A Message to Every Muslim Struggling in This Generation | Surah Al Kahf 3

The Story of the Seven Sleepers — Lessons from Surah Al-Kahf

The story of the seven sleepers — the seven young men who fled to a cave, who slept there for 300 odd years. After telling us the beginning of the story, Allah points out one of the biggest mistakes that we make when we read stories of the Quran. Allah says some people will say there were three and the fourth was their dog. Some will say there were five in number, the sixth was their dog. And some will say there were seven in number. This detail is not something worth discussing when there are bigger lessons at play.

Don't Get Lost in the Details

Stop discussing the little stuff. Stop paying so much attention to the details that don't matter. If we take salah as an example, how much debate goes on about raf' al-yadayn — about raising your hands in salah, not raising your hands, the placement of the hands. Whatever is a valid disagreement between the scholars, this is to one side. But how much discussion goes into the center of salah, the markaziyya of salah, which is al-khushu'. This makes the difference between a salah that is accepted by Allah and draws one closer to Him, and a salah which is the salah of a hypocrite. Whereas if I place my hands here or here or here, my salah is accepted by Allah. So we end up focusing and debating on the small stuff and we forget the main point. We forget the central concept Allah wants us to take. This is the nature of Bani Adam.

Allah says here: don't throw stones in the dark. You know what throwing stones in the dark means? If this is a dark room and I have to hit a target, I'm going to miss because there's no light. I don't know what I'm talking about. I don't know where I'm throwing. Similarly, when we debate about detailed things in this deen that we have no knowledge of, that are not the central important things in this deen, we are throwing stones in the dark.

Allah says when such a discussion comes up, what should you say? Allah knows best. I have no knowledge. Allah says do not debate about these things except a tiny bit — I give you a little bit of margin, don't go beyond this. Don't even ask for a fatwa. Don't ask anybody for their opinion about this. Move on. This is not important. How many were in the cave? Not important.

Now we have to apply this to our lives. How many other matters are there which are of less importance but we put so much focus on them?

Today if you see the questions people ask mashayikh and scholars on TV, in fiqh sessions — what questions are they asking? Someone is calling about trimming eyebrows. Someone else is calling about this little thing. Someone is calling about bleaching. Somebody is calling about where they can park their car. I bought some sweets and there is an ingredient I'm not really sure about. All of these questions. What were the questions the sahaba asked the Prophet? If you look at the questions of the sahaba, the Prophet's companions, it shows a deep understanding of the deen.

Somebody would come to the Prophet and say: "O Prophet of Allah, tell me a way Allah can love me and I can love Him." Tell me a way I can enter paradise and leave the hellfire. Deep questions, not shallow questions. They would ask questions about the central component of the deen and focus on this element.

309 Years in the Cave — The Key Lessons

Allah gives us the information: they stayed in their cave for 309 years. And then Allah gives us the key lessons from the story.

First Lesson: True Attachment to the Quran

The first lesson: O Muhammad, do tilawa of what I have revealed to you. This word is so common — we use it day to day. We think tilawa means recitation, that it means to recite the Quran in a beautiful voice. But in the Arabic language, tilawa means to follow something. That is the original meaning in the Arabic language. Tilawa means to follow the Quran in action. Recitation was just a means to following the Quran — it was one step. But we have become people who suffice themselves with recitation, and the end goal, the action, it never happens.

Allah says the first step — if you want to be like these seven young men who protected themselves in an environment that was full of disbelief, in an environment that put immense pressure on them, in an environment that invited them to every evil — the first thing you need to do is have an attachment to the Quran. But that means you need to know the meanings of what is inside the Quran. Do not treat it like a book of melodies, a book of songs, a book of hymns, a book of chants — because this is what happened to people before you. They sing the hymns, they recite the chapters and the scriptures, but little do they act on what's inside of them.

Allah says there are illiterate people amongst them — for them the scripture is just stories, empty hopes, a nice song to recite, play it in the car, put it on the bookshelf as decoration. But really in their day-to-day life — in their buying and selling, in their marital affairs, in their family business, in their studies, when they wake and when they sleep — it has no bearing on their life.

Allah says first: you want to survive like these young men survived, you need an attachment to the Quran. And us as a British Muslim community, if we want to survive in this climate where everything around us is inviting us away from our values, the first thing we have to give our children is an understanding of the Quran — an understanding of the Quran. Yes, when a child is young, they need to know Alif Ba Ta, the Arabic alphabet, they need to know how to recite. But don't stop there. Why would you stop there? You only came halfway — you walked halfway down the pitch and passed the ball to the opposition. No. Complete it. We need a goal. We need you to get to the end. The end goal with the Quran, especially once a child reaches the age of seven and they can understand, think, and ask questions — at school they're learning about geography and history and sociology — we need to talk to them about the meanings of the surahs of the Quran, starting with Qul Huwa Allahu Ahad.

Anybody in this room can explain Qul Huwa Allahu Ahad to a seven-year-old — it's not difficult. What you need to do is make it a story, add some sound effects, some characters, some noises, and a seven-year-old will be very excited about this. Your child reaches the age of 14 or 15 — now you need to have deeper conversations with them about the Quran: about Surah Qaf, about Surah Al-Hujurat, about Surah Al-Baqarah.

If you explore the Quran, you can teach them and talk to them about it. But if you don't, your madrasa teacher is never going to do it. Mawlana is not going to do it. Imam Sahib, Sheikh, Mu'allim — none of them are going to do it. The meanings of the Quran are not emphasized in our madrasa school system, our supplementary Quran school system. We as parents have to do it. If we want our children to survive — to have that cave, that good company, that strong ethos despite all the pressure — we have to give them the greatest weapon of all time: the weapon of understanding what is inside the Quran.

Allah says nothing can change His words, and you will not find a protector other than Him.

Second Lesson: Choose Your Friends Deliberately

The second advice from Allah, taken from this story: one thing that we happen to do without realizing it is that we end up in a friend group without knowing who our friends truly are. We choose our friends because we saw them every day in school, or university, or work, or you go to the tea shop and see the same guy every day, bump into him — so they become your friend, your companion, your friends by chance. Allah says you have to really pick your friends very carefully if you want to survive in this climate.

Be patient and persistent in finding people to be your best friends whose only goal in life is they want to see the face of Allah. Find these people. Send out a search party. Go knock on the doors. When you find such people, make them your closest friends. Allah says don't even look away from them — keep looking at them — because there are so many things distracting you today, from your phone to the billboards to gossip. Allah says don't get distracted. Stay with your good company and have common goals that you work towards. Don't look away from them because something distracted you with worldly pleasures. And stay away from the wrong type of company — people who don't remember Allah, people who are distracted from Him, people who don't pray their prayers on time, who don't say bismillah when they eat. People who don't think of Allah — stay away from them, because they will be followers of their desires, and they will go astray.

Building Our Cave — Investing in Our Institutions

When Allah talks about these people of the cave, this is our cave — the cave of Al-Furqan. This is our place where we come to worship Allah, to find good company, to spend time with each other. It is extremely important to develop these kinds of places, to invest in these kinds of places. This is our strategic investment for our children's and grandchildren's future — our masajid, our primary schools, our institutions. If we don't build these institutions, they will have no cave to protect them from everything around them. We need healthy alternatives, but for that we need people who are going to invest, people who are going to work, people with ambition, people with goals. One of us here needs to say: أنا لها — I'm going to do it. I'm not asking you to say it now, but I want you to think about it. This cave that protected these seven people from all the disbelief around them — who is going to protect our children? Where is their cave? We need to build the cave. Nobody else is going to do it.

Allah: Al-Wali — Your Hidden Protector

When Allah talks about these young men, and the efforts they made to protect themselves, and the unity they had, and the time they spent together, Allah mentions two of His names. One of these names is very important for us to pause on: Al-Wali.

Al-Wali is a protective guardian — someone who is protecting you even when you don't realize it. You know when you see a prime minister walking — what do they have around them usually? Bodyguards, big bodyguards. You can see them — they're there to terrify you so you stay away. But there are some people walking whose bodyguards are hiding, watching from afar, protecting them — someone with a sniper on top of a building somewhere, making sure nobody comes near this person. These are hidden walis, protecting, looking after, watching out for these people.

This is a very important point Allah is making here. Despite all the challenges around you, if you commit yourself to Allah, to your salah, to your family, to drawing close to Allah — you will not even realize it, and He will be protecting you.

Do you think Yusuf, while sitting in a dark well, realized that Allah was planning for him to be in the palace? Do you think Musa, while running away in the desert, in the scorching heat, barefoot — do you think he realized Allah was planning to give him a job, a wife, and bring him back as a prophet of Allah? Allah is Al-Wali.

When you have no helpers, when you have no protectors, when you are alone and find yourself with nobody to turn to — turn to Al-Wali.

Allah says: O Muhammad, say — my closest protector, my secret hiding guardian is Allah. My wali is Allah. He is the one who sent this book with truth, and He protects the righteous.

You want the bodyguard unit? You want the special protection from Allah? You just have one thing to do: be from the salihin. Try to be of the righteous, and you will have a special force field around you. Somebody will throw a brick and it will just go past your head. There will be a major accident on the motorway — a lorry will smash into four cars — and it will just miss yours. Your child will cross the road and a car will miss them by a hair's breadth. Your whole department will be made redundant, they will lose their jobs, except you. What is this? This is the wali Allah. This is Allah, your protector, looking after you when everybody is against you. You need this.

Take Allah as Your Closest Companion

These people in the cave — they were sleeping. What allowed them to live for so long? Allah did not allow the rays of the sun to touch them. This is possible for us as well. Allah is saying He will protect us — but we also have to do our part. We have to take Allah as our closest companion.

Whoever takes Allah as their closest companion — your lonely cave will become the brightest place. Your dark well will become the most enjoyable place, because you will have the company of Allah when you have nobody else's company.

If you lost Allah in your life, you have nothing. But if you found Allah, you have everything.