Praise be to God. There is no other god except God.
About a month ago, I received a message from someone with this question:
“Peace Bro Alban.Can you show us where it is mentioned in the Quran which month is Ramadan please?”
First of all, in his message, there must be a space after the punctuation mark, the period. Second, he calls me a Bro, but I refuse to know what it means, because I don’t believe in shortening words. When we shorten words, we are disrespectful to our parents and our ancestors who taught us those words, and the Quran tells us to obey our parents. And if you are going to use English, you have to respect it for what it is, and respect them for who they are. This might seem an unnecessary critique of the person who asked the question, but the fact that he does not have enough respect for the language and the people who carry that language is exactly why he fails to understand which months is Ramadan. His question is not a religious question. It is a linguistic question. The Quran was revealed in Arabic, and the Arabs are called the central community in verse 7 of chapter 42, and then in verse 143 of chapter 2, it says that the central community (arabs) serve as witnesses for the people. What does it mean to serve as witnesses for the people? It means that the Arabs bear witness what the word Ramadan means, and we accept it. So, when you want to ask someone to tell you what the word Ramadan means, the Arabs serve as a witness for that. They can tell you. If some crazy Quranists are going to put into doubt Ramadan, they must put into doubt many other things in the Quran? Can they show me which day is Friday from the Quran? Can they show me where is Mecca from the Quran? Can they show me which one is the sheep and which one is the goat from the Quran, if a claim that the skinny one is the sheep and the fat one is the goat. They can not prove from the Quran that I am wrong. This is because it is a linguistic issue, not a religious issue. We have to ask the Quran for religious issues, and ask the Arabs for linguistic issues, and ask the English for English issues.
If you want to use the Quran as the only source of religious guidance, I agree. But you don’t get to redefine the Arabic words. The Arabic words are defined by the Arabs. If they say that Ramadan is the 9th lunar month of the Hijri calendar, then so it is. They bear witness to that, and God tells us that they are the ones who bear witness to that. Now, just because the word Ramadan is somehow correlated with the word “heat” in Arabic, that does not mean that Ramadan only happens in summer as some ignorant Quranists think. According to their logic, Sunday should be when it is sunny, Monday should be when there is a moon, Saturday should be when we see Saturn, and the month of March should only be when we see Mars. Now, imagine an Arab saying, “the English word March stems from Mars, and therefore the month of March is always when we see Mars.” That’s not how it works. You go to the English dictionary, and it will tell you that March is the third month of the Gregorian Calendar, and you get the answer. Similarly, you go to the Arabic dictionary and it will tell you that Ramadan is the ninth month of the Hijri calendar, and you get the answer.
And because the ignorant Quranists have failed to realize that the Arabs are the ones who decide about the definitions of Arabic words, they have come up with many other similar ignorant ideas. For example, some of them claim that Mecca is somewhere else, not in Mecca. Internet is full of crazy theories. If you want to know where Mecca is. It’s wrong to do a “deep” Quranic analysis, because it is not a religious question. It’s a linguistic question. So, you go to the Airport in Saudi Arabia, get a taxi, and tell the taxi driver, “Take me to Mecca please”, and he will send you to Mecca, and you will see road signs which say Mecca. That’s where Mecca is. An Arab taxi driver knows better than a crazy Quranist regarding these issues. The Quranists are abusing the knowledge of earlier revolutionaries who realized that the Quran should be the only source of religious guidance, but that’s it. I agree that the Quran should be the only book of religious guidance. But, if we follow the Quran, we should accept that it says that it has been revealed in Arabic, and therefore you have to trust the Arabs that they know what Arabic words mean. They speak Arabic every day.
So, why does it happen that people who decide to use the Quran as a source of guidance become so illogical, so out of place, so wrong. This is why. They skip steps. The Quran tells them do the contact prayer and the Zakat in the earliest verses of the Quran. They skip it, they don’t apply it, and then they try to understand deeper things in the Quran. It’s not possible to understand the Quran correctly, if you decide to ignore the basics. So, if you don’t give Zakat, you can not understand the Quran correctly. Your mind will go into so many crazy directions. Give zakat, purify your wealth, purify your heart, and then you might be qualified to read the Quran honestly. You can not build the roof of the house without building the foundation.
Another reason why they come up with crazy ideas is because they are lazy. They stay all day on the internet. They usually don’t work, and they do not struggle in the real world. They become absorbed in their thoughts, so they start to question everything. Just get out there, work hard, earn money so you can give it to charity, and then you have understood the Quran properly. Just do it. Are you going to spend your life thinking? Where in the Quran does it say that you will be rewarded for your thinking? No. We get rewarded for our deeds. How many religious philosophers does the world need? It probably needs about 10, but we have millions these days. Millions too many. They are useless, repetitive, recycle bins of old ideas, and they are not even aware that those things have been explored before.
These ideas come from idiot losers who were not doing good in school, so now they have a deep desire to find a way to prove to the others how smart they are, and since there are no grades in religious discussions, they keep thinking that this is the place to prove themselves. No. If you want to prove that you are smart, go to Harvard, be a top student, and then maybe I can learn something from you. So, if you have not been a top student, you are definitely not qualified for internet preaching. The best you can do is take the links of my videos and post them. The whole world does not need to know what you have to say. Internet is a worldwide thing, and if you are not qualified for worldwide discussions, just stay out of it. You don’t have anything new to say. It’s been said before. We don’t need new ideas like, three prayers in the Quran, Mecca in Israel, Ramadan in summer, Jesus did not exist, Muhamamad got his ideas from Persia, Jesus traveled to India and was taught by budhist monks. Really, God is going to send the Messia, the chosen one to learn from budhist monks? If you are lazy, you will have time to read these crazy ideas on the internet, and they will put doubts in your heart, and you can see how your doubts start from being lazy and having too much time for internet, not because these things are unclear. Lazy Quranists, full of doubts, full of personal wishes, with minimal understanding of the Quran, they think that they can come up with revolutionary ideas. They can not redefine the Arabic words. Regardless of how much they try, the road sign in Mecca is going to read “Mecca”, and the road sign in Jerusalem is going to read Jerusalem.
By: Alban Fejza, Online Congregation Director