His Eminence Sheikh Saud Al-Shuraim -may Allah protect him- delivered the Friday Khutbah titled “Maintaining Vigilance and Caution” in which he spoke about the importance of vigilance to both the individual and society. He also called for a balance between excess and negligence as a necessary course of action. The Sheikh supported his argument with evidence from the Holy Qur’aan and the Prophet’s (Sallallahu Alayhi Wa Sallam) Hadeeths.

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 Allaah (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 Islaam (as Muslims) with complete submission to Allaah." [aal Imraan: 102]

"O Humankind! 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 Allaah through Whom you demand your mutual (rights), and (do not cut the relations of) the wombs (kinship). Surely, Allaah is Ever an All-Watcher over you." [Al-Nissaa: 1]

"O You who Believe! Keep your duty to Allaah 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 Allaah and His Messenger (SAW) he has indeed achieved a great achievement (i.e. he will be saved from the Hell-fire and made to enter Paradise)." [Al-Aḥzaab: 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 …" [aal Imraan: 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)." [aal Imraan: 185]

Beware, servants of Allah! Vigilance is coterminous with precautions and pre-emptive 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 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 (Jihaad) all together. Of every troop of them, a party only should go forth, that they (who are left behind) may get instructions in (Islaamic) 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 Allaah 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;
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:

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." [aal Imraan: 30]

May Allah bless you and me by the Glorious Qur'aan 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!