Prep for Peril: The Approaching Hour - Mufti Azeemuddin Ahmed

Opening & Etiquettes of the Gathering

الحمد لله الحمد لله رب العالمين والصلاة والسلام على رسوله الكريم وعلى آله وصحبه ومن تبعهم بإحسان إلى يوم الدين

Wassalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Brothers, especially in the back, please come closer. If you're joining us, please come closer. Alhamdulillah — we spent all these days in the masjid. 1:30 is not late for us anymore, right? May Allah accept your I'tikaf. Tonight, insha'Allah, we'll be spending some time speaking about the signs of the Hour, specifically as we come closer to Qiyamah — how the environment around us is changing and preparing us for a Dajjali era.

Dajjal doesn't just come out of the blue. The same way that we should be preparing for the month of Ramadan so that we can be productive and take advantage of it, the environment around us in some ways is preparing us for the arrival of Dajjal. And obviously, the Day of Judgment that follows.

As we always say at the beginning of our talks here: every single gathering we attend is a gathering where our hearts can change — life can change forever. It doesn't take more than one gathering, or even one hour or less, for Allah to make it a means of bringing massive, long-lasting change in any one of our lives. So every single gathering we sit in, we should say: Ya Allah, make it that one. Make this gathering the one which I can remember 30 years later. That this majlis of knowledge and dhikr became the life-changing experience for me. So I hope this one becomes that, for me and for all of us tonight, insha'Allah.

We should sit in the state of wudu. We should sit in the state of I'tikaf when we're in the masjid. We should sit with utmost respect for the gathering. And we should try our best to attend from the beginning till the end. A person should not think that this is like a drive-thru — you come two minutes, leave two minutes, come back. You don't get barakah like that. From the beginning to the end, a person should sit. And when a person has to leave, he should take permission. This is the proper etiquette. Additionally, we should sit as close as possible, try our best not to have any gaps, and if someone leaves from in front of us, we move forward. Try our best not to lean on the walls far away from the gathering.

And additionally, let's make the niyyah: Ya Allah, I have come here seeking You. I have come seeking You. You and I, we both need and we both want Allah, and we are hoping to find Allah over here. So insha'Allah, make this du'a: Ya Allah, whatever my emotional, spiritual, physical, and mental needs are, allow the talk and the program that I'm attending to be a means of having those issues addressed — having my questions answered, my doubts removed, and allowing me to walk away with a very clear path in front of me.

This whole topic — preparing for the Akhirah, basically — like on the previous nights, this is not meant to be an exhaustive, cover-to-cover course. There is, alhamdulillah, a beautiful course in the Tafheem Weekend Program. The Fiqh of Marriage and Divorce is a course that's taught. Similarly, Signs of the Hour is a course that's taught, which you should take. And you should read books on it. We're not trying to go through all of that here. My purpose is for us to walk away from this gathering understanding where we are right now in the timeline. What is expected from us? What do we need to be prepared for? What are we facing right now?

Where We Are in the Timeline — The Minor Signs

I remember I gave a presentation on the Signs of the Hour — I think it was called Signs of the Day of Judgment and the Coming of the Dajjal. This was back in 2013 or 2014. It was unbelievably packed — like a Khatam Night, everything. Maybe 10 or 12 years ago. And I based that presentation off of one hadith — the hadith of Hudhayfah ibn al-Yaman, may Allah be pleased with him — in which there are about 70 different signs that are mentioned.

As life has moved on immensely, I revisited that presentation maybe twice or thrice somewhere on the road. And whenever I visited it, I realized that I have to update the explanation. The hadith is there, but I have to update what this hadith means — because so much of what had not become obvious in 2013 had become obvious in the next three years. What very well could be the explanation of that sign — you don't have to force yourself for an explanation. It's so obvious. It doesn't require a teacher. It doesn't even require you to be an adult. You read it, you're like, oh, that's what's happening. Straightforward.

So at that time when we spoke about this topic, we came to the conclusion that all the minor signs have already arrived. All the minor signs of the Day of Judgment are present. And now we are waiting for the major signs. The major signs are ten that come back to back. Of course, the minor signs have arrived, but that doesn't mean the major signs are one minute or one week away — because those minor signs now have to become dominant. You hear what I'm saying?

For example, one of the minor signs is that men will suffice with men and women will suffice with women. That has increased from ten years ago by a massive percentage. But when that becomes — I don't know exactly — 70%, 80%, where that becomes the most dominant type of lifestyle, that is when the sign is truly fulfilled. Then, for example:

(Referenced in hadith literature on the signs of the Hour — a man will push his father away and distance his mother, while drawing his friend close.)

A man will bring his wife very close — he'll obey her and disobey his mother. He will bring his friends close to him and he'll push his father away. That's been happening, and it's definitely increased. But it's going to come to a point where that becomes the norm in every home. There will be a few that are saved, and the vast majority is where the mother — like we heard yesterday — will be treated like a slave girl. That is happening in some homes. But then that will become the norm. So we're not just talking about non-Muslims; we're talking about Muslims as well.

So these type of things — the Prophet ﷺ was saying these are things that are going to become normal.

(People will seek knowledge for purposes other than the religion — referenced in hadith literature on the signs of the Hour.)

People will seek knowledge for something besides Islam. Arabic will be taught, Islamic studies will be taught, people will learn so much — but then there will be no practice. You studied, went to madrasah, went to Islamic university, got a degree, or went through high school Islamic studies. And now there are things that are clearly haram, and you're not staying away from them? Well, you know, that was just something I did. I did my four years in Islamic studies. It had no connection to actual practice.

You have the concept of:

(What is virtuous will be regarded as vice, and vice will be regarded as virtue — referenced in hadith literature on the signs of the Hour.)

That has for sure begun. If you're trying to follow the deen, it's regarded as a vice. If you're trying to follow the sunnah, you're going to get made fun of by your own family and by the community. And if you do something wrong, not only will they not correct you, they'll say, "Mashallah, shabash, it's great." A thousand examples of that. Last year's retreat was kind of on this entire topic — how vice and virtue have been flipped, how morality has been flipped, and what we regarded as virtue is now regarded as vice, and what we regard as vice has been regarded as virtue.

But that has to become extremely predominant. So bit by bit, all of these things from the signs of the Hour are increasing.

(Wine will be consumed — referenced in hadith literature on the signs of the Hour.)

And then he said:

(They will rename wine and liquor with other names — referenced in hadith literature on the signs of the Hour.)

They will take wine and liquor, name it something else, change the label to make people think that it is okay — and then they will start drinking it.

(Loud voices and noise will appear in the masajid — referenced in hadith literature on the signs of the Hour.)

Masajid won't be quiet places. Masajid will be places of "community building," in which you scream and play football, soccer, and karate class in the masjid. There are so many masajid that have literally a female karate class inside the prayer room. I was in another masjid — we were in the midst of having a program, we took a tea break, and there's football happening. I'm expected to speak to the youth, while literally in front of me, in the chandeliers, they're playing football right before the speaking. So the sacredness of the masjid is out.

And you look at all the major multi-million dollar masajid now being built in overseas Muslim countries. What are they? They are museums, pieces of art, tourist attractions. You're supposed to come, be amazed at the carpet, amazed at the granite, amazed at the artwork. It has nothing to do with spirituality, salah — nothing. You go there for Fajr, you won't find anyone. But you go there for Dhuhr, and seriously, the majority of visitors will be non-Muslim. So masajid are definitely moving toward becoming places of tourism rather than places of hidayah. Because it's just a building — people who have nothing to do with the deen are building masajid.

How Shaytan Eases Us Into Sin — The Strategy of Blurring Lines

You see, ظَهَرَتِ الْقَيْنَات — singing girls will become common. I used to think before that would mean it costs a lot of money or you don't have the access to hire a female singer. But now with our phones, you can listen on demand to any singer. And now you have TikTok and all these other platforms where pretty much half the people are singing and dancing — for free, on demand. Musical instruments becoming common in a Muslim home. The Prophet ﷺ said musical instruments will enter the Muslim home. You'll have your Qur'an shaykh there, a beautiful piano next to your bookshelf with all the tafasir, and a guitar next to that. Not only that, it will be regarded as part of the masjid. You'll have guitarists, people speaking about Allah and His Rasul, millions of views — astaghfirullāh — 100% pure music, guys and girls doing things, and they're using Allah's name in it.

One thing — let me stop over here to see how Shaytan gets us involved in all of these horrible sins. Mark my words: it is never 100% pure haram, because if that happens, we will reject it. You have to ease into it. Blurring the lines. That's why if it were just pure music, people would say, what is this? But then you have a nasheed, or you have the praise of the Prophet ﷺ. All of a sudden it seems okay. But it's 100% normal music; the lyrics are just about Allah and His Rasul.

You have these horrible covers where people take songs of well-known musicians and just change one or two words with Islamic terms — especially the names Allah and Rasul — while the rest of the lyrics are not even changed. I've spoken about this before when people say, "Oh, I like XYZ English nasheed artist." One practicing brother — his kids have no exposure to music — he said this nasheed artist came to town, so his daughter and his son have to go see him. I said, why are you taking them? He said, what's wrong? They sing nasheeds. Then I pulled out one of the most famous songs and said, look at the description of it — who is he giving credit to? He's giving credit to Drake, the famous Canadian musician who has some of the most vile lyrics out there. Literally those were the original words this nasheed artist used, and he changed one or two words and put Allah and His Rasul's name in it.

How can we allow ourselves to listen to that? Don't you think that's making fun of your deen? If someone takes a Budweiser bottle and puts Zamzam in it, are you going to drink it? You would say, this is istihzā' bil-deen. If a person leaves salah, it's not kufr as long as you regard it as obligatory. But if you pray salah without wudu intentionally, that's kufr. A person drinks alcohol — that's not kufr. But if a person says Bismillah and drinks alcohol, that's kufr. Because making fun of a symbol of Islam, a symbol of the deen, is something which gets you out of the fold of Islam. I'm not saying listening to such a nasheed takes you out of the fold of Islam — no, I'm not saying that. I'm just saying we are playing dangerously close to that line.

If you give me a glass of water filled from the bathroom sink — which is technically 100% the same Michigan water — are you going to drink it? Are you going to serve it with dignity? So the idea that you can take something as disgusting and lewd as certain music, where the content is vile, and you throw in a few humming sounds and a few names of Allah, and our kids are now listening to it and enjoying it — how can you expect any nur in that? There's got to be zulmah, darkness in that. If the basis of something is haram, you take $100 of riba or stolen money and start up a business — that $100 of haram is always going to stay there. You usurp someone's property and build a masjid on it — how does that work? Your basis is filth.

What is Shaytan trying to do? He's trying to ease us into getting accustomed to taking in poison. The specific boy I'm speaking about — he never listened to music. His mom and dad do not listen to music. But he innocently thinks this is a nasheed artist so it's fine to go. But it's actually the reverse — instead of getting him further away from music, this pulls him toward it. He did not even need to be weaned off of it because he was never listening in the first place. There are plenty of amazing nasheed artists out there — good stuff. But take someone who doesn't base their work off of haram music or disgusting lyrics. The deeper issue here is that more and more innovations are happening in the name of Islam.

And most people — the average person says: "Shaykh, I see where you're coming from, but it's not all that bad. At least there's some good." This is the most common response to anything you say, whether it's music, mixed gatherings, dancing, social media — anything and everything. The response is: "At least it's not pure haram." But this is exactly how Shaytan works. Because if a person came out presenting something as 100% pure filth, no one would buy it. So there's a slow method: you present a topic or an idea or an ideology or an action as Islamic to be able to sell it to your crowd. And once they buy into it — it already has that 5% haram in it — but the goal is eventually that 95%. The person who's involved doesn't even know what he's doing. It's Iblis in the back who's actually engineering it.

The Story of Barsisa — How Shaytan Works Gradually

You know the story of Barsisa? A monk who was entrusted — a family entrusted him to take care of a girl because her brothers had gone out in jihad. They said: since you are trustworthy, you're the scholar, you're the monk — you take care of her. If Shaytan came and said right away, "The three brothers are gone, go commit zina tonight," he would say: "Are you crazy? I've worshipped Allah my whole life, how dare you!" That's what he'd say. That's why Shaytan never comes like that. He comes in a very quiet, silent manner. Very basic help at first — and the story, as you all know, starts off with basic help and eventually ends up in the man becoming a father.

Now he's faced with that reality. Shaytan, when you're caught in trouble, makes you do stupid things to get you even deeper into trouble. So what does he do? He ends up taking her life and the life of the child, and buries them. Of course people eventually found out. The brothers came back, asked around, and they pointed the finger at the monk. They grabbed him, charged him with murder, and he was sent to be executed. And as he's hanging there by the noose, Shaytan pops up — this time in person. Previously he never came in person. This time he comes in person and says: "Listen my friend, you're caught now. You've got about 30 seconds. No one can help you besides me. What do you need from me? Can you get me saved?" "Yes I can." "What do you need from me?" "I need you, as your neck is on this noose, to simply put your head down — showing that you are prostrating to me. That's all I need." And he says, "Okay, anything to save my life." And as soon as he does that nod, Shaytan runs away, the noose tightens, the plank beneath him is removed — and he dies on shirk, worshipping Shaytan. He started off as the most pious monk of that entire region.

How does it happen? It happens slowly. This usul — I'm telling you — we need to all understand very well: Shaytan will never come at you straight forward. Never. Because he's not been in business since 1920. He's not been in business since 1482. He's been in business for billions of years. It comes in hadith, when Adam alayhis salam was created, Shaytan looked at Adam alayhis salam's mold, and right then and there he started thinking: where are the flaws in the system that I can take advantage of to get to him? He's been in business for billions of years. You can't mess with him.

So if we understand this, all these new fitnahs — you'll realize how Shaytan will come. You've read Qasas al-Nabiyyin, remember? The beginning of everything, when it comes to the story of Nuh alayhis salam. What did it talk about? All the prophets — and how does Shaytan so successfully get each nation into idolatry? You guys did tawbah, you got a prophet. How do you get back to worshipping idols? Shaykh Abul Hasan Ali al-Nadawi writes it in such a clear format. He would make the followers of the prophet — after the prophet died — say: "Oh man, we miss our prophet. It was so nice to have him around. Can we have a drawing of him?" So they would come up with a drawing. After a while someone says, "This drawing doesn't do justice to him. How about we create a statue of him — just for the sake of memory, so we can look at it? By looking at that statue we'll remember our prophet. By looking at our prophet we'll remember Allah. We'll become more pious, more focused in our ibadah." So they created a statue. And then after a little while, someone else — with Shaytan giving them ideas — says: "You know what, a statue doesn't do justice. We need to create an idol that we can do sajdah to. But the purpose is not the idol. The purpose is Allah. The only reason we put our head down towards the idol is because this is one step to get to Allah."

"We are not worshipping these idols except with the intention of getting close to Allah." So even though their intention was pure — they could still end up in shirk and kufr. But why I raise my voice right now is because that's exactly the logic Shaytan is playing today.

Shaytan says: "Brother, no one wants to come to the masjid." That's false — look at you all sitting here. What have you been paid? Why did you come? When you make effort, when hearts are moved, people will come. But anyway, this is Shaytan's argument. So now in order to get people to the masjid, you have to build your way up — and he says you build your way up through haram, or at least through extremely reprehensible things. "We have to think creatively. We have to watch a movie together in the masjid. We have to watch the World Cup." I'm not saying watching football is haram altogether, but some aspects of it — anything below the knee on a man is haram, no doubt about that. As much as you and I may have gotten accustomed to it. But to show that in a masjid — the intention is great, "we want to get people in the door, we need to get the youth in" — but at what cost?

"The youth won't come if it's just a guys-only event. You have to have a mixed event, otherwise people won't show up." Will more people show up if you have the Super Bowl? Of course they will. But at what cost are you willing to fill up the masjid? The logic is: "I've got to get the people in the masjid" — and then you twist and turn the rules. The place would be beyond packed if you called Drake himself for Khatm al-Qur'an. But what about people who say, "At least the people came"? Where do you stop? I'm giving you this example.

Mike Tyson, long ago in the 1990s — he went to Scotland for a fight, and they tried to get him to come to Jumu'ah. They announced he was going to be there. The Jumu'ah was supposed to be at 11 or 12 o'clock. They waited and waited — 12, 12:30, 1:00 — keep calling his agent: "He's busy, he's coming." All the way till 3:00 o'clock when Asr time was about to start. They had to make an announcement: Mike Tyson is not going to be able to make it, sorry. A brother who was there told me: a big chunk — half the crowd or so — stood up and left. Without praying Jumu'ah? Without praying Jumu'ah. Because they didn't come for Jumu'ah. They came for Tyson.

That's the litmus test. When you remove that drug, how many leave? Then you know who's coming for the masjid and who's coming for something else. When you remove the bait, you have to do that. If you just keep the bait on every single day, you'll never know what's actually happening. You have to test it. But even if it's a bait, it has to be a halal bait — it cannot be a haram bait.

These things that are happening are not happening by ill-intentioned, Islam-hating individuals. They genuinely care about Islam and the deen. But what happens is — just as I am susceptible to Shaytan, and so are you, and so is every single human being — Shaytan may come to them and say: "The reason I'm doing something which is not 100% halal is so that eventually I can get people to a higher level." And that is where I feel we're falling into the same trap.

I was thinking about this today: could there be anyone more spiritually intense and more dedicated than the Prophet ﷺ? Imagine the Prophet ﷺ saying, "You know what, you're not so close to the deen — let me allow certain things here to get you into Masjid al-Nabawi." The Prophet ﷺ was not working with a liberal Muslim or a whitewashed Muslim. He was working with the most hard-hearted, most staunch disbelievers who hated Islam and hated him. But yet, when they asked him to compromise:

He could not compromise. You want to fill everyone up? All they're asking is: one day worship our idols, one day worship your Lord — it's like a deal. No more fighting, no more antagonization, we'll all live as brothers. But then why did you come with a new religion? Leave it — let shirk continue? The fact that Islam came means it is about starting something fresh and removing the filth. So we learned from the Prophet ﷺ that on fundamental issues, there is no compromise.

Bringing People to the Deen — Environment Over Argument

Someone told me a story: a man wanted to become Muslim but he was a habitual drinker — only that one issue was stopping him. The brother said: "No, liquor and wine is haram, you can't do this." He said, "Forget this then, I'm leaving." So then someone got upset with this brother, saying: "Why did you not just allow him to accept Islam?" Because drinking is not shirk — it's a sin. And he's not already Muslim — he's going to become a Muslim. And when you become a Muslim, you're not saying drinking is allowed. It's just that we will work on it — call a spade a spade, a sin a sin. Drinking is not allowed — we're not saying it's allowed. But whenever you have the himmah and the tawfiq to give it up, that's when you give it up. There's a difference between someone leaving kufr and coming to Islam, versus someone who is already a Muslim.

Now let's talk about the person who is already a Muslim. I don't deal with angels — I deal with people like myself, people who are sinners. Someone comes to you and says: "I don't pray at all." So what do we say? Start off with Jumu'ah. Once a week. Or start off with one Isha. Not to say the others are forgiven — we're not saying that. But we're saying: start somewhere. The goal is very clear, you have a path. You're guiding this person from one step to the other. And we're not giving them something haram to work with. We're just saying: whatever your status quo is, we'll keep it at that and then we'll change it.

Similarly, let's give an example of hijab. I was told by our sisters' teachers that on the first day of one of our summer programs, a girl showed up with short sleeves, open hair, no scarf. No one said anything to her. She spent the whole day studying. But she's looking at every single other person who's got a nice scarf, all wearing full sleeves and whatnot. She comes back the next day — no one tells her anything — and she herself starts wearing a scarf. Then she tags along her sister — also from a secular family — and by the third day, she brings in a third sibling. And all of this she learned through osmosis. No one told her anything.

Those of you who have gone out in jamaat — you know that in jamaat, they don't give fatwas. They don't say: "Brother, this is haram, that is haram." It's the fact that when you sleep on the ground, follow the sunnah, get up for tahajjud, eat simple food, stay away from the outside environment — you yourself start realizing your own mistakes. And through osmosis, you change. My father's life-changing story: he says when he went to the ijtima' in New York in 1984, he had no idea what tabligh was. He went with his three-piece suit and his shaving kit. It was so spiritual — there were six police officers guarding the ijtima' site, and by the du'a time, all six of them had accepted Islam. No pamphlets, no booths, no tables — but they witnessed something they had never seen before. They witnessed true Islam — a small group of people staying awake at night, doing ibadah, doing khidmah. It captured their hearts.

My father said: "During the time of the du'a, I started seeing all these people crying like babies in front of Allah in the final du'a. And I looked at myself: these guys all look more pious than I do, and look at how they're crying. What about me? I should be the one crying more than them." He said that was the life-changing experience. He looked at all these people with beards, and he didn't have one. He said: "Okay, that's one thing — I need to start making some changes." There was no bayan about how to dress. There was no lecture about what's haram. That's what we need to realize: you create a good environment for people, and people will follow the culture.

So if you want to see change, if you want to see taqwa, if you want to see following of the sunnah — give people an environment. They will naturally start going with the crowd. When people are away from Islam and you want to bring them to the deen — my standard answer to every single person who has asked me this: "How do I bring my sister to the deen? My brother? My mom and dad?" — please don't talk about their flaws. "You don't wake up for Fajr, you have to start waking up for Fajr" — that will backfire. Instead of speaking about people's mistakes, you allow them to come into the light. When you give them an environment that's enlightening, they themselves will do some soul-searching and figure out that what they're doing is wrong.

Now when you talk about good environments — the environment actually has to be a good environment. If you pick up a drug addict from the street and take him to rehab, are you going to make his rehab environment similar to the street — with needles and drugs and liquor — so that he feels comfortable? No. The chance of recovery from that environment is very unlikely. Rather, since you picked him up from the street, you need to give him an environment that is an antidote to the street: warm shower, warm meals, love, compassion, no drugs — instead, medication, dhikr, ruqya, meditation, therapy, good company. That person, insha'Allah, will be able to get out of that habit.

So when we bring people from the streets — what do they need? They need an environment that is far better than what they have outside. Otherwise we're not going upwards. We're just going from one side of the fence to the other. The intentions are good — you want someone to be comfortable. But I'm telling you: if you give them exactly what they had outside, they're not going to benefit. The simple thing is: we have to have more masajid, more conference places, more conferences, more retreats, more musallahs, where the environment is powerful, spiritual, and extremely welcoming. Where a person can come dressed however they are — within the same gender — and will not be questioned, not judged, not given dirty looks, and instead is getting that spiritual dose that they need to be able to appreciate what's out there and what changes they need to make.

The Minor Signs Have Become Prevalent — Approaching the Major Signs

I know we've had a longer conversation here. But I think this sums up the signs of the Hour: the smaller signs before Dajjal — not 100% of them are sins in themselves. Like, for example, tall buildings: unless they're built only for show and competition — which is the case — but in itself it may not be a major sin. We said these minor signs have to become super common before Dajjal comes. Because from all the major signs, the first one is Dajjal. Going back to where we started: ten years ago when we spoke about this, already those 70 minor signs were present. We've seen them become more prevalent in that time. But now, in the past ten years, these 70 signs have become much, much more prevalent. So we are definitely getting closer to the first big sign, which is Dajjal.

And how will Dajjal come about? How will he become someone with power, whom people are willing to follow? The same way the first 70 minor signs came — through small, easy, slow exposure. Until you become accustomed to it, desensitized to it, and you don't think it's a big issue.

And didn't the Prophet ﷺ kind of warn the Sahaba about this? That Shaytan is not going to try to mislead you in big things — he's going to try to do it in small, small steps. The Prophet ﷺ mentioned, and I think he said, that Iblis has become despondent — mayus — from people in the Arabian Peninsula returning to shirk immediately. What's going to happen instead? It's going to be hatred, disunity, ostentation, riya. These are the diseases of the heart through which he'll get to you. The biggest diseases are shirk and kufr, but he's not going to get you through those now.

But then the Prophet ﷺ also mentioned that towards the end of times, the Day of Judgment will not come until idols are once again worshipped in the Arabian Peninsula. And the time has come — we've seen it now. There is an ambassador who said openly in a speech, paraphrasing: "We are not a country that needs to be 100% identified as the birthplace of Islam. We already had our culture before Islam. Islam happens to have come into our place. So our identity predates Islam." This was at Oxford, in front of everyone — a very open speech — where he said: "We don't want to be identified primarily as Muslims. That's a secondary identity. Our first identity is Arab." And so, part of the Arab culture — Arabs worshipped idols. Now you have major national museums that have brought out those idols for people to go view, and people are retweeting and posting: "This is awesome, we're rediscovering our culture." This is happening across the Muslim world. So what Rasulullah ﷺ said has started happening.

The Prophet ﷺ also said that the deserts of Arabia will once again become green and lush — he said "once again." We didn't understand that before. But now scientists, geologists, and historians are saying that long, long ago, these places were actually green and lush, and then the weather patterns changed and they became deserts. And now Rasulullah ﷺ prophesied they will go back to that state. If any of you have gone for Umrah in the past two years and taken the journey from Madinah to Makkah — the mountains are literally green. People have messaged me saying, "What is this painting? Is this some kind of vision?" I said: "No, brother — that's actual green trees." You now have huge farms where wheat and other grains are being grown, and irrigation is happening. Rasulullah ﷺ prophesied this massive change in the entire geography, the entire weather.

(The rain will become like hot ash — a sign of the Hour referenced in hadith literature.)

The rain will become hot — like hot ash or acid rain. And no matter how much it rains, it will still remain scorching. Global warming.

(The children will become a source of extreme anger for their parents — a sign of the Hour referenced in hadith literature.)

And the children will become a source of extreme anger for their parents. Parents won't want to have kids anymore because of how much pain they will suffer at the hands of their children. So these are things that are just continuously happening across the globe.

Red Cows, Al-Aqsa, and the Signs We Should Expect

The gist of the red cow issue is this: there is truth to it, there's a biblical prophecy about it. The idea is that when these three red cows are slaughtered, it will usher in an era where the temple will be rebuilt. And according to them, this will give the Yahud the license — or the world events will allow them — to destroy Masjid al-Aqsa, and that is where they will say they will build their temple. Those are things that more than likely are going to happen. Whether it's going to happen specifically with the red cows or not, there are ulama who have spoken about it — you can listen to those scholars online.

But what I'm trying to say is: we should expect this. This is exactly what we're going towards. Whether it's in the Hebrew sources or in the Torah — why do we need to feel shocked about things mentioned in the Torah? It could be true, but we already have all the signs present from the hadith literature. So these things we should definitely expect.

The war that has broken out — this genocide — it was that 9/11 moment for me. You know, I was studying overseas. I didn't have internet, I didn't have a phone. Someone went to an internet café and came back at night at Isha time in the madrasah and told me what had happened. I was 16 years old and I started to cry. And all the people around me were in a frenzy, and I was there like: "You guys don't know what you're talking about. This is going to change your life and my life." And I was crying.

Most of us realize that the world is not going to be the same after those events. Yes, of course people accepted Islam — that's the silver lining. But it's spilled milk; what can you do? Similarly, when October 7th happened — I was in Chicago when I heard about it, coming back from a program in St. Louis — and I had that exact same feeling: this is now something else. It's not your normal scrimmage. This is going to change the world. And that's exactly what it seems is happening. Things don't seem to be calming down; things are unfortunately expanding. But it's meant to happen. Whatever is meant to happen, we can't stop it. We have to play our role. You cannot stop the Hour from coming. You cannot stop Dajjal from coming.

We have to make sure that we're just in the right place at the right time when he does come — or whatever happens. Hopefully, insha'Allah, we'll be under the grave, under the earth. If every single prophet warned his nation from Dajjal, and everyone begged Allah to protect them from Dajjal, which fool today would say, "No, I want to be there to check him out"? No. We should ask Allah to remove us from that time. This is one of the du'as:

Oh Allah, whenever You intend to put a nation into trial, please call me back — call me back without my falling into fitna, because I cannot take fitna.

It would be safe to say that our actions — or any other group's actions — cannot bring Qiyamah closer or push it back further. It's going to happen when it's going to happen. So when people are doing things in the world right now, Muslims too — it's a figure of speech to say their actions are bringing Qiyamah closer. They were meant to do that, and Qiyamah will come at the appointed time. They're not actually changing the time of Qiyamah. It's just that these people are becoming, by Allah's will, the actual reason why the path will be paved for Dajjal to come.

Will Dajjal Come in Our Lifetime? — The Answer on Mahdi

Is Dajjal going to come in our lifetime? I have no idea. Could be, could be not. Because the way things change is so quick that it very well could be. But we can protect ourselves with Surah al-Kahf.

One answer that our honorable ustad, Hafizahullah — Mufti Abul Haq — told me, and I've mentioned this in many talks over the past two years: it gives us hope and also makes us cry at the same time. I gave him a Darul Salam calendar and was talking about programs, asking for his du'a. The conversation somehow shifted to Mahdi and Dajjal. So I asked him — not about Dajjal, but about Mahdi. "People are asking, is he coming? What are your thoughts?" His answer was: Mahdi is nowhere near. Why? Because he said: when Mahdi comes, the Ummah will be in such a pitiful, horrible, difficult circumstance, the likes of which may have never been witnessed. He said: "You're telling me you do programs? You have hundreds, thousands of people attending?" He said: "Where is Mahdi going to come like this?" He said: "When Mahdi comes, to be a Muslim and a believer will be next to impossible. Anyone who has faith will be destroyed, killed, tortured. And those few Muslims who survive all the tests and will not cave in at any cost — they will still remain Muslim. They will beg and beg and beg Allah. And when their du'a reaches a certain threshold, then Allah will send Mahdi." It's a bittersweet answer. But the aspect of it — when he comes — it's like: we're just getting started, brother. We're just getting started.

Another ustad of mine, asked during this past Umrah about this topic, told me: "This Palestinian crisis and this genocide is not going to bring Mahdi." I said, "How?" He said: "Because you are able to — although the countries are not doing much — still raise your voice as a citizen. You are able to voice your opinion. You are able to financially try to help as an individual. But soon a time will come — whether that soon is a thousand years, five hundred years, a hundred years — where Muslim bloodshed will happen all over the world. And at that time, it will be so difficult to assist a Muslim that a Muslim will not even raise his voice for another Muslim, because raising his voice will make him a target. He will not even have the ability to protest because he knows he will be targeted."

He said: "That's what's coming." And he even specifically highlighted Southeast Asia — he said this bloodshed is going to come there. Unfortunately we see what's happening. Like the Spanish Inquisition — we're seeing things unexpectedly, where the underground situation in the country where my parents were born is changing so rapidly. So these are things we need to study and understand. We cannot continually sit in our bungalows, drive our cars, and relax thinking everything is set. Nothing is set. The future is very difficult to gauge. But it seems that Allah azza wa jal has decided to put the heat up. Because as we get closer to the Day of Judgment, the heat will continue to go up. At the very end of times — especially with Dajjal — you go from 100 to 200 to 300 to 400 to 500 and then what's the setting? Broil. Dajjal is broil. Have you ever tried toasting bread on broil? Try it. It won't last five seconds. Everything burns just like that.

As we get closer to the Day of Judgment, Allah is going to increase the tests. And only people with the highest level of deep, deep, deep-rooted iman will survive. And the number of those survivors will more than likely continue to diminish. Because quality over quantity. That quality will be like diamond quality — super rock hard. Like how gold is purified, like how diamonds are purified: through extreme levels of heat. Similarly, this is what fitna is in the first place. Fitna means the purification of gold. Fattān is the jeweler who purifies gold. You take mined ore and put it under heat. All the non-gold substances, all the other dirt, all the other alloys get melted away. And you have pure gold that's then made into bricks and other things. So you can think of it as: just like a fattān puts up the heat to purify the gold, Allah azza wa jal is going to put up the heat on the believers. And the ones who remain firm will become 24 karat.

Mahdi comes when the temperature is way up. What we've seen now is the temperature going up — but not enough for Mahdi to come. How long will it take to get from where we are to broil? Allah knows best. We have no idea. It could be our great-grandchildren's time. It could be our own time. We don't know.

AI, Deepfakes, and the Dajjali Era

We stand at basically the dawn of the AI era. We see the advent of deepfakes — where you can see someone you know on a screen saying things you know they would never say. Or they're quoting what sounds like Qur'an to us, but we say: this is not Qur'an. We're coming into an era where we won't be able to believe video. Before, video used to be the end-all-be-all — you had a dashcam, you knew who caused the accident. But now you can't even trust your dashcam. So as we enter this era of additional fitnah and additional difficulty, how do we differentiate right from wrong, and truth from falsehood?

What you just said brings tears to me, because I'm thinking about how hard it's going to be to survive. Most people won't make it. I don't even know if I'll make it. There is no doubt in my mind that Dajjal is the zenith of the most advanced technology of that time, mixed in with some hardcore, highest-dose of sihr — the sihr of shayateen. That coupled with the highest levels of technology of that era. I never heard of AI until two years ago, maybe. And that research was already being done in the early 2000s. So we're hearing about it 22 or 23 years later. Now the train is moving — and it's moving fast. To make a train take off and create acceleration takes time, but once it's accelerating, it goes quick, quick, quick.

Last year, 600 AI scientists signed a petition asking governments to intervene or asking companies to self-regulate and stop AI research. They said: take a six-month break, because this is getting way too dangerous. "This is getting out of hand. Let's take a step back and think: how are we going to live in this world? What laws and rules are we going to create?" Of course, nothing stopped — the cat was out of the bag. It's a race to the top of evil. Now they have said that 2024 is going to be the year of the fastest development of AI. And we're only a few months in. If you check NPR News right now, they have an entire section daily dedicated to AI. Every day, because there's so much that's newsworthy — not just for scientists, but newsworthy for consumption by you and me. Every single day, that's how much development is happening. By the end of December 31st of 2024, where will we have reached? I have no idea.

Just look at AI being used in the genocide right now in Palestine. They're using AI to use drones to target. So it's no longer a human being making the decision. First, there was a person with a sniper who would shoot — there was still some element of hesitation: "It's a kid. Should I do it? It's a girl. Should I do it?" Then they relegated that to drone operators thousands of miles away who, while drinking their coffee, are using their joystick to blow up a building. That was bad enough. But now, they have 100% delegated this to a machine. And as one intelligence officer says: "This is unparalleled in my memory — a statistical mechanism. We have more faith in a statistical mechanism than a grieving soldier. Everyone there, including me, lost people on October 7th. The machine did it coldly, and that made it easier. It saves a lot of time — I would invest 20 seconds for each target and do dozens of them every day. I had zero added value as a human, apart from being a stamp of approval. Now this saves a lot of time."

And the IDF judged it permissible to kill more than 100 civilians in attacks when they were trying to focus on a Hamas official. During the early weeks of the war, they were permitted to kill 15 or 20 civilians during airstrikes on low-ranking militants. Attacks on such targets were typically carried out using unguided munitions — "dumb bombs" — which destroyed entire homes and killed all their occupants. There were regulations, but they were very lenient. "We've killed people with collateral damage in the high double digits, if not low triple digits." Even with AI, there's a 10% error rate in identifying targets, and once you identify a target, everyone around them is also taken out. This is something new that's happening.

Experts studying the potential impact of advanced AI have concluded that the biggest risk of AI and robots comes from the potential manipulation of people. Brainwashing is much more effective and cheaper than military action. Brainwashing is much more effective and cheaper than military action — without any bullets. Humans are using AI to create and spread fake news, which is killing wisdom without firing a single shot. Making people not care about their own identity, not care about their own people, not care about what they grew up believing in. You don't even have to kill them. It's like science fiction movies where you have mind control and the human becomes a soldier for the aliens. That's exactly where we're headed. How do you mind control? We're all addicted to our screens, we're all taking in information. As long as you adjust what's on the screen, we believe whatever the screen tells us. You just have to change the channel, put the right stuff in there, and it will make people start thinking in a certain manner.

How Will People Believe Dajjal Is God? — The Fitna of Hadith Rejection

When I said this to people — about how Dajjal will claim to be God — they said: "Come on, man. Who's going to believe a human being claiming to be God? Who's going to believe a one-eyed human being?" That's usually the criticism about Dajjal. But because Dajjal is supposed to be the very largest, last, and most difficult challenge — the broil — Allah azza wa jal has made it in a manner that's vastly different from anything else. Most of the big things have been mentioned clearly in the Qur'an. But Dajjal has no specific mention in the Qur'an.

And this is what the Qur'anists say — the hadith rejecters — that since Dajjal is not mentioned in the Qur'an, why are we talking about it? They say: "We want Qur'an, we follow Qur'an. We throw out all khabar ahad — anything below mutawatir." I wish you could connect the dots. This is happening at the highest levels — that only follow Qur'an and only follow mutawatir hadith, which aren't that many. And the mutawatir ahadith don't speak about Dajjal. Mutawatir means there's such a large group of narrators in every generation that it is given almost the authenticity similar to Qur'an in terms of its preservation. If you base your deen off of that alone, it doesn't work. Because that's a tiny, minute percentage of hadith literature. So when you say Qur'an and mutawatir hadith only, you've literally thrown out the source of the majority of the deen. And now when you don't have the source — well, I become the source. We use our own intelligence to figure things out.

So part of this fitna of Dajjal is to get people to focus only on Qur'an and start distancing themselves from hadith, saying: "This doesn't make sense. This doesn't jive with me." Picking and choosing our deen.

I remember I gave a talk about Dajjal in a khutbah once. Afterward, while grabbing my shoes, an uncle came up to me and very sarcastically said: "Mashallah, what a good khutbah. You talked about Dajjal — in which surah of the Qur'an is Dajjal mentioned? Which surah?" I knew he was a Qur'anist and a hadith rejector. And I told him — I think it was one of my muhpat days — I said: "This is part of the fitna. People like you actually reject it. The fitna has already begun. This is the example of the fitna, that you come and tell me there is no Dajjal because it's not mentioned in the Qur'an. This is exactly why it's not mentioned in the Qur'an — for people like you to trip and fall. Because you already fell. Because if you believed in Dajjal and said, 'I'm going to protect myself,' then you can't fall. When you become a Dajjal rejector because you're a hadith rejector, you already lost the game, brother. You're not even going to make it to the first round."

So this is what's going on today. Hadith rejectors across social media platforms with huge followings. Pseudo-intellectuals constantly saying: "Yeah, these are old village mullah's tales. Come on, 2024 in America, you're going to talk about Dajjal?" They're constantly pushing the narrative to stop speaking about this.

There is one hadith that says: when Dajjal comes, Dajjal will not come until he is no longer spoken about from the pulpits. When he is not spoken about from the pulpits is when Dajjal will show up. Because if you have retreats and conferences where you speak about the signs of the Hour, we're not going to fall for it. There has to be absolutely no mention of it. Then he will pop up and take over.

Once you reject hadith, you won't even know what a fitna is anymore — because you've lost your map. Hadith is your map. It tells you who's what. It's your identifying guide. If you lose it and throw it out and reject it, you're not going to be able to figure out who's what. You have to have hadith in order to figure out who's what.

And when people talk about how they'll start believing in Dajjal as God — nothing will happen immediately. Change happens subtly. This Dajjal is not going to show up one day and say: "Here I am." Of course no one's going to believe in him then. So he has to slowly make himself more acceptable. And by the time he comes, people will literally be dying to follow him.

The Relationship Between AI and Dajjal

I want to read something to you about what gives me the actual reason why I think Dajjal and AI work hand in hand. Listen carefully. This is from the Chicago Booth School at the University of Chicago. An article from there says:

"The more exposed people are to automation technologies, researchers find, the weaker their religious beliefs."

I'll repeat that: the more exposed people are to automation technologies, researchers find, the weaker their religious beliefs. AI and robotics may influence people's beliefs in a way that science more generally does not. People whose jobs were one standard deviation higher than average in exposure to AI were 45% less likely to believe in God than those with average exposure. Did you guys understand that? Those people in a university or in a workforce who had a slightly more exposure to artificial intelligence — studying it, working with it, developing it — were 45% less likely to believe in God than the person who has average exposure. This is a crazy, crazy virus.

The researchers also find that countries with a large stock of robots — one standard deviation above average — experienced a 3% decline in religiosity each decade. SubhanAllah. By contrast, countries with a stock one standard deviation below average experienced a slight uptick in religiosity. So any country that had a little bit more robots than average saw a decline in people believing in any religion. And any country that had fewer robots than average had an increase in religiosity.

Here's why: automation's impact on religious faith may have to do with what researchers call "the instrumental value of religion." Religion, they say, helps you figure out why things happen — it gives you an explanation for things. Historically, people deferred to supernatural agents and religious professionals to solve problems beyond the scope of human ability. You have things moving around in your house, you get sick randomly every evening, you go to a religious leader — the doctor can't help with this. So people would turn to God or to a supernatural power for help in dealing with things that go beyond them. These problems may now seem more solvable for people working and living in highly automated spaces.

The summary is: AI even in its infancy is coming with so many solutions that people will eventually say: "I don't need mom, I don't need dad, I don't need a secretary, I don't need a driver, I don't need a baker, I don't need someone to fill my gas or make my coffee — and I definitely don't need a mufti." Right now they already have an AI mufti app. And in the Haram Sharif also, I heard they've removed the ulama who used to give answers on-site and replaced them with kiosks for asking fatwas. This excitement over technology is stupidity. You have to understand: this technology is a double-edged sword. If you don't hold it with caution — like villagers who were just handed a gun and get trigger-happy — everyone's going to die. You have to know how to use this thing, otherwise you'll kill yourself.

And that's exactly what Dajjal will do, according to Rasulullah ﷺ. He will show so many miracles, he will bring paradise in front of you, he will bring hell in front of you. That will look like it — like a deepfake, but next level. Dajjali deepfake.

What does Dajjal mean anyway? Right — deception. Dajjal is the superlative form: the one who is the greatest deceiver. And what is all this AI effort going toward? Taking someone's picture online, putting it into AI, removing the clothes from it — this looks like a normal photo, 100% — and sending it to someone's email or WhatsApp and saying: "If you don't pay me, I'm going to share this." Who is going to believe it's not real? And then, think about that scholar who is warning people about Dajjal — how easy it is to create a deepfake of him with another person. You understand? The power of how these things can be used to control the narrative.

My dear friends: our spaces where we can freely speak are going to get smaller and smaller. Your mind and your heart have to be the place where this communication happens. You're not going to find large conferences freely speaking the truth on these issues. Because these Dajjali forces that are fully in action right now will ensure that the narrative from every main platform supports the agenda. And any narrative that is against that agenda will be silenced. Not necessarily killed — you create a scandal, a deepfake, and now no one will believe you. Everyone's like: "Look what he's doing." Do you understand that?

Ask Allah to allow you to see these connections without me having to spell everything out. Because I can't say everything. But I want you to ask Allah to allow you to start seeing how the narrative is being controlled.

Two Dreams — The Closeness of Dajjal

One pious scholar had a dream in the first week of the COVID lockdown, four years ago. In it, he hears that Dajjal has come out, so he starts searching on his computer for where Dajjal is. And as he's doing that in his dream, he turns around and sees him in his backyard. He starts running to a relative's house, and when he arrives there, Dajjal shows up there too. Towards the end of the dream, there was a man removing another man's unwanted hair.

The way this was interpreted: when something is in your backyard, it means it's really close — either by distance or by time. So Dajjal is very close in time. The fact that the scholar was looking for him on the computer and that's where he first appeared — the Dajjal's focus will be on people with the capacity to warn others about him. His first target will be to silence those who want to warn their communities: scholars, speakers, lecturers, content creators, anyone with a mic or a platform. Shaytan's first move will be to buy out all of these influencers. Any voice that rises gets silenced, while bots work 24/7 automatically generating fake news on one side.

We also heard — in Michigan — a person was offered 20 million dollars to stand and run against a Muslim in a primary election. Straight up. And he came out and said that — mashallah, he had the courage to say so. You think it's not happening everywhere? It's happening everywhere. 20 million, 200 million — everyone is being bought out by certain powers.

And the removal of the unwanted hair — it was interpreted as: removal of unwanted hair is sometimes necessary. You might need someone's help to do something necessary. But the goal is actually the promotion of fuhsh — LGBTQ — done in such a slick, sideways manner that it will be presented as necessary, and then eventually it will go all the way out.

The second dream that the same person had three days later: they're going out into the woods somewhere, in a campsite. All of a sudden he opens a door and senses Dajjal is there. He comes back and tells all the family members: "Let's get out, get out, get out." There was a phone charger or laptop charger present. He goes out to warn them and then comes back to get it — and that's where he comes face to face with Dajjal. And Dajjal looked like a specific person in his family — a man with a white beard and a very pious appearance. So he tells his family: "This is Dajjal." And they say: "What are you talking about? Are you nuts? This is so-and-so, our family elder. You've lost it." And he said: "No, I'm telling you it is." They said: "No, he doesn't look like it." He said: "I can see it — it's him."

The idea — which we all know — is that Dajjal will present himself as the one who has come to save Islam, to revive Islam, to make your life better, to get you to Jannah — whatever techniques he uses. But the person following him will not realize it. They will think this guy is the real deal.

So this is a four-year-old dream of a very pious person, with many take-home points. But the key idea is: if you take your deen and then spend an hour or two scrolling on social media, you've already lost before the battle has begun. I promise you. Because you will not be able to think for yourself. You will be regurgitating what social media says.

One brother came up to me at Fajr yesterday. He said: "Shaykh, how do I handle this — in university right now, girls are the ones who are much more outgoing, they're right in your face, they make the first moves. How am I supposed to handle that and stay away from fitna in school, in college, everywhere?" So I asked him: "How long have you been here?" He said: "I just came for the first talk." I said: "Brother, you stay here till I'tikaf ends, and your question will be answered." Not that I'm going to give you the answer — you'll figure it out yourself. Because when you are in this type of environment, you get a cleansing of your mind. A lot of the things that you have forced yourself to start believing — that it's not practical to follow Islam in its true sense today, it's not practical to follow the sunnah in its true sense — those things have been fed to you through what you've absorbed from online, social media, WhatsApp, Instagram, and our educational system. It creates that skepticism. It requires sitting in an environment like this for ten days, five days, or three days to unlearn that gunk and come back to fitrah.

Many people say: "I'm going to come for Ramadan, read Qur'an, do I'tikaf" — but with absolutely no lectures, no programs. And I'm telling you: they walk away with incorrect understandings of Islam and incorrect understandings of following the deen in this time and age. Their mindset doesn't change. You can read less Qur'an, but you have to learn how to think right. If your moral compass is messed up, then no matter how much dhikr and du'a you do — until you fix that compass, it's not going to help you. Going for Umrah and Hajj is not going to help. Even in Ramadan, if you do not fix your internal compass.

Most people don't realize they're thinking wrong. Why is it that a person goes for the last ten days of Ramadan for Umrah with his wife and daughters, none of them wearing hijab, wearing it only in the haram and taking it off as soon as they step into the hotel — and then coming back to America, life moving on? That means the moral compass — what's acceptable, what's not acceptable — is unfortunately skewed. What was the point of spending $6,000 or $8,000 to go to Makkah while committing a sin and not even repenting from it? You'd rather stay here and work on your mindset, and say: "This is something I want to change."

The key thing is not just doing a lot of good deeds. The key thing is having a proper Islamic vision. I have met people after Jumu'ah who came to ask me a question — wearing white, kurta — and I'm thinking in my heart: the question is so outlandish, he's straight-up criticizing the deen, and we just finished Jumu'ah. This is so common nowadays: people think they just need to get in the masjid and pray, get in the masjid and read Qur'an, show up to a conference — and that's it. My dear friends, if your internal direction and your belief of what's right and what's wrong is not taken care of — we're going to be in for a big surprise.

How to Protect Ourselves

These are the biggest fitnas right now: the fitna of not being able to distinguish right from wrong. And the technology around us is what is making it much, much more difficult. That's why I'm encouraging everyone to create and find spaces like these. We cannot have just one or two masajid like Darul Salam doing this. Every location needs to have a masjid where a person can have very clear, frank discussions about deen — where the board or president is not going to fire anyone, where people are not going to get in trouble for saying what the deen says. Clear discussion. This is not happening today. And I'm asking all of you: if you benefited from this discussion today, you cannot stop there. We need to replicate these type of programs and discussions across different parts of the country and the world. There is still a lot of hope — people are willing to listen, willing to change their perception. But they need someone to talk to them.

One of my du'as that I make for myself and for all of you is: Ya Allah, give us that light of iman which will allow us to see the plots of Shaytan and Iblis from miles away. We just have to be able to sniff it out a mile away. And number two: allow us to take all the necessary means to protect ourselves and others from it.

So the ways to protect ourselves:

Number one: Stay in circles of people who have a traditional, old-style thinking. One of my ustads told me: بھئی پرانی سوچ والے پرانی سوچ والوں کے ساتھ رکھنا بیٹا — "Son, the people of traditional thinking must stay with people of traditional thinking." It could even be a 90-year-old or 80-year-old non-Muslim. But that old-style thinking that has not been corrupted by the modern age — if you have that type of group of friends, that is protection.

Number two: Decrease your dependency on social media and online sources. Just decrease it. Stop reading Twitter. There's no reason. Whatever you need to know, someone will call you, text you, or email you. Twitter and everything else — stop watching and reading stuff online to the best of your ability. Go in person and study wherever you can.

Number three: Read Surah al-Kahf every single day — at least the first ten and last ten verses, and if you have the ability, the entire surah. And of course on Jumu'ah. My ustad 25 years ago told me: "You have to read Surah al-Kahf every day." We need to start doing that. Shaykh Abul Hasan Ali al-Nadawi has a tafsir of Surah al-Kahf called Faith vs. Materialism — an 80-page book. Alhamdulillah, I did a 16-week tafsir on Surah al-Kahf some years ago which is available on our YouTube channel. That's a great start for making you think in a certain manner. Because Kahf is an antidote to Dajjal — it addresses certain specific things. You have to know what those things are.

Number four: Perform salah, and come to Jumu'ah in the masjid as often as you can. These are some of the ways, insha'Allah, we can protect ourselves from this fitnah.

People who want to take their deen from online classes only — virtual, virtual learning — you're going to be in trouble. You have to go back to the good old method of sitting in front of your teacher: someone you can shake hands with, who you know is a real person, who has his own ustad, who you can go visit. That's what I'm talking about. If you follow the Islamic teachings of how Qur'an and hadith have been preserved — the chain of transmission — insha'Allah there's safety in that.

Just recently there was a WhatsApp audio using Mufti Taqi Usmani's, damat barakatuhum, voice — it sounded exactly like him, with his picture plastered on it — saying to read a particular dhikr on a certain night. Then Mufti Taqi Usmani responded three or four days later saying: "This has nothing to do with me. I never prescribe these types of things." That is just the beginning of what's going to happen. So people who want to take their deen from online only are going to be in trouble.

So I'll say the Qur'an and the sunnah — 1,400 years old — can absolutely give us guidance on how to deal with AI being developed in 2024. Because Qur'an and sunnah will tell us the importance of tradition. You don't take your deen from a screen. If you don't believe that, and you think it's good enough to take your deen from a screen — game over. Because as we just rightly said, the era of deepfakes is already here. If you follow the Islamic teachings on how the Qur'an and hadith have been preserved, insha'Allah there's safety in that.

The Dajjali fitna era has arrived. And you and I are going to prepare ourselves by studying the same classical texts, but from a perspective that will help us be protected. Not just Dajjal himself — the Dajjali fitna predates Dajjal. And we have to prepare ourselves now.

Closing Du'a

O Allah, the Most Generous, the Most Merciful. O Allah, all praise is due to You. O Allah, rectify all of our affairs for us, and do not leave us to ourselves for even the blink of an eye.

O Allah, we ask You to protect all of us and our loved ones from the fitna of Dajjal. O Allah, we ask You to protect all of us from the fitna of today. O Allah, please save our minds and hearts from becoming polluted and ruined. O Allah, I beg You — allow us to be able to differentiate between right and wrong, between truth and evil. Ya Allah, keep us on the right side of history. Allow us to always be with the truth. Allow us to always be amongst the revivers of the truth, the inviters towards the truth, and the followers of the truth. O Allah, grant us the necessary spiritual and physical protection to be able to stand firm on the truth. Ya Allah, do not test us more than we can handle.

O Allah, please accept the shuhada who are giving their lives for no other reason than that they are Muslims. O Allah, across the globe — and those who are alive from our brothers and sisters in Gaza and other places — Ya Allah, give them strength, give them resilience, and assist them through Your invisible powers.

O Allah, grant all of us an attachment to the Qur'an, an attachment to Surah al-Kahf, and an attachment to the teachings and themes of Surah al-Kahf. O Allah, make us amongst those who are able to see the deceptive methods of Iblis from miles and miles away. And O Allah, grant us the tools required to be able to protect ourselves from those deceptive methods.

O Allah, if anything appropriate was shared today, indeed it was from You, and we ask You to grant us the ability to deeply understand it and to propagate it. O Allah, if any misrepresentation was done or any mistakes were made, Ya Allah, we seek Your forgiveness. And we ask You to rectify the way we approach life, the way we think of life, and the way we think of deen and dunya.