Imām Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī ibn Khalaf al-Barbahārī (d. 329 AH / 941 CE) ؒ wrote, in point 151:
واحذر ثم احذر أهل زمانك خاصة، وانظر من تجالس، وممن تسمع ومن تصحب، فإن الخلق كأنهم في ردة إلا من عصمه الله منهم.
“Beware, and again beware, especially of the people of your time. Consider whom you sit with, whom you listen to and whom you accompany. For people are as though in a state of apostasy, except those whom Allah has protected.”
The Explanation
Shaykh Ṣāliḥ ibn Fawzān ibn ʿAbd Allah al-Fawzān explains:
His statement, “Beware, and again beware, especially of the people of your time,” is because tribulation had become very great in the time of the author, al-Barbahārī ؒ. He warns against the people of every age in which evil, desires and innovations appear. This warning is not confined to his time. Whenever evils, desires and calls to falsehood appear, the Muslim must exercise greater caution and take care.
His statement, “For people are as though in a state of apostasy, except those whom Allah has protected,” concerns his own time, but this recurs. Our time and what follows it, and Allah knows best, are more severe: as time advances, tribulations and evils increase, the Sunnah comes to be regarded as strange and those who hold firmly to it become fewer. The danger is therefore greater.
References
Al-Barbahārī, Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī ibn Khalaf, Sharḥ as-Sunnah, point 151.
Al-Fawzān, Ṣāliḥ ibn Fawzān ibn ʿAbd Allah, Itḥāf al-Qārī bi-t-Taʿlīqāt ʿalā Sharḥ as-Sunnah li-l-Imām al-Barbahārī, vol. 2, official electronic text, section on avoiding the company of the people of innovation, page 3 vol. 2, p. 190;
