wine,’ they would have replied, ‘We shall never give up wine.’ And had the first command been, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ they would have replied, ‘We shall never give up adultery.’ A chapter was revealed in Mecca to Muhammad—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—at a time when I was still a young girl playing:

“In fact, the Hour is their appointed time, and the Hour is more calamitous and more bitter.” ⦗54:46⦘

Surat al-Baqarah and al-Nisa’ were not revealed until I was already living with him.’ He (Yūsuf) said, ‘She then produced the codex and dictated to him the verses of the chapters.’

Now, when kufr (disbelief), fisq (flagrant sin), and ʿiṣyān (disobedience) become the cause of evil and aggression, it may happen that one man—or an entire group—commits a sin while others remain silent, failing to command the right and forbid the wrong; their silence itself becomes a share of the sin. Others might protest, yet do so in a manner that is itself forbidden, and that too becomes part of their sin. The result is division, discord, and harm—one of the gravest trials in every age—for the human being is ever unjust and ignorant. Wrongdoing and ignorance come in many forms: the wrongdoing and ignorance of the first party belong to one category, while those of the second and the third belong to others.

Whoever reflects on the trials that have erupted will realize that this is their root. He will see that all the turmoil that has arisen among the rulers of the ummah, its scholars, the kings and shaykhs who became entangled, and the masses who followed them—every one of those tribulations—goes back to this very source.

Into this fall the causes of misguidance and deviance, both religious and carnal desires: innovations in the religion and licentiousness in worldly life. Indeed, the causes of misguidance and deviance are innovations in the religion and moral corruption in the world, and these are shared traits that spread throughout the children of Adam because of the injustice and ignorance within them. Thus, through the sin of some people a man wrongs both himself and others—whether through fornication, sodomy, or the like,