Then, having cited the Prophetic reports about Muslims following the ways of those before them, the author sets the two principles side by side and says:

“He informed us that within his community there would be a resemblance to the Jews and Christians—the People of the Scripture—and a resemblance to the Persians and Romans—the non-Arabs.”

The Prophet—may Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him and his family—used to forbid imitating both groups. Moreover, this is not a statement about the entire Ummah, for it is mass-transmitted from him that:

“There will never cease to be a group from my Ummah manifest upon the truth until the Hour is established.”(1)

He also said, peace and blessings be upon him and his family: “Allah will not allow this Ummah to agree upon misguidance,”(2) and, “Allah will continue to plant in this religion people whom He employs in obedience to Him.”(3)

From his truthful words we understand that:

“In his community there are those who cling to his guidance, which is pure Islam, and there are those who lean toward a branch of Judaism or a branch of Christianity. A person is not declared an unbeliever for every deviation—indeed, he may not even be considered sinful—because deviation may amount to disbelief, or to grave sin, or to lesser disobedience, or merely to error.”(4)

Accordingly, although what the Ummah has fallen into—and will yet fall into—of imitating other nations is a decree of Allah that cannot be repelled, this does not mean that the Muslim should surrender to that decree. Rather, he is required to take the preventive means, for Allah, exalted is He, has warned us against the path of the unbelievers and commanded us to grasp the firm handhold, to set things aright, and to enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong, just as the emergence of a faction of