Taraweeh Tonight: Connect With The Quran – Twenty Second Night of Ramadan

Ramadan 2013 Posts

Twenty Second Night of Ramaḍān

Surah as-Sajdah – Prostrations (032)

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

12. [Prophet], if only you could see the wrongdoers hang their heads before their Lord: ‘Our Lord, now that we have seen and heard, send us back and we shall do good. [Now] we are convinced.’

13. ‘If it had been Our will, We could certainly have given every soul its true guidance, but My words have come true. “I shall be sure to fill Hell with jinn and men together.”

14. So since you ignored the meeting on this Day of yours, now We shall ignore you: taste the lasting suffering for all you have done.’

15. The only people who truly believe in Our messages are those who, when they are reminded of them, bow down in worship, celebrate their Lord’s praises, and do not think themselves above this.

16. Their sides shun their beds in order to pray to their Lord in fear and hope; they give to others some of what We have given them.

17. No soul knows what joy is kept hidden in store for them as a reward for what they have done.

18. So, is someone who believes equal to someone who defies God? No, they are not equal.

19. Those who believe and do good deeds will have Gardens awaiting them as their home and as a reward for what they have done.

20. As for those who defy God, their home will be the Fire. Whenever they try to escape it, they will be driven back into it, and they will be told, ‘Taste the torment of the Fire, which you persistently denied.’

21. We shall certainly make them taste a nearer torment [in this life] prior to the greater torment, so that perhaps they may return [to the right path].

22. Who does more wrong than someone who, when messages from his Lord are recited to him, turns away from them? We shall inflict retribution on the guilty.

Surah al-Ahzab – The Joint Forces (033)

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

9. You who believe, remember God’s goodness to you when mighty armies massed against you: We sent a violent wind and invisible forces against them. God sees all that you do.

10. They massed against you from above and below; your eyes rolled [with fear], your hearts rose into your throats, and you thought [ill] thoughts of God.

11. There the believers were sorely tested and deeply shaken.

12. The hypocrites and the sick at heart said, ‘God and His Messenger promised us nothing but delusions!’

13. Some of them said, ‘People of Yathrib, you will not be able to withstand [the attack], so go back!’ Some of them asked the Prophet’s permission to leave, saying, ‘Our houses are exposed,’ even though they were not – they just wanted to run away.

14. Had the city been invaded from all sides, and the enemy invited them to rebel, they would have done so almost without hesitation.

15. Yet they had already promised God that they would not turn tail and flee, and a promise to God will be answered for.

16. [Prophet], say, ‘Running away will not benefit you. If you manage to escape death or slaughter, you will only be permitted to enjoy [life] for a short while.’

17. Say, ‘If God wishes to harm you, who can protect you? If God wishes to show you mercy, who can prevent Him?’ They will find no one but God to protect or help them.

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

21. The Messenger of God is an excellent model for those of you who put your hope in God and the Last Day and remember Him often.

22. When the believers saw the joint forces, they said, ‘This is what God and His Messenger promised us: the promise of God and His Messenger is true,’ and this only served to increase their faith and submission to God.

23. There are men among the believers who honoured their pledge to God: some of them have fulfilled it by death, and some are still waiting. They have not changed in the least.

24. [Such trials are ordained] so that God may reward the truthful for their honesty and punish the hypocrites, if He so wills, or He may relent towards them, for God is forgiving and merciful.

25. God sent back the disbelievers along with their rage –they gained no benefit– and spared the believers from fighting. He is strong and mighty.

26. He brought those People of the Book who supported them down from their strongholds and put panic into their hearts. Some of them you [believers] killed and some you took captive.

27. He passed on to you their land, their houses, their possessions, and a land where you had not set foot: God has power over everything.

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

36. When God and His Messenger have decided on a matter that concerns them, it is not fitting for any believing man or woman to claim freedom of choice in that matter: whoever disobeys God and His Messenger is far astray.

37. When you [Prophet] said to the man who had been favoured by God and by you, ‘Keep your wife and be mindful of God,’ you hid in your heart what God would later reveal: you were afraid of people, but it is more fitting that you fear God. When Zayd no longer wanted her, We gave her to you in marriage so that there might be no fault in believers marrying the wives of their adopted sons after they no longer wanted them. God’s command must be carried out.

38. The Prophet is not at fault for what God has ordained for him. This was God’s practice with those who went before –God’s command must be fulfilled.

39. [And with all] those who deliver God’s messages and fear only Him and no other; God’s reckoning is enough.

40. Muhammad is not the father of any one of you men; he is God’s Messenger and the seal of the prophets: God knows everything.

41. Believers, remember God often.

42. And glorify Him morning and evening.

43. It is He who blesses you, as do His angels, in order to lead you out of the depths of darkness into the light. He is ever merciful towards the believers.

44. When they meet Him they will be greeted with ‘Peace’– and He has prepared a generous reward for them.

45. Prophet, We have sent you as a witness, as a bearer of good news and warning.

46. As one who calls people to God by His leave, as a light-giving lamp.

47. Give the believers the good news that great bounty awaits them from God.

48. Do not give in to the disbelievers and the hypocrites: ignore the harm they cause you and put your trust in God. God is enough to trust.

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

56. God and His angels bless the Prophet – so, you who believe, bless him too and give him greetings of peace.

57. Those who insult God and His Messenger will be rejected by God in this world and the next – He has prepared a humiliating torment for them.

58. And those who undeservedly insult believing men and women will bear the guilt of slander and flagrant sin.

59. Prophet, tell your wives, your daughters, and women believers to make their outer garments hang low over them so as to be recognized and not insulted: God is most forgiving, most merciful.

60. If the hypocrites, the sick at heart, and those who spread lies in the city do not desist, We shall rouse you [Prophet] against them, and then they will only be your neighbours in this city for a short while.

61. They will be rejected. Wherever they are found, they will be arrested and put to death.

62. This has been God’s practice with those who went before. You will find no change in God’s practices.

63. People ask you about the Hour. Say, ‘God alone has knowledge of it.’ How could you [Prophet] know? The Hour may well be near.

64. God has rejected the disbelievers and prepared a blazing fire for them.

65. There they will stay permanently, with no one to befriend or support them.

66. On the Day when their faces are being turned about in the Fire, they will say, ‘If only we had obeyed God and the Messenger,’

67. And ‘Lord! We obeyed our masters and our chiefs, and they led us astray.

68. Lord! Give them a double punishment and reject them completely.’

69. Believers, do not be like those who insulted Moses – God cleared him of their allegations and he was highly honoured in God’s eyes.

70. Believers, be mindful of God, speak in a direct fashion and to good purpose

71. And He will put your deeds right for you and forgive you your sins. Whoever obeys God and His Messenger will truly achieve a great triumph.

72. We offered the Trust to the heavens, the earth, and the mountains, yet they refused to undertake it and were afraid of it; mankind undertook it – they have always been inept and foolish.

73. God will punish the hypocrites and the idolaters, both men and women, and turn with mercy to the believers, both men and women: God is most forgiving, most merciful.

Surah Saba – Sheba (034)

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

6. [Prophet], those who have been given knowledge can see that what has been sent to you from your Lord is the truth, and that it leads to the path of the Almighty, worthy of all praise.

7. But the disbelievers say, ‘Shall we show you a man who claims that, when you have been utterly torn to pieces, you will be raised in a new creation?

8. Has he invented a lie about God? Is he mad?’ No! It is those who do not believe in the life to come who will suffer torment, for they are in gross error.

9. Do they not think about what is in front of them and behind them in the heavens and earth? If We wished, We could make the earth swallow them, or make fragments from the heavens fall down upon them. There truly is a sign in this for every servant who turns back to God in repentance.

10. We graced David with Our favour. We said, ‘You mountains, echo God’s praises together with him, and you birds, too.’ We softened iron for him,

11. Saying, ‘Make coats of chain mail and measure the links well.’ ‘Do good, all of you, for I see everything you do.’

12. And [We subjected] the wind for Solomon. Its outward journey took a month, and its return journey likewise. We made a fountain of molten brass flow for him, and some of the jinn worked under his control with his Lord’s permission. If one of them deviated from Our command, We let him taste the suffering of the blazing flame.

13. They made him whatever he wanted– palaces, statues, basins as large as water troughs, fixed cauldrons. We said, ‘Work thankfully, family of David, for few of my servants are truly thankful.’

14. Then, when We decreed Solomon’s death, nothing showed the jinn he was dead, but a creature of the earth eating at his stick: when he fell down they realized – if they had known what was hidden they would not have continued their demeaning labour.

15. There was a sign for the people of Sheba, too, in their dwelling place: two gardens, one on the right, one on the left: ‘Eat from what your Lord has provided for you and give Him thanks, for your land is good, and your Lord most forgiving.’

16. But they paid no heed, so We let loose on them a flood from the dam and replaced their two gardens with others that yielded bitter fruit, tamarisk bushes, and a few lote trees.

17. In this way We punished them for their ingratitude– would We punish anyone but the ungrateful?

18. Also, We had placed, between them and the towns We had blessed, other towns within sight of one another to which they could travel easily–‘ Travel safely in this land by night and by day’

19. But [still] they complained, ‘Our Lord has made the distance between our staging posts so long!’ They wronged themselves and, in the end, We made their fate a byword, and scattered them in countless fragments. There truly are signs in this for every patient, thankful person.

20. Satan was proved right in his opinion of them, for they all followed him – except for a group of believers

21. Even though he had no authority over them.