anger. He then said, “The nations before you were destroyed only because they differed about the Book.”
The Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—thus attributed his anger to the fact that discord over the Book was the very cause of the ruin of those who preceded us. This obliges us to avoid their path explicitly in this matter and, by extension, in others as well.
As the Qur’an explains, disagreement is of two kinds. The first is where both parties are condemned, as in His words:
“They will never cease to differ—except those upon whom your Lord has mercy.” (Hud 11:118–119)
Here the people of mercy are excluded from dispute. The same sense appears in:
“That is because Allah has sent down the Book in truth, yet those who differ concerning the Book are in far-reaching schism.” (al-Baqarah 2:176)
and in His saying:
“The People of the Book did not differ until after knowledge had come to them, out of sheer envy among themselves.” (Al ʿImran 3:19)
and in:
“Do not be like those who split up and differed after clear proofs had come to them.” (Al ʿImran 3:105)
(1) The words min al-umam (“of the nations”) are omitted in Mss. A and Ṭ, most likely through a copyist’s oversight.
(2) Reported by Muslim, Book of Knowledge, chapter: Prohibition of pursuing the ambiguous verses of the Quran, hadith no. 2666 (4/2053).
(3) In Mss. A, J, D, and Ṭ the blessing “sallallahu ʿalayhi wa-sallam” is omitted.
(4) The printed edition reads: “He was the cause of the destruction of those before us.”
(5) That is: we must avoid their way of disputing about the Book, whether the prohibition is textually explicit or implicitly designated. In other matters as well we must keep away from them, both because of the general ban found in other texts and because the principle of qiyas (analogy) brings under the prohibition everything for which no specific text exists. Some passages lay down a blanket ban, while others make particular exceptions; the author has detailed all of this throughout the present work, which revolves around that very question.
(6) The printed edition reads: “that it is blameworthy.”
(7) Quran, Hud 11:118–119.
(8) Quran, al-Baqara 2:176.
(9) Quran, Ali ʿImran 3:19.
(10) Quran, Ali ʿImran 3:105.