First Reflection
Know—may Allah grant you success—that everything which has struck and continues to strike the Muslims in these times, in every one of their lands, in the form of enemies gaining the upper hand wherever they turn, is nothing but the result of their own sins and their falling short in what is due to Allah, the Exalted: “Whatever affliction befalls you is because of what your own hands have earned, and He pardons much” (Q 42:30).

Innovations and superstitions, polytheistic practices and empty fancies, together with the corruption of morals and conduct, are thriving unabated. By Allah, today the Muslims stand in greater need of striving against their own selves than of striving against their external foes.

Ibn al-Qayyim (1), may Allah have mercy on him, said: “Because waging jihad against the outward enemies of Allah is secondary to a servant’s jihad against his own self for Allah’s sake … the jihad of the self comes before, and is the foundation of, the jihad against the external enemy; for if he does not first combat his own self…"