THIRD REMINDER. Yaumul Ithnayn, 2nd day of Rajab (Monday. 19th March). THE ROPE OF ALLAH. BismilLaahir Rahmaanir Raheem. Let's continue from today's reminders; So ALLAH is telling us that the cause of disputing would be the loss of courage and the strength would be gone and it will depart us, and the Prophet told us salla Allahu alahi wa sallam that his Ummah would divide into 73 sects, all are in hell except one, those who are following his footsteps and the footsteps of his companions. If you look around us, you will find that there are a lot of small nations and countries (muslims), but they are not united – and if you looked at the muslims in non muslims countries you will find them groups and sects (again they don’t have one to represent them and that is why people look down at them). That is why non-muslims invented what is known as ‘divide and conquer’ or ‘divide and rule’, and this is what they had done with the muslims, they are in every valley, spreading, not allowing themselves to join or to come or to became united, and this is what islam told us not to do. And one would maybe argue and say: “But we have different schools of thought, the companions differed, may Allah be pleased with them, even at the time of the Prophet salla Allahu alahi wa sallam”. Well, this is not what is meant by “do not dispute” and ”do not differ”. You cannot help but differ with another person, but this difference in opinion does not cause in you're hatred, enmity and fighting. The companions, may Allah be pleased with them, differed with one another, but they never fought over what they had differed on. You go your way, I go my way, the hearts are still pure and clean. This is what your intellect lead you to, and you have all the right to think differently, because you are a human being and you have the knowledge necessary to give you this ability to choose and to tell right from wrong. Yunus as-Sadafi, may Allah have mercy on his soul, said: “I debated with imam Shafe’I once, and we differed, and the following morning he came and he greeted me, he took my hand and he said: ‘Yunus, isn’t it possible that we differ and debate and yet still be brothers in islam?’” How wise imam Shafe’I was. This is the kind of difference that islam promotes, in the sense that we differ, but we all remain brothers, because the fundamentals are there, we all refer to the Quran and the Sunnah, we all respect the righteous predecessors of the ummah, of the scholars, we all respect the companions, so even if we differ whether to put our right hand over the left on the chest or under the belly, this is not a major thing, this is something that can be tolerated in islam; what it cannot be tolerated is that we differ and we start to throw labels and names at each other, though we are following the Quran and the Sunnah. Of course, if someone comes with a theory or an idea that contradicts the Quran and the Sunnah, we have to point out that to him, and if he still insists on following it, then we put him aside and ignore him, I am talking about us, those who follow the Quran and the Sunnah, those who share the same aqeedah, those who take their knowledge from the same sources – we should unite – and that is why I give to my brothers and sisters my sincere advice that we should put aside our differences and abide by the Quran and Sunnah, and whenever we have something that we dispute over we go and we refer to the scholars that we trust; and first and most of all is that we should have mercy upon each other and abide by the rope of Allah. May Allah keep guiding us all. Aameen.