Surah al kahf (part 1)
Surah al kahf has a theme of Allah protecting us from all trials. It has many stories and each
of them have a trial, there are 4 stories:
1) The story of the boys in the cave. The trial here is that of being persecuted due to
religion. The jist of the story is that they were young men believing in Allah so the
king wanted to kill them, as a result they took refuge in the cave and Allah protected
them.
2) The story of the two men of the garden, which is about the trial of money. And how
everything you have will eventually be taken away and can be taken away in a
heartbeat.
3) The story of musa and the khidr, the main fitnah here is the trial knowledge. Some
people have knowledge and become arrogant, but musa (as). Crossed paths with
someone of knowledge and learnt from him with humility.
4) 4) the story of zul – qarnain. The main trial here is that of power. Zul qarnain
constantly praised Allah and remembered that he is only Allah’s creation. And as a
result, kept his humility.
Blessings of surah al-kahf
Hadith no:1 “whoever memorizes the first 10 ayah of surah al kahf, will be saved from fitnah
of dajjal…………. if any of you see him then let him recite the first 10 ayah of surah al kahf”
Hadith no:2 “whoever recites surah al kahf on Friday, will have a light emanating until the
next Friday”
Hadith no:3 “whoever recites surah al kahf as it was revealed (recited properly with tajweed
and khushoo) when he meets dajjal, he will be saved from the dajjal overpowering him and
whoever recites it on a Friday will have a light shining from him until mecca”
Why is surah al kahf constantly being mentioned alongside the dajall?
The prophet pbuh said “from when Allah swt created Adam and eve up until the last day,
there will be no fitnah more harmful than the test of the dajaall”
At the start of the surah the boys fled to the mountain from an evil king and they were
protected, when the dajjal arrives he will be like that evil king so we need to become like
those boys. Our prohet pbuh said “there will be a time where the believers’ will run to the
mountains to run away from the dajaal”
One of the powers that Allah will give the dajjal is that he will be able to control food and
water entirely. However, in this surah it says “we are the ones who make this earth barren
and dry” so if you want to be fed you must turn to Allah not the dajjal. It is interesting
because the 11th ayah (your only meant to recite the first 10 if you see the dajall) “Allah
saved them by causing them to go to sleep, however we won’t be saved this way he will be
saved when eesa (as) will arrive hence we don’t recite the 11th ayah
Reason for revelation
It is said in the books of tafseer (not as reliable as the books of hadith). The Quraysh had
never heard of a prophet or a book so they went to the Jews of Yathrib and asked what is a
prophet and how do we know if someone is a prophet. The Jews said test him with 3
questions:
1) What is the story of the young men who fled seeking Allah’s protection?
2) Tell us the story of zul qarnain?
3) What is the soul?
He said he would tell them tomorrow the answer but because he didn’t say inshallah it was
delayed a few days until surah al’isra and al kaaf were revelaed with the answers.
Interesting mentions
-The middle of the quran is the word ‘wal yatalataf’ of the meanings is be kind, merciful and
discrete
Speaking falsely about allah
َّ َ‫)ويُنذ َِر الَّذِينَ قَالُوا ات َّ َخذ‬.
4 :‫َّللاُ َولَدًا (الكهف‬
َ
and to warn those who claim, “Allah has offspring.”
Allah here covers one on of the main purposes of the Quran which is to negate false
accusations about Allah swt, due to this surah being released in mecca, there were no Jews
or Christians so this was addressing the Quraysh as they used to claim Allah had offspring.
ْ ‫) َّما لَ ُه ْم ِب ِه ِم ْن ِع ْل ٍم َوالَ ِأل َ َبا ِئ ِه ْم َكب َُر‬.
5:‫ت َك ِل َمةً ت َ ْخ ُر ُج ِم ْن أ َ ْف َوا ِه ِه ْم ِإ ْن َيقُولُونَ ِإالَّ َك ِذبًا (الكهف‬
They have no knowledge of this, nor did their forefathers. What a terrible claim that
comes out of their mouths! They say nothing but lies.
When you’d ask them why they say it they would reply with things like ‘that’s what our
forefathers said’ so this ayah was sent down to refute them, its also interesting how it says
‘what a terrible claim that comes out of there mouths’ because such a claim cannot come
from the intellect or knowledge but rather, they invented it; hence the word ‘mouth’ being
used.
One of the plans of Shaytaan is to make you speak about Allah. Islam and our prophet
(pbuh) without having the knowledge. This is something many people do and is strictly
prohibited in Islam. So next time you’re not sure what a hadith or ayah is, DON’T SAY IT!
Think of this ayah as the prophet (pbuh) is following their ‘footsteps’ trying to
guide them while they are running away. And in that he feels grief and
depression, not because they rejected him but rather because they rejected
Allah and the truth. This highlight’s the sincerity of our prophet (pbuh). Often
when we preach, we are calling out to our own ego and when we argue we
want us to win and not the truth. Also, you realize that Allah addressed the
prophet’s sadness about Quraysh’s rejection not the Quraysh for rejecting the
prophet (pbuh). This shows that Allah does not care about the disbelievers.
rather he cares more about the feelings of the believers which reaffirms the
fact that Allah is not affected by people disbelieving. there are many places in
the Quran like this where Allah comforts the prophet (pbuh) and as a result our
prophet (pbuh) did the same to his sahaba; and we gain from this the sunnah
that if anyone is in a difficult time, we should comfort them and console them.
the prophets love for his people was so much Allah used this very
powerful word which means ‘you will kill yourself’ out of Greif. We take
from this that anyone who wants to call to Islam must have that
genuine love for your people but not your ego
everything on top of the earth is a beautification FOR this earth but not for
allah-why? -so we can test which has the BEST deed not the MOST deeds. You
saw it back then and you still see it now, in early mecca the Quraysh where on
top and had everything, the modern era is the same. With people leading
which are not fit to be leaders and seem to have lots of wealth. But Allah
reaffirms in the next ayah:
so, we should not be deceived from the outside as this world is just a
deception as a time will come where there will be nothing!
Introduction to the people of the cave
Who were the people of the cave? Scholars have differed and ironically there
are lots of places claiming that the cave is in their country and that they were
from there people but at the end of the day only Allah knows, and he only tells
us things which are important thus showing it doesn’t really matter!
when the Quraysh asked the prophet for 3 things one of them being to tell
them about the people of the cave. ‘the only’ In this ayah gives the impression
that- how are they asking for something so easy and trivial to Allah? This goes
to show how small the intellect of mankind is as things which are amazing to us
are like nothing to Allah. Also, this ayah highlights that there are plenty of signs
right in front of them that they choose to ignore. Of them being the earth and
the Quran.
The scholars have differed in the meaning of the word ‘‫ ’الرقيم‬some scholars say
it is the name of the mountain that the cave is in and others say it’s an
inscribed tablet that was put on the entrance of the cave after they were
discovered.
This ayah shows that they had a problem so the first thing they did was’ took
refuge to the cave’ and secondly, they made dua to Allah to help them. Which
shows if we have a problem, we need to do a combination of an action in this
dunya and an action for the akhirah. You can’t just expect a miracle from Allahwould you expect to ace a test without studying? No, so always act then make
dua to Allah.
Allah as a result made them fall into a deep sleep. The phrase: ‫ع َلى‬
َ ‫ض َر ْبنَا‬
َ ‫’ َف‬
‫ ’ َءاذَانِ ِه ْما‬would translate as ‘we struck their ears’ but the meaning is here is that
they were in such a deep sleep that they wouldn’t be able to hear anything
therefore not wake up.
The word ‫ََ بعثنهم‬is usually associated with bringing someone back from death which
emphasises that they slept so long they were almost dead! And there is a hadith
where our prophet (pbuh) says ‘sleep is the brother of death’ as in both the soul is
taken up to the skies but in sleep, the soul returns. But for lots of people that soul
doesn’t return and interestingly enough most people die in sleep than anything else.
So the language in this ayah reaffirms the similarity between death and sleep.
The second part of the ayah is referring to 2 Jewish tribes which differed in how long
the people of the cave had stayed in there for as there was uncertainty (remember
that the Quraysh went to the Jews to ask them what questions they should ask the
prophet (pbuh)). So, in this ayah Allah is almost flipping the question around to the
Jews as they themselves aren’t even sure of the full details, and it’s amusing how they
thought they could test Allah and his prophet and now there ending up being
tested!
This ayah is emphasising how Allah is the one who has the knowledge and not
the Jews. ‘we relate to you there story in truth’ which shows that there version
of the story isnt completely truthful or complete as the previous ayah shows.
Allah also praises the people of the cave, by calling them young men/youth
who broke away from there culture and the societal norms for the sake of
Allah. Which is generally true in young people because when people get older
they become stuck in there ways. An example would be the people of medina
which where young, they accpeted islam much easier in comparison to the
quraysh which where older and lots rejected islam.
Towards the end of the ayah see an exchange. Because the youths believed in
there lord, Allah increased them in knowledge and guidance, which shows
when you strive for the sake of allah, every single step you take towards allah
will be easier, and we see it in our own lives.
They were extremely scared so Allah made their hearts firm, it’s not explicitly
mentioned but the derivation is that they were threatened by their
community. This shows that once again, if you turn to Allah, he will strengthen
you.
When did they Allah do this? When they stood up. Which shows once again
there’s always a step you have to take and then Allah eases the next step for
you. There was a physical step they had to take followed by a spiritual ease.
We don’t know when/where this was and and to who they stood up to, but we
can derive that they were told/challenged to worship a god other than Allah by
a king. And their answer is very smart. They took the blame on themselves
hypothetically by saying “or we would be uttering an outrageous lie” notice
how they didn’t put the blame on the other party as they could have said
“you’re uttering an outrageous lie”. If they did then the king/ruler would have
taken it as a personal attack and in the context of the situation it may have
ended up causing them harm. But the way they said it is very clever as they
have got there point across without going on the offensive as well as would
give the other party food for thought and to think-maybe we are wrong? This
is a skill that is very useful in debating and just in conversating in general.
What is proof? Proof is obviously something a divine book has inside or
something that Allah has said, and our religion is based on proof and evidence.
Remember when I mentioned how speaking about Allah and Islam with
ignorance is a big sin. This is something I’ve just learnt now. ANYONE who
opens their mouth about Islam should be 110% sure about what they’re
saying, they should just keep your mouth shut.
So in this ayah it shows that they broke away from there community, so the
question is. When should one break away from his community? After all our
prophet (SA) stayed in mecca for 13 years. The general guidance is you should
stay in your community as long as you can be of benefit to them. But when our
religion is threatened and you cant worship Allah properly that’s when its
preffered to leave if you can. Our prophet (SA) only left when the persecution
became so bad that they were now trying to kill him (remember he left the
same day as the assasination).
‫ا‬
In the second part of the ayah who is telling them to ‘take refuge in the cave’?
An opinion says maybe it’s one of the elders of the group. Another stronger
opinion is Allah swt guided them in some way for them to come to this
conclusion. This is called Ilhaam, which is guidance from Allah which can come
to anybody. This would make sense as in ayah 10 they took refuge in the cave
and said our lord grant us mercy and guidance which shows Allah willed what
they decided to do. Think of it like an answer, they asked our lord ‘guide us
rightly through this ordeal’, and Allah indirectly replies ‘take refuge in the cave’
by guiding them spiritually to the cave.
this ayah is highlighting one of the miracles of Allah, this ayah is covering how
Allah perfectly positioned the sun; where it sets and rises and just the general
ambience of the cave was prepared to be perfect for the youth by Allah.
Obviously if you’re in the sun or you’re in an area that is too cold then after
309 years you will be dead; so Allah guided them in the matter. Also, they
weren’t in the
of the cave which means ‘tip” but rather in a deeper
chamber where they were better protected and that was of the blessings of
Allah. so, this shows that they had not only been spiritually guided, but also
physically guided.
This ayah is quite self-explanatory, and once again is proving how Allah
supported them through this timeq
This ayah is also self-explanatory but one of the things we can take from this is
that their city was a large city because if not they wouldn’t have gone due to
the fear or recognition. Also, despite their circumstances, they still went to get
pure food not any food. Which shows their level of Iman. Towards the end of
the ayah ‘let him be cautious’ shows that even though they have proven their
level of taqwa by fleeing to the cave and even then, only wanting to eat the
purist of meats despite there situation. They still don’t act foolishly and are
cautious in every step they take.
Even though it is massively implied throughout the start of the surah, this is
the first time its explicitly mentioned why they fled! And we learn from this
and the previous ayah that our religions values life, it doesn’t want us to
become martyrs for no reason.
The way he was discovered was by his money. 309 years have passed
and the currency has obviously changed, as have the structures and the type of
clothes people are wearing. So no shops are accepting the currency and people
are suspicious where he got this from so long story short he gets sent to a
leader/ a senior bishop (one opinion says the city had turned Christian) and he
told them all the details of what had happened and he also took them to the
cave. One opinion says when the bishop/leader arrived to the cave allah
caused them all to die (naturally via sleep)
So what is the promise of Allah as mentioned in the ayah? It is That Allah with
save and protect his believers like he did to the men of the cave. Then Allah
mentions how ‘and there is no doubt about the hour’ here its highlighting that
if Allah can make people sleep 300+ years, who said he can’t bring everyone
back to life on the day of judgement
An interesting point to mention is that the story of the people of the cave are
mentioned in similarity in other places in history. For example, there is an
individual called Jacob of serogh which was alive over a century before Islam
was introduced, he called the story ‘the 7 sleepers of ephasis’. There was a
pagan emperor at the time called Decius which persecuted the Christians, and
ist is said that he tied these young men up in the intent of execution but they
managed to flee to a cave, then the emperor found them and blocked off the
cave(in the quran its states the cave was open as mentioned before )as he
wanted them to die a horrible death and the story narrates that they slept for
370 years (the Quran says 309 years) until a farmer wanted to use that rock he
broke it down and that’s when they awakened. This is actually the earliest
report of a similar story, obviously we don’t know if this story is talking about
the same people as there are a few differences but this is the story that is the
most similar.
The people that were guessing 3 and 5 are grouped together as those who
were ‘guessing blindly’. While Allah stays silent after speaking about those who
guessed 7, this shows that this is the most likely one and is the one that most
scholars agree with one; it also marries up with the ‘7 sleepers of ephasis’
In the second part of the ayah Allah commands our prophet (saw) to not argue
with the Quraysh/jews only with knowledge which is described as
;and
there are a couple of opinions on what this means:
1st: don’t argue with them unless with things you have solid knowledge about,
and once again we see one of the themes of the surah: don’t speak if you don’t
know!
2nd: the phrase
translates to an ‘outer’ argument compared to ‘‫’باطل‬
which would mean an ‘inner’ argument. This would mean if your going to
argue with them don’t let it get to you emotionally (hence outer was used and
not inner)
And at the end Allah is saying do not consult any of them as they simply don’t
have the correct knowledge about this subject!
These couple of verses are very profound because it goes back to why surah al
kahf was revealed. Remember when the Quraysh asked him the 3 questions, or
prophet (saw) answered confidently that he would bring the answer
tomorrow. But because he didn’t say inshallah and assumed Allah (swt) would
just reveal it, it was delayed to 2 weeks. This ayah mildly rebukes our prophet
(saw) as it reminds him that you can’t just snap your fingers and expect Allah
to give you what you want and when you want it.
And something we learn from this is that we should only say inshallah when
we are definite that we want to do something. For example, if you have a flight
tomorrow to turkey and someone asks you “when are you going to turkey?”
you should reply with “tomorrow inshallah” but let’s say you want to go to
turkey in a couple of months but you’re not sure and nothing is set in stone but
you and someone asks you the same question you should reply with “I plan
to”. Moral of the story: don’t say inshallah unless it is definite!
Something nice to know as well is that if you ever make an oath in the name of
Allah for example “ I will fast for a month” if you don’t add inshallah to it you
will have to pay the ‘kafara’ which is the charity if you end up breaking the
oath.
One interpretation of the phrase
is that, if you say something
definite and remember you didn’t say inshallah at the time; say inshallah at the
moment that you remembered. This only works for a statement that you said,
for an oath you must say inshallah at the time,
A second interpretation of the phrase is that it has no relation to the previous
words, and is just there to remind us to remember Allah if we ever forget him
Remember in the previous verses where we spoke about the difference in
opinion in their quantity, Allah not only gives him the answer to the questions
but he also gave him more information than the Jews and Quraysh even knew!
This is one of the miracles of the Quran.
The 26th ayah marks the ending on the story of the people of the cave. Then
immediately in the next ayah Allah tells our prophet (saw) to ‘recite what has
been revealed to you’ which is an indication that our protection is the
recitation of the Quran.
It is said that an incident occurred before this verse came down. some of The
leaders of Quraysh had offered to or prophet (saw) that if he gets rid of some
of the lower classes of the Muslims such as Abdullah ibn Masoud and Bilal ibn
rabah, then they will join the Muslims. So, Allah had revealed a few warning
verses and this was one of them
The phrase
is interesting as its translation is ‘do not look beyond
them’ which is signifying that our prophet (saw) should not look at the quantity
and the prestige of the believers but rather he should keep his eyes fixed on
these small but quality number of believers just in case he:
Desires the luxury of this worldly life. And to the average Muslim this maybe
confusing as; how would our prophet (saw) be tempted by this life? The truth
is sometimes in the Quran there are ayaat which address him but the actual
addressees are us.
So now our prophet is told to present the proof to the disbelievers and
whoever wants to believe and for whoever to disbelieve. You see how Allah
didn’t just warn of a random punishment, he gave them the evidence first and
then warned that whoever after this evidence doesn’t believe will be sent to
the fire.
And it is normal in the Quran that whenever a verse is speaking about
punishment then a verse always follows speaking about the reward for those
who do good. This verse is describing the Jannah, and im sure it’s not by
coincidence that the next ayah speaks about the ‘fake’ Jannah’s of this world.
A bonus point: non-Muslims and other religions have always criticized Islam for
the severity of the punishment, some ask. Why can’t god just forgive
everyone? Some wisdom some wisdom can be derived from a sahih hadith
which states: Allah will ask the person that is in the lowest rank (the one that is
closest to Jannah) would you ransom everything that you have to get rid of this
punishment? The person would say yes absolutely everything, and Allah would
reply, but all I asked you is to worship me after all I have done for you and you
couldn’t do that. So, in this case the punishment makes sense
Story of the man with the garden
Once again, one of the most effective ways to get your point across is stories
and Allah uses another one here.
Grapes particularly at the time is something which is very luxurious. So, he
didn’t just have normal fruit but he also had the best fruit, and grapes are very
soft in nature. The fact that his garden was bordered with these strong palm
trees shows that Allah positioned it in a way which is the most beneficial for
the man.
So not only was he given the best quality, but he was also given protection
from things like insects and diseases which ruin produce. And the fact that
there’s water in between meant he barely had to do anything; everything was
laid perfect for him.
So you can see this man had everything in the dunya sense. So when he
boasted to his companion he didn’t just boast about his wealth, but he also
boasted about having more noble sons/stronger sons which was a great point
of pride at the time. And you can tell he thinks he’s better solely because of
them materialistic things which he has been given
An interesting point is that throughout the last few ayaat Allah (swt) uses ‘we’
when describing the blessings, he gave this man, now the man attributes it to
himself by saying ‘I’ and the next ayah affirms:
While he enters his property, he thought that he had wronged the other
person but with his arrogance and pride he was only wronging himself.
And he makes another mistake, he assumes just because he has wealth at one
point in time, he will have wealth at another point in time
And realise how the man is saying
and it was only 3 verses ago which Allah
described the real Jannah as
a ‘garden of eternity’. The contrast
here is that the janaat of this earth are not everlasting
So he gets so engrossed in this dunya, not only does he think that his garden
will last forever, he also think there will be no day of judgement. And the icing
on the cake is even if there is, he thinks he will get a better outcome. And you
can tell he thinks if your rich in this world, then Allah loves you.
What I really like about the past couple of ayahs is that when the poor
companion is being insulted, he stays quiet. But as soon as he starts to insult
Allah (swt) then he can’t hold himself anymore.
Also its important to mention that the word ‘‫ ’كفر‬doesn’t just mean to
disbelieve/reject allah but it also means to be ungrateful to allah and this is the
meaning in this context
Someone could say here, what god has the man associated with Allah? There’s
no idol nor does he worship anyone else, the answer is: by attributing the
garden to himself he made himself a ‘god’ besides Allah.
A hadith states if we ever feel jealous of what someone else has to say
‘mashallah la quwata illa billah’. There was a story of a particular companion
who saw a very handsome man, he started feeling jealous and this envy
eventually led to the eveil eye, and the once handsome companion developed
a skin condition which made him very ugly. So our prophet (saw) visited him
and he immediately could tell this was the effects of the evil eye; he asked the
ill companion if he has any suspicions of who it was. The ill companion
suspected it was the first companion he mentioned. So, our prophet (saw)
went to see the other companion and asked him why he didn’t say Barak
Allahu lak. This is not to be confused with ‘tabarak allah’ as this is a phrase that
praises Allah, and there’s nothing wrong with saying it. But if your feeling
jealous you need to ask Allah to grant barakah in the other persons rizq.
Our prophet (saw) passed someone making dhikr and he asked if he wants to
know about one of the doors that leads to the door of Jannah. And the person
wanted to know so our prophet said. Say ‘la hawla walla quwata illa billah’
We also gain from this ayah, that we as believers shouldn’t just criticize, but
we should also give the correct advise when doing so.
We also should say this phrase if we ever feel arrogant/self-delusional
So, from this ayah we understand the importance of saying this phrase!
The last ayah ends with ‘if you see me inferior to you in wealth and off
spring’ and its very interesting ar he used ‘if you’ and not ‘I am’ which shows
even though the person is richer then him in every materialism way he himself
doesn’t think he is inferior and this is probably due to him not caring much
about the dunya and caring more about the akhirah
And so literally as they were talking his garden was destroyed, and it’s from the
great wisdom of our lord that he spent 4 ayahs describing the garden and only
2 words describing its destruction.
Remember how it was just a few ayaat ago how he was boasting about his man
power? Allah says where is this man power now when the punishment how
now come.
In this ayah, it summarises the story by comparing it to vegetation. This type of
comparison is something that is very common in the quran. One of the
wisdoms is because vegetation is something pretty much everyone knows
about and knows that plants need miniatous if not they will die, they can be
eaten by insects and the list goes on. So why is this a good comparison? Firstly,
they are temporary. Secondly, fruits are something which is very luscious when
alive and ripe. But when they die, they are useless. Also there is the
comparison in this ayah about water so why could that be? We all need a bit of
water to survive, but if we have too much water we drown. Clearly implying
we all need a bit of the dunya, but too much indulgence can lead to
destruction
You can’t get more explicit than this verse. Allah clearly describes wealth and
children as a ‫ زينة‬i.e something which is pleasing to the eye but doesn’t really
do much apart from that. He also mentions money before children as money Is
in everyone’s hearts at all times, while children you may only want to have at a
certain point in your life.
An interesting point also is
linguistically would make more sense if
the two words were switched around. However, the way they are emphasizes
that they are staying forever.
After the verses speaking about the worldy life the narrative switches to the
day of judgement and threatens to wrong doers
This is the book where literally everything you do is written down, and allah
describes those that reject him as
which has a literal translation of
‘criminial’ and Allah uses this description all the time showing the severity of
rejecting allah in any way, and he does not use the word ‫ كافر‬which means
under the ‘criminals’ can be anyone which rejects allah.
So, Allah has no gone from the end of time to the start. And the way its
positioned is pretty soon after the story of the 2 companions as if to show the
people, arrogance won’t get you anywhere and if you still want to be arrogant?
Well, here is the story of iblis and what happened to him
Also an interesting point is iblis has children, seen by the word
and there
is an opinion which suggests that these smaller devils are all appointed to do a
certain evil in every family, for example one is appointed to cause divorce, the
other may be appointed to cause adultery etc. and even though this is just an
opinion, it’s a possibility as there is a hadith of somone speaking to the
prophet about them struggling to maintain khushoo in salah, and our prophet
(saw) told him the name of that devil.
This ayah is explicitly condemning and mocking those who commit shirk,
The similarity between the last word of aya 53 and the first word of aya 54
implies that the Quran can be the prevention of you going to hell fire
It also mentions here about the argumentation of humans. And in the quran
arguing is generally discouraged; that can include asking why this and why that
too often, its one thing to have a genuine question but its another thing trying
to hide and argument in a question if that makes sense. Theres a hadith where
our prophet (saw) he went to ali (ra) house and him and his wife Fatima (the
proohets daughter) where sleeping, and he asked them why they weren’t
praying tahajjudd, and perhaps ali was sleepy or he was embaraased so he
gave a clever answer and said ‘our souls are with allah at night anf if allah
wanted me to wake up for tahajjud he would have done so’ and our prophet
(saw) started hitting his thighs and quoted the last bit of the ayah.
Allah here is questioning why they don’t believe and if they’re waiting for the
punishments of those before them (examples like the people of Thamud) or
are they literally waiting for the day of judgement. Another interpretation is
when the ayah mentions ‘fate of earlier deniers’ allah is eactually giving the
example of the people of badr which is a possibility as this is a meccan surah
and the battle of badr was the frist time the Quraysh where properly punished
Once again we see how practical our religion is, that fact that everywhere in
quran it speaks about both mercy and torment. The same thing you see here
‘deliverers of good news and warners’ no religion is stable without a balcance
of good and bad and you see how certain religions such as christianitly which
predominantly speak about mercy but little about the punishment you see
they are the religions which are being corrupted the most and frankly they
don’t make any sense to human logic. How does it make sense that all you
have to do is believe ina. Religion and you will be saved? This goes against
literally everything in this world. You have to work to earn money, you have to
practice a skill to get better. This constant reminder of good and bad in the
quran gives us a motivation otherwise no one would take it seriously
The start of this ayah clearly shows that anyone who islam has reached and
they still ignore the message will have no excuse on the day of
judgement.however those the message hasn’t reached may have an excuse.
Also we see that if your arrogant Allah will be strict with you and when you
show good Allah will be good with you, they were arrogant so Allah made
them not understand the message even more
But in this ayah despite all of the last ayah, it makes it clear that allah is the
most merciful hence he doesn’t punish them immediately but gives them an
appointed time for they may turn back
And sometimes we question and even some of the sahaba had questioned
when we see what’s going on in the world one may think, when is the victory
of Allah coming? Allah makes it clear in this ayah, they have a set time for the
destruction and that time won’t be made hasty just because we don’t
understand Allah’s wisdom.
Start of story of musa and al khidr
Remember when the Quraysh asked for the story of dhul qarnayn and
the men of the cave? But surah al kahf has 2 additional stories (the
men with garden and story of al khidr, so why is this? You see the
story of the men of the gardens was a perfect response to the
Quraysh as they were too arrogant to accept islam. And the story oof
the khidr is directed at the jews of Yathrib, as there messenger is
musa and in the story when musa found new knowledge he
submitted himself to it and humbled himself; so this was like a proof
to the jewis that look if your prohohet was alive today he would
accept the prophet mohammad as a prohohet anf you should too
Zo this story mainly deals with the fitnah of knowledge, it can lead to
arrogance if not acted upon correctly and it can lead to humility if it
is.
So to understand this story we need to go back to the hadith and the
sunnah, there are many things in the quran which need there
context and we get this from the hadith and sunnah. Showing its
impossible to just believe in the quran but not the sunnah as some
people do.
Firstly, the name khidr isn’t a name but it’s a title which translates to
‘green’ and it is said that he was called this because wherever he
would go he would cause it to become green i.e flourish. There are 2
major opinions of who al khidr is one is that he is a saint sent from
allah and that he lives forever and goes and teaches people of
knowledge in secret. But the fact of the matter is this opinion has no
evidence in the quran or sunnah and even in common sense. One
hadith which proves this can be right is that. One day our prohet
(saw) was giving a khutbah in the middle of the night and he said to
his companions ‘100 years from now. Not a single person who is alive
now will be still alive’ showing that it is impossible for him to still be
alive! The second and most likely opinion is that al khidr is another
prophet that was sent to a different people and every prophet has
their own specialty of knowledge so it would make sense that musa
would go and study with him; we have proof from the Quran which is
when al khidr said
showing that he had decree from
Allah and we know Allah only communicates with prophets. And
inshallah this is the correct opinion
So now this story needs a bit of explanation to make sense. So one
day musa was giving a khutbah and one of banu Israel asked him
who is the most knowledagble person, and musa didn’t really think
about the question much and he just assumed it would be him; and
this is actually a very rational decision as there are many reasons
why musa could be the most knowledabale. As soon as he said that
angel jibreel came down straight away and said to him ‘how could
you speak without knowledge?’ so musa asked who has more
knowledge then me and allah said it was al khidr. Musa immediately
asks permission if he could go meet him and learn from him. Allah
told him if he takes a fish and goes to a specific location where a
certain river meet, where they lose the fish that is where they will
find al khidr. So musa goes with this child called ‘yusha ibn nun’ and
he was going to be the next prophet after musa
This particular ayah shows his musas eagerness for knowledge, and
imam al bukhari said the first human who travelled for the sake of
knowledge was musa. We really see how humble musa was because
in the grand scheme of things we know that musa is higher than al
khidr as is one of the 5 elite prophets (musa, eesa, Ibrahim, noah,
and mohammad (saw) ) and despite this he went and took a really
long journey to learn. When was the last time we sat with someone
that was less knowledgeable then us overall but he was better in a
specific area and we learned from them? We find it difficult to do
but musa had no problem doing it
Its said they were sleeping and while they were sleeping the
fish became alive and jumped into the sea, and they both forgot to
check the fish or yusha checked but forgot to alert musa and they
both continued.
We learn from the 64th ayah that even though they have to walk a
long way back not one of them said one word of complaint despite
how hungry and exhausted musa was.
The use of ‘servant from ours’ is used very causally. This implies
to people to not elevate the status of khidr more then he deserves,
so what was special about him? That he was granted mercy and
knowledge from allah (swt); notice how mercy was used before
knowledge in his description. This is because if your have the former
before the latter you can still be a good person, but if you have the
latter before the former then you cannot.
Notice how despite musa (as) higher status then al khidr and
how he has travelled for weeks he still humbles himself in front of
him with his outstanding manners. One of the derivations of musa
learning from al khidr is one of the best if not the best way to learn
knowledge is from somone who has that knowledge not a book
alone and the teacher can verify your misunderstanding while a book
cant
One opinion is that here al khidr is testing musa (as) to see if
hes serious or not about learning, he also put himself into musas
shoes by warning him that that what your about to experience is
going to be out of knowledge so how would you bear patient?
We can still see here how gentle moses is being once again despite
his status.
On the surface this seems like a very easy request to abide by but
musa obviously doesn’t understand what he’s getting in to
A hadith mentioned in bukhari states that when they were on the
ship they saw a bird peck their beak in the ocean and remove it. And
al khidr said to musa that my knowledge and yours combined is less
than that amount of water that the bird took compared to Allahs
knowledge (if the ocean was a representation of allahs knowledge
And in the story a poor fisherman was generous enough to let the
pair of them go on his boat and fish with him and when they were
fishing al khidr got an axe out and made a hole into the ship. It’s
interesting that even though all 3 of them are on the ship musa
doesn’t care about himself but instead the owners of the boat (the
fisherman) and the prophet (saw) narrates that musa genuinely
forgot about the condition al khidr gave him.
So the continue. And It is narrated in hadith that with the same axe
moments after there previous encounter al khidr kills a young child.
This ayah is one of the proofs that al khidr is a prophet because only
prophets would be able to commit such a crime (when demanded
by allah)
This time he gets even more irritated then he did before
So musa (as) felt pressured and as a result of this he set this
condition on himself; basically 3 strikes and he’s out! And in a hadith
our prohet (saw) says may allah have mercy on musa because if only
he was more patient then he would have seen many more
wonderous things.