Four Lessons from Surah Kahf | YQGems | Shaykh Dr. Yasir Qadhi

of course a a very very uh well known surah we are commanded to read uh surah till every single week while the prophet salallahu encouraged us uh to read it every week in one hadith he said whoever reads it every friday shall have a light shining uh from him to the next friday and we are also told that whoever memorizes the first ten verses of surat al-qahaf they will act as a protection from uh the dajjal or the antichrist and as i mentioned surat al-kahf is one of the earliest revelations again we can say maybe around the third or the fourth year of the of the preaching of islam so it's one of the earliest revelations and uh free plug here uh that i've written my latest book that has come out is in fact the lessons from surat al-khaf this came out i think two three months ago and is published by kubi publication so i'm it's just being sold right now in the market so this whole lecture is just a summary of this book uh which is i also have an online series about surat al-kahf as well so a quick summary of surat al-qahaf surat al-kaff is called to have because of the cave the story of the cave and in fact has four stories in it and all of these four stories they revolve around a theme or around a persecution the first of these four stories is the persecution for the sake of religion that a group of young men were persecuted by their peoples and they found shelter in a cave and hence the surah it is like the shelter that we turn to when we are being persecuted the entire surah is about protection from persecution the first protection is protection that when we're being persecuted for the sake of religion uh the second is the the fitna or the temptation of money what to do when we are being tempted with money the third is the potential problem of knowledge when it does not uh have a positive impact and knowledge that should cause us to be humble and so the fitnah of knowledge and then the fourth is the fitna or the test or the protection from power and we are given role models and examples and we are told about all of these four things so the fitna for the sake of religious persecution the fitna of wealth the fitna of knowledge and the fitnah of power and whoever is tested with any of these four should overcome it by entering the cave of surat and that is why the jar will come and the jar will have all of these things and he will be testing and trying and and and inflicting trials and therefore by reciting surah qaf we will be protected from uh the fitna of the therefore dear muslims before i move on make sure that you memorize the first ten verses of surat al-kahf because you want to be protected from ad-dajjal our prophet salallahu said that whoever amongst you sees that the judge may allah protect us we don't want to see him the antichrist let him recite the first 10 verses of surah and he shall be protected from the jad so go ahead and memorize this literally one paragraph one and a half paragraphs memorize the first ten verses of surat al-kihab so that that acts as a protection for us against the the judge and by the way once you start go ahead and finish up the surah as well insha'allah so let's now um summarize this surah the first story is of course the famous story of the seven uh sleeper sleepers of the cave and there's a lot of you know legends about where they are they say it is ephesus in the modern land of turkey it doesn't really matter you know we have to also uh careful here that listen linking these ancient quranic stories to particular geographic locations i mean it's maybe inquisitively fun or curious or what not but our iman should not be based upon these legends where they are found it doesn't matter if somebody says oh i have it here no our iman is based on what the quran says not on historical you know legends that might be true if somebody says oh there's a place in jordan another says oh there's a place in iraq and others says oh there's this in turkey you know what allah knows where it is we are not 100 certain what is more important is that we know it happened the quran tells us it happened and to link the location or not allah knows best anywhere it is or not most likely by the way these were seven christians who believed in jesus christ and they were being persecuted by the pagans of their time frame and if you know your christian history so christianity spreads slowly especially in the first 400 years of the after jesus christ and so these seven converts to christianity they were the only converts and their peoples were pagan so they entered the cave and then after 300 years they were sleeping as the story says and i'm assuming you've returned for today's lecture when they come outside their people have all converted to christianity and so they are no longer being persecuted and so they discover that they have slept for 300 years now in this story and again i'm assuming all of you have read surah telekas i'm going to be extracting lessons like we did for surah yusuf in this story we learn that when we are persecute when we are when people become religious when people turn to allah subhanahu wa generally speaking there is a cost to be paid in terms of this world generally speaking religiosity comes with some negativity in society that people at the very least will make fun of you will find you to be strange maybe worse than this in some lands uh people are very islamophobic in other lands they're actually may allah protect all the muslims but they're trying to kill or to trying to ban or doing other things of this nature people are being forced to to flee and this shows us as well that fleeing for the sake of allah migrating for the sake of allah is something that is very praiseworthy and in fact our books of of islamic law mention that it becomes obligatory if two conditions are met that firstly you cannot fulfill your basic requirements of prayer and of rituals and of avoiding major sins you're forced to not pray you're forced to do commit haram and secondly you have the means and the freedom and the capacity and the financial means to migrate from one land to another where you can worship allah sometimes peoples don't have those freedoms to even leave their lands they're literally being persecuted and being locked up and chained we ask allah to protect them so if either of these two conditions is not met then it is not might it is not obligatory to migrate to another land however if both of these conditions are met i.e physical persecution in the first category in the second category the means both political and economic to go to another land then it is not allowed to remain in a place where people are forcing you to worship other than allah where people are forcing you to commit major sins otherwise if these two are not met then it is allowed to live anywhere in the world if you're allowed to practice your faith and that's another longer topic so these seven young men they were fleeing for their lives they were being persecuted by their peoples and they took shelter in a cave and then of course they woke up after 300 years allah azzawajal bless them with a very very long sleep to protect them and so even allah's blessing with sleep can be a means of protection and miracle within the story as well by the way is a very interesting warning and that warning is to not speak without knowledge to not uh discuss matters that are frivolous in nature so allah says that don't debate what number were they and how many years they live don't debate with other people about these frivolous issues because there's no benefit of debating that which is of no value to you and this is an indication for us that the muslim is wise in what he chooses to discuss and what he chooses to debate and frankly how much of our social interaction and how much of our conversations are really just a waste of time and allah is telling our prophet don't waste your time engaging in these discussions also in this section we learn some of the etiquettes of speech so for example allah says don't say that if you're going to do something tomorrow don't just say i i'm going to do that tomorrow without saying that adding on to it that insha allahu ta'ala i'm going to do something tomorrow and this is a very simple etiquette that actually has a huge theological linkage and that is that we should be cognizant of every word that we say and we need to be careful that anything that we say does not infringe on the or the power of allah we should always be monitoring what we are saying and there are many examples of this so when i say i'm going to do something tomorrow how do i know that that's going to happen we should be optimistic and we should be humble and we should say i will do that tomorrow insha'allah i will take up that project next month insha allahu ta'ala anything to do with the future of this world that we that we have a plan that we're going to do we should say if allah wills then that will happen also there are many other examples of this nature by the way as well about monitoring your phrases for example one of the sahaba it is uh um authentically narrated that uh he was teaching us and and the gist of this goes back to our prophet sallallahu alaihi but what i'm about to tell you is coming from a companion that he told us to monitor what we say about about ascribing independent power to other than allah so for example phrases like oh i was sick and i went to the doctor and he cured me we should not say that it is not i mean obviously it's i'm not saying it's like harambe thinks it goes against the etiquette of the muslim to say the doctor cured me rather we should say i was sick i visited the doctor and then allah blessed me to be cured you know by uh you know the the prescription that the doctor gave me so you link the cure to allah and then you say yes you know the doctor's knowledge and whatnot allah blessed me to benefit from that but it was allah subhanahu wa who cured so we just the phrases that we use we have to be careful and this verse in the quran it reminds us of that and all of this goes back by the way to the concept of of being conscious of allah constantly the story finishes with a beautiful reminder that persecution should never be done verse 29 that allah says the truth is from allah whoever wants to believe can believe and whoever wants to reject can reject but their consequences for rejecting and there are rewards for believing so after talking about some muslims being persecuted allah says look truth is clear from error and whoever wants to believe you cannot force people into believing you cannot you know shove islam down people's throats you just have to preach and teach and the rest is up to them and allah azzawajal will then decide and each person has to be responsible for the decisions that they make the next story in surah tilkaf is the story of the man with two gardens and uh the the brother or the companion some say they were two brothers some say there were two cousins some say there were two friends that one of them was righteous and he didn't have that much wealth and the other one was not righteous and he had plenty of wealth and again so many benefits verses 32 to 45. of the benefits of this uh of this story we see the dangers of pride the dangers of self-conceit and look how how shallow this person sounds that when he enters his garden and he's boasting and arrogant and allah describes him he entered his garden and he thought he's all high and mighty in reality he is doing volume he is doing injustice to himself do you think o arrogant one that you have actually established your nobility by your narcissistic boasts by your grandeurs of delusion you're only wronging yourself how vain how narcissistic and subhanallah you know one thing that even people who don't or they're not muslims who don't have faith it doesn't matter when a person is boastful of their wealth society cringes when a person is flaunting what they have even a per it's not a matter it's a matter of just common sense and dignity a person does not like this arrogance and pride and allah says that he entered his garden and he was doing injustice to himself and another problem that happened is that his wealth blinded him he fell in love with his wealth and his world and this world so much that he lost track that there is going to be hereafter and he said i don't think that there shall be a day of judgment that i don't think this is ever going to finish what i have right now is going to last forever and this is another problem that you get caught up in the pleasures of what you have you get caught up in the moment so much so that in your arrogance you're like yeah who needs a hereafter there is no point and subhanallah have you lost track of reality that nobody lives forever have you lost track of the reality of death that not a single soul shall live forever every single entity is going to die and so this person he became so deluded in the pleasures of that one moment to see his massive garden and he probably had a beautiful house and all of the treasures that he had that were there and he became so confident that he said who needs a hereafter and then he made yet another problem that once he felt that he had so much wealth he thought that this blessing indicated that allah was happy at him and we already mentioned earlier in this episode that this world is given to both those whom allah loves and those who allah does not love we already mentioned this but he felt and this is the icing on the cake of his pompousness right he felt even if i shall go back to allah i will find something even better with allah he assumed that because he was blessed with wealth that allah was happy with him and this is another major error that this person made wealth in and of itself does not indicate allah's happiness it's what you do with it if you treat it if you earn it through and you spend it on halal then yes indeed wealth is one of the best gifts of allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala however if you earn it through haram or you spend it on haram then woe to you and then again woe to you so be careful about assuming this if a person has wealth also we learn here that not being thankful to allah is the seed that sprouts the evil fruit of kufur because his companion said to him have you committed kufar with the one who created you even though he did not deny allah's existence but kufur here means ungrateful are you that ungrateful to allah that you will not even thank allah he felt that he didn't need to humble himself in front of allah so we learned from this surah as well that one of the main ways to thank allah as the muslim said to this arrogant person why didn't you say when you entered your garden why didn't you first and foremost ascribe this to allah this is from allah's mashiach allah's will i did this isn't from me that i got it allah gave it to me there is no power that could have given me this other than allah and subhanallah again we really see this that at the end of the story all of his wealth is destroyed in a millisecond just in a minute he sees everything destroyed and he is wringing his hands in shame and in completely aghast what can i do now and subhanallah is there not a lesson for us in this pandemic in this covet crisis that within a day everything can shut down as allah did to this person as well so we need to be thankful to allah we need to be humbling ourselves in front of allah subhanahu wa and not take what we have for granted like that person in the story did and at the end of the story we are reminded both of the temporary nature of this world and the accountability that we will have in the next world where all of our days will be presented back to us in a book and by the way both with israel and surah have they mentioned this book by the very interesting that the book is going to be brought out and the sinners will see in the sinners will see every single deed that they have ever done and they will cry out what is what type of book is this not a single deed large or small except that the book has recorded it and in this section as well verse 45 to 46 allah mentions again give them the example of this world it is like rain water that comes down and the plants of the earth absorb it but then within a while it becomes like debris like hay like the dust scattered by the wind and indeed allah has power over everything verse 46 [Music] wealth and children they are the beauty of this world nobody is denying that it makes life living it makes life worth living wealth and family it's so peaceful to have it's so great to have and in and of itself it is nothing wrong to enjoy and to benefit but then allah says but the good deeds that last forever money does not last forever children do not last forever what lasts forever the good deeds that you last forever one of the companions said you know what those good deeds are subhanallah is one of those good deeds in other words simply saying subhanallah it is more beneficial than all the money you have because one subhanallah will last forever and no matter how much money you have it will be given to somebody as soon as you die you will not have it forever so allah is saying wealth and family are good they make life beautiful nothing wrong with that but you really know what is the best thing it is the good deeds that you do and if you use your wealth and money to do those good deeds well then subhanallah what better can you want and this is the goal of the muslim what a beautiful religion we have there's nothing wrong with being wealthy there's nothing wrong with having a large and loving family in fact we should have large and loving families there's something wrong with it but we link these things to the worship of allah and we utilize these blessings for the worship and also we use them to come closer to allah with what he has given us and so in this verse we are once again told of the reality of uh the pleasures of this world and of the uh blessings that allah subhanahu wa gives us fire wealth and via children uh from the next section we get to the story of musa and from verse 60 to 82 musa and there's a lot of legends by the way and a lot of mythical tales that really we just have to nip in the bud is not some you know superhuman ghost that comes here and there is a mortal he is a human being he is he was a prophet whom allah subhanahu wa ta'ala sent to another nation and he lived and he died this notion that is still around and people see him on and off you know our religion is not based upon these mythical fable tells our religion is based upon the quran and what our prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam told us and from what we learned from the texts and we derived them from the text there was a prophet of allah contemporaneous to musa he had knowledge and musa had knowledge he had a status and musa had a status and musa spends some time with and the story of only occurs in this section of the quran he is not referenced anywhere else in the quran so what are some of the the wisdoms we can extract from this story of musa and a number of things first and foremost the humility of musa musa despite the fact that he was the one whom allah spoke with that allah chose him that allah granted him so many miracles despite all of that when he found out that there was another person who knew something he did not know so he asked allah permission can i go and accompany him and this shows us that to gain knowledge you really must accompany somebody because knowledge is not just found in books and in online lectures yes it is we if and when there's no alternative then obviously we will read and we will study online and whatnot but to really become a bona fide scholar to become an actual adam really you need to study at the feet of another adam because knowledge isn't just what is found in the books it is also in the accompanying a person and seeing the adap and the etiquettes and musa did this with we also see you have to have humility the humility of musa to learn from another person even though he was so blessed by allah this shows us dear muslim no one should ever be too arrogant to learn something new from anyone every single person whom you meet has something to teach you every human being can benefit you in some way if you are humble enough to listen can you imagine how knowledgeable you would become if you benefited from every person you ever encountered so subhanallah we learned this from musa and in the three stories of musa again there's so much wisdom we just have to quickly summarize this that of the blessings that we gain of the three encounters of musa of the blessings is that a temporary calamity is always a blessing in disguise if you have faith in allah the fisherman's boat was bored with a hole that put a hole in the boat and the fishermen were irritated they were frustrated and yet because of that it was a calamity because of that they were saved from a much larger calamity and that is the confiscation of the boats by the king we also learn in these three stories the story of the boy that when allah azzawajal takes someone or something away that allah substitutes someone or something better in its place and this is again very explicit in the quran that yesterday yesterday wanted to substitute so when allah takes something away and you are patient allah will give you something or someone either a concept or an idea or entity or person or some blessing that is better for you even if you don't see it or don't recognize it then what has been taken away and we also learned from these three stories that when our duas are delayed when we don't get what we want that there is divine wisdom in that delay imagine this uh the the orphans with their widowed mother uh their mother is all alone she has orphans and the treasure is buried under the wall as the story says and they were not given that treasure right then and there it was delayed another decade or two until these young orphans became young men and subhanallah then they got the money can you imagine the lady the widow is making dua to allah i need money oh allah i need money allah and she's not getting any money and if she had gotten the money at that stage these evil townspeople who didn't even give musa and a glass of water do you think that they would have allowed the orphans to get their their money no allah gave them what they needed when they needed it we learned from the story that allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala knows when to give us what we need we might think we need something right now and allah knows now is not the time for us so yes we make dua we don't stop making dua we make dua we make dua make dua but deep down inside we also recognize and know that look there must be a divine wisdom whatever is happening is happening for a higher purpose and uh the next story to find the the final story of this surah is the story of from verse 83 to 100 the story of name and the story of the quran of course a lot of discussion who is what and you know what is his reality and again i mean there are theories out there uh some say alexander but academically speaking it does not seem to be alexander the great because alexander uh was a person who was not a muslim and the was a righteous king others have posited a king by the name of darius and there seems to be some some possibilities that it might be uh darius and allah knows best in the end of the day you know it's interesting and no problem we have a nice discussion and go into details but in the end of the day we really don't know who this person was and that's not the point of the story that we link him to a particular historical character the point of the story is to extract the moral uh blessings and the wisdom and the story of the quran as a powerful king who acted in a just manner he was tested with multiple responsibilities and he had the opportunity to act unjustly but he did not act unjustly so when he lived up to his responsibilities when he acted in an ethical fashion when he acted with justice allah subhanahu wa ta'ala blessed and honored him and allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allowed him to trap the evil tribes of and ma juju and he was forever people forever grateful and thankful to him and this shows us that when we live up to now maybe we are not going to be kings in this lifetime but every one of us without exception we have a role of responsibility we have people that we're in charge of we have people that you know we are in charge of their affairs whether it's even taking care of our children whatever it is and what we learn from this when we act justly when we recognize that allah azzawajal is going to hold us accountable for what we do then allah azzawajal will bless us in what we have done and he will give us opportunities to shine so when he acted in a just manner allah blessed him with something that he was remembered for for many many generations and then the quran came to praise him for and this entire surah surah it reminds us that life is a test and that we shall be tested in many different ways and that in order to pass this test we're going to have to face up to different types of challenges and of those challenges as we've already mentioned sometimes we'll be persecuted for our religion and whoever is made fun of for the religion whoever is persecuted physically for their religion realize that you are walking on a very noble path that is the path of the prophets that allah has chosen you to follow the paths of the prophets and so make sure you start acting as much as you can the way that the prophets taught you to act some people are tested with wealth and that is one of the biggest tests of this world our prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam said every ummah has one test that they are especially tested with and the fitna or the testing of my ummah shall primarily be through money through wealth so wealth is a major test for us and how many are the people who will fail that test we don't want to be amongst those people the story of the the the garden the man with the two guardians is a stark wake-up call that we should not let our wealth delude us we should not be dazzled by this world and all that it has to offer it is but a temporary fleeting pleasure and the real heart are with allah some people are tested with knowledge and some people sometimes their knowledge and makes them act in an arrogant fashion makes them act in a manner that is not befitting and we seek refuge in that other people are tested with power and they might do things that are unethical that are immoral that will be abusive to people because of their power and as i said this applies in every situation where you have authority over another person so all of this life is a test and surah al-kahf reminds us that we need to thank allah for our blessings humble ourselves in front of him that there is accountability there is going to be a day of judgment there is going to be a book that mentions all of this and we need to appreciate and say masha'allah and seek refuge in allah anytime we are faced with such issues and trials and the surah concludes on with some very uh powerful uh verses uh verse 107 to 110 in those who believe and they do righteous deeds that uh khan atlahum jannatul they shall have not just any jannah the highest jannat of the highest jannat as a place of abode they shall be inferdos forever and ever and ever they will have no desire to leave when you're inferdos why would you want to leave we want to aim for those and allah is reminding us of that and then allah says say if the ocean were ink for the words of allah then the ocean would run out and dry before the words of allah finish meaning the knowledge of allah and the speech of allah is infinite even if we added a whole other oceans to it it was still run out and then ends with one of the most simplest and profound verses in the whole quran really it summarizes everything announced to mankind i am but a human like all of you i am not superhuman i am not divine i'm not an angel i'm a human like all of you famine whoever wants to meet their lord whoever wants to meet allah and and be happy at that meeting excuse me i forgot the phrase i have been inspired that your god is one so let me go back i am a human like unto you i have been inspired that your god is one so whoever wants to meet his lord let him work good deeds and let him not associate any partner with allah subhanahu wa look at this verse read it and look at the miracle of the quran this simple phrase it combines in the most elegant fashion what a beautiful verse this is all of it is summarized here and added as well is ikhlas or sincerity to allah this is the entire religion tawheed i have been inspired there's no god except allah resalah i am a man like you that has been inspired by allah and the akhirah whoever wants to meet islam what should he do that is our ethical norms and our values that is how we live our life and also be sincere to allah let him not worship let him not want to desire to show off or do things for other than allah this simple verse it is sim it is just so profound no human could ever have uttered it its elegance and simplicity the entire religion not just surah q have the entire religion is summarized in this verse and so let us remember our prophet salallahu as the one chosen by allah let us worship allah with sincerity let us follow to the best of our ability this divine book that uh that he has been gifted with and through him we have been gifted with and insha'allah we will continue tomorrow with the next two surahs surah and surah maryam until then jazakum foreign you

Channel: EPIC MASJID

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Keywords: East Plano Islamic Center, EPIC Masjid, East Plano Masjid, EPIC, Yasir Qadhi, Imam, Nadim Bashir, Ustadh, Baajour, Hafiz, Sajjad Gul, Allah, Quran, Islam

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Length: 32min 22sec (1942 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 23 2020