Sincere counsel is therefore indispensable—above all, counsel in the religion of Allah: enjoining what is right, forbidding what is wrong, and inviting people to all that is good.

A further aspect of such counsel is to guide those under one’s care along the paths that secure their welfare in both the Hereafter and this life, shielding them from anything that might harm their faith or their worldly affairs. He must protect them from corrupt ideas, base morals, and the avenues that lead to them—whether lewd magazines, subversive newspapers, or the like. For this reason the guardian of the household—the man in his own home—must see to it that none of these things enter his house: depraved and harmful publications, deviant notions, and degenerate behavior.

The same obligation rests on the public authority at large: he too must bar such influences. When these things become widespread, society is reduced to an animalistic state, concerned with nothing but filling stomachs and gratifying lust. Chaos prevails, security evaporates, and evil and corruption take hold. But when the guardian—whether his mandate is small or great—blocks the sources that corrupt people’s character, immense benefit follows.

If each one of us were to keep his family from acquiring those lewd, corrupt newspapers and magazines, and from watching depraved plays and vile television serials, people would be reformed; for a nation is nothing but its individual members—you in your home, the next person in his, the third in his, and so on. When they are rectified, everything else is rectified. We ask Allah, exalted be He, to set right our leaders and to grant them righteous advisers.