5 Year Anniversary of Heavenly Order
5 years of my wife tolerating my blogging
﷽
Five years ago, on May 30th, 2020, I began this blog in the hopes of documenting all the research I could on the Quran’s structure, organization, and coherence.
300+ posts later, I have the manuscript of a Book complete! The Book will focus on Juz ʿAmma (the final section of the Quran), since it contains the suwar most people are familiar with. It’ll be a good 1st edition to get this to the masses and garner feedback for future editions. I’m aiming for a 2025 publication date, but only Allah ﷻ knows!
I am workshopping some book covers with the bidʿa (innovation) of AI (and Photoshop touch up), which I might use as inspiration for the real one. Please comment/reply with your thoughts on it. I need market feedback.1 Which fonts work better for you? Color scheme okay?
Year in Review
Probably the highlight of the last year was being able to present on the topic in a formal manner, one which I can share with anyone looking to understand the topic from scratch.2
Stats
At this time last year, I was at 1450 subscribers. Now, it’s at over 2750. You can see the exact moment Muhammad Jalal of The Thinking Muslim started recommending the blog. He almost single-handedly doubled my subscriber count!
For those unaware, his wife recently passed away, so please make a sincere prayer for her forgiveness, and to make things easy on Muhammad. He has made a tremendous impact on our collective Muslim consciousness and should be supported if you have not already subscribed to his newsletter and/or Youtube channel.
Going Forward
I still plan to post on Fridays, but I’ll be honest, it’s getting tougher these days to be consistent. Growing responsibilities as an adult, and whatnot.
For anyone with more free time than me, here is a list of suwar I have not even looked into yet that could use some help. If you have a structure you’d like to propose, please email me back!
Al-An'am (The Cattle)
Hud (Hud)
Ibrahim (Abraham)
Al-Hijr (The Rock)
An-Nahl (The Bee)
Al-Anbiya' (The Prophets)
Al-Hajj (The Pilgrimage)
Ash-Shu'ara' (The Poets)
Al-Mu'min (The Believer) / Ghafir
As for any sūrah not listed above, it means I’ve already published on it, or I have the research ready to go, but I’m working on compiling it into a coherent post. See what’s already published at the Table of Contents.
Another Project
As I continue to burn down my list of remaining suwar, another project I’ve wanted to undertake is the translation of At-Tanāsubu bayn as-Suwar fi l-muftatahi wal-Khawātīm (The Connection between the Suwar in their Beginnings and Endings) by Dr Fāḍil Ṣaliḥ as-Samarrāī'.
It’s a two part book. The first half looks at the connection between the beginning and end of every individual sūrah. I reference it a lot when I start my research on a sūrah.
The second half of the book in particular is what I really want to spend my time on though. It looks at how the ending of one sūrah relates to the beginning of the next sūrah in the compiled order. How does the end of Sūrat al-Fātiḥah relate to the beginning of Sūrat al-Baqarah? How about al-Baqarah to Āl ʿImrān? Etc.
This is something called “Dovetailing” and it’s not a topic I give a lot of attention to. Translating Dr Fāḍil Ṣaliḥ’s work would allow me to bring it to the English language3 and, for my own selfish purposes, to practice my Arabic skills.
Another Other Project
I have a document with 100 “Quran Gems” that I want to publish somewhere. They’re small linguistic nuggets that help build the argument that the Quran has a divine Author.
I think I’ll start posting there, once a week. Probably on Mondays to start the work week off nicely, and also because it’s the day of the week the Messenger ﷺ was born. A blessed day.
If I hit 10 subscribers there, I’ll start posting.
Lastly
That’s it. 5 years, and no book to show for it :)
But seriously, thanks for reading any of these posts. Thanks to those who continue to share their own structural observations with me, and thanks to those who comment with their thoughts and prayers!
Free Palestine!
I even have an Arabic title that rhymes! I’m like all the big shot scholars now with their fancy books.
The flyer called me “Shaykh.” I’m not a shaykh. Or an “Ustadh.” Or anything worthy of a title. No pronouns titles for me. I’m just a guy with a blog.
Unless it already exists in translation? Someone, please tell me if it does!
and 'no Arabic' is NOT ok
we can't waste the coolestt rhyming title😣
cz option 2 Arabic looks too seated and horizontal while the option 2 English is tall and standing you know
while option 1 Arabic is tall and matches therefore