If we want to prevent a group of common people who are smoking cigarettes and shisha, we start with tawhid (the oneness of Allah) and the important matters.

The questioner : If we want to harm a group of common people who are smoking cigarettes and shisha, we ask Allah to forgive us, so we start with tawhid (the oneness of Allah) and some of the important matters.

The Shaykh : In any case, the call to tawhid (the oneness of Allah) comes before everything, because when the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) sent Mu'adh to Yemen, he said: "Let the first thing you call them to be the testimony that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah." But if our calling them to the easier matters is a means for them to accept the higher ones, there is no harm, and this falls under the category of means. Just as if we gave them dirhams to reconcile them to Islam, for example, let us suppose that people revere graves to the point of excess. Do we, for example, tell them about that first when we first address them, or do we first tell them about what is obligatory in ritual purity and prayer and the things that soften their hearts, and then after they accept from us and turn to us, we forbid them from this? In any case, one looks at the public benefit in this, otherwise the default is that the call to tawhid (the oneness of Allah) comes before everything.

The questioner : I mean, a Shaykh starts by saying, for example, reconciliation and obligation. If you obligated the first one, he would not be able to do it from you. Why don't you obligate him?

The Shaykh : In any case, one looks at the public benefit, otherwise the default is that tawhid (the oneness of Allah) comes before everything.