Keys to Tadabbur: How to Reflect Deeply on the Qur’an
بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ
Treasure is spelled tadabbur
The Qur’an is the “rope of Allah”;
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whoever grabs onto it will be saved, and whoever loosens his grip will be destroyed. The Qur’an is also the “spirit He revealed.”
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Allah created our bodies from the earth and decreed that their nourishment would come from the earth. Similarly, He created our spirits from a higher world and decreed that they require nourishment from this higher realm. He sent down the Qur’an to quench our spirits so they do not dry up, crack, and wither away. The Qur’an is also “the light,”
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without which a person is unacquainted with His Creator, cannot discern between truth and falsehood, and does not realize the stark disparity between this world and the hereafter.
However, all this remains dependent on deep regular reflection (tadabbur) on the Qur’an’s messages. The command to beautify our voice in recitation, the incentive of ten good deeds per letter recited, and that of being upgraded to a higher station in Paradise with each verse we commit to memory are all intended to bring us to that end.
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Only through such reflection can someone tap into the secrets of the Qur’an and unlock its most valuable treasures. The Most High said,
This is a blessed Book which We have revealed to you, [O Muhammad], that they might deeply reflect (do tadabbur) upon its verses and that those of understanding would be reminded.
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The causative letter lām in this verse, translated as “that they might,” informs us of a primary wisdom behind the revelation of the Qur’an. Certainly, the mere reading and rehearsal of the Qur’an are among the most virtuous and rewarding acts of worship, but the transformative potential in Allah’s words lies at the nexus of our intellectual and spiritual engagement with the Qur’an. One who only reads or listens to the Qur’an without pondering its meanings may not receive guidance from it. Allah, the Exalted, said, “Do they not then deeply ponder over the Qur’an, or are there locks upon their hearts?”
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In fact, even an expert reciter or a Qur’an instructor, who does not reflect on its meaning for their own salvation, can plummet to become among the worst of God’s creation. The Prophet ﷺ told us that the first three people to be sentenced on the Day of Resurrection will be a philanthropist, a martyr, and an expert reciter. Regarding the reciter, he ﷺ said,
He will be brought, the blessings of Allah will be made known and he will acknowledge them. Allah will say: What did you do about them? The man will say: I learned religious knowledge, taught others, and I recited the Qur’an for your sake. Allah will say: You have lied, for you studied only so that it would be said you are a scholar and you recited the Qur’an only so that it would be said you are a reciter, and thus it was said. Then, Allah will order him to be dragged upon his face until he is cast into Hellfire.
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We plead to Allah, by the light of His glorious Face, to never subject us to such a disgraceful fate.
Tadabbur is therefore the true differentiator between people who live self-serving lives, who tokenize the Qur’an on one level or another through their shallow relationship to it, and those fixated on their love of the Divine. The latter remain at the door of His words, knocking over and over again, certain that the Most Gracious will open and hand them from His treasures what this world a hundred times over can never offer them. They live to increase their intimacy with His divine messages, and in anticipation of meeting the Speaker, and they find themselves gravitating away from this transient world as a result. Sahl ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Tustarī would say,
The sign of loving Allah is loving the Qur’an; the sign of loving the Qur’an is loving the Prophet ﷺ and loving the Sunnah; the sign of loving the Sunnah is loving the hereafter; the sign of loving the hereafter is being averse to the worldly life; the sign of being averse to the worldly life is only consuming from it [his] needs and what will deliver [him] to the hereafter.
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Hence, a meaningful relationship with the Qur’an (namely, via tadabbur) marks how this love story began, and eternity with its Source is the grand finale, where He will host them in a place where “no eye has ever seen, no ear has heard, and what has never dawned upon the heart of any person.”
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Many scholars view that after fulfilling the obligations, no form of ritual devotion is superior to reciting the Qur’an, and that it surpasses duʿāʾ (supplication), dhikr (remembrance), and every other form of spiritual engagement that does not involve Qur’an.
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This preference for recitation, of course, does not apply to situations in which there is a superseding contemporaneous obligation such as ṣalāh.
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