Grounded

Last week we sealed the heart of the kāfir and stood at the mouth of the third category. This week we step into it. Of the three types of people in Part One — the muttaqīn (Ayāt 2–5), the kāfir (Ayāt 6–7), and the munāfiq (Ayāt 8–20) — the hypocrite is given the longest passage by far. Thirteen ayāt against four and two. It is worth asking why before we read a single word of them.

1. Why the Hypocrite Takes the Longest Passage

Two reasons. First, there are different types and levels of hypocrite. Seco...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.grounded.day

Quran at Home. Each week we take some ayat from the Qur’an. On Tuesday we read them and learn their tajweed. On Thursday we look into their meaning and draw out lessons we can live by.

Where we are in the story

Last week we finished the first story of the surah — the Aṣḥāb al-Kahf, the people of the cave — and drew out its lessons. Through that story Alla…

It’s Tuesday, so it’s Tajweed Tuesday — where we break down the tajweed rules from the ayat our students learn on Saturday at Qaswa Madrasah.

Grounded is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

This term and next, we’re working through Surah al-Kahf. This week: ayat 34 - 44.

If the ayat feel too long to read in one sitting, break them down. Take one small portion and work it until it’s fluent. Then move to the next. Slow is fine. S...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.grounded.day

1. Where We Are

We are in Part One of Surah Al-Baqarah, which deals with the types of people. Recall that the division of the surah into parts is not divine — these are scholarly aids to help us navigate the terrain of the surah. At a glance the Quran can seem to move from theme to theme without order, but beneath the surface lies a coherent, beautiful s…

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.grounded.day

Quran at Home. Each week we take some ayat from the Qur’an. On Tuesday we read them and learn their tajweed. On Thursday we look into their meaning and draw out lessons we can live by.

Where we are in the story

Last week we finished the story of the Aṣḥāb al-Kahf — the people of the cave. Who were they? A group of young men who fled a comfortable life in the city to save their īmā...

It’s Tuesday, so it’s Tajweed Tuesday — where we break down the tajweed rules from the ayat our students learn on Saturday at Qaswa Madrasah.

Grounded is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

This term and next, we’re working through Surah al-Kahf. This week: ayat 32 - 36.

If the ayat feel too long to read in one sitting, break them down. Take one small portion and work it until it’s fluent. Then move to the next. Slow is fine. S...

Recap and continuation: the categories of water, skins of dead animals, bones and hair, gold and silver vessels, and the Siwāk.

1. About the Text and Its Author

Matn Abī Shujāʿ is a short treatise (not a poem) detailing the rulings of fiqh according to the Shāfiʿī school. The English poem used in class is a translated rendering; the original is prose.

* Author: Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Iṣfahānī, known as Qāḍī Abū Shujāʿ.

* Origin: Isfahan, in Persia (modern Iran).

* Death and burial: He passed away in Madinah and is buri...

1. Quick Recap: Where We Are

We are working through Surah Al-Baqarah, and by now the introduction should be second nature.

* Meaning of the surah: The Female Cow

* Number of ayat: 286

* Place of revelation: Madinah — this is an early Madani surah, one of the earliest revealed after the Hijrah

Surahs are classified by when they were revealed, not simply where:

* Makki — revealed before the Hijrah

* Madani — revealed after the Hijrah. A surah can even be revealed physically in Makkah, but if it came after the Hijrah, it is...

It’s Tuesday, so it’s Tajweed Tuesday — where we break down the tajweed rules from the ayat our students learn on Saturday at Qaswa Madrasah.

This term and next, we’re working through Surah al-Kahf. This week: ayat 27 - 31.

If the ayat feel too long to read in one sitting, break them down. Take one small portion and work it until it’s fluent. Then move to the next. Slow is fine. Stopping isn’t. Consistency beats intensity — every time.

Grounded is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consi...

Quick Recap

* Meaning of the surah: “The Female Cow.”

* Number of ayat: 286.

* Nickname: The peak (summit) of the Quran.

* Virtue: On the Day of Judgement, Al-Baqarah and Ali Imran will come and shade their companions.

On dividing the surah: We are studying Al-Baqarah in nine parts. This division is a teaching aid created by scholars to help us navigate the surah — it is not divine. The order of the surahs themselves (Al-Baqarah, then Ali Imran) comes from Allah, but splitting a single surah into portions is a human tool. Others...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.grounded.day

Quran at Home. Each week we take some ayat from the Qur’an. On Tuesday we read them and learn their tajweed. On Thursday we look into their meaning and draw out lessons we can live by.

Why Surah al-Kahf

Rasūlullāh ﷺ encouraged us to recite Surah al-Kahf at least once a week. It protects us from the Dajjāl and from the fitnah — the trials and systems — of the Dajjāl. The Dajjāl may not be here y...

It’s Tuesday, so it’s Tajweed Tuesday — where we break down the tajweed rules from the ayat our students learn on Saturday at Qaswa Madrasah.

This term and next, we’re working through Surah al-Kahf. This week: ayat 21 - 26.

If the ayat feel too long to read in one sitting, break them down. Take one small portion and work it until it’s fluent. Then move to the next. Slow is fine. Stopping isn’t. Consistency beats intensity — every time.

Grounded is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consi...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.grounded.day

Last week we covered the introduction, ayat 1–8. We saw how Allah opens the surah with Alhamdulillah — a practice of gratitude — and directs that gratitude towards the Qur’an itself. Allah corrects those who claim He has a son. Then He moves to the purpose of creation: this world was made beautiful as a test of who among us has the best deeds. Then it is destroyed. Then comes the resurrection.

That last point is where this week begins.

Gro...

It’s Tuesday, so it’s Tajweed Tuesday — where we break down the tajweed rules from the ayat our students learn on Saturday at Qaswa Madrasah.

This term and next, we’re working through Surah al-Kahf. This week: ayat 17 - 20.

If the ayat feel too long to read in one sitting, break them down. Take one small portion and work it until it’s fluent. Then move to the next. Slow is fine. Stopping isn’t. Consistency beats intensity — every time.

Tajweed Tuesday is part of our Quran at Home programme. Every Saturday, our students m...

Recap: The Text We Are Studying

We are studying Al-Ghayah wa’t-Taqrib, a classical short-form manual of fiqh written by Imam Abu Shuja’. Despite its brevity, this small text has been memorised and studied for close to a thousand years — from Cairo to Java, West Africa to Hadramaut. We are now continuing that same chain of transmission here in Western Australia.

What Is Fiqh?

* Literal meaning: deep understanding

* Technical meaning: ma’rifatul ahkam al-shar’iyyah — knowledge of the rulings of the Shari’ah

* These rulings apply to the af’al al-mukallafin...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.grounded.day

Last week we set the scene: who the Dajjāl is, and how this Surah protects us from the trials he brings with him. This week we go into the first ten ayat — the portion the Prophet ﷺ told us to hold onto.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.grounded.day

We are beginning Surah al-Mulk. Thirty ayat, two and a half pages. If we have memorised it, we can recite the whole surah in under three minutes.

What al-Mulk means

Al-Mulk carries two meanings, and both are correct: kingdom, and dominion. We met the root already in al-Fatihah, at maliki yawmid-din — also recited maaliki yawmid-din. Malik is the king; mulk is the kingdom. So this is the surah of the kingdom.

Makki and Madani

...

It’s Tuesday, so it’s Tajweed Tuesday — where we break down the tajweed rules from the ayat our students learn on Saturday at Qaswa Madrasah.

This term and next, we’re working through Surah al-Kahf. This week: ayat 11–16.

If the ayat feel too long to read in one sitting, break them down. Take one small portion and work it until it’s fluent. Then move to the next. Slow is fine. Stopping isn’t. Consistency beats intensity — every time.

Tajweed Tuesday is part of our Quran at Home programme. Every Saturday, our students meet in...

Revision

The surah

* Al-Baqarah means the cow.

* 286 ayat — the longest surah in the Quran.

* Nicknamed the peak of the Quran (Sanam al-Quran).

* Surah Al-Baqarah and Surah Ali Imran are twin surahs. If you read them, study them, memorise them and act on their lessons, they will come on the Day of Judgement as clouds — shade on a day when there is no shade except the shade of Allah.

* The surah has nine parts. We are in Part 1: Types of People.

Ayah 1 — Alif Lam Mim

What...

New term, new surah. This term and next, we’re studying one of the most important surahs in the Qur’an — the one Rasul ﷺ told us to read every Friday: Surah al-Kahf.

This note is a companion to the video. Watch for the full explanation; use this to hold the structure in your mind.

Why this surah matters

Rasulullah ﷺ taught that Surah al-Kahf is our protection from the Dajjāl — the great deceiver who comes as the greatest trial to humanity near the end of time. Every prophet from Nūḥ عليه السلام onward warned their people about him. But beca...

New term, new surah. This term and next, we’re staying with one surah — the one Rasul ﷺ told us to read every Friday: Suratul Kahf.

We begin with the first ten ayat. Today’s focus is the Tajweed; the meaning comes Thursday.

A few things we cover in the video:

* Qalqalah — bouncing the qāf, ṭāʾ, bāʾ, jīm, dāl in sukūn. ʿabdihī, yajʿal — a clean bounce, not a spread sound.

* Ikhfāʾ in anzala — the nūn read lightly through the zāy.

* Reading the tanwīn — a slightly misaligned tanwīn signa...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.grounded.day

1. The name

Al-Baqarah means the cow.

The surah is named after the account of the Israelites who were commanded to slaughter a cow. This is the only place in the Quran where that account appears.

How surahs are named

* Allah reveals the name directly, and the Prophet ﷺ states it.

* The surah is named after its opening words or letters.

* The surah is named after something unique within it...

Why We Start With Water

We began the year not with prayer, but with water.

The book is Matn al-Ghāyah wa al-Taqrīb — “The Goal and the Path” — better known simply as Matn Abī Shujāʿ. Its author was a judge, Qāḍī Abū Shujāʿ Aḥmad b. al-Ḥusayn al-Aṣfahānī, from Isfahan in what is now Iran. He is buried in Madīnah, and by some accounts lived to 160. His friends asked him for something small: the fiqh of the Shāfiʿī school, clearly categorised and numbered, easy enough for a beginner to memorise. He gave them about twe...

Once a month I teach a tafseer class at UWA, and tonight we finished Surah al-Fatihah. We started back in April, paused in May while I was at Hajj, and picked it up again this week.

This is the most important surah in our lives. We recite it at least seventeen times a day — and there has to be a reason Allah asks that of us. The whole reason we sit with it is to see how seven short verses, recited so many times that they almost slip past us, are actually a map for how to li...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.grounded.day

Where we left off

Last week we paused at ayah 25, in the middle of a sustained portrait of al-Walīd ibn al-Mughīra — the father of Sayyidunā Khālid ibn al-Walīd, and one of the leading poets of Quraysh.

For all his hostility, al-Walīd could not stay away from the Qur’an. In the dark of the night he would slip out of his house and stand quietly outside the…

This week we are completing our recitation of Surah al-Muddaththir.

Surah al-Muddaththir 26 - 31

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.grounded.day

Last week we began our journey into Surat Al-Muddathir, and there is something striking about reading it directly after Surat Al-Muzzammil. The two surahs sit beside each other in the Mushaf, and they sit beside each other in meaning. If Al-Muzzammil is about spiritual development, Al-Muddathir is about community development. If Al-Muzzammil is the inward work, Al-Muddathir is the outward call. They complete each other.

Both surahs open with the Prophet ﷺ being addressed by a state, not a name — the...

This week we worked through fifteen short ayat from Surat al-Muddaththir. Their brevity is a gift — perfect terrain for drilling fluency without getting lost in long breath patterns.

A few rules surfaced again and again. Heavy Ra after a fatḥah or ḍammah, produced by raising the back of the tongue, never by pouting the lips. Throat letters given their proper place — the kha in khalaqtu, the hamzah in yu’thar. Idghām with ghunnah in mā lam mamdūdā, but iẓhār with no ghunnah at all in in hādhā. Qalqalah on the dāl of adbara, hams on...

There’s a moment in Hajj most people only think about as a logistical headache — the stoning of the Jamarāt. Crowded, hot, exhausting. You queue up, you throw, you move on.

But behind that act is one of the most instructive scenes in our religion. And it happens to a father and a son, thousands of years before any of us were born.

-----

Ibrāhīm ﷺ waited decades for a child. He was an old man — the only worshipper of Allāh in his world. Just him, his wife, and his cous...

Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.

This term, Term 2 of 2026, Grounded begins its study of Surah Al-Muddathir. Last term covered Surah Al-Muzzammil, and these two surahs reflect each other in meaning. Before opening the ayat itself, this first session steps back to map the landscape — where Al-Muddathir sits in the early revelation to the Prophet ﷺ, and what each surah was teaching him in sequence.

Grounded is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

The Cave and the Cry for Guidance

At...

Assalamualaikum,

Welcome back to Tajweed Tuesday! We are back after a long break. This term insha Allah we will be reading Surah al-Muddaththir.

Remember to practice your Quran daily, even if it is only 10 minutes. Consistency always beats intensity. And when practicing remember that, slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Slow down and read smoothly. Only speed up once you are smooth.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.grounded.day

The Structure of This Surah

Before we go forward, it helps to see the shape of what we have been reading.

Surah Al-A’raf is a Makki surah. Its primary audience was the Quraysh of Makkah. Its central argument is historical: look at the nations before you. Contrast this with Surah Al-An’am — also Makki, also addressing the Quraysh — but that surah makes its…

We praise Allah for allowing us to experience and complete another Ramadan. And now that we’ve emerged from it, there’s a question worth sitting with: what comes next?

Imam Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali mentions that the pious predecessors would spend six months after Ramadan asking Allah to accept their deeds — and the remaining months begging Him to let them witness another one. That’s the rhythm. Gratitude, then longing. Never stagnation.

But the Qur’an gives us something even more precise than that rhythm. It gives us a transition.

In Surah al-Baqarah, the discus...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.grounded.day

We stopped last week at the story of Prophet Salih. We didn’t finish it. Tonight, inshaAllah, we push through — all the way from Salih to Lut to Shu’aib. Three Prophets, three nations, three types of corruption. And then next week, we begin the long passage on Prophet Musa.

Quick Recap

We’ve been tracing a pattern. Prophet Nuh was the first Prophet to fac…

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.grounded.day

Ramadan is over, but the tafseer continues. Our aim is to finish Surah Al-A’raf in four weeks — which means we move faster than we did during Ramadan. In Ramadan, we paced the tafseer to match what we were reading in taraweeh each night. Now we push forward.

For those who missed the Ramadan series, all the posts are on Substack at groundeddaily.substack.…

We praise Allah for allowing us to complete another month of Ramadan and to celebrate the day of Eid together.

Today is a day of celebration. Today we are happy. Today we are joyous.

But if you look into the global geopolitical events at the moment, it is hard for us to be joyous. It is hard for us to celebrate. Palestinians are still being killed daily, still facing genocide. The Middle East is burning. Iran is under illegal attack by the US and Israel. And now we see yet another part of the region...

Tonight is the 29th night of Ramadan. The last taraweeh. The last night of the year.

Make full use of it. The best du’a for Laylatul Qadr is Allahumma innaka afuwwun tuhibbul afwa fa’fu anni ya Kareem — O Allah, You are the Pardoner, You love to pardon, so pardon me. Keep returning to it tonight, and especially at suhoor time. Allah mentions in the Quran a special rank for those who make istighfar in the early hours before dawn: wa bil ashari hum yastaghfirun. Some of our scholars would dedicate that time between the sunnah of Faj...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.grounded.day

Night 28. The last taraweeh is tomorrow. It went fast.

A few housekeeping notes: Thursday night — the eve of Eid — we will have a potluck iftar at Qaswa House starting at 6pm, with iftar around 6:35. Bring a plate to share. The kids will have activities while the adults eat. After that we’ll pray Isha together and do takbir to welcome Eid.

Friday is Eid prayer at McDougall Park in Como. Takbir at 8, prayer at 8:30. And yes — since Eid fall...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.grounded.day

Tonight is the 27th night of Ramadan.

By the account of many companions and the opinion of many scholars, the 27th carries the highest probability of being Laylatul Qadr among all the odd nights. There is no guarantee — the Prophet ﷺ told us to hunt through all of the last ten. But if any one night has the strongest case, it is this one.

The companions would dress nicely on this night. Apply perfume. Their wives would wonder — where...