Taraweeh Tonight: Connect With The Quran – Nineteenth Night of Ramadan

Ramadan 2013 Posts

Nineteenth Night of Ramaḍān

Sura an-Nur – The Light (024)

In the name of God, the Lord of Mercy, the Giver of Mercy

1. This is a sura We have sent down and made obligatory: We have sent down clear revelations in it, so that you may take heed.

2. Strike the adulteress and the adulterer one hundred times. Do not let compassion for them keep you from carrying out God’s law––if you believe in God and the Last Day––and ensure that a group of believers witnesses the punishment.

3. The adulterer is only [fit] to marry an adulteress or an idolatress, and the adulteress is only [fit] to marry an adulterer or an idolater: such behaviour is forbidden to believers.

4. As for those who accuse chaste women of fornication, and then fail to provide four witnesses, strike them eighty times, and reject their testimony ever afterwards: they are the lawbreakers,

5. except for those who repent later and make amends––God is most forgiving and merciful.

6. As for those who accuse their own wives of adultery, but have no other witnesses, let each one four times call God to witness that he is telling the truth,

7. and, the fifth time, call God to reject him if he is lying;

8. punishment shall be averted from his wife if she in turn four times calls God to witness that her husband is lying

9. and, the fifth time, calls God to reject her if he is telling the truth.

10. If it were not for God’s bounty and mercy towards you, if it were not that God accepts repentance and is wise!

11. It was a group from among you that concocted the lie ––do not consider it a bad thing for you [people]; it was a good thing––and every one of them will be charged with the sin he has earned. He who took the greatest part in it will have a painful punishment.

12. When you heard the lie, why did believing men and women not think well of their own people and declare, ‘This is obviously a lie’?

13. And why did the accusers not bring four witnesses to it? If they cannot produce such witnesses, they are the liars in God’s eyes.

14. If it were not for God’s bounty and mercy towards you in this world and the next, you would already have been afflicted by terrible suffering for indulging in such talk.

15. When you took it up with your tongues, and spoke with your mouths things you did not know [to be true], you thought it was trivial but to God it was very serious.

16. When you heard the lie, why did you not say, ‘We should not repeat this– God forbid!– It is a monstrous slander’?

17. God warns you never to do anything like this again, if you are true believers.

18. God makes His messages clear to you: God is all knowing, all wise.

19. A painful punishment waits in this world and the next for those who like indecency to spread among the believers: God knows and you do not.

20. If it were not for God’s bounty and mercy and the fact that He is compassionate and merciful . . .!

21. Believers, do not follow in Satan’s footsteps– if you do so, he will urge you to indecency and evil. If it were not for God’s bounty and mercy towards you, not one of you would ever have attained purity. God purifies whoever He will: God is all hearing, all seeing.

22. Those who have been graced with bounty and plenty should not swear that they will [no longer] give to kinsmen, the poor, those who emigrated in God’s way: let them pardon and forgive. Do you not wish that God should forgive you? God is most forgiving and merciful.

Further on Allāh, the Al-Mighty, says what can be interpreted to mean:

30. [Prophet], tell believing men to lower their glances and guard their private parts: that is purer for them. God is well aware of everything they do.

31. And tell believing women that they should lower their glances, guard their private parts, and not display their charms beyond what [ is acceptable] to reveal; they should let their headscarves fall to cover their necklines and not reveal their charms except to their husbands, their fathers, their husbands’ fathers, their sons, their husbands’ sons, their brothers, their brothers’ sons, their sisters’ sons, their womenfolk, their slaves, such men as attend them who have no sexual desire, or children who are not yet aware of women’s nakedness; they should not stamp their feet so as to draw attention to any hidden charms. Believers, all of you, turn to God so that you may prosper.

Further on Allāh, the Al-Mighty, says what can be interpreted to mean:

35. God is the Light of the heavens and earth. His Light is like this: there is a niche, and in it a lamp, the lamp inside a glass, a glass like a glittering star, fuelled from a blessed olive tree from neither east nor west, whose oil almost gives light even when no fire touches it– light upon light– God guides whoever He will to his Light; God draws such comparisons for people; God has full knowledge of everything–

36. shining out in houses of worship. God has ordained that they be raised high and that His name be remembered in them, with men in them celebrating His glory morning and evening:

37. men who are not distracted, either by commerce or profit, from remembering God, keeping up the prayer, and paying the prescribed alms, fearing a day when hearts and eyes will turn over.

38. God will reward such people according to the best of their actions, and He will give them more of His bounty: God provides limitlessly for anyone He will.

39. But the deeds of those who disbelieve are like a mirage in a desert: the thirsty person thinks there will be water but, when he gets there, he finds only God, who pays him his account in full– God is swift in reckoning.

40. Or like shadows in a deep sea covered by wave upon wave, with clouds above– layer upon layer of darkness– if he holds out his hand, he is scarcely able to see it. The one to whom God gives no light has no light at all.

41. [Prophet], do you not see that all those who are in the heavens and earth praise God, as do the birds with wings outstretched? Each knows its [own way] of prayer and glorification: God has full knowledge of what they do.

42. Control of the heavens and earth belongs to God: and to God is the final return.

43. Do you not see that God drives the clouds, then gathers them together and piles them up until you see rain pour from their midst? He sends hail down from [such] mountains in the sky, pouring it on whoever He wishes and diverting it from whoever He wishes– the flash of its lightning almost snatches sight away.

44. God alternates night and day– there truly is a lesson in [all] this for those who have eyes to see–

45. and God created each animal out of [its own] fluid: some of them crawl on their bellies, some walk on two legs, and some on four. God creates whatever He will; God has power over everything.

Further on Allāh, the Al-Mighty, says what can be interpreted to mean:

Sura al-Furqaan – The Differentiator (025)

In the name of God, the Lord of Mercy, the Giver of Mercy

1. Exalted is He who has sent the Differentiator down to His servant so that it may be a warning to all people.

2. It is He who has control over the heavens and earth and has no offspring––no one shares control with Him––and who created all things and made them to an exact measure.

3. Yet the disbelievers take as their gods things beneath Him that create nothing, and are themselves created, that can neither harm nor help themselves, and have no control over death, life, or resurrection.

4. The disbelievers say, ‘This can only be a lie he has forged with the help of others’––they themselves have done great wrong and told lies––

5. and they say, ‘It is just ancient fables, which he has had written down: they are dictated to him morning and evening.’

6. Say, ‘It was sent down by Him who knows the secrets of the heavens and earth. He is all forgiving, all merciful.’

7. They also say, ‘What sort of messenger is this? He eats food and walks about in the marketplaces! Why has no angel been sent down to help him with his warnings?

8. Why has he not been given treasure or a garden to supply his food?’ and the evildoers say, ‘The man you follow is simply under a spell.’

9. See what they think you are like! They have gone astray and cannot find the right way.

10. Exalted is He who can, if He wishes, give you better things than these: Gardens graced with flowing streams, and palaces too.

11. It is actually the coming of the Hour that they reject: We have prepared a blazing fire for those who reject the Hour.

12. When it sees them from a distance, they will hear it raging and roaring,

13. and when they are hurled into a narrow part of it, chained together, they will cry out for death.

14. ‘Do not cry out this day for one death, but for many.’

15. Say, ‘Which is better, this or the lasting Garden that those who are mindful of God have been promised as their reward and journey’s end?’

16. There they will find everything they wish for, and there they will stay. [Prophet], this is a binding promise from your Lord.

17. On the Day He gathers them all together with those they worship beside Him, He will say, ‘Was it you [false gods] who led these creatures of Mine astray, or did they stray from the path by themselves?’

18. They will say, ‘May You be exalted! We ourselves would never take masters other than You! But You granted them and their forefathers pleasures in this life, until they forgot Your Reminder and were ruined.’

19. [God will say], ‘Now your gods have denounced what you say as lies: you cannot avoid the punishment; you will not get any help.’ If any of you commits such evil, We shall make him taste agonizing torment.

20. No messenger have We sent before you [Muhammad] who did not eat food and walk about in the marketplace. But We have made some of you a means of testing others– will you stand fast? Your Lord is always watching.