Ammar Alshukry – Lessons from Surat Al-Kahf
AI: Summary ©
The importance of Allah's guidance and forgiveness is highlighted in Salallahu alaihi wa sallam, as it provides insight into Allah's use of young people to cause fear and distraction. The power of the heart to lead to success is emphasized, along with the need for steadfastness of the heart to believe in promises. The speaker also discusses the importance of optimism in the heart to lead to success and the need for people to trust Allah Subhanahu Wa te'ala. The promise of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is not tied to a time span, but rather a timing of Islam's implementation. upcoming events and talks about the importance of having steadfastness with Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala are also mentioned.
AI: Summary ©
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.