Part One
Praise be to Allah! We praise Him, seek His assistance and forgiveness, and return
unto Him repentant. We seek shelter in Allah from evil inherent in our own selves and from
our sinful deeds. Whomever Allah guides will never be misguided by anyone else and
whomever Allah misguides will find nobody else to offer him guidance. I bear witness that
there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah alone, with no associate, and I bear witness
that Muhammad is the Servant and Messenger of Allah.
O you who believe! Fear Allâh (by doing all that He has
ordered and by abstaining from all that He has forbidden) as
He should be feared. [Obey Him, be thankful to Him, and
remember Him always], and die not except in a state of Islâm
(as Muslims) with complete submission to Allâh. [Āl Imrān: 102]
O mankind! Be dutiful to your Lord, Who created you from a
single person (Adam), and from him (Adam) He created his
wife [Hawwa (Eve)], and from them both He created many
men and women and fear Allâh through Whom you demand
your mutual (rights), and (do not cut the relations of) the
wombs (kinship). Surely, Allâh is Ever an AllWatcher over
you. [Al-Nissā: 1]
O you who believe! Keep your duty to Allâh and fear Him,
and speak (always) the truth. He will direct you to do
righteous good deeds and will forgive you your sins. And
whosoever obeys Allâh and His Messenger (SAW) he has
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indeed achieved a great achievement (i.e. he will be saved
from the Hell-fire and made to enter Paradise). [Al-Aḥzāb: 70-
72]
Now then, O people!
Life in the herein is quite distracting and deceitful. In his lifetime, man oscillates
between good and evil, joy and grief, wealth and poverty, and victory and defeat. Life’s days
keep alternating between opposite states of affairs, and its nights are replete with
unpredictable happenings only known to Him Who decrees them (Allah). No sooner does one
enjoy a single moment of life than successive instants of sorrow will ensue. One day you are
the happiest on earth; the next you are the most miserable:
...And so are the days (good and not so good), We give to
men by turns ... [Āl Imrān: 140]
For this very reason, O servants of Allah, it is incumbent upon every individual as a
member of society, upon society itself as part of the entire Muslim Ummah, and also upon the
Muslim Ummah as being privileged among all nations, to learn how to be constantly alert and
maintain vigilance until their last breath. Yes, indeed! All these parties are held responsible
for adopting alertness as a permanent code of conduct.
Beware, servants of Allah! There is a safe haven and a reaching pole to be exploited
by the individual, the community, and the Ummah so that each one of them will assume his
own responsibility assigned to him by Allah. Accordingly, each one will perform his duty in
favourable conditions to guarantee his personal, intellectual, health, and nutritional security
far from excess or negligence.
Servants of Allah! Vigilance involves constant alertness and watchfulness which bear
testimony to the high degree of awareness of the person showing such character traits, be it
an individual or an entire society. In fact, vigilance is protection. As a matter of fact, just as
one is endowed with abundant bounties proffered by our Generous Lord, the Creator, by the
same token one is prone to afflictions and accidents:
The life of this world is only the enjoyment of deception (a
deceiving thing). [Āl Imrān: 185]
Beware, servants of Allah! Vigilance is coterminous with precautions and preemptive
measures before happenings become irreversible. It is a healthy phenomenon as long
as it remains within the moderate bounds of common sense. It is prevention which is better
than cure. It is also a strategy of deterrence which is much more effective than that of facing
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and overcoming obstacles, for whoever behaves cautiously will commit fewer errors and is
more likely to adopt the right approach.
Vigilance does not necessarily mean caution against everything that is frightening.
Sometimes, it is adopted as a strategy to protect oneself against insolvable conflicts and to
ward off petty personal interests in exchange of more significant gains. In this respect, Allah
[Sublime be He] says:
And it is not (proper) for the believers to go out to fight
(Jihâd) all together. Of every troop of them, a party only
should go forth, that they (who are left behind) may get
instructions in (Islâmic) religion, and that they may warn their
people when they return to them, so that they may beware
(of evil). [Al-Tawbah: 122]
Vigilance is a religious requirement. This is stipulated by Allah’s words:
... And know that Allâh knows what is in your minds, so fear
Him ... [Al-Baqarah: 235]
Prophet Muhammad [May Allah’s Salat and Peace be upon him] said, “The believer cannot
be bitten from one burrow twice.” [Reported by Imam Muslim and Imam Bukhari]
When an individual adopts the strategy of legitimate vigilance, he will definitely
protect himself against so many flaws, mistakes, whims, as well as much treachery, betrayal,
and scheming. In addition, constant alertness will help him realise that all that glitters is not
gold, all that looks white is not fat, all that is sable dark is not charcoal, and that things are
not perceived in the same way by the cautious and the heedless.
I am addressing you as individuals now: vigilance is a sign of awareness in your
personality. In fact, people have different characters; perhaps, when equipped with alertness
you may be just once on your guard against your enemy, but a thousand times against your
friend, because the latter has a better knowledge of what might harm you. So beware of
heedlessness! It might lead you to catastrophes. Thus, when you see the incisors of a
ferocious lion, heedlessness might even keep you under the illusion that the lion is actually
smiling to you, bearing in mind that the most perilous kind of treachery one may suffer from
is the one committed by a smiling face.
(The Sheikh cites two lines of poetry paraphrased as follows):
Be attentive if you claim to be intelligent,
Lest by a smiling friend you might be bitten.
Venom is never delivered by a smiling serpent;
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But the dagger might behind a smiling face be hidden.
As a rule, vigilance is indispensable for the entire Ummah of Islam, be it a scholar, an
intellectual, or a whole population. It is imperative not to be an easy prey to the treacherous
or manipulative people or agents, starting with the deceptive self which constantly entices us
into perpetrating evil deeds up to certain phenomena affecting the whole Ummah. To start
with, the individual should resist satanic temptations insinuated by the inner self and should
accordingly curb its enticement with taqwa (the fear of violating Allah’s commands) so that
sins will not encumber the heart which might eventually turn into a very dark and voluminous
receptacle inflated by its content, as it were. Once it acquires such a complexion, the heart
will cease appreciating good deeds and rejecting impermissible ones −as reported by the
truthful and ever-believed, Prophet Muhammad [May Allah’s Salat and Peace be upon him].
Furthermore, each individual has to be on his guard against arrogance and indulgence
in self-delusion as regards his own power, strength, and cunning which are marketed by Satan
as full-grown youth and invincibility. As a result, one may feel superior to others and
therefore treat them unfairly and aggressively. For instance, he would violate everybody’s
privacy and transgress the sanctity of human integrity. He would also slander people’s good
reputation and attack them physically, forgetting that Allah is All-Powerful and All-Avenger,
that He adjourns punishing wrongdoers, and that His delayed retribution is only meant to
induce the wrongdoer into further error. I swear by Allah, this is indeed the uttermost failure.
Abu Massoud Al-Badri [May Allah be pleased with him] was once beating a slave of
his quite nervously, when the Prophet [May Allah’s Salat and Peace be upon him] saw him
doing so, he said to him, “Let it be known to you, Abu Massoud, that Allah has more might
and control over you than you over this child.” Abu Massoud said, “I said, ‘Henceforth, I
will never beat a slave gain.’” The Prophet [May Allah’s Salat and Peace be upon him] said,
“If ever you do that, you will be burnt by hellfire.” [Reported by Imam Muslim]
Verily, he who maintains caution will have observed taqwa and hence made it to
safety; whereas he who overlooks it shall not be able to see where to tread and is therefore
bound to tumble.
(The Sheikh quotes a line of poetry paraphrased as follows):
You shall be safe if you observe caution, for under your feet there is an abyss.
How many a man therein has fallen.
Certainly, prudence yields no remorse as it entails taking precautions while
negligence leaves behind nothing but bitter regret, when it’s too late! Then, there would be no
point in saying “if” or “if only”. A rational person is one who never gives in to or
underestimates his personal whims and wishes, no matter how trivial they may appear.
Indeed, caution is required at all times, in fair and cloudy weather. This is well expressed in
the following line of poetry paraphrased thus:
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Whether small or big an adversary, never fail to heed,
For a mosquito may cause the lion’s eye to bleed.
In the same context, Allah Almighty says: On the Day when every person
will be confronted with all the good he has done, and all the evil he has
done, he will wish that there were a great distance between him and his
evil. And Allah warns you against Himself (His Punishment) and Allah is
full of Kindness to the (His) slaves. [Āl Imrān: 30]
May Allah bless you and me by the Glorious Qur'ān and make its verses and wise
sayings beneficial to you and me! This is what I have said. If it is correct, it is so thanks to
Allah, but if it is wrong, it is my own fault and Satan’s. I ask Allah to forgive my sins, yours,
and those of all Muslims, so ask Him for forgiveness, for He is Most Forgiving!
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Part Two
Praise be to Allah for His blessings, and thanks are due to Him for His guidance and
bounty.
Now then,
Observe taqwa, O servants of Allah, and you should know that our honourable
Sharia’ law is a comprehensive one that is most guiding to all that is good and most
cautioning against all that is evil. Vigilance and caution form part of that goodness geared to
shield us from evil. Our Prophet [May Allah’s Salat and Peace be upon him] taught us to
observe them even in our everyday life as they constitute two protective and pre-emptive
measures against all forms of wrongdoings and evil.
It was the Prophet [May Allah’s Salat and Peace be upon him] indeed who plainly put
it thus: “Tie it (the camel) and rely (upon Allah).” It was also he who advised us, among
many other things, to put out the lights while sleeping, to tie the qirbah (waterskin) in order
to protect them, and to shake our bed sheets before sleeping on them.
One of the greatest forms of prudence one has to observe –O servants of Allah– is that
against the Plan of Allah [May He be extolled], for whoever pretends to be secure from it is
doomed to fail and perish: Did they then feel secure against the Plan of
Allah. None feels secure from the Plan of Allah except the people who are
the losers. [Al-A’rāf: 99]
In fact, the abundance of blessings may be conducive to negligence. When in a state
of inadvertency people would be prone to err, and then they would find it quite agreeable to
the point where they are tempted to commit further errors, and so on and so forth until
scourge hits them directly or strikes somewhere nearby: Such is the Seizure of your
Lord when He seizes the (population of) towns while they are doing
wrong. Verily, His Seizure is painful and severe (102). Indeed in that
(there) is a sure lesson for those who fear the torment of the Hereafter.
That is a Day whereon mankind will be gathered together, and that is a
Day when all (the dwellers of the heavens and the earth) will be present.
[Hūd: 102-103]
One may wonder then: What good is caution if it provides no escape from one’s
destiny?
The answer in this regard is that caution makes part and parcel of destiny; whenever
Allah warns us against a particular deed and threatens retribution for non-compliance, He
orders us to do precisely the contrary to that deed in order to avert such a punishment. In such
a case, the act of seeking escape from Allah’s Will would amount in effect to one of heading
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right into it. Hence Allah said: As for him who gives (in charity) and keeps his
duty to Allah and fears Him (6) and believes in Al-Husna (7) We will make
smooth for him the path of ease (goodness) [8]. But he who is greedy
miser and thinks himself self-sufficient (9) and gives the lie to Al-
Husna (10) We will make smooth for him the path for evil. [Al-Lail: 5-10]
Even death –O servants of Allah– is a matter to be cautioned against in situations that
are unjustifiably susceptible of such an outcome. In this respect, Allah says: And do not
kill yourselves (nor kill one another). Surely, Allah is Most Merciful to
you. [Al-Nisā’: 29] Certainly, this is not to say that one should derelict one’s own
obligation from fear of death. To this effect, Ali [May Allah be pleased with him] said:
Which of the two days from death should I try to flee?
The day I am to meet my destiny or the one I am not?
For the day I am not, I take no precautions.
But for the one I am, caution of no avail would be.
Yet –O servants of Allah– caution is to be approached with moderation as it should
only be applied when appropriate not to induce one to surrender to mistrust in one’s rapport
with family, friends and the community at large. Otherwise, incertitude would take over one’s
life as a whole and would totally obliterate one’s confidence and faith in the other.
Therefore, unless equipped with that moderate sense of caution –rather than an
extreme one– a man would turn fearful of a mere whisper and despondent because of a
simple touch; in effect, he would consider everyone that comes his way an adversary. Such
‒O servants of Allah– is indeed a disease contracted by those unable to discern between
caution and devilish insinuation. Caution is certainly the way to ensure security. However,
when pushed to an extreme and forced off course, it would shield one no more against evil.
In this context, the Sheikh quotes two lines of poetry paraphrased as follows:
Amenable to safety in all matters is Moderation,
So that you won’t harm or be harmed by anyone;
Excessive security can kill a man,
And may yield evil extreme caution.
This being said, do send (O you Muslims) your salat and peace upon the best and
most honest of all mankind, Muhammad Ibn Abdullah [May Allah’s Salat and Peace be upon
him] the sole possessor of the blessed basin and the only interceder in the Hereafter. For Allah
ordered you ‒O believers‒ after beginning by Himself and then His angels, who are praising
His Sanctity, saying: O you who believe! Send your Salât on (ask Allâh to
bless) him (Muhammad صلى لله عليه وسلم ), and (you should) greet (salute)
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him with the Islâmic way of greeting (salutation i.e. As-Salâmu ‘Alaikum.
[Al-Aḥzāb: 56]
O Allah! Send Your Salat (Graces, Honours and Mercy), Peace and Blessing upon
Your Servant and Messenger, Muhammad, the four Caliphs, Abu Bakr, Omar, Othman and
Ali, all of his Companions, upon the tabi’īn (the contemporaries of the Companions of the
Prophet [May Allah’s Salat and Peace be upon him] after his death) and those who righteously
follow them till the Day of Judgement. O Allah! Be also pleased with us all, along with them,
by Your Pardon and Generosity, O You, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate!
O Allah! Grant glory to Islam and Muslims! O Allah! Grant glory to Islam and
Muslims! O Allah! Grant glory to Islam and Muslims and fail polytheism and polytheists
(who associate partners with You)! O Allah! Grant glory to Your religion, Your Book and the
Sunnah of Your Prophet, and Your believing servants!
O Allah! Make preoccupied with their own evil those who wish to harm us, Islam and
Muslims! O Allah! Turn their plots and their cunning against them! O You, the All-Hearing
of our supplication!
O Allah! Bring an end to the suffering of Muslims! Rescue those in distress, and help
those indebted pay back their debts! Cure those of us and those of the Muslims who are ill! O
You, Most Merciful, Most Compassionate!
O Allah! Grant us security in our homelands, and set right our Imams and leaders! O
Allah! Entrust our government to those who fear You and seek Your satisfaction, O Lord of
the Worlds!
O Allah! Guide our leader to say and do whatever You love and please, O You, the
Living, the Everlasting! O Allah! Set right his retinue, O You, the Lord of Majesty and
Honour!
… Our Lord! Give us in this world that which is good and in the
Hereafter that which is good, and save us from the torment of the Fire!
[Al-Baqarah: 201]
O servants of Allah! Verily, Allâh enjoins Al-‘Adl (i.e. justice and
worshipping none but Allâh Alone - Islâmic Monotheism) and Al-
Ihsân [i.e. to be patient in performing your duties to Allâh, totally for
Allâh’s sake and in accordance with the Sunnah (legal ways) of the
Prophet صلى لله عليه وسلم in a perfect manner], and giving (help) to kith and
kin[1] (i.e. all that Allâh has ordered you to give them e.g., wealth,
visiting, looking after them, or any other kind of help), and forbids Al-
Fahshâ’ (i.e all evil deeds, e.g. illegal sexual acts, disobedience of
parents, polytheism, to tell lies, to give false witness, to kill a life without
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right), and Al-Munkar (i.e all that is prohibited by Islâmic law: polytheism
of every kind, disbelief and every kind of evil deeds), and Al-Baghy (i.e.
all kinds of oppression). He admonishes you, that you may take heed.
[Al-Nahl: 90]
So, remember Almighty Allah and He shall remember you, and be grateful to Him for
His blessings and He shall give you more of them. … and the remembering
(praising) of (you by) Allâh (in front of the angels) is greater indeed [than
your remembering (praising) of Allâh in prayers. And Allâh knows what
you do. [Al-‘Ankabūt: 45]
