The Rain
Audio & Video — The Rain
Let truth rain down in every format
Rain does not fall in one place or in one way. It soaks, it drips, it arrives while you are doing something else entirely.
That is what this section is for. Not everyone learns best by reading. And even people who do have hours in a week when reading is impossible and listening is not. The drive, the walk, the washing up.
Two places to go: video, and the appendix library of thirty-eight extended studies.
One caution before you start. Video is excellent for learning how something is done, and poor for checking whether it is true. Whatever you take in here, take it to Search Quran afterwards.
Every page here follows the same five movements. LEARN what the Quran says. UNDERSTAND what it means for a life. REFLECT with a growth prompt. ACT on one concrete step. CONNECT to the pages that carry the thought on.
Why Multiple Formats
The same sentence lands differently depending on how it reaches you. Read on a page, it is information. Heard in somebody's voice while you are driving, it can follow you around for a week.
That is how attention works, and not a defect in people. Most of the hours in which you are genuinely free to think are hours in which you cannot possibly read.
So: two formats here, and writing to check them both against.
Video is unbeatable for showing how something is done. Learning the postures of the contact prayer is the clearest case. Four minutes of watching will teach more than four pages describing it. A talk can also simply be listened to, in the hours the hands are busy and the eyes are not free.
Writing is for checking. A claim on a page can be stopped, re-read, and looked up. A claim we hear goes past at the speed of the speaker's voice. That is why a confident delivery is so persuasive, and so unreliable.
That is the trade you are making. Learn by watching. Verify in writing, and in the Quran itself.
Explore The Rain
Two pages. Pick the format that fits the hours you actually have free.
Quran Study (Audio)
Featured videos, playlists mirroring this site's sections, and Watch & Grow — curated viewing paths for six different stages of learning.
Read moreAppendices
The complete library, Appendix 1 through 38, each opening in the knowledge-base assistant with summaries and discussion questions.
Read moreRoot & Branch Connections
Every playlist and every appendix here has a written counterpart somewhere on this site:
→ The Root: the God Series on video pairs with God.
→ The Soil: the appendices on sources, intercession and the hereafter pair with About Submission.
→ The Water: guided prayer learning pairs with Practices.
→ The Sunlight: check every claim you hear against Search Quran before you accept it.
→ The Garden: capture what a video asked of you at Growth Journal Downloads, before it evaporates.
Questions People Ask
Why have video and audio at all, if the Quran is the source?
Because they are good at something writing is bad at, and the reverse is also true. Video shows how something is done. Four minutes of watching the prayer teaches more than four pages describing it. A talk can also be listened to while our hands are busy and our minds are free. Writing is for checking, because a page can be stopped and re-read. So: learn by watching, and verify in writing, and in the Quran itself.
Is anything heard here a source?
No. Only the Quran is, and everything on these pages should be taken to it. A claim delivered confidently in a voice is persuasive in a way that has nothing to do with whether it is true. That is the risk in every spoken format, ours included. God's instruction covers it: “You shall not accept any information, unless you verify it for yourself.” [17:36] The search page exists for exactly that.
What are the appendices, and who wrote them?
They are thirty-eight extended studies published with this translation of the Quran, by the translator. They cover the mathematical structure of the book, the religious duties, the hereafter, and a good deal more. This site cites them by number where a point rests on one. They are not scripture, and the Appendices page says so at the top. Where an appendix and a verse appear to disagree, the verse decides.
Learn, then live it
Every page on this site follows the same five steps, so reading always turns into growing.
Growth Prompt
Audio and video produce the feeling of progress very efficiently. Write down the last thing you took in, and the last thing you changed because of it. If those two lists do not connect, that is the finding.
What did I watch or listen to most recently — and what did I actually do differently afterwards?
Keep growing
Every topic on this site connects to the others. Here is where this page leads next.