Surah Nabaa, Chapter 78

Contents of the Surah
بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمنِ الرَّحِيمِ

In The Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful

Most of the verses of the last part of the Qur’an were revealed in Mecca. The nature of these Surahs is that they put emphasis on the Creation and the Resurrection, furnished with glad tidings and warnings; usually in a shocking and awakening tone.

All the verses of the Surahs, except a few, are short and full of implications. For the same reason, they affect, deeply, on any conscious person and they awaken some of the unaware, too. They give spirit to dead‑like people and make the indifferent ones feel responsibility. On the whole, they have a specific case and an enthusiastic world of their own, full of enlightenment and attraction.

Surah Nabaa is not an exception to this general principle. It begins with an awakening question, and ends with a wonderful sentence full of warning.

The contents of the Surah can be divided into several parts:

The question that is stated in the first verse about the

“Great News” /naba’-in-`ażim/
or the Hereafter.

Examples of the types of Divine Power in the Heavens and on Earth, and also of men’s lives and their gifts as evidences to the possibility of the Resurrection and the Hereafter.

Preliminary signs of the Resurrection.

Reference to the painful chastisement of the transgressors.

The encouraging gifts and blessings of Heaven.

Finally, the Surah ends with some intensive warnings about the dreadful punishment, and then, the sad destiny of the Unbelievers.

The name of the Surah, Nabaa, is taken from its second verse, but sometimes it is called /’amma/ which is the first word in the first verse.

The Virtue In Studying Surah Nabaa
There is a tradition from the Prophet (S) which says:

“He who studies Surah Nabaa will be satiated, by Allah, with a cold drink in Heaven”.1

Another tradition from Imam Sadiq says:

“He who continues studying Surah Nabaa, everyday, will meet the Holy Shrine at Mecca (Kaaba) before the year ends”.2

Again, another tradition from the Prophet (S) says:

“He who studies it (Surah Nabaa) and learns it by heart, on the Day of Judgment, his reckoning will be concluded (so quickly) equal to the same length of time it takes to say a single prayer”.

www.al-islam.org

30. Cüz

78 - Nebe Sûresi - en-Nebe - سُورَةُ النَّبَأِ النَّبَأ - Sūrat al-Nabāʾ - Hafız Osman Şahin

in a garden
she is gazing
at an apple

she is naked
doesn’t realize
and she wonders

in the sun
asking:

“Listen honey,
would you like some
just between us?”

perilous
picnic

she don’t worry 
she can take the heat
Mother Courage
ends up in the street

east of eden
she is toiling
for her children

fearless love
wisdom
mama’s love
wisdom

fearless love
wisdom
mama’s love
wisdom

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks to Janine Levinson, Cheesemont Paisely-Paisely, and Wheelwright for early listening, support, and ace suggestions.

image by Ray Shrewsberry via Unsplash

3rd Canticle (Bright Saturday)

Support the label: https://sfrec.bandcamp.com/album/melodies-for-uncertain-futures 

Release Name: Melodies For Uncertain Futures
Track Title: Cybernetic Canticle
Artist: Ethereal Structure
Label: SF Records
Catalog: SFREC011
Release Date: 21.06.2024
Format: Digital release
Mastering: SR Audio
Artwork: RES

Tracklist: 
1. Future Frequencies
2. Future Frequencies (Lewis Fautzi Remix)
3. Cybernetic Canticle
4. Quantum Serenade
5. Quantum Serenade (Tauceti Remix)

Follow the artist:
https://soundcloud.com/etherealstructure

Follow the label: 
https://soundcloud.com/sfrecfr

▪▪▪

Merciless is to support labels, upcoming/emerging artists from the techno scene. Please, don't rip the tunes, with respect to the artists and labels.

Contact email for premieres: nomercymusicbusiness@gmail.com

PREMIERE | Ethereal Structure - Cybernetic Canticle [SF Records]

This is a modern, versified version of the original text by St Francis of Assisi, written in medieval Italian 800 years ago, in 1225. As a great mystic, St Francis calls all of nature to praise God: the sun, the moon, the wind, the fire, the water, the stars and the earth are our brothers and sisters, praising God with their natural virtues. I closely followed the English translation published by the Franciscan Fathers on their website (https://franciscanfriarscresson.org/the-canticle-of-the-sun/ ). Still, I have made it more musical and more accessible to memorise, with rhymes and cadences. The Canticle of Brother Sun is a simple and precious prayer that deserves to be memorised and kept in mind because praising God with all his creatures is always timely and appropriate. This modernised version is a passionate rendition that I hope will inspire you. Listen to it with me in prayer, and leave a comment to let me know what you think.

This adaptation and rendition of the text Gabriel Porras
Programme voiced, recorded and produced by Gabriel Porras at www.gabrielvoice.com and www.radiantwhispers.com

Music: Pneuma, by Adrian Disch, at musicbed.com. Used with license.
Cover created by Ricardo Gil, ricardo@scrav.com

Listen to more prayers like this and other important stories and topics at www.radiantwhispers.com

Please support me by subscribing, commenting and sharing this content with others.

Pneuma

Canticle Of Brother Sun, by St Francis of Assisi

Selah V

Music

Bless the Lord (Melismatic)

This morning meditation is a call to action for you to choose and reinforce your excellent and healthy intention and purpose for the day. It's a proactive step to take before the inertia of the day sets in and derails your plans. Our days are often hijacked by distractions and demands, causing us to lose sight of our true selves and our desired path. But with a little persistent attention, we can turn even the most ordinary days into something extraordinary. Let's make today, and every day, an extraordinary day!

The original text was written by Gabriel Porras and inspired by Lauren Brollier Newton's Intention Setting Meditation.

Credits:
The show was written, presented, and produced by Gabriel Porras for radianwhispers.com. 

Music:
Meditation Relaxing and Chill, by Yurii Kohut on Pixabay. Used under licence. 

Cover artwork by Ricardo Gil, ricardo@scrav.com
Photo: Landscape Nature Lake, by Kanenori on Pixabay. Used under licence. 

Share this material with anyone who might benefit. Leave a comment and subscribe to the channel to help me reach more people like you. Thanks for starting your day with me!

Meditation Relaxing and Chill

Today, I woke up with the gift of this day

4. The Canticle of Mary - Responding to Our Vocation - Fr. Michael Flowers 12.22.24

As with other duets on our record https://peacocks-tale.bandcamp.com/album/the-english-civil-wars-and-other-nursery-crimes, the idea of this 'canticle' is to dramatise in counterpointed melodies the conflict of two Englands.

Statues like any work of art can capture something divine in time and preserve it there. 
Banbury was famous for its rich stone mediaeval crosses on its steep hill. Also for its 16C Puritan zealots (its football team is still nicknamed 'The Puritans', a name doubtless dreamed up in a pub.) During the Civil War, Banbury MP Sir Anthony Cope led 150 men to destroy the crosses and Puritans also gave thanks to God, when the church spire fell, that 'their god Dagon is fallen to the ground'.

'She shall have music wherever she goes' is a reference to High Church music. There was a Puritan music but it tended to emphasise simplicity and sincerity over decoration, the word leading the sound, the emphasis more on meaning than on ravishing the senses and, as for dance music and secular festival, well, one Cavalier joke was that Puritans banned conjugal relations standing up because it might lead to dancing.

In the Puritans' defence, Court music, art and and theatre under Charles I had become cavalierly indulgent in every way, in its bid to ape the sumptuous French court and Charles wanted to overtax an already stretched country to pay for it. Cromwell was a generous patron of music during the Republic and his fellow Puritan John Milton's father had been a chorister at Oxford and it has been noted how big a debt the music of (blind) Milton's words owed to his father's musical compositions. The Restoration had Purcell whose glorious music definitely revels in the new Royalist freedoms but the Lutheran tradition did no harm to Bach.

Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross:
A fine lady upon a white horse.
With rings on her fingers and bells on her toes,
She shall have music wherever she goes.

Cope's Puritans smashed up as idolatrous
Banbury's rich High, White and Bread Cross.
'Painted Church with her robes, rings and bells was a Whore,
The less Babylon she, our Bethlehem more.'

The first verse is the traditional nursery rhyme As I Was Going To Charing Cross ; the second a summary of the apocalyptic events supposed to have occurred around the king's execution, arranged in the same pattern.The counterpointed melodies of the third verse repeat the dramatisation of an England at war with itself.

The country was as divided about the execution as it was about everything else. The official hangman Richard Brandon refused the job of chopping off the Head of State. Many Parliamentarians devoutly believed they were doing God's work but only 57 MPs shared Cromwell's determination to see it through in this case. The nursery rhymes and the events reported suggest there were mixed reactions in the audience too but also that it was a solemn, deeply shocking and uncomfortable occasion.

Charles died well and his stubborn conviction that there was divinity hedging about a king sanctified in royal eyes all his double dealing with mortals while Van Djyk's superb painting (the Good King Charles Interpretation of History) helped to make the 'Evil Necessity' Cromwell lamented seem pretty much the Death of Christ to others.


As I was going by Charing Cross:
A black man upon a black horse.
They told me it was King Charles the First.
Oh dear, my heart was ready to burst.

From the skies above Whitehall there tumbled a star:
Dover beached a whale the same hour.
'A death fit for a king,' a tearless man scoffed,
Whose eyes the crows pecked, from his round head, aloft.

youtu.be/rKDIJGQYUAY

English Civil War Nursery Crimes

The Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55): "The Almighty has Done Great Things for Me"

Cor Unum Artists
Paul Jernberg, Composer and Conductor
Cantor: Sarah Yanovitch

Recorded at St. John the Evangelist Church
Clinton, Massachusetts
June 23, 2025

Audio engineer: Joel Conrad


The Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55): "The Almighty has Done Great Things for Me"

A marriage (and we are actually married, 45 years so far) of melody and rhythm. We do folk, indie, Americana, Norfolk noir, beat poems &  ghazals. Traditional tunes with contemporary beats. Music videos  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb8wV0-DNiFs1R5G2VSytBQ
Maz lead & harmony vocals, acoustic guitar. Gaz vocals, voice, bass, drums & percussion, harmonium, recorders, lyre harp, field recordings.

A laboratory with an open bar and floating altar. Come on in! 

Here are various solo and collaborative projects - songs, soundscapes, live looped solo guitar improvisations. 

This project used to be called "imaginary friends", but it became too real for that name, as did many of you.

I hope you enjoy something you find here. Do feel free to be in touch, you never know what might happen.  

I also invite you to attend @hypnopompetus, a duo project with the illustrious Cheesemont Paisley-Paisley https://soundcloud.com/sel-sync, and Fictive Sisters, a transatlantic band with  the incomparable Wheelwright https://fictivesisters.bandcamp.com/album/immaculate-distraction.

"To ask ‘Who am I ?’ is the same as to ask ‘What is death?’… ‘Me’… The entire life consists of series of events which we live to answer this question!.." Salih Mirzabeyoğlu

Weekly Sermons from St. Aidan's Anglican Church. We are a member of the ACNA (Anglican Church of North America. We are in the Anglican Diocese of the Upper Midwest. Visit us in person and check out our website at www.staidanskc.org.

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Merciless is a platform devoted to avant-garde underground electronic music.

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All we have to comfort, guide us and sustain us in this straggling path called life are the radiant whispers that we grasp as a distant “sunrise of wonder” in our spiritual practice, in great works of literature, music, art, and in nature and blue skies. These are the Radiant Whispers. That's what this podcast is about. We will talk about culture and society, about ancient and modern history, literature and art with dramatized readings of poetry, fables, theatre, novels and stories. Subscribe -let's find radiant whispers everywhere.

New tracks tagged #Canticle