00:00Assalamu alaykum everyone. Welcome to Amazed by the Qur'an, a series where I share with you what I find amazing about the Qur'an.
00:19Today inshaAllah I want to share with you probably three examples along the same lines.
00:23And this is actually a subject matter that's kind of difficult to understand at first but I think we can understand it pretty easily.
00:30You know there are speech patterns in every language and every language has certain words that are almost interchangeable between one another like you know think of happiness and joy or anger and rage.
00:40These words even though they may have some nuances and they mean different things but in many cases they are actually used almost exactly the same way interchangeably.
00:49Similarly there are sometimes words that are the full version of something or the lesser version of something like demo as opposed to demonstration which you can in casual speech kind of use interchangeably.
01:00Now bear in mind that as I share this example with you, the entire Qur'an is an oral tradition. It was revealed and it was memorized as it was sent down and it wasn't documented in the way that a book is written down.
01:13It's passed down primarily as an oral tradition and later on it is put into writing.
01:18So the Arabic language, let's start with that, the Arabic language actually has two words for giving counsel.
01:23One of those words is وَصَّى and the other word is أوصى and even if you don't remember that vocabulary it's okay.
01:29وَصَّى is used in Arabic when you give counsel that is of a spiritual nature or that when you give it over and over again.
01:36So basically actually in Arabic the only nuance to وَصَّى is counsel that is given over and over again.
01:43As opposed to that أوصى is actually counsel that's given one time.
01:47So I'll repeat that again.
01:48وَصَّى over and over again. أوصى one time.
01:52Remarkably in the Qur'an, counsel is talked about several times.
01:55And if you take tally of all those times like بَقَرَى, شُورَة, شُورَة, شُورَة, نِسَاء, مَرْيَم, all these different places where counsel is talked about using this language.
02:04Every time Allah talks about spiritual counsel, counsel to do good, counsel to worship Allah, counsel to pray, this kind of counsel,
02:13He'll use وَصَّى which is actually the word used for over and over again.
02:17And every time counsel is of a financial matter, like inheritance is also kind of the deceased left some counsel about how the money should be distributed.
02:27He uses أوصى. So for financial or inheritance type matters, أوصى, kind of leaving a will, leaving counsel behind, leaving advice behind, instruction behind, أوصى.
02:39And spiritual matters, وَصَّى which is beautiful.
02:42Because Allah is saying, think about it, how many times is inheritance going to be distributed? One time.
02:48It's a one time thing.
02:49So أوصى is a better word to capture the one time nature of that kind of distribution of will, that kind of counsel.
02:56However, spiritual counsel.
02:58Be mindful of Allah, be truthful, be kind, pray.
03:01This is not the kind of counsel you give somebody once.
03:04You have to give it over and over and over again.
03:06That's the nature of spiritual counsel.
03:07It must be repeated.
03:08So He beautifully uses every single time the word وَصَّى.
03:11Now think about that.
03:12In the Arabic language, وَصَّى and أوصى are interchangeable with a subtlety.
03:15One is repeated, the other is not.
03:17But the Quran is very precise about where it uses each one with one amazing exception.
03:23Isa a.s., Jesus is born, the Quran has a unique narrative about Jesus that the Bible doesn't have,
03:29that he spoke the day he was born.
03:31And part of his speech is, وَأَوصَانِي بِالصَّلَاةِ وَالزَّكَاتِ مَا دُمْتُ حَيَّةِ
03:37He counseled me to pray and to charity, so long as I'm alive.
03:42Meaning Allah counseled Jesus.
03:44Jesus says, Isa says a.s.
03:46Allah counseled me to pray and to give charity.
03:48Except the word he used for counsel this time,
03:50is the word that you typically find in the Quran for financial matters.
03:54Why though?
03:55This is a spiritual counsel.
03:57To pray.
03:58To give charity.
03:59Some argue that perhaps this word is used here because charity was mentioned.
04:03Which is financial.
04:05But there's something more going on here.
04:07Remember in the beginning of this elaborate explanation,
04:10I told you that awsah is for one time.
04:13And wasah is over and over again.
04:16Isa a.s. is how old?
04:18One day.
04:19He couldn't possibly have been given counsel over and over and over again.
04:24He's only been given counsel to pray and give charity one time.
04:29So he says, awsani bis salati wal zakati.
04:3323 years of an oral revelation.
04:36And the only time the pattern is broken,
04:38is when the one time advice is given.
04:40It's what you have to call amazing.
04:43Another two examples I want to quickly give you along the same lines.
04:46Because they're so short, that if I made a video by themselves,
04:49they'd be like a minute long.
04:50So I'll throw them in here inshaAllah.
04:52Is two words, we'll compare two words.
04:55There's this word a'yun and there's the word uyun.
04:58A little more vocabulary for you.
04:59A'yun is actually, it means two things.
05:02Each one of these words means two things.
05:04A'yun could mean eyes.
05:06And a'yun could also mean springs of water.
05:09It could mean eyes and it could mean springs of water.
05:12On a side note, the Arabs have the same word for these,
05:14because anything that pleased their eye,
05:16they use the word eye for it.
05:18So waterfalls are called eye too,
05:20because it pleases their eye.
05:22But regardless, a'yun could mean eyes,
05:26and it could also mean springs of water.
05:28Another word, uyun,
05:30could also mean either one of these things.
05:32It could mean eyes,
05:33and it could also mean springs of water.
05:35But the Qur'an has a particular signature.
05:37So for 23 years of this oral tradition,
05:40every time a'yun was used,
05:43it was about the eyes.
05:45And every time a'yun was used,
05:47it was about the springs of water.
05:50Even though in Arabic,
05:51both of those could carry both meanings,
05:54the Qur'an decided that it's going to have a signature,
05:57where a'yun consistently will be talking about eyes,
06:01and a'yun consistently is going to be talking about springs of water.
06:05That kind of consistency in oral speech is impossible to keep up with.
06:09It's just impossible to keep up with.
06:11And finally, just along the same lines,
06:13is the distinction between two kinds of rain.
06:16The Arabs use the word matr for rain.
06:18They also use the word ghayth for rain.
06:21And interestingly enough in the Qur'an,
06:24matr, every time a rain is kind of like,
06:27a flood kind of a rain,
06:28or a punishment is raining from the sky,
06:30matr.
06:31And every time rain has something good in it,
06:34something that produces life,
06:35and gives vegetation ghayth.
06:38So it actually distinguished between the two kinds of rain,
06:41that the Arabs themselves would not distinguish.
06:42They would use matr and ghayth interchangeably.
06:45Rain is just rain.
06:46But two different words for two different scenarios of rain.
06:49Good rain, ghayth.
06:51Terrible rain, matr.
06:52Over and over again, again for 23 years.
06:54The point of this short session was to illustrate to you how the Qur'an,
06:58when it picks a word,
07:00and it sticks with it,
07:02and it creates a pattern using that word,
07:04it actually creates a literary signature for that word.
07:07And these are the kinds of things inshaAllah ta'ala,
07:10over the course of this series,
07:11that I hope to elaborate before you more and more and more.
07:14May Allah give us a genuine appreciation of His beautiful word.
07:17Barakallahu li wa lakum.
07:18As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.
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