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Khutbahs
Why the Qur'an Says Little About Dajjāl and the Future | Khutbah by Dr Omar Suleiman
From the Rapture to the Antichrist, religious texts often outline visions of the future. The Qur’an, too, speaks of what’s to come. But Allah ﷻ emphasizes the past—on the stories, lessons, and warnings from history—so that we’re prepared for what lies ahead. Is the past more important than predicting outcomes of the future? Dr. Omar Suleiman answers these questions and more in this khutbah.
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings.
We begin by praising Allah (SWT) by bearing witness that none has the right to be worshipped or unconditionally obeyed except for Him. And we bear witness that Muhammad (ﷺ) is His final messenger.
We ask Allah to send His peace and blessings upon him, the prophets and messengers that came before him, his family and companions that served alongside him and those that follow in his blessed path until the Day of Judgment. And we ask Allah to make us amongst them. Allahumma ameen.
Dear brothers and sisters, there are always many questions about what does the future hold. SubhanAllah, both in the political sense as well as in our individual lives,
we can truly become paralyzed by al-hamm, anxiety about what comes next. When we think about Gaza, what comes next? When we think about how this is all going to pan out, what comes next?
On an individual level, if you start to play out the multiple possibilities, what comes next? And the more severe your circumstance, the more multiple the bad scenarios start to become.
And so I remind you all, for example, about our brother Marwan. May Allah (SWT) free him from captivity and all of our brothers and sisters that are in detention. Can you imagine if it distresses us to hear multiple possibilities?
It can go this way, it can go that way. Imagine being the subject of those possibilities. And no one has had to live with that uncertainty more than the people of Palestine, the people of Sudan.
May Allah (SWT) make it easy for the oppressed everywhere. Allahumma ameen. Because you're the subject of that uncertainty. The rest of us are theorizing; you're living it, right?
But when it comes to the way that the global affairs of the ummah are set up and what is to come next, I actually wanted to go back to a very interesting question that was asked to me about 10 years ago.
And I thought about it multiple times. And it's a question that wasn't just posed to me. It's a question that you'll see some people ask either from the place of trying to deny what is a part of our tradition,
or from a place of trying to fetishize it. And that is the question of al-Dajjal, but not the question of al-Dajjal as in his existence.
But if al-Dajjal is so significant, why doesn't Allah (SWT) talk about him in the Qur'an? It's one of the questions that some people ask.
And when this question was posed to me, I said, you know, it's an interesting question. Let me think about it. Because the Prophet (ﷺ) warned about him frequently. And he told us about how severe he would be.
And we should seek refuge in Allah (SWT) from his fitnah in every single salah. So clearly, wa ma yantiqu 'an al-hawa. I am not one who denies the sunnah, and miserable is the one who denies the sunnah.
The Prophet (ﷺ) speaks from the same source as the Qur'an. But the wisdom, the ultimate wisdom only belongs to Allah (SWT). But subhanAllah, of the multiple fawa'id, the benefits,
and there's a difference between saying why, and one of the benefits is this. Why puts a definitive on Allah (SWT)'s ruling and Allah (SWT)'s judgment.
Benefits and wisdoms and fawa'id, ta'ammulat, allow us to reflect, to extract some of the wisdoms and the benefits of those things, without superimposing that on Allah (SWT)'s knowledge,
which is beyond our comprehension, and has facets that we do not know of. Of the benefits that the scholars mentioned, and I'll come back to what this has to do with the opening of this khutbah. Of the benefits that the scholars mentioned, some of them say it's a form of tahqeer,
it's a form of belittling him. Just like Abu Jahl is not mentioned in the Qur'an, you belittle someone that so badly wants to make themselves bigger than what they actually are. And so out of belittling them,
it's like you're so irrelevant you don't even warrant a mention. And that is one form, and subhanAllah truly when it's all said and done, when the pages are dried of our days on this earth,
he goes away, and he's irrelevant, completely irrelevant, has nothing to give, nothing to harm. It's one of the set of mufassireen, they explained it in this way.
The second set of mufassireen, they said, of course, and again, these are people who believe in the Qur'an and the sunnah. La inni utitul-Qur'ana wa mithlahu ma'ahu. I've been given the Qur'an and something with it that is legislative.
That there is no difference in terms of the legislation of the Qur'an and the sunnah, but the Qur'an is al-'ahd. This is so powerful. The Qur'an is the covenant. The Qur'an is al-'ahd.
It's the covenant between you and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Some of you are still wondering what does this have to do with the beginning of the khutbah.
The Qur'an in its nature, the 'ahd, focuses more on what you're supposed to be doing. And it tells you the lessons of the past more so than it does of the future.
Meaning it's more about prophets than it is about predictions and prophecies to come. Because the idea of the 'ahd is that if you hold on to the 'ahd properly, if you hold on to the Qur'an properly,
you hold on to what Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gave you of universal principles, consistent principles, then the future of outcomes is completely irrelevant to you. That is with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
So there is benefit in knowing them. There is benefit in studying. Otherwise, the Prophet (ﷺ) would not have shared them with us.
But the Qur'an focuses on what led to previous umam to fail more than what is to come of the future. Which is very profound when you think about it. You know, I'm from New Orleans.
When they say build the home that can withstand the hurricane, don't wait for the hurricane to come. Right? You get yourself ready for the moment constantly.
And if you do so, then Allah 'azza wa jall will see you through whatever crisis and whatever storm is to come. So there is no point in dwelling too much over what type of storm it's going to be
as much as building the house that's ready to withstand the storm. That's your domain as Bani Adam. And subhanAllah, that's why Allah 'azza wa jall says, fa'tabiru ya ulil-absaar.
Pay attention, O people of vision. Listen to what's been taught to you of history. Pay attention to all of these nations that came before you. What happened with them? Fa'tabiru. And you take the wisdom. You take the benefit. Ya ulil-absaar.
O you who's paying attention. O people of vision. The Qur'an is not going to give you horoscopes. It's going to give you history. And that history is transformative. Because it's real human history
that speaks to the real human condition. And so when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, in tansurullaha yansurkum. If you aid the cause of Allah 'azza wa jall, He will aid you. It also applies in the past tense
as it does in the present tense, as it will in the future tense. When they aided the cause of Allah 'azza wa jall, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala aided them, the righteous of the past.
When they obeyed what Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala commanded them to do, Allah 'azza wa jall descended prosperity upon them. When you in the present do so, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gives you the cause of victory, the cause of aid,
the cause of favorable outcome. Focus on that. It's so much more instructive to look at how we got here instead of focusing too much on where it might all go.
And there is one future that Allah 'azza wa jall harps upon throughout the Qur'an, which is what? The Day of Judgment and what comes after. Because whatever remains of history, you might not live to even see it.
You might not live to be a part of it. And that is cohesive throughout the Qur'an and the sunnah. Mata as-sa'atu ya Rasulallah? When is the hour, O Messenger of Allah? What did you prepare for it? If that young boy has gray hair,
by the time that young boy has gray hair, you would have already met your sa'ah, you would have met your hour. You would have met your Day of Judgment because you would have met death. Focus on the prophets, not the predictions. Focus on the history.
Don't get lost in superstition and horoscopes. Focus on analyzing yourself, not on analysis that's so humanly flawed, so subjective, and is littered with despair.
SubhanAllah, if you think about it, truly, if Allah 'azza wa jall leaves us to ourselves, in the individual sense or the ummah sense, we are doomed. We always are. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
is the one who's controlling the outcomes. And so you can be overtaken by despair when you start to paralyze yourself with all of the trajectories. I don't know how it's gonna shape up.
I don't know where this is gonna go. Not on a community level, not on an ummah level, not on an individual level. But I know if Allah 'azza wa jall told me to do what I have to do, that it's going to be favorable. It's gonna be good for us.
That's the beauty of the Qur'an as you're swimming through it, reading through its lessons. And subhanAllah, all of the signs of the Day of Judgment, some of the 'ulama, like al-Hafidh Ibn Kathir rahimahullah ta'ala, one of the earliest ones, started to categorize 'alamat as-sa'ah, the signs of the Day of Judgment.
You could take the signs of the Day of Judgment, and you could weigh them next to Qur'anic directives. So for example, wa ta'awanu 'ala al-birri wa at-taqwa wa la ta'awanu 'ala al-ithmi wa al-'udwan.
Unite upon righteousness and piety. Do not unite upon sin and transgression. That covers a whole section of the signs of the Day of Judgment. Tribalism returning, jahiliyyah, never really going away,
people still clinging to false gods, false idols, false tribes. Ya ayyuha alladhina amanu in ja'akum fasiqun bi-naba'in fa-tabayanu an tusibu qawman bi-jahalatin fa-tusbihu 'ala ma fa'altum nadimeen. O you who believe,
when someone comes to you, when a wicked person comes to you with news, verify that news. Otherwise you're going to hurt people that are undeserving. And you are going to be the one that's going to be regretful. A whole section of the Day of Judgment,
the signs of the Day of Judgment is about deception, right? Is about the things that people will try to rush, the fake news, the false news that will obliterate us. Now, you can imagine
that the Sahabah perhaps did not see the exact devices of AI that we see right now coming to place. But they didn't have to. They knew that dajjalah would be followed by more dajjalah,
deception would be followed by more tools of deception, would be followed by more tools of deception, until that deception completely overloads the senses with ad-Dajjal, the deceiver, right?
They didn't need to know what exactly, like are we going to have deep fakes? They hadn't even seen recorded videos yet. Are we going to have this? Are we going to have dubbing of languages? Are we going to be able to, you know,
put cameo appearances and this and this and this? They didn't need to know all that. They knew though, that the spirit of verification is the Qur'anic directive that the Prophet (ﷺ) lived and taught.
And that protects you from a large chunk of the signs of the Day of Judgment, right? Wa'tasimu bi-hablillahi jamee'an wa la tafarraqu. Hold on to the rope of Allah, all of you together. Look at all the signs
where the Prophet (ﷺ) talked about. People disuniting, leaving the jama'ah, leaving the community, leaving the way of the Prophet (ﷺ) and the community of the Prophet (ﷺ) and then taking swords against one another.
Covers a huge chunk of the signs of the Day of Judgment. My point is, whether it's wealth or materialism or greed, when you're reading the Qur'an, focus on that. Focus on that. And you think about the proportionality
of what the Qur'an talks about in terms of islah, in terms of rectifying us. And the proportionality that we have in our lives with obsessions over predictions. Obsessions over predictions.
When is this going to happen? How is this going to happen? I wonder if this already happens. You could read 600 pages about Ya'juj and Ma'juj. Or you could just take the hadith about what it is
and be satisfied and say, I better be in taqwa, whether it's Ya'juj and Ma'juj that look like this or that or come from here or there, that overrun the earth. I don't want to be on the side of those that die with little iman in their hearts. And if it's not Ya'juj and Ma'juj,
then it could be the Israeli occupation or someone else. The end of the day, when corrupt people overrule the earth or overrun the earth, I want to make sure my heart's in the right place to meet Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Don't waste your time on predictions.
Focus on prophetic imperative. Focus on prophetic directive. And the last thing that I'll say is this, this is true in the individual level as well. In our own lives, the past is so instructive. Al-Imam al-Jawzi rahimahullah ta'ala,
he said that when you fall, if you're walking and your cloth catches on to something, and I'm going to paraphrase for the sake of time, you don't keep walking. You go back to where the cloth caught and you unhook it so that you don't tear your cloth.
If you fall down, you don't just jump up. You look to see what tripped you up in the first place. What caused you to fall? On an individual level, when you're talking about tawbah, oh, if Allah does this or if it ends up this way, then I might do this and I might do that.
No. What are you doing to change the circumstances around you so that you don't end up in the bad situation that you were in before? The past is so instructive. That's what you focus on. That's what you exert yourself looking to
in every single dimension of your life. How did I get here? Not where I might go because the ultimate where I will go is the Day of Judgment. Standing in front of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is being asked
about how I behaved in every single circumstance that He put me in. And so the Qur'an is al-'ahd. That's your covenant. Best manifested through the life of the Prophet (ﷺ),
elaborated on through the divine rightful guidance of the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ). The Qur'an is your 'ahd. Hold on to that. It'll give you hope. It'll give you instruction. It'll give you imperative. It'll give you divine reassurance
that Allah 'azza wa jall will always take care of what's in His domain. Focus on what you can control, not what He controls exclusively of the outcomes. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow us to learn from our past,
to be the best version of ourselves in the present, and to give us the best future in this life and the next. May Allah 'azza wa jall give us victory in this ummah. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow us to be a part of the liberation of al-Masjid al-Aqsa. Not just to see it,
to be a part of the liberation of al-Masjid al-Aqsa. And may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow us to be gathered with our beloved Prophet (ﷺ) and all of the righteous ones that came before.
Allahumma ighfir lana warhamna wa'fu 'anna wa la tu'adhibna. Rabbana zalamna anfusana wa in lam taghfir lana wa tarhamna la nakunanna min al-khasireen. Allahumma innaka 'afuwwun kareemun tuhibbu al-'afwa fa'fu 'anna. Allahumma ighfir li-walidayna. Rabbi irhamhuma kama rabbayani saghira.
Rabbana hab lana min azwajina wa dhurriyatina qurrata a'yunin. Wa ij'alna lil-muttaqina imama. Allahumma unsur ikhwanana al-mustad'afina fi mashariqi al-ardi wa magharibha. Allahumma unsur hum fi Filastin, wa fi as-Sudan, wa fi al-Yaman, wa fi kulli makan.
Allahumma alayka bi-a'da'ika a'da' ad-deen. Allahumma arina fi adh-dhalimina 'aja'iba qudratik. Allahumma ahliki adh-dhalimina bi adh-dhalimeen wa akhrijna wa ikhwanana min baynihim salimeen. 'Ibadallahi innallaha ya'muru bi al-'adli wa al-ihsan wa ita'i dhi al-qurba wa yanha 'an al-fahsha'i wa al-munkari wa al-baghyi.
Ya'idhukum la'allakum tadhakkarun. Fadhkurullaha yadhkurkum. Washkuruhu 'ala an-ni'ami yazidkum. Wa ladhikrullahi akbar. Wallahu ya'lamu ma tasna'un. Wa aqimi as-salah.

































































































































































































































































































