Why the Qur'an Says Little About Dajjāl and the Future | Jumu'ah Khutbah | Dr. Omar Suleiman

Why the Qur'an Says Little About Dajjāl and the Future

We bear witness that there is nothing worthy to be worshiped or unconditionally obeyed except for Him, and we bear witness that Muhammad ﷺ is his final messenger. We ask Allah to send his peace and blessings upon him, the prophets and messengers that came before him, his family and companions that served alongside him, and those that follow in his blessed path until the Day of Judgment. And we ask Allah to make us amongst them. Allahumma ameen.

The Anxiety of the Unknown Future

Dear brothers and sisters, there are always many questions about what does the future hold. SubhanAllah, both in the political sense as well as in our individual lives, we can truly become paralyzed by alham — anxiety about what comes next. When we think about Gaza, what comes next? When we think about how this is all going to pan out, what comes next? On an individual level, if you start to play out the multiple possibilities, what comes next? And the more severe your circumstance, the more multiple the bad scenarios start to become.

And so I remind you all, for example, about our brother Marwan. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala free him from captivity and all of our brothers and sisters that are in detention. Can you imagine if it distresses us to hear multiple possibilities? It can go this way, it can go that way. Imagine being the subject of those possibilities. And no one has had to live with that uncertainty more than the people of Palestine, the people of Sudan. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala make it easy for the oppressed everywhere. Allahumma ameen.

Because you're the subject of that uncertainty. The rest of us are theorizing — you're living it.

Why Doesn't the Qur'an Mention Dajjāl?

But when it comes to the way that the global affairs of the Ummah are set up, and what is to come next, I actually wanted to go back to a very interesting question that was asked to me about 10 years ago. And I thought about it multiple times. And it's a question that wasn't just posed to me. It's a question that you'll see some people ask either from the place of trying to deny what is a part of our tradition, or from a place of trying to fetishize it. And that is the question of Dajjāl. But not the question of Dajjāl as in his existence. But if Dajjāl is so significant, why doesn't Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala talk about him in the Qur'an?

It's one of the questions that some people ask. And when this question was posed to me, I said, you know, it's an interesting question. Let me think about it. Because the Prophet ﷺ warned about him frequently. And he told us about how severe he would be. And we should seek refuge in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala from his fitnah in every single salah. So clearly:

I am not one who denies the Sunnah, and miserable is the one who denies the Sunnah. The Prophet ﷺ speaks from the same source as the Qur'an. But the wisdom — the ultimate wisdom — only belongs to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

But subhanAllah, of the multiple fawā'id — the benefits — and there's a difference between saying "why" and "one of the benefits of this is." Okay. "Why" puts a definitive on Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's ruling and Allah azza wa jal's judgment. Benefits and wisdoms and fawā'id, ta'ammulāt, allow us to reflect, to extract some of the wisdoms and the benefits of those things, without superimposing that on Allah azza wa jal's knowledge which is beyond our comprehension, and has facets that we do not know of.

First Wisdom: Belittling Dajjāl

Of the benefits that the scholars mention — and I'll come back to what this has to do with the opening of this khutbah — of the benefits that the scholars mention, some of them say it's a form of tahqīr, it's a form of belittling him. Just like Abu Jahl is not mentioned in the Qur'an. You belittle someone that so badly wants to make themselves bigger than what they actually are. And so out of belittling them, it's like you're so irrelevant, you don't even warrant a mention. And subhanAllah, truly, when it's all said and done, when the pages are dried of our days on this earth, he goes away and he's irrelevant — completely irrelevant, has nothing to give, nothing to harm. That is how one set of mufassirīn explained it.

Second Wisdom: The Qur'an Is Al-'Ahd — The Covenant

The second set of mufassirīn said — and again, these are people who believe in the Qur'an and the Sunnah:

(Sunan Abu Dawud, Hadith 4604)

"I have been given the Qur'an and something with it that is legislative." That there is no difference in terms of the legislation of the Qur'an and the Sunnah. But the Qur'an is al-'ahd. This is so powerful. The Qur'an is the covenant. The Qur'an is al-'ahd. It's the covenant between you and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

Some of you are still wondering what does this have to do with the beginning of the khutbah. The Qur'an in its nature — the al-'ahd — focuses more on what you're supposed to be doing. And it tells you the lessons of the past more so than it does of the future. Meaning it's more about prophets than it is about predictions and prophecies to come. Because the idea of the al-'ahd is that if you hold on to the al-'ahd properly, if you hold on to the Qur'an properly, you hold on to what Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gave you of universal principles, consistent principles — then the future of outcomes is completely irrelevant to you. That is with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

So there is benefit in knowing them. There is benefit in studying. Otherwise the Prophet ﷺ would not have shared them with us. But the Qur'an focuses on what led previous umam to fail more than what is to come of the future. Which is very profound when you think about it.

You know, I'm from New Orleans — when they say, build the home that can withstand the hurricane, don't wait for the hurricane to come. You get yourself ready for the moment constantly. And if you do so, then Allah azza wa jal will see you through whatever crisis and whatever storm is to come. So there is no point in dwelling too much over what type of storm it's going to be, as much as building the house that's ready to withstand the storm. That's your domain as Banī Ādam.

And subhanAllah, that's why Allah azza wa jal says:

Pay attention, O people of vision. Listen to what's been taught to you of history. Pay attention to all of these nations that came before you. What happened with them? فَاعْتَبِرُوا — and you take the wisdom, you take the benefit. يَٰٓأُولِي الْأَبْصَٰرِ — O you who are paying attention. O people of vision. The Qur'an is not going to give you horoscopes. It's going to give you history. And that history is transformative. Because it's real human history that speaks to the real human condition.

And so when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says:

If you aid the cause of Allah azza wa jal, He will aid you. It also applies in the past tense, as it does in the present tense, as it will in the future tense. When they aided the cause of Allah azza wa jal, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala aided them — the righteous of the past. When they obeyed what Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala commanded them to do, Allah azza wa jal descended prosperity upon them. When you in the present do so, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gives you the cause of victory, the cause of aid, the cause of favorable outcome. Focus on that.

It's so much more instructive to look at how we got here, instead of focusing too much on where it might all go.

The One Future the Qur'an Focuses On

And there is one future that Allah azza wa jal harps upon throughout the Qur'an — which is what? The Day of Judgment and what comes after. Because whatever remains of history, you might not live to even see it. You might not live to be a part of it. And that is cohesive throughout the Qur'an and the Sunnah.

مَتَى السَّاعَةُ يَا رَسُولَ اللَّهِ — "When is the Hour, O Messenger of Allah?" What did you prepare for it? If that young boy has gray hair, by the time that young boy has gray hair, you would have already met your sā'ah, you would have met your Hour. You would have met your Day of Judgment because you would have met death.

Focus on the prophets, not the predictions. Focus on the history. Don't get lost in superstition and horoscopes. Focus on analyzing yourself, not on analysis that's so humanly flawed, so subjective, and is littered with despair.

SubhanAllah, if you think about it truly — if Allah azza wa jal leaves us to ourselves, in the individual sense or the Ummah sense, we are doomed. We always are. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is the one who's controlling the outcomes. And so you can be overtaken by despair when you start to paralyze yourself with all of the trajectories. I don't know how it's gonna shape up. I don't know where this is gonna go — not on a community level, not on an Ummah level, not on an individual level. But I know if Allah azza wa jal told me to do what I have to do, that it's going to be favorable. It's gonna be good for us.

That's the beauty of the Qur'an as you're swimming through it, reading through its lessons.

The Signs of the Day of Judgment Through a Qur'anic Lens

SubhanAllah, all of the signs of the Day of Judgment — some of the ulamā, like Hāfidh Ibn Kathīr rahimahullah, one of the earliest ones, started to categorize 'alāmāt al-sā'ah — the signs of the Day of Judgment. You could take the signs of the Day of Judgment and you could weigh them next to Qur'anic directives.

So for example:

Unite upon righteousness and piety. Do not unite upon sin and transgression. That covers a whole section of the signs of the Day of Judgment — tribalism returning, jāhiliyyah never really going away, people still clinging to false gods, false idols, false tribes.

O you who believe, when a wicked person comes to you with news, verify that news. Otherwise you're going to hurt people that are undeserving. And you are going to be the one that's going to be regretful. A whole section of the signs of the Day of Judgment is about deception — about the things that people will try to rush, the fake news, the false news that will obliterate us.

Now, you can imagine that the Sahaba perhaps did not see the exact devices of AI that we see right now coming into place. But they didn't have to. They knew that dajālah would be followed by more dajālah. Deception would be followed by more tools of deception. Until that deception completely overloads the senses — with ad-Dajjāl, the Deceiver. They didn't need to know what exactly — like, are we going to have deep fakes? They hadn't even seen recorded videos yet. Are we going to have dubbing of languages? Are we going to be able to put cameo appearances and this and this and this? They didn't need to know all that. They knew though that the spirit of verification is the Qur'anic directive that the Prophet ﷺ lived and taught. And that protects you from a large chunk of the signs of the Day of Judgment.

Hold on to the rope of Allah, all of you together. Look at all the signs where the Prophet ﷺ talked about people disuniting, leaving the jamā'ah, leaving the community, leaving the way of the Prophet ﷺ and the community of the Prophet ﷺ, and then taking swords against one another. It covers a huge chunk of the signs of the Day of Judgment.

My point is — whether it's wealth or materialism or greed — when you're reading the Qur'an, focus on that. Focus on that. And you think about the proportionality of what the Qur'an talks about in terms of islāh, in terms of rectifying us — and the proportionality that we have in our lives with obsessions over predictions. Obsessions over predictions. When is this gonna happen? How is this gonna happen? I wonder if this already happened.

You could read 600 pages about Ya'jūj and Ma'jūj. Or you could just take the hadith about what it is, be satisfied, and say: I better be in taqwā — whether it's Ya'jūj and Ma'jūj that look like this or that, or come from here or there and overrun the earth. I don't want to be on the side of those that die with little imān in their hearts. And if it's not Ya'jūj and Ma'jūj, then it could be the Israeli occupation or someone else. At the end of the day, when corrupt people overrule the earth or overrun the earth, I want to make sure my heart's in the right place to meet Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

Don't waste your time on predictions. Focus on prophetic imperative. Focus on prophetic directive.

The Lesson in Our Individual Lives

And the last thing that I'll say is this — this is true on the individual level as well. In our own lives, the past is so instructive. Al-Imām Ibn al-Jawzī rahimahullah ta'ala said that when you fall — if you're walking and your cloth catches on to something — and I'm going to paraphrase for the sake of time — you don't keep walking. You go back to where the cloth caught and you unhook it so that you don't tear your cloth. If you fall down, you don't just jump up. You look to see what tripped you up in the first place. What caused you to fall?

On an individual level, when you're talking about tawbah: "Oh, if Allah does this, or if it ends up this way, then I might do this and I might do that." No. What are you doing to change the circumstances around you so that you don't end up in the bad situation that you were in before? The past is so instructive. That's what you focus on. That's what you exert yourself looking to in every single dimension of your life. How did I get here? Not where I might go — because the ultimate "where I will go" is the Day of Judgment, standing in front of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and being asked about how I behaved in every single circumstance that He put me in.

And so the Qur'an is al-'ahd. That's your covenant. Best manifested through the life of the Prophet ﷺ, elaborated on through the divine rightful guidance of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. The Qur'an is your 'ahd. Hold on to that. It'll give you hope. It'll give you instruction. It'll give you imperative. It'll give you divine reassurance that Allah azza wa jal will always take care of what's in His domain. Focus on what you can control, not what He controls exclusively of the outcomes.

Closing Du'ā

May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow us to learn from our past, to be the best version of ourselves in the present, and to give us the best future in this life and the next. May Allah azza wa jal give victory to this Ummah. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow us to be a part of the liberation of Al-Masjid Al-Aqsa — not just to see it, but to be a part of the liberation of Al-Masjid Al-Aqsa. And may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow us to be gathered with our beloved Prophet ﷺ and all of the righteous ones that came before. Allahumma ameen.

إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَأْمُرُ بِالْعَدْلِ وَالْإِحْسَانِ وَإِيتَاءِ ذِي الْقُرْبَىٰ وَيَنْهَىٰ عَنِ الْفَحْشَاءِ وَالْمُنكَرِ وَالْبَغْيِ ۚ يَعِظُكُمْ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَذَكَّرُونَ — Indeed, Allah commands justice, grace, and generosity to kin, and He forbids indecency, wickedness, and oppression. He admonishes you so that you may be mindful.

فَاذْكُرُوا اللَّهَ يَذْكُرْكُمْ وَاشْكُرُوهُ عَلَىٰ نِعَمِهِ يَزِدْكُمْ وَلَذِكْرُ اللَّهِ أَكْبَرُ وَاللَّهُ يَعْلَمُ مَا تَصْنَعُونَ — Remember Allah and He will remember you. Thank Him for His blessings and He will increase them for you. And the remembrance of Allah is the greatest thing. And Allah knows what you do.

وَأَقِيمُوا الصَّلَاةَ — And establish the prayer.