Test of Knowledge – 1

Auto-generated transcript: In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. And praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds. And peace and blessings be upon the honour of the prophets and messengers. Muhammadﷺ, the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and upon his family. Now, brothers and sisters, we are looking at the different lessons that we learn from Surah Al-Kahf. And the fact that these are things that, the tests that Allah SWT mentioned in Surah Al-Kahf, are the tests that the Dajjal will put on the people that he will encounter. We ask Allah SWT to save us from Dajjal and from all Dajjali influences. We looked at the first two tests: the test of faith and the test of wealth. Today, we look at the test of knowledge. This is one of the paradoxes that even with knowledge—even with the knowledge of the Quran itself—if that knowledge is not rooted in Taqwa (righteousness), which means that the knowledge has to be in practice, and if that knowledge does not come from a heart which is pure, and does not enter a heart which is pure, then that knowledge itself will corrupt. Even though the knowledge itself is pure, but the way it is perceived, and the way it is received and understood, will corrupt. And this is exactly what happened with Iblis. The knowledge that Iblis had was good. There was nothing wrong with the knowledge he had. What was wrong is what he did with the knowledge—where he used this knowledge in a wrong way. And even today, you have people who are people of knowledge. They are ulama. They have great qualifications. They are the hufadh of the Quran and so on. But then they will give a fatwa which is totally making haram into halal and halal into haram because they are carrying favor with somebody in authority, maybe a ruler, maybe somebody with money or something, and they will give this fatwa. So therefore, which means that the knowledge has not entered the heart. They are not fearing the anger of Allah. They are looking for benefit from some creature, from a human being. Or they fear the human being. They do not fear Allah. So what's the good of the knowledge? So the issue is to ensure that the knowledge we have takes us to the right destination, which is the Rida (satisfaction) of Allah. Ibn Kathirrahmatullah Ali quotes in his tafsir about the incident of Musa Alayhi Salaam and how he went in search of Al-Qidr. Ubayy bin Qaab narrated that he heard Rasulullahﷺ saying that Musa Alayhi Salaam got up to deliver a speech before the Bani Israel. When somebody asked him, "Who is the most learned person among the people?" Now obviously, Musa Alayhi Salaam is the Rasul. He is the Sahib al-Kitab, he is the Sahib al-Shariah. So obviously, he is the most learned person. Nobody can be more learned than the Nabi. And this is not just any Nabi, this is a Rasul. And he is a Rasul from the Ulul Azam, the Rasul. So Musa Alayhi Salaam, the man asked him, "Who is the most learned person in the world among the people?" And Musa Alayhi Salaam said, "I am the most learned person." Now Allah SWT rebuked him because Allah SWT did not refer the knowledge to Allah. He did not say by the will of Allah, Allah has given me knowledge. He said, "I am the most knowledgeable." So Allah SWT rebuked him for this. And Allah SWT revealed to him at the junction of two seas, there is a slave of ours who is more learned than you. Right? Now you should think about this. First of all, Musa Alayhi Salaam is the Rasul of Allah. And he is the Sahib ul Kitab, he is the Sahib ul Shariah. Now Khidr is not mentioned in the Quran by name. We have the name from the Hadith, but in the Quran, Allah SWT said, "Abn Minna Libat," one of our slaves. Obviously, that slave, whoever he is, is not Sahib ul Kitab. He is not Sahib ul Shariah. Right? He is a Nabi so in terms of status, he is not at the level of Musa A.S. Musa A.S. is much higher. But when Allah SWT said there is this person, Musa A.S. could have said, "Alhamdulillah, he didn't say that Musa A.S. said O my Rabb how can I meet him. He said, 'I want to meet him.' The lesson here is Musa A.S. had the humility and the humbleness. He didn't say, 'I am this, I am this.' No, he said, 'Allah, you have told me this man has knowledge. I want to go and learn. I want to go and learn what is the need for Musa A.S. to learn if Musa A.S. whatever he needs to know, Allah will teach him. Allah taught him. Musa A.S. was not a you know all the Anbiya received but Musa A.S. spoke to Allah directly. He is Kaleemullah. He is not an ordinary man. Musa A.S. So it's not just a matter of he actually spoke to Allah SWT right so he is a very very special person. So Musa A.S. said, 'How can I meet him? I want to meet him.' So Allah SWT said, take a fish, put it in a vessel, and then set out. Where you lose the fish, you will find this man. Right? Now Musa A.S. took a fish, he put it in a vessel, and he set out. And with him was his servant; he was a boy, servant you shall be known. He was the servant of Musa A.S. So he was carrying this vessel with the fish, and then they went and then they traveled the whole day and you know whatever number of days and then they slept. They found a rock and they were sleeping on this rock now the fish this was the fish this was along this river. So the fish then jumped out of this vessel and went into the water and as it went, it created like a tunnel in this water. So Allah SWT stopped the flow of water on both sides of the fish, so the fish was moving in a tunnel. Now when they got up, this whole thing happened. Musa A.S. was sleeping; he didn't see it. The boy saw it but when they got up and they started on this, the boy forgot to tell Musa A.S. So he is now carrying the vessel without the fish. So they carried on the journey and then they that whole day they walked or whatever it was and then they walked the whole night. Imagine Musa A.S. was a tough person. He walked and walked; you don't know how many days he walked. Then they got up in the following morning. Musa A.S. said to the boy, "Bring that fish at least let us eat it because we are you know we are hungry and we so on." So this fish carrying this fish for nothing. So let us bring the fish we have. We are tired from this journey. Very interesting that Musa A.S. didn't get tired until that point right? They were walking and walking for God knows how many days. Musa A.S. didn't get tired, but at that point, he got tired. And when he asked for the fish, the boy said, 'Oh, but the fish is gone.' He said, 'Where did the fish go?' Because Allah SWT told him where you lose the fish is where the person will be. And this boy is saying, 'The fish is gone.' He said, 'Where did the fish go?' He said, 'Two days ago, not now two days of journey has passed so and the boy said, 'The fish jumped into the sea, and when the fish went in the water, it was like a tunnel.' So Musa A.S. that is the place he said that is the place we should have gone. You know, we should have told me anyway. So now they went back. Imagine they traveled two days; they have now traveled two days back. So when they reached back, they found that there was a man sleeping on the rock and he was covered with you know whatever half or some garment. So Musa A.S. said salam to him, and he said salam alikum. So this man he got up and he said, "Is there such a greeting among your people? Do you people say salam alikum?" Musa A.S. said yes. He said, "I am Musa and so this person said, 'Are you Musa of Bani Israel?' He said yes, I am Musa of Bani Israel, and I have come to you so that you may teach me something of the knowledge which you have been taught." Right, so this is the conversation initial conversation that is happening between Musa A.S. and Khidr A.S. Now we why do we say A.S. because was he a Nabi? Yes, he was a Nabi because Allah SWT said he is from he is a slave from among our slaves and we have taught him we have given him some knowledge. So therefore, this means that Khidr A.S. is a Nabi of Allah SWT. So we say A.S. So Khidr A.S. said to him, "I will teach you a lesson. Do and that you should not but you you will not have sabr with what I tell you. You will not be able to understand that, and you will not have any patience with what I tell you." So Musa A.S. said, "No, no, I will have patience. And I will inshallah minas sabirin. I will have patience and I will not disobey you in the slightest." Khidr A.S. told him, "I have knowledge that I have knowledge that you don't have and you have knowledge that I don't have. So how can you say that you will be patient when you don't know what I am talking about?" In terms of understanding that you know in a logical sense, you are saying, "I will be how do you know? You are saying, 'I will be patient.' So he said inshallah he said it the correct way, but he said, "You have no idea what I am talking about, and I don't know he said you have knowledge I don't have this knowledge. So he is acknowledging it. He said, "You know he is not saying you are ignorant. No, you have knowledge. Allah has given you knowledge. Allah has given you the Torah the Kitab so but at the same time he said I have knowledge which you don't have and you are saying you will be patient but how do you know you will be patient because you don't know what I know. So anyway Khidr A.S. so he accepted. He said, "Ok," Musa A.S. said, "No, I will I will not disobey you. I will I will follow you know whatever you tell me to do I will do it, and so please accept me as your student." Now many lessons inshallah tomorrow we will look at those in detail but one important lesson here is if you want to learn something you have to submit yourself to the teacher you can't order the teacher to do this and that today this is one of the biggest problems that we have in terms of especially with regard to Islamic knowledge.