The Qur’an: Reflection & Application: The Jinn, Our Children and the Masjid

Occasion: transcript of an ʿIshāʾ lecture delivered at Bayt Al-Karim on March 25, 2026.Source: transcription of a recorded lecture by Dr. Ahmed Abouseif — watch the original video on YouTube

Let me begin by reviewing with you our position with the youth. Especially the youth, the youth, the youth: they are the most important people we can give our attention to. Today I tried something different. Did you see the messages in the WhatsApp group? I sent the message in English, in Arabic, in Bosnian and in Urdu, so that nobody has an excuse. Is there another language we need? If there is, we will use it. The youth time falls between Monday and Wednesday. During Ramadan we used to have fifteen or more. After Ramadan, alhamdulillah, we have one, or maybe two.

Let us see what was recited in the first rakʿah, because that part of the sūrah tells a short story from the time of the Prophet ﷺ.

The jinn in the desert

The Prophet ﷺ was somewhere in the desert, and a group of the jinn heard him reciting the Qur’an.^[1] Allah tells us that He directed some of the jinn toward you, so that they came to listen to the Qur’an. They came and stood around him, listening. Look at what they did. When the recitation was finished, they left quickly for their people. It was like a class, and when it ended they went off at once to warn their people. They had already received the message from the Prophet ﷺ. They said, in effect: O our people, we have heard a book that came after the book of Mūsā.^[2] It guides to what is right and to the straight path. They called their people: listen to this man; he is calling you for the sake of Allah. They spoke to them about the consequence of disbelief and about the result of believing in Allah. And whoever does not answer Allah's caller is not strong enough to face Allah or to contend with Him.

Now compare our position with theirs. First, why did this event happen in the time of the Prophet ﷺ? He called people to answer for the sake of Allah, with no personal benefit. We are not looking for personal benefit either. We are looking for the benefit of our position and of the message of the Messenger ﷺ. And yet people did not answer.

Our children, and the pillars of the masjid

This is what we usually do. We say: our children are here, you go and teach them. We leave them outside the masjid until a calamity falls, and then we come to the shaykh and say: please help me, we have a big problem with my son. And we begin to cry in the shaykh's hands. Why did you not cry, between you and Allah? Why did you not read the Qur’an and encourage your children to join the prayer, to come with you here and there? We usually wait until they are eighteen or more before we say, "We have a problem." Why not begin at eight years old? Bring them with us, let them stand next to me, listen to the Qur’an, attend the class.

I came there today and found two people. Two! Where is the rest of the children? What is more important than what you are looking for in the future? What is your position here? Are you an engineer? Will you pass into Paradise because of engineering? You may pass into it because of your children, who are already carrying your message forward. This is our responsibility. Otherwise we are wasting our time, we are killing ourselves. If we stay here and let the children lounge about as if they were doing nothing, spending most of their time with devices, and the screen will make them blind in a while, and we leave them there and come to pray and say, "Alhamdulillah, we did our part"; by Allah, you did nothing. If you come alone to the masjid and leave your children behind, you did nothing. I am not insulting the act or putting it down. But look at the result of our being here together: we gather, we share one mission and one direction. What about the people who will continue after we leave this place?

You are like the pillars of the masjid. The people who come in Ramadan are guests, and we increase our hospitality for them: you are most welcome, thank you for coming in Ramadan. But the pillars of the masjid are the people who come now. Consider your position. If you miss the prayer, who will help the masjid on your behalf? And when we pass away, who will help it on our behalf when we meet Allah? Let us focus on the real future of the deen. We are struggling with a great deal, and we are going through a hard time. If we do not hold a strong position and prepare the next generation to stand in our place, we will lose everything.

Those who left the Prophet standing

Compare what the jinn did with something else that Allah mentions. The verse addresses the Prophet ﷺ when Allah called people to come and pray with him, and it reminds him of some who, when they heard of some worldly benefit, left him while he was standing in prayer.^[3] Imagine it. Imagine you are praying behind the Prophet ﷺ, he is leading, you hear his voice and his recitation, and the moment you hear something that amuses you, you walk out and leave him. We do the same thing when we hear the adhān, and we know that the reciter will be there, a person reading the Qur’an, and we prefer to stay at home instead of coming to pray. They left you alone, standing in the prayer. Does it make sense that you would have done that, had you been there? You would never. But Allah is talking here about the hypocrites.

Hearing is not listening

The jinn came to listen, and they said: listen carefully. They did not simply hear words coming from the imam and let them pass out the other side. Ask people after the prayer, for example, "What did the imam talk about today?" Someone will say, "It was beautiful, he was awesome." Fine, but what did he talk about? "It was perfect, he is a good man, I like him, I love him." And what was the subject? You will find nothing. There is no concentration. One time I was in New York and I asked the people, "What do you expect from me today?" Did you think about the subject the imam is going to talk about? We usually send the topic out beforehand to prepare your mind: if you have some information, collect it, put it in your mind, and see what the imam adds to your knowledge. But people come just for relief, like taking something for a headache, to relieve myself (the transcript is unclear at this point). We come to the masjid just to feel satisfied, "we are okay, we really prayed," but to benefit, to gain knowledge, to become stronger, not a big number of people do that.

Notice what the jinn did. Once the Prophet ﷺ finished his recitation, they left. They did not stay to ask whether it made sense. They did not argue with him. They did not even ask a question. They left fast. They had no time to waste, because they felt the responsibility for the deen. They had an amānah in their hands and had to deliver it to the others as soon as possible, in warning. When I have some information, I usually go and say: "Please, I heard something, what do you think about that?" They did not say those words. They had no room to ask "What do you think?" about facts that had already come to them from Allah. We need to believe in that.

Do you think they heard the whole book of Allah in that period? They did not. And still they called it "the book," because they had heard a part of it, and they would come back to listen to the rest. They would never miss an opportunity to come and hear what was revealed to the Prophet ﷺ next, at any time, in the night or in the day. They were following what was going on. They knew what had happened with Mūsā, and they were looking for something, and when the words reached their ears they gave them full attention and understood: this is the right thing. They understood the position of the book of Allah as a guidance for us.

Why we do not give that attention

If we compare the position of the jinn there with that of a human being here, we find ourselves not giving the same attention. Why? The first answer is that we feel the deen is guaranteed in our hands. I am a Muslim, done. But we do not know the consequences of that hidden feeling, "I am okay, I am guaranteed." We do not understand the struggle we will face with Satan, with desires, with everything that comes at us from here and there.

The Prophet ﷺ said something very, very, very important: that you may start your day with īmān and end the same day in a very different state.^[4] We can read this in the same context as his saying that the heart is between two fingers of Allah, and that Allah turns hearts as He wills.^[5] We are in a test here, and once we have īmān in its position, we need to maintain its level. We need to maintain our hearts. I would be a crazy person if I left my car running for two or three years without changing the oil and rotating the tires and doing the maintenance. What about my heart?

When Allah assigned īmān to us, He asked us to come and pray five times a day with full concentration, to find tranquility, to be different people after the prayer, and to be a guide for the people around me. This is my position here. When I go through the fast, thirty days, it is training, to have more talent as a Muslim in this dunya. When Allah asks me to take money out of my pocket and give it to the needy, that is another kind of training and maintenance. When people go to Ḥajj, all the actions are maintenance of our souls, our minds, our bodies, our hearts, our feelings. Allah put us in this position. If we leave it, because we feel it is guaranteed, alhamdulillah, we are Muslims, then maybe we lose it one day.

The dunya is not Paradise

The other thing we usually feel is that we are victims. We are already struggling with a lot around us: the dunya, the bills, the material things, the mortgage, the tough position in America, and so on. But we do not feel the blessings that come to us from Allah. We do not see our position as human beings and as servants of Allah. We are here for a test. We remind ourselves of this again and again. Imagine that you will keep suffering until the second you meet Allah. That is the reality of the dunya. We are not in Paradise. We are still here. If you cover one side, you find something else coming from the other side. This is the dunya, and we will stay in this position until we meet Allah.

But the moment we suffer from something, we feel like victims. You need to protect yourself from all of that suffering.^[7]

From users of the deen to doers for it

My dear brothers, the main feeling we need is a feeling of responsibility for the deen. I know I keep repeating this, but that feeling will encourage us to do everything around it. I ask Allah to guide us.

The last verse of the passage came at the end of the message, from Allah directly to the Prophet ﷺ: be patient, as the messengers before you were patient with the people around them.^[6] Which side do we want to be on? With the Prophet ﷺ, around him, coming with him in the group that comes to Paradise, or on the other side? I know I am talking to people who have already come to the message. Alhamdulillah, we are okay, we have our position here. But we still need to improve it, to move ourselves from the users of Islam to the doers for Islam. Is that clear? Let me repeat it, because nobody is listening tonight, and I may start to cry. We need to move from the position of users of the deen up to the level of doers for the deen.

Recently I had a discussion with a man, when we spoke about staying in America or leaving for other countries. We said: if we have a mission for our deen, to spread the word of Allah, then we are on the right course. If we are here only for ourselves and the dunya, there is no room for you here; look for another solution for yourself. Everyone can be a good model for the deen and a guide to others.

One of the youth, two days ago, was going to Walmart or somewhere, and I asked him: can you change your clothes, in case somebody looks at you? He said: listen to me. When I go there dressed like this, in two weeks so far, three people have come to ask me why I am dressed like that, and I start talking directly about the deen, about Islam. So we do have a mission. We can do something. We can do something. Everyone at your work knows you are a Muslim. What is your position there? Are you really acting as a role model for them or not?

I ask Allah to elevate all of us to the straight path.

--- ^[1]: Editor's documentation: the transcript does not name the sūrah or recite the verses. The lecturer's description (the jinn listening in the desert, their return to their people, and the closing command to be patient) matches Sūrat al-Aḥqāf 29–35, e.g. ﴿وَإِذْ صَرَفْنَا إِلَيْكَ نَفَرًا مِّنَ الْجِنِّ يَسْتَمِعُونَ الْقُرْآنَ فَلَمَّا حَضَرُوهُ قَالُوا أَنصِتُوا ۖ فَلَمَّا قُضِيَ وَلَّوْا إِلَىٰ قَوْمِهِم مُّنذِرِينَ﴾ [الأحقاف: 29]. The identification is the editor's and should be checked against the audio. ^[2]: Editor's documentation: the transcript has only "a book after Mūsā", which corresponds to [الأحقاف: 30]: ﴿قَالُوا يَا قَوْمَنَا إِنَّا سَمِعْنَا كِتَابًا أُنزِلَ مِن بَعْدِ مُوسَىٰ﴾. ^[3]: Editor's documentation: the description matches ﴿وَإِذَا رَأَوْا تِجَارَةً أَوْ لَهْوًا انفَضُّوا إِلَيْهَا وَتَرَكُوكَ قَائِمًا﴾ [الجمعة: 11], which the commentators generally relate to some of the Companions who left during the Friday sermon. The lecturer did not name the verse; his remark that Allah is speaking of the hypocrites is reported as he said it, and the matter should be checked against the audio. ^[4]: Editor's documentation: probably the ḥadīth «بَادِرُوا بِالْأَعْمَالِ فِتَنًا كَقِطَعِ اللَّيْلِ الْمُظْلِمِ، يُصْبِحُ الرَّجُلُ مُؤْمِنًا وَيُمْسِي كَافِرًا» (Muslim 118). The lecturer's wording is loose in the transcript, and the text above follows his sense only. ^[5]: Editor's documentation: «إِنَّ قُلُوبَ بَنِي آدَمَ كُلَّهَا بَيْنَ إِصْبَعَيْنِ مِنْ أَصَابِعِ الرَّحْمَنِ كَقَلْبٍ وَاحِدٍ يُصَرِّفُهُ حَيْثُ يَشَاءُ» (Muslim 2654). Identified from the lecturer's paraphrase. ^[7]: Editor's documentation: the transcript continues here in a garbled way: "When you go back to Allah… leave me alone. I'm going to leave you alone, but you're going to be alone in the Day of Judgment too." The speaker of each phrase cannot be determined, so it is not placed in the text; check the audio. ^[6]: Editor's documentation: the transcript has only "be patient, as the messengers before you"; this corresponds to ﴿فَاصْبِرْ كَمَا صَبَرَ أُولُو الْعَزْمِ مِنَ الرُّسُلِ﴾ [الأحقاف: 35]. The identification is the editor's.