Whichever out of two you are celebrating today: Hajj Maubarak & Eid Mubarak. 22 years ago Margret Jones, an old British lady sarcastically took a jibe on different moons and eids among Muslims. It seems that her next generation would be smirking on the same issue on some other foreign Muslim (synonymous with terrorist lately) bloke like me. In short, divided eid day celebrations' saga continues to date. Yet, magnitude of this difference is much smaller against unanimity on One God, One Book & One Prophet PBUH.
Those young men of the cave known in Christian traditions as Seven Sleepers were from respectable social status almost equal to middle class of today's 'classification' of people. Finding out their faith in oneness of God, they were summoned to the court of King Decius (25 CE). They were given choice to denounce their faith or face the music. For them denouncing their faith equalled to giving up everything they had. They opted to take 'refuge' in a cave. Allah swt loved their act of unwavering sincere faith so much that he made them eternal. Every Juma including this Juma, billions including us celebrate their remembrance without actually knowing their names or numbers. So life is not about names or numbers, rather sincerity of intent and action.
Is our faith under as serious an attack as Men of Cave? Yes, it is and it may get even worse with appearance o Dajjal. So what to do? Which cave should we seek protection in? Apparently, things have changed. Human knowledge, life style and intellectual capacity have attained newer and higher levels. Secondly, those young men didn't have the guidance of Al Quran at their disposal. We have this luxury but take nothing away from those celebrated heroes whose mention Allah swt made sure in his Command Communique (first five Rukuhs of Al Kahf, Surah 18).
Came to this one important conclusion after wondering for years on Al Kahf that 'the cave', 'the protection', and Al Kahf of today is Al Quran itself. Due to evolutionary progression, we are not going to caves for refuge rather the cave (Al Quran) is in our households. It is not an automatic open sesame. We have to show some real good intent to open its door. Once opened, sky is the limit.
One minor but relevant conclusion from this story is that real test in life is also of middle classish people. The high end are free to run till The Day. The lowest end are the test. The middle ones are being actually tested.
Have a wonderful Eid. While running the knife across the neck of your ram, do recall the epic story of obedience and submission of Ibrahim & Ismail AS, whose sunnah we celebrate today or tomorrow Insha Allah.
Only Allah knows the whole Truth.
Jazak Allah khair, Brother
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