Light Upon Light Blog

Islam – It just makes…. sense!

Archive for September, 2007

Warsh Recitation of the Quran

Sep 29

Posted by Abdullah in Quran | 11 Comments

Warsh Recitation of the Qur’an!

Here is an explanation of what Warsh is. Warsh is one of the recitations of the Quran.
The most common Quran recitation (qira’a) is known as Hafs.
All of the recitations mentioned below are valid and go back to the Prophet (Sallahu alaiyhi wa salam).

Here is a story that shows the validity of the differences:

Umar radhiallaahu anhu said: “I heard Hishaam ibn Hakeem reciting Soorat al-Furqaan in a manner different from that in which I used to recite it and the way in which the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) taught me to recite it. I was about to argue with him whilst he was praying, but I waited until he finished his prayer, and then I tied his garment around his neck and seized him by it and brought him to the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) and said, ‘O Messenger of Allaah, I heard this man reciting Soorat-al-Furqaan in a way different to the way you taught it to me.’ The Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said to him, ‘Recite it,’ and he recited it as I had heard him recite it. The Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said, ‘It was revealed like this.’ Then he said to me, ‘Recite it,’ so I recited it and he said, ‘It was revealed like this.’ This Qur’aan has been revealed in seven different ways, so recite it in the way that is easiest for you.’”

(Narrated by al-Bukhaari, 2287; Muslim, 818)

Most likely when you open up your mushaf (Quran) you will be reading Hafs.

Here are the different recitations available. The wording is the same but the pronounciation is different.

Take a look at Surah Ma’un (107) warsh mushaf:

Quran Warsh (Image courtesy QuranFlash.com)

Keep in mind that most of the tashkeel (vowels, etc) were included later on in order to aid recitation, so what you are seeing above is a helpful manual that you can use if you are memorizing according to this qira’at.

Click here to listen: Surah Ma’un recited by Abdul Basit in WARSH

Here is a list of 7 different qira’at (keep in mind there are more):

  1. Hafs from ‘Aasim
  2. Warsh from Naafi’
  3. ad-Dooree from Aboo ‘Aamir
  4. as Soosee from Abu ‘Aamir
  5. al-Bizzee from Ibn Katheer
  6. Qaaloon from Naafi’
  7. Shu’bah from ‘Aasim

More details on the different chains leading back to the Prophet

Here is some more MP3 other warsh recitations Quran recitations (requires uTorrent or another torrent downloader software)

If you want to see the Warsh recitation of the Quran, load the link for QuranFlash.com and then go to “Book Type” and then select the last book.

In the end don’t worry too much about this topic, it’s very technical and it only applies to you if you are deep into memorizing quran.

Quran Verse By Verse MP3

Sep 9

Posted by Abdullah in Quran | 7 Comments

Verse by verse Quran recitation project is a project to bring you the Quran in high quality format, split into seperate individual files for each ayah (verse) in each surah (chapter). You can use these files in your own dawah project – say an Islamic slideshow for school, or say you are doing an Islamic video project and you want some surahs in there, but you don’t want to take the time to chop the files between verses. This is also perfect if you are a programmer and you want to build your own Quran software, or maybe you want to start a podcast and feature 1 ayah each day, now you can get what you need quickly.. and for free!

In fact, you can choose Quran MP3s like Shuraim, Abu Bakr Ash Shatery, Sa’ad Al Ghamadi, and more coming!

Sponsored by Light Upon Light

Sex in Western Culture

Sep 5

Posted by Abdullah in Islam makes Sense! | 1 Comment

It is amazing how Islam is attacked time and time again because “men can marry four wives.” Instead of taking the defensive, how about this time we look at the hypocrisy in modern culture regarding sexuality?

Islam makes sense. Period.

Overpopulated world? I doubt it

Sep 5

Posted by Abdullah in Events, Islam makes Sense! | 1 Comment

“Marry so that I can be proud (of your numbers) on the day of judgement over the other nations.” as narrated by Ibn Uthaymeen (islam-qa)

The world is in a state that populations are dwindling. People in the “1st world” are refusing to have children. Women want to work more and more. And this is harming the societies.

China, which has a 1 baby limit, is now beginning to see the consequences for such policies.

Most of the richer countries in the world today pay you to have babies. Canada gives a very generous “Child Care Bonus” or “family tax benefit” (get exact name). It is about $200 per month per child as well as money for child care (babysitting) expenses, as well as a new universal child benefit of $100 a month. For a couple earning less income, there is also more money for them.

Denmark and other countries as well pay you to have children, there are tax benefits plus cash benefits.

Why would these countries pay money for us to have kids? Because a country needs population in order to keep the society running smoothly. It especially needs young hard workers.

But are we overpopulated in the world and starving? Someone called Malthus made a theory that since food supply grows more slowly than population growth, we will starve ourselves if we keep having children. Unfortunately his theory is very flawed. Even with the current state of the world, there is more than enough wealth and food to go around, if it wasn’t for the massive injustice we have in the world.

What does $456 billion buy?

This means we can easily feed most of the world if we weren’t blowing money like this.

The reality is, that children are becoming more and more rare. For a society to keep its population constant, each family needs to have on average 2.1 children (the .1 extra is for boys who die faster than girls on average). You will learn this in economics. If the number of children per family drops below this number, then immigration is required. As well, it is important for a country to have a larger base of younger (working) people and a smaller number of older dependent people. This is called a population pyramid

And an an aside, personally, my parents are happy that I have children. All my aunties and uncles love their new nephews. My parents love their new grandsons and spoil them silly (not necessarily a good thing). Also my grandfather (nanabapa) did not get to meet them, but alhamdullilah my grandmother (nanima) is now a great grandmother and she is also very happy for the blessing. And it is all because of Islam that I am now married with kids. Unlikely in my other life had I not accepted the deen would ever have kids at this time or be married at this age (24) if I was not following Allah’s commands to protect my chastity by being in this relationship. God knows best. But it takes strength to be different from the run of the mill.

In the end.. in conclusion

Want to save the world from going extinct? Become Muslim.