The Arabs say:
“The masses follow the religion of their rulers.”
Go back in history to see what the rulers of old did & how their actions influenced their people.
Hajjaj bin Yusuf was a tyrant. He conducted a reign of terror with hangings, mass murders and imprisonment.
At the dawn of each day people would ask each other:
“Who was killed yesterday, who was hanged, who was whipped?”
The Umayyad Caliph, Walīd b Abdul-Malik, loved to build beautiful buildings and set up workshops & factories. During his reign, people cultivated the same tastes.
They built buildings, established workshops, dug canals and planted trees.
He was followed by Suleiman bin Abdul-Malik who loved good food and music. In his times people would talk of singers and concubines and matrimonial feasts and festivities.
Then came the blessed reign of ‘Umar bin ‘Abdul-‘Aziz, and radical change. All of a sudden, people would ask each other: How much of the Qur’an did you commit to memory? How many supererogatory prayers did you say the previous night?
How many days did you fast this month? How much of the Qur’an has so-and-so memorized? And when will so-and-so finish reciting the whole of the Qur’an?
[Nawadir min-at-Tarīkh 1/182]
Saheehus-Seerah 