Two Stories Compared The Youth of the Cave and Dhul Qarnain
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Channel: Nouman Ali Khan
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Bismillah R Rahman r Rahim Al hamdu lillah wa Salatu was Salam ala Rasulillah Allah Allah He was happy Jemaine Salam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato. Yesterday I spoke to you guys about some literary connections. And some things we might learn by drawing a connection between Volker named story or actually Musa alayhis salam story, and the story of the youth of the cave. Today, we're going to take the next step, like I said yesterday, which is going to be a Sobotka half. And some things we can make a possible connection with, and draw contrast and comparison with from the story of the nine. First thing to note is these are both on the tail end, meaning the first story in the
Surah is us harbor. Gov. And the final story in the Surah is Luca named. So we're comparing the first and the last story. So this is something they kind of already have in common is that they are on the ends, either ends of the surah.
This time, instead of categorizing things by word connections, you know, by literal words that occur again, there's not as much of that in these two except for a couple of them. So instead of breaking that up into different categories, I'm just going to run through a number of comparisons in contrast, starting with the most glaring one without shumsa. Is that does that one copy him that you mean? Well, it does. Robert Dockery the home that the Shema, when you see you can see the sun, when it rises, it bypasses them towards the right. And when it's setting, it cuts across from them towards the west. or so. So the idea there are to the left, the idea there being the sun was
mentioned rising and falling was mentioned. And of course a little girl named story had that Isabella Mareeba Shams Hodeida Bella Hama playshops, until he reached the setting of the sun until he reached the rising of the sun. So the terminology of the sun rising setting, East West occur in both stories. It's also interesting that Allah highlighted in one of them that the subjects the main subjects are still and it's the sun that's doing the moving, the sun is doing the, you know, bypassing them. And in the other story, the subject of the story will contain he's doing the moving towards the end, he's doing the moving towards the west. So there's an interesting contrast in the
imagery drawn in boats, solos, on the opening on the onset of us have a half story as they make their way towards the cave. They ask Allah for Rama attina Mila Dukkha Rama so that happens in the opening story in the beginning. And in the closing story after closing, at the end of the story, a little girl named declares have arama to Murabbi This is Rama from Arab. Probably an interesting lesson to draw from this is that the Rama of Allah is something we should ask for. It's there all the time anyway. But it's something we should ask for. And once it has been given, it's something that should be declared and acknowledged. So the the principle of asking for Allah's Rama is an
assignable kind of story. And the principle of acknowledging that Allah has given our smile allowed you either finish the task maybe we were supposed to finish. That's how about Robbie is put at the end. So it's really cool that the opening story has been in the opening and the closing has that in the closing. Moving along with Gallica thought now lamb Alamo and Awad Allah He, one of the fundamental goals of the emergence and the discovery of was hubback I have Allah wanted people to know that Allah's promise is true. So one of the culminating purposes of the story was a Noah he have
the name accomplishes his most, you know, lauded mission builds the wall, and when the people are saved, that are between the two mountain sides. He says, you know, for integer, our Adobe Giada, who DACA is closing speech is when Allah has promised comes this wall will collapse. So, this story also culminates with the Promise of Allah meaning Judgment Day. And that story also concludes with the Promise of Allah, meaning Judgment Day. It's also interesting that not only is the statement and Noah Allah He Huck in sort of Ns Hubbell gaff story, the KP youth story, that the Promise of Allah is true. That statement is reinforced with another statement, which is oneness law, that the hour,
there can be no doubt in it. That's an additional so the Promise of Allah is true, is already talking about judgment day. And then it's reinforced with another declaration which is well under satellite labor fee how the hour there's no doubt in it. In the local name story, when my when the promise of my rub comes, this wall will collapse. He will make it you know, a crushed. But that's not enough. There's a reinforcing statement just like in the first story. And that is what can I do to be haka without the Promise of My master has always been true. So reinforcing the truth of judgment day is done in both stories.
It's also actually one thing that I thought about when I was thinking about these comparisons
Is that one of the things that ties this entire suit together is our our view of the material world. So this world as opposed to the next is actually a constant our engagement because Allah created us a spiritual creature and a material creature, we have this physical material body, we engage in this world, we eat food, we have a family, we make money, we socialize, we engage in the life of this world. And yet, our book, and our teachings are connecting us to a life that we have not yet known, a life that is coming. Right? So we're constantly trying to find a balance between this life and the next life. And what's remarkable about these two stories, when you think about both of them, ending
with the Promise of Allah, which is the afterlife. If you think about the themes in the story, one of them is about leaving the world behind us Hamilcar half is leaving all material goods behind, they've abandoned dunya they've abandoned their society, they've abandoned their homes, just because they want to hold on to Allah, because of the promise that Allah has given them. On the flip side, you've got to come Nain who is not leaving worldly material goods behind, he's actually making full use of material resources. And yet, even though he's got the material resources in his hand, he's making full use of them. He's still mindful of the Promise of Allah when all of these material
things will will disappear. So Allah has showed us a remarkable two side kind of fitna, the person could be in a state of fitna where they may have to leave everything they know behind to hold on to the deen. But that that may not be the case for everyone. You know, we develop sometimes an over simplistic view of how we're supposed to see ourselves in the life of this world. And we start thinking, money, or education or career or opportunities. These are dunya dunya dunya, you should concern yourself with Deen you should be like us how? Well the Quran declares that if your life is in danger, and if you are living by your deen and even saying your shahada, or declaring that Allah
is only one is to the point where your society is ready to kill you, then it's time to head to the mountains. But on the flip side, if Allah has given you resources, he will it Namaka Allah Who are the Athena homunculi, Cheyenne Sababa is giving you resources, and you're not in persecution for believing what you believe, then you should make every possible use of your resources and go use the resources to even go further and be of service. And so both of those scenarios have been captured, kind of encapsulating you know the degrees to which we are supposed to engage or disengage with worldly life between these two stories. And yet in both of those engagements we are we don't become
a material or materialistic we use whatever Allah has given us, while keeping in mind that the Promise of Allah is coming, judgment is coming. It's a remarkable balance philosophically that set between these two stories, then this is also really interesting. The youth declared to their people how it will talk about their people they said, how would I eco Muna it? tocado Mendola. He Alia Alia these are our people they've taken a God besides Allah Lola tuna lamb sunpad and how come they don't produce any evidence for it? From an available man if Torah Allah Allah He can volume is mentioned Yeah, from an Allah mu man if Torah Allah Allah He can Eva who could be more of a wrongdoer than
someone who makes lies up against God himself. Then as a result of this declaration, they are doing the How can we? How can they do such a terrible life against Allah, the only choice they had was to flee for their desire to move home and the very next day if you when you've cut yourself off from them, so now they're faced with people who lie against Allah Who do volume, and this is a spiritual kind of volume. Right, they're not oppressing, you know, they're not doing crimes against each other, except they're ready to do crimes against them. But they are addressing that volume and the way to deal with that whole Mr. Flee, they have to get away if it doesn't to boom. On the flip side,
though, per name comes across a strange nation. And Allah gives him the option to deal with these people however he chooses. And he inspired by Allah's guidance says amomum balama. First of all, only Boo from Morocco in Arabi for every boohoo as Abbot nohcra, whoever does wrong, we're going to deal with him, I'm going to punish him. The response to wrongdoing in one story is to flee. And there still are heroes. And the response to wrongdoing in the other is we're going to bring the wrongdoers to justice and punish them. And that's also an inspired response. What does that tell you that the believer has options?
Allah did not give us one situation in life. And in some situations, the right thing to spiritual thing to do, the commendable thing to do is to flee. And in another situation, the right thing to do is to use the power you have to implement justice and bring him criminals to to hold criminals to account.
Again, when you develop an oversimplified overly simplistic view of how to deal with evil in society, and you say, Well, I don't have the power to put a stop
to it, I need to do something. If we can get the power we need to bring justice about we need to take whatever matters in our hand. This is not the Quran way of thinking. The Quran is dynamic in its approach to how to deal with different circumstances. And both of them have been applauded. Both of them are situations the OMA will find itself in different scenarios in different times of fitness Subhanallah
then, of course, this is actually kind of historical, from the narrations we get about this surah what we learned is that the Prophet SAW Shalom was being quizzed. They were trying to put the Prophet in a corner by asking him questions they were pretty confident he wouldn't know the answer to. Right. And if he didn't know the answer, it's it seems to me if he didn't know the answer, the intention was that even the answer would get him into trouble. Theologically why? Because if he says, for example, local name, he talks about local nine. And he ends up saying, Go Karmanos Alexander. Or he ends up saying local nine is whichever ruler, what was known about these rulers
were they had several pagan beliefs, they had committed all kinds of atrocities, they had fairly promiscuous lives. So if the, if the Quran will acknowledge these individuals, then the Quran will have acknowledged their behavior, that would be a problem. On the flip side, there's the habit, you know, the Bible can have the the people of the cave, who were lauded and celebrated as saints in Jacob by Christianity. So if the Quran accepts them, and acknowledges them, in a sense, it's acknowledging the Christian creed that was being reinforced by their emergence because they were used to reinforce Christian doctrine, their story was used. And so both of them were in a sense, you
can call it trick questions. So if you if you answer those questions, then your own beliefs become, you know, subject to question. And Allah addressed both of those ask questions on the tail end of the story. By the way, the surah has four stories, but the two middle stories, which is Mousavi said I'm sorry, that we compared yesterday, and the story of the two gardeners we're not asked about,
we're not asked about in fact, nobody asked about them. In fact, in the entire Jewish tradition, there's nothing about the story of Musa and Hodel even though there's, you know, for the five books of the Bible dedicated to his career, right, so even even then, so there unasked for stories, and the two asked about stories on the two tail ends. It's also interesting that Allah first you know, he put the focus on as haben can have on the Prophet um, has simta and that's how we'll be working. Because the Quran audience actually is to, its the messenger and the people. And the first story the primary audience of that story was made Rasul Allah Himself sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, that's what
you find in that story. Um, Hasib doneness. holography what Rahim Ouattara shumsa, Tala you'll see the sun when it rises and fall lower Tala Tala him lower later in home Ferrara, if you were to stumble upon them, you will run from them you will flee from them. Who is talking to Rasul Allah so I said at the end of that story, while at Akula nearly shaken fella tomography, him Illa, Mira and by now all singular, don't debate about them, but in this, don't you see in the singular form, don't you dare say you will do this in this tomorrow, all of it is in the singular form, because the primary addressee of that is also lots Alehissalaam. On the flip side, Allah acknowledges that there
are those who are asking you, so the the the primary audience Rasul Allah, the secondary audience, also the people that are coming and asking him questions, and they've been acknowledged in the story of Luca name with Luna candle Kearney. You will think counter intuitively because the prophets being asked by these people that you would expect Yes, Aluna Chi in the first story, you would ask you would Allah would acknowledge in the story of us herbal coffee would say they asked you about us Hamilcar but that doesn't happen. Because Allah Allah wants to focus of the Prophet station to be on the story for his own benefit not to respond to them. They've been made irrelevant. And by the way,
they ask you about Luca de la creme but by the way, would have been a bigger controversy. And as you've seen, if you've been following our sessions that I'm releasing are being a TV, the historical account of little Colin and trying to reconcile what the Quran is saying with whatever historical figure this could be, is a huge challenge in Quranic studies, and in the historicity of the Quran. It's a big, big challenge. And the Quran deliberately, deliberately makes this ambiguous, which is another point I'm going to make pretty soon.
Now
on, again, the notion of fleeing and empowerment is our fifth year to ilka have the young people are seeking refuge heading into a cave. And by contrast, so basically, the way to think about that is they have nothing. They have no place to go. They have no place to even sleep. They don't even have any food with them, because when they wake up, they're like, hey, what
Ever money we can muster up is a couple of coins, go get something to eat. So they don't have no long term plan. In terms if you were thinking think of them, as you know, somebody who has a home, somebody who has savings, somebody who has a nest egg, these people have stability, right? If somebody doesn't even have enough money, what they're going to do tomorrow, they have an unstable life. Right. So they're in a in an extreme state of instability, and displacement. So they're displaced to the point where they're going into a cave. And by contrast, What is Allah show us in the very beginning of Volker named story in MK Canalla, who fell or the, that we gave him stability
in the land, we gave him, you know, firmness in the land. And we furnished him with all kinds of resources, while at a no human condition in Sababa. And so the use of the cave are fleeing, they're traveling with nothing. And loco Nene is traveling with all kinds of resources, and putting in pursuing even further resources for a Suburban. The exact opposite. Again, this comes back to the idea of how we see ourselves in the material world. There are situations where a believer will be left with absolutely nothing of this dunya. And there will be situations where a believer will have every part of every power, every you know, he has manpower, he has physical resources, he has know
how he's been given all kinds of resources, and he can go in any direction he wants. He's gonna go all over the place, multibuy Shams, motlagh ashrams, Venus, and then he's going all over the world. On the flip side, they've got nowhere to go but a cave, right? So sometimes Allah will test a believer by restricting their options by depriving them of worldly resources, and amenities and luxuries. And on the other hand, sometimes Allah might test you and me by giving us a lot and a lot of resources. And so that contrast once again emerges between the two stories.
Then it from an imagery point of view, it's interesting that Allah highlighted that the young people of the cave were inside of a cave and the sun could never touch them. Right The sun never bypassed them. And on the flip side, so that's that's the Iota Shamcey data lab does our own caffeine that you mean by Robert credo that Ashima Okay, on the flip side, though her name comes across the people language Allah home Indonesia cetera right when he when he got to a people where the sun rises, he saw that these people have no cover from the sun. So the the Hubble gaff are making no effort to be in the shade, and Allah is providing it for them. And these are an entire people, despite all of
them, the people the manpower they have, they can't seem to find any shade for themselves. They can't find any, any any, any cover from the sun for themselves. And this is again in remarkable contrast that those who have resources even they can become incapable. And those who don't have resources, Allah can provide them shade when he wants to write those they have their numbers and they still can't do anything language Allah home Indonesia cetera Subhan Allah.
Now, this is about historicity itself. That same nation that Allah says they couldn't find any shelter from the sun makes you think that's weird. How can they? How come they couldn't just build a hut or build some kind of canopy or something to cover themselves? What kind of strange people are these who are these people historically? Well, Allah says about them Quranic our health now be malady hombre. That's how they were, you can come in, it's fine.
That that's how they were. And we have full news of what they really were about. We have we have the full historical account, that's Allah's way of saying, you may never be able to find who these people were. And Allah will, Allah decided to keep that confidential. Like there's no one that's ever going to know that knowledge is with us. I hope not be malady he Cobra, what he had in front of him, the people that he encountered in front of him, Allah has full news, you're not going to know. Okay. Now let's contrast that. The story of the cave, the young the youth of the cave, yeah, situate yourselves where you can see the screen comfortably I kind of have in small sized so which Allah
so when it comes to the the story of the cave, there is a story circulating. They are known. They are rather famous, even maybe a little over a century before the prophets Allah saw them. They were pretty famously known in the region. And their story was circulating in Aramaic and Greek. Among the Christians. The story of the people of the case was rather known. But Allah comes in reclaims and says, Now una casa la canada humble, we're going to tell their story with truth. In other words, the story that is circulating is full of lies and fantasy, and Allah is going to set the record straight. What Allah has done here by this contrast, it seems one of the things we can learn from it
as Allah's teaching us something about our approach to history. There are events in history and the version of those events that we have are highly fixed.
In a fictionalized, they've been altered from what they really were. So a story has been turned into an epic, you know, like I'm reminded of the times when ancient kings like especially even the pharaohs, they were big on propaganda, you may have known something about how the ancient Egyptians used to record here a glyph fix, right? The art on walls. That was their way of recording their history. And part of their history would be this king, who had the power of a God when he swung his sword one time 100 soldiers before him or 1000 soldiers before him died. This was to, and this was a historical account, like their version of a museum, right? Why are they doing that? Because they
want to reinforce the idea that these kids have godlike power, don't mess with them. Right? So history was financed people that want to make ends meet, don't become historians. By the way, even today, if somebody becomes a historian, they don't really have a good salary. That pays peanuts. But the idea is, back in the day, why would somebody become a historian, they were commissioned by the king, they were commissioned by the Empire to record this battle or that that, you know, that conquest, or this construction? And if they're being financed by the government to record this, clearly, the government's going to double check and say, Lynn, how did you make me look, look good
in this, you understand? So there's going to be propaganda mixed in with the historical record. That's what is going to happen. And because a lot of kingdoms of the past, were closely associated with religious leadership, it's a it's an important study for Muslims to understand the relationship between politics and religion in history. political leadership, in many civilizations had a very close relationship with religious leadership. Why? Because people fear the government, but love the religious leader, right. So if you want the real if you want the people, to now have an all of the government of the king, then you, you basically solicit the services of the religious leadership,
and you get them under your wing. So when they give their sermon, or they speak at the temple, or they speak at the churches, they make the king look good. And they make the king's cause sound holy. And they they speak of the king as the one that has been chosen that is divinely ordained, and all of these things. And what does that do? It now mixes religion and politics for the population. And that way the King gets to do what he wants to get done. And what does he do in return, he pays pretty good sums of money to religious leadership. So the religious leadership in different religions in the world was a very high class pay very well paid, very elite, very respected
denomination of society. This is why when Islam or a religion that challenges this corrupt marriage between, you know, you know, indoctrinated religion and politics, when Islam comes and speaks about justice speaks about wrongdoing, who's being challenged, the king is being challenged, and the religious institutions are being challenged. So prophets made two kinds of enemies all in one shot. Two kinds of enemies in one go, right? Now, I'm I digress. But the point that I want to make is the story of the people of the cave. What really happened, Allah told us these young men decided they're not going to worship any false god, and they got in real trouble for it. And they escaped and they
had nowhere to go but the mountains and then later they were discovered, and Allah says this, their discovery the purpose of it was so people would know that there is only one God and you know,
what Delica Allah him Leanna Mo and Allah Huck, what an Assata larae Buffy and part of their recorded speech in the Quran is, you know, how it will let you homeowner in the Holloman lunula. He Alia London Roman Dooney. Lon, this this nation of ours they call on other gods besides Allah, we're not going to call any gods besides Him. If we did, we'd be saying something absurd. Look at the owner even sharper, we'd be saying something absurd. So they stood by the truth and the truth gets them in trouble with the religious elite. And it gets them trouble with a political elite. And that's why after their discovery, even after their discovery, the nomination, the official religion
was already Christianity. So their discovery even though they're talking about their hate had to be converted into something that reinforces the Christian creed. And that's what was done. That's why churches were made in their name. And Allah, Allah did not reveal their story to this day. Imagine if Solotica wasn't there. The story wasn't there. To this day, they would be like, you know, we have St. Nicholas and St. This one in st that one, there will be these saints.
And they will just be saints of Christianity. We wouldn't even know that they weren't per you know, propagators of Christianity at all. We will have no we have no idea. So what Allah is telling us is sometimes he breaks
The historical propaganda record, and he sets it straight by way of revelation on the one hand, and this humbles us to think maybe a lot of what we think we know we don't, a lot of what we've what's been passed down in history, maybe we should take it with a grain of salt, we should be a little more critical before we just take read something and say, Ah, this is exactly what happened. What were its sources, what were the motivations for what when this was put together? Under whose watch was this put together? who financed this historical study? By the way, isn't this an important consideration? And research also nowadays? Like if there's research on anything, isn't it important
to know who funded the research, right? And who's losing control of this research, and where their findings that go against this research that were suppressed, because it wasn't going again, it was going against the interest of those who were funding it, or those who were controlling it. There are many professors across different fields in the sciences in history and politics, you name it, that issue a paper or issue an article and they lose their professorship, they will lose their tenure, because of what they're saying. Right? So the Quran is giving us a critical eye of how to look at things analytically and not just be sheep. On the other hand, Allah is also telling us, there's a
lot of history you will never know, because Allah didn't want it known.
There's just no way for you to know. All you have is conjecture. So for example, the car name comes across the people, they can't even cover themselves from the sun.
Who are these people? Where is this place? Why can't they cover themselves from the son? What's so hard about just digging a hole? What's going on? Guys, Ali Calacatta, Hassan Avi malady he Cobra, that's how they were and what he had to encounter we have full news of In other words, that's above your paygrade
it's not just the knowledge of the Unseen that Allah has kept from us. Right? It's not just the day of judgment or the number of angels in this room right now. We don't know any of that stuff, right? But there's also knowledge of this world history that Allah decided to keep hidden sometimes. And we're humbled to that in these two stories. Okay. Now, as a side note, but still an interesting one. Both of these stories happen to have a financial transaction. So the young man gathered some money and said, Go get us to go buy some food, but I thought I had a con be very frequent has a halal Medina, here's the money of yours, take it and head to the city to find some good pure food. It's
also two things I'll make I'll combine two points here. One, there's a transaction to be made, which never happens. Right? It never happens, and where they're supposed to go make that transaction in a city into the city. Okay. On the flip side, local name ends up in a place between two mountain passes by law Venus, a dean,
and he finds people there.
Actually know in the first case Hodeida Bella Zamarripa Shamcey. Which other Tahoe movie in in him, he added. His first venture is to a place that has muddy water. Locally, his first venture is in a tourist place that has muddy water. What does muddy water tell you? It tells you it's no good for fishing.
Wilson tells you it's no good for setting up a harbor is no good for setting up a civilization. This is an uncharted location. And yet he discovers that there's some people there. Well, whatever ENDA Coleman, he was surprised to find a an actual people there. And he doesn't know how to deal with them. So what are we learning in between the lines in the story of the local name, he's going to unmapped places in the world. He's not going to cities. He's going between mountain passes. He's going as far as the West can take him. He's going as far as the east can take. And he's beating people. Like I said, what the second group he met couldn't even cover themselves from the sun. The
third group he met could barely speak. Like I don't have Kahuna cola. What does that tell you? He's going into the uncivilized world, if you will, he's going to the uncharted parts of the world. There's a direct contrast between this. And as how we're going, we're back to the city, right towards the city. And Allah is describing subhanho wa taala. When you have resources, when you lack resources, of course, the only place you can go is for the city for food, you're not going to just head towards east and I'll hopefully I'll find a tree to eat from, you're going to go where the where the resources are. But when you have the resources, you're going to go where nobody's gone
before you're going to go where there are no resources, and see what you might discover And who might you be able to help that might be in need of help. That's the story of dopamine. And that's a mindset for a believer when we're No, when we ourselves, like the world when we're in a lack of resources. Then we go to where there are resources. That's why people migrate, leave the village and go to move to the city.
But when Muslims become resourceful, let me give me your example. Any of you, you, you know your family may have migrated to the United States to Australia to Canada, wherever they had lack of resources where they were and then they came to where they're more resources
Now you were taking advantage of those resources and you were able to get an education, get a high paying career, all of it. Right? Now you're in Almudena, in a sense. So you're kind of like in a local nine type situation, you have resources at your disposal. Now what becomes incumbent on you and on me is to go to places that are not served,
to go and take the resources we have, and now be of service in places that aren't getting services. And go there and help. This is the the twofold scenario that's been captured between these two stories.
Another really interesting kind of storytelling feature that emerges in both of these stories is that of course the young people of the cave are asleep for we don't know how long there's two ways of reading reading the idea of whether it be through free coffee himself me attend see Nina was that notice that they stayed in their cave, 300 years. And then they were added by nine? There's two ways to read that. One is Allah is actually saying 309 some years. Another way of reading that is people said, like even our buses opinion, people said that they stayed 300 and even nine 309 years, meaning people got obsessed with how many years? Did they live there? Or were they sleeping? As if? How many
there were isn't the point? How many years? Were they sleeping also isn't the point? They're missing the point, right? But the idea still is, it's long enough that culture has changed. The official religion of the state has changed. Obviously, when the government and the king changes the coin, the minted coin changes, currency changes, right? My dad actually has he had because he traveled quite a bit of the world. He had a hobby of collecting coins and currency from different parts of the world. Right. And I was just going through his collection the other day, and there are literally, you know, coins from like Libya, and from like Iraq, or Iraqi currency with Saddam Hussein on it. And Libyan
currency with, like, people that we've seen deposed and killed, right, and now the only record left of them, of that trace is their old currency museum stuff, right? But the point I'm making is, currency changes, culture changes, diet changes, of course, clothing changes, clothing change, if somebody is dressed like they were in the 1800s. And they showed up today, we'd like Halloween, what's going on? Right? These young men were trying to be inconspicuous, and they of course, one of them went into the marketplace with three centuries old currency, and centuries old dialect of language. And he's trying to buy something, obviously, it's going to make a scene. And you could
imagine people don't understand how this person is dressed. And they probably don't understand exactly how they're speaking either, because language evolves on the other side, but whether they're in the house, Coleman Leia Cardona of Kahuna Cola, local name comes across the people that barely understand anything he's saying. So there, there's a communication gap and a mismatch between a person and their surrounding in both of these scenarios. But it's, it's different, isn't it? On the one hand, it's because of time, because they belong to a different time, and they don't fit in this time, and will contain belongs to a different place. And now he's in a place where these people's
language and culture is not it's completely alien to him. I said this in the detailed lectures on Luca nain. Because he's traveled all over the world. It's not hard to imagine that his army and his people that are traveling with him because he's traveling with his legion, are multinational, multi ethnic, multicultural, multilingual. So for him to find the people, you know, and sometimes languages are, like Sister languages like Spanish and Italian, right? Or Germanic languages have some relationships with each other, some connections with each other. Right? So you could maybe find somebody who's close to their language and maybe they can translate some words find some
commonality, he ends up with the people he can, nobody can connect with what they're saying almost no way to communicate with them. Leia Cardona Kahuna Cola,
this is perhaps Allah's way of telling us how much of the world we don't understand how much of it we don't understand. And just because you don't understand someone doesn't mean you can't help them. And what can separate us as to both time and space, so we can be separated from our past generations, like our grandparents generation, because the world has changed in that time. So what they're able to relate to what they connect with is very different from what we relate to and connect with, and also my place, because if you travel to different places in the world, you may have a very hard time connecting with what the way others other people do things. Now.
Another contrast in between these two stories, is that Allah azza wa jal gave comfort and ease and safety to the people of the cave
in the middle of nowhere, and by contrast,
He, Allah showed us that there are people that are situated there in their home, they didn't have to leave their home. But the danger is coming to them, using my Judas coming to them, right? So when Allah wants to provide you safety, then you could be in a cave. And when Allah decides that you don't have safety, then yeah, Judo Judo come to you.
Right? So how the law. And it's remarkable that the young people, they have a cave, anybody could walk into a cave, there's no defensive mechanism, there's no electric fence, there's no alarm system, nothing. And they're asleep, they're defenseless. And on the other hand, you have a King who's gone all over the place. And by the way, if a king is leaving his, his his capital, and he's traveling, definitely, he's traveling with an army. And if he's going to all kinds of new places, he's there militarily ready for war. And he's powerful enough to implement his law because even when he went to a new place, he said, whoever does wrong will punish him. That means he has the power to
enforce it. He's got a military with him. So when will complain is coming, they have a defensive force. And yet he decides that defensive force is not the right choice, the only thing we can do is create a barrier between us and them, and they decide to build a war instead of engaging in war, which is going to lead me to another point that is coming soon.
Construction happens in both stories opener, I lay him bonyen. And I'll come back to this point of, of the construction in my thematic overview. When they were discovered and they died, people wanted to commemorate their memory and build some kind of a monument. Right? So Allah says, the people that argued about them said, make a monument, a statue, maybe or, you know, statues of them or something, some kind of construction. On the other hand, other said, Allah, Allah marry him, then at the hidden and a masjid, that the people who won the argument said, we're gonna build a masjid over them. Masjid here doesn't mean the mustard that we think of masjid, the idea is, we're going to build a
sanctuary, you know, a place where people will come. And this will be like a holy place. In South Asia, a lot of time, a lot of people believe in saints. So whereas a certain Saint died, they'll build an entire temple type sanctuary of Mazhar, where people will come in, you know, pay their homage and pray and sacrifice. I don't know what and, you know, make all kinds of wishes and stuff. This is a part of pagan culture that even made its way into Muslim culture. Right has nothing to do with our deen it's actually fundamentally shirk. Right. And you can just play turn anything into a temple. Because you say some saint died here some. So this, this is an old pagan practice. So they
said we should make a place of prayer here. Then at the Allahi masjid, and Allah is not directly commenting. But in between the lines, what's being said here, this is the tragedy of when you miss the point. The point of their legacy was something else. The point of their legacy was young people, when they hold on to their faith, Allah intervenes and gives them divine help. That was their point, their point wasn't to turn them into a temple. Or that wasn't the point. But this was the argument. On the other hand, though, call name comes across the people who are complaining about the hydrogen merge coming and ransacking them mostly do not fill out. And he says, Give me resources, give me
your manpower, give me whatever metals you have in this area, I'll put it I'll put a barrier that's insurmountable between you and them. I'll be in a cone Babina. Home, Norma. So construction is happening in both. But we're going to contrast that a little deeper in a minute.
I mentioned this before, but I'll elaborate now a little bit. transactions are happening in both I said, but I was on the wrong side then. So they said let's take this money and go get some food. Right. And on the other hand, when local nine came, and they were finally able to communicate, they said whatever money we can gather, can we give it to you so you can build us a wall?
Right? So payment for services, right? And in both cases that ended up not happening? He said, No, what Allah has given me is better, I can levy he'll be higher,
which is a very powerful statement on his side, too. If you have the resources and the ability, then you don't have to charge your poor customers.
Right, if you have, in a sense, is socially responsible, he should be paid for his services, anybody should be paid for their services. He owes them nothing. But he realizes when he Allah has given him enough, and these people don't even have enough to build. They don't even know how to build a wall. And I have no need of their money. It doesn't add to anything that Allah has already given me. Mama can he feel behind? And that's certainly an attitude. A doctor can develop. It's an attitude an architect can develop It's an attitude an accountant can develop. A lawyer can develop pro bono work right? As somebody who just can't afford it. What am I going to do with their $500 I already have
bigger clients. I can just I cannot ruin their two week pay by charging them a fee. Let me just help them out.
Right and that's not a bad thing. That's a local name type attitude. Okay.
I told I, yesterday I told you that there's a gap between the two oceans and the rock between two oceans. And the people of the cave were in a fudge wine open gap between the two sides of the Sun passing through. And here again, he reaches in the climax of the hookup named story had Dybala Venus, Dany, he reaches a place between two mountain passes between two large cliffs. So the idea of the stories always culminating, or climaxing at something in between two things, is a theme that carries over and all three stories.
This is really interesting. The young people of the cave when they were talking to each other, one of the things they said is in the home ER model Aleykum Yojimbo come, are you ready to configure let him if they overpower you, if they cast themselves over you, meaning are people, then they will stone you to death, or they will force you back into their religion. And you won't succeed in that case ever. Okay, so they're afraid of the the others, casting themselves over them, yellow icon. And then literally, this, this word occurs again, in the story of Luca name, he builds the wall, and the Jews and Jews from our star and yelled, Heroku, the same word you have heard, they were not able to
overcome the barrier that was built, and what was their purpose of overcoming the barrier to be to do a war against the people on the other side. So in both cases, they're afraid of oppression being viable over them. But they're two different approaches that were taken. And we'll talk about them. Now, this is the time to talk about it.
I said in the beginning of this talk, the US Habitica have flee from oppression, they're running from it.
As local Lanius, taking a defensive stance against oppression, by the way, there's a third option, there's fleeing, there's defense, and there's also offense, you could preemptively strike, or they're coming after us, we'll go after them. Right. Now, the common, the most common response you expect from a king,
or people that are in a position of power, is that you expect them to be on the offensive,
you would expect that we have the resources, and he's already said, whoever does wrong, we're gonna punish him. He's already demonstrated an offensive stance earlier and the same story. But now he's taking a defensive stance and connecting these two stories, Allah has possibly highlighted, again, a nuanced way of seeing the world, sometimes the right thing to do is flee. Other times, the right thing to do is put all of your efforts in avoiding conflict, while not fleeing. That's what little Katrina is doing. He's putting all this time energy resources into building a wall, the entire purpose of the wall is not to end the conflict, it is to put a blockade to the conflict, to stop it
from happening. A final enter the conflict will be you fight these people and you kill them. That would be the final end. But that's not the stance that he chooses. And of course, fighting is yet another a third option, but to to not thought about options, the two not so obvious options that we don't associate with Islam sometimes, right, because the Islamic option will just fight. But maybe there are situations in which the right thing is fleeing. And another situation in which the right thing is, you know, stopping the fitna from happening, maybe they're thinking about collateral damage, we're in the middle of a valley, if we do engage these people in war, we don't have an open
battlefield.
And so if we do start losing, or there are attacks happening, there will be collateral damage, which will all be civilians. So maybe 10, save civilian lives, the only thing we can do, even though we can fight them is to build a wall. So other things have to be taken into consideration. And being being strong in your faith does not mean that you're idealistic and unrealistic. Perhaps that's what's being taught to us from these to contrast. The insha Allah theme that started in South Africa have continues. So in as high as he will have, at the end, Allah told the profit slice of them without the hula nilly Shay, in any final Delica hudon Illa Ania SHA, Allah, don't you dare say
about anything that you're going to do. I'm going to do this in this tomorrow for sure. Except that you say that Allah wills where you add Allah's Will to your future plans. So this is a an imperative on the Muslims. This is why when we talk about the future, we say, in sha Allah, right?
In the story of Masada, some Yesterday we saw in the beginning, he didn't say in sha Allah.
He said, I'm going to keep going until I find this place, and he didn't find it. And then he learned his lesson. So when his teacher came and said, You're not going to be able to have somebody when he said, Saturday Dooney in shallows. Now he added in Sharla. So there's a real there's an echoing of mentioning from the
First story, but now we take another step in this story, he builds a wall and he's able to build a wall.
And once he's able to build the wall, he realizes that you know, it's not just about oh, I'm going to do this and this tomorrow and I have to add Inshallah, but actually, in his own words without saying in sha Allah, he said something he said, even though I've built this, this will only stand here, so long as Allah wants it to
have our Motomura be for either our Abuja Allahu Dhaka when Allah is promised comes this little collapse it will be nothing, no fall apart. as solid as this wall is as powerful as it is that the enemy can't scale it, they can't drill through it. A time will come well, this will be nothing. You could you could be so proud of yourself of how impregnable you made this wall. And now nothing can break it. This is forever, but he's actually realistic about the meaning of Insha Allah, this stands so long as Allah wills and Allah's promises coming even if it stands throughout this life, and aka comes when that's gonna fall apart anyway. But whatever Allah His promises for this wall is going to
get fulfilled, just like Allah has promised time is for every one of us to go. And for every one of the things that we have to go our health has a time limit. You know, our wealth has a time limit. Our age, our life on this earth has a time limit. The things we own have a time limit. How long will we get to keep something or hold on to something is not up to us? That's part of our little baby. Jana Hodaka. What kinda
It's interesting also that it was really interesting contrast, the US herbal gods were terrified. They were terrified. And they were terrifying to anybody who showed up at the cave.
So Allah made it look like if you were to go there with that saboom A carbon on record.
You will think that they're awake while they're sleeping. When you call it boom, that'll mean what data Shall we keep tossing them to the right in the left? Well, Calhoun basketball era him in Wall Street and their dog is got his paws stretched out. Sleeping, the dogs got his paws stretched out but a dog with its paws stretched out could also be a dog in the attack position. You know growling,
lower Tala de la lower later minhang Ferrara were you to stumble upon them, you would run from them, you would turn your back and turn others back running from them fleeing. While I'm really mean home raga and you will be filled with terror. From them, you'd never even just even the mention of them would terrify you. This is how Allah defended them by perception. Right? So when Allah wants, anybody will be afraid of something that is not scary at all. He can make you defenseless and yet terrifying.
And when Allah once you have someone like Volker name, which is a powerful ruler, who Allah has given all kinds of resources and victory wherever he goes, and yet the enemies unafraid of him, they're itching to scale over the wall and fight with him. Right? Even though when they see a wall, they must recognize this was not built by some nobody. Whoever this is, is pretty, pretty powerful, and pretty evil. So they'll probably make short work of us even if we crossed this wall. And yet they don't care. When Allah decides he puts fear in the enemy. And Allah decides he allows the enemy to be fearless.
Again, a nuanced view of, you know, the believer and how what kind of antagonism they have to face. They may have they may have to face someone who's terrified of them. Or they may face someone who has absolutely no regard for consequences. They're completely fearless. Like the majority, they can't wait to go and engage in a fight.
It's also counterintuitive, isn't it? The defenseless ones are terrifying, and the one that has defenses is not being feared. Right. So it's kind of its flipped.
This was the point I was making. Before about construction. We're towards the end. Now. A religious monument is missing the point. What I'm referring to is they said we should build a temple here, Masjid here, a place of worship here to commemorate a Sabbath, which again misses the point of what Allah had them discovered for.
But you know, we think of these places, these religious sanctuaries, the world thinks of them as places to remember something holy, something sacred, but secret is not decided by people's secret is decided by Allah.
I don't decide that something is holy, or something is sacred. That comes from Allah. And now you have on the flip side, you have a no name mountain pass, that is inhabited by no named people. And Luca lane is going to build a wall. And this wall from Allah is
In fact, the kind of sacred thing, it's a service. And so he said how the Nairobi This is Rama from Arab.
And this construction has nothing to do with worship. It has nothing to do with it's not a holy site, its only purpose is to help people. Our view of everything in the world transformed our view of what is sacred transforms because of this, what a secret isn't just a space, what a secret is what helps others, what protects others, somebody opens up.
You know, a Mazhar a masjid, even if they open up Russia, and they are manipulating people from that place it can happen.
That can happen. Religious manipulation in the name of God, right. And somebody else opens up a clinic in a village.
And the clinic may be sacred in the sight of Allah.
Because of what it's doing, it's helping people. It's preventing a problem. broadening our perspective on what is and isn't a Rama from Allah. That's what's happening here. And of course, somebody you know, because we have the selective dissonance Oh, are you saying we shouldn't build machines?
No, I'm saying you should build mustards for the right reason. And maybe we should take inspiration from the hashtable. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam who built the masjid where people were constantly being helped.
People were being helped the doorway doors were always open. non Muslims were walking in. Christian missionaries were staying as guests.
People that didn't have anything to eat, were going were to the masjid. People that were having trouble in their home. Were going were in the masjid.
People that wanted to learn something, we're going to the motions, people that needed protection, we're going to the motion.
The motion was the halfway house. The motion was the Counseling Center. The motion was the soup kitchen, the what the motion was all those things. And maybe that's what made it sacred. That is what made it sacred, not just the prayer, you see. So yes, I am saying build machines. But let's meet machines inspired by robots. I saw them last week was inspired by what was going on in the machine that is supposed to be look at what Ibrahim alayhis salam prays for he's building Allah's house and he wants people to have safety and provision.
If we establish a masjid somewhere Muslims, then that must should should also be the surroundings of it, because of the Muslim presence should now be a place where people find more risk
and they find more safety
because where people have Ibrahim Ali Sena anyway, I think this is the last one Yeah. So, this one is a little bit
philosophical, but an important one.
So in the study of the Quran, especially nowadays and you know, in modern studies in the Quran, in western studies in the Quran, one big topic that is very much under discussion is historicity. And historicity is, how verifiable are the stories in the Quran? Are they borrowed from somewhere else were they what is their origin? Where did they come from, etc, etc. And the historicity challenge in the study of the Quran, the biggest challenge of all of them is in fact photograph. And two of the biggest ones are Musa another story. And will coralayne story who is Luca lane, what century is this? Where's this place between the mountain passes? Where's the east? And where's the West? Was
this group that can't cover themselves? Who is Yeah, Judah modules? These are important historical questions that people are asking, trying to figure out what the Quran is talking about. And all kinds of theories have been postulated. In our series, we actually discuss some of these theories and academic works that have been done in more recent times on this subject. But let's take a step back from all of that discussion and come back to the Quran.
Allah could have told us the exact geographical location Yes or No?
Allah could have told us how many people were in the cave, where the cave is located. He could have told us he could have told us every bit of detail that we're so curious about, but he chose deliberately not he ignored the historical questions that people are most curious about. In the story of the cave.
You know, my wife told me there's actually in some countries, Muslim countries, they have the names of the Seven Sleepers. They consider them seven. Quran doesn't say they're seven. But famously, they call them the Seven Sleepers of the cave. And they have their names and they have they memorize their names and they want to do I answer this names and they take
your fight as well just memorize Marvel action hero characters. I don't know what, where you get this idea from. But the point that I'm making is, people want to fill the historical gaps with something
And when you see what we have done with the missing historical information, you realize why Allah doesn't tell us this stuff to begin with.
You realize why? So he ignored them and they'll complain story. He goes where the sunsets. He goes where the sunrises he goes between two mountains, that specific geo tracking.
It's so ambiguous. He meets a people he meets on other people. Yeah, Julian modules are causing trouble who are using modules? Where are they? What's going on here? Allah will deliberately ignore what we think are historical, important historical questions, because the Quran reclaims the story, and then says, I want you to focus on what you can learn from the story.
Not the dates, facts and figures of the story. He's deliberately making that a moot point. He's deliberately testing us with that. And he tested us with that in us how we'll have story, which is why when people say they were 789, whatever, he says, arrabiata movie the team. Tell them your master knows better what their number was. It's as if Allah is saying, Yeah, and I'm not going to tell you keep arguing about pointless things. What if you found out they were six? You're like, Ah, I was right.
Yes. Now I can sleep better?
What are you going to get? If you've somehow discovered there were nine of them? And the 10th one was the dog. How's that going to change you?
If you discovered the wall between these two mountain passes, was in Oklahoma?
How does that change your life. And if it does change your life, you got a problem.
Because if you if you discover it in Oklahoma, we should go there and touch it and then make dua
that's exactly why you're not being told these things. This is the mindset that is being crushed by the Quran. This is what's being brought, we're being broken free from it from, you know, turning the religion into religious artifacts, sacred sites, you know, symbols, and we hold on to those symbols. That is the way of other religions. That is the way our deen came to free us from this. It's a profoundly liberating religion, a free thinking religion, a critical thinking religion. It's like no other Deen. There's nothing like it. There's nothing like no other sacred book keeps making a demand. Why don't you think? Don't you then think? Don't they then ponder, go travel in the land and
see how creation began. Learn history, what book will tell you that what religious book will tell you that? What religious book will tell you what's the American fear he puts you on the earth and he wanted you to develop and enhance it. He wanted you all he wanted all of you to be developed on it. That's our book.
That's this Quran. And so the Part of my reason for, you know, sharing these these contrasts and comparisons of the stories one obviously is to highlight how interconnected the stories are and how beautifully we can learn something from those comparisons contrast and how a sutras point converges when you understand its literary structure. When the opening and closing stories are being connected, so my next task inshallah is going to be I'm going to be comparing the two stories that are side by side so Musa story, Musa and other story and local nine story that's what I'm going to try and do tomorrow. BarakAllahu li Walakum tacky. When a fan your ear can be it will look like he
was salam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato.