- Chapter: Enjoining What Is Right and Forbidding What Is Wrong
Allah the Exalted says, “Let there arise from among you a community that calls to what is good, enjoins what is right, and forbids what is wrong; such are the successful.” (Āl ʿImrān 104)
He also says, “You are the best nation ever brought forth for mankind: you enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong.” (Āl ʿImrān 110)
And He says, “Accept what is easy, enjoin what is customary, and turn away from the ignorant.” (al-Aʿrāf 199)
And He says, “The believing men and believing women are allies of one another; they enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong.” (al-Tawbah 71)
And He says concerning the Children of Israel, “Those who disbelieved from among the Children of Israel were cursed by the tongue of David and Jesus, son of Mary; that was because they disobeyed and used to transgress. They would not stop one another from the evils they committed—how vile was what they used to do.” (al-Māʾidah 78-79)
[Explanation]
The author—may Allah have mercy on him—said, “Chapter: Enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong.”
The term maʿrūf (right) encompasses everything the Sharʿīah acknowledges and approves—verbal and physical acts of worship, outward and inward. By contrast, munkar (wrong) applies to everything the Sharʿīah rejects and prohibits among the various kinds of sins: disbelief, immorality, disobedience, lying, backbiting, tale-bearing, and so forth.
Enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong is obligatory; it is a communal duty (farḍ kifāyah). If a sufficient number undertake it, the goal is achieved; but if the required number fails to do so, the obligation extends to all Muslims, as Allah the Exalted says, “Let there arise from among you a community that calls to …”