Summary: NOUMAN ALI KHAN – DIVINE SPEECH PROLOGUE – PART I<br> <br> Our speaker today is Nouman Ali Khan. He is the head of Bayyinah Institute – the largest and fastest growing Arabic studies programme in the country. He has previously served as Islamic studies teacher at Muslim Center, chaplain for the Adelphi University, Arabic professor at Nassau community college and director of education at Masjidaru-l-Qur’an. Currently, brother Nouman is busy ensuring the growth and sustainability of Bayyinah which has crossed a 6000-students mark – alhamdulillah! He is involved in numerous translations and research projects all revolving around classic Arabic curriculum development, linguistic analysis and tafseer of the Qur’an. Brother Nouman’s understanding of the language and tafseer has been influenced by numerous scholars, scholarly resources: both classical and contemporary. He has retained his focus on the Qur’an related studies for a number of years and considers himself as an intermediate student of the language and a beginner student of the Qur’an.<br> Without further due I would give you brother Nouman<br> Assalyamu ‘alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu<br> Alhamdulillahi Rabbi-l-‘alameen, wa-S-Salyatu wa-s-salyam ‘ala ashrafi-l-anbiyai wa mursaleen wa ‘ala aalihi wa sahbihi wa maa nistanna bihi sunnatihi ilya yaumi-d-deen<br> Allahumma j’alna minhum wa mina-l-ladheena aamanu wa ‘aamilu-S-Salihat wa tawasaw bi-l-Haqq wa tawasaw bi-S-Sabr.. amin ya rabbi-l-‘alameen<br> Thumma amma ba’d fa a’uudhu biLlahi mina-sh-shayTaani rajeem<br> Haadha balyaaghu li-n-nas wa li yundhiru bihi wa li yaghlamu annamaa ilaahun waaHid wa li yaddakara uulu-l-albaab<br> Rabbi shrah lee Sadri wa yassirli amri wahlul ‘uqdatan min lisaani yafqahu qaulee<br> Wa Allahumma thabitna ‘inda-l-maut bi la ilaha illa Allah.. amin ya rabbi-l-‘alameen<br> <br> I have a monumental task before me today to share with you in two parts – two parts of this presentation broken up with a break in the middle – a huge subject. And I was given a different title before and I requested it to be changed even though the subject is very similar. I was given the title “Miracles of the Qur’an” and that’s too big a title for me to handle. So I changed it to “Literary characteristics of the Qur’an” those of you who saw the advertising materials. There is a reason for which I’ve chosen this title and I’d like to share with you why in this introductory phase of my talk. I’ll center it around one thing. I’ve taken the Arabic portion, small portion of the ayah that I recited to you in the beginning: “haadha balyaaghu li-n-nas” – Allah speaks about the Qur’an. And he says: “This is a “balyaagh”, and I am not gonna translate that yet, it is a “balyaagh” for people, “balyaagh”. “Balyaagh” in Arabic means that which reaches someone else, a communication, a communicate. This Qur’an is meant to reach people. It is a message to people. Now, because Allah calls it a means of communication or a communicate, a message. I want to speak to you today first, about the essential components of communication. I want to keep this very-very simple. I am not going to try to bother you with heavy grammatical terms or Arabic terminology because that’s not my intention today. What I want you to be exposed to is this dimension of an appreciation of the Qur’an that is almost lost entirely upon people who are not students of the Qur’an and Arabic which is the majority of Muslims and, perhaps, all of mankind in addition. They don’t appreciate one dimension of the Qur’an that I’d like to highlight for you.<br> When we communicate, there are essentially three components that you have to keep in mind. There are three aspects to communicating. The first of them is the speaker himself. You know, when I am talking to you there is already, before I even open my mouse, because of my appearance, my gender, my age, all of that which you see with your eyes,
