Zia Sheikh – Ramadan Khatira Day 15
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AI: Transcript ©
Alhamdulillah wa salatu wa salam wa rasoolillah.
Last night we completed Suratul Kahf, Surat Maryam
and Surah Taha.
Three Surahs, completing the 16th Juz.
So I want to focus a little bit
on Suratul Kahf and then another verse in
Surat Maryam.
Suratul Kahf is a Surah which the Prophet
ﷺ instructed us to pray on the day
of Friday.
And we should make a habit of it.
It takes maybe about 10 minutes or 15
minutes if you read slow.
But the Prophet ﷺ said that a person
who prays this, he will be protected from
the fitnah, the trials and tribulations of the
Dajjal when he comes.
And this fitnah, it will come at the
end of time in which the Dajjal will
try to deceive people and try to mislead
them, making them think that he is the
one worthy of worship and he is in
fact God.
When of course he is the Dajjal, the
deceiver, the liar.
So what is the connection between the Surah
itself and the fitnah of Dajjal?
If we look at the Surah in total,
it goes through many different trials and tribulations
that a human faces through his life.
And the first test that is mentioned is
the test of a person who wants to
have complete faith and conviction and belief, but
yet he is surrounded by disbelief.
How does he deal with it?
And this has been mentioned or the story
has been exemplified to us in the case
of a group of youths that set out
to try to protect their deen.
They didn't know each other, never met each
other before, but on the day of the
festival in which shirk was being committed and
disbelief was being propagated, they left the town
and just gathered in one place, and when
they started talking to each other, it emerged
that they were all outside of the town
for one reason, and that is because they
didn't want to believe in the shirk that
was being committed within the town walls.
So they left, they went into a cave
to seek refuge, a dog came along with
them, and then Allah SWT put them to
sleep for 300 years and took them out
of that sleep, and after they came out,
that era of disbelief had finished, and it
emerged to the townspeople that this is a
miracle that has happened, when they tried to
present their currency to buy some food, it
was a 300 year old coin.
So when they did that, they found out
that these people are 300 years old, and
then the whole town basically had a renewed
conviction, even though they had actually moved away
from the shirk that the people had been
committed before.
So the lesson of the story is that
once you stand up to protect your iman,
to protect your deen, Allah SWT's help will
come with you, Allah SWT will assist you.
The main thing is you have to stand
up and do something about it, and be
concerned about it.
And we see many examples of that, people
who are really genuinely concerned about the upbringing
of their children, they are puzzled, they are
concerned as to what they should do, and
Allah SWT makes such means for them that
they move to a better community, or a
community where the protection of their children is
easier than the community that they were living
in, or the country even that they were
living in.
Allah SWT makes those aspects from situations where
they couldn't even imagine.
So this is the first lesson that we
learn, where we are faced with the fitna
of shirk and disbelief.
Further on, Allah SWT mentions the story of
two men.
One of them rich, a lot of land,
a lot of money, a lot of crops,
a lot of fruit, a beautiful property that
he is living in with flowing rivers and
trees and palm trees and pine trees, etc.
And Allah SWT compares this conversation that takes
place between the two, one who has wealth
and one who doesn't have so much wealth.
This is the trial of wealth.
And many people don't understand that the money
that a person earns and the wealth he
accumulates, this is also a test from Allah.
Allah says, وَنَبْلُوكُم بِالشَّرِّ وَالخَيْرِ فِتْنًا We test
you with shirk, loss of wealth, loss of
life, loss of health, etc.
This would be, we assume it's regarded as
shirk, things which are difficult for us to
endure.
But وَنَبْلُوكُم بِالخَيْرِ Also, Allah tests us with
giving us khayr.
Khayr, meaning a lot of wealth, a lot
of children, nice property, nice job, stable job.
But this is also a test from Allah
SWT.
So this is a test, it's a trial
from Allah to see how we deal with
it.
And the human instinct and human nature is
not to thank Allah SWT and be grateful
for what Allah has given.
Rather, He takes it upon Himself that I'm
intelligent, I have a degree, I have so
much education, and that's why I landed the
job that I have, and I made the
money that I have, and I'm smart in
investing.
So I took my money and I invested
it in such and such a thing, in
so many stocks, in such a business, and
because of my intelligence, it flourished.
And then a person is not focusing on
Allah SWT, but rather on himself.
Whereas the story tells us that when this
person was becoming arrogant, his friend told him,
وَلَوْ لَا إِذَا دَخَلْتَ جَنَّتَكَ قُلْتَ مَا شَاءَ
اللَّهُ لَا قُوَّةَ إِلَّا بِاللَّهِ I talked earlier,
but MashaAllah la quwata illa billah.
This friend of his who was not so
wealthy, he told him that why is it
that when you enter into this garden of
yours that is so lush and so bountiful
and giving you so many fruits, why don't
you say MashaAllah la quwata illa billah.
Why don't you say that everything is from
Allah SWT.
Thank Allah SWT for it.
And this is what we should be doing.
When Allah has given us wealth, He has
given us a position, we should be thinking
about the time where we were before.
When we were maybe students, and how we
used to live on a shoestring budget.
We used to have to maybe survive on
pizzas.
And we used to have to share a
room with three guys.
And share one bathroom between these three people.
And maybe we came back, we came from
a different country where we were not surviving
on much.
We had a very small salary.
Allah SWT enabled us to come to this
country and from where we were to where
we are now, it's a huge difference, but
then we forget what we were before.
And we become arrogant with what we have.
So whenever we feel this kind of arrogance
coming on, we should think about our past
and say MashaAllah, this is what Allah SWT
gave us and blessed us with.
And part of that is taking that wealth
and giving back to Allah SWT in the
form of charity, in the form of sadaqat,
in the form of zakat.
So the second trial is the trial of
the wealth.
And this is again further mentioned with the
addition of children.
المال والبنون زينة الحياة الدنيا The children, the
wealth and the children, they are both the
beauty of this world.
They are the beauty of this world.
Maybe not so much in this time and
age, but there was a time where a
person who had a lot of children, this
was a kind of pride for him.
That he is a person who has a
lot of progeny to look after him.
He has a huge family to take care
of him.
So having a lot of children was something
that people regarded as being something good and
praiseworthy.
So Allah SWT says المال والبنون زينة الحياة
الدنيا This is just the beauty of this
worldly life.
والباقيات الصالحات خير عند ربك ثوابا وخير أمل
The thing that is going to remain is
not this wealth and the children.
You are going to leave all that behind.
Think sitting in front of your children one
day and think sitting in your house one
day.
Just think, while everybody is sleeping maybe, when
you go home today.
Just sit in your living room and think
for a minute that the day is going
to come where this house of mine, I
am going to leave it.
This wealth of mine, I am going to
leave it.
And the children that I see running around
and laughing and having fun around me and
playing, I am going to leave them one
day also.
Think of that.
Allah is telling us in this verse that
المال والبنون زينة الحياة الدنيا Wealth and children,
they are the beauty of this world.
والباقيات الصالحات The thing that is going to
remain is the good deeds that you have
done.
That is the best thing and that is
the thing to look forward to and hope
for in the hereafter.
Nothing else will go with us.
So again, this is emphasized in this particular
verse.
Then the trial of knowledge is mentioned.
Now what happens with knowledge, when a person
gets knowledge, he tends to get arrogant.
Whether that is the knowledge of this world
or the knowledge of what we deem religious
knowledge, there is something that comes with it
and part of تربية, of studying in a
مدرسة, in a religious environment, is, and again
from personal experience I am telling you, is
that it is not just a case of
learning something.
Rather the تربية goes hand in hand with
the teaching.
And the biggest part of the تربية of
a person who studies in a religious environment
is the constant reminder from his elders and
his scholars and his teachers that this knowledge,
it brings with it arrogance.
You have to make sure that you keep
yourself humble and you lower yourself, understand humbleness
and humility and that is the means of
success.
So in any case, the trial of knowledge
is mentioned in the story of Musa A
.S. When he was asked by the people
around him that who is the most knowledgeable
of people, the whole story is mentioned in
detail in Bukhari and here in Surah Al
-Kahf, in snippets it is mentioned, not in
great detail, but the whole story of him.
So he said, I am the most knowledgeable
person and he was right in the sense
that the prophets are the most knowledgeable people
and they are the ones who have been
given the most knowledge by Allah SWT.
The knowledge of a prophet is basically all
of the knowledge of humanity combined cannot come
even close to the knowledge of a prophet.
But somehow Allah SWT didn't like the answer
that Musa A.S. gave, so he told
him that there is somebody more knowledgeable than
you.
The way to understand this is that you
have different levels of doctors, right?
You have a doctor who is a heart
specialist and a doctor who is a kidney
specialist.
So if somebody asks the doctor who is
a heart specialist that who is the most
knowledgeable in your field, he will say, I
am the one who is most knowledgeable in
my field.
But what about kidneys?
He will say, you go to that person.
So the knowledge that Musa A.S. had
was a divine knowledge that was given to
him by Allah SWT, but then there was
a specific type of knowledge given to somebody
else, which was Khidir, who is mentioned in
the story.
He was given a special type of knowledge.
So the trial of knowledge is to maintain
humbleness and humility and make sure that you
understand that Allah has given specific types of
knowledge and different types of knowledge to different
people.
We need to understand and appreciate that.
I am not going to go into the
whole story.
I think probably most of you know the
story of Musa and Khidir and the three
things that happened and the response to those,
the questions that Musa A.S. had for
Khidir and how he responded to them.
It is mentioned in this surah.
If you want, you can read the tafseer
of it.
And then finally, Allah SWT says at the
end of the surah, mentions the story of
the fitna of leadership.
This is another trial that people have.
That when they become leaders, kings, presidents, prime
ministers, what happens?
This leadership goes to a person's head.
And he tends to disobey Allah SWT in
this leadership that he has.
So abuse of power in the form of
tyranny, oppression, more prevalent, unfortunately, in our Muslim
countries, where our dictators, our so-called leaders,
they, you know, by hook and crook, by
every possible means, they try to maintain that
leadership and to hold their grasp on power.
If it's a democracy, they will use all
forms of fraud to rig the elections so
that the votes come in their favor.
If it's a dictatorship, it's basically handed from
father to son and then from son to
the next son and it's maintained within the
family.
And any person who stands up with any
form of dissent or any kind of disobedience,
he is tortured, put in prison, killed or
disappears.
We see that all the time.
So leadership, you know, it's another trial.
And the leadership of Dhul Qarnayn is mentioned
how he as a leader protected his people
and his kingdom was from east to west.
He conquered all of these countries, but he
was, wherever he went, he was looking to
protect his people and to make sure that
their interests were served.
So this is how a true leader should
be.
Ultimately, the last verse in Surah Al-Kahf,
it sums up everything.
The whole gist of the Surah is summed
up in one verse.
فَمَنْ كَانَ يَرْجُو لِقَاءَ رَبِّهِ فَلْيَعْمَلْ عَمَلٍ صَالِحًا
وَلَا يُشْرِكْ بِعِبَادَةِ رَبِّهِ أَحَدًا Whoever wants to
meet his Lord and in the state that
Allah is pleased with him, obviously, what should
he do?
He should do good deeds and he should
not commit shirk with Allah.
These two conditions are there for you.
You have to be in the state of
Iman, you have to have the correct Iman,
and you follow that up with Amal al
-Salih.
This is what is required from every single
human.
A very simple equation that Allah has given
us.
All of these other things, these are things
that will come up.
Hurdles, trials, tribulations.
But in the course of going through all
of those trials and tribulations, when a person
maintains this principle, Iman and Amal al-Salih,
then he will be the person who is
successful.
So this was Surah Al-Kahf.
And after that you had Surah Maryam.
And Surah Maryam, as the name indicates, it
is talking about Maryam, the mother of Isa
A.S. The only woman mentioned by name
in the Quran, and the one who has
a Surah dedicated to her.
There is no other woman mentioned by name
in the Quran.
This is something we need to tell our
Christian co-workers, friends, neighbours.
We need to let them know about the
honour that Islam gives the blessed Maryam, the
blessed Mary.
And in the course of this Surah, it
mentions how Jibreel A.S. comes to Maryam,
and tells her that she is going to
have a baby.
She objects.
She says, no man has ever touched me.
I am not a woman who does bad
things.
So how can I have a baby?
So Jibreel A.S. reassures her that this
is from Allah SWT.
You are going to have a baby.
And it is something that has been decreed
by Allah SWT.
So it happens, and she becomes pregnant.
She has the baby.
And then, obviously now, she has the baby.
She doesn't know what to do.
People are going to make accusations against her.
And the Surah mentions that accusations were made
against Maryam.
And people did point the finger at her,
and told her that this is something that
is not appropriate for you, being in the
family tree of Haroon, to be doing something
to bring a baby out of wedlock.
Now the strangest thing ever happened, and that
was that Jibreel A.S. spoke while he
was in the cradle.
And this portion of the story, of the
birth of Jibreel A.S., is not mentioned
in Biblical references.
In Christian references, it is not mentioned.
So people that say that the Quran was
copied, and it was brought over from previous
religions, they need to understand that certain things
are, obviously the story that happened, happened.
It is going to be exactly the same
in our book as it was in previous
teachings.
But in addition to that, we have things
that were not mentioned.
So this is further proof that this was
from Allah S.W.T. and not just
copied by our beloved Prophet S.A.W.
In addition to this story, the story of
Maryam, her upbringing, her background, that's also mentioned
in the Quran, that doesn't have any kind
of Christian reference to it.
So, I just want to focus on this
particular verse, where Isa A.S. speaks in
the cradle, and the things that we can
learn from it.
So, she pointed to the baby.
Before that, it's mentioned that Allah S.W
.T. instructed her to make a nathar of
fasting.
So, in those days, there was a saum
of not talking, fasting of not talking.
We have a fasting of eating and drinking,
there was a fast of not talking, fast
of silence.
So, she said that she was told by
Allah S.W.T. that if anybody tries
to talk to you, by giving ishara, tell
them that I am fasting, I am not
going to talk to any human.
But then when they started making accusations against
her, she pointed to the baby.
Now, this ishara, it was either because she
was fasting, but also, the indication from that
is that Isa A.S. as a baby
even understood isharat, even understood signals.
In addition to being told verbally, Isa A
.S. as a baby understood the signal that
he has to speak up now.
And the people obviously said, كيف نكلم من
كان في المهدي صبيح?
How are we going to talk to somebody
who is a baby in the cradle?
It's impossible.
And as a side note, there have been
a few babies in history that have talked
in the cradle.
One of them was Isa A.S. One
of them, according to some tafaseer, while Yusuf
A.S. was being accused of trying to
seduce Zureikha, there was a baby in the
vicinity of that building.
That baby spoke up, according to one tafaseer.
And the story that is mentioned in Surat
Buruj, of a person, a king, a tyrant
king, who had a huge pit dug up
of fire, and he was putting people inside
this fire.
At one point, there was a woman who
had a baby in her arms, and she
was being thrown into the fire.
And just because of the baby, she was
hesitant to jump into the fire.
So the baby spoke up and told the
mother, Jump, you know, what is beyond this
fire and what is beyond this pit of
fire is better for us, because we will
meet Allah SWT.
Allah SWT has saved us through this effort.
And then there is another story mentioned in
a hadith, about a monk that was accused
by a prostitute of doing something bad with
her.
The baby that was born from the so
-called thing that happened between the monk and
the prostitute, he spoke up and said, this
is not my father, he didn't do anything
bad.
This is mentioned in hadith.
So these are the four children that have
been mentioned in hadith and tafaseer, that have
talked while they were children.
Isa AS is one of them.
So he said, Isa AS spoke up.
He said, He said, I am the slave
of Allah SWT, the servant of Allah SWT.
He gave me the book and he made
me a prophet.
Meaning he gave me the teachings and he
made me a prophet.
And he made me mubarak wherever I am.
Mubarak, it has different connotations and meanings.
One meaning of mubarak which is the most
commonly taken, is he made me blessed wherever
I am.
But another meaning is from the word buruk.
Buruk and baraka yabruku means that when you
tell your camel to sit down.
So when that camel sits down, it basically
stays there.
Thabit.
So waj'alani mubarakan means that Allah SWT
made me steadfast.
This is one meaning given of mubarak.
And there are other meanings also.
The one who spreads khair, the one who
orders people to do good, forbids them from
evil and so on.
That's also mentioned in tafaseer.
He made me mubarak wherever I am.
He advised me, Allah ordered me to pray
the salat and either give the zakat.
Zakat can mean two things.
Either to give in charity or the purification
of the nafs.
He told me to maintain the purification of
the nafs.
Madumtu hayya, as long as I'm alive.
And this is what I'm going to talk
about in a minute.
Wabarran bi walidati.
And he made me obedient to my mother.
Walam yaj'alani jabbaran shaqiya.
And he didn't make me a jabbar.
And he didn't make me a misfortunate person.
Jabbar means a tyrant and an oppressor.
And shaqiya, a misfortunate person who is engaged
in disbelief.
Wassalamu alayya yawma wulittu wa yawma amutu wa
yawma ub'athu hayya.
Salam upon me, peace upon me, the day
that I was born, the day that I
will die, and the day that I will
be resurrected alive.
So this wording is called into question.
About the belief of Muslims that Isa a
.s. was raised up alive.
So what does this actually mean?
The day that, peace upon me, the day
that I was born, the day that I
was born, obviously he's already born, and the
day that I die, and then the day
that I'm resurrected alive.
So this resurrection, what's it talking about?
This is actually talking about after he comes
back, and he's obviously going to live a
natural life, and then he's going to die,
and then in the hereafter, just like everybody
else, he's going to be resurrected alive.
So this is the meaning here.
However, if you look at the end of
Suratul Ma'idah, Allah SWT describes a discussion
that takes place on the Day of Judgment
between Allah SWT and Isa a.s. And
this discussion, Allah SWT asks Isa, Ya Isa
ibn Maryam, أَأَنتَ قُلتَ لِلنَّاسِ اِتَّخِذُونِ وَأُمْيَا إِلَهَيْنِ
مِنْ دُونِ اللَّهِ Did you tell the people
to take me and my mother as gods
other than Allah SWT?
And Isa a.s. said, No, this is
not what I said.
مَا يَكُونُ لِي أَنْ أَقُولَ مَا لَيْسَ لِي
بِحَقِّ I don't have any right to say
something that you've not given me permission to
say.
إِن كُنْتُ قُلْتُهُ فَقَدْ عَلِمْتَ If I had
said it, you would have known it.
And further on, it says, فَلَمَّا تَوَفَيْتَنِي كُنْتَ
أَنْتَ الرَّقِيبَ عَلَيْهِمْ When you gave me wafaaat,
you were watching over them.
When you gave me wafaaat.
So this wafaaat, what does it mean?
Wafaaat, we use the same word in Urdu,
it refers to death, right?
It refers to a person passing away.
But here, it has a different meaning.
Wafaaat, it has two meanings, which are mentioned
in the Quran.
And they are mentioned in one verse, اللَّهُ
يَتَوَفَّى الْأَنفُسَ حِينَ مَوْتِهَا وَالَّتِي لَمْ تَمُتْ فِي
مَنَامِهَا Allah SWT, He gives wafaaat to a
person at the time of his death, and
those people that don't die, at the time
of his sleep, Allah SWT also gives a
person wafaaat.
So when a person goes to sleep, this
is a form of wafaaat.
It's a form of death.
It's a minor form of death.
That's why when we go to sleep, what's
the dua we read?
اللَّهُمَّ بِاسْمِكَ أَمُوتُ وَأَحْيَى Or بِاسْمِكَ اللَّهُمَّ أَمُوتُ
وَأَحْيَى Oh Allah, with your name, I die
and then become alive again.
Because this small sleep that we are doing,
this is a form of wafaaat, tawafi.
And when we wake up in the morning,
what do we say?
الحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ الَّذِي أَحْيَانَ بَعْدَ مَا أَمَاتَنَا وَإِلَيْهِ
النُّشُورُ All praise is due to Allah SWT,
who gave us death, and then he made
us come alive again, and to him is
our return.
So the wafaaat that Isa AS is referring
to is, اللَّهُ يَتَوَفَّلْ أَنفُسَ حِينَ مَوْتِهَا وَالَّتِي
لَمْ تَمُوتْ فِي مَنَامِهَا It is the second
form of wafaaat that generally we have this
wafaaat while we sleep, Isa AS had this
type of wafaaat, not the wafaaat of death.
فَيُمْسِقُتْ لَتِي قَضَىٰ عَلَيْهَا الْمَوْتِ وَيُرْسِلُ الْأُخْرَىٰ إِلَىٰ
أَجَلٍ مُسَمَّنٍ Allah SWT, when he gives wafaaat
to people, then if the time is written
for that person to die completely, Allah SWT
maintains the ruh of that person, doesn't send
it back into the body.
And then the person whose death is not
yet written, puts the ruh back into the
body.
فَيُمْسِقُتْ لَتِي قَضَىٰ عَلَيْهَا الْمَوْتِ وَيُرْسِلُ الْأُخْرَىٰ إِلَىٰ
أَجَلٍ مُسَمَّنٍ He sends the remaining souls that
have not yet, have death written for them,
puts them back into the body.
So the wafaaat that Isa AS is saying,
is this second form of the wafaaat, we
shouldn't be confused by what the ayah is
saying, by just thinking that it's referring to
death.
And these verses actually, they are, you've probably
heard of a group, which is prevalent in
India and Pakistan, and they are actually becoming
more and more vocal as time goes on.
The Qadianis, Ahmadis and Qadianis, they actually take
these verses of Isa AS, and they twist
them to justify their own perverted belief, about
Ghulam Ahmad Qadiani, that where Isa AS said
that there will be a time when somebody
who's going to come, his name is Ahmad,
and they say it's referring to Qadiani, Ghulam
Ahmad Qadiani, or Mirza Qadiani.
And these verses also, they use to justify
their belief, so we need to be very
clear on what these verses mean, we need
to understand what they refer to.
Their belief is that Isa AS stayed alive
after his so-called crucifixion, he with Maryam
moved to Kashmir, or the mountains of Kashmir,
and lived there until they both died a
natural death.
This is the real understanding.
And people from Pakistan will be a little
bit surprised, by knowing the background of the
word Mary, where does it come from?
You know Mary in Pakistan?
The background of that is, that they believe
that Maryam AS is buried in that area,
and there's actually Mary, Maryam, from Maryam, and
there's actually a place which is reputed to
be the grave site of Maryam AS.
So this is from that twisted belief of
Ghulam Ahmad Qadiani, who says that Isa AS
stayed alive, moved to Kashmir, and died a
natural death over there.
So we should not be confused about that,
this is not what we believe, we believe
that he was raised up and he will
come back again, and that has been taught
to us, and this is our belief.
I pray that Allah SWT gives us tawfiq
to understand, and practice what has been said
and heard.
In the
name
of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
Al Fatiha.