For The Youth

They were youths, yet mature youths.

"...They were youths, yet mature youths, their eyes fresh and free of evil, their feet refrained from approaching falsehood and futility.

They sacrificed and expended themselves in worship and in withholding themselves from sleep. They sold their souls which were to pass away for souls which would never die.

Allaah saw them in the latter part of the night, bending their backs, reciting the Qur'aan. Whenever one of them came to an Aayah mentioning Paradise, he would weep, longing for it. Whenever he came upon an Aayah mentioning the fire he would groan out of fear, as if the Hell-fire were directly in front of him.

The earth devoured their knees their hands and their foreheads (out of their constant prostration). They joined exhaustion in the night with exhaustion in the day. Their colour becoming yellowed and their bodies emaciated through standing long in prayer and frequent fasting - whilst they regarded their own actions to be negligible before Allaah.

They fulfilled their covenant with Allaah and attained Allaah's promise."

So let us hasten to be like them and to resemble them, since, as it was said: We are not in comparison to those who came before except like small herbs growing beside the trunks of tall palm trees.

And as 'Abdullaah Ibn al-Mubaarak said: Do not mention us whilst mentioning them, the fit and healthy when he walks is not like the crippled.

'Ali at-Tamimi: "The Zeal to Guide Vs. the Zeal to Judge"

From the lecture by 'Ali at-Tamimi, titled 'Intellection Confusion of the Muslim Youth':

"The fourth cause which leads to intellectual confusion amongst the youth is the lack of zeal to order, to guide the people. In other words, instead of being zealous for the guidance of people, often, the youth were zealous for judging the people, zealous for passing out judgements: 'Well, he's astray, and he's on the guidance, and he's, well, he's OK, but he's not quite there, and this one is 10%, and this one, OK, he's 13.2%,' and so forth, and so on.

This is not the way of Allah's Prophet. This is not the way of the Prophet's Companions. Rather, they used to seek to guide the people, and Allah Said to the Prophet, in order to console him: {"...So, do not ruin yourself out of sadness for them..."} [Fatir; 8] See, the Prophet would be so sad when the people wouldn't accept the message, it used to affect him physically. So, Allah Tells him: "Do not allow yourself to be in such a state, that you are almost losing yourself out of sadness because they are not guided."

This is how the Prophet was.

Unfortunately, some of the youth take pleasure, they take glee; it's almost as if it gives them some sort of energy, some sort of, you know, happiness that they can judge somebody, and say: 'OK, you're a person of bid'ah,' 'OK, he's astray.' But, if they knew what they were saying, and if they realized the seriousness of the word, first of all, they wouldn't be so quick to judge. And second of all, even if they were correct in their judgement, they should be taken with sadness, because if that man is astray - if that person is truly a person of heresy - then, he is facing a very deadly doom in the Hereafter, and one should be saddened in wanting to guide him, not happy to see him in that state."

- Listen - (39:40 thru 41:40)