My discerning Muslim brother!
Know—may Allah keep you firm upon the truth—that among the signs of the Hour and of the corruption of the times are:
The passing of the righteous, the scarcity of scholars who act upon their knowledge, the weakening of people of insight and devotion, and entrusting affairs to those unqualified for them. As the Prophet ﷺ said:
“إِذَا وُسِّدَ الأَمرُ إلى غيرِ أَهلهِ فانتظرِ السَّاعَة”
One manifestation of this disorder is to see some scholarly and religious institutions preoccupied with superficial and minor issues, eloquent on safe subjects that require no stand and carry no consequences, while turning away from major questions, public crises and devastating wounds suffered by the Muslim community in its religion, lives, honour and sacred places.
The community is violated, Muslims’ honour is attacked, innocent blood is shed and the enemy acts unchecked. Yet some who hold prominent positions seem able to occupy people only with subsidiary questions raised in the wrong place and at the wrong time. Major issues are set aside, and discussion revolves around a minor point while the community’s wounds bleed, Muslims’ homes are demolished, and their women and children are killed and displaced.
The aim is not to belittle subsidiary branches of knowledge or abandon juristic study of their questions. Every discipline has its place, and every issue its due weight.
The real disorder is an imbalance in priorities: giving the negligible precedence over the important, the particular over the general, the safe over the obligatory, and matters that can remain unspoken over what must be explained to the community in a time of trial.
What kind of understanding ignores a calamity in which a city is annihilated, families are crushed, and Muslims’ religious observances and rights are denied, then fills gatherings with arguments whose basic validity is not disputed, but whose misplaced use is?
True knowledge is more than information displayed or rulings repeated on safe questions. It is insight that recognises the order of obligations, understanding of the consequences of speech and silence, and religious courage that moves a person to uphold truth, stand for justice before Allah, and defend the community’s major causes with knowledge, wisdom and fairness.
O Allah, keep us firm upon the truth. Do not let our affliction be in our religion, and do not place over us, because of our sins, those who neither fear You in their treatment of us nor show us mercy.
O Allah, place the best of the Muslims in charge of their affairs, protect them from their worst, unite them upon truth and guidance, and grant help to Your oppressed servants everywhere. Amen!