Sayyidi wa sanadi Shaikh Mufti Mohammad Taqi Usmani (Allah preserve him) said,
‘My respected father (Mufti Mohammad Shafi’,Allah have mercy on him) used to say in context of the Quranic verse:
[O you who believe, fear Allah, and be in the company of the truthful.]
In his tafsir Imam Razi (Allah have mercy on him) said that there is a prophecy in it for the future generation to come until the Day of Judgment.
The explanation is that it is our fundamental belief that the injunctions of Quran are to be followed in all environments and circumstances till the very last day. Then how is it possible that the Quran will order us to do something that is not possible. If the pious ceased to exist then how their company can be achieved. This proves that the truthful and pious (sadiqeen) will always exist so their company is available to achieve taqwa.
He further added that it may be possible that they are less in number and difficult to discover. However, this does not negate their existence. Just take the every day examples. These days corruption and contamination of food is rampant. It is difficult to find unadulterated common day items such as sugar and flour. In spite of this none of us have abandoned their use and settled for substandard alternatives. We actively search for places from where good quality stuff can be purchased.
Similarly, search actively for pious and inshaAllah you will find them.
However, do not set your standards very high.
For people of our caliber pious individuals like Shaikh Junaid Baghdadi or Shaikh Abdul Qadir Jilani or Shaikh Moin ud Deen Chishti (Allah have mercy on them) are not essential. Our islah (spiritual reformation) can be effectively done by the pious present in our era.
Waaz, Ramadan 1432