Q. As a follow up to your article about reading the Qur’an in bed, may I say that a Muslim is always either in a state of purity or impurity. He is in a state of purity when he has performed ablutions. Besides holding and reading the Qur’an, and offering prayers, what other things are open to him? In the state of impurity: are we permitted to recite the Qur’an orally, read scriptures on wall, remember God, or meditate His remembrance using beads? May I also ask about my name, Riyazuddin: What does it mean? Is it a proper name, in accordance with Prophet’s teachings?
R. Kazi
A. First of all, we need to correct a misconception. We cannot describe a Muslim to be in a state of impurity at any time. What we mean here is a state of real impurity, or najasah. The Prophet states that “a believer is never impure.” This is why we speak of a state of ceremonial or ritual impurity, which means an abstract state that needs to be removed with a grand ablution, or ghusl, that involves washing one’s entire body. This is the state that results from having intercourse with one’s wife, discharging semen if the discharge is accompanied by rising desire, and a wet dream. A woman is also in the state of ceremonial impurity after intercourse and during her period. In this state, a person may not offer prayers, do the tawaf, or recite the Qur’an, except when he is reading verses quoted in some writing, such as a book or an article. He may glorify God, address his supplication to Him, pray for forgiveness or for any purpose.
In other situations, we need to perform ablution, or wudhu, in order to pray. Performing ablution is also recommended in all situations, particularly for any act of worship or God’s remembrance. When we say that something is recommended, it follows that it is not obligatory. This means, that without ablution, or wudhu, one may read the Qur’an, glorify God, say any prayer, i.e. dua’. In fact, we do this all the time. Your name is made up of two words, Riyaz which is a corruption of Riyadh, the plural of Rawdhah which means a rose garden. The other word is Din or Deen, which means religion, with the definite article added in between the two words. Thus, it means “the rose gardens of the faith.” As you see, it is a fine name which requires you to work hard in order to live up to its meaning.
Money paid to creditor’s family
Q.1. A friend gave me some money to arrange his marriage reception. After completing that, I went to his home to return the money left over with me, but his mother and sister pleaded with me to give them that money, protesting that my friend never gives them anything and fails to support them properly, particularly when they are ill. I gave them the money without mentioning that to my friend. Please comment.
Q.2. If one has missed two rak’ahs with the Imam, and stands up to complete them after the Imam has finished, do these rak’ahs at the end count as his first or his last. This is clearly relevant to what is read in them.
Q.3. Please comment on the verse speaking about the sea in Surah 82, which is perhaps the only time in the Qur’an that speaks of the seas getting to the boil.
M.S., Dammam
A.1. What you should have done is to put the money in an envelope and give it to your friend’s mother or sister. If they then use it, they are the ones who are answerable to God for their conduct. If your friend is stingy and he does not give his mother enough to see her through her life affairs, he is certainly at fault. She may, if she has no other means of support, take from his money, without his knowledge, in a fair manner. Hind bint Utbah asked the Prophet whether she could take money from her husband without his knowledge, if she needed that to support herself and her child. She pointed out that her husband was very stingy. The Prophet told her to take what is sufficient, in a fair manner, for herself and her child. I hope that what you did falls under the same provisions.
A.2. There are two views among scholars on this question. Some consider the rak’ahs you offer with the Imam according to what the Imam is praying. Thus, if you join him in his third rak’ah, the first rak’ah you offer counts as the third one for you. The ones you offer after the Imam has finished are your first and second. Thus, according to this view, you need to read the Fatihah and a passage or surah of the Qur’an in the two rak’ahs you add after the Imam has finished. The other view, which is more reliable, is that you count your first rak’ah with the Imam as your first, and so on. Thus, if you need to complete two rak’ahs after the Imam has finished, these count as your third and fourth rak’ahs. You need not read more than the Fatihah in these rak’ahs.
A.3. Surah 82 begins as follows: “When the heaven is cleft asunder, when the stars are scattered, when the oceans are made to explode, when the graves are hurled about, each soul shall know its earlier actions and its later ones.” (82: 1-5)
These verses describe a violent upheaval that occurs before the Day of Judgment. One of the images mentioned here is that of seas and oceans exploding, not merely rising in temperature. Commenting on this verse, the late scholar Sayyid Qutb writes:
The explosion of the oceans may refer to their being overfull to the extent that they drown the dry land and swallow the rivers. It may, alternatively, mean an explosion which separates oxygen from hydrogen, the two gases which form water. Thus water returns to its original gas condition. The verse may also be taken to refer to a nuclear explosion of the atoms of the two gases. If this is the case, then the explosion would be so fearful that our nuclear devices of today would seem, by comparison, like children’s toys. The explosion may also take a different form, totally unknown to us. One thing, however, we know for certain is that there will be horror far greater than any man could have ever experienced.
