Some Beautiful Insights from Surah Ar-Rahman : Nouman Ali Khan

In this blog article, In sha Allah I will try to explain little tafseer and beautiful insights from surah Ar-Rahman. This article is my understanding based on one of the lecture of brother Nouman Ali Khan.

Please like my Facebook page "Explain Me Quran" to get latest article on Quran explanation.You can find my Facebook page link at the end of this article.

Now, lets start understanding few verses of beautiful surah Ar-Rahman.

Surah Rahman Ayat 1( verse 1):

ٱلرَّحْمَٰنُ

( "The most merciful." )

Surah Rahman Ayat 2( verse 2):

عَلَّمَ ٱلْقُرْءَانَ

( "Taught the Qur'an." )

Lets ponder on these 2 ayah little bit. In English if we have to say that Allah taught Quran then we write "Allah taught Quran." We will not write as follows. "Allah. Taught Quran".

Right ? So question arises why did Allah SWT made this one sentence into 2 ayat. If it would be one sentence we would have focused on whole sentence as one ayah. But Allah used this way by making Ar-rahman one single ayah, so that we stop there and ponder as Allah SWT has told us to ponder on each ayah. So, lets focus on "Ar-rahman".

it is commonly translated as merciful. But it actually does not mean that, It is much more than that. Mercy means when you spare someone i.e you were expecting punishment but was spared. Whereas word 'Ar rahman' has nothing to do with punishment. It's all about care and love. This word comes from word 'raham' which means womb of mother. Child is loved by mother without being seen, and taken care of in all the ways, and is protected from any danger. So in the same way, Allah SWT loves us, take cares of us and protects us from all the ways, all the time.

There is difference between Allah cares and Allah is caring right now. Allah is Rahman, So he is protecting and caring us right now.The fact that you are reading this and still breathing is proof of this. We think about problems all the time but we don't think about Ar-Rahman all the time. We don't think from how many problems Allah saved us.

In Arabic there are different forms of words. Let me explain with the example.

"Aatish" means thirsty and "Atshaan" is a form of "aatish" which means if you are not going to get water now you are going to die out of thirst. Similarly, "Gaadhib" means angry.

And "Gadhbaan" is a form of "Gaadhib" which means if you get any more angry than this you will explode. So in the same way "Rahman" means this is the maximum limit, you can't have more raham than this, You cannot love, care more than this. It is beyond imagination.

Allah SWT is saying in second ayah that he taught Quran so Allah is teacher. And teacher has right to be angry if child is not getting even after explaining so many times.( like kuffar of Quraish was taught about islam again and again ). And if teacher gets angry he may give you a punishment. Kuffar(disbelievers) of makkah were not understanding after explaining so many times. But still Allah SWT didnot gave them punishment because he said he is Ar-rahman. And because Quran came down as an act of Allah’s love. Alhamdulillah.

'Al-lama' in arabic means to deliver a knowledge over long period of time. Muhammad SAW was Even the best student of Quran. Still Allah SWT taught him Quran over a long period of 23 years. From this we get that, we don't need to do rush to understand the Quran paak. How honor you and I are because our teacher is Allah. As Allah SWT said he taught Quran. One more thing to ponder here is he did not mention whom he taught Quran. As Allah don't want to limit it. This Invitation is open to all.

Also Read : Surah Baqarah Ayat 9 to 12 : Beautiful explanation Nouman Ali Khan

Surah Rahman Ayat 3( verse 3):

خَلَقَ ٱلْإِنسَٰنَ
( "Created man" )

Word 'Insaan'(man) comes from Arabic root word 'ins' which means to forget. So one of the meaning of of Insaan is forget full. And One of the name of Quran is reminder(zikr). So Allah saying we gave you reminder(quran), because you are insaan. (i.e you forget, so you need reminder). Because reminder is needed only when you forget.

Surah Rahman last Ayat ( verse: 78 ):

تَبَٰرَكَ ٱسْمُ رَبِّكَ ذِى ٱلْجَلَٰلِ وَٱلْإِكْرَامِ

( "Blessed is the name of your Lord, Owner of Majesty and Honor" )

Arabic word 'Barakah' means growth, above expectation. For example, Logic says I will get one tree out of one seed but if I get whole forest out of that one sees then it is called 'barakah'. In arabic word 'barakah' also means when camel sits and it does not move (this indicates stability). When something increases, its stability decreases. Also If something is growing very fast, it also disappears very fast.

For e.g, If you are making tower out of book, as its height increase, it keeps on becoming less stable. And if you speed up, then it will fall down and your tower of books will disappear completely. But barakah is something which keeps on increasing without being unstable. And it does not disappears also. Allah SWT is saying that his name is full of barakah. So before doing something if we say Ar-rahman then we see barakah in that thing. I.e it produce more good than expected, it is stable, it will not go away and it will keep on increasing.

Because of this one ayah every Muslims should be optimistic. For example, If You teach only one person with the name of Allah. That person may become source of guidance for many you might have not even imagined. It is all because of the barakah of name of Allah SWT. No logic, science and math can explain this.

Also Read : Amazing Deep Explanation of Surah Fatiha - Part 1

When we read this Surah, we find there is one ayah which is repeated many times.
And the ayat is...

فَبِأَىِّ ءَالَآءِ رَبِّكُمَا تُكَذِّبَانِ
( "So which of the favors of your Lord would you deny?" )

One of the wisdom behind repeating this verse so many times in the same surah is as follows.
Surah Rahmaan is late Makki surah. For so many years Muhammad SAW was calling people of Makkah towards deen of Allag SWT. But Kaafir(disbelievers) of Makkah became more stubborn with the time. And when someone become stubborn, you say same sentence or word again and again to explain them something. So Allah SWT repeats this ayat again and again so that at least once they would have heard and ponder.

For example : There is naughty children not listening to you. You are calling him, and he is not coming. So will you say 'come here' once or more than once ? Ponder upon this.

O youth, become a people of Quran. The book which gives you vision and purpose of life. Don't become people of video game and sleep. Because gradually it leads you to people of drugs and Alcohol, resulting in complete wastage of your time and life.And thus you lose test of this life. The ultimate failure. All because you were disconnected from the book of Allah SWT.

In this blog article, I tried to explain very little about what I understand from few verses Surah Ar-Rahman. This was based on my notes taken from one of the lectures of brother Nouman Ali Khan.