20 – Chapter on Guiding to Good and Calling to Right Guidance or to Misguidance

Allah the Exalted says, “and invite to your Lord” (al-Hajj 22:67); and He says, “Invite to the way of your Lord with wisdom and good admonition” (an-Nahl 16:125).

Explanation

The author—may Allah have mercy on him—states: “Chapter on guiding to good and calling to right guidance or to misguidance.” Guiding to good means that a person clarifies for people the beneficial matters that serve their religion and their worldly life; whoever guides to good receives the same reward as the one who actually does it. Calling to good is more specific than merely guiding, for a person might indicate and explain something without formally inviting others to it. When he does invite them, that is more complete and more virtuous.

A person is commanded to call to good—that is, to call to Allah—just as the Exalted says, “and invite to your Lord,” and at the end of the verse, “Indeed, you are upon sound guidance” (al-Hajj 22:67).

He also says, “Invite to the way of your Lord with wisdom and good admonition, and debate with them in the best manner” (an-Nahl 16:125); and He says, “Let there arise from among you a community that calls to good, enjoins what is right, and forbids what is wrong; it is they who will prosper. And do not be like those who split and differed after clear proofs had come to them; for such there is a mighty punishment” (Āl ʿImrān 3:104–105).

All these verses and others like them indicate that a person should be a caller to Allah. Yet such calling cannot be fulfilled unless the caller possesses knowledge of that to which he is inviting.