A Word on the Condemnation of Division and the Exhortation to Unity and Adherence to the Book and the Sunnah

The Shaykh : The reality of the Muslim community today is what the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) spoke of before we saw what we have seen, and even before our forefathers saw the division, partisanship, and fragmentation in religion that occurred, contrary to the saying of the Lord of the Worlds: And as the Lord of the Worlds said in the other verse: The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) clarified these paths in the authentic hadith that depicted the division of the Muslims and the deviation of many of them from the straight path, as narrated by Abdullah ibn Mas'ud (may Allah be pleased with him), who said: "The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) drew a straight line on the ground for us one day, then drew short lines around it, and then recited the saying of Allah, Blessed and Exalted is He: " Then he (peace be upon him) passed his noble finger over the straight line and said: And he pointed to the short lines on the sides of the path, saying (peace and blessings be upon him): Thus, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) clarified in this hadith that the path leading to Allah, Mighty and Majestic, is only one path, and it is not as some Sufis, or at least some of the Sufis, claim or assert, that the paths to Allah, Mighty and Majestic, are as numerous as the breaths of creation. They used to say this in the past, but today the paths have multiplied into the multiplication of groups and parties, and every party is pleased with what is with them, even though all these Muslims today know the saying of Allah, Mighty and Majestic: And they also know the saying of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him): They said: "What is it, O Messenger of Allah?" He said: This is the famous and authentic narration, and the other narration, which explains the first, is where he said: His saying (peace and blessings be upon him) in this second narration, which is a good narration as I have clarified in some of my books, his saying (peace be upon him): defines the methodology of the single group and the saved, successful party, which is the one that takes what the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) and his Companions (may Allah be pleased with them all) were upon. Here is a point that I must mention on the occasion of his saying (peace be upon him): Because it is clear that if the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) had limited himself to saying: his answer would have been sufficient and adequate. But for a profound wisdom, he added to that and conjoined, saying: The wisdom is that the Companions of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) were all upon guidance from their Lord, because they received the revelation that descended upon the heart of their Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) fresh and green, as Allah, Mighty and Majestic, revealed it, before foreign concepts or desires that settled upon the hearts of some of those who came after the righteous Salaf, in the form of opinions and ideas contrary to and differing from what the Companions of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) were upon, could dominate its concepts and its implications. For this reason, he mentioned them and conjoined them to what he (peace and blessings be upon him) was upon, because he knew with certainty that his Companions would follow him completely. Likewise, the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) praised the generations that would come after his Companions (peace and blessings be upon him), and the sum of those generations is, as he (peace be upon him) stated in the authentic hadith, indeed the mass-transmitted hadith in my critique and in my knowledge and my tracking, which is his saying (peace and blessings be upon him): Some people narrate it with the wording "The best of generations is my generation," so I see it obligatory upon me to remind, for the reminder benefits the believers, that the wording of the authentic hadith is: These three generations are the ones to whom the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) testified to their excellence, and they are the ones intended by the noble verse, which is the saying of Allah, Mighty and Majestic: His saying, Blessed and Exalted is He, in this noble verse: is the source from which our Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) derived his previous saying: The point in this hadith is like the point in this noble verse, and in that is a clear indication that all Muslims in these later eras are not permitted to deviate from the path of the believers, the path of the first believers, because they were upon guidance from their Lord. For this reason also, the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) mentioned his Companions who are preferred over his other Companions, namely the Rightly Guided Caliphs, as came in the hadith of Al-'Arba' ibn Sariyah (may Allah be pleased with him), who said: The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: Thus, the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) mentioned, along with his Sunnah in this hadith, the Sunnah of the Rightly Guided Caliphs, with that point we referred to in the verse and in the hadith of the saved party. In all these three texts, there is a methodology that obligates Muslims in the present era to adhere to it and not be distant from it, as is the case with many of those who participate with us in calling to the Book and the Sunnah, but they differ from us in our methodology of returning to our understanding of the Book and the Sunnah to the understanding of the righteous Salaf from the Companions and the Successors and those who followed them. This is what every Muslim must adopt as his methodology so that he does not deviate from the path of the believers. It is not sufficient today for us to say "We are upon the Book and the Sunnah" and then differ in the understanding of the Book and the Sunnah. Returning to the righteous Salaf is a guarantee and protection from Muslims today falling into what the Muslims who came after the Salaf fell into, where they differed greatly. This is because, first, the texts of the Sunnah that clarify the Noble Qur'an were not available to them, as the Lord of the Worlds said: This is the first of the causes of the disagreement that occurred among the predecessors, even among some of the leading mujtahid scholars, ascetics, and righteous people. But there are other causes, which are the dominance of desires and personal opinions of some people, even if they had some knowledge, indeed asceticism and righteousness. Therefore, we say that there is no guarantee that Muslims will not deviate from the Book and the Sunnah except by returning to what our righteous Salaf were upon. I believe that the reality of the Islamic community today is their disagreement in their interpretation of some of the texts of the Book and the Sunnah because of their reliance on a methodology other than what we call the Salafi methodology. This is what we should know about the reality of the Islamic community today so that they can return to what the righteous Salaf were upon, and it is well known in the glorious Islamic history that Allah, Mighty and Majestic, honored them and established them on earth. This is what comes to my mind now in answer to this part of the question, which is the reality of the Islamic community. And before I move on to speaking about the causes of weakness, I want to hear from at least some of you to be reassured whether my speech and voice reached you clearly and distinctly, if Allah wills, so that I may continue the speech and the answer.

The questioner : Very clear, O our Shaykh.

The Shaykh : May Allah reward you with good. And I will continue, if Allah wills, by saying that the causes of weakness are many, and very many, according to the scholars. They all know, or at least some of them know, that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) gathered them together in a single phrase in the authentic, sound hadith narrated from him (peace and blessings be upon him), which is his saying: They said: "Or is it because we were few at that time, O Messenger of Allah?" He said: They said: "And what is weakness, O Messenger of Allah?" He said: And the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) spoke the truth. It is not hidden from any rational Muslim that love of this world is the head of every sin and the cause of every disobedience and calamity. How could it be otherwise, when it is that which drives people to stinginess with wealth and with the self, which they strive against in spending wealth that is precious to them and a self that is more precious than wealth? Therefore, he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: as reported in many books of the Sunnah, including the Sahih of Imam Muslim.