Tariq Mehanna
In Surat Al ‘Imran, v.103, Allah said: {“And hold fast all of you together to the Rope of Allah, and do not be divided among yourselves...”}
A thought on unity (upon truth) and its importance: I once went rafting with some brothers in a massive lake. We were four rafts in all, two to a raft. We each went our separate ways to all ends of the lake. A few of us weren’t taking it seriously and lost our paddles to the water. So, some of the rafts were depending on a single paddle. It suddenly became quite windy and chilly. One of the rafts sprung a leak, bringing freezing cold water into the picture. Each raft was attempting on its own to make it to a part of the shore that contained a clearing through which we could walk back to base, but the winds were blowing us everywhere except where to wanted to be, which couldn’t be countered with a single paddle’s worth of power. After literally 3 hours of this, we signalled and yelled to each other from across our respective corners of the lake that we were inescapably stuck. Finally, a genius among us yelled out: “If we can’t each make it on our own, let’s join together!” So we each made our way to the center of the lake, formed a caravan by having each raft link by hand to the one adjacent to it, and those who had kept their paddles began rowing in unison. Within fifteen minutes, we paddled as one entity to shore, and all caught the lesson:
The wind was able to overpower us while we were scattered, leaving us powerless to reach our destination. But once we joined together, our individual strengths were combined such that the wind couldn’t stop us. On their own, each raft had only one paddle at its dispense to power its movement, which is essentially useless. But once we joined with each other, each individual paddle became part of a greater whole that, when moved in unison, was able to accomplish what it couldn’t do on its own.
If we had not joined together, we would’ve been left scattered by the wind in that massive wilderness of a lake.
