Shaykh Saleh aal ash-Shaykh
Taken from Masaa’il Jaahiliyyah
The Mushriks of Jihiliyyah were split into various groups and parties, as well as practising various different religions. They perceived that splitting and not being subservient to others was a sign of honour and dignity, so they were proud in the fact that they were disunited. They all had their own methodologies and religions, some of them worshipped Angels, other worshipping pious dead people others didn’t do the above, rather they disbelieved in any form of resurrection. Other religions worshipped Esaa ibn Maryam and Uzair, believing them to be sons of God. Therefore Islam came and commanded us to be united upon the truth;
“He (Allah) has ordained for you the same religion (Islamic Monotheism) which He ordained for Nuh (Noah), and that which We have revealed to you (O Muhammad), and that which We ordained for Ibrahim (Abraham), Musa (Moses) and 'Îsa (Jesus) saying you should establish religion (i.e. to do what it orders you to do practically), and make no divisions in it (religion) (i.e. various sects in religion).” [42:13]
Shaykh al-Islaam Muhammad ibn Abd Al-Wahaab said in explaining this Aayah that “This Aayah give us a great principle, that is for us to be united and that unity was the call of the Prophets before us. The religion of all the Prophets is the same, they share the same beliefs and faith, so we need to be united on the true religion as the Prophets were and not to be disunited into groups and fractions.” The unity that we are referring to is to be united upon Tawheed and for this Ummah more specifically, to be united on the call that the Prophet Muhammad [Peace and Blessings of Allaah be upon him] came with.
One of the major forms of maintaining unity is detach ourselves from any form of Shirk or its people, this is because the core foundations of our religion is to uphold Tawheed. If the people were to differ in the matter of Tawheed and the core foundations of our religion, then undoubtedly division and disunity will appear, even from within the Ummah. If we look at the people of Shirk, they are all divided in their religion and this even extends to the disunity they have in their worldly affairs, this is because the core foundations of religion is based on Shirk, which creates disharmony in their religious and worldly affairs. Likewise, disunity in our worldly lives is also a cause of disunity in our religious lives and affairs.
For these reasons, Allaah has ordered us to be united and prohibited us from being disunited. Being united in our religious affairs is of two types; to be united in our religion and to be physically united for the sake of religion, both being as important as the other. The people of knowledge have explained that the command for being united in our religious affairs as well as our worldly affairs is based on the statement of the Prophet [Peace and Blessings of Allaah be upon him], “Being united is a mercy but disunity is a punishment.” And there are other narrations which are similar. The Prophet constantly commanded us to be different from the people of Jahiliyyah and on this occasion he [Peace and Blessings of Allaah be upon him] on this occasion was given one religion for us to be united upon. Likewise he [Peace and Blessings of Allaah be upon him] commanded us to obey the rulers and those in authority over us in order to uphold unity in our worldly affairs.
Allaah says, “And be not as those who divided and differed among themselves after the clear proofs had come to them. It is they for whom there is an awful torment.” [3:105] This ayah was revealed and addressing the Prophet [Peace and Blessings of Allaah be upon him] and his companions [May Allaah be Pleased with them all] ordering them to be different to the Jews and Christians that came before them, they differed to more than seventy-odd sects. The Jews split into seventy-one sects and the Christians split into seventy-two sects. For this reason Allaah commanded us to be united and to avoid any form of disunity, being united on Tawheed and holding fast to the Path of Allaah, not introducing a new religion, innovations or methodologies but to practice that which was revealed to his Prophet [Peace and Blessings of Allaah be upon him].
Allaah says in another ayah, “And hold fast, all of you together, to the Rope of Allah (i.e. this Qur'an), and be not divided among yourselves, and remember Allah's Favour on you, for you were enemies one to another but He joined your hearts together.” [3:103] This ayah encourages the Muslims to be united in our worldly affairs. Prior to Islam the people were disunited, each having different groups and leaders, so disunity in our worldly affairs creates disunity in our religious affairs. Sometimes disunity can start of as something minor and it increases and grows bigger until it becomes a wider problem. For example disagreement between individuals can easily grow and become a bigger problem, creating various groups and parties. So Allaah tells us to ‘and be not divided among yourselves’ so we shouldn’t be disunited on a smaller scale which will mean major disunity will not occur. So this ayah shows we should be united without our smaller communities and as a larger community, obeying those in authority over us.
These two are two major principles which are needed to support each other. The people of Jahiliyyah did not obey their rulers or those in authority which was a cause for various groups to exist, so these two are needed to support each other, obeying the rulers and being united in our religion. This is what the Shariah of Islam commands us all to sustain.
Muslims need to be united and not be split into various parties, in fact this is the way of the non-believers, “Of those who split up their religion (i.e. who left the true Islamic Monotheism), and became sects, [i.e. they invented new things in the religion (Bid'ah ), and followed their vain desires], each sect rejoicing in that which is with it” [30:32]
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