Surah Al Kahf in-depth
Nouman Ali Khan – Story of Musa and Khidr – 1 of 6
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the importance of believing in the unseen world and creating an afterlife. They touch on the danger of being patient and the importance of understanding and reliance on Allah's], [The speakers emphasize the need for justice and transparency in creating an afterlife, as well as the importance of learning from a person with knowledge. They also mention the importance of reading books and staying committed to one's thought process.
AI: Transcript ©
Today I'll give you an overview of the story that's coming for coming ahead in South Africa, which is the story of Musa and feathered.
And the the person of color that is not mentioned by name and operon. That's the opinion of most of us. It's a mysterious figure. There have been some interesting,
interesting stories made up about an Islam and Islamic history.
Some pretty cute ones, like this guy who just went to a town and he didn't know anybody there and he just decided to spend the night in the masjid. And they had kicked everybody out of the machine. And they asked him to leave too. And he said, Okay, I'm leaving in a minute, but he didn't realize and he passed out. And he woke up and he's the only one inside the machine. And this guy brought him fresh fruit, fresh food. And he's like, aren't you supposed nobody's supposed to be here right now? And he goes, yes, you're right. But I came here to take care of you when he just gives him food. And he disappears in a *, and for alimta for him to enter okay.
So I knew that was hidden.
Cool, so that what I want to share with you first is the beautiful placement of this story from from any money perspective, from a hectorton Koran perspective, wisdom of Quran perspective, we went through an entire passage or actually two passages that mirrored each other, right one with an opening statement, one with a closing statement. And in those two passages, the point that's been reinforced over and over again is Allah has a plan for everything down to Allah has a plan for every plant, all the way to, Allah has a plan for every nation, right? And in between all human beings that live this life, when they stand before Allah, they're gonna know that every little thing in big
thing was accounted for nothing went unnoticed by Allah. Allah justice is completely perfect and absolute. Right. So unless planning and His justice and his knowledge has been established, in a very thorough way, in the two passages that we went through just now, but the problem for most human beings that have a faith problem is actually a problem of questioning why things happen in life. That's really where the problem lies. Why is bad stuff happening to me or anyone else in this world, as a matter of fact, number one argument that any typical some someone towards it that has atheistic tendencies, or just aggression towards God in general, the first thing we're going to talk about is
either their personal problems or problems in the world, if there is a God, how come this, this and this happens? How come this this bad stuff happens? And there's a list of bad stuff, right? So that is certainly a you know, a big problem to deal with. Now, the way to let deals with it in the suta is very beautiful. First of all, if you notice the previous passage, or the two passages, were all about, first of all, briefly about a less planning in this world, but really primarily highlighting what is going to last and what is the perfect justice of a line Dr. Hara. This world is not about perfect, perfect justice, the next world is right.
And yet Allah azza wa jal is going to bring everything back in order, everything is going to be balanced out. But you have to believe in the unseen for that. You can't just believe in the unseen world You have to believe in the unseen I would even argue from whatever I've been able to understand even in the Fatiha it's actually a less perfection is part of a less perfection is actually in the creation of an afterlife. That's an that's a necessary corollary of the perfection of a lot of his absolute justice, because without the afterlife, you have a person in this world who commits 100 murders. Right? And what do you how do they compensated you, the most you're going to do
is kill them once. They can't pay for 100 lives. And it could just be that those 100 lives were dependent on other people. So they didn't just affect 100 lives they affected 100 families, maybe 100 communities. There's no way this one person can pay damages in this world for what they may have done to 100 people That's impossible. Forget 100 not even two people, maybe not even one person. Even if you take an eye for an eye, that may not still be perfect justice. Right? This guy is a loner, nobody depends on him. Nobody knows him and the one he killed is a head of a household or a mother of children or whatever. He ruined several lives the damage is far has far more
repercussions. So the idea of getting absolute justice in this life is actually it's it's not possible. It is impossible, even taymiyah himolla would even go as far as to say if you if somebody slapped you and you slapped him back How do you know your slab didn't hurt them more?
So when he talked about the the one beam doctor said the one you know cause of loss has been home volume only see a woman woman woman home doctor said the one who's fair, absolutely fair, said even absolute fairness. Technically can't exist. You could try your best but how do you know you're not crossing a line? How do you know your punch wasn't harder than the punch that was thrown at you kind of thing you know? So the safer route for you is to forgive. That's what he would argue. But look, what is the afterlife do
Every debit is credited every credit is debited. anybody think somebody got away with they didn't get away with it a lot of recorded it now you have to do so Hilton welaka be rotten Illa
there's no way out. There's it's all going to be paid for and if you don't believe that, then it's going to be hard to believe in a god that's fair. When you only have this life, when that's all there is, you know, and we support Allah in our in our faith. We have this reliance on Allah's mercy and our reliance on Allah's justice and dependence on Allah justice. Like for ourselves. We were hoping for Allah's mercy. But when we see crime in the world, and we see injustice in the world, we actually lean on the less justice like these people won't get away with what they did. And that's why Allah gives that as a consolation. And no Khurana has even Latino
or Latina lunacy. mucuna did people think the ones that have done crimes against us are committed evil deeds that they got ahead of us? That they got away? So I might have come up with a horrible decision they made? This was actually sent set to the Muslims when they were being tortured. And the cry comes, how can they get away with what they're doing to us? in Macau? How could they get away with that and then those IOD came? You think they just got away with it? No, no, no, they didn't get away with it. They're not paying for it now, doesn't mean they're not going to pay for it. Right? That's the gist the law is perfect justice is directly associated in the Quran with Allah soldiers
creation of the IRA, the afterlife. And so I wanted to highlight first that point because the last two passages that I ran through with you were just about that just establishing that concept that the justice of Allah is perfect. But that is the aka it's the unseen and it's like there's a curtain between us and the unseen. Like all we can see is this world we don't see the unseen we don't see the aka we don't see the angels. We don't see the behind the scenes source code of Allah's design unless plans right, what's going to happen in this story is basically for a few instances, Allah is going to lift the curtain a little bit. And you can get a peek at what's going on behind the scenes.
Something's gonna look really bad. You know, like if you know the story of Musa and clever, he goes on a journey to learn, which we'll talk about in some depth. But when he goes on this journey to learn, and he said, um, he's the first thing is told is the lessons I want to teach you, you don't have patience to deal with. You just don't have the patience, then to start the Amaya, Sabra. That's the first assessment of his teacher, by the way that your barrier to learning is your impatience. That's his first. You know, assessment by the way, solver isn't just patience, it's also not being able to remain consistent. So for a student, the one of the biggest dangers, even if there's a
student as great as musalla, a salon,
the danger is not being able to be consistent, and also not being patient, those two things together, right. So if that's a danger for him, that's certainly a danger for you and me,
in our our barriers to learning, anyway, so he says, you're not going to be able to be patient with me Now, why is he not being patient, because he sees things he can't tolerate. He sees basically, in two cases in justices, and then a third towards others. And then the third case is justice towards himself. Right? In two cases, it's either, you know, this ship that's being wrecked, or a child that's been killed. And in the third case, he did all this work, and he didn't get compensated, we could have just gotten paid, at least we're starving. Right. On the side note, by the way, part of the beautiful perfection of the surah. And the the symmetry of the story is that it began with him
being hungry.
And asking, where's the fish you gotta eat? And the and that's where trouble began. That's what his student got in trouble with him. Okay. And the story ends when they do hard work, and they wanted to eat right? And yes, that ama Allah, they wanted to eat food. And he says, we could have gotten paid. Now why would they want to get paid? It's obvious in the ayah, because they wanted to eat food. And he's like, that's it. You're expelled from this university. And he's so worried, again, is kind of where it ended with with hunger of lusardi. Salaam, you know, that's adorable. But anyway.
But anyhow, in all three of these stories, then Allah lifts the curtain. And he shows a little bit of a peek of the unseen. So you don't. So you know, that our justice isn't just waiting until the day of judgment. There is justice happening in this world as well. There are things that are fully going to be compensated, but in a limited sense of life, still executing justice every single day in this world, in ways you cannot directly understand. So even the death of a child, which you might think is a horrible thing, there's more at play. Even something like a ship being damaged, there's more at play. You didn't get paid. Yes, that's unfair. But there's a bigger thing at play here.
There's a larger problem here. Okay. Because by the way, if they did get paid, then then you have to get paid from the money. That's how
Inside the, you know, under underground, which means that the location of those assets would be exposed to a very greedy nation. Right? So they couldn't get paid, even though fairness would suggest that you could take some of some money out of there because you're the one protecting it, or you're the one building that wall. They couldn't do that.
Nobody else is gonna pay them actually, they're providing the service to those two boys, not anybody else, right. Anyhow. So that's the that's a little bit of kind of the overview of the story. Now, I want to show you the organization of the story, just some things. There are a few passages in the story. The first of those passages, I'll run through the translation quickly, don't worry about my notes. They don't make any sense to any normal human being. What if Karla musala fatawa. Musa said to his young lad, Fatah, fetta means young man.
Fatah is the same origin as the word fatwa. What does that mean?
I mean, legal verdict. Legal ruling, right? Actually, Fatah, you have two means to pass a judgement. And fetta means when you're at the age where you're responsible for the judgments you pass for the decisions you make, you know, when you're no longer a minor in legal sense, in the legal sense, you're you're an adult now you may be tried as an adult. That's when you call the Father. That's why fertile fatwa are from the same origin. Same way when girls are of the age where their decision is their own, which is which means they're ready to get married. They're called Fatah yet.
That's when they're called Pattaya. Okay.
Anyhow, so Mousavi Salam said to his Fatah La Habra who you did love my buddy Ha. Madonna. masala was my buddy huh? I don't remember.
Okay, good. You don't remember either. we'll forget together.
You'll remind me tomorrow or one day now abraha Tableau how much malba hurry now translate I will not apply until
I reach you and even nobody remembers
I'll keep going.
My labra who actually means I'll keep going
rain until I reached the the union place much better by the way.
Right befallen
the place of the union of the two seas on the Aqua are all spend lifetimes going going to be showing us commitment to just I need to find this place where the two waters meet the to meet fellow Marbella. Then when they finally reached it, both of it both of them reached it much more of a NEMA, the union of between the two of them between the two seas nesea. Both of them forgot their fish. Ah, Allah is not saying that the young man forgot to fish alive saying this. Yah, hoo, anessa Houma. nesea are both responsible for forgetting the fish. For de Sevilla, who fell back the Sahaba and it took its took its path, the fish took its path in the in the sea setup comes from the word sourabh.
sinabi is a little bit different from Shut up. Shut up is drink syrup is the image of a drink, meaning a mirage. It looked unreal, fill battery Saba, in a way that was unreal. Like it didn't.
That that really happening. I must be tired, and you just kind of pass up, because this half eaten ship or fish rather is jumping off ship and then jet skiing down the sea. And it's leaving awake to you know, let's go sideways. Also the week that it leaves behind. So that's what happened. lamola Java, I'm missing the alhama Java
califa tahu atina hada. And when they pass by it, and they've already crossed, we crossed it when they're way past crossed it.
He says to his young man, his intern basically was also considered a prophet according to the Israelite tradition, right. At the Nevada bring us our lunch, Latina Mensa Farina. Havana Saba, we met with quite a bit of exhaustion because of this journey of ours. Interestingly, the word nossob means exhaustion. It's the most exhausting of the three status also,
like so many kinds of muscle. Right, but anyway, it's well named, you know, so we've been we've been hit with a quite a bit of exhaustion because of this journey. So this journey of ours so let's let's eat some fish. cola right away. nyla Sati
Did you see Did you also see when we saw the student starts by saying, by the way, didn't you see that too?
In our society, when we were taking some refuge near that key because the you know, the the, the ocean was getting a little turbulent. So we went towards that rock, remember, maybe we'd get some shelter for a little while, but in Nina cetol hood, then at that time, we because things were so crazy at the time, I kind of like forgot the fish.
Mama Anthony Hola, shaitana Cora, and he notices that maybe musasa is getting upset because No, none but shaitan made me forget.
It was nothing which I thought it was.
Wasn't me and got me. Let's hit head on together.
I've got I've been mentioning it what de Sevilla, who fell back. Now that I do remember it though he did take quite a weird way into the sea. But the others are Bella who fell back to Java. The story the backstory is, I'm not completely convinced of the backstory. But anyway, the story is that masala made a statement about how knowledgeable he is on the earth. Like he, he's perhaps the most knowledgeable human being on the earth. And unless there's someone who knows more than you, and you need to go learn from him. And he's, he will meet him where the two oceans meet. So he gets determined to learn now and you know, grabs this assistant, and they go out to sea to find this
person that Allah has instructed him to meet. Okay. Yeah.
Say that again?
Yeah, it's Hawaii.
It's closer to New Jersey.
Thank God, we don't know where this place is.
Thank Allah, we don't know where this place is, you know, what would happen if we knew where this place is? workplaces? There'd be a bunch of box ID IDs
out there looking for.
And then just, you know, punk over my child or, you know, or something.
Thank Allah, that we don't know where this place is. Okay.
There's a reason some things are kept a mystery. Like, for example, the wall.
For God's sake, it's not the Wall of China.
We don't know and that's okay. It's okay. And by the way, I should remind you of something that perhaps you weren't This wasn't your year when I started total cops, I should remind you of this. The first story in the surah
is the people of the cave.
And the Greek crime committed with that story is that people asked irrelevant questions. How long did they stay? How many were they? Who cares? That's not the point.
You shouldn't learn to say, don't be Colombia, Allah. Allahu Allah will be my libido. Allah knows better. Allah knows better. Allah knows better, he hammered that is in the first story. And then he tested you and me with three more stories in this surah. In all of them, you have to ask, wait, when did this happen? Who, what? Where? What location? What year? Who's this young man? You're gonna ask questions about local name, same kinds of questions. You're gonna ask questions about even the two gardens? Where are these gardens? Who are they? Are they at the time of the prophet or like a lot first taught you? Here's how I want you to learn stories. Learn to not ask too many questions, by
the way. In the story. The teacher is gonna say What?
Don't be accent too many questions.
And I'm not going to tell you the whole story. Had this fella come in who they cry until I mentioned a little bit to you think about the little bit I tell you don't worry about anything else. It's actually a LA's way of telling the story. It's not just the story itself. Right, which is why the outside, this is the background. This is where they went did they go by land or sea?
irrelevant? Yeah.
Fantastic question.
Excellent question. How do we draw the line between seeking knowledge because that's what we're trying to do and asking too many questions. You can ask as many questions as you want. Learn to ask the right questions. And you can ask as many questions as you want. The thing The thing is not you don't have the right to ask questions, I think is what is the thought process that leads you to your question, you're learning the story of use of Hey, what's the minister's wife's name?
I mean, scandalous lady, what's her name?
You know? Well, so your question didn't arise from something Allah made you curious about?
What Allah emphasizes, you ask about what Allah de emphasizes, you learn to de emphasize, you see, I Latina will see the way he taught this to me even though I've taught this in the beginning of the talk. I'll repeat it for you guys because it's important for you guys.
There's the saying in Arabic I don't know if you guys learned it. What did you learn that one?
Okay, take what's in front of you. Just take what's in front of you. If you trust your teacher, then you focus on what he's giving you not what he's not giving you.
What happens is
Adam is teaching you one day well a long time ago about what's up with often with someone today. But are there some cases?
I know you're teaching me this right now. What are there exceptions that you haven't told us about that? Perhaps clearly in your experience isn't the time to discuss what
I feel that you really should, because I have curiosities beyond what you're telling me.
So check logic who gave this epic story, man, so good. Because there's this guy. He's like successful in business, right. And he's made hundreds of millions. And he decides, after making all this money that he just wants to teach young people, entrepreneurship, he's going to teach business. He's not going into the teaching profession, because he needs the money. He just wants to do it as a benefit to young people the next generation. So he goes to business school and teaches By the way, if you have a professor like that, take his class, if you have a guy that's been a business professor for 30 years, as opposed to a guy that left the business world and can be a professor, go
to the guy that's left business, the business world and come and be a professor, because they give you real world knowledge, right? Non textbook knowledge.
So he goes and teaches this class, and he wants to teach students by way of example. So he says, you know, guys, if this young, this man wants to start a business, first, he did a lot of research into his product, and the location where he wants to open his retail establishment. He did a lot of research about pricing and rent versus buying. He looked at the tax strategy. He looked at the location, he looked at the kind of, you know, advertising and branding and the colors that he should be looking at. He looked at, you know, inventory, and income versus expenses, how much should be spent, he's spending in the first quarter, the second quarter, what were his projections for the
first year, he makes this whole story up about this guy who's starting his business, and he put it in the form of a story. Why? Because then students can remember it easier if you make a list of things, right? That it's harder to remember, if you put it in a story, like the, you know, words are upset or feminine.
And just easier to remember, right?
So he makes this amazing story. And he tells it in class, and everybody's like taking notes. And one student raises his hand and says, so what color shirt does he wear every day?
And the professor's is looking at him.
You really just asked me this.
And another student raises his hand. Yeah, I was not I was less curious about the shirt, but his socks really concern me.
What kind of socks does he wear?
And the professor is baffled. And he goes home and he's so upset. And his wife asked him what happened.
And he says, you know that story I wrote, he goes, Yeah, how'd it go? Well, I did a great job. But here are the questions that came forward.
Can you believe what they were arguing about? How
idiotic and again,
and Socrative tells the story and then he says now read, say una sala de
una Hamza?
Whoa,
wait
a minute. Who
knows? Like, oh,
I was so offended by the stupidity of this argument that he records the whole thing. Can you believe what they're arguing about? What I just told you and what you're discussing.
That's what I mean by asking the right questions. Allah wants you to think about certain things. We want to think about all the things he doesn't want us to think about.
What are the other brothers names in the story of use?
You know?
Why?
Why Allah didn't tell you. What about his mom?
I didn't read anything about his mom. I want to know why. Yes, I'm sure you want to know about his mom.
But Allah wants you to think about his dad.
Can you just pay attention? This is worried about the dad.
If you are worried about the mom, really sorry.
You can worry about the mom and dad.
Is that clear? Like as one of the one of the most beneficial things you'll learn in the study of Quran
is what kinds of questions to ask what to how to think. Not every curiosity is healthy.
You know, guy, the Quran, it keeps asking you to think think think his thought process gives you direction. Without thought process, you don't have direction, your question is going every direction. You know, and unfortunately, this is the unfortunate thing. You must maintain commitment to your thought process. When you study Islam. You have to be committed. You know why? Because you're going to read a lot of books. And you can read a lot of seers
where they're not committed to the same thought process. So there's going to be six pages on what color the dog was in the story of the cave
in classical tafsir and did he have spots or not, and what his name was,
and it's gonna be a classical text and you're gonna say, I'm reading the
See, you know, Fullarton Fulani been Fernand. I have just learned, Yes you do. That's great. You can read a lot of stuff. But you have to maintain your thought process. And you have to identify what's critical and what's not. You see, that's not going to be done for you. Unfortunately, you have to develop that yourself. You know, and to me, the best way to develop it is commitment to quality commitment to the primary text, the more you you ponder over code, and you look at how Allah speaks and what he emphasizes, it just teaches you what to emphasize and what to let go of what is priority and what isn't. Yeah.
That's right along my name is Luca alma nafion. Anyhow,