METHODOLOGY OF ENJOINING RIGHT AND FORBIDDING WRONG

Enjoining right and forbidding wrong is done sometimes with the heart, sometimes with the tongue, and sometimes with the hand (i.e. physical force). As for practicing it with the heart, it is obligatory upon everyone in every time and situation, since its practice brings no hardship. whoever fails to do even that is not even a believer as in the full version of the previously cited hadith:

“Whoever of you sees wrong being committed, let him rectify it with his hand, if he is unable, then with his tongue, and if he us unable, then with his heart, and this is the weakest of faith — or in another version: beyond this there is not a single mustard seed’s weight of faith (iman).

Ibn Masood was once asked:

“Who are the living dead?”

to which he replied:

“He who does not acknowledge the right as such, and does not reject the wrong.”

He is referring to the person described in the following agreed-upon hadith who consistently failed to reject wrong when tested. The Prophet said:

“Tests are shown to the hearts like a straw mat, straw by straw. Whichever heart accepts them, and absorbs them, gets a black spot placed on it, and whichever heart rejects them, gets a white, clear spot on it. This goes on until the hearts are of two types: a heart which is white, smooth, and clear like a polished stone which will not be harmed by further trials or tests for as long as the heavens and the earth last, and another dark and blemished; it is like a hook turned over the wrong way on which nothing can be hung – it neither acknowledges what is right nor rejects what is wrong, except for that which happens to coincide with its lusts and inclinations with which this heart has become fully absorbed.”