And I Command You With Five

Then the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said: wa ana āmurukum bi-khams — and I have five commands to give you. The Messenger of Allah spoke about the five commands of Sayyidunā Yaḥyā; now the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) wants to give his five commands: Allāhu amaranī bihinna: al-jamāʿah, wa-s-samʿ, wa-ṭ-ṭāʿah, wa-l-hijrah, wa-l-jihādu fī sabīli Allāh.

The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) says: and I command you five things. Number one, jamāʿah: be with the community, the community of the Muslims. And this means that you stick to the Muslims who are going to support you on al-ṣirāṭ al-mustaqīm. You need to be part of that community.

Wa-s-samʿu wa-ṭ-ṭāʿah: and you listen, and you obey. You listen means that whenever the commands of Allah (swt) are given, you listen attentively, with the intention to follow — not with the intention to argue against them, or to find a way out. You listen, and you obey. Al-samʿu wa-ṭ-ṭāʿah: you hear the command of Allah, and you say: I obey, and I accept.

Wa-l-hijrah: and you make hijrah — and this is mansūkh; this order is abrogated, because after the Fatḥ of Makkah there is no more hijrah; it is jihad. And then the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) says: wa-l-jihādu fī sabīli Allāh — and jihad for the sake of Allah (swt), in the path of Allah.

Fa-innahu man fāraqa al-jamāʿata qīda shibrin fa-qad khalaʿa ribqata al-Islāmi min ʿunuqihi, illā an yurājiʿ. And then the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) says: and whoever leaves the jamāʿah, the Muslim community, by a span of a hand, has taken Islam off his neck. If you imagine Islam as a collar, you have taken it off. And then the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) says: except if he comes back.

And then he says: wa man daʿā bi-daʿwā al-jāhiliyyati fa-innahu min juthāʾi jahannam, wa in ṣāma wa zaʿama annahu muslim — and whoever raises the banners, and the slogans, and the mottos of Jāhiliyyah, then he will be in the Hellfire. Daʿwā al-jāhiliyyah is nationalism, and al-ʿaṣabiyyah: the zealotry of nationalism and tribalism. Islam is now a new identity. It's a new identity for us.

So the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) says: fa-dʿū bi-daʿwā Allāhi allatī sammākum bihā al-muslimīna al-muʾminīna ʿibāda Allāh — call them with their name: al-muslimīn, al-muʾminīn, ʿibād Allāh. Give them the identity of Muslims and muʾmins, believers, the servants of Allah. That's who we are. We are al-muslimūn, al-muʾminūn, ʿibād Allāh — and that's the identity we are proud of.

And the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) says: whoever brings up these banners of Jāhiliyyah — these nationalisms, or tribalisms, or whatever you're going to call them, or sectarianism — is min juthāʾi jahannam: he will be part of whatever is dumped in the Hellfire. So it is a matter of faith. This gets into the central belief of al-walāʾ wa-l-barāʾ: that our loyalty goes to the faithful and the believers, and we have nothing to do with the ones who reject the message of Allah (swt).