Bilal Philips – Tafseer – Surah Al-Kahf 08
AI: Summary ©
The speakers stress the importance of authentic sources in understanding the life of Prophet Muhammad wa sallam and choosing companions. They also discuss the use of "workaholic" in religious and political settings and avoiding "immature" in one's food and deeds. The speakers emphasize the need for caution and acceptance of one's religion in political life and emphasize the importance of avoiding "immature" in one's food and deeds. They also touch on the negative impact of socializing and protecting others' health.
AI: Summary ©
hamdulillah hirable alameen wa salatu salam ala rasulillah Karim. Allah Allah was hobby womanist. And listen to me Dean operates due to a law and realize Peace and blessings. We are his last prophet muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and an all those who follow the path of righteousness until the last day.
Could you just shift actually to the side of the room so those people who are coming late will not be having difficulty just come and fill up the side please.
Yeah, just so they have access to get in
hamdu Lillah wa salatu salam ala rasulillah
I in the previous session, and we are continuing to look at Surah Al calf the 18th chapter of the Quran. And we're still on the story of the
the youths who are in the cave.
We completed in the previous session verses 17 and 18.
And inshallah, we'll cover basically 19 and 20. In this session, still looking at the story of the youth
in 18, and 19, or 17 and 18, sorry,
a lie there describe the situation within the cave itself, what was the state of the they're
sleeping within the cave, he described certain miraculous things about the use in the cave, how the sun came into the cave,
how their bodies would shift from side to side. And we talked about the significance of that.
And that all of this were these different phenomena where from the signs of Allah subhanaw taala. We also mentioned that actually, in the case of Prophet Muhammad wa sallam in his own hedra, to Medina, there was the case of the cave, where he hid with Abu Bakar
on their way to Medina. And this was again, from a last month to Allah a number of different miracles took place in the course of their hedra to Medina, of course, there are some stories which are associated with the cave, like that of the spider
weaving its web over the front of the cave, this is fabricated, it's not authentic, or the story about some doves or something, birds at the entrance of the cave, this is also fabricated, this is not correct. There are other incidents which took place which are authentically reported. And this is why of course for us, when it comes to studying the life of Prophet Mohammed Salah It is important for us to get you know authentic sources, because unfortunately, we do have a lot of fairy tales circulating amongst us which we think are, you know, true stories about the prophets, I send them when in fact their fables.
Following that, that was verse 17, in verse 18,
a lot continue to describe their state where they appeared to those who may have come across the cave as being awake, and in fact, their state. Flipping from one side to the other turn your body's training like this, you know, was such a scary sight that anybody seeing them would have fled. And we talked about the fact that a law describes the dog there in the cave, you know, and normally we find that, as we said before, when a law describes stories in the Quran, he only mentions details which are important.
I mentioned before that if you compare the story of Prophet Yusuf, or Prophet Moses, or prophet Abraham in the Bible with that in the Quran, the Quran is a very small
record in comparison, maybe only a 10th of what is written in the Bible.
But what you'll find is that in that 10th everything mentioned has a particular message. There are clear lessons, the spiritual message
is loud and clear. Whereas in the biblical stories, they tend to be confused and hidden within a lot of unnecessary detail. So one would then question Why did the law speak about the dog? You know, the dog sitting in the mouth of the cave? You know, stretching it with its legs outstretched, what did we say last time? concerning the dog?
Well, they concluded that probably it was awake, because in the case of the use, they were sleeping, but in the case of the dog, it was awake, but there was something else. So what did we say? What is the significance of the dog have a law of mentioning the dog?
Well, no, we said they are alive, but something else What was it? That was something Why did I mean so what if the dog is alive,
still alive could have guarded them otherwise, I mean, the dog, I mean, their state was a scary state, the law said they people would have turned on not fled. There was another point that we mentioned. The point was that the dog
was preserved. The the Baraka, or the blessing, which had come on the use of the cave, so that they would live for some 300 plus years, in a state of sleep, that that Baraka encompassed even their dog.
And we said, the lesson which we drew from that was that
companionship of the righteous
brings good, that if you are in the presence of the righteous, good will come for the righteous that will include you. And we mentioned other references statements of the prophet SAW Selim, we talked about remember the, that he said, choose your companions? Well, the good companion is like the perfu merchant, remember, we went through and we spoke about that. So and we said on the other hand to it, it is also warning to choose your companions from wealth in the sense that we avoid bad companions, because an evil companion will also bring on us evil. You know, as I mentioned, that we should fear a fitna which would not only strike the evil amongst us, but if we are living amongst them then we
will be subject to it also.
So
that was the the other point that we mentioned with regards to the cave now going on to verse number 19. Okay, Danica bass now whom Leah TESSA lubaina, whom Allah call illumine home, come lobby's tomb Kala bisnar Yeoman Oba Leone Adora boom island will be mala beads tomb fabric, I had a comb, we wanted to come have E Ll Medina for lianzhou au has gotta Armen fell t can be risky men who Wailea tala tough well I Sharon become a Haida in the home in Haru Aleikum yo come Are you are you do comfy melotti him willing to flee who he then Aveda. And in that way, I raised them up again. So they questioned each other.
One of them asked, How long have you spent here the others answered, we are spent a day or a part of a day. And they declared, your Lord knows best how long you have spent. So send one of you with this silver money to the city to look for a place with the best food so that he may bring something to eat. He should however, be cautious and not let anyone be aware of us. For if they succeed in overpowering us, then surely they would stone us to death or force us back to their belief. And in that case, we would never be successful ever.
A point to note for those of you that have your notes there with you and following it from here, that the text says workaholic about us now whom and in that way we sent them or we raised them up again. And you will notice I'm consistently translating we as I and I explained that earlier as Jeff samina had mentioned, that this term we means I
it is what is known as the Royal we but it's not in common use in English today. And because of that I have avoided it to avoid confusion. Because you will find missionaries for example, coming to Muslims and saying well you know your God is not one
like you claim here he's calling himself we all the time, you know.
So you know this to avoid that confusion because this is this is a special Arabic construction. It exists in English, but it's so rarely used that
The mass of people don't know it. So really, it is not really an appropriate translation. And to avoid confusion, you notice that I will consistently use I. Unless we of course, there are certain cases where it's not referring to last month, Allah Himself, you know, but refer to the angels or something like this, then we'll use that plural. So, in verses 19, and 20, allow Here begins to describe the next phase of their story, which is awakening them. And the first he put them to sleep. And he says, work as Annika, and in the same way, in the same miraculous way in which he put them to sleep, he has miraculously brought them back, awake and alive. Because really, they're the miracle
of bringing them alive again, is even greater than the miracle of putting them to sleep, preserving their bodies for hundreds of years, centuries. Because if we think about it, there are a variety of different reasons why bodies have been preserved for hundreds of years, we can still see the mummies of the Egyptians, these are bodies preserved for 1000s of years, we can find
due to natural processes. A few years back, they found a caveman frozen in the, in the glaciers in the Alps. Right is a man from 50,000 years ago, his body frozen, they said his flesh was as if he just died today.
So preservation can come in a variety of different ways. You also find in in the dryness of the desert, people just dying on the desert and their bodies being preserved because the dryness takes any kind of
liquid from the body and just makes it like, you know, fossilize it almost right, so the bodies are preserved.
And, you know, for other reasons due to chemical composition of soil, etc. Occasionally, in different parts of the world, people end up digging up graves and finding bodies in there, as if they were just buried today.
It's not a common occurrence. But it does happen. I remember reading about cases of it happening in the Philippines and elsewhere, where due to the composition of the earth, the body may be preserved in that way. So the miracle now is really bringing them back to life. After hundreds of years in that state, that's the miracle. Because all the other cases, their dead bodies, anyhow, whether it's fossilized, whether it's dried up, whether it's frozen, they're dead, there's no life coming back to those bodies. So Allah then refer to this element of the of the miracle that he has also brought them back to life. So they question each other.
He goes on to say, the question each other, and this is the nature of people who sleep isn't it? When you get up your question, if you are sleeping, some other people are sleeping, you are going to ask each other well, you know how long you sleep for, or if there's somebody awake around you say and how long was asleep. Because once you enter into that state of sleep, you lose track of time.
You can go to sleep for 10 minutes, 15 minutes and think you slept for hours. You can sleep for four for what you thought to be 10 minutes, you know, and in fact, you were sleeping for hours you just woke up. So when you wake me up again, just now for I just went to sleep No, no, you've been sleeping for last two hours. You know, this is a common occurrence. So naturally, when Allah woke them back up, they questioned each other about how long they had spent there. And of course, because there was nobody external to them to give them accurate information, then basically they were guessing some of them said, a day or a part of a day.
And scholars of Tafseer, like occurred to be suggested that the reason why the youth came to that conclusion was because of the fact that they had entered in the cave in the morning. And when they were woken up, it was evening. So for them, it appeared like Well, were there for part of the day.
But others,
reflecting on it, knowing that really ultimately, we don't have any idea really how long we've been here. They said, Your Lord knows best how long we've spent here, right? putting it back to a law because really, they didn't have any means of determining of gauging how long they were asleep.
So this part of the text
addresses the issue of the passage of time, and there are a couple of points that we could deduce from it.
One besides the fact that people are not aware of time as it passes
When we are in the waking state, time seems to go
over a long period. When we're in the sleeping state, it seems to pass quickly.
We find that those people who are raised up for the judgment and they are asked themselves, how long were they in the world? They gave the same answer as these use in the cave. We find in Surah me noon, it's 23rd chapter verses 112 113 qualicum levy lobbies tomb fill out the other day seen in hollow lobbies now Yeoman obala, Yeoman. First Anil add Dean. He will say it's Allah will ask them, What number of years did you spend on the earth? They will reply we stayed for a day or a part of a day. As those who keep account
our life on this earth
will seem like a day or a part of a day.
And truly, when we look back in the past, now, you know, we've reached 30s 40s 50s 60s, we look back,
it seems like hey, just a minute ago, we were kids, right? Of course for the kids, they're just looking ahead since like a long way before they get to the grandpa or dad or whatever. But for us looking back, it seems like it was just,
you know, a flash.
And
this is something that we should reflect on from the perspective that
the Quran talks about this passage of time, the quick passage of time in a number of places
for us to reflect on the passage of time. The prophet SAW solemn, had said as reported by Edna bass near mahtani, mas Boonen Fie maka theorem in anass, a Suharto, one frog there are two things about which many people are fooled health and spare time.
There are two things about which many people are fooled health and spare time.
This is a warning This is a
note that the prophets of Salaam has passed on to us
where this is Satan. Actually the term fool here is also cheated Mark Boone it means cheated, really cheating in terms of business, you know, you're cheated out of something the same term as us Mike Boone, that we are tricked and cheated by Satan out of using our health and our spare time wisely.
Instead of using it to worship a law to do righteous deeds, you know, we talk about time to kill, right? I got some time to kill you know, let's go do this. Let's go do that.
Time to blow just to the waste. Just do something silly. Have no account. Really. This is a mistake. It should not be a part of our thinking, if not bias. It also narrated the prophet SAW Selim had advised the man saying extending comes and kubla humps, Shabaab back kubla harmik.
Attack kubla Sokka MC. Well, Hina ak oblah Patrick?
Well, for all Heck, above shivalik. Higher tech problematic. Take advantage of five before five.
You're used before your old age, your health before your illness, your wealth before your poverty, your spare time before you become busy. And your life before your death.
Take advantage of five before five.
Your youth before your old age,
your health before your illness, your wealth before your poverty, your spare time before you become busy and your life before your death.
This is
a very important message that we all should reflect on. We always think that there is time there's time to do it all this relates back to time really use because there's time you're not old yet. You know there's still time. We talked before about people saying don't make hogenakkal remember? No, because you're still young and doing a lot of bad deeds. So wait until you get older later on. Then you go on
Make hedge clean things up. No mistake. If you're conscious now you have to do what is right now. Because the time doesn't come back that use every day of your youth is gone. There's no bringing it back. You can't say, you know, okay, let me do it that over again. There's no doing it over, the day is gone, the time has gone, the hour is gone. That's it, it's not coming back. Similarly, your health, you know, again, people leave hygiene until old age, but what happens is that
when you reach 7075 80, you want to go and make Hajj them. Hajj is not like making hedge when you're in your teens, you're 18, you're 2025 you can go there, get through that had your stoning and do everything, you know, you come through, you're smiling, when you're 75 or 80, trying to do that same hedge is a major operation, you know,
great difficulty. So what could have been done easily pleasing to Allah, you know, etc, becomes something which is, you know, a great burden, a great struggle. So, and similarly with other acts of worship, you know, all of our, you know, supererogatory acts of worship, you're young, you have health, you know, kneeling, prostrating, all these things are easy. Once you get older people who got chairs in the masjid, they have to be sitting on chairs, and can't bow this and all kinds of things affecting our prayers, our fasting, and all the other things that with old age becomes so much more difficult. Same thing with health.
Right? You're healthy.
We shouldn't take advantage of our health. Now, before we become so sick, you can't do this anymore. You know, you can't do other acts, righteous acts, which will increase our good deeds. And similarly, wealth before poverty, wealth, before poverty, we have the wealth now allows given us give it you know, we talked about being generous, and the importance of generosity in Islam and zakkai, and all these different things, but we're sitting on our money, right for the future, right for retirement, you know, for this and for that, we're sitting on it, you know, and if you die tomorrow,
what use was that money, you left it for time to come.
And similarly, our spare time before we become busy, the so called spare time that we have
we wasted in in areas which were no benefit to us,
then our life becomes very busy. And the things we wanted to do, we can do it because we have no time anymore.
And similarly, our life before our death.
Allah has given us a time now where we can do things we are living, as long as we're living.
Good Deeds can be done.
Once we die, then that's it.
Of the live no matter Bill hottub used to say, if the evening catches you do not wait until the morning to do good. And if the morning catches you do not wait until the evening. Instead, take from your health, for the time of your sickness and from your life for your death.
This is the same, you know concept of
time is money.
Time is golden. For us it is money in the sense of spiritual capital.
Time is spiritual capital. It's valuable. It is an opportunity to gain for ourselves great rewards great profits, but they're spiritual. So that's why time for us is golden. Time to Kill. Time to waste time to blow.
spare time really shouldn't be a part of our vocabulary. As of last month, Allah said and so I shall 94th chapter verse seven and eight further for the found sub while are bigger for the hub. So when you have finished whatever you are busy with, what do you do then? rest.
Take some spare time he said no. devote yourself to worship found sub well in Arabic of Arab and turn your desires and hopes to your Lord alone.
So whatever time we have, that time should be doing things which are pleasing to Allah doesn't mean that we cannot enjoy ourselves. We cannot go on a vacation from work. But there is no vacation from Islam that
To the point, that even though we're taking a vacation from work, we're not on vacation as Muslims, wherever we go, we should still be conscious of our responsibilities to give Dawa to people to explain to them Islam to command, the good prohibit the evil, we should be remembering a lot in the course of our travels, etc. So it is not time wasted.
The second point which can be deduced from this verse, talking about time, and the sleep,
we're in those use had no awareness of the passage of time. Is that the question that sometimes people raise concerning the barza, the period of the grave, when a person dies, he enters into the desert.
He can't come back in this world, he cannot communicate to what's going on in this world is not no awareness of what's going on as well. But he's in the state of the grave, which allows us that I'm described, where in the grave is either a pit from the pits of power from the pits of *, or a garden from the gardens of Paradise.
Right.
And you remain in that state until resurrection. So a person may say, what about those people who died 10,000 years ago?
They're just lying in the grave they're suffering,
then you might die today and kms tomorrow. It's not fair.
It's not fair. You know, there seems to be unfairness here, right.
Whereas the reality, you know, as it's commonly referred to, at least in Arabic texts, and that that sleep is the brother of death.
As in sleep, you're not conscious of the passage of time. Similarly, when you die, you're not aware of the passage of time. So you're in the grave 10,000 years, or one year, it's all the same, you have left the timezone, anyway, you're no longer subject to the rising and setting of the sun, rotation of the Earth, you know, the years passing, you're no longer subject to that, because you've left you've entered the barossa, you've left this material world anyway. So the issue of coming back, for resurrection, it's all the same for everybody. And since some narrations mentioned that the the person's death is the beginning of their resurrection.
So that's not the issue for us.
Now, after a lot, brought the sleepers, awake, brought them back awake.
Naturally, after sleeping for 300 years, plus, they experienced hunger, they felt hungry.
And you find them that the discussion switches from how long we were sleeping to Let's go find some food. Right, that was the next logical step. That's the next route to go. So after they said,
Your Lord knows best how long you have spent. So send one of you with the silver money to the city
to look for a place with the best food. That was the next point of conversation.
And
from this statement found in the Quran, the scholars have derived a number of different
fake principles.
First,
is the permissibility of engaging others as agents in purchasing and selling.
I mean, of course, we're taking it for granted now. But technically speaking,
there should be some ruling concerning it. You give somebody money, and they go and buy something on your behalf. And there are rules governing it.
Actually, some scholars held that you're not allowed to do this except in
absolute, you know, difficult circumstances. And they said, Well, this verse doesn't really support the argument that you can do it. Anyhow, they said because they were in a critical circumstance.
If they had all gone out looking for food, then they would be exposed. They had to do it secretly. So they only had to send a couple of people. So this only
provides evidence for the permissibility under circumstances of duress, or danger for you to
make a person your agent to go and purchase or sell. This is the position of Abu hanifa is what he held. Also one of the scholars of the Maliki madhhab companions of him
Malik SangEun he also held this position. However, you know, there is enough evidence from the Sunnah. to refute that really, we have a well known Hadith narrated by Ottawa, urban Abbey, and Jad al Baghdadi, which he related that the prophet SAW Selim gave him a dinar, to buy some sheep to buy a sheep for him.
So he went into the marketplace.
And he was able to buy two sheep.
One of the sheep he sold back and got a dinar. And he came back to the province I sell them with the sheep, he asked him to buy plus the dinar. And the prophet SAW, Selim asked the Lord to bless him in his sales, and he said, From then on this individual, even if he bought dirt, he would make profits from it. You know, Allah just blessed him in whatever business dealings he got was involved in, of course, from this idea, you know, there is some people have this idea about maximum profits, that, you know, your profits should not exceed a certain amount. But if we look at this here, this is 100%.
You know, people look at this as being exorbitant, but the problems are selling, approved 100% profit. So, there are no limits as to profit. But there are limits as to, you know, whether the product you're selling is something which is basic necessity, the society, if you're going to hoard it, keep it from people so you can maximize your profit, then no, Islam says, No, you can't do that. But if it is, luxury items, which people don't, they can live their lives without it, then if you want to
monopolize it, and just put it on the market in small amounts, because you know, supply and demand, you know, affects the market price, you want to do that, then it's permissible.
So it's basic necessities, you're not allowed to do it in. So rarely, there is no limit in terms of profits, as long as you're not going beyond the bounds of oppressing the society by monopolizing basic necessities. Anyway, the second point, is that there is no harm also, this is proof in it, there's no harm for a person to seek the nicest food.
You know, because some people might say, Well, no, no, this is not pious, you know, this is in bias. If you have to go and get, you should just get you know what's available, rather than going around checking the market and tried to find the nicest possible No, here it is approved of by Alas, pyramidalis, perfectly legitimate, look for the best Why not?
Thirdly,
it contains evidence
of the weakness of the scholars opinion, those scholars who held that describing something as being the nicest in the course of selling your product is not permissible.
That is, somebody says, I'm selling you the best possible wheat, the best possible car, the best, you know, I'm selling you the best. So some people took the position, scholars held a position that is not permissible to use this term. Because whatever you say is best there is a better
Whatever you say, is best there will be somewhere in the market something better. So it's really not true. But this text from the Quran,
as well as
some other narrations from the Prophet Moses alum, do indicate that use of the term best in the case of buying and selling is permissible.
I mean, you're doing it relative to your knowledge to the custom, in that particular area is saying is the best that I know of. So you mean you don't necessarily saying the best possible in the whole world? You know, that's that I know of.
And
the term when they
told the people who they had sent into town to go look for food, they told them, look for a place with the best food, even kefir, he explained that the term best here as
you know that this actually meant the purest food, because the law says elsewhere in the Quran surah Noor, verse 21.
Will all our follow La La Kumara moto Mazda coming home and I hadn't
had it not been for the grace of Allah and His mercy on you. Not one of you would ever have been pure from his sins. Right? Well, I can no longer use that key Manisha, but a lot of purifies whom He wills we also have in Surah, Allah verse 14, f la Harmon Taka, indeed whoever purifies himself will achieve success and this is where the word the word Zakat comes from, that it is derived from the same root indicating a purification of one's wealth, right.
So
this
specific desert
nation of looking for the purest food, the best purest food, we can find in it a law, stressing here the importance of
us in general eating, what is beneficial
for human bodies, and what is halal according to the teachings of Islam.
As a general principle, our eating habits should be governed by these principles. And what we eat should be beneficial, we should avoid as much as possible what they call junk food. They calling it junk food for a reason. It is junk,
its benefits are minimal. You waste a lot of money. And
in fact,
moderate amounts of it are harmful. Small amounts, okay, you can get by without it minimizes its harm. But moderate amounts of this so called junk food becomes harmful. This is why schools for example, here, and in other countries, they they ban, they're banned from selling junk food to the students because raising children on junk food raising children on pop and soda, where they develop this sweet tooth, we call it the West, you develop a sweet tooth, so you just have to have so much sugar and everything you eat, you know, it just things just don't taste right, unless you have that level of sugar, because basically, you're being addicted, your body is becoming addicted to a level
of sugar, which is in fact, not really healthy for you.
So, as a Muslim, you know, though, yes, you know, we do have
freedom to choose the type of foods we want to eat, etc, we do have freedom in this regard. At the same time, we are responsible, we have a responsibility to our bodies to look after them. And the best way we can, you know, and of course, this includes exercise and a variety of other things that most of us are lacking in these days.
And
this also includes the concept of eating even at somebody's house, who you know, has earned his food from haram means if you know somebody who works in a bank, you know, he's a banker. His earnings are from interest, that food is haram.
And we should avoid putting such food in our systems. Because there's a well known Hadith
narrated by a war era in which he said that the prophet SAW Selim and said, Oh people, Allah is pure, and he only accepts what is pure.
Are you Hannah's in the law? How are you born? Leia caballo in LA Eva?
For Indeed Allah commanded the believers, what he commanded the messengers. He said, Oh, messengers, eat from the pure foods and do right. Indeed, I know well, what you do, and a lot so said, or believers eat from the Pure Food and good foods, which I've given you.
Then he mentioned the traveler on a long journey, whose hair was disheveled and dusty, his clothes were all dusty, who stretched his hands out towards the sky, saying, oh, Lord, oh, Lord, yada, yada be
but his food was unlawful. His drink was unlawful. His clothing was unlawful, and he was nourished unlawfully. So how could his prayers be answered?
Now in this example, the prophet SAW Selim identified an individual who had combined in himself some of the major factors to assure the answering of our prayers. First he was a traveler, you know, we all know that, the prayer of the traveler is answered, Professor Sallam said it. So that was this man was not just a regular traveler is on a long journey
away from his home. Secondly,
he had a rough appearance, it was a difficult journeys here is the shovel is all dusty. You know, again, pitiful situation, which, you know, brings the sympathy of Allah Allah Thirdly, His hands were outstretched and the prophet SAW Selim, etc. Allah law feels shy, that his servant would raise his hands in prayer and that he would put them down empty.
Fourthly, he use one of the most powerful and comprehensive Names of Allah as a means of tawassul Ron is calling on a lie use the name Rob. Rob is one of the
Most Powerful Names of Allah right says Al hamdu, lillahi, Rabbil aalameen
fifthly he repeated the prayer, yada, yada.
And the process element said that we should repeat our prayers to a last month Allah.
call on him often and repeat it to bring, you know, because when we repeat something this is when you're desperate, you know, you call out, tell me Help me Help me. If you're not just me say Okay, give me Can you give me a help? Some Help me, help me out on this boy, you're really desperate, then you're repeating. So in the same way we should approach a lie in our present, this man is doing it. So in spite of all of these,
his prayer is not only rejected, but the prophet SAW Selim ridiculed his efforts
thoroughly saved what's next accepted. So how could he possibly get it answered is ridiculed. So this is telling us that really, if we want our prayers accepted, we have to be careful about what we consume.
So in the same way to go and eat in somebody's home, whose earnings is from Haram, this is definitely something we should avoid. Try to put whatever we put in our systems from halaal. That it is
earned in a halal way. The food itself is halal.
This is what is pleasing to a last one, rather
than the use when they told the individuals who to go into town to purchase the food, they said he should, however, be cautious and not let anyone be aware of us those who went in to get the food, they should be very cautious, you know, not just walk in there openly
so that they wouldn't be discovered. Because they were not the described as they discovered what's going to happen to them, these people are going to try to force them back into their religion. And they're going to being upright individuals who stood firm for their faith, they would likely be killed.
Though islamically Yes, it is permissible in times of life threatening circumstances, to say what you need to say to get out of that circumstance, tell a lie, say you disbelieve or whatever to protect your life. But these individuals were among those who affirm in faith to the degree that they would prefer death rather than to express it. And that's legitimate. You know, in Islam, we have the example of Samia and Yasser, the parents of who might have knee acid. Right? Both parents died for Islam. So may of being the first shahida or Shaheed in Islam, to give a pro life and her husband yassa followed.
They were slaves. They were tortured. And they died rather than Express words of Cofer. They had accepted Islam, and they stopped with it and died with it.
In the case of Yasser when his turn came, and they started to torture him. He said what they wanted him to say. They said, say Mohammed is a magician. He said, okay, as a magician.
Say that your God is a Latin ozanne. Man. He said, Okay, my gods are a lot.
Whatever they asked him, he said it. He couldn't take the torture. But after he did it, he felt shy.
usually used to be around the province, I sell him and he circled all the time. But after he said these things, now he felt defiled. He didn't feel right about it. So he stopped coming. The prophet SAW Selim missed him, where's the acid? So he sent somebody to go find him. When they found him, asked him what he told him what happened. And so he came back and told the process. I said, let me said, Bring him. So he acid came, he asked him when you said those things, was your heart filled with Eman? Or had you fallen into that state of disbelief? said no, my heart was filled with him. And he said, Well, if they do it to you again, say what you said.
Okay, so this is option C, this is the practicality of Islam, you know, because there are some people that can be so may and Yasser and some people can't, you know, in fact, the most of us can't, you know, so man, ya see, they're the exceptions. And Islam praises it honors it. But for the most of us, okay, we do have the option of Yasser his way out, right. That's permissible.
Of course,
when they told those who are going into the town to be cautious and not let anyone be aware of them. This is showing really, they had no idea how long they slept, because imagine somebody coming walking amongst us wearing clothes from three
100 years ago, with money from 300 years ago, hey, that would be like, you know, everybody would spot him right away. Although in our times, we have people do who do dress up in costumes, so we might think they're in costume. But if you go back a few years, when people were not into wearing costumes, somebody who comes amongst you wearing the clothing of 300 years before, it's gonna be weird, he will be spotted in a minute. So though they're taking precaution, everything, they don't realize what they're going into. And that's what the next verses now address, the fact that they were set up a law set them up in that sense, they were gonna go into a situation which they have no
control over, they will be exposed. They took the necessary precautions, because Islam does recognize that we take precaution. But in the end, Allah had already set certain things in motion, they're going to be exposed, and that whole issue would develop around them, which we'll look at in verse 2122.
Before going there,
we can mention some of the lessons or benefits from these two verses. Share kasady, the teacher of Shere Khan to say mean, in its Tafseer called dicier al Karim Rahman, he mentioned seven benefits, one of them we mentioned earlier. So I'm just going to focus on six which were not specifically mentioned. The first is the importance of knowledge
and an encouragement to seek it.
This is derived from the fact that Allah woke them from sleep, for this reason, in order that they may ask one another.
So what is stressed here is an issue of knowledge, knowledge being important, critical, critical for emaan critical for the practice, a practice of Islam, process, lm said tolerable enemy, Muslim, seeking knowledge is obligatory for every Muslim. So the issue of knowledge is foremost.
Secondly, the etiquette required of one who is confused or unsure about some issue, they were asking each other what was the answer? You know, who knows? How long would it be sleep for? Some said, say they are part of a day we said because they had gone in in the morning came out in the evening. They woke up in the evening, so seems like about a day or part of the day, but the other ones who are more, you could say had deeper insight. They said, Hey, your Lord knows best how long we have spent. Take it back to a lot leave it to the law, where we're unsure. We leave it with the law. And don't try to go into areas that we don't really have knowledge of just stop where we are, we don't know.
Move ahead from there.
Thirdly, the permissibility to eat good and tasty foods, as long as it does not reached the point of impermissible excessiveness that is
eating good, tasty food is no harm.
But as long as we don't become excessive, buying huge amounts of money or spending huge amounts of money on food and, you know,
eating to access. Actually, this is something cursed. Probably Hamza Sallam had said in Sahih al Bukhari describing the time to come where there would appear amongst Muslims he said, we have heard fee him as *.
There would appear amongst them fatties, fat shows big fat people, right?
describing the Muslims in the future, when they are deviated,
obesity would be prominent amongst them.
So it is not something that is praiseworthy in Islam something looked down upon and of course, a person who has a glandular problem and that's something else. But obesity as a result of overeating you know, living sedentary lives is something not pleasing to Allah, it is something which is considered to be
a bad character.
Now in terms of
eating the tasty and the good foods
This is especially for people who are accustomed to it people are grown up in an area where you know, these foods are available you eat it then it's perfectly okay it doesn't mean that you know, people are in general encouraged to go seek out you know, because then you become connoisseurs of food No, no, Islam doesn't encourage this. But if that's you live in an area with a variety of food tasty etc, no harm in doing so and
because of this issue, actually of the tasty and the good
Foods, some scholars have stuff Sears had concluded that those youths were the children of Kings of that time.
Because they were accustomed to eating good and tasty food, because notice when they sent the one into town, they didn't just say go get us some food to get good tasty foods means that obviously they didn't come from a background which was, you know, a poor background where you just eat whatever comes. So, this led some of this causes us here to control the dead come from, they were actually us from the families of the ruling ruling families. Of course, again, neighbor law knows the law knows best really we don't have clear evidence for it.
The fourth point, there is an encouragement to implement caution and concealment.
And to stay away from situations that may be a source of trial for one's religion.
The use of caution, although in general, Islam encourages people to be open,
open minded,
sharing what they have, but there are circumstances which require caution. And in such cases, then Islam encourages us to to use it. I mean, especially where we're in situations where being open may create fitna
You know, this is an important point,
which is actually demonstrated by Abu huraira there is an narration inside Buhari, where he said that he had two bags, some notion said three bags of knowledge.
One bag he shared,
and the other one he kept
for had he shared the other,
his head would have been cut off. Now, this is authentic narration is the statement of Abu huraira is not from problems and salams who are speaking, you have some groups of people
you know, the mystics
sophies who claim that was the knowledge
that secret knowledge of our era. And they have this kind of claims that they have certain secret knowledge which is handed down from this shift to this one to that one. There's knowledge which you shouldn't even reveal to the common people. You have to keep it hidden from them.
But this is not the
Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad Salah. What he said is terracotta kumala Mahajan VEDA I left you on a clear white plane. Laila, how can I hurry her whose day is like it's night, Leia Zico and her Ella Holic and whoever deviates from it is destroyed. So he left the clear message out there. Now I will Herrera as scholars explain how do they explain this hadith seems to imply that he had some secret knowledge, but this knowledge
was, according to the scholars, knowledge of the corrupt rulers who were to come,
that he was at the time of hijab news,
who massacred killed Domini Sahaba.
You know, it was a very violent individual, and others like him, the rulers at the time were slaughtering the Sahaba.
So rather than
expressing Express knowledge which he had, which was knowledge,
and caused himself to be killed, and note that he was then the most prolific narrator of Hadith means
a major portion of his knowledge would be cut off. He kept silent on it.
It wasn't knowledge which was critical for the deen because, of course, there is knowledge, which is correct knowledge, truth, but it's not critical.
And then there is knowledge which is critical.
When the process lm said, seeking knowledge is obligatory on everyone, it's the critical knowledge, but not general knowledge, which is not critical for your practice of the deen.
So, if one finds oneself in a situation where
expressing certain knowledge may create fitna creates a greater problem than you're trying to resolve by expressing this knowledge then it's better to be quiet.
You know, for example,
I remember a long time back when I was studying in Medina.
In the course of my studies, I came to learn along with a group of other brothers, that praying with your shoes on, it's from the sadhana
that the prophet SAW Selim encouraged us to pray with our shoes on
Nobody knew it. It's forgotten so now
most people don't know it. I mean they're under the impression the massive Muslims in the world are under the impression that if you pray with your shoes on your shoe, your prayer is invalid because your shoe has walked in different places you know got filth on it someplace somehow some time.
Even if you wanted to wear a brand new shoes, they would still say don't put your shoes on.
So, some of the brothers were with me.
They decided they wanted to bring alive The sooner in the masjid of Prophet Mohammed Salah.
So they came into the masjid
from in fudger you know, coming in from the door which you lead right to the front line of the masjid, walking in with the shoes on.
And of course you have
all the Muslims there from traditional countries from Pakistan from Turkey, etc. You know who, for them, Hey, this is this is not right. So when they came walking in this put to them, you know, they couldn't Of course speak they're speaking Arabic, whatever they're pointing to them, you know, showing them shoes, take it off, you know, remove once.
They say no sooner sooner, and they're walking in. So of course these brothers got up they want to stop these people from defiling the masjid. And a big fight ensued in the Master.
Master nabawi eventually, of course, you know, the Turks were very strong individuals, they got these guys and some Pakistanis, batons, got them and they threw them badly out of the masjid.
threw them out of the masjid.
And they felt under law that they had protected the Prophet's Masjid from defilement. And, of course, these brothers as they hit the concrete, were feeling that you know, they were trying to keep alive the center departments and celebrate
one of the scholars from Medina University came to us, you know, and he told us, hey, listen,
it's good idea to bring alive the sound of the prophet SAW Selim. But where people haven't reached that level of knowledge, then it's better not to introduce that knowledge there. You know, raise their level first to the point where they can accept it, and then you introduce it out where you were, we're in a Masjid out in the outskirts of Medina, which had a gravel floor and just some plastic mats, whatever. Pray with it out here. No problem. You all know about it. Nobody's gonna say anything, you know, you can keep it alive here. But
that's not the law. You know, it made sense to me. But some brothers, you know, just some things just don't go into heads too easily. Right. So they insisted they're gonna go back out there again.
Till Eventually, the authorities, you know, ended up putting some of them in jail.
Anyway, so this is the point that you know, you may have knowledge may be correct knowledge, but the time to apply it and to teach it may not be appropriate.
You know, so it's better to avoid it, you're going into an area you know, you've learned from the sooner that it was, the son of the prophet SAW Selim, at the end of Fatiha to say, I mean, allowed. Some narrations described the masjids, wall shaking, I mean,
but now you have certain parts of the world. You go to you say, I mean, you'd be the only one saying I mean, people will be asking you after the massacre, where you come from, what kind of innovation Have you brought here, you know, and you could create big fitna. in those areas, you say, I mean, under your breath. I mean, you don't have to say that loud, right? That's not a requirement. So you can still keep your son alive, but not put it as something that you're just hitting people in their faces with your son. Now, you know, it's similar, but they're not ready for it. So better we educate them first before we bring it.
The fifth point
was, in their stories, we have an example of their great religious desire and commitment.
The commitment and desire which they had for their religion, their willingness to abandon all of the things that the life they were living for the sake of their religion, their willingness to make hedra to give it up, you know, there's among the lessons that we can take from the example of the use in the cave.
And finally, the verses mentioned the harm and corruption contained in evil,
which should encourage one to detest and completely abandon it.
And that is the way of the believers past and present, as the use said, or else you will never
For be successful,
if we were to go back,
due to the pressure put on us by the society, then we would forfeit our religion would forfeit this world, the life as well as the afterlife would be in total loss. That's the position that they took me now meaning that they would be prepared to die for their faith.
Okay, so that basically covers verses 19 to 20. If you have any questions you'd like to raise
on this, please go ahead.
About
advertisement about this question. Concerning advertisement in Islam, of course, advertisement is permissible.
When you are caught in the marketplace, you know, if you're telling people this is good product, whatever this is, your advertisement, technology has put it up on billboards and paper and television or newspapers, whatever, it's permissible. But, of course, in advertisements, you know, as with everything, there are limits, you know, we are not allowed to deceive.
You know, commonly, for example, if you look, and you are going to buy a computer, they have these ads for computers in the newspaper, right? They'll show you the CPU, the main
body, they're short keyboard and monitor and mouse and everything.
And there's a little asterisk. If you don't notice it, you go down the bottom and is written very small writing, I have to put a magnifying glass on it. It says the price is mentioned above are only for the CPU.
Meaning of the monitor the keyboard, everything has not included. But that's deception. That kind of advertisement is not permissible. Who pause for the then
Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar
hamdu Lillah wa salatu salam ala rasulillah?
The question was clear.
Now our brothers question going back to the issue of advertisement, where we only mentioning the plus
elements of our product. Is this permissible? Yes, it is permissible.
I mean, you're advertising something for sale, you tell what are the you know, what, what makes this worth buying? So, you tell that
if there is some harm in the product, then you are obliged, you know, if people are going to purchase this, you are obliged to let them know that there is an element of harm, even in the west for medicines, for example, they require people to identify the
negative effects, what are the side effects that can come from it? Similarly, the toys for example, certain toys may be harmful for small kids, you might swallow something and choke them or whatever. So they put you're not suitable for children. And so on such an age. So adding, I mean, of course, this is from Islamic principles that you add to advertisement where there is some danger or some harm in its usage, then that should also be mentioned in your product.
Well, the effects of course, should be told to the individuals who are purchasing it. I mean, when you're putting your ad up, of course, there's only so much you can put in the ad. If you go and put a whole list of defects you may as well not even put any ad up there who's gonna come by your product anyway, right. But you know, of course, in the in terms of the the manual or whatever concerning it, then you do mention some things which have become the defects where there are some elements of possible harm that can come from them. In terms of the question from the sisters, they were asking concerning, verse 18,
where a lot of mentions that if you had seen them, in aware their the way they were lying, if you had seen them, that you would have fled in fright. You know, what does this actually mean? Well, scholars of tafsir, you know, have speculated as to really what this is actually referring to, was it that the law put on them a horrible appearance, so it was just like a scary thing you came in, they look like monsters or something like this, right. And then some people had proposed something of that nature. But we don't have any evidence to confirm what is referring to. I just enough to say that.
If you looked into a cave and saw people rolling from side to side
I,
you know,
without seeming to be asleep yet rolling from side to side, like this is something I something very unusual, something strange, you know, that would discourage you from wanting to
going in or going any further and also the dog in the
in the entrance of the cave, you know, all of that would serve to discourage people put them to flight, you know from.
So that's, you know that's as much as we could really say.
Well, it could mean that what ally said that had they been seen, it implies that they could have been seen, you know, because the cave it's likely, though it may be not close by whatever that people may pass by and the dog in the entrance Also, while having the dog in the entrance, no need to have the dog in the entrance, if wouldn't be a means of discouraging people from entering. So it is quite possible that people had seen them over the years, but nobody would dare to venture in because of whatever they saw, you know, it was enough to scare them and
cause them to flee in the opposite direction.
To judge how
I judge me use of is you know, right within
25 years after the time of the prophet SAW some, you know, no
knowledge of
authentic
speaking
of the hadith of brothers question, speaking that the greatest jihad is speaking out against the oppressive ruler, this is authentic.
Okay, we're about the same that it would have been greater for him to have said, to have said what he had in that remaining knowledge. Well, this is this is your judgment. You see your judgment from your perspective, you weren't living at that time seeing Sahaba being massacred left and right around you, knowing that you have, you know, the greatest Hadith, the most of the Sunnah, you know, because if you consider what he narrated, you know, being the most prolific narrator of the Sunnah, and compare it to what others narrated another very insignificant, you know, so the greatest proportion of the sinner was preserved by him. So he made a value judgment here.
And we inshallah, praise Him for His judgment.
Like somebody working in the bank is suddenly straightaway coming out. It's very clear, but you look at it at a macro level on all of the economy, we see all of them the economy is based on interest, whether directly or indirectly, okay, how can we classify that? And do you think that there are certain grades?
Okay, the brothers question has come.
Okay, that's another issue as a different issue. The first point raised by the brother, you know, concerning the fact that interest is so embedded in the economy. Today, in most countries, that virtually any amount of money you earn any salary earned in any job anywhere, an element of interest is going to be there. And the prophet SAW some spoke of that time, that the interest would be so widespread, that if it you know, it didn't touch you directly, you would be affected by its dust. You know, so, the point is that what you cannot control, you are not held responsible for,
but what you can control, that's what you're held responsible for. So that person who was directly involved,
you know, was directly involved with businesses or her own business. He is an importer of cigarettes, you know, whatever. I mean, his his business is clearly haram involved in Haram, not an element because again, somebody you know, in any business, you may have a minute element or a corner or something where it's touched, it's being affected, but the general
around earning is from halaal. Somebody like that you are okay. You know, but where it is clear the man works in a bank. You know, he is
involved in whatever
operation which is no doubt, you have no doubt that this involves Haram, then such a person is the one that you have to avoid eating. But there is an exception made, if you went to his home for the purpose of giving him dour scholars have made that exception, if you're going there, and when you sit with him, you advise him, you try to encourage him. Because if you just stand an distance away, just throwing bombs at him, you know, of course, he's not going to respond positively to it. But where you build some kind of relationship, you do come you visit him, you sit with him, he's your relative, you know, you advise him and so on, so and so. And after you've given the advice, then you
know this, there's nothing else you can give, he's not listening anymore, he's closed the door or whatever, then you know, that you're being there now is just being there.
And that's the time to abandon that individual, not necessarily cut off communications with him, but at least eating his food. You know, it's time now to step back.
Question from the sisters that if a person is not interested in the knowledge that you have to give them, right, they're in a situation, which is not correct. And you're trying to inform them, but they're not interested? How do you correct them?
If you don't?
If you can't, if they're not willing to hear, then you can't, all you can do is just do it yourself, you know, do what you're supposed to do yourself. And perhaps they may see that and learn from your example. But I mean, you cannot force people to believe in what you have you tried to give it to them, if they don't want to hear it, then you have to leave it, you know, for you to try to push it away say well, no, no, no, I you need to know this. So I'm going to be no beat you over the head with it, you know, then it is you're fighting a losing cause we say you're beating a dead horse, you know, it's not gonna, it's not gonna bring about any change, it is only going to develop resentment.
People are going to resent your efforts. Yeah, the brothers question concerning economies functioning without interest, you know, that's a whole big topic on Islamic banking, etc. Islamic economics is enough for us to say that all of the economists agree that the lower the rate of interest, the better, more vibrant is the economy.
So if we can get down to zero which is what Islam says, Then for sure, we have a much better society
question Go ahead.
Medicine online, which is helpful to the community
and that just has to be studied a long message is not a matter of a year or two years, it should be continuous.
So that comes under critical knowledge, you know, stop at a point and say
okay, brothers question concerning other areas of knowledge which we may not classify as Islamic per se. But they are critical areas of knowledge like medicine, dentistry, engineering, these type of things that are necessary for society to function.
It's enough to know that knowledge
can be divided into two categories.
Individual obligatory knowledge what they call far behind that is knowledge of your deen to the degree necessary to be able to live a 24 hour a day doing what is pleasing to Allah
and knowledge about any of the rights and things you have to do that it's time to do.
Like Hajj,
you know, had just passed.
You're not required to know about hedge unless you're planning to make hedge. I mean, know about it in general, that it's a requirement but the details of how to do it even when the time comes for you to do hedge funds obligatory is the time when you need to know it. The other knowledge which we call community obligatory knowledge, which as long as some members of the community do it,
then it's obligation is removed from the others.
That is like medicine, dentistry, and these are the areas so if you choose to enter into that area of knowledge, then of course, you should try to gain as much of that knowledge as is necessary to fulfill the needs of the community. If your community for example, it's very basic community, they only need basic medicine for you to become a research scientist where you end up sitting in a laboratory where in the US, you know, producing products for their society, but your community, Muslim community back home just needs you to be able to get them somewhere.
Isn't fix their broken bones, etc, then you see, you've gone to extremes there, you should have stopped, where it was sufficient to fulfill what you originally came for. with of course, once you get over in these areas, then the big dollar signs, you know, you know, for big time research start to attract you, you start to lose your, your perspective, your focus is gone. So we say you go in and take what is necessary to fulfill the need that you sought to fulfill.
Okay.
Okay, questions from the sisters? If a person is involved, for example, in a profession like law,
which is in which involves corruption,
in a lot of cases, can we eat of that person's earnings?
Can we tell that person's earnings? Well, the point is that law, there are elements of law, which can be helpful in defending the poor defending the oppressed, you're defending people's rights have been taken, etc. And then you're not involved in harm in that respect. So simply because a poor person is a lawyer doesn't necessarily mean you automatically have to be corrupt. You know, lawyers don't have to be corrupt. It is a corrupting
field that one has to be careful of, but simply being a lawyer doesn't mean you're corrupt. You have lawyers here who are involved in Sharia, local law, as well as the Sharia law, etc. You can't say they're fine. So you know, those type of jobs, which are, which make involve corruption, but they're not necessarily then we don't make judgments on those people we can eat from them. The other example of halaal jobs, a person has a halaal job of this comma, I'll just quickly say it, but they have a mortgage. Well, the mortgages the mortgage, the food is the food, you know, we don't try to mix everything up person's deposits in the bank. If you have deposits in the bank, and you give the
interest, you know, again,
you shouldn't have the deposits in the bank getting the interest. But if you did end up with it and found out it was Haram, then it's given to not the poor but to some
organization to be used for general benefit and not for individual benefit building bathrooms for Muslim school or something like this or road, but not given to direct individuals as charity because Ally's pure and good and he only accepts what is pure and good subhanak Allah, Mohammed, Shadow Allah, Allah and Mr. Furukawa to be like