By Mohammad Saifullah
GOMBAK, 22 January 2018 – The Al Quran contains words of Allah SWT and it is the utmost guidance for humankind, yet instead of building relations guided by the holy words we are moving far away from the Quran day by day, Assc. Professor Dr. Md. Mahmudul Hasan said yesterday.
Delivering his talk titled “Approaching to the Quran and Sunnah” at IIIT Summer Camp 2018 in Masjid Al Ghufran, Kuala Lumpur, Dr. Md. Mahmudul Hasan of the Department of English Language and Literature, identified some wrong approaches practised by current Muslims.
He said that people are not willing to find solution from the Quran as they feel the difficulties of understanding it. “Some people believed that Quran is only meant for the ulama’ (knowledgeable person), therefore, we should not talk about the matters related to Quran as we are not eligible.”
“In this situation, as a learner of Islam, we are representing the ummah, that’s why we need to build good relationship with the Quran and help people not to find it as difficult to understand.”
Dr. Mahmud continued, ” We fragmented the Quran as we are limited to selected verses and chapters we recite every day in prayers, but rarely do we look for the learning of these selected verses.”
He later posed the question to the audience, “Do we use the Quran for good purpose?”
He said that Quran has multiple purposes, but the primary purpose is to seek guidance. “It guides us and directs us. Starting a programme with the recitation of Quran, ending with Quranic verses and not getting lessons from it, is not the purpose of the Quran, rather it is a disrespect to the Quran.”
Dr. Mahmud further highlighted that there is a trend in research writing where some people used to mention Quranic verses at the beginning of the research to get barakah from it and to decorate it. He quoted Ismael Razi Al Faruqi saying people mentioned Quranic verses at beginning of the research to “hide their inefficiency and this is a lazy approach”. He said that we should avoid it through the meaningful research of Quran.
In terms of translating the Quran, he added, people fear to take the initiative to translate it properly. “From long before Muslims are not translating the Quran. Some people think we may not do justice as it is the words of Allah and it is not easy to be done.”
He lamented that although there were some translations available recently they were not conveying the real meaning of the Quran. In some cases, he said, the sentence was not fully translated.
Dr. Mahmud suggested two translations of the Quran which he thought are conveying the nearest meaning – “The Message of the Quran” by Muhammad Asad and “The Qur’an” by Muhammad Abdel Haleem.
He ended his talk by reminding the audience that “we are far away from Quran and Sunnah”.
“Therefore, we need a collective effort, if it fails we must pour our personal attempts to understand the meaning of the Quran.”
The five-day IIIT summer camp from 21 until 25 January was organised by the Bangladesh Institute of Islamic Thought in collaboration with International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) East and Southeast Asia. ***
