The Principle of Clarity of Vision

Occasion: Transcription of a Fajr khatira delivered on 31 December 2025 Source: A transcription of a video khatira by Dr. Ahmed Abouseif — Watch the original video on YouTube

I ask Allah, glory be to Him, the Exalted, not to deprive us of seeing these faces that have performed ablution for as long as we live, and to keep us among those who pray to Him, who are keen on obeying Him, and who constantly seek His good pleasure.

The Principle of Clarity of Vision

It is as though the verses recited to us in the Fajr prayer from Sūrat Fuṣṣilat are training us in a particular principle, the principle of clarity of vision: ﴿وَلَا تَسْتَوِي الْحَسَنَةُ وَلَا السَّيِّئَةُ ادْفَعْ بِالَّتِي هِيَ أَحْسَنُ فَإِذَا الَّذِي بَيْنَكَ وَبَيْنَهُ عَدَاوَةٌ كَأَنَّهُ وَلِيٌّ حَمِيمٌ﴾ (The good deed and the evil deed are not equal. Repel evil with what is better, and behold, the one between whom and you there was enmity will be as though he were a close friend.)^[1] It is as though the Lord of the worlds, glory be to Him, is pointing to a course of action that brings particular results. So I find myself before a straight line that I walk along without deviating from it; the scenes and the concepts do not become confused for me.

This is very important; for the people who cause the most collisions and accidents on the road are not those who drive fast, but the confused ones, to whom things become muddled, so they pay attention to more than one thing at the same time, and it is in the moments of heedlessness that accidents happen. You may find a person moving at great speed, swerving right and left and making all sorts of maneuvers, yet he is perfectly focused, and he reaches his destination on time.

Intention: The First Clarity

So we are before a system of legislation that preserves the Muslim's focus in life. Reflect from the beginning of your going out in the morning: why did you go out to the mosque today? Where are you headed? What will you do when you arrive at the house of Allah and stand before the Lord of the worlds? In your intention, you will pray two voluntary rak'ahs, then the prayer is called and you stand before Allah to pray two other rak'ahs, but they are different, not in form but in intention and in sequence. Accordingly, the matter of clarity of vision in the legislation of Islam begins at the beginnings, and it comes about with the intention: where are you setting out to, and where are you heading.

You know your intention when you pray, and you know your intention when you buy and sell, trade, work and hire; you know your intention when you shake a person's hand or withhold your hand from him; you know your intention when you deal with your parents differently from how you deal with others; and you know your intention as you live your ordinary life with your family. And this is just a very simple example.

Clarity of Vision in Relationships

Then we come to human relationships and the matter of clarity of vision: who is your enemy, and who is your friend? Is your vision clear? And what does clarity of vision give? That impurities do not get mixed in for a person.

When I see a husband dealing with his wife in a sour mood, with bad words and crooked expressions, I wonder: is he dealing with a friend or with an enemy? What is happening in this arena between the two parties? There is a kind of blurred vision; things have become mixed up for him, so he treats the friend as an enemy, and treats the beloved as an adversary. How does this come about? It is unclear vision.

Likewise, when you know in your life that you want to raise a Muslim child, fearing Allah, Blessed and Exalted, in your dealings with him just as you want him to fear Allah in his dealings with you, and, one day, in his religion, his community and his ummah, but the concepts get confused for you, so you spend on him materially and physically more than you spend on him in knowledge and psychologically. You bring him a great many purchases with which he adorns his outward appearance, yet you do not invest anything in him so that he might memorize the Noble Qur'an, or learn in a good school, or go to a righteous place, or have his body trained in some way. Isn't there in this a kind of confusion of concepts in our lives and a lack of clarity of vision?

Clear Vision in Your Day

So from the beginning, so as not to say too much: our Lord, glory be to Him, the Exalted, teaches us to have a clear vision: where we are heading, how we think about things, and what the products are that we have before us when we take any action or follow any course of conduct in our daily lives. Do we have, on this day, a list of the tasks that we will carry out?

Sometimes you sit at your desk wanting to get a certain matter done, then a phone call comes and your thoughts get muddled, then you look at this, then you turn to that. Such a person gets nothing done; what he began at the start of the day he finds at its end just as it was, unfinished. But there is another who closes all the notifications and all the distractions that might reach him from anywhere, closes them until he has finished with the first matter, and when he has turned its page and set it aside, he looks at the second. And this is what is called a task list.

Closing Supplication

I ask Allah, Blessed and Exalted, to show us what is before us, and to give us insight into what should be put right first. And I ask Him to mend our hearts in the work we carry out and in the life we spend, and to keep our eyes and our hearts open on one line only: the line of worship, and one direction only: that we worship Him alone, associating nothing and no one with Him. Amen.

--- ^[1]: Sūrat Fuṣṣilat, verse 34. Editor's documentation: the verse is given here as the speaker stated it, with the words "as though he were a close friend."