They held their faith with Allah, and as they were about to flee, they made their duʿāʾ:

رَبَّنَا آتِنَا مِن لَّدُنكَ رَحْمَةً وَهَيِّئْ لَنَا مِنْ أَمْرِنَا رَشَدًا

“Our Lord, grant us mercy from Yourself, and prepare for us right guidance in our affair.”

They asked for two things: raḥmah — mercy, care, protection — directly from Allah; and that Allah would straighten and manage their affairs as they left the city.

Ayah 16 — Allah answers the duʿāʾ

وَإِذِ اعْتَزَلْتُمُوهُمْ وَمَا يَعْبُدُونَ إِلَّا اللَّهَ فَأْوُوا إِلَى الْكَهْفِ يَنشُرْ لَكُمْ رَبُّكُم مِّن رَّحْمَتِهِ وَيُهَيِّئْ لَكُم مِّنْ أَمْرِكُم مِّرْفَقًا

“And when you have withdrawn from them and from what they worship except Allah, retreat to the cave. Your Lord will spread out for you His mercy and make your affair easy for you.”

A few ayat earlier they were speaking to Allah. Now Allah speaks directly to them. Notice the word iʿtazaltumūhum — from ʿuzlah, which is to withdraw, to go on a spiritual retreat. People go on ʿuzlah to focus on reciting or memorising Qur’an, or on their adhkār. Allah is telling them: you have withdrawn from these people and from everything they worship besides Me — now take shelter in the cave.

When you imagine a cave, you imagine a tight, claustrophobic space — a group of young men crammed in with nowhere to go. But Allah says yanshur lakum — He will spread it out, make it wide and comfortable for you. The world sees a crowded, closed space. Allah makes it vast. And He says this comes min raḥmatih, from His mercy — the very thing they had just asked for.

Then yuhayyiʾ lakum min amrikum mirfaqā — and He will make your affair easy for you. They had asked Allah to manage their affairs; Allah answers with mirfaqā. From the same root comes rafīq — a close friend whose company you truly enjoy. It is one of the last words the Prophet ﷺ spoke as he was passing: ilā r-rafīqi l-aʿlā — to the highest companion. Mirfaqā means Allah will make their affairs not merely bearable but comfortable, something they would come to love, so that they would not feel the discomfort of their situation at all.

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The pattern: plan, act, then trust

Look closely at how the duʿāʾ was answered. They made duʿāʾ — and then they moved. They got up and left. Only once they were moving did Allah manage their affairs.

This is the pattern for us. You plan. You take action. You make duʿāʾ and place your trust in Allah. Then you watch how things change. The duʿāʾ is not a substitute for effort, and effort is not a substitute for tawakkul. They come together.

Ayah 17 — the detail of the cave

وَتَرَى الشَّمْسَ إِذَا طَلَعَت تَّزَاوَرُ عَن كَهْفِهِمْ ذَاتَ الْيَمِينِ وَإِذَا غَرَبَت تَّقْرِضُهُمْ ذَاتَ الشِّمَالِ وَهُمْ فِي فَجْوَةٍ مِّنْهُ ذَٰلِكَ مِنْ آيَاتِ اللَّهِ

“You would see the sun, when it rose, inclining away from their cave on the right, and when it set, passing them by on the left, while they were in an open space within it. That is from the signs of Allah.”

This is striking, because in the Qur’an many historical stories are left without detail. Who exactly were the Aṣḥāb al-Kahf? Which city? How old? What were their names? We are not told. All we know is that they were young men. The point is not their biography — the point is: protect your īmān at all costs. But where a detail serves our guidance, Allah spells it out. And here the detail of the cave is spelled out beautifully.

It’s Tuesday, so it’s Tajweed Tuesday — where we break down the tajweed rules from the ayat our students learn on Saturday at Qaswa Madrasah.

This term and next, we’re working through Surah al-Kahf. This week: ayat 21 - 26.

If the ayat feel too long to read in one sitting, break them down. Take one small portion and work it until it’s fluent. Then move to the next. Slow is fine. Stopping isn’t. Consistency beats intensity — every time.

Grounded is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Tajweed Tuesday is part of our Quran at Home programme. Every Saturday, our students meet in person with their teachers. But Quran learning shouldn’t be bound by madrasah walls, so during term we release two videos a week to support parents teaching at home: Tajweed Tuesday, and Tafseer Thursday.

Thanks for reading Grounded! This post is public so feel free to share it.

Last week we covered the introduction, ayat 1–8. We saw how Allah opens the surah with Alhamdulillah — a practice of gratitude — and directs that gratitude towards the Qur’an itself. Allah corrects those who claim He has a son. Then He moves to the purpose of creation: this world was made beautiful as a test of who among us has the best deeds. Then it is destroyed. Then comes the resurrection.

That last point is where this week begins.

Grounded is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

The problem the Quraysh had

The Quraysh did not struggle with the idea of a Creator. Something cannot come from nothing, and everything around us points to an uncreated Creator. When they were asked who created the heavens and the earth, they would say: Allah.

Their problem was Yawm al-Qiyamah.

Because belief in the Day of Judgement changes how you behave. It changes your priorities. If you believe in God but not in the reckoning, you can do whatever you want — you die, and that is the end of it. The rich and the powerful can steal from the poor, oppress the weak, bomb nations and schools, and walk away from it. If there is no ākhirah, what is there to worry about?

Belief in the ākhirah takes that away. It forces a change.

Ayah 9 — Do you find this the amazing part?

أم حسبت أن أصحاب الكهف والرقيم كانوا من آياتنا عجبا

Do you think that the people of the cave and the inscription were, among Our signs, a wonder?

Al-raqīm means inscription. The story of these young men was carved into stone — as the ancients would inscribe things — and so it survived. It was known among certain Christian communities, which is exactly why the Quraysh used it to test the Prophet ﷺ. Nobody in Makkah knew this story. They had to travel outside the city to find people of the book who could tell it to them.

So Allah puts the question back to them. You accept that a group of young men slept in a cave for centuries and woke up alive — and that you find miraculous. But death and resurrection you cannot accept?

This ayah is not saying the story of the people of the cave is no sign. It is a sign, and a great one. But it is not the greatest. Why is this the thing that excites you, while you ignore what actually matters — that you will die, be resurrected, and be held to account?

Ayah 10 — The duʿāʾ on the way to the cave

إذ أوى الفتية إلى الكهف فقالوا ربنا آتنا من لدنك رحمة وهيئ لنا من أمرنا رشدا

When the youths retreated to the cave and said: our Lord, grant us mercy from Yourself, and prepare for us right guidance in our affair.

Awā means to seek protection — to move behind something and shelter there.

Notice what the Qur’an leaves out. We are not told the city, the town, the house, or the cave. This is how the Qur’an teaches history: it omits what is not relevant to the lesson, because detail distracts. If Allah had named the city, people would argue about the city. What matters is that there was a group of young men.

And Allah highlights that word — fityah. Young men.

We tend to treat the youth as the weakest link in the chain of the ummah. Children come to the masjid because their parents bring them. The elderly come because perhaps there is nothing else. And the youth are absent. Allah is addressing exactly that.

Look at the early followers of the Prophet ﷺ. The Prophet ﷺ was forty; Abu Bakr al-Siddiq رضي الله عنه was around the same age. Those are middle-aged men. But Sayyidina Ali was in his early teens. Zayd ibn Harithah, another young man. Uthman, Zubayr, Talha — teens and early twenties. They were the ones actively carrying the daʿwah.

It’s Tuesday, so it’s Tajweed Tuesday — where we break down the tajweed rules from the ayat our students learn on Saturday at Qaswa Madrasah.

This term and next, we’re working through Surah al-Kahf. This week: ayat 17 - 20.

If the ayat feel too long to read in one sitting, break them down. Take one small portion and work it until it’s fluent. Then move to the next. Slow is fine. Stopping isn’t. Consistency beats intensity — every time.

Tajweed Tuesday is part of our Quran at Home programme. Every Saturday, our students meet in person with their teachers. But Quran learning shouldn’t be bound by madrasah walls, so during term we release two videos a week to support parents teaching at home: Tajweed Tuesday, and Tafseer Thursday.

Subscribe to our Substack to follow along.

Thanks for reading Grounded! This post is public so feel free to share it.

Recap: The Text We Are Studying

We are studying Al-Ghayah wa’t-Taqrib, a classical short-form manual of fiqh written by Imam Abu Shuja’. Despite its brevity, this small text has been memorised and studied for close to a thousand years — from Cairo to Java, West Africa to Hadramaut. We are now continuing that same chain of transmission here in Western Australia.

What Is Fiqh?

* Literal meaning: deep understanding

* Technical meaning: ma’rifatul ahkam al-shar’iyyah — knowledge of the rulings of the Shari’ah

* These rulings apply to the af’al al-mukallafin — the actions of a mukallaf, a person legally responsible before Allah

Mukallaf = someone the Shari’ah holds responsible. A child in a car who isn’t wearing a seatbelt isn’t fined — the responsible adult driving is. In the same way, the rulings of fiqh apply to those who are accountable (typically, those who have reached puberty and are of sound mind).

The Five Categories of Rulings (Al-Ahkam al-Khamsah)

Every human action falls under one of five rulings:

1. Wajib (Compulsory)

* Do it → reward. Don’t do it → sin.

* Examples: the five daily prayers, Hajj

2. Mandub / Sunnah (Recommended)

* Do it → reward. Don’t do it → neutral (no sin).

* Examples: washing three times during wudu, the two rak’ahs of sunnah before salah, fasting on Mondays and Thursdays, showering on Fridays

* Important: reward for a sunnah requires intention. Showering on Friday only counts as the sunnah if you intend it — and it must be done on Friday itself, not the day before.

3. Mubah (Permissible)

* Do it → neutral. Don’t do it → neutral.

* Examples: drinking water, eating, reading a book, breathing

* This is the default and largest category. The original ruling of anything is Mubah. To move something out of Mubah into wajib or haram, evidence is required.

4. Makruh (Disliked)

* Do it → neutral. Don’t do it → reward.

* Example: eating with the left hand (for someone able to use their right); eating something smelly like garlic or onions and then going to the masjid

5. Haram (Prohibited)

* Do it → sin. Don’t do it → reward.

* Examples: drinking wine, eating pork

Case Study: Rulings Can Change with New Circumstances

Two examples from the class discussion show how a ruling on the same category of item can shift as knowledge or context changes:

Smoking

Smoking was historically classed as makruh, on the same basis as garlic — an unpleasant smell. Doctors did not originally know with certainty that smoking was harmful to health; some even believed it had a calming effect. It was only in the past century, once it was conclusively established that smoking causes lung cancer, that many scholars reclassified it as haram — because causing harm to oneself is haram, and smoking was now proven to cause serious harm.

Coffee

Coffee has an interesting history in Islamic scholarship:

* Coffee beans were first eaten in Ethiopia before being ground into a drink.

* A Yemeni scholar, Sheikh Ali bin Umar al-Shadhili, repeatedly asked Allah for the strength to pray qiyam al-layl (night prayer) like the pious predecessors. He was inspired in a dream to grind and boil the coffee bean. It helped him stay awake for dhikr and night prayer — so coffee became strongly linked with worship.

* Imam al-Haddad of Hadramaut said the clinking sound of coffee cups would make shaytan flee — meaning that coffee became associated with gatherings of dhikr.

* As coffee spread to Mecca and beyond, some scholars observed young people becoming very animated after drinking it and grew concerned. Coffee’s Arabic name, qahwa, is also an old word for wine — which added to the suspicion. Some scholars declared it haram.

* The dispute was settled in a memorable way: scholars who held that coffee was haram were invited to a gathering where coffee was served without them knowing what it was. They enjoyed its effects — clarity of mind and energy — and once told it was the very drink they had prohibited, they retracted their ruling.

* Coffee was also banned for a period in parts of the Christian world. Coffee houses later became historically significant as centres of discussion and, in some places, political change — in contrast to pubs, where alcohol limited clear thinking and planning.

Lesson: Mubah is the default of all things. Mubah can shift to wajib (e.g. drinking water becomes obligatory if withholding it endangers life) or to haram (e.g. a permissible game becomes haram if it causes someone to neglect their prayers).

Revision: The Four Types of Water

Before moving on, we revised last week’s material on water, the subject of the first chapter of most fiqh texts — Purification (Tahara).

Why does every fiqh text begin with purification?

Purification of the body mirrors the deeper objective of all worship: purification of the heart. On the Day of Judgement, neither wealth nor children will benefit a person — only a sound heart returned to Allah, and a soul that has been purified rather than corrupted.

The Four Types of Water

* Mutlaq — pure and purifying. Naturally occurring water: rain, sea, river, well, spring, snow, hail (the seven natural waters).

* Mushammas — pure, but disliked (makruh) to use on the skin in specific conditions: water heated by the sun in a metal container in a hot region. It remains makruh only until it cools; a plastic container causes no such concern.

* Musta’mal — previously used water. Still pure and fine to drink, but it has already been used to lift a hadath (in wudu or ghusl) and cannot be used to lift a hadath again. The same applies to water mixed with something pure that changes its taste, smell, or colour (e.g. coffee, soap, lemon) — it stays drinkable, but can no longer be used for wudu or ghusl.

* Mutanajjis — impure water, contaminated by najasah (impurity). Cannot be used for wudu, ghusl, drinking, or washing — unless its volume reaches two qullah (roughly 200 litres), in which case a small amount of najasah does not affect it, provided the water’s colour, smell, or taste has not changed. If it has changed, remove the source of contamination and the water may be purified again.

This Week’s Practice: Polishing the Heart

The Prophet ﷺ said that everything has a polish, and the polish for the heart is dhikr (remembrance of Allah). This week’s homework is to recite the following daily, ideally before sleeping (roughly 10 minutes in total):

* Astaghfirullah al-’Azim (”I seek the forgiveness of Allah, the Most Great”) — 100 times

* Allahumma salli ‘ala Sayyidina Muhammadin wa alihi wa sahbihi wa sallim(sending blessings on the Prophet ﷺ) — 100 times

* La ilaha illallah (”There is no god but Allah”) — 100 times, followed once by Muhammadun Rasulullah (”Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah”)

Students should track which days they complete this, ready to discuss next week.

Key Terms Glossary

* Fiqh — Islamic jurisprudence; knowledge of the rulings of the Shari’ah

* Mukallaf — a person legally responsible/accountable under Shari’ah

* Wajib — compulsory

* Mandub / Sunnah — recommended

* Mubah — permissible/neutral (the default ruling)

* Makruh — disliked

* Haram — prohibited

* Tahara — purification

* Mutlaq water — pure, naturally occurring water that purifies

* Mushammas water — sun-heated water in a metal container (makruh to use on skin while hot)

* Musta’mal water — previously used water; pure but cannot remove hadath again

* Mutanajjis water — water contaminated by impurity (najasah)

* Najasah — ritual impurity

* Qullatayn / two qullah — a measure of water volume (approx. 200 litres) above which small impurities don’t contaminate the water

* Dhikr — remembrance of Allah

Self-Test Questions

* What are the five categories that every human action falls under?

* Give one example each of a wajib act and a mandub act.

* What is the default ruling (the category everything starts in) for any action or object?

* Give one example of something that started as makruh and later became haram, and explain why the ruling changed.

* List the four types of water and give one distinguishing feature of each.

* How much water (in litres) is generally needed for small amounts of najasah not to contaminate it?

* What three phrases of dhikr were se…

Last week we set the scene: who the Dajjāl is, and how this Surah protects us from the trials he brings with him. This week we go into the first ten ayat — the portion the Prophet ﷺ told us to hold onto.

We are beginning Surah al-Mulk. Thirty ayat, two and a half pages. If we have memorised it, we can recite the whole surah in under three minutes.

What al-Mulk means

Al-Mulk carries two meanings, and both are correct: kingdom, and dominion. We met the root already in al-Fatihah, at maliki yawmid-din — also recited maaliki yawmid-din. Malik is the king; mulk is the kingdom. So this is the surah of the kingdom.

Makki and Madani

Surahs divide into Makki and Madani — revealed before the Hijrah, or after it.

This is not a division of geography. A Makki surah need not have been revealed in Mecca, and a Madani surah need not have been revealed in Medina. Surah an-Nasr is the clearest case: idha jaa’a nasrullahi wal-fath, revealed in Mecca, about the conquest of Mecca — and counted as Madani, because it came after the Hijrah.

The two categories carry different characters, and we can tell them apart without knowing a word of Arabic.

A Makki surah rhymes. It is poetic in sound before it is anything else. Listen to Juz 30, which is almost entirely Makki — ‘Amma yatasa’alun. ‘Ani-n-naba’i-l-‘azim. Alladhi hum fihi mukhtalifun — there is a metre to it. Easy to recite, beautiful to recite, and harder to understand, because Makki vocabulary is higher-grade and does not recur much elsewhere in the Quran. These are words Arabs today do not use daily.

Madani surahs run to longer ayat, and the meaning is more accessible.

Al-Mulk is Makki. Beyond that we cannot be precise — we rarely know the exact year a surah came down. But the content leans heavily towards warning rather than description of Jannah, and many of the mufassirin read that as late Meccan, when the persecution of the Quraysh had turned violent and stubborn. Early Mecca encourages. When years of encouragement have not moved people, the warning comes.

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What the Makki surahs are for

Two things, mostly.

Aqidah, which covers three areas. Ilahiyat — Allah and His attributes, and the ayat against shirk. Nubuwwat — establishing the truthfulness of the Prophet ﷺ, including the stories of the prophets before him, which follow an almost identical template: a man respected before prophethood receives revelation, begins to preach, and is opposed by the rich and the powerful. And sam‘iyat — what we can hear of but cannot see.

Why do our scholars separate that third category from the first, when we cannot see Allah either? Because the existence of the Creator and the truth of prophethood are established by rational necessity as well as by revelation. There is no equivalent argument establishing that Jannah must exist. What we have is this: reason and revelation together establish that He is our Creator and that He sent revelation to Muhammad ﷺ. So when the Prophet ﷺ tells us there is an Akhirah, we believe him. Everything of the hereafter sits in this category.

Akhlaq is the second, and the kind of conduct the Makki surahs address is the kind we recognise innately, through fitrah.

Some good is known only through revelation — we know salah is good because Allah revealed it. Fasting, the same. But charity needs no revelation to be recognised: receive someone’s charity and we feel it. The same in reverse. Nobody needs to be told stealing is wrong, because even a thief does not like being stolen from. Nobody needs to be told murder is wrong — a murderer will fight for his own life.

The Makki surahs strengthen that innate sense. They return again and again to feeding the poor, honouring the orphan, protecting the weak.

Which leads somewhere worth sitting with. More than sixty percent of the Quran is Makki — and the bulk of the Quran does not legislate. It does not discuss hijab, or Hajj, or the rulings we tend to treat as the measure of religiosity. The bulk of the Quran is about character.

This is why the Prophet ﷺ said: I was sent only to perfect noble character. The Sharia revealed later in Medina strengthens those characters — but the characters themselves were built in Mecca.

So a religious person is not measured by how many raka‘at he prays, though prayer is obligatory. Not by the length of his beard, though the beard is Sunnah. The Prophet ﷺ said the best of us is the one best to his family, and that the best of people are those most beneficial to people. That is akhlaq.