How to Study the Quraan: ... and What to Expect from It

By Mu Octavis Taalib

This book offers a method for studying the Noble Quraan and making practical sense of its passages. It will help the reader to achieve a higher degree of understanding based on individual capacity and motivation. Can this be done and is it acceptable to attempt such a thing? Yes and yes.

But, before you turn on your doubt filter and don your skeptics hat, consider why you own a Quraan in the first place to gain spiritual insight from its words. Ultimately, you want to feel the power of Quraan in your life, not just talk about how awesome it is.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 5, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483674193

Mu Octavis Taalib

Mu Octavis Taalib Mu Octavis Taalib is an author who writes from a culturalist viewpoint on current and historic topics, including religion. He is an Eastern North Carolina native and a graduate of Hampton University. From his base in Cairo, Egypt, during 2004 to 2008, he visited numerous destinations in the Middle East and Africa. While travelling throughout, he took the time to examine the assorted cultural norms and the differences in the way Islaam was practiced. Taalib has a passion for the language of the Qur’aan. He believes the usage and placement of letters and words in it provide rhythms and patterns that are useful for both instruction and direction. A seasoned professional writer, his material appearing in articles, books, and online media adds fresh options for the study, understanding, and application of the Qur’aan. His Qur’aanic Arabic classes are popular among adult participants in the Atlanta area.

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Copyright © 2013 by Mu Octavis Taalib. 139705-TAAL

ISBN:EBook 978-1-4836-7419-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 07/31/2013

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This manuscript was developed to serve all readers of The Quraan,

particularly those living in Western countries, and is intended to facilitate

understanding between persons of all backgrounds and religious persuasions.

Please feel free to offer any comments, suggestions, or corrections.

You may contact the author at either of the addresses below.

Mu Octavis Taalib

How To Study The Quraan

PO Box 277 Lithonia Station

Lithonia, Georgia, 30058 USA

[e-mail]

Rabat, Morocco

Mu Octavis Taalib

June 2013

Bismillahir Rahmaanir Raheem

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FOREWORD AND INTRODUCTION

This book offers a method for studying the Noble Quraan and making practical sense of its passages. It will help the reader to achieve a higher degree of understanding based on individual capacity and motivation. Can this be done and is it acceptable to attempt such a thing? Yes and yes. But, before you turn on your ‘doubt filter’ and don your ‘skeptic’s hat’, consider why you own a Quraan in the first place – to gain spiritual insight from its words. Ultimately, you want to feel the power of Quraan in your life, not just talk about how awesome it is.

This book, How to Read the Quraan, is intentionally short. It can be read in two or three sittings in about three to four hours time - or less, if you’re a strong reader. This affords the reader more time to get on with study of The Quraan in the fashion I have detailed.

Western minds contain enormous quantities of information and must constantly pick and choose that of it on which to place emphases. Quraanic insight works best when it operates as the principal guiding principle in life. By virtue of its superiority, all other facts, figures, and deliberations reaching our conscious minds need checking against it first and foremost. This work offers a structured approach that brings order to the sometimes chaotic way Americans and Westerners in general go about understanding what they read of The Book and attempt afterwards to apply in their lives. The wonderful gift of Quraanic insight provides guidance and narrows our focus, thereby making it possible for our minds to make superior choices. Face it, the most proficient way we’ll ever come to complete glee and spiritual bliss on earth runs through The Quraan.

This work does not attempt to interpret The Quraan, nor does it promote any one agenda, doctrine, or school of thought. Many religious leaders can, and will, offer their opinions and conjectures on the construct of Quraan. Some are quite good, even superb. Nonetheless, in fairness to ourselves, our minds need opportunities to exert independence of thought just as the minds of these authorities did prior to arriving at their conclusions. In order to fully benefit from what I share here, one must be willing to see beyond what currently passes as truth according to so and so, even if for a little while. On the other end, those traveling along the path of light must be willing to at least temporarily delay their mystical journey.

Ultimately, understanding of The Quraan goes hand in hand with its application, or the lack thereof due to misunderstanding. Although holding the distinction of being the greatest book of all times, it does not exist in a vacuum. Time, the ever-present monitor of what humans do, does its job with profound proficiency. We are subject to it. Time lead up to the revealing of Quraan and time has since moved beyond that point. Many men and women have lived and died while the circumstances under which they lived have certainly changed beyond their recognition. One constant has remained, however; that being The Creator and, by extension, the experience of the creation that we, as well as the dead, well know. So this is to say that we would be better served having a basic, working awareness of the change, or surrounding contexts, under which we take up our Quraans.

The Quraan contains over 6,000 verses.¹ Each of them holds infinite chunks of interconnected value (wisdom). For sincere persons who put great effort into absorbing what they mean, study implies more than simply reading from page to page. Therefore, it becomes necessary to consider all contexts and realities leading up to, inside of, and out of what The Quraan affects and surrounds. This means that we first need to recognize that there are environmental components that can inherently help us to discover what we might overlook. Without having a working knowledge of the surrounding knowledge base, readers can easily miss the main idea. They risk handicapping themselves and failing to acquire what they seek. The growth process thereby remains stagnant and over time they find themselves at or near the same level of realization.

SYSTEMATIZATION

I realize that a structured study of Islaam’s Holy Book may be novel to some. The idea of utilizing a workable approach for grounding one’s knowledge in Quraan has not been spread in the West as far afield as it has for centuries in other parts of the world. But many readers have completed high school and college training, so structured education isn’t really new in the sense that it’s totally unknown. But perhaps we never saw the need to understand The Quraan beyond its Arabic and regular readings in the privacy of our homes. The idea to look at it from other angles may have escaped our intentions. We should want to get to a stage where we can contribute intelligent thoughts to any discussion of Quraan, and indeed, spiritual discussions about life. We should want to be driven by the motivation of Quraan. None of us should be entirely comfortable leaving it up to others to give meaning to what we read on our own in The Quraan. However,