What is the effective way to confront our painful reality?

The questioner : The praise is due to Allah; we praise Him, seek His help, seek His forgiveness, and repent to Him. We seek refuge in Allah from the evil of our own souls and from the evil of our deeds. Whomsoever Allah guides, none can mislead, and whomsoever He misleads, none can guide. And I bear witness that there is no deity but Allah alone, with no partner, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His slave and His Messenger. As for what follows: Allah, Blessed and Exalted is He, has granted me the meeting with one of the scholars of Islam who follow the path of the best of mankind and his noble Companions, those whom Allah combined in them knowledge and action, understanding and intellect. How great is the human being when these qualities are gathered in him! He is a true imam, one of those about whom Allah said: He is indeed the honorableThe Shaykh : Muhammad Nasir al-Din al-Albani, on the thirteenth day of the tenth month of the year 1413 AH, within the recordings of the series al-Huda wa al-Nur, which is recorded by the honorable brotherAbu Layla : Muhammad ibn Ahmad. May Allah send prayers and blessings upon our Prophet and Messenger Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him).

The questioner : The praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds, and I send prayers and peace upon our Prophet and Messenger Muhammad, and upon his family and all his Companions. There is no doubt that the honorableThe Shaykh : Nasir al-Albani (may Allah preserve him, grant him peace, and bless him) knows that the religious reality of the Ummah is a bitter one, in terms of ignorance in 'aqidah and doctrinal corruption, in terms of division in methodologies, and in terms of the implementation and dissemination of the Islamic Shari'ah.

The Shaykh: And upon you peace.

The questioner : In most parts of the earth. This is the reality. The zealous among the Muslims have a great desire to change and reform it, but their approaches to reforming this reality differ, as Your Honor knows through the Islamic movements and Islamic groups that have striven to reform the reality of the Islamic Ummah. Yet they have not succeeded; rather, perhaps those movements have brought great calamities and misfortunes upon the Ummah. The Muslim people are in great confusion: how should they respond, and how should they treat this reality? One of them may feel that he is carrying great mountains. What is your advice to the Muslim youth, and what are the useful and effective ways to confront this reality? And how does a Muslim clear his conscience before Allah, Mighty and Majestic, on the Day of Resurrection?

The Shaykh : The praise is due to Allah; we praise Him, seek His help, seek His forgiveness, and seek refuge in Allah from the evil of our own souls and from the evil of our deeds. Whomsoever Allah guides, none can mislead, and whomsoever He misleads, none can guide. And I bear witness that there is no deity but Allah alone, with no partner, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His slave and His Messenger. As for what follows: the best of speech is the speech of Allah, the best of guidance is the guidance of Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him and his family), and the worst of matters are their innovations, and every innovation is a misguidance, and every misguidance is in the Fire. In addition to what came in the details of the question of the brother Abu 'Abd al-Rahman 'Abdullah regarding the bad reality of the Muslims, we say that this painful reality is not worse than the reality of the Arabs in their pre-Islamic age of ignorance. When our Messenger (may the prayers and peace of Allah be upon him) was sent to them, there is no doubt that the reality of those ignorant Arabs was much worse than that of the Muslims today. Based on this, we say that the cure is that cure and the medicine is that medicine. Just as the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) treated that first pre-Islamic age of ignorance, so all Islamic callers today must treat their painful reality. The meaning of this is very clear, remembering the saying of Allah, Mighty and Majestic: So our Messenger (may the prayers and peace of Allah be upon him) is our model in treating the problem of the Muslims in our time. This is by starting with what the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) started with, which is reforming what is corrupted in the 'aqidah of the Muslims first, and their worship second, and their behavior third. I do not mean by this order that the first is the most important, then the important, then what is below it, but rather I want the Muslims—meaning, by nature, the callers among them, and perhaps it is more correct to say the scholars among them, because the callers today, unfortunately, include every Muslim, even if he is in extreme poverty of knowledge—so they count themselves as callers to Islam. We all know the well-known rule among, I do not say scholars, but all people of intellect, which says: "He who lacks a thing cannot give it." We know today that there is a very, very large group, numbering in the millions of Muslims, that when the word "callers" is used, this word refers to them, and they are the group of Da'wah, meaning the Tabligh group. And yet, most of them, as Allah, Mighty and Majestic, said: Nevertheless, they are the group of Da'wah; when the name "group of Da'wah" is used, this name refers to them.