and governance are beholden to these two groups. Sometimes they need them when an enemy attacks, undermining religion through disputation or worldly affairs through oppression; sometimes they need them when these same threats assail them from within; and sometimes they need them to deliver some of their number from the harm others inflict in religious and worldly matters. At other times, they live under their protection, somewhere no proponent of religious innovation can domineer over them and no governor oppresses them. This is only because there are scholars versed in arguments that confound the people of innovation and in governance that wards off oppression.

Hence the saying:

“Two groups, when upright, set the people right: scholars and rulers.”

Just as benefit comes through these two groups, so too does harm come from them, for religious innovation and oppression arise only among these two: those who hold scholarly authority and those who hold temporal authority. Thus, a number of the early generations, including al-Thawrī, Ibn ʿUyaynah and others, said words to this effect: whoever escapes the trial of religious innovation and the trial of rulers has escaped all evil. I have discussed this at length in al-Sirāt al-Mustaqīm (The Straight Path), when discussing His words:

“So they enjoyed their share, and you have enjoyed your share just as those before you enjoyed their share, and you have indulged in vain discourse as they did.”