Distinguish between Makkan and Medinan Chapters of the Quran 30 Keys to Unlock the Qurans Meaning

- As-salamu alaykum, peace be with you and Ramadan Mubarak. I'm your brother in faith, Shabir Ally, speaking to you from the Muslim Media Hub. We're dealing with 30 keys to unlocking the meaning of the Quran, and today we're dealing with key #6. Key #6 is the distinguishing between the Meccan and Medinan surahs. So what do we mean by this? Remember how we said in the previous episode that the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, was born in Mecca, he then remained there for about 13 years preaching the religion, but he and his followers were being persecuted and then they migrated to Medina where they set up new polity and they established Muslim community. Revelations continue to arrive from God into the mind of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, which he done, promulgated to the community, and new regulations about prayer, about fasting. Well, prayer was already there, but more details about praying. For example, in time of fear, when the enemy is attacking you, how do you pray in situation such that you maintain your safety, and at the same time, you modify the prayer so you can get it done quickly and you can remain safe? Some people praying while some others are on guard. This is referred to Salat al-Khawf. And so this did not exist in the Meccan situation, but it's there in the Medinan situation because the new circumstances demanded these sorts of regulations. So it is important then for us to know the difference between the two situations and the chapters that came to be revealed in reference to the different situations. Now, should clarify that sometimes chapter is characterized as Meccan, but that means it was revealed in the Meccan situation. At the same time, it may have within it some verses which were revealed much later in the Medinan situation. So, yeah, sometimes we have to be careful about that. The reverse is also true. Further complication is that the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, after having migrated and settled in Medina where he remained for the last 10 years of his life until his eventual demise. May God have mercy on him, and may God bless him, and grant him safety and peace. In spite of being based in Medina for the last 10 years of his life, he, on occasion traveled back to Mecca. For example, when he went there to perform the Umrah, he was prevented. Then eventually he went back in to perform the Umrah, and then he went in, in the eighth year of the Hijrah when he took over the town and rededicated the house of worship for the one true God. There are occasions when he went back there and in these occasions, he continued to receive revelations. So there could be some passages which were revealed in that circumstance. So in terms of the timeframe we are dealing with, the Medinan phase, but in time terms of the physical location, we're dealing Mecca. So do you characterize these verses as being Meccan or Medinan? The characterizing and the specific labeling is not so very important. What is important moreso is to see that there is gradual development over time. So that when the community was new in Mecca and when they were not established as polity, different sorts of rules apply to them. The same morality, like, Muslims have to be moral and just and fair in all of their dealings and so on. These are broad principles of religion and these do not change whether you're in Mecca or you're in Medina, whether Muslims have power in the land or do not have power in the land. But what changes is the way in which these broad principles might be manifested on the ground. When Muslims were without power in the Meccan phase, they were subject to persecution and they had to bear this persecution with, they say take care of, you know, some things you just have to accept with smile. When they moved to the Medinan situation, and there they were established as polity. Now suddenly they have, well not suddenly necessarily, but gradually there as well. But eventually they got the permission from God to stand up and defend themselves in military confrontation against the enemies who were attacking them and trying to decimate them and obliterate their religion. So you see different sorts of circumstances require different regulations, and it is important for us to see this gradual development. We need then to, at glance, know the difference between the Meccan and the Medinan surahs because this will help us to put things in place and know what is happening and why some verses seem to speak one way and then another verse seem to speak different way on related issue. It often has to do with the situation on the ground. So whereas the broad principles remain the same throughout, the manner of implementing those principles might change and we need to see and recognize this change. It is the key to understanding and unlocking the meaning of the Quran. So what are some broad ways in which we can distinguish the chapters on the whole and the specific verses at glance, whether they are Meccan or Medinan, whether they're in the early phase or in the later phase? Here are some rough guides. So in the early stage, the recitations were more poetic. They're short and and rhyming and we can see this rhythm. So you take some verses, for example, (speaking in Arabic). This is whole surah. It's the surah itself is short, there are four verses and the verses themselves are short and they rhyme. You hear the sound at the end. (speaking in Arabic) So you hear this continual rhyming with ending with the sound, and in very short recitations. That's characteristic of Meccan surah. And of course it's not all of the time like this because we have for example is (speaking in Arabic). Consisting of only 3 verses and the verses rhyme and so on. So that might sound like Meccan surah until we go to the commentaries and we realize that the commentary shows that this was Medinan surah. Let's get back on track here and realize that in broad way, we can quickly recognize the Meccan surahs by their shortness, by their rhymes, but also the kinds of themes that they deal with. And we will understand that better when we go to the Medinan surahs because we'll see distinctive themes there. So Medinan surahs go into detail about regulations like fasting, details about performing Hajj, details about engaging in Jihad, or defense when the enemy's attacking you, and so on. So all of these are characteristic of the Medinan surahs because they speak to situation that did not exist when the Muslims were at the Meccan phase before the Prophet's migration. Moreover, you will find that the Medinan surahs are less poetic. They are longer, more prosaic. They still generally rhyme at the end, but the rhyme is not as pronounced as it was in the Medinan surahs. We also see difference in vocabulary in that the Meccan surahs have words which sometimes the commentators are puzzled about. In the Medinan surahs, because things are more prosaic, things are explained better because people need to know the details of the regulations and the regulations need to be clear. So less obscure words are used in the Medinan phase. So those who are just beginners in learning Arabic will find many, many familiar words in the Medinan surahs and the verses, of course, tend to be longer. The chapters themselves tend to be much longer. So let's take quick walk through the Quran and see if we can identify very quickly which are the Meccan and the Medinan surahs. We should say actually, most of the surahs are Meccan surahs and so we can just try to identify the Medinan ones and we know by contrast, that the rest must be Meccan. So the Medinan surahs are surah two, surah three, four, five. Now, the numbers may not mean much to you, so I'll name them. Surat Al-Baqarah, which is two, Surat Ali'Imran, three, Surat An-Nisa, four, Surat Al-Ma'idah, five, Surat Al-An'am, which is six. We can go to surat eight, which is Al-Anfal, Surat nine, At-Tawba. Then we can go to Surah 22, which is Al-Hajj, Surah 24, which is An-Nur, Surah 33, Al-Ahzab. Then we can go all the way to Surah 57, Al-Hadid, and that can go, that, you know, the list of Medinan surahs extend all the way to 66. And then we go all the way to 98 and 99. And then finally 110, the one that said is (speaking in Arabic), one of the shortest surahs of the Quran. Out of the 114 all together, those are the ones which are generally recognized as being Medinan surahs. Typically as well, very quickly, one of the characteristics of the Medinan surahs is that they address believers or they address the Ahl al-kitab, the people of the book, and they speak to the Jewish communities which were there in and around Medina, but as an exception to this, Surah 22, which we identified as being Medinan, starts off with (speaking in Arabic), humankind," which is typically an address that is found in the Meccan surahs because there, people in general were being addressed. So you can see that the rules are not hard and fast, but just knowing some of these characteristics and we are becoming more and more familiar with them as we read, we will even be able to identify the verses so that if verse within Meccan surah actually happens to be Medinan, then we will be able to identify that Medinan verse within the larger body of Meccan verses. And the contrast will also be true that within the Meccan surah, we might be able to identify certain portion as being Medinan. key to unlocking the meaning of the Quran is knowing the difference between the Meccan and the Medinan surahs, and being able to identify which portion of the Quran you happen to be reading at the time, whether this be Meccan or Medinan. So join me tomorrow where we'll look at another key and that will have to do with the gradual revelation of regulations in the Quran, which has lot to do with what we have talked about today. I'm your brother in faith, Shabir Ali, saying Ramadan Mubarak from the Muslim Media Hub. Peace be with you, as-salamu alaykum. This Ramadan, we're making history together. Behind me is the building you helped us purchase for the sake of Allah, for the establishment of the Muslim Media Hub. 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