STUDY GUIDE 8
READING MATERIAL
Holy Qur'an
Surah 1 "The Opening"
Surah 2 "The Cow" (Section 1)
Surah 16 "The Bee" (Verses 66,67)
Page 4, Page 18
Page 1, Pages 6-9
FACT (S)
"And surely there is a lesson for you in the cattle: We give you to drink of what is in their bellies -- from betwixt the faeces and the blood -- pure milk, agreeable to the drinkers." Holy Qur'an 16:66
Pure milk is a, valuable and virtually complete source of nutrition to the physical body. It is the working of the divine natural laws set in motion by Allah (God) that produces such a valuable and agreeable diet, separating it from the blood and dung.
Just as divine laws work in the physical world to produce pure food by separating them from obnoxious elements and useless excrement, their working in the spiritual world produces the most sublime moral teachings, which afford us a pure, agreeable and complete spiritual diet.
DISCUSSION
1) Please review the GLOSSARY. Remember to make an effort to incorporate terms from the study guides into your functional vocabulary (conversation).
2) Discuss the significance of the title of Surah 2, "The Cow" as it relates to building the Will. Follow Section 1, verses 2-5 to guide the discussion.
(a) By what means is physical milk obtained from a cow? How does this illustrate the significance of Surah 2?
(b) In verse 2, Allah (God) says, "This Book, there is no doubt in it..." What does the ? Is doubt an emotion or a state of mind?
What affect does doubt have on desire? Why does the Author of the Book tell us it has no doubt in it?
(c) Finish reading verses 2-4. Is the Holy Qur'an a book for everyone? Do you feel that it is a book that is for you? Why or why not?
Read verse 5. What is the reward for following the guidance of This Book? What evidence, if any, is there, that those who follow This Book are successful?
3) Let us review the opening Surah of the Holy Qur'an: "Al-Fatihah", or, "The Opening". The heart of Surah 1 is verse 5. Why is this verse so important to us?
4) The Believer who is steadfast in prayer repeats Surah 1 at least thirty-two (32) times a day in its entirety. It contains 4 Divine Attributes of Allah (God). Why do we pray to Him so frequently in these 4 attributes when He has 99 of them?
5) What is the relationship between Surah 1 and Surah 2?
6) Let us return to Surah 2, verses 2-3 and review the character traits and actions of those for whom the Holy Qur'an is a guide.
(a) What is meant by "those who keep their duty" (Maulana Muhammad Ali Translation) or "those who fear God" (Yusuf Ali Translation)?
Supplement
(b) What is meant by belief in the Unseen?
(c) Note that the Holy Qur'an refers to those who "keep up prayer" or who are "steadfast in prayer."
Why is constancy in prayer necessary? What is the meaning of "bonding"?
How does that relate to "constancy"? What are the benefits that flow from the "bonding"?
PRACTICAL APPLICATION
This week we want to apply the principles of success. We can test these principles immediately, for they remain the same whether the desire is for something small and personal, such as a pair of shoes; or, the desire is on a lofty plane, such as the liberation of oppressed people.
-2-
Think of something you personally desire. Think of this object or achievement right now. Envision it in your mind.
Is it within the power of your God, Allah, to bring this desire about? Think of His Attributes: Beneficent, Merciful, Masterful... Does He have the Power to fulfill your desire? If He is the Nourisher unto perfection, would He want you to have it?
Do you truly desire it? How strong is your desire? Do you doubt that you can get it?
Will having this desire fulfilled help you in your faith in Allah (God) and your ability to solve your own problems?
Will money be required to fulfill the desire? Does that which you want cost more than what you have? Then you must obtain whatever financial resources are needed to fulfill the desire. You must not go into debt to obtain the object of your desire. -Debt Is a form of slavery. In our prayers we say to Allah (God): "I seek Thy Refuge from being overpowered by debt and the oppression of men." Do not obtain your desire by taking a step backward, obtain it by taking a step forward.
Here is what you must do to be successful. Follow the verses you have studied from the Book that has n doubt in it. Believe in the Unseen; Keep up Prayer; Spend out of what Allah (God) has blessed you with in the way of charity; Believe in the previous and present revelations; be sure of the Hereafter.
Do these things and you will be of the SUCCESSFUL!
SUPPLEMENT
1) See GLOSSARY.
2) "AS NEWBORN BABES, DESIRE THE PURE MILK OF THE WORD, THAT YE MAY GROW BY IT..." [1 Peter 2:21
(a) The term "milk" is both a noun and a verb. The noun describes the white liquid secreted by the mammary glands of female mammals for suckling by their young. The verb describes the act of drawing, squeezing or extracting.
The Scriptures quoted above tell us to "desire" the pure milk of the Word. Milk may be obtained only by action on the part of the one seeking to obtain it. A baby draws milk from his mother by pulling on the breast. Milk is obtained from the cow by pulling on its mammary glands also.
In assigning the title "Cow" to this Surah, Allah (God) is indicating that there is something here to draw from in order to understand the Holy Qur'an.
-3-
This principle of drawing or extracting spiritual and physical nutrition is not limited to the breast or to a book. The Universe Itself is a giant mammary gland of Allah (God). It holds untold treasures for you and I. But nothing can be obtained from it without an activity on our part. We must engage in the actions set forth in Surah 2: Belief in the Unseen, Prayer, Charity, etc.
When we follow the principles of faith and action set forth for us in the Holy Qur'an, we thereby extract what the Universe holds for us. It cannot and will not hold back on You if you do these things. It is created to release its treasures to you.
It was never Allah's (God's) intention that we experience poverty. There is an abundance of everything we could possibly want or need in His Creation. Poverty is a condition rising up only in the absence of those principles which, when practiced, automatically bring about fulfillment of the need.
(b) "Doubt" is a state of uncertainty of the mind which casts a cloud over your Desire.
This statement ("no doubt in it"), if you believe it, creates a state of mind for you that will allow you to follow every word of guidance in This Book with confidence and trust in Allah (God). Doubt is the Mother of Hypocrisy and Allah (God) is removing it at the onset of the course.
Allah (God) is introducing the Formula for the proper relationship between Himself and the Believer. This formula was developed exclusively by Him and if we do not follow instructions and mix it correctly, we fail.
The Holy Qur'an is free from doubt and it can make you and I like itself, that is, with no doubt in us. This is important to our self-improvement, because Doubt threatens the light of Desire.
Doubt starts with a thought that is against your Desire. Your Desire (Affirmation) is extinguished (Negation) by Doubt. A hesitancy in believing has a chilling effect on movement towards the object of the Desire and ultimately extinguishes the Desire altogether. Doubt halts the process of decision-making and decisive action. It undermines Faith. When Faith is undermined long enough, it disappears. Hypocrisy is the absence of Faith. Doubt is its Mother. Please think on this carefully.
Look at John 20:24-29 for an illustration. The Apostle Thomas was a chronic skeptic who habitually doubted the Word. So he automatically was always the last one to move; unlike Peter, who acted on Faith and therefore moved readily, Thomas, had to have evidence of the physical senses in order to be satisfied. To this day, a person who is not willing to be convinced is called a "doubting Thomas".
-4-
"Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed; blessed; blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." (24:29)
(c) The Holy Qur'an is only good for those who desire to do the Will of Allah (God) and who desire Self-Realization and Self-Mastery. All of these desires are in accordance with the nature in which we are created.
The nature in which we are created makes us want to be successful in our lives. It is not. natural to want to fail. Allah (God) assures us in verse 5 that those who believe and act in accordance with the fundamental principles enunciated in verses 2-4 are 'on a right course from their Lord and these it is that are successful.'
In Study Session 6, we looked at the true meaning of the word "successful" and learned that it is not measured by material things. In the Eyes of Allah (God), we are not successful unless we have mastered the forces that keep us from Him.
The acquisition of material things automatically comes to one who has cultivated and enveloped him or herself through belief and application of the principles of faith. It is the principles that Allah (God) uses to measure our success, not the results. And so Jesus said, "And seek not what ye shall eat, or what -ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind. For all these things do the nations of the world seek after; and your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things. But rather seek ye the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added unto you." Luke 12:29-31
The evidence that those who take this Book as a Guide will be successful is manifested in the life of Muhammad, who brought the book and the results brought about by him with the book. Throughout the world, scholars agree that the most productive man in recent (6,000 years) history was not Newton, not Boyle, not even Jesus. The man who singularly made the greatest impact upon his followers and the world was Muhammad ibn Abdullah (Peace Be Upon Him).
When fact, the transformation wrought by the Holy Qur'an is unparalleled, in the history of the world. No other reformer brought about such an entire change in the lives of a whole nation in his lifetime. The Qur'an found the Arabs worshippers of idols, stones, trees, heaps of sand, and yet, within less than a quarter of a century (25 years), the worship of The One God ruled the whole country, idolatry being wiped out from one end to the other ... the Qur'an welded together a nation, a united nation full of life and vigor, before whose onward march the greatest kingdoms of the world crumbled as if they were but toys before the reality of the new faith ... The Qur'an effected a transformation of humanity from the lowest depths of degradation to the highest pinnacle of
-5-
civilization in an 'incredibly short time where centuries of reformation had proved fruitless....' [Maulana Muhammad Ali]
The Book remains without doubt. Then how are we justified in doubting what the principles set forth in This Book can do for us, under the guidance of The Honorable Elijah Muhammad?
3) Surah 1:5 reads, "Guide us on the right path." The very core of our being cries out to be guided rightly. The nature in which we are created yearns to be given direction and does not want to go astray. This yearning of the soul is so strong that Allah (God) has given us this oft-repeated prayer, "Al-Fatihah", which we say at least 32 times a day if we are steadfast in our prayers.
In this surah, we bear witness to our own nature, which is needy and sinful. We are in need of guidance on the "right path", for we want to be on "the path of those upon whom Thou hast bestowed favours..."
4) We recite the Attributes that we are most in need of every day. We say, "in the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful." Maulana Muhammad Ali writes, "Rahman and Rahim are both derived from rahmat, signifying tenderness requiring the exercise of beneficence, and thus comprising the ideas of love and mercy."
We say, in verse 1, ""Praise be to Allah, the Lord of the worlds...", because no matter what becomes of our lives, we bear witness that all praise is due to Allah (God). He is the Creator of our existence; He is the one who supplies the desire that feeds the Will to attain our goals in life; He is the Nourisher unto perfection who supplies the way and the means through which we may be brought to -the highest level of achievement.
He is not just a judge or a king, He is Master of the day of Requital (Judgment), so He may forgive whom He pleases and He may chastise whom He pleases.
5) Surah 1 states our need. Surah 2 supplies the answer to the need. The same Powerful God brings us the proper expression of the need and brings us the perfect fulfillment of it.
6) (a) The root of the Arabic word "muttaqi", which is often translated into
"God-fearing", signifies 'the guarding of a thing from that which harms or injures it. 0 The Holy Qur'an is a guide to those who guard themselves against evil.
In the law of success, the Caucasian is not mentioned as an obstacle. He is not mentioned as, consequential. Guarding against evil as a threat to spiritual advancement refers to anything that inspires doubt in our minds or keeps us
-6-
from prayer, from charity, from any of the principles of faith or action essential to our development. Those threats come from forces that are within us.
We learned in Session 4 that we must struggle for and then maintain our Balance. So in studying the forces that work from within, we must not lose sight of the forces that work from without.
Here is an example: In Surah 70, a trait of the believer is that he or she is one in whose wealth the beggar and the destitute have a known right. That is, the true believer is charitable. When we do not actively work to develop this divine attribute of giving, then the internal force, Greed, rises up.
When Greed, an internal force, goes unchecked, then someone on the outside can manipulate us by using our Greed, or voracious appetite for things, to overpower our sense of moral correctness.
So constancy in recognition of the needs of the poor serves to neutralize the internal force within, thereby freeing us from any threat of being manipulated by outside forces; elimination of, the internal force deprives the external force of a connection to our mind and heart.
SUPPLEMENT
2) (b) "Unseen" is that which is unperceived by the physical eye. Note that "Unseen" is with a capital "U". "...the Unseen here stands for Allah, a belief in Whose existence is the cardinal principle of religion. A belief in God is thus the first duty of man, the first requisite of spiritual advancement."
Unseen does not mean Unreal. A terrible impediment to us in this world is that most of us only believe in what we can physically see, which is, of course, extremely limited in scope. This is primarily due to the fact that we only know ourselves as material beings; we do not know the spiritual self.
The Holy Qur'an tells us that everything is an illusion, that is, it will ultimately pass away, except Allah. He is the Real Power behind all that you see. The Will, is the Power behind your being, but the Will is Unseen. To deny the existence of what we cannot see is to deprive ourselves of access to the true Power behind the Universe. The physical things we see are mere variations in forms of manifestation of that Power. The 'things' come and go, but the Power that produces them is eternal.
-7-
A baby draws milk from his mother's breast. He can see the breast, but he cannot see the milk. The first time he pulls on the breast, he is acting not out of knowledge of what is contained therein, but out of faith that something is there.,- Again, as indicated in previous study guides, the scripture is true: "Faith is the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things unseen.'
The baby's belief in the presence of the milk supply is strengthened each time he nurses, because his need is supplied. He draws this milk five (5) or more times a day, increasing in physical strength and emotional security each time he gets satisfaction. If he did not get satisfaction, his faith would be ultimately destroyed. A means of weaning a child off the breast is to dry up the milk supply. After several fruitless efforts, the baby is forced to look elsewhere. He no longer looks to his mother's breast for his nourishment.
The belief in Allah (God) MUST be supported by prayer. It is only through actually going to the Source and attempting to draw the spiritual milk of the Word that we can obtain the security and satisfaction it brings. The prayer is an act of faith as the baby's act of nursing is demonstrated faith. If no action is taken, no milk is obtained.
(c) Constancy in prayer produces a bond between the Believer and the Creator.
When baby nurses form mother's breast, there is satisfaction for the child, not only in the stomach, but in the mind. As the baby is physically fed, the act of nursing produces a chemical reaction in the brain of the child, resulting in contentment. This is manifested in the peaceful countenance you see on a nursing child as it drinks. There is also a chemical reaction in the mother's brain and satisfaction for her as she obtains both relief and pleasure as the milk that fills her breasts is drawn out.
When the mother has peace of mind, this is transferred to the child through the milk. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said that 'we nursed the milk of fear from our mothers' breasts.' In slavery, the fear of the master that was, in our mothers, the fear for the future of the child, was passed on to us through the substances produced in their bodies due to the chemical reaction that Fear produces. Milk is capable of being the conduit of security or fear, due to the mental condition of the giver.
The constancy of nursing that produces a bond between mother and child is replicated in the bond produced between Creator and Believer through constant prayer. Since Allah has no fears or weaknesses, we can only draw strength and security from our sincere prayers to Him.
-8-
Though He is above need of us, our prayers have the wonderful effect bf earning us a qualitative care from Him through our submission. Though He provided for us before we came into existence, before we ever heard of "prayer", through prayer we earn His care.
"Say: My Lord would not care for you, were it not for your prayer..." Holy Qur'an 25:77
The Fear that is in us from the experience of our condition, can be removed by constant prayer and the doing of good.
" ... whoever submits himself entirely to Allah and he is the doer of good (to others), he has his reward from his Lord and there is no fear for such nor shall they grieve." -(2:112)
Prayer is the key to the evolution toward God and binds us to Him: 'Then We deliver Our messengers and those who believe --- even so (now); it is binding on Us to deliver the believers." (1 0: 1 03)
-9-
BIND To fasten or secure; to fix in place; to cause to cohere; to unite by spiritual, moral or legal ties; to stick fast; the act or process of binding.
BOND That which holds together; something, as an agreement, friendship, etc., that holds individuals together in a group; binding assurance or firm agreement (My word is bond).
BELIEVE To have confidence in the truth, existence or reliability of something without absolute proof; to have faith in the truth of a positive assertion; to have a conviction that a (person or thing) is, has been, or will be engaged in given action or involved in a given situation.
DOUBT To be uncertain in opinion about; hold questionable; hesitate to believe. To distrust. A feeling of uncertainty about the truth, reality or nature of something.
DOUBTFUL Admitting of or causing doubt; uncertain, ambiguous. Of uncertain outcome or result. Of equivocal character. Reluctance or unwillingness to be convinced.
UNSEEN Not seen; unperceived; unobserved; hidden or withdrawn; not perceptible by the physical eye.
NEED A condition marked by the lack of something requisite; lack of something deemed necessary.
GUIDE To assist (a person) to travel through or reach a destination in, an area in which he does not know the way, by accompanying him or giving him directions; to supply with advice or counsel; to supervise in an advisory capacity; that which regulates progressive motion or action; to show the way.
-10-