Revive Your Heart: Putting Life in Perspective

part of the meaning of the root of the word 
waṣiyyah
. When the earth is bonded
together with its plant life. The implication of that in the word 
tawāṣaw
is that
they stay together with each other.

---

Now when you’re giving somebody truth, obviously they’re doing something
wrong and you’re telling them the truth; or maybe they’re falling behind and
you’re giving them advice. This means that this might create friction but Allah
embedded inside the language of the word that you have to stick with loved
ones. You can’t have one harsh conversation and give up on them. You can’t try
to give somebody advice and they blow up in your face and you’re like, ‘Forget
that, I’m not talking to them again’, ‘I hate my cousin. It’s over. He’s got a
temper problem’. No, no, no. 
Tawāṣaw
actually means they stay together with
each other for the purpose of committing to the truth. You can’t give up on
family, you can’t give up on friends and you can’t give up on other believers.
The 
āyah
didn’t begin with families; it began with: 
illā alladhīna āmanū
wa-
ʿamilū aI-ṣāliḥāt
. None of us gives up on the other one. None of us says about
the other one ‘They’re a lost cause’; and, by the way, this idea of 
tawāṣī
bi-l-
ḥaqq
; this is actually the building block of the Muslim community.
In a Muslim community sometimes there are people who make mistakes.
People that we know, in our community, we find out that they made a mistake.
They did something bad, they lost their temper, they said something they
shouldn’t have said, they sent an email they shouldn’t have sent or whatever, and
they are now, forever villains. ‘This guy man. Remember his email from 1998.
We cannot have him. He’s here again, oh, watch it!’ No, no, no. You don’t give
up on your people. Even if they made a mistake, you don’t give up. This is part
of 
tawāṣī
bi-l-ḥaqq
. You have to stick together. They say in Arabic: 
al-waṣiyy:
jara’id al-nakhl allatī yuḥzam bihā
—the bark of the palm tree has a certain
paper-like substance that comes out of it. They bind it together and make a rope
out of it that you can tie something with. That’s from the word 
waṣiyyah
also,
meaning you’re tied to each other because of the truth. The 
bā’
here could be 
bā’
al-sababiyyah
. 
Wa-tawāṣaw bi-l-ḥaqq
could mean: you are bonded to each other
because of your commitment to the truth. This is the quality of the people who
don’t fail. You know what Allah is telling us? If we don’t do this, we have
failed. This is the minimum, this is not a higher expectation; this is a minimum
requirement of 
tawāṣī
bi-l-ḥaqq
. We have to stick with one another.
Now another couple of things before I conclude. Another dimension of the
phrase 
tawāṣaw
in 
wa-tawāṣaw bi-l-ḥaqq
. Some students reading this, who are
learning Arabic, know the pattern in 
ṣarf
: 
tafāʿala
. 
Tafāʿala
is used when two