Commentary
The author—may Allah have mercy on him—relates from al-Nuʿmān ibn Bashīr (may Allah be pleased with them both) that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “Straighten your rows, or Allah will cause your faces to diverge.”

The first clause is reinforced by three devices of emphasis: an implied oath, the prefixed lām, and the emphatic nūn. The phrase “or Allah will cause your faces to diverge,” meaning that if you do not align your rows Allah will make your faces diverge, is likewise strengthened by the same three means: the oath, the lām, and the nūn.

The scholars—may Allah have mercy on them—differed regarding what is meant by “divergence of faces.” Some held that it is to be understood literally: Allah would physically distort their faces, twisting their necks so that one man’s face would be turned the opposite way from another’s. Allah is capable of everything; He once transformed some of the Children of Adam into apes when He said, “Be apes,” and they became apes. In the same way, He is able to twist a person’s neck until his face is turned toward his back—this would be a tangible punishment.

Other scholars maintained that the intended divergence is intangible, namely, a divergence of hearts. The heart has its own orientation; when hearts unite upon a single direction, great good ensues, but when they differ the community splinters. Thus the divergence referred to here is the divergence of hearts, and this interpretation is stronger, as another wording of the ḥadīth states, “or Allah will cause your faces to diverge,” and in yet another narration: “Do not differ, lest your hearts differ.”