Advice to the Youth

Source: Sheikh ‘Abdul-Razzaaq Ibn ‘Abdul-Muhsin al-Badr

Advice to the Youth ¹ 

O successful youth, this is some advice which I offer to you with love and concern. If you accept it, it will certainly act as a protection for you and as a cause for your success and happiness in both this life and the next:

1. It is incumbent on you – O youth – to work to protect and preserve your youthful years by avoiding all forms of evil and corruption. Do that through seeking Allah’s assistance and placing your trust in Him alone. Avoid every door, gateway, or path which would lead you to evil or corruption and treat them with the utmost caution.

2. It is incumbent on you – O youth – to fulfill the mandates and obligations of Islam with the utmost care and consistency, especially the prayers. For the prayers act as a protection against evil and falsehood for you, as they are an aid in good and a deterrence to evil and falsehood.

3. It is incumbent on you – O youth – to fulfill the rights which Allah has mandated for you to give to your fellow servants. And the most significant of these are the rights of one’s parents, for theirs is a tremendous right.

4. It is incumbent on you – O youth – to be close to the people of knowledge and the senior people of merit. Listen to their words, take guidance from their verdicts, benefit from their knowledge, and seek their counsel regarding your affairs.

5. It is incumbent on you – O youth – to fully enact the “hearing and obeying” of your ruler which Allah has mandated for you, for this is a source of safety. But as for those paths bent upon betraying the ruler, revolting against the body of the Muslims, and revoking their pledge of obedience, then these ways only result in evil and destruction for those who take them.

6. It is incumbent on you – O youth – to protect yourself, day and night, through the remembrance of Allah, and that you be diligent in making the legislated remembrances in the morning, evening, following the prayers, upon entering or leaving a place, upon travelling, and so on. For the remembrance of Allah is a protection against the shaytaan and it safeguards its doer against harm and trials.

7. It is incumbent on you – O youth – to have a set portion of the Qur’an which you read daily in order to put your heart at peace, for the Allah’s Book brings tranquility to the hearts and joy in both this life and the next. (Those who believe and whose hearts find rest in the remembrance of Allah, Verily, in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest.) (Surah al-Ra’d 28).

8. It is incumbent on you – O youth – to frequently and regularly beseech Allah to make you firm upon the truth and guided, and that He protects you from evil and destruction. For supplication is the key to every kind of good, both for this life and the hereafter.

9. It is incumbent on you – O youth – to be eager to associate with good company and befriend the righteous, and to avoid people of evil and corruption, for befriending the people of evil is certain ruin.

10. It is incumbent on you – O youth – to exercise extreme caution against the means which are used to attack you from all directions, especially the internet, so that you can protect your religion and be in a state of well-being, for there is nothing like having well-being.

11. It is incumbent on you – O youth – to always remember that one day you will stand before Allah and you be asked about your youth – how you spent it and how you wasted it. (They will say, “Before, we had been with our people, afraid of Allah’s punishment. So Allah blessed us and protected us from the punishment of a scorching fire.) (Surah al-Toor26-27).

I ask Allah to safeguard you with the protection which He grants to His righteous slaves.

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