The Fifth Aspect

This aspect explains how obstinacy and partisanship inflict great harm upon social life.

If it is asked: “A hadithA report of the sayings, actions, or approvals of Prophet Muhammed (pbuh). states,

اِخْتِلَافُ اُمَّتٖى رَحْمَةٌThe differences of opinion within my ummah are a mercy.

Yet does not difference itself require partisanship? Furthermore, although partisanship is a disease, does it not protect the oppressed masses from the oppression of the ruling elite? For example, when the influential classes of a town or village unite, they can exploit the common people. But where factions exist among them, the oppressed may find support and protection from one side and thereby escape the tyranny of the powerful.

Moreover, is it not through the clash of opinions and the conflict of ideas that the truth becomes fully manifest?”

The answer to the first claim: the “difference” referred to in this hadithA report of the sayings, actions, or approvals of Prophet Muhammed (pbuh). is a positive difference. It means that each person strives to improve and promote his own path and method, not to demolish or invalidate that of another, but rather to perfect and refine it. Harmful difference, by contrast, seeks the destruction of others through malice and hostility, and it is precisely this kind of difference that the hadithA report of the sayings, actions, or approvals of Prophet Muhammed (pbuh). rejects. Those who seize one another by the throat can never act positively.

The answer to the second claim: if partisanship is exercised in the name of truth, it may indeed serve as a refuge for those whose rights are being violated. But the partisanship of our age, driven by malice and selfishness in the service of the ego, functions as a shelter for the unjust and a source of support for wrongdoing. Indeed, if Satan himself were to approach a man consumed by hostile partisanship and lend support to his views, that man would invoke mercy upon Satan. Conversely, if a person with angelic qualities were to stand on the opposing side, he would treat him so unjustly as even to curse him.

The answer to the third claim: when the clash of opinions takes place in the name of truth and for the sake of reality, there is unity in purpose and principle, with disagreement existing only in the means employed. Such differences illuminate every aspect of the truth and thereby serve both truth and reality.

But when disagreement is waged in the name of the Pharaoh-like nafs-i ammārahThe aspect of the soul that incites a person toward evil and harbors negative traits and desires., by people driven by ostentation, self-display, and the pursuit of fame, then it does not produce flashes of truth but ignites the fires of discord and division. For while unity of purpose is essential, such people cannot find common ground anywhere. Since they do not act for the sake of truth, they are incapable of moderation and inevitably produce irreconcilable divisions. The condition of the world today bears witness to this reality.

In short, unless the exalted principles

اَلْحُبُّ لِلّٰهِTo love for the sake of Allah.

وَالْبُغْضُ فِى اللّٰهِTo dislike for the sake of Allah.

وَالْحُكْمُ لِلّٰهِJudgment belongs to Allah.

are adopted as the guiding principles of our conduct, discord and division will inevitably prevail. Indeed, if one does not say, “Love for the sake of Allah, dislike for the sake of Allah, and judge for the sake of Allah,” and does not make these principles the foundation of one’s actions, then even while striving to uphold justice, one will end up committing injustice.