17/ The Superiority of the Quran over Remembrance Alone

After fulfilling the obligations Allah has imposed upon His servants, constantly remembering Allah is the best use a servant can make of his time and every breath. Remembrance encompasses every righteous utterance that Allah loves and is pleased with, including reciting the speech of Allah, glorifying and praising Him, proclaiming His greatness and oneness, supplicating to Him, and other such acts. There is no doubt that the finest, noblest, greatest, and most exalted of these forms of remembrance is reciting the Noble Quran, the speech of the Lord of all worlds. The Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—said, as recorded in Sahih Muslim: “Four expressions are most beloved to Allah: Glory be to Allah; all praise is due to Allah; there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah; and Allah is the Greatest.”1 According to another wording recorded in Imam Ahmad’s Musnad, the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—said: “The finest words after the Quran are four, all of which are drawn from the Quran: Glory be to Allah; all praise is due to Allah; there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah; and Allah is the Greatest.”2

Al-Tirmidhī’s Sunan contains a hadith, which he classified as acceptable, narrated by Abū Sa‘īd al-Khudrī—may Allah be pleased with him—from the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him: “Whoever is kept by reciting the Quran from remembering Me and asking of Me, I shall give him better than what I give those who ask.”3 Likewise, in the hadith recorded in the Sunan collections, a man asked the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him: “I am unable to learn anything from the Quran, so teach me something that will suffice me in my prayer.” He replied: “Say: Glory be to Allah; all praise is due to Allah; there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah; and Allah is the Greatest.”4