Qari Abdul Basit (ra) and the Communists: A Story of a Miracle of the Qur'an
By Hadhrat Shaykh Zulfiqar Ahmad
In 1987, Qari Abdul Basit was visiting America, the same Qari Abdul Basit whose cassettes of the Holy Quran have become famous. Someone asked him once if he had seen a miracle of the Holy Quran, to which Qari Abdul Basit said, "Just one miracle? I can relate thousands which I have seen with my own eyes." The man asked him to relate some, so Qari Abdul Basit started talking.
Qari Abdul Basit related an event from the time of Jamal Abdul Nasser, who was once the president of Egypt. Communism was at its height, and once while on tour of the Soviet Union, Nasser was pressured heavily to become a communist and thus spread the doctrine in his country. He was promised that the Soviet Union would make Egypt a technological giant if only Nasser would renounce Islam and introduce Communism as the state religion. Abdul Nasser politely refused and thus ended this particular tour. He reached home but was restless that he had not defended Islam as sufficiently as he should have because he was not knowledgeable enough.
Abdul Nasser was invited to the Soviet Union again after a few years, and so this time he requested Qari Abdul Basit to come to Moscow with him. Abdul Basit was surprised because he had never imagined that he would ever be required in the Soviet Union, a land whose government and people refused to acknowledge Allah.
On this occasion Jamal Abdul Nasser courageously introduced Qari Abdul Basit to the Soviet heads of state, telling them that he would recite the Holy Quran, the Book of Islam. Qari Abdul Basit closed his eyes and started reciting Surah Ta Ha, the same part of the Holy Quran that had made one of the worst enemies of Islam, Hadrat Umar ibn Khattab, bow to Islam.
Qari Abdul Basit opened his eyes and looked up after reciting two rukus, and he saw the miracle of the Holy Quran in front of his eyes. Four to five heads of the Communist Party were in tears. Jamal Abdul Nasser smiled and asked, "Why are you crying?" to which one of them replied, "We don't know. We haven't understood a word but there is something in this Quran that has melted our hearts and compelled us to cry. We don't know what has done this."
Qari Abdul Basit said that this was an amazing miracle that he saw in front of him. These were people who did not know the Glorious Quran; did not accept the Glorious Quran, and who could not understand the Glorious Quran, yet Allah was affecting their hearts through the recital of the Glorious Quran.
