By Sheikh Saleh ibn Muhammad Al Talib – 29 Safar 1437

His Eminence Sheikh Saleh ibn Muhammad Al Talib –May Allah protect him– delivered this Friday khutbah titled “Commandments to the Ummah” in which he addressed the current situation of Muslims and their enemies’ plots being fiercely contrived against them. Then, he put forth several commandments to the Ummah’s awakening, support and empowerment.

Praise be to Allah! Praise be to Allah Who sets sovereignty in successive rotation among mankind, changes their conditions despite their proclivity to clinging to them so that they would know that this life is no permanent residence for any human being, no target for the insightful, and no aspiration for the sagacious. Praise be to Allah Who has made Paradise a permanent abode for the perseverant!

I bear witness that there is no deity except Allah with no associate, sitting firmly on the Throne in His Lofty Kingdom. I also bear witness that Muhammad is the Servant and Messenger of Allah with whom Allah has illuminated the universe and wiped out ignorance. May Allah send His Salat (Graces, Honours, Mercy), Peace and Blessing upon him, his family and his Companions who were the best of generations and of noblest models to follow.

O Allah, our Lord! Praise be to You as You have created us, provided for us, guided us, granted us knowledge, saved us and dispelled our worries. O Allah! Help us to thank You for Your favours and for worshipping You as You should be worshipped. We seek refuge in You against the disappearance of Your blessings, the change of the good health You granted us, the suddenness of Your vengeance and all forms of Your wrath!

Now then,

I recommend to you –O people– what Allah has recommended to many past nations as well as to the present one:

“We have recommended to the people of the Scripture before you, and to you (O Muslims) that you (all) fear Allâh, and keep your duty to Him,” [Al-Nisa: 131]

The attentive will be saved; the negligent will feel sorry:
“O mankind! Remember the Grace of Allâh upon you! Is there any creator other than Allâh who provides for you from the sky (rain) and the earth? Lâ ilâha illa Huwa (none has the right to be worshipped but He). How then are you turning away (from Him)?” [Fatir: 3]

O Muslims!

In a world so inflamed world and amidst rapid vicissitudes therein and thereabout, we sense, more than ever, the dire necessity to hold on to our gains vis-à-vis our religion, our homeland, our security and our concord. Fate is quick to strike, and conditions are quick to change. We have neither promise nor covenant from our Lord that He will continue to supply us with bounties and protect us against misfortunes except what is inherent in His Divine Laws and stated in His Glorious Book.

Divine Laws stipulate that Allah will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves1. Also, His Divine Laws stipulate that He does not amend the work of corruptors2. Divine inspiration has been sent down with a Divine Law which Allah had applied to previous nations, and will inevitably apply to us too:

“And if the people of the towns had believed and had the Taqwâ (piety), certainly, We should have opened for them blessings from the heaven and the earth, but they belied (the Messengers). So We took them (with punishment) for what they used to earn (polytheism and crimes, etc.).” [Al-A’raf: 96]

These days, powers which, in accordance with human material criteria, we are unable to beat are lying in wait for us. We are more than ever in need to solidify our bond with the Creator, for we have no other Protector, and none, no matter how strong they may be, can protect themselves from Him.

It is the bond of Allah which alleviates the fears of the desperate, switches powers and tips balance. It was the bond which extinguished the pyre that was supposed to incinerate Ibrahim (Abraham), parted the sea and dried its bottom for Moses, and cast Allah’s benevolence over Muhammad ‒May Allah’s Salat and Peace be upon him‒ and his Muslim Companions when they were but a disesteemed small minority before their dominion eventually reached the corners of the world.

It is Allah’s benevolence that granted Muslims support, power and wealth because they sought it in accordance with its righteous channels and felt out its reasons.

We, in this very country, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, have experienced this divine benevolence and seen its fruit. When the whole world was fighting two world wars and using the most lethal weapons then known to mankind –weapons that claimed over seventy million lives– none of the warring countries was able to expand an inch.

Meanwhile, Allah granted us power and helped us to unify our country with primitive means and at a negligible cost. This gave us security, coalescence, and unmatchable treasures that gushed from the depth of the earth. Because the founders and the unifiers of this nation had been actually righteous and after all staunch believers in the Oneness of Allah, Allah Almighty made available to them things unavailable to armed superpowers that outnumber them. That was the same scene that prevailed during the early Muslim period, and after all, Allah’s Divine Law will continue as is.

O Muslims!

Disunited as we Arabs and Muslims are, our material power is at present no match to that of other nations. Our enemies’ ambitious designs to our lands and resources are increasing and their lying-in-wait for us has become only too apparent. The truth to say none can protect us from them except Allah Almighty.

While we should follow the Words of Allah ‒to Whom belong Might and Majesty: “And make ready against them all you can of power” [Al-Anfal: 60] and thus build a military force that can deter avid people casting covetous eyes on us, we should at the same time take great care of our moral power. We must protect and strengthen our acquired gain, namely religion, which is our unfailing weapon and formidable shield.

Disgracing religion in our society, particularly at this very time, is capital treason; its open and public disgracing, in particular, results in our deprivation of Allah’s protective Hand and Benevolence.

Islam is not only the guarantee for the hereafter, but also the rationale behind the Ummah’s very existence and the assertion of its identity. Betrayal also involves nonchalance towards Allah’s rights when the Ummah makes its love and hate contingent on its interests and not on its principles. Only when the Ummah got splintered and split, shunned its Lord and became heedless, were its enemies able to overcome it.

The outlying world, no matter how secular and atheistic it may look, makes recourse to its religion in times of trouble and calls out to God to bless its armies and wars. However, some defeatists in our midst are trying to slacken the grip of religion on our life and religiosity in an attempt to diminish its influence on society. They propagate carnal desires so that the souls would surrender to insensibility and forget about tomorrow’s perils.

This was the zero hour when disasters struck sometime in the Ummah’s long history, and there are admonitions and lessons from the history of Andalusia and Baghdad.

(The Sheikh recites a line of poetry that can be rendered as follows):

He who is clad in garments of affluence
Without being thankful, Allah will take them off him.

A calamity-stricken nation whose religion and lands are targeted must shun worldly entertainments and pleasures and dedicate its efforts and potentials to getting closer to its Creator. It must adhere to Allah’s pure religion, abstain from carnal desires, avoid sins and forbidden acts, and above all, punish the impudent. Allah Almighty says:

“So flee to Allâh (from His Torment to His Mercy Islâmic Monotheism), verily, I (Muhammad SAW) am a plain warner to you from Him.” [Al-Thariyat: 50]

O Muslims!

Among our greatest gains are the blessings of unity and concord. They were Allah’s Command to and bestowal upon previous nations:

“and remember Allâh’s Favour on you, for you were enemies one to another but He joined your hearts together, so that, by His Grace, you became brethren (in Islâmic Faith), …” [Al Imran: 103]

With dispersion, no celestial favour may be enjoyed. We have seen, and still see, that vast nations with flowing rivers and deep delved treasures have gone bankrupt and become fear-and-poverty-stricken. So the people there were compelled to migrate from their homeland and accept to live in humility in foreign countries in search for security and peace. May Allah guard them against harm and end their ordeal!

He who has been used to good health may not know the suffering of the sick and may not appreciate the bliss he is enjoying.

Thus, in order to continue enjoying Allah’s bounties, we must secure the reasons thereof; I mean the two main reasons of today: writing and speech. These two are causes of society’s disunity and homeland’s fragmentation.

O Servants of Allah!

Never before have spreading the word, giving one’s opinion, and criticising people and societies been so easier. This has been made possible by present-day media in general and its social type in particular. Despite the obvious benefits of these means of communication, there has always been a down side to them. Many have exploited them to spawn not only differences but also disunity, quarrels and disputes igniting hostility, hatred, and reciprocal accusations.

What is rather saddening is seeing some religious people involved in these disputes, trying to find fault with each other and attack certain luminaries. Such disputes and reviling are present on the tribal and regional levels, and get worse in the field of sports. In fact, their negative effect is now growing day after day before our own eyes.

O Muslims!

Most of your disputes are superfluously unbecoming in time of peace, let alone in time of war. Most hatred-spawning disputes are competently dealt with by rulers, officials, scholars, religious bodies and state institutions. Why call each other traitor? Why accuse each other of disloyalty and strip each other of citizenship?

Such acts are perpetrated by people with neither official status nor authority. Their spurious purpose is to deepen hostility, achieve fame or settle old scores. Otherwise, the way to exhortation is clear, and tipping the police off about imminent danger is always a telephone call away. Allah has rendered defective people who, when there comes to them information about [public] security or fear, they spread it around, but3:

“…if only they had referred it to the Messenger or to those charged with authority among them, the proper investigators would have understood it from them (directly).” [Al-Nisa: 83]

It is neither beneficial nor courteous to use writing to belittle others or to find fault with institutions or individuals. This would expose the country to serious harm and open the gates to the tendentious to pile accusations against the country and its citizens.

Real patriots are those who defend their compatriots and their country: its traditions, faith and territory in media and political platforms. They defend their country through being faithful to their Ummah on every front where the believer works and carries out his duty. Real citizens are those who are stationed on the borderlines defending their faith, country, land and honour.

The real heroes with whom the media should busy itself are those guarding the borders in the scorching heat of the summer and the freezing cold of the winter. Just to make us enjoy the comfort of our homes and the company of our families and in order to make a new history that brings pride to the whole Ummah, some have sacrificed their lives; their wives have been widowed and their children orphaned. Behind such heroes there are loyal men; they are the ones who are worthy of praise in writing and speaking; they deserve all our support and prayers.

O Muslims in general, and youths in particular!

Busy yourselves with what is good for you. Remember Allah’s favours; beware of their cessation and the reasons thereof. Do your job in earnest. Prosperity cannot last without serious work and the path leading thereto; avoid hurdles and those fatal causes, especially obeying Satan and betraying your homeland.

Loyalty to homelands is a principle that has disappeared from the minds of the ungrateful. In the case of those illusive minds, such principle has withered away. For they think that being loyal to one’s own homeland would affect the universality of Islam and the brotherhood of all Muslims.

The truth is that if one is not good to one’s own country, then how can one be good to the other Muslim countries!? And the one who denies the right of one’s close family and folks will be even more denying when it comes to the rights of the others.

The feelings of loyalty overflew from that big heart of the Prophet ‒May Allah’s Salat and Peace be upon him‒ towards his town Makkah whose inhabitants were still polytheists. Moreover, they were still hurting him and rejecting his religion. However, he did not accept the offer by Archangel Jibreel (Gabriel) ‒Peace be upon him‒ to close the Akhshabain (mountains in Makkah) around them (as a punishment). Even when he entered Makkah in full victory, while its inhabitants had not embraced Islam yet, he did not change or destroy anything except the idols inside the sacred ka’bah, let alone kill anybody or destroy his own town.

Yet still, his loyalty has reached such high peak as is narrated by Jubair ibn Mut’im ‒May Allah be pleased with him‒ who reported that the Prophet ‒May Allah’s Salat and Peace be upon him‒ said concerning the captives of the Badr battle: “Had al-Mut’im ibn Uday been still alive and talked to me about freeing those smelly ones, I would have let them go for his sake.” [An agreed-upon Hadith]
Based on these two noble meanings of loyalty towards one’s homeland and loyalty towards a benevolent person, though not a Muslim (al-Mut’im ibn Uday), one can see clearly the huge difference and the big moral gap between those aggressing their homelands through killing, blasting, causing harm, and terrorizing people and the model of our Prophet Muhammad ‒May Allah’s Salat and Peace be upon him‒ and his Sharia. So what if their homelands are Muslim homelands and their inhabitants are Muslims?!

The Prophet ‒May Allah’s Salat and Peace be upon him‒ would have accepted the intercession of a polytheist ‒who used to protect him‒ to free polytheist warriors. So what about he who kills his own security men, who are fellow Muslims?!

We here address the hijacking of minds by the gangs of “Daesh” (or ISIS) and their leaders. We are not addressing the leaders themselves, for the events have confirmed that their premises are not at all religious even if they pretend that they are so. Their problem does not lie in a twisted understanding of Islam, though they use Islam in their discourse; rather, their Islam is highly suspected by many, and their not being Muslims is confirmed by many more.

In fact, we are addressing those who have surrendered their minds to some people whose identities and religion are not known; they have surrendered their souls to them in order to kill other souls from their own people. They have given them their blood to be used in shedding that of their own compatriots; they have given them the bits and pieces of their own bodies in order to destroy buildings and constructive, meaningful ideas in their own countries. The Prophet ‒May Allah’s Salat and Peace be upon him‒ was rather sent (by Allah) as mercy to the worlds. In this respect, ibn Taymiyyah ‒May Allah bless his soul‒ said: “All religion revolves around loyalty to the Truth and mercy towards Allah’s creatures.”

O you who are deceived! Do you think that you are doing the right thing!? Remember that losing the Hereafter is greater than losing the Herein, great as this may sound. Indeed, sacrificing the reward of the Hereafter is a disaster that can never be remedied or prevented, for Allah’s verses and the hadiths of His Prophet ‒May Allah’s Salat and Peace be upon him‒ are clear about the fate of the one committing suicide or killing a Muslim.

Why, then, leave what is confirmed in order to go astray? Why be uncertain about property and souls?! Still there are some Muslim youths who are derided their own selves, their Hereafter, country, and compatriots, so they handed themselves to a gang whose members are most likely enemies to his own religion and country. Moreover, those gangsters make fun of his people and his faith; thus, he loses his life for nothing in the Herein, and he deserves the threat of a severe punishment in the Hereafter.

Those who have planned these attacks do not care about the faith of the killer or that of the killed; neither do they care about the denomination of those who pray in this place or that. What they really care about is to destabilize this country and to tear out its harmony; causing disunity is their goal. They have tried several times to play this tune, but failed, thanks to Allah. The advertence of this country’s citizens remains a stumbling block in their way to success.

I seek refuge in Allah from the accursed Satan. In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful:

“(It is a great Grace and Protection from Allâh), for the taming of the Quraish, (1) (And with all those Allâh’s Grace and Protections for their taming, We cause) the (Quraish) caravans to set forth safe in winter (to the south), and in summer (to the north without any fear), (2) So let them worship (Allâh) the Lord of this House (the Ka’bah in Makkah). (3) (He) Who has fed them against hunger, and has made them safe from fear.” [Quraish: 1-4]

May Allah bless me and you by the Qur’an and the Sunnah, and grant us benefit from what they have of signs and wisdom. I say this and ask Allah, the Almighty, to forgive me and you!