Many verses in the Qur’an extol the significance of the soul or nafs. In one celebrated passage, it states: By the soul and Him that formed it, then inspired it with its wickedness and God-fearingness. He is truly successful who purifies it, and he is indeed ruined who corrupts it. [91:7-10]

The Qur’an also offers this glad-tiding: But those who feared the standing before their Lord and curbed their soul’s desires, the Garden is their abode. [79:40-41]

The idea of curbing the soul’s passions and of seeking to purify it is reiterated in the following hadith: ‘There are three acts that, whoever does them will experience the sweetness of faith: one who worships God alone, for there is no true god but Him; one who pays his yearly zakat on his wealth with an agreeable soul – not giving a weak, decrepit nor diseased animal, but giving from his middle…

The Arabic word fitnah bears the meaning of trial, discord, affliction, temptation and civil war, and any other strife ‘that ruptures the community’s unity and pits Muslim against fellow Muslim.’1 As well as discussing the ageless and abiding fitnah of wealth, women and civil war, this blog piece will also reflect upon the fitnahs related to callers to misguidance, governments seeking to domesticate Islam and Muslim scholars, the active promotion and funding of warped understandings of our faith, and the fitnahs of sectarian violence and takfir. Our Prophet ﷺ said: ‘Before the coming of the Hour there will be fitnahs like patches of dark night. A person shall awaken in the morning a believer but by the evening become a disbeliever, or in the evening be a believer but by morning become a disbeliever; and people will sell their religion in order to acquire some portion of the world.’2

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1 – Fitnah of Wealth: We are reminded in the Qur’an:

Figure 1A: The crypt of Az-Zubair ibn Al-`Awwam, one of the ten promised Paradise by name.

Regarding the identity of who fits the definition of a Companion, Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal (d. 241 AH), the last voice of the first three generations and known as the Imam of Muslim Orthodoxy, mentioned that a Companion is, “As far as the use of the expression ‘companion,’ this is any Muslim who met the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, even for a moment.”[1]

Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal (d. 241 AH), said the following of the Companions and the Household of the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him:

“The Rafidah are those who disavow and renounce the Companions of Muhammad, the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, and they also curse and consider as low the Companions, along with…