Quran for Young Adults

Day 1
Summary
Surah Asr: A Summary of the Quran

Surah begins with: everybody is failing except those mentioned in the third ayah who
accomplish 4 things:
1. believe
2. do good deeds
3. counsel each other truthfully
4. counsel each other patiently
Any passage you study in the Quran will come back to one of these 4 things
I swear by time

Why swear? Anger, when youre not being believed, testifying.

Time is a witness for all of the various and repeated failures and mistakes of mankind. In
our personal life, time is a witness of all of the things that weve done that we wish we
hadnt done. At the end of our life, we will always wish we had done more, made a better
use of our time, regret that we were in loss

The greatest proof that you and I, and every single human being is in loss is time itself. If
someone says to prove to you that youre in loss, time is ALWAYS something youve lost
and cant gain, you cant get it back.

three words for loss: , ,

means constant increasing loss, is the worst type of loss, and is the lightest
form of loss; it is a mercy of Allah (swt) that the kind of loss that He references is that it is
overcome-able
The Quran is not saying that poverty is success and wealth is failure; but what it is saying is
that true success is not related to money, power, wealth, etc. Success boils down to how one
uses their time
The Final Ayah:

EXCEPT those who believe

is used for very specific groups of people; if non-specific, the word would have been

used. Use of suggests that the group of people is dear to Allah (swt) and also that it is hard
to become one of this group of people
The exception is always smaller than the norm, thus exceptions are meant for a small group of

people these people are an exception from the larger group of ()

When Iman is discussed, it is often qualified by what it is that someone needs to believe in. In
this case, one must believe that they are in loss, that they are losing time. In order to be part
of the people who believe one must have a sense of urgency - this feeling is tied directly to our
faith.
What we believe in is broken up into 3 parts:
belief in Allah
belief in the message (includes the book and the messenger and the angles)
belief in the afterlife
Belief in Allah
A lot of people who arent Muslim say I believe in God but what they believe is not
appropriate or encompassing of who Allah is. As Muslims, we have to make sure that we dont
just say I believe in Allah, but that we actually know how Allah describes himself in the
Quran. Also, the fruit of belief is action. To practically tell that we believe in Allah, we should
be motivated to do things that please Allah, and avoid things that displease Allah.
Belief in the Message

The Message is made up of three parts:

1. The Book (the message itself)
2. The Angels (the carriers of the message from the Heavens to the Earth)
3. The Messengers (the conveyors of the message on Earth)
With regards to our Book, we have to absolutely, certainly believe that the Quran is literally
the word of Allah (swt). We have to study it intently and intensely to uncover whether this
book really is from a divine source. Humans are imbued with an extreme curiosity, some kind
of fire something exists within a human that forces them to search for this reality of purpose,
to seek what it is that drives us, that keeps us agitated and anxious to learn and find what it is
that we believe in
In order to be a true believer, to really want and desire to believe, we have to have really good
evidence! Why else would we give up some of the pleasures of this world to give up our life in
servitude?
One of the mercies of the Quran is that it includes extremely graphic and horrifying
descriptions of Hellfire and similarly has beautiful, extraordinary descriptions of Paradise and
meeting Allah (swt) - these exist to spur our fear and desire, to give us a sense of urgency
built from fear and desire.

This Surah focuses on fear (humans are in loss)

Belief is one thing; however, belief doesnt mean anything if it doesnt manifest in your
actions, thus

The word means to fix something thats broken, to correct something that is wrong; thus
deeds that are are deeds that fix things that make us better. The ayah is implying that
human beings are not perfect, that they will never be; the point is to identify what is wrong
and work constantly to fix it, to become better Muslims and people.

The word is used because it is a member of the family which is a

mutual relationship, a mutual actionmeaning that you have to not only counsel and give
advice but also be able to take advice, to hear good things as well as say them. In addition the
word includes the idea that you are offering your advice with love and sincerity but always
truthfully. Speak the truth and be ready to listen to the truth.
truthfully and sincerely. meaning that not only are they advising each other to the
right thing but the reason they do it is to help them, to bring them to something better, not
because they feel better about themselves.

means that sometimes counseling people to good things will be hard, sometimes it will
be easy. That sometimes you work together to pick up the one who is slacking on a certain day
or you put people in your life to keep you strong and you work to keep others strong
This also means that if we want to save ourselves from loss, then we have to counsel others to
the good as well. We must learn to work with each other, we need each other to survive
Allah (swt) says AND, not or, because we have to do all 4 of these things; we cannot succeed
unless we are able to accomplish all 4 of these things
Why is everything in this ayah past tense? Because no human being should ever think they
have ever survived this; the only people who have accomplished these things are the people
who have died. If I am alive, then I MUST constantly do these things because I will never be in
the category of someone who accomplished all 4 of them
if every single person in the world took care of the people around them then we will reach the
whole world; the Surah is not pointing us to help the whole world, just the people around us!