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Find Clarity in Your Cave | Daily Reminders
During this time of social isolation Sh. Omar Suleiman looks back at the story of the people of the cave (Ahl ul-Kahf) as they too were in social isolation. He reflects on how they socially retreated and shares what we can learn from them.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Assalamualaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakato. Hope you all are doing well. Bismillah walhamdulillah wa salatu wassalamu ala rasulullah wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa man wala. So welcome to night two of our reflections. Let's hope this doesn't go for too long, inshallah ta'ala, but at least in the meantime, as I said, every night I'm just going to come on and give you guys a small reflection. It's meant to be informal and just something to think about in these moments as we are praying to Allah to relieve us of this coronavirus as soon as possible and to get us back into our masajid, into his masajid, his houses. So I wanted to share with you all a reminder today and I was thinking about this, you know, it's Friday and we have the recitation of Surat al-Kahf, the recitation of Surat al-Kahf which talks about the young people, the young men that went to the cave to escape everything that was happening around them, to escape the fitna and the trials and the tribulations and they took retreat in this cave and ultimately Allah subhana wa ta'ala put them to sleep for a long duration of time and Allah tells us the story of how these young men woke up and of course if you search the history of the sleepers you'll find a lot about them and it's very interesting to me that the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam mentioned that Surat al-Kahf which is a sunnah to read on Fridays in particular is a protection from ad-dajjal, the first 10 verses or the last 10 verses, is a protection particularly from al-Masih ad-dajjal, from the antichrist and it's particularly a surah that we can go to, a chapter that we can go to when we're trying to find clarity in the midst of confusion and the last days are the most confusing of days as you have al-Masih ad-dajjal and no,
he's not exactly like the one on Netflix, I didn't watch it by the way, but al-Masih ad-dajjal who obviously is able to delude many people and to get many people to follow in his tracks and to follow his fitna and the connection is made through many different ways. One of them is that these men ultimately retreated, these young people, the only thing we know about them is that they're young people, these young people retreated to that cave to escape the chaos on the outside and before the day of judgment as we get to those major signs, particularly when al-Masih ad-dajjal comes out, the instruction from the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam is to hide and I know the word quarantine is going to be used over and over and over again but this is a form of that, to get away from him wherever he is, to not go and challenge him but instead to flee with your religion even if you have to go to the mountains away from everybody else and away from everything else because the most precious commodity that you have is your religion, is your faith and so if you have to get away from that then get away from that and there's a connection, a direct connection that made between us and Ashab ul-Kahf, the people of the cave who escaped the fitna of their times, the trials and tribulation of their times fleeing with their religion into that cave obviously not knowing that Allah would put them to sleep for a very long time. Fast forward to the time of the Prophet Muhammad salallahu alayhi wa sallam and the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam is also going to a cave to find clarity, he's going to Ghar Hira and Aisha radhiallahu anha describes the way that the revelation started with the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam and she says that first he was having these true dreams, he'd see something salallahu alayhi wa sallam and then the next day the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam would encounter what he saw in his dream and that took place for six months
and then Allah bestowed the love of seclusion upon the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam so he was not forced into seclusion, the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam did not find himself in some form of involuntary period of deep self-reflection because he was put somewhere, the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam at the peak of his career in terms of being a merchant with all of the love that he had from society, with everything successful, all measures of success being met in his life found a love of seclusion that caused him to go to this cave, Ghar Hira, where he would sit for days and then weeks and even an entire month and the key here is that Aisha radhiallahu anha says that he would find no desire to leave that cave so he would find great clarity, it wasn't a time of punishment for him but it was a time where he was able to cut all of the noise of the world out and to just focus, right, to focus and he would worship in an Abrahamic way, okay, meaning he would worship one God and he would focus on the worship of that one God not knowing the specifics of what he was going to be called to salallahu alayhi wa sallam so you have the example which we read about today of the people of the cave and we're called to read every single week and then particularly to protect ourselves from the great times of fitna, the tribulation of a dajjal and these were people that fled into seclusion to get away from the noise of this world and to get away from the fitna of this world and then us also being told that there would come a time where we'd have to make a choice and you know if that time came may Allah protect us all and protect us from all of the fitna, the tribulations that you choose your religion, you go into seclusion, if you have to go to the mountains and tend to sheep and all you have is your faith then that's worth it and then you find the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam what preceded him, you know,
his mission, his bia'tha, his being sent forth as a messenger and a prophet was that love of seclusion, was that taking to that cave and finding great clarity in those moments. What does this mean for us? Right now we're being forced into quarantine, we're being forced into some form of seclusion, some period of seclusion and obviously we have tools at our disposal now that allow us to not really be fully secluded, right? We could turn on a camera, we could get on social media, we could text, we could remain connected with the world even though it would be in a digital sense but we could remain connected in some ways. However, what we also have is a unique opportunity of solitude, a unique opportunity of khalwa with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, seclusion with Allah, solitude where you can find great clarity, moments where you can clear your mind, moments where you can shut off all of the dust of dunya, all the dust of worldly things that you acquire as you walk through this world, all of the corrupting influences that you naturally come into contact with all the time. And subhanAllah, this is a time where the Prophet ﷺ said, المرء على دين خليلي that a person is on the way of their friends. He also mentioned ﷺ the difference between a good friend and a bad friend, right? A good friend is like someone who sells perfume, even if you don't take their inventory, they rub off on you and you smell good. A bad friend is like someone who's a blacksmith, right? So even if you don't take from their product, the smoke of it still comes on to you. So a more practical example for our times is someone that smokes cigarettes, a friend of yours that smokes and you smell like that smoke even if you yourself did not smoke. So there are influences
around us all the time but you learn the true nature of yourself when you're alone and you have an opportunity for clarity. And what you find is that when you look at the lives of the Salaf, when you look at the lives of the pious predecessors, they all had this daily or weekly routine where they completely seclude themselves. And so you'll find for example a great scholar like Ibrahim al-Adham, who is well known for his wisdom. How did he find all that wisdom? How did he have such clarity in life? Because there was an hour of the day that you could not find Ibrahim al-Adham. That was the reputation that he had. The great judge Shuraikh al-Qadi, especially, you know, so think about someone that's especially public that deals with the public on an involved or at an involved level on a continuous basis. And you take from the example of a man like Shuraikh al-Qadi, a great judge in Islamic history. And on the day of Friday he was known to go to this place, he had this home that he would go to on the day of Friday and no one could talk to him, right? So he'd go to Juma, but no one could interact with him on that day. Friday was his day to reflect, to gain clarity, to recharge, and to get to where he needed to be so that he could continue to fulfill the obligations of the ummah in the brilliant way that he was able to fulfill those obligations. So right now, take this as an opportunity to do well with your cave. You know, somehow I was watching, I was sharing with a close friend that I'd watched that movie, some of you might remember the movie Pursuit of Happiness with Will Smith, and watched it with the kids to gain, you know, some perspective, obviously, on people that are struggling right now and how struggles can be compounded in the system that we live in right now. There's that scene where, you know, he and his son, because he's homeless at night, he has nowhere to go, and they go to a bathroom and
they imagine that it's a cave, and they lock that public bathroom and hope to not be, or he hopes to not be caught by the cops as he's in the cave, right? And subhanAllah, like, I'm thinking about it more and more, especially with Surat Al-Kahf as we're reading it, the blessing of being able to sit at home, turn everything off, and just gain some peace of mind. Now I know that, you know, if you've got kids, you're learning how to homeschool, you know, spouses might drive each other nuts right now. There's so many different things that can happen right now, but you still have the ability inshaAllah, hopefully now more than before, to be able to cut everything off, shut everything off, and gain clarity. Gain clarity, renew intention, count your blessings, and recharge. So yes, inshaAllah, at some point this is all going to end and we're all going to go back to our lives, whatever that looks like, whenever that looks like, if Allah gives us life. But, you know, treasure the moments that you have right now in your cave and find clarity. And by the way, you know, just something, and I'll mention this in conclusion, the Prophet ﷺ, he used to go back to Hira at times. So he actually went to Hira after Ta'if, the most difficult moments of his life, the Prophet ﷺ retreated back to that cave. And so for us, where we don't maybe have the physical cave, find your quiet spot. Today, Sheikh Muhammad Faqih, beloved friend, dear brother Sheikh Muhammad Faqih, had shared a picture of how he made like a little musalla in his home. And I know that many people, you know, already probably have sort of a little musalla in their home, like a place to pray in their home, a corner that they reflect in. Now's a good time to find that place if you don't already have it, or to establish yourself within that place if you already have it, and to really,
really, you know, intentionally allot a certain amount of time every single day inshaAllah to that corner, to that cave, so that you can refresh and regain that clarity. So that's the reflection I have for you today. Surah Tibkah, again, the connection of reading about the sleepers, the cave of the seven sleepers. It's always great when I go to Jordan, my in-laws live right next to that cave. They don't live in a cave, but they live right next to that cave. So you get a chance to go to that cave. And of course, it's disputed whether that's the actual one, but subhanAllah, it's just a really beautiful site. One of the sites that's believed to be potentially where Ashab al-Kahf were. And that's our connection to them. And that's a lesson that we learn every single Jum'ah, and especially as we near the end of times, this idea of a Dajjal coming out. And if we had to take to a cave, if we had to go to the mountains to flee with our faith, then we would do so. And the best way to renew our faith and to gain clarity is to find moments of solitude and to refresh ourselves inshaAllah ta'ala when we have those moments. So as much as everyone is going crazy in quarantine, turn your quarantine into a cave inshaAllah ta'ala, where you know, turn it into your hira'a inshaAllah ta'ala, where you can gain some perspective and some clarity in these difficult times. Could you please wait a minute in the start? Yes, maybe I will wait a minute in the start, inshaAllah ta'ala. So I'll try to wait a little bit longer to give you guys a chance to catch up. In the meantime, again, you know, look out every single night inshaAllah ta'ala at this time for just a short reminder. Go to yaqeeninstitute.org and at Yaqeen Institute you'll find a page which has some of the content that we're going to be putting out inshaAllah ta'ala that's supposed to, that hopefully will be beneficial to you in these times. And let us
know what we could do better inshaAllah ta'ala. Let me know if there's something that you would, that you'd like me to touch upon. I'll make sure that I go through the comments to see what it is inshaAllah ta'ala that you'd like me to touch upon in the coming nights. I hope I don't have to be doing this for several months because I might run out of content. I might run out of things to reflect on. So there might be some nights where I just decide to come on and just hang out. JazakumAllahu khayran to you all. As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.
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