Al-Risala (English), October 1984

sought to replace it with an “upright Islamic” one. The Muslims have thus been beset by seemingly irreparable internal strife and conflict. The supreme irony of this situation is that the verse of the Quran which the leaders of these movements use to justify their action is in fact warning the Muslims against the very disunity which has sprung from their disruptive policies. The verse is as follows: He has ordained for you the faith which He enjoined on Noah and which We have revealed to you, and which We enjoined on Abraham, Moses and Jesus, saying: ‘Observe this faith and be not divided therein.’ (42:13) These Muslim revolutionaries take the words “observe this faith” to indicate the establishment of an Islamic state. But they do not see that the opposite of observance of faith is cited as being “divided therein,” and this division is exactly what their efforts to establish an “Islamic state” are causing. Neither do they see that it is the observance of the religion of all the prophets—the basic tenets of faith that all of them taught—that is being enjoined in this verse not, quite clearly, the establishment of an “Islamic state,” which is certainly not a mission common to all the prophets. The Quran goes on to say (42:14) that “they became divided only after knowledge had reached them, out of envy among themselves.” Indeed it would seem that those who sow the seeds of disunity among their own ranks after both human experience and divine revelation have warned them of the dire consequences of their actions, can only do so for one reason alone: because they are envious of the power that is in others’ hands and seek to obtain it for themselves. They should know that power in the next, eternal world of God is for those who relinquish all pretence to it in this ephemeral world, and acknowledge the power of one God alone. □ Fleeing from fame In his later years, Saad Ibn Abi Waqqas used to take goats to graze. One day he was grazing his goats in a pasture far from Madinah when his son, Umer Ibn Saad, rode up. “What, have you turned into a shepherd with his flock while everyone in Madinah is caught up in affairs of government and politics?” he protested. “Quiet son,” Saad replied, striking his son’s chest. “I heard the Prophet say that God loves his God-fearing, self-sufficient and retiring servant.”