Quran Study 21 Jan 1983 By Dr Rashad Khalifa
Transcript
0:00 So, at the start of the session, you are given the freedom of believing or disbelieving.
0:10 Either you accept the revelation and follow the guidance that is given to us,
0:20 or reject the
0:23 guidance and
0:24 follow the
0:26 path of
0:28 wrongdoing
0:29 and then go to hell.
0:34 And God says
0:35 in religion
0:38 there is no
0:40 compulsion
0:41 to believe
0:43 in God alone.
0:47 But whoever believes God alone,
0:49 So, we are rescued, rescued by God from the chains of Jesus-worship, and so forth.
1:03 And here in verse 2:260, God gives an example of Abraham, who was so determined that he asked God,
1:23 "Show me how You bring the dead back to life."
1:34 I don't know if that's true or not.
1:38 I don't know if that's true or not.
1:49 We don't have to see the proof; the proof for the prophets isn't there for us.
1:53 There shall be no compulsion in religion. The right path is now distinct from the wrong path.
1:59 The previous scriptures were all distorted soon after they were revealed.
2:15 And since the code has come, this is the confirmed version.
2:19 The truth is now the same as it was first authored.
2:22 The code verifies every single word in this book.
2:26 Not just every word, every letter.
2:29 And so we don't have to guess.
2:31 And I think it's like a furqan for the people of future generations.
2:37 And it is a symbol of victory.
2:45 That's all.
2:48 Now in 2:257, we read that God is the Lord of those who believe.
2:53 He leads them out of the darkness into the light.
2:57 In the darkness you don't see a thing.
3:00 When God leads you into the light, you see everything.
3:06 You can actually feel the difference, you can feel what you know.
3:11 You meet people who don't have a good portion of knowledge from reading the Quran,
3:15 and you see how ignorant they are.
3:18 For example, on the topic of death, if it comes up, they don't know what is going to happen,
3:23 what we are here for, where we are going, what is the purpose of our life. They just
3:29 don't know.
3:29 They're completely lost.
3:31 And you see a person who's 55 years old, but they have the brain of a few-year-old.
3:39 I think this is a repetition of the idea that we have a choice,
3:47 but some turn it right around and say we don't have a choice.
3:50 There are people prepared to fail, saying that only the people who are supposed to get into heaven will get in.
3:57 Because God will do it. They're saying it's up to Him anyway.
4:00 We need to learn to be confident.
4:02 Yeah, but that's the test. You have the freedom of choice in your decision to believe or not to believe.
4:08 That decision is absolute belief.
4:10 Based on that decision, you are either guided or misguided. Deliberately.
4:17 So if you make a decision that you don't have anything to do with God, the veil comes down.
4:22 If you make a decision to believe in God, all circumstances will work out in the
4:26 right way to the right path. Now the rest of the verse says, while those who disbelieve,
4:32 their lords are their idols. They lead them out of the light into the darkness.
4:39 Now we have a brother come here who was studying the issues that we have in this masjid.
4:45 He decided to test my translation and write comments on it.
4:50 And he sat out there in the balcony and he took a big notebook
4:55 and he wrote down his comments, and he had a plan to come on Friday,
5:01 a week ago or two weeks ago, to debate the issue with me.
5:05 He also went around to the other mosque to talk to them on the floor.
5:12 When he came to the Islamic Center, they told him, "Oh no, don't go back and debate the issue."
5:20 Mujahid can tell us the story there; he was really determined to come and debate the issue.
5:26 But they want him to stay in the dark. They're afraid that he may come across something that will open his eyes
5:32 and make him see the truth or see the light. They don't want to debate. Right, Mujahid?
5:41 Ahmed was determined to come
5:43 and debate the issue
5:44 and we were ready
5:46 the Friday before that,
5:48 and then all of a sudden,
5:50 he became very silent.
5:52 They convinced him not to talk to us,
5:54 not to debate anything.
5:58 Originally, he was supposed to call me,
6:00 and then he never called me.
6:01 And Rafiq and I have been trying for a few months
6:04 now to have them set
6:06 a time and a place on their own terms
6:09 to go and debate the issue.
6:10 These are people who don't want to discuss anything, and some of them were afraid to make an appearance.
6:26 That's a funny statement, but it's a true statement.
6:29 And you know, once you stop following them, and they see you,
6:34 they have this dialogue, you know, "We'll come after you."
6:37 They have this dialogue.
6:38 And then they threaten you, huh?
6:43 And then they keep trying to talk back at you.
6:45 They just, you know, purport that they're going to come to you.
6:49 They're going to see you.
6:51 They're going to see you.
6:52 They're just going to come to you and say,
7:03 I think we are going to offer a reward; that will be the next step. We are going to have a reward for people who come and debate the issue.
7:13 I don't know how we can encourage them to come and debate the issue.
7:17 I want them to name the place, the time, their own terms;
7:22 it just doesn't work.
7:24 Maybe we'll set up a reward.
7:26 But the verse is that
7:30 their lords are their idols; they lead them out of the light into the darkness.
7:35 And certainly, discussing the issues is enlightenment.
7:40 But if you want to keep them in the dark, you keep them in the dark.
7:44 The one I'm discussing is here in this verse, a very important point, you know. He felt that, how can God resurrect a town like this?
7:58 In Chapter 2.
8:11 The one who passed by a ghost town and said,
8:19 "How can God revive this after its death?"
8:21 So God put him to death
8:22 for a hundred years, then resurrected him.
8:25 He asked,
8:27 "How long have you stayed?"
8:28 He said,
8:31 He said, "You have been here for 100 years. Yet, look at your food and drink; it is not spoiled.
8:38 And look at your donkey.
8:41 He then said, "And We will make you a sign for the people.
8:45 "And look at the bones, how We raise them up and then cover them with flesh."
8:49 When it became clear to him, he said, "Now I know that God is able to do all things."
8:58 Well, this, uh, this verse has, uh, all the, you know, all the questions about those
9:07 signs and signs.
9:11 And, you know, if you were to do that, you would say that, you know, anybody who does
9:17 Besides, we just talk and we can never get it direct.
9:24 I can say here and not here.
9:35 Okay.
9:37 Just a little bit off.
9:39 On this verse, in this verse,
9:41 is God talking directly to the person?
9:58 We don't even know if it's direct speech encouraged.
10:02 Yeah.
10:03 No.
10:04 It's the direct speech God's given.
10:05 It's the direct speech encouraged.
10:08 It's the direct speech encouraged.
10:09 It's the direct speech encouraged.
10:11 How do we know that?
10:14 How do we not know?
10:15 Well, I'm asking by the words. He knows it by the words.
10:20 It's, it's, you know...
10:22 Because throughout the Quran it says, "He said," and we don't know who "he" said, who's "he."
10:28 We don't even know who he is.
10:30 So, I mean...
10:31 Just put the hands up, put the, uh, hands up.
10:36 So it doesn't say God said it.
10:39 Well, it doesn't say he didn't do it.
10:50 The word Qala, you know, "he said," it doesn't have the same definite meaning in Arabic as it does in English.
11:01 So this is what he said, but it doesn't exactly mean what.
11:06 And you can get from the verse, as you see, a kind of inspiration.
11:16 In this verse, though, that you have here, you've got in one sentence, God then put him
11:21 to death for 100 years, then resurrected him, and asked. That's the line. God asked.
11:27 Yeah, that's the line, God asked him the question, that was in the verse.
11:36 there are many ways of delivering the question.
11:45 Oh yeah, that's to Abraham.
11:48 But He didn't speak to Abraham.
11:51 We know God did not speak to Abraham.
11:55 See, when God spoke to Moses,
11:57 the Quran makes it an article of faith,
11:59 throughout the Quran:
12:00 When God speaks to someone, it's a big thing, and it has to be mentioned specifically.
12:08 So, God speaking to...
12:10 Even when Muhammad was taken to the seventh heaven, God did not speak to him.
12:16 It was mentioned specifically that he was inspired.
12:21 Maybe he spoke to him or not.
12:23 Yeah, what's the big difference?
12:24 Well, speaking can be all different.
12:27 Speaking can be...
12:30 speaking can...
12:31 necessarily,
12:32 you know,
12:33 it doesn't necessarily
12:34 mean with a tongue,
12:34 here it implies
12:36 that God was
12:37 speaking to him
12:38 in this translation.
12:39 What?
12:40 I think that the
12:41 thinking,
12:42 we just
12:44 had a big
12:45 discussion
12:46 the way we
12:47 read the Quran
12:48 and
12:48 so how we're
12:50 interpreting it,
12:51 what we're saying.
12:51 Maybe we question
12:52 things we don't
12:53 need to be
12:54 questioning,
12:54 or maybe we're
12:55 taking a lot more
12:56 out of something than we should, because of the way that you look at it.
13:01 No, but actually, it's not a question. I just... it's not a question. I think it wasn't so hard for me.
13:07 However, it is not important. It really isn't. The important issue here is death and resurrection.
13:14 How long is it between death and resurrection?
13:18 A long time.
13:19 Huh?
13:20 A long time.
13:21 Yeah, but He told us. How long did He tell us?
13:26 The period from death to resurrection is one night.
13:32 When you die, you open your eyes the next morning, on the Day of Resurrection.
13:39 Even if it was a million years.
13:44 You were dead for millions of years. Remember?
13:48 How do we know that?
13:51 See, we all experienced death already, we know how it feels like, we know how long it takes, we know how unaware we are, the world is not there.
14:00 takes, we know how unaware we are, the world is not there.
14:04 Remember Napoleon Bonaparte?
14:14 You were there, but you were dead.
14:20 And when you die the second death, there are two deaths and two lives.
14:29 When you die the second death, you're going to miss the President of the United States in the year 2088.
14:37 It has to be divisible by four.
14:42 And you don't care. You don't care either.
14:48 Okay, now looking at the, now why do we have this verse in the Quran?
14:54 What is the lesson that we derive from that?
14:59 That 100 years passed like one day or part of the day.
15:04 And in Surah 18 we learn that 309 years passed like one day or part of the day.
15:10 Therefore the concept of time disappears.
15:20 10 years, 50 years, 100 years, whatever the length of your life, that's how long you have
15:26 up to the death of the earth.
15:33 No, before you know it, it will be 100 years.
15:38 Before you know it, it will be 100 years up to the death of the earth.
15:42 That's then when your fate is decided for eternity.
15:46 I think what I would like to say is that we think of the Day of Judgment as a community, you know,
15:52 as a community event.
15:53 So I hope I don't confuse the two.
15:57 Actually, that's not in the book at all.
15:59 You know, it would be very important to see the way that other people look at it,
16:05 for example,
16:06 the Christians. Christians and others, and some of them say, let's suppose a man lives 5,000 years.
16:21 It's before judgment. Suppose that the end of the world is the year 2000.
16:28 What was happening to him, you hear what I am saying?
16:31 It's interesting. What was happening to him those seven, no, yeah, what was happening to him those seven thousand years?
16:43 It seems to make sense. And so people have to invent limbo, or the kind of purgatory where people are all placed like in a big wastebasket.
16:55 When somebody dies, God puts him in a big basket.
16:58 Another one dies, and all the thousands of years pass, He collects them, and then He judges all of them.
17:04 I think this is a very wrong way of looking at it, right?
17:07 Because if we follow the Quran, we must not use our time dimension.
17:15 Before God, time is not the same. This is already known.
17:19 No. We must not look at the Day of Resurrection in terms of our earthly time dimension.
17:27 That is it. And it's been emphasized in our group.
17:30 Before God, resurrection has already taken place, and people already have gone to Heaven, and have gone to Hell.
17:37 But to us, we are stuck to our material world.
17:42 We are thinking of those who died a thousand, five thousand years ago, and maybe those who will live
17:47 the next so many thousand years.
17:50 But from the point of view of, from another point of view, if the resurrection is like one night, or like the blink of an eye, after our death, then we don't ask anymore
18:00 the question, what happened to those who have been alive and who have died 5,000 years ago?
18:08 the question, what happened to those who have been alive and who have died 5,000 years ago?
18:17 Quran says very clearly, and other religions also say, that the final judgment of the last hour is for everyone.
18:22 It seems to be inconsistent with the fact that people die in different centuries.
18:31 But not the way the Quran explains it.
18:34 The Quran's solution is great.
18:37 It is one final judgment, one final hour.
18:42 And yet, the time between our death and that, is what we think about now, and so on.
18:50 And I think this, to me, is the meaning of the verse, that it is nearer than what we think it is.
18:57 Because for many people, a Christian will say, well, I'll die now, and suppose the world will still exist for 20,000 years, I will be in limbo for 20,000 years.
19:11 Therefore, the Quran is false. But no, the Quran says no, it's nearer. And so people are expecting it any time.
19:18 Now, Christ himself said that the hour is near at hand, and people were waiting.
19:24 Near the year 1000, everybody thought it was going to be the Last Judgment.
19:29 And you're waiting. Near the year 2000, everybody will wait for it.
19:33 Because, you see, near in the sense of years.
19:37 And I think this is where the Quran explains to you the relativity of time
19:43 between me and our ancestors, and us and our descendants, and the time between our
19:51 lives now and the Hereafter. But the way the Quran explains it, I think all the difficulties are
19:57 addressed. And we need not ask the question anymore, from the time we die until the last
20:06 hour, how many thousands of years it will take. And I think Islam is the only religion that gives these answers.
20:11 I've seen in your notes, and I've got a few of them, these answers, as far as I know,
20:15 and my studies have provided me with these answers.
20:17 I don't know if I'm in a position to say this.
20:20 Yes, that's important.
20:22 But then, also, I just wanted to ask you that also,
20:25 if there is evidence in the scripture that speaks ill of the Companions,
20:27 how do you explain that?
20:30 Right, but as far as I'm concerned,
20:33 the people who died a long time ago,
20:35 in the state of death, there is no time.
20:38 In death, it's one night.
20:39 So people ask, you know, we sleep, wake up, sleep, wake up, sleep, wake up, die, wake up.
20:47 There's no difference at all between sleeping and dying.
20:50 In fact, people don't know that they die.
20:53 Robert Kennedy doesn't know he died.
20:56 He could be dreaming.
20:58 You know, yeah, yeah.
20:59 What I mean is, you have people who believe in cryonics, you know, people that...
21:05 Yeah.
21:05 And then they freeze themselves, and they hope to come back in the future.
21:08 Right. Very similar to the frog.
21:10 But, Jake, though, I don't think he's playing with frogs.
21:14 I don't think it's going to be a big accident.
21:17 Close enough, yeah.
21:19 It's a frog.
21:20 I hope not, anyway.
21:22 They have to be pretty clean, Jake, and get rid of it.
21:26 What, what?
21:37 There's a number of great people who have their bodies frozen because, this is what Andrew is talking about,
21:45 they are waiting for scientific advances that we have that can cure the disease that killed them.
21:53 One of the big, one of the big firms had a power breakdown and all the bodies thawed.
22:01 And the relatives, the relatives were suing the firm for that.
22:07 But speaking of time dimensions, actually you can experience it right here in this world.
22:13 You can go on a spaceship, ride a rocket, and go outside the Earth's atmosphere.
22:17 There's another 50 miles from here, up.
22:21 Then, there's no night, there's no day, there's no hour,
22:25 there's no rotation of the planet.
22:29 Unless you want to use your heart like a clock, there is no time.
22:32 As soon as you leave, the reason we have night and day here is that
22:37 the Sun is now on the other side of the Earth and we are in its shade.
22:41 But if you leave the planet Earth, there is no night.
22:45 Just to add something to that,
22:48 relativity physics teaches that
22:49 a clock, okay,
22:51 the length of a second
22:54 is not fixed.
22:54 It depends on the speed that it's going.
22:57 And the old, you know, the old analogy
23:00 is if somebody
23:00 27 years old, and he could go close
23:03 to the speed of light for 50
23:05 years and then come back to the earth,
23:07 it would be thousands of years later.
23:09 So the idea,
23:11 the common sense idea of
23:13 time being just a duration,
23:15 being something fixed,
23:16 that's a finding of relativism.
23:18 It's confirmed by the Holy Quran,
23:21 documented in the Quran.
23:22 We have only 26 minutes.
23:24 We're not going to...
23:25 but...
23:39 People don't know that
23:41 they are dead.
23:53 There are many examples of people who were involved in accidents, they died in it, and
23:58 they, when they went through it, they were pronounced dead, but it just happened that they came
24:03 back.
24:06 So, it doesn't matter what kind of death the people die, they don't know that they died.
24:16 I can relate it. You know, it's 1:35 a.m., or it's 5 a.m., and there's an operation going on in the hospital.
24:24 The person goes into the operating room, and he's anesthetized.
24:30 When he either dies or comes to.
24:34 If he dies, he doesn't know, and when he opens his eyes, they're there with the record,
24:39 and he looks for the doctors and asks them if the operation is finished.
24:44 I'm going to send them all into the red dive instead.
24:50 Wait a minute.
24:52 What happened, doc?
24:55 It is going to be a funny day.
24:59 Only funny for the believers. Not funny for the disputers.
25:03 It would be a shocker for the disputers.
25:17 I just, I'm imagining that if this is the reason, okay, if it's a run, then they already know
25:25 they're in the middle of a treatment plan, or they should know.
25:28 I don't know if that angle is supposed to be out of the way for all this stuff or whatever.
25:32 On the Day of Judgment, we can't sit here and debate.
25:36 We're walking in it, okay?
25:38 But what I'm thinking, um, also...
25:41 No, but you're talking about the angels who communicate reality after your resurrection.
25:45 That's what I'm talking about.
25:47 If they died on the day of the retribution, they would have believed.
25:51 Okay, and what I'm saying is, like, we know we...
25:54 So we have an idea of what it's going to be like on the Day of Resurrection.
25:58 But then we also fear God often.
26:01 And I was just wondering, would we know,
26:06 and still be afraid, and forget?
26:09 I mean, that's my question.
26:12 Your question is, do the believers know that they're right?
26:15 That's the question.
26:16 No.
26:18 It's just that I was wondering if, even if they're on the right path,
26:21 Right, because they're still going to be, you know, so afraid, and we still don't know if He'll accept us or not, even though we think we're close to Him.
26:30 That's true. When you meet your destiny, there is a distinction, and the two are not going to be together.
26:36 Right, right.
26:38 When you open your eyes, you'll know that you're wrong.
26:40 You're going to know?
26:42 You're going to know what?
26:44 When you look at your sight.
26:47 Yeah.
26:47 Yeah, what?
26:49 Your sight.
27:01 When you are resurrected, the moment you are resurrected, you will know if you are a dweller of Heaven or a dweller of Hell.
27:08 But then, too, it's the isolation and then the record, or, you know what I'm saying, did you get the record first and then the isolation, or what?
27:22 No, no, the record was there in your neck. It was in your neck.
27:26 I mean, it's not that everybody's record... you will be invited next. It's just, you'll have the record with you.
27:45 Okay, so someone cited, you know, verse 71, it tells you, you know, it gives you some idea about this. That we have to go over the path of Hell, and you get your record in your right hand, and then behind your back, in the left hand.
27:59 Now, this is all symbolic. Because if you look up Sura 17, let me tell you about Sura 17, because the number is 13.
28:07 Verse 13, page 188, verse 13, under the subtitle, The Video Record.
28:21 We have the record of every human being tied to his neck, and on the Day of Resurrection,
28:28 we will give him a record that he will find accessible.
28:32 Read your record.
28:33 Today, you suffice as a reckoner against yourself.
28:37 So you'll be in the dark, by the way.
28:40 So that record that you find, the video record of your life from birth to death,
28:44 will explain to you why you are in this position.
28:48 So listen to the instruction.
28:51 So that record will simply explain to you why.
28:56 Okay, so in that other verse, you just...