Ammar Alshukry – Lessons from Surat Al-Kahf

All praises due to Allah. We seek his

guidance and his forgiveness, and we seek refuge

in Allah from the evil of ourselves and

the whispering of our desires whom Allah guides,

no one can misguide.

And whom He allows to be misled, no

one can guide. And I bear witness that

there is nothing worthy of worship except Allah

alone and having no partners.

And that Muhammad salallahu alaihi wa sallam is

His slave and His messenger and His perfect

worshiper.

To proceed,

we are encouraged by the Prophet salallahu alaihi

wa sallam every Friday to read Surat Al

Kahf.

And Surat Al Kahf is a chapter

that

details

4 stories.

It is a

chapter

that deals with the concept of fitna,

trials.

And the 4 stories that we read in

Surat Al Kahf reflect this notion of trials.

A person will be tried in their deed

like Ashaabul Kahf, or a person will be

tried in their money like Slahi Bul Janatein,

the command the owner of the 2 gardens,

or a person will be tried with regards

to knowledge even like Musa and the Khidr,

or a person will be tried

regarding power like Dhul Qarnain.

And so in this brief khutba, I wanted

to share just a few lessons

from Ashabul Kahf. This story that Allah subhanahu

wa ta'ala tells us that Rasulullah

salallahu alaihi wa sallam was asked about

about a group of people who came into

a cave. Their story was amazing. And

I don't have the time to go over

many gems, but I'll just share

insha'Allah 3 or 4, if time permits, 5.

But the first thing Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala

tells us that these people were persecuted and

they came to a cave. And Allah mentions

twice that they are a fiya.

That they are sorry. Fiya. Not a fiya

but fiya.

We

know fit. Allah says that they are young.

And the fact that they are young is

praise for them

because young people normally

are more distracted

with entertainment

and the frivolity of youth

than big picture questions.

Why are we here?

And why are our people worshiping idols?

Generally, young people are deluded by entertainment.

And so if you were to ask young

people about the newest singers, they would know.

The newest athletes, they would know. The newest

movies, they would know. The newest series, they

would know.

And so when Allah

is repeatedly calling them young, that is praise

for these young people that they separated from

the frivolity of their society.

Aminu bi rabbihim was itna umhuda. They believed

in Allah and we increased them in guidance.

But there is also praise for the companions

of Rasulullah salallahu alaihi wa sallam when the

surah was revealed in Mecca because the people

who are around the Rasulullah salallahu alaihi wa

sallam were also young, and young people change

the world in every time and place. And

we see even here in the United States

in the past couple of months,

after everything that has been happening with the

war on the people of Gaza, you saw

that the greatest national conversations were sparked not

by people in corporate offices and not by

politicians,

but by the young people, the students in

universities who are having encampments all over the

country and all over the world that were

causing

the discussion to be happening about divestments from

the Zionist state.

We

Allah says they were a young people who

believed in Allah.

So the first is the power that comes

with youth.

The second lesson

is Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says,

Allah says we strengthen their heart.

We strengthen their heart when they stood up

against their people. And they stood up, the

mufasirim said, a number of times. Number 1,

they stood up in front of the king

and they addressed the king for his idol

worship. And then they stood up to their

own families. And then they stood up in

the marketplace. And then they stood up when

they met each other in front of the

cave and they said,

Our Lord, the lord of the heavens and

the earth, we won't call upon other than

him. And so this idea that Allah

gives steadfastness and Allah

gives strength to people's hearts in their greatest

moments of difficulty and crisis.

And we see this word,

we see this phrase appear in a number

of other places in the Quran where we

see it before the battle of Badr, when

the Sahaba radiAllahu anhu are about to meet

the enemy for the first time and Allah

cast drowsiness

upon the companions. Instead of being nervous, Rex,

and and being incredibly anxious, Allah

put a calmness and a stillness on them

and made their hearts steadfast so much so

that their swords almost slipped out of their

hands.

And we see also with the mother of

Musa, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says in Surat

Al Qasas

Allah says

Allah

says, Allah says,

that when the basket that was placed in

the river went to the house of pharaoh

and firawn's

wife

captures

the son, the son of the woman or

Musa alaihis salaam.

And she says,

She says, this is a joy to me.

The mother of Musa put him in the

Nile river because she was afraid of him

ending up in the hands of Thrawn. And

Allah

sends that basket directly to the house of

Thrawn. That would cause anybody to panic.

But that's the plan of Allah Subhanahu Wa

Ta'ala.

And that's the ilm of Allah. And that's

the wisdom of Allah. And that's the power

of Allah. That he can make Musa grow

up in the very house that the mother

of Musa is afraid of and he will

be the most protected child in Egypt because

of it because Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala knows

what you do not know but Allah had

to give her heart steadfastness.

That she can be of those who believe.

And so you ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala

for steadfastness of your heart as you are

going through difficulty.

Number 1, steadfastness of the heart allows for

a person to believe in the deen.

Number 2, it allows for you to believe

in the promises of Allah. Allah subhanahu wa

ta'ala and his promise

and his prophet, they promised

that

that the end will always be for the

believers. No matter how dark it seems, no

matter how the entire world goes against the

believers, no matter how belittle the people are,

no matter how weak they are, Allah Subhanahu

Wa Ta'ala has promised

that our soldiers are going to be the

ones who win.

Allah

prescribed that I will win and my messengers

and everybody else will lose.

But you need steadfastness

of the heart to be able to believe

in the promise of Allah. A third

is

what the

people

say when they enter into the cave. They

say

They go into the cave

and they say,

enter into the cave, Allah will spread out

for you from his mercy.

They're entering into the cave.

It is a place that is dark.

It is a place that has no amenities.

It is a place that is constricted. It

is a place that has no heat. It

is a place that is cold. It is

a place that has nothing. But what are

they expecting to find? They're expecting to find

the mercy of Allah.

And that shows incredible optimism

that a person, even as they're entering into

the cave of their life, the cave of

oppression

or the cave of imprisonment

or the cave of grief or the cave

of poverty,

that a person has optimism in Allah.

That Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala because I know

that Allah is a rahman, that Allah Subhanahu

Wa Ta'ala will provide for me mercy from

where I don't expect. And we read in

Surat Al Kahf how Allah

dealt with them and gave them divine care

and how Allah

watched over them and protected them.

The 4th the third is optimism.

Having optimism in Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala when

you see how Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala deals

with the righteous.

But then the 4th, and this is the

last one, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala as you

know causes them to go to sleep for

100 of years, 309 years to be exact

and then he resurrects them. And Allah

specifically uses the word bath in their story

twice to indicate the resurrection that the Mushrikeen

of Makkah did not believe in. And Allah

then causes for them to be resurrected

and they come out and Allah says,

We cause them to interact with the people

of the town that they may come to

know that the promise of Allah subhanahu wa

ta'ala is true. For who to know that

the promise of Allah is true? For as

habulkath, that they recognize that the promise of

Allah is true. You see, they were a

people who fled

a society that was idolatrous

because

they knew that they did not have the

power to confront them.

They were going to be persecuted.

They said that if our people have power

over us, they're gonna stone us or they're

going to force us back into our religion.

And so they fled

to seek refuge in a cave.

But Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala caused them to

sleep for that period of time. And when

they came out, they found that that entire

society had become Muslim.

So that they may come to know that

the promise of Allah is true.

And I share this to you because the

promise of Allah is true.

And it may be that you are expecting

the promise of Allah to happen in 1

year or 2 years or 3 years or

4 years. But the promise of Allah

is not tied to your time span.

It is not tied to how you feel

it should pass.

It is tied to Allah

timing.

And these people,

they had to have an extended life period.

Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala caused them to die

for 300 years just so that they could

have the gift to witness that the promise

of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is true. And

so we believe that the promise of Allah

is true. We believe that Palestine will be

free. We believe that there will come a

time when the ummah of Muhammad salallahu alaihi

wa sallam will be led by the righteous

and not be led by the wicked. We

believe in a time Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala

says

that we will give establishment

to those who have been oppressed.

Those that have been established in the the

oppressed in the east and the west that

Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala will make them a

ima and he will make them of those

who inherit the land. That is a promise

of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Whether or not

it happens next year or the year after,

what we are required to do is to

believe in that promise, to have steadfastness with

Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, have rubbed of our

heart, and that we ask

Allah to grant us a worship of him

that he loves and that Allah

allow us to worship him as he loves

until the day we that we meet him

and that he makes the best of our

days the day that we meet him. We

ask Allah to allow us to hear the

speech and to follow the best of it.

We ask Allah

to grant freedom to our brothers and sisters

who are occupied in Palestine

and to bring

safety and security

to them. And we ask Allah

to relieve the bloodshed from the Muslims all

over the world, whether it be in Sudan

or whether it be the Uighurs in China

or whether it be our brothers and sisters

in Bangladesh. That Allah

bring stability to the Muslim world and that

Allah

guide us and guide our hearts and guide

us to the unity that he loves.

What's this for?

All the like for.

So shoulder to shoulder.

Leave no gaps.

Allahu Akbar.

Same

I have,

6 quick announcements inshallah to ask.

How's everybody doing?

So number 1, we have Sheikh from

Tajweed Institute with us. Please give him a

few minutes after the salah to address you

about the projects they're doing. So chef Mikael

is coming. Where is chef? Welcome.

So number 2, we have Friday night lights

today on I'll be doing

on the broken scales of justice.

Number 3, living the Quran in sister's class

with sister Rana

every Sunday at 9 on Zoom, 9 AM.

Please check our social media pages for the

Zoom link.