The Wisdom Behind Short and Long Surah

Source: The Authentic Base


The Wisdom Behind Shorh Soorahs:
The Makkan soorahs (chapters) usually had short verses, catchy rhymes, and very strong rhythm. These qualities were meant to catch the attention of the listeners who were opposed to the message of Islam.

The verses had to be short because the audience would not be willing to listen to long, drawn out statements. As soon as they heard any of the Qur’aan, they would stick their fingers in their ears and turn away. Thus, the verses had to strike home immediately. The meanings were very clear whereas the oracles and chants of the fortunetellers were mostly onscure and vague.

The Wisdom Behind Long Soorahs:
The Medeenan verses tended to be longer than those of Makkah. In fact there are a number of Madeenan verses which are longer than whole soorahs (chapters) of the Makkan peroid. The longest verse of the Qur’aan is the verse on loans in the Madeenan soorah, Al-Baqarah (2:282). The shortest soorah of the Qur’aan is the Makkan soorah, Al-Kawthar (Ch. 108), which contains a total of only 11 seperate words in three short verses.

The need to catch the attention of unwilling listeners was no longer there, because Islaam had become strong and its followers were many. Thus, the audience at this stage was quite willing to listen attentively to longer verses teaching the vital laws of Islaam.

[Taken from 'Usool At-Tafseer, p. 210 & 214]

BENEFIT GAINED:
One benefit gained from understanding this is to know a bit about the person to whom you are giving da’wah to. If you’re giving da’wah to a brother who is already established himself on deen, then ulhumdulillaah you can speak to him longer.

If however, you are speaking (giving da’wah) to an individual who is not on deen, then you would need to be concise and short in your speech. I remember, before I was practising, my mind used to switch off after about 3/4 mins when being given da’wah. I also remember about 5 years ago when I started practising, I was in Madeenah, walking back to my hotel, and I had a brother speaking to me about the deen, and within about a coulpe of mins my mind was switched off.

So know, O Da’ee’s, that giving da’wah needs wisdom…

Coherence

Currently taking 'Coherence in The Qur'an'.
This subject leads me to Tafsir Nizam Ul Qur'an.
V/ fortunate to find it's Muqaddimah in pdf format.
Still too early to comment on this tafsir specifically and coherent exegesis methodology in general.

Overall this one is tough and requires critical thinking. Guess I'd need to have a copy of English rendering for Tadabbur-e-Qur'an by Amin Ahsan Islahi to help me with the assignment. Hardly find one but will try my best to complete all assignments before Ramadhan, inshallah. All du'as are appreciated. Thank you.

p/s: Click for collection of tafseer for several surahs in Juz 'Amma by Bayyinah instructors

Learn Basic Arabic Conversation via Cartoon

Arabic cartoon with Malay Subtitles

Yamli

It has been long since my very last post. Today I am just going to share brief updates and a lil bit of sharing.

A few weeks have passed since the day my notebook was 'hospitalized' and re-formatted. I have been struggling with Arabic typing over the net after it was later hand on back to me because the current Windows XP that is re-installed doesn't include the 101 Arabic Keyboard in it's Language and Regional setting. I am forced to use an online Arabic keyboard ever since (I'm not very good in solving technicality so I don't know options other than this).

Yesterday was a day of excitement. I found Yamli. Yamli was launched in 2007 (obviously, not something new in the World Wide Web) but has only just recently came into my acknowledgment. This Arabic made-easy software has two products namely Yamli Smart Arabic Keyboard and Yamli Arabic Search.  These two make writing in Arabic on the net possible anywhere and anytime... without an Arabic keyboard! Simply spell any word you want in English and Yamli will give several of it's options in Arabic.

Since I am really not qualified to elaborate more for the fact that I, too have just had it installed over here, I'll just show a few screen shots and let you discover the rest of Yamli's Smart Arabic Keyboard and Yamli Arabic Search features yourselves.

 -click to enlarge-

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an example of the Yamli Arabic Search Engine

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an example of how Yamli helps typing Arabic

(without an Arabic Keyboard) on blogger.com

Trying to understand the transliteration code and pattern for effective Arabic search on Yamli had further led me to an interesting wikipedia article on Arabic Chat Alphabet. Certain Arabic alphabets and their numbers or characters' representation are shown in this section.

Although this post aren't detail enough, I hope that it will be of few benefits for all if not much, inshallah.

Update

Bismillah.

I have just found and registered myself as a new member of lisanularab, multaqa ahlal hadith & the fiks. Have yet to explore and discover things in those sites tho. Hopefully they will be part of my learning aids this upcoming holiday, inshallah. As for my current progress, now I find some parts of learning Hadeeth difficult i.e. I am yet to really understand the various methods of locating and searching hadeeth in books of ahadeeth in order to know to what kitaab it belongs to and whather it is saheeh or hasan or dha'if or maudhu' etc. Another problem is to search for the shuruuh of ahadeeth. Hope to figure some way out soon inshallah.

note: insight

Today I was googling the name 'Salman Al-Oadah' because I needed to find out who was the sheikh that delivered a short, inspiring speech at the univ's masjid. My search resulted in a few individuals, and since I do not really know the real spelling for the name that will lead me to the right person, I fail to identify that sheikh. Anyway, the attempts have led me to a post by Subaib Webb where he shared a conversation between him and Sheikh Salman al-`Oadah (not sure if this is the sheikh I was searching for). I think the short conversation is worth sharing, since the sheikh recommended two important text for students of Fiqh which is Fiqh Al-Sunnah and Bulugh Al-Maram. Above all, I think Suhaib Webb's site is awesome. Here's the link to his post i mentioned earlier.

I'll also write down some interesting insights I heard from Sheikh Salman at the end of 2009 (I must first apologize if I fail to quote exactly what he said, and also for the inaccuracy in translation):

• The journey towards building a solid faith that would result in action is not a 'دفعة واحدة' (One striking impulse/something that happens immediately at a single time). It is a process of continuous building and 'tahseen' (beautification of 'amal, renewal of imaan, etc)

• "ليس الإيمان بالتمني" - Imaan is not by dreaming/something we merely dream of. We have to work for it and put effort, of course, to show how serious we are in our 'business' with the Creator.

• "نجاح شخص نجاح هذه الأمة" - The victory of one individual (among us) is the victory of this ummah. Thus, we should really help ourselves and help our friends + fellow muslims to achieve success. After all, people around us are Allah's gift to us.

• "ما يجد في البحر لا يجد في النهار" - What is there in the sea is not the same with what there is in the river. Each and everyone of us has different talent, different strength. Collectively, we should use all these potentials to assist each other and achieve the best that we can. Together, we would soar to greater heights inshaAllah!

• "الصبر أساس العلم. هناك مشكلة لا حل لها إلا بالصير" - Patience is the basis of knowledge. There's problem that has no solution except for being patient

• A beautiful phrase in the du'a recited was "أسألك بأنك الله, لا إله غيرك" - I am asking (from) You because You are Allah, (which) there is no God but You."

Ensiklopedi Software Islami