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2.4 Day 9: Tafsir – Part 4

SURAH KAHF AND DAJJAL

Description
This video goes through some of the Hadiths that relate to al-Maseeh al-Dajjal, the evidence of his existence and
the miracles that Allah (swt) has given him the ability to carry out. It also discusses how he represents the
imbalanced view that our Ummah has come to have of deen and dunya.

Dua: Seeking Refuge in Allah from al-Dajjal

َّ‫كَّ ِمنََّّ ِفتنَ َِّةَّانل‬ َ ُ ُ َ ِ َّ ُ َّ

َّ‫ار‬
ِ َّ ِ‫وذَّب‬
َّ ‫ّنَّأع‬
َّ ‫الله َّمَّ ِإ‬
Oh Allah I seek your refuge from the trial of the fire

َّ‫ابَّانل‬ َ َ َ
َّ‫ار‬
ِ َّ ِ ‫ذ‬ ‫وع‬
and from the torment of the fire.

َ َ َ ُ ُ ََ
َّ‫ب‬
ِ ‫ق‬ ‫ال‬ََّّ
‫ة‬ ‫ن‬
ِ ِ‫ت‬‫ف‬َّ‫ن‬
َّ ‫م‬
ِ ََّّ
‫ك‬ ِ‫وذَّب‬
َّ ‫وَّأع‬
And I ask your refuge from the trial of the grave

َ َ َ َ ُ ُ ََ
َّ‫ب‬
ِ ‫ق‬ ‫ال‬ََّّ
‫اب‬ ِ ‫ذ‬ ‫ع‬ َّ‫ن‬
َّ ‫م‬
ِ ََّّ
‫ك‬ ِ‫وذَّب‬
َّ ‫وأع‬
And I seek your refuge from the torment of the grave.

َ‫ن‬ َ َ ُ ُ ََ
َّ ‫كَّ ِمنََّّفِتن َِّةَّال ِغ‬
َّ ِ‫وذَّب‬
َّ ‫وأع‬
And I seek your refuge from the trial of wealth

َ َ َ ُ ُ ََ
‫كَّ ِمنََّّفِتن َِّةَّالفق َِّر‬
َّ ِ‫وذَّب‬
َّ ‫وأع‬
And seek your refuge from the trial that comes from poverty

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َّ َّ َ َ ِ َ َ ُ ُ َ ِ َّ ُ َّ
َِّ ‫يحَّادلج‬
‫ال‬ َِّ ‫كَّ ِمنَََّّشفِتن َِّةَّالم ِس‬
َّ ِ‫وذَّب‬
َّ ‫ّنَّأع‬
َّ ‫الله َّمَّ ِإ‬
َّ َ
I seek your refuge from the evil trial of ‫( المسيحَّادلجال‬Al-Maseeh al-Dajjal)

 The placement of seeking refuge from the Dajjal in this dua and many others is an emphasis of how great of
a trial it is for a believer.
 The trial is so big, that many hadith state that a believer will go to sleep a believer, and will wake up a non-
believer.
o Skepticism and doubt and people not having conviction will penetrate deep into people’s hearts

Synopsis from Imam Al-Nawawi on Dajjal (from al-Qadi ‘Ayyad)

 The evidence is clear cut for the people of truth and it establishes that al-Dajjal is indeed a person and a
real person. He is not an ideology.
 Allah will be testing his slaves by means of Dajjal
 Allah has given him ability over many things from what seems to be from the domain of Allah, eg. giving life
to the dead that he just killed
o He will be given the ability to manifest and bring forward the beauty of this life
o will bring out greenery and vegetation where it is not expected
o and Dajjal’s version of Paradise and Hell, and his 2 rivers (one seems like fire but those who jump
into it will be heaven and the other that seems like Jannah but those who jump in will be hell
o the resources of the Earth will be at his disposal
o He will have the ability to command the sky to rain and it will rain, and the earth to sprout
vegetation and it will.
All of this will happen by Allah’s power and Allah’s will.

 Then Allah is going to make him incapable and take away his powers
 And he will not be capable to kill the man that doesn’t believe him that he had brought back to life a
second time
 Allah will nullify his mission and matter
 And Eessa ‘alayhi alsalam will kill
 And Allah will give firm establishment to those who believe.
This is the position of the people of Sunnah.

Evidence that he is NOT a God

 Evidence that he is mortal and will be killed exists
 He cannot be a God because he has defects and his inability to remove or fix his one eye that isn’t
functional
 He cannot even get rid of the word “Kafir” that is on his forehead that Believers can see

RECAP: The Elements mentioned in the Introduction

 The Christian account and narration of Ibn Abbas when
 The Christian backdrop of the story- what is the story of the people of the cave as the Christians have it
 To demonstrate the one eyed-ness of Dajjal through the progression of western thought and how that has
become a global thought
 The focus of Dajjal is to get people mesmerized with what is in this world

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The Balanced View that all Muslims should Carry

 The quran maintains this balance; we have gotten far from the thinking that the Quran promotes
 As a reaction to extreme materialism, you have a taqwa based reaction
o i.e. the extreme where everything that is new or luxurious is haram and it is all fitnah and kufr, so
stay away from it, because it reminds us of the fitnah of al-Dajjal
o more conservative Muslims think that things related to technology are evil and bad

Assessment of Al-Kahf through a Muslim Perspective

Observations about what is happening in the Ummah today
 The problems in the US are unique to us
 But our problems are pretty universal with some differences and unique aspects to our problems here and
there
 What the Ummah is going through is overwhelmingly similar
Interesting to note: Guidance in this Surah is from Youth and the majority of the Ummah over 65% today is under
the age of 35; we are an Ummah of youth, globally speaking

Ustadh Nouman’s assessment of the problem with our Ummah

 Muslims were colonized for a long time
 Under colonial rule, Muslims had different reactions to the powers that colonized them (whether it was the
French, Germans, Spaniards, British, Italians, etc)
 The first reaction of the Muslims was “we want nothing to do with the colonizers, we should fight back”.
o this happened in much of India, the Arab world and Africa
 The British had made most of their influence through trade and got deeply intrenched
 The fighting back did not work. Muslims and scholars got massacred all over the Muslim world. The tragedy
was identical across the globe.
 The next realization was that Muslims need to be part of the political process and get ahead of the British
o So the Muslims begin to learn English and try to assimilate as best they could to get ahead in the
world
 The scholarly class of Islam said this is all wrong and we shouldn’t accept their value system and education
system
o They said that we are losing our values as Muslims. We need to cut ourselves off from all of this.
o And so institutions were established that were walled off to save the teachings of Islam and
preserve Islam.
o In these closed off seminaries, we would wear clothes of Muslims, speak the language of Muslims,
follow the Hijri calendar, eat on the floor with our hands and maintain tradition. But as soon as you
come out of those walls, everyone else has westernized.
o Now, if they had opened those seminary doors to the public, traditional Islamic education may not
have survived.
 In the mean time, the masses of Muslims are not getting an Islamic education anymore because the
scholars that would provide that education have concerned themselves with inner circles.
 The west has just experienced a Renaissance . An education where 4 things are more important than 4
other things.
o Physical Universe as opposed to God
o The body as opposed to the soul
o This life as opposed to the next life
o Relative morality as opposed to stand morality
o This is the education the masses of Muslims are receiving.

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 A strange dichotomy was created where Muslims got politically liberated from Western colonization, but
economically and educationally were not liberated.
o Educationally: remained mentally colonized
 e.g. If you travel to Algeria, one of the greatest aspirations for an Algerian youth is to move
to France. The irony is that his grandfather may have died fighting the French. And his
obsession is with all things French.
o The imprint that they left behind is spread across our Ummah, university and across institutions.
 When the colonizers left, the scholars came out of their caves and isolation thinking they can be a part of
the essence of society like they used to be
o Before colonization scholars had a central role in society and were the most respected and revered.
They were the intellectuals and moral standards of societies. They were the social elite of those pre-
colonized societies.
o After colonization, the scholars come out and expect to be greeted with huge respect and
celebrations to resume their pedestal of power. But the world changed around them and the world
was not what they expected.
o The Muslim masses are not hostile against them but people no longer see them as credible sources
of knowledge because they don’t even have a basic Bachelor’s degree.
o For the vast majority of middle class Muslims, part of that education was that Imams and scholars
are from their own little circles and don’t know anything about the real world. Their place is in the
masjid and do not belong on the education committees, the senate, the political discussions.
o Interesting comparison: When the people of the cave came out, the people of the city said, “let’s
just put a masjid over them”.
o So the scholars are completely disconnected from society and they try to preach to society but
things are not going the way they used to.

 Islamic scholarship in many parts of the world was forced back into an isolated bubble.
o Scholars ended up thinking you have to cut yourself off from the kafir education and come and
learn with them. Must spend time away from life of dunya and go study with them if you want to
learn true and traditional Islam.
o These institutions exist now that encourage this idea. Where you go in a different direction
depending on what kind of education you want to receive.
o This is bad because the people that are studying religion are so disconnected from the world that
they start saying crazy things because they don’t understand how things work in the modern sense.
o And then those crazy things get published in local newspapers and in the Muslim world and the
public begin to wonder why these scholars make no sense.
o The more the scholars lost their credibility, the angrier they got and would say to the masses that
they have no respect for the Islam and Sunnah
o It got to the point where the scholars were being singled out as being uncivilized people

 Basically, you have to choose which eye you want to keep open (analogy of Dajjal)
o Either I’m going to study Islam and get a degree or I’m going to study in University
o Can’t have both eyes open. Must pick deen or dunya.
o The culture for decades has been that people that can’t get into anywhere else go and study Islam.
The overall culture is that kids that have no future go and study Islam.
o The eye has been shut so well that you can’t jab it open.

 It is strange to find people that are educated, doing well professionally and want to learn Islam. This is a
huge fitnah in the Muslim world.
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Interesting Developments of the Protestant Movement (one of the movements that came out of the oppression
of the Church)
 There was a reversal of one of the fundamental aspects of Christian creed, that eventually became global.
 The Christian creed originally said that this world is a curse and human beings are actually damned and
condemned from birth. This is a damned existence. We are living the price of the sin of Adam ‘alayhi
alsalam. That’s why the Christians say human beings are born in sin.
o Islam says humans are born in fitra and not sin.
 The Protestants protested this idea.
o The Lord loves us. And actually the more you earn in the world the better the life you live in this
world and that is proof that God loves you. This was their measure of how much God loves.
o They took materialism and made it spiritual, i.e. material acquisition is a sign that you are doing
right by God.
 God couldn’t be angry with you because if he was you wouldn’t be a millionaire.
 This mentality did not remain limited to Protestants.
o It made its way into the Muslim world.
o Not the Muslim world that is traditional and was isolated from society, but into the general public
and masses.
 So you buy a house, on a mortgage, that is clearly haram, and the first thing you do in the
new house to celebrate is have a Quran reading
 Do you see the dichotomy here? You think of success in this life as validation.
 We took material wealth and turned it into “If Allah didn’t want us to have it, then
why do we have it?”
 Justifying your materialism as though it is divine will.

Second story in Surat al-Kahf: There will be a gardener who says, “Well if Allah didn’t love me why would I have
this huge garden? Clearly Allah loves me so much that even if I die, these gardens are not going anywhere. And
even if I did, I’m going to find much better than this.”
 We think that what we get in this life is a preview for what we will get in the afterlife.

How does this fitnah that was developed in the West seep into the minds, hearts and psyches of Muslims? These
are the problems we are facing as an Ummah. And inshaAllah we will turn to Allah’s revelation in Surat al-Kahf as a
solution to these problems.

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