Finding Your Own Profile

For the Qur'an caters for everyone. It speaks of everyone. It describes everyone. Our profile is in the Qur'an. Look into it and you will find your profile there. This matches what I am doing; that does not. This is me. This is me. And this is what will happen to me. And not only does it match the profile; it also speaks of the consequence, and of what a man receives for that profile. It is remarkable. It is better than a crystal ball or whatever it is that people gaze into. This is what a man should be gazing into. Everyone is mentioned in it, whether directly and explicitly or indirectly and implicitly. And it would be worth reading one juzʾ of the Qur'an, or half a juzʾ, and finding ourselves in it. That would be an exercise to do after this.

There was a famous tābiʿī — he became a tābiʿī, which means a companion of the Ṣaḥābah — who was one of the leaders of the Arabs of his time. His name was al-Aḥnaf ibn Qays, may Allah have mercy upon him. One day he was sitting down, and someone recited this verse, laqad anzalnā ilaykum kitāban fīhi dhikrukum a-fa-lā taʿqilūn. And it struck him — for this Qur'an strikes a man at different times.

And he said: bring a muṣḥaf. Let me look for my profile within. With whom am I? And whom do I most resemble of those the Qur'an speaks of? So, as he reads and moves the pages along, he comes upon the verses concerning the fortunate ones, the ahl al-saʿādah: those who have sacrificed themselves and much of what is theirs, many of their assets, in the path of Allah (swt); who have spent in the path of Allah (swt); who have kept their sides from their bedding through the night; who would not come near what is wrong.

Then he began to read of the other category of people: the mushrikīn, the idolaters, the disbelievers, the hypocrites, the transgressors, the sinners. And after looking at all of that he thinks — and he carries on reading — and he sees all that discussion, and he says: O Allah, I do not find myself in either of these two groups. I am neither with the wholly righteous nor with the wholly sinful and disbelieving.

So he reads on, and comes to Sūrat at-Tawbah, which is Barāʾah, as we have read. And there the discussion is of those who have done some good deeds, who are doing good deeds but have also done some bad. And when he reads that, he says: this is my discussion; this is my profile; this is what speaks of me.

So everyone will in the end find his own discussion, and then the Qur'an gives the answers; it furnishes ideas that engage; it engages with its reader. We ask Allah (swt) to let us benefit from the Qur'an in the same way.