Fear of God (khawf)

Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy relays from Ibn Abbas that sitting with one who makes you fear God, so that you find safety on the Day of Resurrection, is better than sitting with one who reassures you, so that you find fear on that Day (needs_source) ^{1 2}. He says God does not combine two securities or two fears on His servant: whoever fears in this world is given security in the next ². He holds that Islam is simple and that we have complicated its matters, and he explains not hoping for the reckoning as not fearing it ³.

The Sheikh relays from Ibn Abbas an answer to someone who asked about sitting with people who make them fear God: sitting with one who makes you fear, so that you find safety on the Day of Resurrection, is better than sitting with one who reassures you, so that you find fear on that Day (needs_source) ^{1 2}.

He says that God does not combine two securities or two fears on His servant: whoever fears in this world is given security in the next. He points to God's promise of two gardens for the one who fears standing before his Lord ².

The Sheikh holds that we have complicated matters and that the answers are simpler than we imagine; he prays that God grant us understanding of His Book and application of His Prophet's Sunna. He explains the saying of God about a people who did not look forward to the reckoning as meaning that they did not fear it, and then gives a mocking exchange in which the speaker declares that he does not fear God ³.

The Sheikh says that in our time fear has overcome hope (his view) (needs_source: the wording is garbled at this point) ⁴.

He gives the sense of a saying whose speaker is not named in this passage (needs_source: no source is given in the transcript): whoever fears Hell as he fears poverty escapes all of it, and whoever fears the Creator as he fears a created being prospers in this world and the next ^{5 6}.

The Sheikh holds that fear and hope are directed only to the One in whose hand the whole matter is, since created beings own neither harm nor benefit for themselves, and God alone disposes of everything (his view) (needs_source: he uses wording close to a verse that he does not name) ⁷.

The Sheikh says that fear and hope balance each other, and that good comes between them ⁸. He holds that a believer who feels God's presence does not fear anyone else, and that security settles within him through faith ⁹.

The Sheikh holds, as his own opinion, that a person who fears dismissal from work when he tries to enjoin good and forbid evil needs patience and resolve, and he counts this as a price that must be paid ¹⁰. He says that provision comes from God, not from the employer or the spouse, so fear of losing a job is misplaced ¹¹.