Youth Are Open Minded

Youth are open minded – تفسير ابن كثير

About the PEOPLE OF THE CAVE (أصحاب الكهف), the Qur’an states:

إِنَّهُمْ فِتْيَةٌ آمَنُوا بِرَبِّهِمْ
“They were YOUNG PEOPLE who believed in their Lord.” [18:13].

Ibn Kathir writes in his Tafsir (3/78):

فذكر تعالى أنهم فتية وهم الشباب وهم أقبل للحق وأهدى للسبيل من الشيوخ الذين قد عتوا وانغمسوا في دين الباطل ولهذا كان أكثر المستجيبين لله تعالى ولرسوله صلى الله عليه وسلم شبابا وأما المشايخ من قريش فعامتهم بقوا على دينهم ولم يسلم منهم إلا القليل هكذا أخبر تعالى عن أصحاب الكهف أنهم كانوا فتية شبابا

“God states that they were BOYS or YOUNG PEOPLE, and that they were more accepting of the truth and more guided than the ELDERS who had become stubbornly set in their ways and clung to the religion of falsehood.
For the same reason, most of those who responded to God and His Messenger [Muhammad] were YOUNG PEOPLE.
As for the ELDERS of Quraysh, most of them kept to their religion and only a few of them became Muslims.
Similarly, God tells us that the people of the cave were YOUNG MEN.”

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Young people are usually open minded.

As we age, we become arrogant and say things like: Who is he to teach me! I knew these things before he was born!

Or: if I accept that I was wrong, my entire life was a lie!

It also means that our method of correcting our elders should be with extra RESPECT, WISDOM and GOOD MANNERS.

May God grant us all humility and guidance.