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Virtual Reality & the Fitna of Dajjal | Khutbah
When the fitna of the Dajjal begins is unknown, but the weaknesses that he will prey upon are ever-present. In this Khutbah Dr. Omar Suleiman will cover 5 ways to protect yourself from Dajjal.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Dear brothers and sisters, in every one of the scriptures of the past, you find this notion of false messiahs. False messiahs that come and go. Some of them are more advanced than others. Some of them have certain tools of deception or the circumstances allow for their deception to last longer than others. And sometimes, as the tools advance, then the case becomes more convincing because every one of these false messiahs that has come makes a claim. And so if you are looking in Judaism, you have false messiah after false messiah after false messiah, and then there's the concept of the ultimate false messiah before, obviously, the ultimate messiah. And then on the other hand, you have messiahs who are like mujaddideen, people who revive, until you have al-Masih, the ultimate messiah, who of course is Isa, peace be upon him. And so, in our conception, as we look to this idea of dajjal, and we talk about ad-dajjal and what the dajjal looks like, the antichrist, the false messiah looks like, there are a few things that I wanted to cover, bid'n Allahi ta'ala, for us today, more about the conditions in which a figure like that can rise and can take advantage of so many different people. Now, over the last 200 years, or last 100 years in specific, the tools of deception have obviously increased. The quality of those tools and those mechanics have increased. And so, when the TV first came out, some said, that's the dajjal, it's your iPad, it is your phone. And then, no, it was Facebook, and now it's Metaverse, and these are all dajjal.
And while there are certainly forms of dajjal, certainly forms of deception that are enabled to these tools, and those tools, as they develop, become more frightening, there is the dajjal that we hear about from the Prophet, peace be upon him, in numerous traditions. And there is a specific twist to this dajjal, and that is that he is the ultimate deceiver. He has the ultimate optical illusions, is able to play with people's eyes, and able to deceive them with his claims, in ways that other people before him were not able to. So, he is the culmination, if you will, of all of those tactics, while certainly the conditions prior to him make his arrival ripe. Now, before I go into the conditions in which dajjal rises, I think it's very pertinent that we talk about the things that the Prophet, peace be upon him, told us to protect ourselves from a dajjal. Very briefly, number one, the Prophet, peace be upon him, mentioned iman, faith, and specifically faith before it's too late. To have faith before it's too late to profess and to have faith. There's a time when faith comes, or there's a time when faith is no longer accepted. And the Prophet, peace be upon him, said, that there are three things. إذا خرجنا, once they come out, لا ينفع نفساً إيمانها لم تكن آمنة من قبل أو كسبت في إيمانها. The Prophet, peace be upon him, said that there is a time that comes, once these three things arrive, at that point, if a person did not profess faith, or لم تكن آمنة من قبل أو كسبت في إيمانها خيراً. They did not benefit from their faith. They did not benefit from their faith. Meaning it was merely an expression, but not actually a heartfelt reality or something that was acted upon or practiced. The Prophet, peace be upon him, mentioned the rising of the sun from the west.
The Prophet, peace be upon him, mentioned a dajjal, and he mentioned the da'bah. So he mentioned these three things. The rising of the sun, the beast, and the Antichrist. And that at that point, Iman does not benefit a person if it's sought to be initiated at that point. It's something that you have to do in advance. The second thing the Prophet, peace be upon him, gave us was ilm, was knowledge. And the Prophet, peace be upon him, told us who this person is and what he looks like. He said, peace be upon him, that no nabi was sent, no prophet was sent, except that he warned his people about al-awwar al-kaddhab, about this one-eyed liar. And he said, he is one-eyed and your Lord is not. وَإِنَّ رَبَّكُمْ لَيْسَ بِأَعْوَرِ Your Lord is not one-eyed. وَإِنَّ بَيْنَ عِيْنَيْهِ مَكْتُوبٌ كَافِرٌ And between his two eyes, on his forehead is written the word kafir. Okay? He is written as a disbeliever. Now this builds upon the previous one, which is faith. Why? Because faith is what inspires that proper knowledge. And that knowledge is not merely information. It is knowledge that you ascertain, that you affirm, with everything that you have. So there is number one, faith before it's too late. Number two, knowledge of the dajjal. Number three, the Prophet, peace be upon him, taught us to make a du'a at the end of every one of our prayers. Abu Huraira narrates that the Prophet, peace be upon him, said that at the end of every one of your prayers, when you finish the tashahud, each one of you should seek refuge in Allah from four things. Say, اللهم إني أعوذ بك من عذاب جهنم ومن عذاب القبر ومن فتنة المحيى والممات ومن شر فتنة المسيح الدجال Again, اللهم إني أعوذ بك من عذاب جهنم Oh Allah, I seek refuge in you from the punishment of Jahannam. ومن عذاب القبر and from the punishment of the grave
ومن فتنة المحيى والممات and from the trials of life and death ومن شر فتنة المسيح الدجال The Prophet, peace be upon him, said, memorize this and say it at the end of every prayer before your taslim. Now, of course, if you don't pray, then you're not making the du'a. So it all builds on it, right? Faith, knowledge of who Dajjal is. The faith and knowledge of how to pray and then the prayer that you do on a daily basis. And the du'a that you make in every single one of these prayers, you learn this du'a, you memorize it, and you say it every time. Number four, the Prophet, peace be upon him, said, whoever memorizes ten verses from the beginning of Surah Al-Kahf, He said, عُسِمَ مِنَ الدَّجَّال He will be immune from the fitna, from the trial and tribulation of the false Messiah. In another narration, the Prophet, peace be upon him, mentioned the last ten verses of Surah Al-Kahf. And it's very powerful because if you think about the people of the cave, the sleepers of the cave, they were people, young people, that left the allure of this world and left the deception of this world. They sought to flee from fitna, to flee from that deception, and to protect their faith. And Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, caused them a miracle in which He allowed them to sleep through that fitna for hundreds of years. And He made an example out of them, a positive example out of them, subhanahu wa ta'ala. So the Prophet, peace be upon him, said, whoever memorizes, keeps these ten verses, the first ten and the last ten of Surah Al-Kahf, then they will be protected from Al-Dajjal. Number five, the Prophet, peace be upon him, taught us to flee from fitna, flee from tribulation. He said, peace be upon him, let he who hears of the Dajjal go far away from him, for I swear by Allah that a man will come to him thinking that he is a believer. He'll challenge him. And then he'll leave confused by the ideas and by the deception of Dajjal.
So the Prophet, peace be upon him, taught us in general, don't put yourself in bad situations. Don't put yourself in bad situations. This is, of course, a general principle of fleeing from fitna, to avoid places where your faith is likely to be compromised. Don't put yourself in bad environments. So the Prophet, peace be upon him, is saying, Allah is not tasking you that if you hear about this person, that you go and you confront him. No, rather, flee from this person. Flee from their deception. And of course, flee from the types of things that would be put out there by a Dajjal. So these are five things that we take from the Prophet, peace be upon him, of how to protect ourselves from a Dajjal. We ask Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, to grant us that protection. Allahumma ameen. But here's what I want to go on to. Dajjal does not arrive in a vacuum. He does not come at a random time. There are things that precede him that are not just signs, but that make the environment for deception that much more fertile and make the hearts and the minds and the vision more susceptible to being deceived. And that's where this hadith where the Prophet, peace be upon him, said from Anas ibn Malik, may Allah be pleased with him, and pay attention to the wording. You know, sometimes, subhanallah, we read through these things so fast and every word you've got to pause and think. You know, I never thought about the way the Prophet, peace be upon him, placed it here. He said, sallallahu alayhi wasallam, Inna amama dajjal seneen khadda'a. The Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wasallam, said, Before Dajjal comes, there are years of deception. Before this false messiah comes, there are years of false messiahs and deceptive tactics. Years of false deception. Years of these things happening. Right? The world changes in a way that it sort of sets the ground.
It sets the stage for a Dajjal. And what happens in those years of deception? The Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wasallam, said, yukadhabu feeha al-sadiq. That a truthful person is called a liar. wa yusaddaqu feeha al-kadhib. And the liar is considered to be truthful. Why? Because the liar is good at deceiving and covering his lie. Whereas the truthful, and this is something very profound, a person who is truthful will not resort to deception to prove their trustworthiness. Right? And so what's going to happen? They're just going to have to take it on the chin. That's how it's going to be. Because a kadhib will do whatever it takes to portray siddq. Whereas a sadiq is comfortable, a truthful person is comfortable with just being a truthful person. Right? So that's what happens first. Then the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wasallam, said, that the trustworthy people are discredited. People of amanah are considered to be discredited. And those who are treacherous are trusted. And the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wasallam, said, wa yatakallamu feeha al-ruwaybidah. He said, sallallahu alayhi wasallam, that at that time the most disgraceful of people speak. Their voices are projected. So people can't distinguish truth from falsehood anymore. They can't distinguish trustworthy people from dishonest people anymore. And because of that, who's going to take the stage? Right? And the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wasallam, was asked, who are they? SubhanAllah, the way he described them, he said, al-fawaysiq, little fussaq, little men. Little men, subhanAllah, little people. Little wicked people. But at the same time, they speak about affairs, all types of affairs and all types of things they have no business talking about. And they cause all types of issues for people. This is what precedes a dajjal. So this is what's important to understand here.
The world prior to him is a world where realities are distorted. Realities are distorted. And people seek to create their own paradise on earth. Our sensibilities are lost and our fitrah is compromised. Our natural goodness and inclination is compromised. And so people operate in a day and age prior to a dajjal in vanity and they can't see past their immediate surface level vision. And as people become shallower, the tools to distort shallow realities become more advanced. So people can't see beyond the movies and the graphics and the tactics and that stuff right in front of them. They can't see beyond that. But at the same time, they trust it more. And the tools by which you can distort all of that are becoming more advanced. And so you have this situation where if that shallow reality doesn't immediately satisfy me, and this is how it affects faith, then I deny it. So that's why you see people deny faith in the name of rationality. Now, not that Islam is not an intellectual faith. Islam is an intellectual faith. Use your senses. Use your brain. But then people treat their senses as divine, even though those senses are being constantly compromised. And if I can't see it immediately in front of me, then I'm not going to believe in it. So, you know, when people talk about faith and they talk about Jannah and they talk about Nahr and they talk about Akhirah, the hereafter, and they talk about the unseen and all that stuff, I can't see it right in front of me. And even though I don't even know what I'm seeing anymore, it doesn't make sense to me because I can't see it right in front of me. And subhanAllah, ironically, those who deny the existence of a Dajjal, you know, in the name of some enlightenment, those who deny the existence of a Dajjal in the name of no visual evidence, they're displaying the very weakness that makes them more likely to fall for his visual distortions.
I can't see it. I don't believe it. Where is this Dajjal now? Oh, really? Dajjal? Sounds funny. You know? And so people that start to deny it, why? Because I can't find it now. I don't see it now. They trust their vision so much that they're most likely to fall victim to their vision when the actual Dajjal rises. May Allah ﷻ protect us from his fitna. Allahumma ameen. Where do I want to get to with this, inshaAllah ta'ala, and what do I want us to really take home and think about? Dajjal himself, this false messiah, he knows he's an imposter. And he sees things. Allah ﷻ will cause him to see things that put him in his place. The Prophet ﷺ said, المدينة يأتيها الدجال فيجد الملائكة that when Dajjal comes to Medina, he would see the angels standing in front of Al-Medina, holding their armor, and he would not come anywhere near them. The Prophet ﷺ said, when a Dajjal sees Isa ﷺ, the actual messiah, Jesus ﷺ, when he sees Isa ﷺ, he literally starts to dissolve and run, melts and flees away from him because he knows he's an imposter. And he knows that his time has come. But there's something that I want to get to that is beyond that, which is, you know, when Dajjal is presenting all of these different things to people, a virtual reality that you can step into that will completely take you to where you want to go, right? He's presenting to you the dead. He cooperates with the shayateen so that the shayateen would take the image, would take the vision of a person who has passed away that believes in him and that affirms him. And he's creating all of this deception. There's something very specific that I want to get to, and that is when Dajjal actually presents his Jannah. This is something, subhanAllah, that just caught me and I just couldn't stop thinking about it.
When Dajjal presents his Jannah and says, enter into my Jannah. Go ahead and enter into my paradise. And there's something of his magic, subhanAllah, and these tricks and this deception that speaks to a weakness that grows within us as well that's not just about the tools, but also about the search for instant gratification, an inability that we're developing to see past surface level, where people in general try to recreate themselves and their universe to fit their desires. And they don't think about the long-term consequences. They don't think about ethics. They don't think about what this is going to mean. So then what happens when this Dajjal presents his Jannah and says, here, you can escape. You can enter into this. And you'll have everything that you want. And you don't have to wait for anything. Just go ahead and step in. And I think about, may Allah protect us. I mean, the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, taught us to seek protection. I think about people and the mindsets of people as they take that step in. Right? And what's going through their minds? Is it that they're so convinced that he is indeed God? Is it that what's the worth of this life anyway? You know, somehow I remember watching some interviews with those that are going to Mars at this point where, you know, or signing themselves up and listing themselves, knowing that it's a very risky mission. But I remember one of them saying, you know, if I die, then it's better than being in this world anyway. I thought, wow. He literally listed out the options. Like, that's how he did the math. He said, you know, I either make it to Mars or I die or I stay in this world. And he said, staying in this world is option number three for me. So I take option number two anyway over option number one. You've got to think about that. Like, what world nurtures that, right? Where people try to recreate themselves and recreate their perfect world.
And someone that might say, you know what? I don't care. I'll step in anyway. What's the worst that could possibly happen? What's the worst that could possibly happen? And the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, that he comes with al-jannah or not al-jannah itself, the likeness of paradise, the appearance of a paradise, and he said that his jannah is actually fire. His paradise is actually fire. And in another narration, the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, mentioned that he has these two flowing rivers. And there's no contradiction between the two narrations here, because the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, is presenting what he's saying very specifically, is that he's got these rivers of lava and burning and fire, right? And he's saying, this is my, this is hellfire. And then he's got these rivers flowing, you know, of musk and of milk, the image of which, he says, this is my jannah. You know what the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, said? He said, if one of you sees that, if you get into a situation where you're standing right in front of him and that's what you have to do, the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, said, lower your gaze, close your eyes, put your head down, and drink from the boiling water. And he said, I swear it will be cool water. His jannah is not, and his not is jannah. It's flipped. SubhanAllah, like, don't be deceived by what's being put out in front of you like that. And people have to ask themselves, you know, what motivations and weaknesses the dajjal preys upon that could be within us? And this is what I want to end with. The deception of dajjal cannot happen without the deception of dunya and the deception of the devil. Can't. The allure of dunya is one of zina. Zina tul hayatul dunya. It has appearances, but we can't see past appearances. People become relegated to the material world. They can't see past it. And the promise of the devil is, what? That the consequences are not going to be that bad. If you boil down the deception of shaitan, the deception of the devil, is what?
That the consequences of your deeds you should not think about, because it's not going to be that bad. Right? The pleasure that you're going to enjoy right now is greater than any possible consequences you might face. That's a mindset. That's a weakness that's exploited and that grows. And so then the final piece of that is simply a presentation of what you want to jump into. And we have to resist as the world becomes shallower and our senses become more distorted, falling prey to that type of stuff. And thinking about the long-term consequences, and thinking about purpose when it's so easily diluted, and thinking about why we exist when it's so easily diluted, and thinking about the hereafter when we can't see it and we don't have 3D graphics or actors or movies. Thinking about al-jannah wal-nar, thinking about that meeting with Allah, thinking about that meeting with the Prophet ﷺ, thinking about that idea of being held accountable, and thinking about that idea of reward and punishment. You've got to see through it all. And remind yourself that I can't turn my senses into something that's divine, nor can I put my trust into tools that are becoming ever more deceptive and deceitful. May Allah protect us from all of the fitan that we are surrounded by, and may Allah ﷻ allow us to develop that strong sense of faith and certainty that we see through deception, and that allows us to act in that which is pleasing to Him. And may Allah ﷻ reward us for the best of our deeds and forgive us for our shortcomings. Allahumma ameen. Alhamdulillah. As-salatu was-salamu ala Rasulullah wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa man wala. Allahumma khfiru al-mu'minin wa al-mu'minat wa al-muslimin wa al-muslimat wa al-ahya'i wa al-mu'minat. Allahumma khfiru lana wa arhamna wa a'fu anna wa la tu'adhibna. Rabbana dhalamna anfusana wa in lam takfiru lana wa tarhamna. La nakunana minal khasireen. Allahumma innaka a'fuun tuhibbu al-a'fu wa fa'afu anna. Allahumma khfiru liwalidina wa rabbirhammu ma kaman rabbuna sighara. Rabbana hablana min azwajina wa dhurriyatina wa qurratu a'yun wa ja'alna lilmuttaqina imama. Allahumma mursal ikhwanina al-mustad'afina fee mashariki al-ardi wa magharibiha.
Allahumma ahliki al-dhalimina bil-dhalimin wa khrijna wa ikhwanina min baynihim salimin.
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