Surah Al Kahf - Ayah No 5

 Assalam o Alaikum. Juma Mubarak. We are a forgetful specie, so we need reminders. And I take this opportunity to remind you that Friday comes with countless Barakat and we never needed as much protection as Al Kahf offers. And as far as timing of its recitation is concerned, it preferably starts from sunset on Thursday to sunset on Friday. However, we may recite it on any day of the week. As a break from the norm, this blog post is also being shared after  sunset on Friday though reason was inability to find time to write despite being able to recite the Surah before Fajar today. This is just to assure you that I recite the Surah on preferable day like the way I propagate it every week. Always thought I lacked persuasive marketing skills but now it dawned upon me that I never came across a product as worthy as Al Quran/ Al Kahf and it is a sheer privilege to be a volunteer marketing agent of it. The owner of the product doesn't need to sell it, the users do. It doesn't cost anything except some conceptual clarity and straightening of thought process. What a profitable proposition? May Allah accept. Ameen

Today's Ayah is in sequel to Ayah 4 wherein Allah swt expressed His disapproval of some people of the book who mistakenly took His beloved Prophet Isa Ibn Maryam AS as His son.

Continuation of the subject into next Ayah also reflects gravity of this conceptual error. Difference between The Creator and the creation is like comparing a photon with the sunlight or  droplet with the Pacific or a particle of sand with the Sahara Desert. Also keep this exception in view that despite no comparison the sun, the Pacific and Sahara are finite entities with fixed shelf life. 

There are two important lessons for us to take home from this Ayah. Human understanding of issues changes from generation to generation and at times gets distorted. Like anthropologists claim that early humans believed in One God but over time their knowledge decayed and they started looking for answers of prayers in sun, trees, stones and fire. In short, whatever is taught to us as part of religious ideology, we must question its efficacy. And we are so lucky that our God is the only God who incites reflection and inquisitiveness. More lucky are those people who question ills in religious practices. Religion is perfect. Its God is perfect but us the executioners are imperfect rather ignorant of its real spirit. Secondly, the word Kibr is used by ALLAH swt for those who followed their forefathers' religious practices without doing their own homework on it. Also note that Kibr is derived from Takabbar i.e. Arrogance. And arrogance is direct outcome of ignorance. The same mistake committed by Iblees at the time of human creation. It is also pertinent to note that whatever we utter becomes binding on us. It is Allah's special blessing that He swt taught us speech and we must exercise extreme caution for what we say. It may appear that speech is given to us for free and we can make use of it freely but its double edged. Every freedom comes with a price and we ourselves are setting the standards. The lesser, calculated, soft and well weighed the speech, the lesser the accountability and vice versa.  

In nutshell, two lessons to take home from this Ayah: must question the form in which the religion is being passed on to you and watch your words.