Assalam o Alaikum. Shab-e-Juma Mubarak. Time for Al Kahf reflection. Let’s recap 21 Ayahs covered so far in past 21 weeks.
When the People of the Cave (ashab al-kahf), or Cave Sleepers, went to the cave, they did so not because they so wanted or planned, but because they were forced to flee for refuge from their disbelieving folk. So risky and treacherous was the situation wherein they had lived that they in the end had to run away, so as to preserve their faith and save their lives.
Having been completely aware of what was happening, and why, and why they had ended up in the cave, they both calmly and purposefully surrendered their case to Allah, the Disposer of all affairs: “Our Lord! Bestow on us mercy from Yourself, and facilitate for us our affair in the right way!” (18:10).
Even after they had settled themselves in the cave, the Cave Sleepers knew that if their people came to know of them, they would have stoned them to death or abused and harmed them, trying to turn them back to their polytheistic beliefs and practices, in which case never would they have become successful (18:20).
Before escaping to the cave, the Cave Sleepers seem to have been very active, openly living and promoting the tawhidic (monotheistic) message of Islam against the phenomenon of polytheism and its diverse manifestations and degrees. Once in the cave, they knew that their new lifestyle was only due to a necessity and wasn’t by any means an ideal or a mandatory one. They knew, furthermore, that it was provisional in nature and that Allah, their Lord, will soon open a way for them from His mercy, will increase them in guidance, and will make easy for them their difficult situation.
Nonetheless, the case of the Cave Sleepers Almighty Allah used for attaining a potentially higher set of objectives and meanings, that is, a spiritual purification and enrichment of the people and their societal religious and also moral reform on the basis of the former. Allah thus reveals that “thus We made their case known (to the people), that they might know that the Promise of Allah is true, and that there can be no doubt about the Hour (18:21).
May Allah give us Imaan like Ashab-e-Kahf. Ameen
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