26. Rise of the Low

In a hadith by Ibn Maajah, Abu Hurayrah said that RasulAllah sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam said, “There will be tricky (wicked) years, where the liar will be believed and the truthful will not be believed. The untrustworthy will be trusted and the trustworthy will not be trusted. The Ar-Ruwaybadah will speak.” The Sahabah asked, “Who are the Ar-Ruwaybadah?” RasulAllah sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam said, “The low person.”

All of these things are happening today. The worse is that the low person will speak. This does not mean low, as in the sense of a caste system. This is referring to the people who are low in religion and who have no morals and ethics. This person should not be listened to start with, but they will be the ones teaching and leading the affairs of the people.

In a hadith by Ahmad, RasulAllah sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam said, “A time will come when this world will belong to the wicked son of the wicked.” AlManaawi, in his explanation of this hadith, said, “The wealth will belong to the wicked. The position (of power) will belong to the wicked. And the honour will belong to the wicked.” And if you want to see who they are – look at the rich and famous.

You’ll find very young people singers and famous. If you ask people what they think about this singer or actor, they will say that they’re “cool”. This is the exact description that RasulAllah sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam gave of these people. He said, “A time will come when it will be said about a man, ‘How intelligent is he?” People will say, ‘Look at how cool he is.’ And there is not a single grain of imaan in their hearts.”

[SubhanAllah, I think this is a big problem with our youth today. They want to dress and act like all of these famous people. It's so nice to see when young people get excited about listening to certain shaykh speaking, etc. So I do think things are changing, but I think we need to tell our children more about the Sahabah. I want to hear the day that children say, "I wanna be like Abu Bakr! I want to be like ‘Umar ibn AlKhattaab!"]