Surah Kahf Recitation - A Social Program?
Salam everyone,
Been a while I have been thinking about it. We should have a social program of reciting Surah Kahf every Thursday night or Friday Morning. We can get together as friends or ask the local Imam or the Shaykh to recite it with us. Many of us don’t know Arabic, so reciting with other people – who knows the language – would surely help.
I think it is of utmost importance that we simply follow that Prophetic teaching, which states that the recitation of Surah Kahf is protection from the trial of Dajjal. Many of the leading scholars and many Awliyahs have confirmed the troublesome Dajjalic time ahead and we have the cure – the solution – right with us. Every Musallahs and Masjids should have some kind of program encouraging and teaching the people this Surah. I know that there are more seemingly urgent and pressing matters, but this is more urgent. It is the cure – the Divine Protection - of our urgency and problems.
I am pretty sure that most of you know of sites where you can download Quran on MP3s. So download them on your MP3 players and listen to it on Thursday night or Friday mornings, so you can learn them by heart.
Anyone who knows of any Masjids or Musallah where they regularly on a weekly basis recite the Surah – please do post the details up. If there aren’t any in your locality, then ask your local Imams or Shaykhs to plan and organise one. It would be ideal to recite them individually, but it would be better at least for the initial period to recite it with a group; it is much easier doing it when you are with people who are also doing the same thing. Finally, the Surah is not that long. It would take couple of minutes to recite it nicely and properly.
Other than that, we also know the merits of reciting the Quran and teaching it to others (source: SunniPath, translated by Sayyida Aisha Bewley):
Now, bit of background information for those who are interested.Abu Umama said, "I heard the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, say, 'Recite the Qur'an. It will appear on the Day of Rising as an intercessor for its people.'" [Muslim]
'Uthman reported that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "The best of you is the one who learns the Qur'an and teaches it." [al-Bukhari]
'A'isha reported that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "Someone who recites the Qur'an and is fluent in it, is with the noble pious angels. Someone who recites the Qur'an and stammers in it has two rewards as it is difficult for him." [Agreed upon]
Al-Bara' ibn 'Azib said, "A man was reciting Surat al-Kahf (18) and he had a horse with him tethered by two ropes. Then a cloud came over him and began to draw near and his horse began to shy away from it. In the morning he went to the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and mentioned that to him and he said, 'That was the Sakina which descended on account of the Qur'an.'" [Agreed upon]
Ibn Mas'ud reported that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "Whoever recites a letter of the Book of Allah earns a good deed, and each good deed is worth ten like it. I do not say that 'Alif-lam-mim' is one letter, but that alif is a letter, lam is a letter, mim is a letter." [at-Tirmidhi]
Who is Dajjal? (Source: SunniPath)
(The following is from SunniPath, a talk given by Shaykh Habib Ali Jifri, translated by Shaykh Gibril Haddad)Dajjal is a person whom the Prophet (may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) described as appearing at the end of time. He is sent by Allah as a trial to people. Dajjal will claim godhood and Allah will allow supernatural acts to occur at his hands, such as bringing back to life those he kills, causing the sky to rain by his command, and the earth to produce vegetation by his command. He will have with him what resembles Paradise and Hell. The one he claims is Paradise is in reality Hell, and the one he claims is Hell is in reality Paradise. He will also have two rivers flowing with him. All of these things will be made to happen for him by the Power and Will of Allah. Whoever follows him will disbelieve and be misfortunate and remorseful. Whoever disbelieves him is the true Believer whom Allah has granted success to be of the felicitous.
Protection (Source: SunniPath)In that time the Great Deceiver or Dajjâl will have appeared. All the uproar and loud cries of the voices of money and materialism in the world today, in all their manifestations, are only preliminaries for the Dajjâl. Everything that you see in this world producing weak souls and raising entire generations with the most tenuous of links to principles and values - people made into worldly automatons, worshippers of the world, their sole concern the world, their thought the world, their religion the world, their consciences the world - when the people are ripe in this sense, the Dajjâl will emerge onto this world in the form of a missionary - a reformist missionary.
He will appear among the people then he will acquire fame and more fame. Many miracles will show at his hands. He will claim Prophethood. Then he will claim Divinity - our refuge is Allâh! We might very nearly have to envisage or imagine that a Muslim can actually follow some misshapen creature walking this earth and whom he will consider his Divine Lord!
However, the Most Beloved - God bless and greet him and his Family - told us about the Dajjâl. He said he might enter an all-Muslim town and then exit it, all its population now disbelievers! God is our refuge from such a thing! Someone asked, what is the reason? It was said that the reason is that he will go to people whose hearts have grown attached to love of the world and whose entire identities have thoroughly mixed with the world and its train. For such, "whoever pays leads" (man yadfa` yutba`)!
This is what the people are being trained for today. They are being prepared for the Dajjâl and his sovereignty. They are being educated today - in their economy, their politics, their societies, their relationships, their commerce, their undertakings and derelictions - all on the debilitated foundation that is the attachment of hearts to trivial worldly interests.
Whoever pays leads. For this was it related that the Dajjâl will roam the earth. God will permit that people be tried at his hands. He will have control of their sustenance - agriculture, food, water - to the point he will say, "O heaven, rain!" and rain will pour; "O earth, sprout!" and vegetation will grow; "O plantations, bear fruit!" and fruit will ripen; "O living one, die! O dead one, rise!" and the dead will rise. God will grant him these displays and watch those whose hearts have latched upon externalities (mazâhir) be seduced while those whose hearts have latched upon the Hidden and Manifest (al-bâtin al-zâhir) remain oblivious to all but Him.
It was related that the Dajjâl will roam the entire earth. It was related from the Beloved that he said: "Let none of you ever wish to meet the Arch-Deceiver!" In addition to the extreme gravity of the warnings of the Beloved against the Dajjâl, he even said that there had never been any Prophet except he warned his people about the strife of the Dajjâl.
The First Ten Ayats of Surah Kahf (translated by Sayyida Aisha Bewley)Because of the enormity of the trial that Dajjal will put people through, the Prophet (upon him be Allah's peace and blessings) encouraged us to seek refuge in Allah after every prayer from the tribulation of Dajjal.
Bukhari and Muslim relate the hadith from Abu Hurayra (may Allah be pleased with him) that the Prophet said, "After one of you finishes his tashahhud (what is read in the sitting of the prayer [i.e. after he finishes his prayer]) let him seek refuge in Allah from four things: the fire, the torment of the grave, the trials of life and death, and the trial of the Imposter Messiah, the Dajjal.
Abu al-Darda' (may Allah be pleased with him) that the Prophet (may Allah send His peace and blessings upon him) said, "Whoever memorizes the first ten verses of Surat al-Kahf shall be protected from Dajjal," and in another version of the hadith he mentioned the last ten verses.
The recommendation of reciting both the beginning and ending ten verses of Surat al-Kahf (the 18th sura of the Qur’an) has been transmitted from the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace). It is also recommended to recite the entire sura on Fridays. It is recommended to recite Surat al-Kahf completely the night before Friday, and it is also recommended to do so Friday itself, before Maghrib time. Ibn Abidin said, “And it is best to do so early on Friday, in order to rush to the good and to avoid forgetting.” [Ibn Abidin, Radd al-Muhtar, ‘Bab al-Jumu`ah’]
The wisdom behind it, as mentioned by hadith commentators such as Nawawi, Qurtubi, Qari, and others, is that:
a) There are tremendous signs and portents mentioned in these verses. However reads these regularly and ponders on their meanings with not be led astray by the Dajjal;
b ) The surah as a whole has stories of the struggle between true belief in Allah and the realities of faith, and materialism. Reflecting on any of these
c) It is a secret whose knowledge Allah alone posses, and we have follow it because of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace)’s guidance, with full certainty.
More resources:In the name of Allah, All-Merciful, Most Merciful
Praise belongs to Allah
Who has sent down the Book to His slave
and has put no crookedness in it.
It is straight, to warn of violent force direct from Him,
and to give the good news to the muminun.
those who do right actions,
that for them there is an excellent reward,
a place in where they will remain for ever,
and to warn those who say “Allah has a son.”
They have no knowledge of this,
neither they nor their fathers,
It is a monstrous utterance
which has issued from their mouths.
What they say is nothing but a lie.
Perhaps you may destroy yourself with grief,
chasing after them,
if they do not have iman in these words.
We made everything on the earth adornment for it
so that we could test them to see
whose actions are the best.
We will certainly make everything on it a barren wasteland.
Do you consider that the Companions of the Cave and Ar-Raqim
were one of the most remarkable of Our Signs?
When the young men took refuge in the cave and said,
“Our Lord, give us mercy directly from You
and open the way for us to right guidance in our situation.”
AUDIO: Dajjal and the New World Order by Shaykh Hamza Yusuf
BOOK: Dajjal: The Anti Christ by Hajj Ahmad Thomson
Reply With Quote
