What is the ruling of the Shari'ah regarding the proliferation of parties, groups, and organizations that differ in their beliefs and the foundations upon which they were established?

The questioner : He saysThe questioner : What is the ruling of the Shari'ah regarding the proliferation of these Islamic groups, parties, and organizations, given that they differ among themselves in their methodologies, styles, calls, beliefs, and the foundations upon which they were established? This is especially so because the group of truth is one, as the hadith indicates.

The Shaykh : We have many words and much to say regarding the answer to this question, and therefore we will summarize our speech and say: It is not hidden from any Muslim who knows the Book and the Sunnah and what our righteous predecessors (may Allah be pleased with them) were upon, that partisanship and clustering into groups with differing ideas first, and differing methodologies and styles second, is not of Islam in any way. Rather, that is what our Lord (Mighty and Majestic) has forbidden in more than one verse in the Noble Qur'an, among which is His saying (Mighty and Majestic): So our Lord (Mighty and Majestic) says: Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) has made an exception from this difference, which is a cosmic necessity and not a Shari'ah requirement, by excluding the merciful group when He said: There is no doubt and no ambiguity that any group which strives with great care and sincerity for the sake of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) to be among the merciful nation excluded from this cosmic difference, has no way to reach that and achieve it practically in the Muslim society except by returning to the Book and to the Sunnah of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), and to what our righteous predecessors (may Allah be pleased with them) were upon. The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) clarified the methodology and the sound path in more than one authentic hadith from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family): that he drew a straight line on the ground one day, and drew short lines around it on both sides of the straight line. Then he recited the saying of (Blessed and Exalted is He): Then he (peace and blessings be upon him) recited the noble verse: and he passed his finger over the straight line and said: And these are paths on the sides of the straight line, and he (peace be upon him) said: There is no doubt that these short paths represent the many parties and groups. Therefore, it is obligatory for every Muslim who is eager to be truly of the saved sect to proceed walking the straight path and not to take to the right or the left. There is no successful party except the party of Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He), about which the Noble Qur'an informed us: .
Yes, so then every party that is not the party of Allah is only of the party of Satan and not of the Most Merciful. There is no doubt and no ambiguity that walking on the straight path requires knowing this straight path with correct knowledge. That does not happen merely by blind clustering and partisanship on a word that is the word of true Islam, but they do not understand of Islam except a little. So the correct, successful partisanship is not possible except by knowing this Islam as Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) revealed it to the heart of Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him). For this reason, one of the signs of the saved sect, which the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) explicitly stated when he was asked about it, is: So then this hadith indicates to the researcher who is eager to know the straight path of Allah that it is necessary for him to be knowledgeable about two very, very important matters:
The first: what the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) was upon, and the second: what his Companions (peace and blessings be upon him) were upon. This is because the noble Companions are those who transmitted to us first his guidance (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) and his Sunnah, and second, they are those who applied this Sunnah practically in the best way. So we cannot know the Sunnah of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) with correct knowledge except through the path of his Companions. It is known to the people of knowledge that the Sunnah is divided into verbal, practical, and ratifying Sunnah. The verbal Sunnah is very clearly defined as what the Companion transmitted from his saying (peace be upon him). The practical Sunnah is what they transmitted from his actions (peace and blessings be upon him and his family). As for the ratifying Sunnah, it is what they transmitted from some of them, not from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family), but the Messenger of Allah saw that action and remained silent about it. This silence is not from his saying (peace be upon him) and not from his action, but from his ratification.
From here, it arises in my mind to draw attention to the importance of this addition that we are discussing on such an occasion, which is that it is not sufficient for any Islamic group that truly belongs to acting upon the Book and the Sunnah to limit themselves to understanding Islam based on the Book and the Sunnah only. Rather, it is also necessary to know the application of the Companions of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) of this Sunnah. There are many, very many examples by which the importance of this addition can be clarified. I have mentioned in some lectures or answers models of them, and now another example comes to mind, which is what came in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sunan Abu Dawud and others from more than one path, that when the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) ordered his Companions to straighten the rows when they stand for prayer, al-Nu'man ibn Bashir and others said: This is an action that occurred from the Companions (may Allah be pleased with them) as their application of the order of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) to straighten the rows. And it is certain and without doubt that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) could not have been unaware of what his Companions did behind him, behind his back, while they were praying following him. It is not possible that this alignment, which his Companions (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) applied in executing his order to straighten the rows and align in the rows, was hidden from him. This is because among his specialities (peace be upon him) and his miracles is that he, while in his prayer, could see those behind him as he sees those in front of him. If this straightening of this alignment, aligning the feet and aligning the shoulders, had not been prescribed, it would have been an excessive effort. And if it had been an excessive effort, the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) would have forbidden them from it, because there is an authentic hadith that he (peace be upon him) forbade excessive effort. And if it is said that it is possible that that was hidden from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family), I say that the door of possibility is very wide, but what we are dealing with is not from this door for two reasons. I mentioned one of them just now, which is that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) could see those behind him as he sees those in front of him. The second reason, and the most important, is that if it is assumed that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) did not witness this matter that his Companions did behind him in prayer, then the Lord of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family): nothing is hidden from Him on earth or in the sky. So what we said just now about the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him and his family), whose only function is to convey from Allah (Mighty and Majestic), it is even more fitting and more appropriate to say that about the Lord of the Prophet (Blessed and Exalted is He). It is said, if our Lord (Mighty and Majestic), as we indicated just now, quoting from the Qur'an: nothing is hidden from Him on earth or in the sky, and Allah (Mighty and Majestic) did not want to legislate for His believing servants this alignment in the rows for the sake of the order of His Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) to forbid them from this excessive effort. So it should not be imagined by the Muslim that his (peace be upon him) silence about something is except that our Lord (Mighty and Majestic) is aware of it. And consequently, the ratification of Allah for His Prophet regarding this is legislation. From here we arrive at pointing to some matters in which there was disagreement in the past in some jurisprudential rulings between the Hanafis and the Shafi'is, where one of the two groups argues with what occurred in the era of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family), and the other responds that this which occurred does not indicate that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) was aware of it, so that it can be said that he was aware and ratified it. With the preceding speech, this response from some of the followers of the schools of jurisprudence is refuted.
I will give you an example, or more than one. It is reported in Sahih al-Bukhari that Mu'adh ibn Jabal (may Allah be pleased with him) used to pray the 'Isha' prayer and saw the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) in his mosque, then he would go to his tribe and pray that same prayer with them. The narrator of the hadith, who is Jabir ibn 'Abd Allah (may Allah be pleased with him), says: "It was a voluntary prayer for him, but an obligatory prayer for them." Some of the early scholars cited this hadith as evidence for the permissibility of a person who has an obligation praying behind a person who is performing a voluntary prayer. Some of the followers of the schools of jurisprudence rejected this, saying that this is not a proof because it does not state that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) knew that Mu'adh would return to his tribe after praying behind him to pray the same prayer, which was voluntary for him and obligatory for them. I think you now know the answer, because we say that if the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) did not actually know that Mu'adh was repeating this prayer as a voluntary act, then our Lord (Mighty and Majestic), as we said earlier: So if Mu'adh's action had not been prescribed, the ruling would have come from the sky clarifying its lack of prescription.
Another example, and we will keep it brief. I have listed these examples because of the importance of this observation, which we rarely find clearly and explicitly stated in the books of the scholars. It is reported in Musnad Imam Ahmad, al-Mustadrak of al-Hakim, Sunan al-Bayhaqi, and other books of the Sunan from Jabir (may Allah be pleased with him) as well, who said: meaning we killed her. Here is an interjected sentence, which I hope is short. This hadith does not contradict the hadith in which the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) forbade the killing of women and children, because the prohibition applies in one context, and this killing mentioned in Jabir's hadith has another context. The prohibition applies to the killing of women who did not participate in fighting the Muslims, and the indication of this is the children, for the children are not among the fighters. Therefore, Jabir's (may Allah be pleased with him) statement that "we found a woman from among the polytheists in that expedition" means that she was among the fighters. He said: It is well known that the Arabs had this knowledge of following tracks, by which they discovered the refuge of the Messenger in the cave on the day he intended to migrate from Makkah to al-Madinah. The track indicated to them that the Messenger (peace be upon him) had reached this place because the track ended. But Allah blinded their sight, so they did not see the Messenger (peace be upon him) and his companion in the cave, while his companion saw the feet of the polytheists. He feared not for himself, but for his Prophet, so he said: