Enjoining Good and Forbidding Evil: The Importance of Enjoining Good and Forbidding Evil
Practical Laws of Islam as per the teachings of Ayatullah Sistani
Among the most important religious obligations are enjoining good (al‑amr bil‑maʿrūf) and forbidding evil (al‑nahy ʿan al‑munkar). Allah the Exalted states in the Noble Qur’an:
وَلْتَكُنْ مِنْكُمْ أُمَّةٌ يَدْعُوْنَ إِلَى الْخَيْرِ وَيَأْمُرُوْنَ بِالْمَعْرُوْفِ وَيَنْهَوْنَ عَنِ الْمُنْكَرِ وَأُوْلٰئِكَ هُمُ الْمُفْلِحُوْنَ
There must be a nation among you summoning to goodness, enjoining good, and forbidding evil. It is they who are felicitous.[1]
It has been reported that the Most Noble Messenger (Ṣ) said:
لَا تَزَالُ أُمَّتِيْ بِخَيْرٍ مَا أَمَرُوْا بِالْمَعْرُوْفِ وَنَهَوْا عَنِ الْمُنْكَرِ وَتَعَاوَنُوْا عَلَى الْبِرِّ فَإِذَا لَمْ يَفْعَلُوْا ذٰلِكَ نُزِعَتْ مِنْهُمُ الْبَرَكَاتُ وَسُلِّطَ بَعْضُهُمْ عَلَىٰ بَعْضٍ وَلَمْ يَكُنْ لَهُمْ نَاصِرٌ فِيْ الْأَرْضِ وَلَا فِي السَّمَاءِ
My nation will always be with good as long as its people enjoin good and forbid evil and assist one another in righteousness. If they do not do that, then blessings will be taken away from them and some of them will impose their rule over others, and there will be no helper for them on the earth or in the sky.[2]
It has been reported that His Eminence Amīr al-Muʾminīn [Imam ʿAlī] (ʿA) said:
لَا تَتْرُكُوْا الْأَمْرَ بِالْمَعْرُوْفِ وَالنَّهْيَ عَنِ الْمُنْكَرِ فَيُوَلَّى عَلَيْكُمْ شِرَارُكُمْ ثُمَّ تَدْعُوْنَ فَلَا يُسْتَجَابُ لَكُمْ
Do not abandon enjoining good and forbidding evil; otherwise, the evil people among you will take charge over you, and then when you supplicate, you will not be answered.[3]
-Ayatullah Sistani, Practical Laws of Islam, Enjoining Good and Forbidding Evil
Āl ʿImrān (Chapter 3), verse 104.
M. Ḥ. al-Nūrī, Mustadrak al‑Wasāʾil wa Mustanbaṭ al‑Masāʾil, Qum: Muʾassisah Āl al-Bayt ʿAlayhim al-Salām, 1987, vol. 12, p. 181.
M. Al-Raḍī (compiler), Nahj al‑Balāghah, Qum: Hijrat, 1993, Letter 47 (Ṣubḥī al-Ṣāliḥ arrangement).