The Insight of The First Command: Read (RICC Khutbah)

06-05-2026 mamdouh.salama@comcast.net The Insight of The First Command: Read (RICC Khutbah) The first command with which Allah, in His infinite wisdom, opened His final revelation to humanity deserves our deepest reflection. This first command was not to pray, it was not to fast, nor was it to give charity. Rather, it was a single, powerful word: “Iqra!” “Read!” When the angel Jibril delivered this command to the Prophet ﷺ, the Messenger of Allah responded with the only honest answer available to him: “Ma ana bi qari’” “I cannot read.” He said this not once, but three times. And three times, the heavy, loving command came back: Iqra. Read. This exchange is one of the most profound moments in human history. Since the Prophet ﷺ could not read in the conventional sense, and Allah knew this, then Allah was clearly not asking for conventional reading. He was not asking the Prophet to look at symbols on a page and sound out letters. He was asking for something deeper, something that has no dependency on literacy. Something that every human being, whether learned or unlearned, is capable of. To understand what Allah was commanding, we must look at the Arabic root of the word Iqra, which is qara’a (أرق). In classical Arabic, iqra implies collecting scattered elements and connecting them into a coherent whole. This process of gathering, connecting, and deriving meaning is identical to the concept of ‘aql (لقع), the intellect, which literally means to bind or restrain things together so they can be understood in relation to one another. So, when Allah commanded Iqra, He was commanding an act of ‘aql. He was commanding rational, critical thinking. He was commanding us to look at the world, gather its elements, connect the dots, and derive meaning from what we observe. He was commanding investigation, research, and reasoning. Since Iqra is a command to investigate, the obvious question for any student is: investigate what? The opening verses of Surat Al-Alaq answer this with extraordinary precision. The Surah outlines three distinct "books" that address three distinct fields of study Allah has opened for the human mind. 1

1. The field of the first book is creation (the book of natural sciences) “Read in the name of your Lord who created.” (Al-Alaq 96:1) Allah left the word “created” general and open-ended. It spans everything in existence outside the human self: the stars and their movements, the oceans and their depths, the mountains and their formations, living creatures and their biological systems, and the physical laws governing matter and energy. In the Islamic worldview, the universe is a text. It was written by Allah, and we are commanded to read it. To emphasize this, the Quran includes over 1,200 verses pointing to creation as divine signs (Ayat). This is the absolute foundation of natural sciences. Astronomy, physics, biology, geology, chemistry, every scientist who observes a phenomenon, formulates a question, and designs an experiment is performing an act of Iqra. They are reading the Book of Creation. The great Muslim scholars understood this deeply. When Ibn al-Haytham studied the behavior of light, or when Al-Biruni used advanced trigonometry, mountain heights, and the dip of the horizon to calculate the Earth's circumference to an accuracy of within 1% of modern data, they were not doing something separate from their faith. They were answering the first command. They were reading what Allah created. 2. The field of the second Book of the Self, the universe withing you (The Book of Human and Social Sciences) “He created the human being from a clinging clot.” (Al-Alaq 96:2) The domain of this second book is you, your body, your mind, your psychology, your development, your potential, and your limitations. For this book, Allah revealed more than 600 verses in the Quran. Notice that Allah specifies our origin: from ‘alaq, a clinging substance. This is an invitation to look both inward at our current nature and backward at our humble origins. This is the divine sanction for medicine, embryology, psychology, anthropology, and philosophy. There is a profound lesson in humility here. Before you claim to understand the cosmos, understand what you are. Before you claim wisdom about the world, investigate the very mind you are using to perceive it. Furthermore, this opens the door to understanding human behavior and society. How do we relate to one another? What builds communities, and what destroys them? Social sciences, economics, ethics, history, and law are all vital readings of this second book. 2

3. Third Book tis the book of the Pen, this is the book of the Accumulated Human Knowledge "Who taught by the pen, (4) He taught the human being what he did not know." (Al-Alaq 96:4-5) Having commanded us to read the universe around us and the human being within us, the verses open a third essential domain: accumulated human knowledge. The mention of the pen is not incidental. The pen is the instrument of documentation, preservation, and transmission across time and space. Knowledge that is not written down dies with the person who held it. Knowledge that is written down becomes an inheritance for every generation that follows. Allah is telling us: You do not start from zero. As students, you are called to stand on the shoulders of giants, honoring the discoveries, data, and insights that humanity has preserved through the pen. Though these are three different books, Creation, the Human Self, and Written Knowledge, they have one and the same Author. The Book of Creation reveals Allah’s power; the Book of the Human Being reveals Allah’s wisdom; and the Book of Recorded Knowledge connects us to the understanding Allah has enabled humanity to accumulate. For a community of believers, this must completely reshape how we view our education. Studying is not a secular chore; it is a spiritual obligation. Going to school, sitting in lecture halls, writing research papers, and studying for exams is not merely a practical convenience to get a job. It is the continuation of a divinely honored tradition. Look at these three domains together, and you will see that the opening verses of the Quran are not just an instruction to learn the alphabet. They are a complete intellectual mandate, a divine research agenda handed to humanity. But we must be aware that Iqra demands active, disciplined thinking, not passive, mindless scrolling. Thus, do not confuse the illusion of spending hours reading social media posts, comments, and headlines with the pursuit of true knowledge. Most of this content gives absolutely zero understanding of the universe, zero understanding of yourself, and zero understanding of the actual accumulated wisdom of humanity. Let us be absolutely clear: Being informed is not the same as being educated. Being entertained is not the same as learning. And being busy reading a screen is not the same as answering the divine command of Iqra. 3

The command of Iqra did not end when the Prophet ﷺ left the cave of Hira. It did not end when the Quran was completed. It did not end with the golden age of Al-Khwarizmi, Ibn Sina, or Ibn Khaldun. That command is being addressed to you in this room today. To every student staying up late to study, to every researcher searching for empirical truth, to every engineer, physician, programmer, and educator: the first word of revelation remains your binding standing order: Observe carefully. Reflect deeply. Reason honestly. Learn continuously. Document faithfully. Teach generously. Build responsibly. Contribute meaningfully. And when you do all of that, do it proudly, intentionally, and directly in the name of your Lord who created. O Allah, spread your mercy upon us, shower us with Your blessings, increase our knowledge, grant us forgiveness, and reward us by the company of Your prophets in the highest place in Heaven, Al-Ferdous Al-Aala. O Allah, forgive our parents and all our friends and relatives who have passed away and make their graves a garden from heaven and grant them the Ferdous Al-Ala. O Allah, we have many of our friends and relatives who are sick. O Allah grant them full and speedy recovery. O Allah, guide our children, protect them and make them righteous. O Allah we have many of our brethren, who are subjected to injustice and oppression, O Allah, heal their trauma, protect the helpless, fulfill their needs, and grant them lasting peace and prosperity O Allah, we ask you in this blessed hour with every name you have elected for yourself that none of us leave this gathering, except his pains have been relieved, his worries have been removed, his debts have been paid, his weaknesses have been concealed, his sins have been forgiven, and his needs have been fulfilled, 4