Author: WhyIChoseIslam

Reason #5: Dr. Al-Azami, the Hindu who became a Muslim scholar

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His full name is Muhammad Diya Al-Rahman Al-Azami and he was a man with a truly incredible and unique story. He was born around 1943 to a Brahman Hindu family in India. He got curious about Islam, learned about it, and ended up converting at a young age.

He kept learning about the religion until he ended up going to Saudi Arabia, a hub for Islamic knowledge! There he studied at Islamic University of Madinah and Umm al-Qura University. He then became the Dean of the College of Hadith at the University of Madinah, which was perhaps the most famous Islamic university in the world! From where to where!

To make matters more interesting, he retired early about the year 2000 to compile all of the authentic Hadiths (documented sayings and actions of Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ)) into one work. For those who know Sahih Al-Bukhari, Dr. Al-Azami wanted to apply the same standards of Imam Al-Bukhari to the hundreds of thousands of Hadiths available in the world. In 2019, he ended up completing it! It is called “al-Jāmi al-Kāmil fī al-Ḥadīth al-Ṣaḥīh al-Shāmil” (The Comprehensive Complete Compendium of Sahih Hadith) and it has over 15,000 hadiths! A year later, he passed away.

As Dr. Yasir Qadhi, an American Muslim scholar, explained all this in his Facebook page, “It was as if Allah wanted him – a child born to a Brahman family – to rise up to a task that no one had ever done, and gave him life until he finished this monumental project.”

And what makes all this more amazing is that Dr. Al-Azami passed away on THE HOLIEST DAY of the Islamic year and that is the Day of Arafah.

After reading all this, can we look at his life and just say, “Sure, it’s amazing” without pondering upon it? We should ask ourselves – what are the chances all of this happened to one person? Every single fact we went through – from a kid converting to becoming the dean of a famous university to compiling all those Hadiths to passing away on the holiest day out of all days – how does all that just happen, unless Something willed them to happen?

Reason #4: The “middle” ayah

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“And thus We have made you a middle [i.e., just] nation that you will be witnesses over the people and the Messenger will be a witness over you… ”

– Qur’an 2:143

One “miracle” of the Qur’an I grew up hearing about is this Ayah1 of the Qur’an. So what’s special about this? Well, in this Surah2, there are 286 Ayahs. Where is this one? In the 143th Ayah. Right in the middle.

Now one can say that anyone can do that. After all, great books have gems hidden in them. However, the Qur’an wasn’t a book in its original form. It was all spoken by Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ). It is well known that he didn’t know how to read or write. 

And when he recited the Qur’an till its completion, it was over a period of 23 years. To make matters more complicated, Surahs were not revealed by God all at once. Some were also revealed in parts and not necessarily in chronological order. Not til some Surahs were fully revealed did Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) know truly what the order what. Lastly, the Qur’an did not have a number scheme until after it was written down in a book form.

So Muslims ask – how is it possible that an unlettered man in 14th century Arabia put this Ayah right in the middle of a long Surah, even though the Surah was not revealed at once, nor was there a number scheme? In fact, was this Ayah even “necessary” for the impact of its message during his time? No. Perhaps early Muslims didn’t even realize the fact that it was in the middle. So doing this would have made Prophet Muhammad’s (ﷺ) job even harder if he was somehow the author. So it begs the question – how did it get there?

  • This was taken from Nouman Ali Khan’s explanation of this Ayah, as explained beautifully in this video –
  1. “Verse” is a rough translation for Ayah.
  2. “Chapter” is a rough translation for Surah. Both will be explained in a future article.