Allah The almighty addresses us in the Quran in a very beautiful verse, which requires a lot of time to goes through, which unfortunately we don’t have. Allah The Almighty says: “And hold fast all of you together to the rope of Allah and be not divided among yourselves”. This is an instruction of Allah Azza wa Jal to hold tight, to abide by His rope, and one would argue: “What type of rope is Allah’s Azza wa jal telling us to abide by?”
Well, the Sunnah explains, interprets and elaborates on the Quran, which without the Sunnah we will not be able to fully comprehend the Quran. The Prophet salla Allahu alahi wa sallam explains the meaning of the rope of Allah. He says the Book of Allah is the extended rope of Allah the Almighty, it is the strong rope of Allah the Almighty from the heavens to the earth, so the Quran is the rope of Allah that we should abide by, the Sunnah is also part of the rope of Allah that we must abide by and as Ibn Masoud (may Allah be pleased with him) said: “It is also the Jammah”. The majority, the unity of the Ummah, this is the rope of Allah Azza wa Jal.
As Muslims, or as humans on this earth, we are facing a great danger, in the morning we wake up happy to be Muslims, unfortunately there will come a time when in the evening those Muslims among us would turn on their backs and they would become kafir or non-muslims, as the Prophet salla Allahu alahi wa sallam warned us from.
If we look around us, we find a lot of those who used to be prominent muslims have unfortunately went back on their heels and they rejected what they had believed for so many years. So many muslims who used to call others to things that were elementary from the Quran and Sunnah, now they’re having second thoughts unfortunately, and some of them may have turned into hypocrites or non-muslims altogether – and that is why we must avoid falling into the traps of Sheytan, by abiding by the rope of Allah Azza wa Jal.
And if we look to at this beautiful description, it gives you the idea that you are walking a thin line, you are walking over something that is very sharp and narrow and you are about to fall down; however, there is a rope next to you that you are holding to and walking this thin line with the grace of Allah Azza wa Jal, and to abide by Allah’s rope is found in the Quran and in the sunnah as well.
Allah the Almighty says in the Quran (translation of the meanings): ”And verily this is my straight path, so follow it and follow not other paths for they would separate you away from Allah’s path”.
SubhanAllah, the Prophet salla Allahu alahi wa sallam, was sent and he remained in Makkah for 13 years, he did not teach the Muslims how to pay zakat, he did not tell them about the rules and regulations governing inheritance for example, he did not talk to them about fiq issues, for 13 years he had been implanting in them the love of Allah Azza wa Jal, he was teaching them how to know Allah Subhana w Taala, how to worship Allah with his beautiful names and attributes. After these 13 years, when he migrated to Medinah, he came to a city that was devastated by wars and eternal disputes.
He found that the Ansar, who came to support him, were divided into al Aws and al Hazraj, and they had an hundred years old feud among them. The minute that he set foot in Medinah, he started to gain confidence of the people of Medinah and he worked relentlessly on making them fell the bond of brotherhood among the Muslims, so all the wars between the Aws and Hazraj were removed subhanAllah, by the grace of Allah and they were only known as the Ansar, no sub-tribal names -the Ansar- and that is it. Also he did the same with the Muhajirin, the migrants who came from Makkah with nothing, he made the brotherhood bond between them and the Ansar, so from each one from the Muhajerin he assigned one from al-Ansar, not to take care of, but to be his brother and in the case that one of them would die, the other would inherit him, so it was full brotherhood. And that is why Islam prevailed, with the grace of Allah, and that is why they were able to conquer the world and to have all these surrounding nations and empires coming to Islam and we are seeing the fruits of that nowadays, all due to grace of Allah and after that due to their unity.
And like Abdullah ibn Masoud (ra) said: “Unity it is beneficial (khair), while disputing is evil”. He said this when he rejected the idea that Uthman ibn Afan (ra) would pray in mina during the Hajj season dohor, asur and isha four rakkats instead of shortening them, and he said that this it was not the doing of the Prophet salla Allahu alahi wa sallam, and he was adamant to show to people that this was wrong. And whenever the iqamah was called for the salah and Uthman would pray four rakka’s, he would pray behind him four rakkas, though he should have prayed two, and when his companions talked to him they said: “How did you say that this is not the Sunnah, yet you are following him?”.
Abdullah Ibn Masoud said these words that history records until today. He said: “Dispute is evil”
And Allah Azza wa Jal forbade us from disputing. He says:
“And obey Allah and his Messengers, and do not dispute with one another, lest you lose courage and your strength depart and be patient“.
So Allah is telling us that the cause of disputing would be the loss of courage and the strength would be gone and it will depart us, and the Prophet told us salla Allahu alahi wa sallam that his Ummah would divide into 73 sects, all are in hell except one, those who are following his footsteps and the footsteps of his companions.
If you look around us, you will find that there are a lot of small nations and countries (muslims), but they are not united – and if you looked at the muslims in non muslims countries you will find them groups and sects (again they don’t have one to represent them and that is why people look down at them).
That is why non-muslims invented what is known as ‘divide and conquer’ or ‘divide and rule’, and this is what they had done with the muslims, they are in every valley, spreading, not allowing themselves to join or to come or to became united, and this is what islam told us not to do.
And one would maybe argue and say: “But we have different schools of thought, the companions differed, may Allah be pleased with them, even at the time of the Prophet salla Allahu alahi wa sallam”.
Well, this is not what is meant by “do not dispute” and ”do not differ”. You cannot help but differ with another person, but this difference in opinion does not cause in you hatred, enmity and fighting. The companions, may Allah be pleased with them, differed with one another, but they never fought over what they had differed on. You go your way, I go my way, the hearts are still pure and clean. This is what your intellect lead you to, and you have all the right to think differently, because you are a human being and you have the knowledge necessary to give you this ability to choose and to tell right from wrong.
Yunus as-Sadafi, may Allah have mercy on his soul, said: “I debated with imam Shafe’I once, and we differed, and the following morning he came and he greeted me, he took my hand and he said: ‘Yunus, isn’t it possible that we differ and debate and yet still be brothers in islam?’”
How wise imam Shafe’I was. This is the kind of difference that islam promotes, in the sense that we differ, but we all remain brothers, because the fundamentals are there, we all refer to the Quran and the Sunnah, we all respect the righteous predecessors of the ummah, of the scholars, we all respect the companions, so even if we differ whether to put our right hand over the left on the chest or under the belly, this is not a major thing, this is something that can be tolerated in islam; what it cannot be tolerated is that we differ and we start to throw labels and names at each other, though we are following the Quran and the Sunnah.
Of course, if someone comes with a theory or an idea that contradicts the Quran and the Sunnah, we have to point out that to him, and if he still insists on following it, then we put him aside and ignore him, I am talking about us, those who follow the Quran and the Sunnah, those who share the same aqedah, those who take their knowledge from the same sources – we should unite – and that is why I give to my brothers and sisters my sincere advice that we should put aside our differences and abide by the Quran and Sunnah, and whenever we have something that we dispute over we go and we refer to the scholars that we trust; and first and most of all is that we should have mercy upon each other and abide by the rope of Allah.