—they will converge upon him, and ruin will be the inevitable end.
• When people turned away from making the Book and the Sunnah the arbiter and final judge, deemed them insufficient, and shifted instead to opinions, analogy, personal preference, and the sayings of shaykhs, the result was a corruption of their very natures, a darkness in their hearts, a cloudiness in their understanding, and a blight upon their intellects. These maladies spread and gained mastery over them until children were reared upon them and the elderly grew senile while clinging to them, so they no longer regarded any of this as objectionable.
• Then a new regime arose in which innovation usurped the place of the Sunnah, the ego usurped reason, caprice usurped rectitude, misguidance usurped guidance, evil usurped good, ignorance usurped knowledge, ostentation usurped sincerity, falsehood usurped truth, flattery usurped honest counsel, and tyranny usurped justice. Authority and predominance now belonged to these vices and to those who embodied them, whereas previously their opposites had held sway and their adherents were the ones pointed out.
• So when you see the dominion of these things approaching, its banners already raised and its armies mounted, then—by Allah—the belly of the earth is better than its surface, the mountain peaks better than the plains, and mixing with beasts safer than mixing with people.
The earth has shuddered, the sky has grown dark, and corruption has appeared on land and sea because of the tyranny of the profligate. Blessings have vanished, provisions have dwindled, the wild beasts have grown gaunt, and life itself has become bitter through the debauchery of the oppressors. The light of day and the darkness of night have wept over the vile deeds and monstrous acts, and the noble recording angels and the guardian angels have complained to their Lord of the rampant indecencies and the dominance of evils and abominations.
By Allah, all of this portends a deluge of punishment whose clouds have already gathered and heralds a night of affliction whose darkness has thickened; so withdraw