Salaam and welcome to our weekly programme on an easy-to-understand explanation of the ayahs of the holy Qur’an titled Path towards Enlightenment.

We start from where we left you last Friday and here is ayah 6 of Surah Naml:

وَإِنَّكَ لَتُلَقَّى الْقُرْآنَ مِن لَّدُنْ حَكِيمٍ عَلِيمٍ

“Indeed you receive the Qurʾān from One who is All-Wise, All-Knowing.”

Surah Naml started with glimpses of the glory of the holy Qur’an and its role in providing guidance for the faithful in order to make them achieve prosperity in its real virtuous sense during mortal life in this transient world, and salvation in afterlife. The opening ayahs also described the characteristics of the true believers and the fate of those who do not believe in the Day of Resurrection and Judgement. In continuation, this ayah means to say in its address to Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), and through him to the entire mankind, that it is God the Almighty Creator Who has revealed the Qur’an and its dynamic injunctions, since nothing is hidden from Him, and He is the All-Wise and All-Knowing. In other words, our Loving Creator knows what is good and what is bad for us, and by obeying Him we understand the purpose of life and creation, and the philosophy of sending Prophets for the guidance of humanity, and how He tested the Prophets before entrusting them with the message and the miracles – as would be evident in the next ayahs of this surah.

From this ayah we learn that:

1. The holy Qur’an is the manifestation of Divine Knowledge, which God has revealed to His Last and Greatest Messenger, Prophet Mohammad.
2. Whatever God has permitted or prohibited us is based on celestial wisdom, and there is a philosophy behind everything in this universe, although we the human beings are yet to understand many mysteries.

Now we listen to ayahs 7 to 9 of Surah Naml:

إِذْ قَالَ مُوسَىٰ لِأَهْلِهِ إِنِّي آنَسْتُ نَارًا سَآتِيكُم مِّنْهَا بِخَبَرٍ أَوْ آتِيكُم بِشِهَابٍ قَبَسٍ لَّعَلَّكُمْ تَصْطَلُونَ

فَلَمَّا جَاءَهَا نُودِيَ أَن بُورِكَ مَن فِي النَّارِ وَمَنْ حَوْلَهَا وَسُبْحَانَ اللَّـهِ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ

يَا مُوسَىٰ إِنَّهُ أَنَا اللَّـهُ الْعَزِيزُ الْحَكِيمُ

“When Moses said to his family, ‘Indeed I see a fire! I will bring you some news from it, or bring you a firebrand so that you may warm yourselves.”

So when he came to it, he was called: ‘Blessed is He who is in the fire and who is [as well] around it, and Immaculate is Allah, the Lord of all the worlds!’

“O Moses! Indeed I am Allah, the All-Mighty, the All-Wise.”

When Moses decided to end his self-exile and return to his birthplace Egypt, along with his wife, the daughter of Prophet Sho’ayb for Egypt, he lost the way in the Sinai Peninsula, and was caught up in in a cold and stormy weather. While looking for shelter, he suddenly saw a flame of fire in the distant. On the assumption that some people might be around the fire and could help him find the way, he resolved to approach the fire, but did not take his family along, as a form of precaution, to avoid the prying eyes of strangers, who might not be good persons. Therefore, he told his family to stay where they were till his return, with perhaps good news, or at least with a firebrand to keep themselves warm during the cold night. When he reached the spot of the fire, he saw no one but a very strange scene. The flames were coming from a green bush, which seemed to be on fire, although neither its leaves were being burned nor anything around on the ground. This mind-boggling sight made him step back, when he suddenly heard a voice calling him by his name. It was the Majestic Voice of the Unseen but Omnipresent God, Who had rescued him while an infant placed in a box in the River Nile, and made him grow in the palace of the Egyptian Pharaoh, the very same tyrant who had ordered the killing of all newborn males amongst the Israelites, so as to avert the danger to his throne which the soothsayers had predicted. The voice from the seemingly burning bush was soothing to the heart and told Moses not to fear. It was the Voice of the All-Wise and Almighty Creator, Who through such a miraculous manifestation of a fire in a green bush that neither burns the leaves nor anything around it, opens his mind to the Infinite Power of the One and Only God, for proper handling of the mission to be entrusted to him for guidance of the Egyptians and salvation of the monotheists from the Pharaoh’s oppression. 

From these ayahs we learn that:

1. Prophets lead a normal life, like all other human beings, with care and concern for the safety and welfare of their wife and children – the basic factors for the greater tasks entrusted to them by God for the guidance of societies and nations.
2. Fire, like all other elements of nature, is the creation of God, and if He the Almighty Creator wishes, it becomes devoid of its very essence of burning, as was the case with the seemingly burning green bush that Prophet Moses encountered, and had also heard how his illustrious ancestor, Prophet Abraham, came out unscathed from the huge fire that miraculously turned into a garden the moment the tyrant Nimrod threw him in.

Now we listen to ayahs 10 and 11 of Surah Naml:

وَأَلْقِ عَصَاكَ ۚ فَلَمَّا رَآهَا تَهْتَزُّ كَأَنَّهَا جَانٌّ وَلَّىٰ مُدْبِرًا وَلَمْ يُعَقِّبْ ۚ يَا مُوسَىٰ لَا تَخَفْ إِنِّي لَا يَخَافُ لَدَيَّ الْمُرْسَلُونَ

إِلَّا مَن ظَلَمَ ثُمَّ بَدَّلَ حُسْنًا بَعْدَ سُوءٍ فَإِنِّي غَفُورٌ رَّحِيمٌ

“Throw down your staff!’ And when he saw it wriggling, as if it were a snake, he turned his back [to flee], without looking back. ‘O Moses! ‘Do not be afraid. Indeed the prophets are not afraid before Me;”

“Barring someone who does wrong and then makes up with goodness for [his] fault, for indeed I am All-Forgiving, All-Merciful.”

Here, in these ayahs, God shows another miracle to Moses by commanding him to throw down his staff, which on touching the ground comes alive in the form and shape of a wriggling snake. When a frightened Moses turns back to flee, again God grants tranquility to his heart in a soothing voice which says that as a Prophet he ought not be afraid – and it is only the wrongdoers who are terrified, but would be forgiven on repentance by the All-Merciful. This was a divine trial arranged for Moses to test the firmness of his faith in the One and Only God, as well as to remove doubts that had flashed across his mind, whether this was really the voice of the Loving Creator. In other words, Moses was being formally entrusted the task of Prophethood and was being granted a miracle through his own staff that would come out handy in Egypt to counter the plots and stratagems of the Pharaoh.

From these ayahs we learn that:

1. Miracles are manifestation of the Will of God and are granted to Prophets to demonstrate their God-given powers for making people understand the Majesty of the All-Wise Lord, and to differentiate between good and evil.
2. God, the All-Forgiving, readily accepts the repentance of the wrongdoers, if they strive towards virtue and compensate their evil acts of the past, through good deeds.

FK/AS/SS