The year was 1999.
God.
How many years ago was that?
24 years ago.
In 1999, I was in Queens, New York.
I was in third year of college.
And there was an announcement that there's going to be an Arabic class
in my neighborhood by Dr. Abdul Samie,
which I decided to take after having spent Ramadan with him.
It was going to be a three week crash course, six days a week
three hours every night, 7 PM to 10 PM
every night for three weeks.
Only Sunday off.
I used to work in the city.
Flushing is all the way in Queens.
It would take I would have to take the F train to the seven train to a bus to get to there.
It would be an hour and 15 minutes every day for me to get there under good circumstances.
Train delays, bus delays.
You know how that works in New York.
Anyway, so I would finish college, I would finish work, I would get on
the train, I'd get to the class, and we got started.
At the time, I knew how to read some Quran.
I knew zero Arabic zero.
And at the end of the first week, our teacher was done.
Our teacher Dr. Abdul Semie was done teaching us the four properties of the ism.
And he was done teaching us some things about مضاف مضاف إليه.
‏جر مجرور And nouns and adjectives.
Okay, I'll give you the Arabic words for them too.
The noun is called ‏موصوف.
The noun is called what?
‏موصوف
Let me give you that noun is ‏موصوف
And the adjective is called the ‏صفة.
Okay, ‏موصوف ‏صفة.
So that's our third fragment or fourth fragment actually.
We've got ‏مضاف, ‏مضاف إليه.
What's our second one?
‏جر مجرور
We've got a third one ‏حرف نصب and it's ism.
Fourth one.
موصوف صفة ‏
موصوف صفة ‏ which means noun adjective.
Okay, so we did this stuff, and then we went to pray.
‏مغرب
And for the first time.
I understood when I said I was reciting it to myself.
بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ I was like
And I was.
I got lost in
بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ the whole ‏مغرب.
The whole ‏مغرب happened
I'm still thinking I'm doing ‏سبحان رب العظيم I'm still thinking what?
بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ
I'm stuck in it.
You know why I want to show you why?
Because I want that experience for you.
That's what it is, isn't it?
What's بِ?
What's بِ? Harf of Jarr.
That's the jaar.
Isn't it?
Okay.
What's ‏اسم?
It's the majroor, isn't it?
But it's also a mudaf, how do I know It's a mudaf?
It's light.
It doesn't have. The word اللَّهِ is jarr because it's a mudaf ilaih.
You with me?
Okay.
What are the four properties of the word اللَّهِ?
For Properties status jarr.
Singular.
Masculine.
Proper.
Okay, then the next word is الرَّحْمَٰنِ.
Four properties, please.
Jarr.
Singular.
Masculine.
Proper.
Wait. I've already seen this.
I saw jarr, singular, masculine proper already. Where?
The word of Allah.
So what is الرَّحْمَٰنِ?
The word Allah must be the?
The noun. What's the noun called?
‏موصوف.
And the word الرَّحْمَٰنِ must be what?
‏صفة.
And then I see a الرَّحِيمِ.
الرَّحِيمِ four properties?
Jarr.
Singular.
Masculine.
This must be another what?
‏صفة because you can have more than one adjective, right?
You can have an old green car.
You can have more than one adjective.
And I started thinking.
بِ is a harf jarr.
I know that.
And it made ‏اسم jarr.
‏اسم is a mudaf, and the word Allah became mudaf ilaih.
The word Allah is ‏موصوف because it matches in four properties with الرَّحْمَٰنِ
and also matches in four properties with الرَّحِيمِ.
And I'm standing in this ‏صلاة going
"I just understood an entire Ayah of the Quran.
A whole Ayah.
That Allah revealed.
That I didn't know a week ago.
I didn't know any of that.
And now I know everything that's happening inside this Ayah.
And I can connect it all.
And I kid you not the entire ‏صلاة
I'm just bawling in tears because an Ayah opened up to me.
I made dua at the end of that ‏صلاة.
‏يا الله open up the entire Quran to me.
‏يا الله just let the entire Quran open up to me.
I couldn't believe it.
I could not.
I couldn't process how me sitting in Queens after a week is actually
listening and reciting to myself.
بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ and a revelation of God just became
untranslated direct.
I could I could feel it directly and know everything that's going on,
even though there's so much more going on in بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ.
Imam Fakhr al-Din al-Razi wrote maybe a hundred pages on just
the بِسْمِ اللَّهِ and what's going on with it.
But at least at the most basic level, I understood the mechanics of what is
happening inside this Ayah So I wanted that to be your first Ayah too.
بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ is your first Ayah.
What did it involve?
What rules of grammar did it involve?
Did you see the four properties in here?
So did we use the first semester?
Did you use three of the four fragments?
Which three fragments did you see?
You see ‏مضاف, ‏مضاف إليه
What else do you see?
You see ‏جر مجرور
What else do you see?
You see ‏موصوف ‏صفة