Surah An-Nur, Verse 19:

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Translation: Indeed, those who like that immorality should be spread [or publicized] among
those who have believed will have a painful punishment in this world and the Hereafter. And
Allah knows and you do not know.
As-Salaamu Alaikum Quran Weekly,
Its me and Waleed again. I want to share with you the eighteenth juz, one ayah from the
eighteenth juz today, and that is the ayah from Surah An-Nur, one of my favorite surahs in the
Quran, and this is the nineteenth ayah.
,(Inna allatheena yuhibboona antaasheeAAa alfahishatu), no doubt those
who love that shamelessness, inappropriateness, lewdness, indecency should spread, should
become widespread and branch out, , (fee allatheena amanoo) among those who
believe. ,(lahum AAathabun aleemun fee addunya wal-akhirati), they will
have painful punishment in this world and in the next. A few days now Ive been giving you ayat
about warnings, and this is an equal part of the balance of the Quran. Allah gives warnings and
Allah gives good news. In this particular ayah, the crime that Allah mentions is people guilty of
spreading inappropriateness and indecency and a lowering of the standards of shame among
Muslims. People who make it come, people who want to make it just a norm that it should
happen. Then they have great punishment in this world and the next.

,(waAllahu yaAAlamu), you would think whats the big deal? Why is this so serious of a
crime? Allah answers that question Himself by saying
, (waAllahu yaAAlamu) Allah in fact,
He knows. ,(wa Antum la taAAlamoon) you have no idea, you dont know. You dont
know how serious this is.
So what does that mean, people who spread shamelessness? This is forms of entertainment that
are inappropriate and indecent. There are people that, if you are a Muslim, and youre watching
some inappropriate music video or something, and you forward it to your friends, or you share it
on Facebook or something. Saying hey watch this, this is pretty awesome. Then you spread
shamelessness, you did that. Even by two clicks, the ayah started applying to you. So you have to
be careful of what you spread among people, and what you make common. This is not limited to
videos, images, and things like that. Its also talk. You know if you know scandalous or something
indecent, then you dont spread it and you dont talk about it, you drop it. In Islam, we dont
sensationalize controversy, and we dont bring it out into the community and talk about it even
more and more.
The context of this ayah is actually the accusation made against the mother of the believers,
Aisha (radiAllahu Anha) in Surah an-Nur, and she was accused of wrongdoing and this scandal
had spread. Allah says that those who want to spread shamelessness, shamelessness is not
necessarily an act of indecency, but its even the talk of indecency. That spreading is
inappropriate. So if you know something happened in your community, dont openly talk about
it unless it brings some benefit. Like talk to the parents. You know, some girl ran away from her
house or something. Or some Muslim kid you know from the masjid or the school is dating
somebody. Dont spread these things. Only talk to the people that can help with the situation,
not just to anybody. Talk to his parents, talk to him, talk to her. Say this isnt right. But otherwise
itsits so much fun to talk about, right? Its easy to just spread. But its a very, very serious
crime so we shouldnt just casually talk about these kinds of things.

The only additional comment Ill make, is that the Quran actually does not explicitly talk about
things, even that are, Ill call them Rated R. So intimacy between men and women. Quran deals
with the subject, but not in an explicit way. It deals with it in a very dignified way. Eight or nine
times intercourse and intimacy is mentioned in the Quran, never is it mentioned literally, its
always alluded to. So Allah is not shying away from the subject itself, but He is not going to use
explicit language. The Arabic language is very rich, it can use those kinds of words, but Allah
chooses not to do it. So even that is a problem. To say those kinds of words. Sometimes you hear
the speaker using those types of words and everybody is disturbed because we know in our
nature, its not comfortable for us to hear those kind of words, and they shouldnt be spread in
this way. Theres a way around them. Theres a way we can maintain our decency and still talk
about difficult things that are there to talk about.
May Allah give us a really heightened sense of decency, and May Allah not make us of those who
are culprit in spreading and lowering the standards of shame, and lowering the standards of
appropriateness among the Muslims.
BarakAllahu Li Walakum, Wa Salaamu Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatahu