38 – ʿAbd Allah narrated to us; he said: Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn narrated to me; he said: Abū al-Mundhir Ismāʿīl ibn ʿUmar narrated to me; he said: I heard Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ⦗42⦘ al-ʿUmari say:

“Part of your heedlessness toward your own soul—and your turning away from Allah—is that you witness something that incurs His displeasure and simply overlook it, neither enjoining nor forbidding, out of fear of someone who possesses no power to harm or benefit you.”

He also said: “Whoever abandons enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong out of fear of created beings will have the reverential awe that attends obedience stripped from him; so that were he to command his own child or any of his servants, they would make light of him.”