The Overlooked Virtue of Safeguarding the Ummah

This is based on an article entitled “Khairun min Laylatul Qadr,” written by Khaled Hanafi, member of the International Union of Muslim Scholars. Read the original text in Arabic here: خير من ليلة القدر.

The Merit of Ribat

The significance and merits of ribat are far more than we can fathom. Ibn Umar related that the Prophet ﷺ said, “Shall I tell you about a night that is even better than Laylatul Qadr? A guard keeping watch in a dangerous place, not knowing whether he will return to his family.”¹ Consider the Quran’s description of Laylatul Qadr for context:

The Night of Glory is better than a thousand months [Surah al-Qadr 97:3]

For all its incredible reward, the Prophet ﷺ said that ribat merits a greater reward than Laylatul Qadr itself. The rank of ribat is reinforced in another hadith:

Abu Hurairah, may Allah be pleased with him, narrated that while he was on guard duty, an alert was raised, and the people rushed to the coastline. When it turned out to be a false alarm, everyone left but Abu Hurairah, who remained standing on the shore. Someone asked him, “Why are you still standing here, Abu Hurairah?” He replied, “I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say, ‘To stand watch for one hour in the way of God is better than standing in prayer near the Black Stone on Laylat al-Qadr.’”²

These hadiths stress the significance of being invested in the collective wellbeing. They discourage an individual’s indifference to the concerns of the ummah. Instead, each one of us is directed toward and rewarded for protecting and shoring up the weak points of our community. Standing in prayer on Laylatul Qadr, as tremendous as its status may be,³ is less in reward than ribat. Many wisdoms exist for this, but one is certainly that the impact of standing in prayer is primarily limited to the individual, while the ribat extends beyond the individual to benefit the entire community and generations to come.

Importantly, the second hadith speaks to the merit of standing guard for an hour. In this context, an hour refers to a meaningful step during a pivotal moment rather than a literal sixty minutes. It is possible that an individual positioned to be of benefit enacts, in a few short moments, a decision that ultimately relieves hardship and injustice for thousands of people. It is less to do with the period of time and more about the decision someone makes in a crucial moment to prioritize the community, even at great personal expense.

The Ribat of the People of Gaza

It’s worth mentioning, especially considering what is currently happening in the world, that the Prophet ﷺ praised the ribat of the people of Asqalan (what is today considered Gaza) as the greatest form of ribat. He ﷺ said:

The beginning of this affair is prophethood and mercy, then it will be caliphate and mercy, then kingship and mercy, then rulers and mercy, then they will fight over authority like biting donkeys. So, jihad is upon you, and indeed, the best of your jihad is ribat, and the best of your ribat is in Ashkelon.⁴

We will be talking about the applications of ribat in different situations, in societies where peace and order prevail, but we should raise our eyes toward the magnificent embodiment of ribat in Gaza today. Millions of innocent people standing guard over their rightful land, their bodies physically in the line of fire, refusing to leave or accept unjust terms despite facing genocidal obliteration. Today we bear witness for mothers and fathers and young children, as well as doctors, journalists, teachers, workers, and human rights activists hanging on with their last breath, guarding over not only a piece of land but also humanity’s claim to justice.

In the upcoming sections, we will expand the concept of ribat to include other forms of safeguarding the ummah, beyond the physical act of standing guard and refusing to yield to oppressors. However, it is important to remember the Palestinians’ physical, ongoing form of ribat, which involves a much greater sacrifice than anything we could aspire to, and to be moved by these blessed souls, living and returned to God, who stand in ribat for the sake of Allah and for the good of the ummah.

The Expansive Application of Ribat

In societies where there is a prevailing assumption of order and peace (to those of us privileged with good fortune), is there any way we can share in this reward for the act of standing guard and shoring up the ummah’s vulnerabilities? While ribat literally means the physical sacrifice of standing guard to protect the ummah, the spirit of ribat for the sake of Allah can be expanded to include a broader concept—one of vigilant service in the way of Allah. Shoring up the vulnerabilities of the ummah in defending truth, education, and resources is vital, for the more an action protects the community in crucial ways, the greater the reward it yields.

Many acts of sacrifice and service invoke the spirit of standing at a crucial moment in the way of God to protect the ummah. Below are some examples and contexts in which these two aforementioned hadiths can be applied, in which one may reap substantial reward for their actions in the spirit of ribat:

Ribat in Relieving the Problems and Afflictions of Others

Expending yourself in the service of people’s needs can be considered precious hours spent guarding and protecting for the sake of God. This is emphasized in the hadith narrated by Umar ibn al-Khattab, in which the Prophet ﷺ was asked which action was the best. He ﷺ said, “Bringing happiness to another believer—relieving his hunger, clothing his nakedness, or taking care of his need.”⁵ This hadith is good news for whoever stands vigil in serving the needs of brothers and sisters, relieving their pangs of hunger or serving their dire needs.

Abu Bakr as-Siddiq is a prime example of someone who stood vigil for his brothers and sisters in this way. He personally funded the freedom of fellow Muslims suffering under the disbelievers’ enslavement and persecution. Umar ibn Al-Khattab marveled at Abu Bakr’s commitment to being there for the community, from visiting the sick regularly to giving charity to those most in need. Even when he became the Caliph, he would spend his personal time patrolling the streets searching for any overlooked, neglected, or hungry soul.

Today, we witness the personal sacrifice of those in our community who travel out to refugee camps, war zones, neighborhoods destroyed in natural disasters, and impoverished communities. They sacrifice their personal comfort to deliver aid, provide medical care, dig water wells, or help with building homes and other important facilities. Others help here at home by providing services and relief to the most vulnerable in our communities—providing mental health services and support in women’s shelters, waking up on a weekend morning before dawn to cook meals at a soup kitchen, or fostering and adopting orphaned children to keep them out of a corrupted foster care system.

Ribat of Scholars and Intellectuals

Working to address the intellectual gaps of the ummah, fervently guard the truth, expose the sources of oppression, and pass correct understanding on to the younger generation is a responsibility of utmost importance. Today, Islam is under vicious attack both from Islamophobes and from new ideological slants which threaten the foundation of our beliefs and practices, and the next generation is at risk from every direction. We must have scholars, thinkers, and teachers dedicated to compiling and advancing the legacy, history, and intellectual empowerment of the ummah. Above all, we must have guardians protecting the truth from misuse, especially at the hands of people who leverage it for personal gains to justify oppressive means. This is the task carried by a select few, but the necessity of their scholarship is multifold and far-reaching.

The Quran instructs that the ummah always have a group of scholars who devote themselves to learning and teaching the truth, warning their people and guiding their understanding, even—or especially—during times of war when external forces threaten the strength and security of the ummah:

It is not necessary for the believers to march forth all at once. Only a party from each group should march forth, leaving the rest to gain religious knowledge then enlighten their people when they return to them, so that they can guard themselves against evil. [Surah at-Tawbah 9:122]

Mobilizing in defense of the ummah would be obsolete if we did not simultaneously prioritize the protection of Islam; what would there be left to defend if we lived to see another day but lost our knowledge of Allah and His Religion? As a result, the arduous hours spent in study, teaching, and mentoring for the sake of guarding the truth is a key form of ribat, one which scholars and teachers fulfill for the ummah today.

Ribat of Prisoners of Conscience

Thousands of youth, activists, scholars, and memorizers of the Quran—the best of our ummah—remain in jail cells for no reason other than speaking truth in the face of injustice or standing against dictatorship and corruption. There is no doubt that their suffering in prison is an enduring and historic vigil in the way of God, perhaps far more for them than standing the night in prayer near the Black Stone on Laylatul Qadr. This is reinforced by many other hadiths, such as one Abu Sa’id al-Khudri narrated in which the Prophet ﷺ said, “The best struggle (jihad) in the path of Allah is [to speak] a word of justice to an oppressive ruler.”⁶

Today, hundreds of thousands of Muslims across the world sit in prisons for the simple act of being Muslim or standing for justice. From Uyghur Muslims in China, holding onto any piece of their Islamic heritage under severe suppression, to anti-dictatorship activists in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, to our own community members targeted here in the United States as part of institutionalized racism, 9/11 scapegoating, and the prison industrial machine, there truly is no corner of the world in which Muslims are not standing in ribat as prisoners of conscience. They carry the legacy of ribat once held by the likes of Bilal ibn Rabah, Abu Jandal ibn Suhayl, Imam Ahmed ibn Hanbal, Ibn Taymiyyah, and so many more righteous torchbearers of truth and justice imprisoned and even tortured for standing for truth in the face of suppression. Their days and years of imprisonment will be a source of tremendous torment for their captors, in this life and certainly in the hereafter.

Ribat of Medical Personnel

If the soldier is in ribat while guarding the safety of his people, then doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers must also be in ribat, standing vigil to guard human life at its most vulnerable and tenuous moments. During the Black Death, the famous plague of the 14th century which ravaged Europe and came to threaten Islamic society, Muslim doctors like Ibn al-Khatib researched the disease and provided medical care, risking their own lives in the face of a horribly contagious plague to save others. As we know, many Muslims were at the forefront of medical research, and many more sponsored and funded it, largely with the understanding that this fell under the goal of protecting people from harm.⁷

The recent COVID pandemic reminded us of the invaluable contributions medical personnel make to the ummah and to humanity as a whole, exposing their own bodies and families to the risk of infection and enduring arduous working conditions. Every day, nurses, doctors, and medical volunteers stand guard for the ummah as they provide care to the innocent caught in the crossfire of war zones, fleeing oppression in refugee camps, targeted by oppressors around the world. They not only risk exhaustion and infection, but also their lives as they care for patients in dangerous areas and are targeted themselves by genocidal armies. Service at the frontiers of violence and suffering, whether it emerges from natural disaster or from oppressive forces, is to live in a beautiful form of ribat.

Ribat of Principled Journalists and Media Producers

Media is one of the most powerful weapons of our time that can be wielded for good or evil. It can expose injustice, highlight social problems, and shape policy and public understanding. The Muslim community in the United States has fallen miserably short in this field; rather we are reduced to mere consumers preyed upon by others. The media we consume daily overflows with both subtle and painfully apparent contradictions with Islamic values. The billion-dollar Islamophobia industry works nonstop to undermine the humanity of Muslims and garner hatred for Islam.⁸ We have each witnessed the devastating impact this has on our people, with hate crimes continuously increasing and dehumanization of Muslims rising to the extent that the violent deaths of our children stateside or abroad no longer faze people.

The Muslims who are striving to fill this gap in the field of media are thus protecting a weak flank of our ummah, correcting both innocent misunderstandings and rising against an entire industry dedicated to demoralizing Muslims and defacing our community. They protect our moral frontiers at the same time, addressing our need for healthy, upstanding media and entertainment alternatives, while raising the morale of Muslim youth and bolstering their sense of empowerment. No doubt this is also a form of ribat.

Today’s journalists in Gaza, many of whom are young people with access to a social media platform, work tirelessly to expose the genocide Israel commits against their people in the Holy Land. Their impact is apparent as some of the only voices documenting truth and calling for justice, and they risk arrest, injury, and death nearly every moment they do so. The tradition of standing guard and airing the truth for others to witness, especially in the face of suppression, runs to the core of Islamic tradition.

Ribat of the Workers Who Sustain Collective Work

Despite limited resources, the organizations and institutions of the Muslim community in the West and all around the world are shouldering a heavy responsibility in the face of many challenges. Many men and women volunteers, may Allah accept them, worked tirelessly day and night to establish and sustain these organizations and institutions that play a crucial role in preserving the Muslim identity and community and serve as the foundations of effective movement work.

Across history, thousands of incredible institutions and initiatives were developed through the waqf (endowment) system in Islamic societies, including hospitals, universities and centers for learning, masjids, and water fountains and filtration facilities. Some of these initiatives are still in existence, such as Azhar University and Masjid Al-Qarawiyyin. Today, many organizations and institutions are attempting to fulfill the ummah’s responsibility of conveying clearly the message of Islam in non-Muslim countries, carving out a future for Islam in the West. Elsewhere, organizations have risen to reconnect Muslim populations with the spirit of Islam, a necessary prerequisite for a revival of the ummah. The most dedicated of these activists and workers honor the spirit of ribat, holding nothing back from their money and time for the sake of Allah.

Firm Iman—the Foundation for Ribat

The willingness to devote one’s life to guarding and protecting the ummah is driven by a firm conviction and sincere devotion to Allah. The foundation of ribat is sincerity; we stand vigil to protect our brothers and sisters for Allah’s sake alone, seeking nothing of this world in compensation and ready to put everything we value on the line, even our own lives. This is what makes ribat such a blessed act of submission to Allah, rivaling Laylatul Qadr in reward. Ribat is thus a powerful means to mobilize the proactive, movement-oriented spirit of Muslims, guiding them to leverage the spiritual provisions of knowledge and worship in order to shoulder the burdens of their ummah. To serve effectively in the way of Allah and mobilize collectively for His sake, we must first lay a resilient foundation of spiritual purity and sincerity.

This strong connection with Allah and purity of soul and self is what drives the individual to serve in the cause of Allah and sustains him or her through vigorous conditions and fierce obstacles. Ibn Abbas describes this in a hadith: “I heard the Messenger of Allah say, ‘Two eyes will not be touched by fire: the eye that cries in humility before Allah, and the eye that spends the night on guard for the sake of Allah.’”⁹ The two are mutually reinforcing; one must be humble before Allah in order to have both the sincerity and the strength to stand guard at great personal risk to protect the believers, but no surrender to Allah is complete without the outward expression of sacrifice, of which ribat is the highest level.¹⁰

Living Ribat Every Day

While nothing can compare to the physical ribat and sacrifice it requires, many of us do not have the ability to do so. That does not mean to forget its virtues. Rather, a Muslim activist should take inspiration from those who are currently enjoining ribat and extend the spirit of ribat to every aspect of their lives. Embodying the spirit of ribat means maintaining a diligent effort with a firm sense of personal responsibility, regardless of external oversight or accountability. Each of us has a role to play, no matter how marginal it seems, in protecting the strength and resilience of the ummah. Delivering an event flyer on time, teaching Quran to young students, striking up educational conversations with the people we meet every day, or simply keeping a promise to bring snacks to a workshop are not just tasks but opportunities to safeguard the community from vulnerabilities, especially when it is difficult for us to do and when no one else is stepping up.

Every unperformed or underperformed duty creates a weakness, while every fulfilled obligation reinforces our collective strength. Successful initiatives, organizations, and projects often have individuals who see themselves as the last line of defense, understanding that their commitment prevents the collapse of good efforts. The ummah urgently needs more individuals who embrace this spirit of personal responsibility, viewing Islamic work as a critical battlefront requiring vigilance and discipline. Protecting our community begins with us; our efforts, however small they may seem, can significantly impact others, and may even be the difference between shaky community foundations and a strong foothold for the ummah.

In an era where individual pursuits often overshadow collective responsibilities, the concept of ribat serves as a reminder of the distinguished merit of communal vigilance and service. The unparalleled rewards of ribat, as highlighted by the Prophet ﷺ, underscore the importance of selfless dedication to protecting and uplifting the ummah. From scholars guarding the truth to medical personnel treating patients at great personal risk and principled journalists platforming the voices of the silenced, an act of service for Allah’s sake alone that shores up the community’s vulnerabilities embodies the spirit of ribat. By embracing this overlooked virtue, Muslims can cultivate a proactive, community-oriented spirit, driven by sincerity to Allah, and ensuring the resilience of the ummah for generations to come. May Allah give us the reward of those engaging in ribat for the deeds we do in critical moments with this intention at heart, Ameen.