Divine Call for Building Unity, Avoiding Division
God Almighty has bestowed prominent virtues on us that go beyond color, race, land, and property and can connect us together; these are being human, following the rules of Islam, and confessing to the Oneness of God.
The Muslim Ummah today is now facing a big problem and enemies of Islam are trying to undermine the unity of Muslims by devising different plots with religious, linguistic, ethnic, and even historic themes.
Under these sensitive circumstances, it is necessary for Muslims to recognize the enemies’ plots as well as approaches to establish unity and to stay away from sowing division.
This unity is so important that the Holy Quran contains more than 50 verses about this topic and the reasons behind division.
“And hold fast to the Bond of Allah, together, and do not scatter. Remember the Favor of Allah bestowed upon you when you were enemies, and how He united your hearts so that by His Favor you became brothers. And how He saved you from the Pit of Fire when you were on the brink of it. And so Allah makes plain to you His verses, in order that you will be guided.” (Surah Al Imran, verse 103)
The verse invites believers to unity and notes that the Muslim community should maintain unity by clinching to Tawheed (monotheism); this is part of practical Tawhid.
The verse also points to the animosity between people before Islam, reminding them of the miraculous effect of the religion in bringing them together.
God Almighty invites all people, not just Muslims, to gather based on truth and abandon conflicts and divisions.
Thinking deeper about Quranic verses, one can recognize that avoiding division is one of the fundamental principles of divine calls.
There are also different interpretations about “Bond of Allah” which has been mentioned in the verse. Some experts believe it refers to the Holy Quran and others say it points to the Quran, Sunnah, divine religion, obeying God, pure Tawheed, and Wilayah of Ahl al-Bayt (SA).
According to orders mentioned in the Quran and Sunnah of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), if Muslims seek to be powerful, they should stress unity and protect the principles and values that originate from them.
This is why several approaches have been proposed to create and maintain unity including, referring to the Quran and Sunnah to solve differences, paying attention to deeds related to unity, strengthening correlations, creating an atmosphere for dialogue, and heeding moral obligations.
The Quran teaches us that if a group of people is not ready to cooperate with you on all divine goals, you should try to win their companionship for attaining major joint objectives.
