The middle community (ummat wasat)

The community is described in al-Baqara 143 as a middle community. Muhammad Rashid Rida notes that the exegetes explain "middle" as justice and excellence, and then reads the description as moderation between spirit and body and between extremism and neglect. ^{1 2}

The middle is justice and excellence, because going beyond what is required is excess and falling short of it is neglect, and both are a deviation from the right path. Rida reports from the Imam Ustadh two reasons for choosing the word "middle" rather than "excellent": that the one in the middle sees both extremes, and that the word carries an implication of causation, so the community is excellent because it is middle. ¹

Rida says that before Islam people were of two kinds: one dominated by materialism, and another dominated by pure spirituality that renounced the world. The Islamic community, however, combined the right of the spirit and the right of the body, and was given all the rights of the human being: the right of God, the right of the self, the right of the body and the right of people. ²

Rida holds that the community bears witness over people through its conduct, and that the Messenger bears witness for it to the extent that it conformed to his sunna. If it deviates from this path and falls to one of the extremes, the Messenger becomes a proof against it. ² Al-Baqara 2:143

The Sheikh says that the Prophet ﷺ's mission came at the middle point of the world, sharing day and night, with moderation in everything, even in trade, and that the law is moderate in everything (his view). ³

The Sheikh mentions that in some parts of the earth there are days with no night and days with no day, and that God sent the Prophet in the middle region of the world where night and day share the time, and he sees in this moderation in everything ⁴.

The Sheikh explains the word wasat through the image of a necklace: the central jewel is the most precious piece, the one that holds the other beads together. ⁶

The Sheikh says the religion is firm and is to be approached gently, and cites a hadith on moderation. He places the middle between excess and neglect, and describes Ahl al-Sunna as the people of the straight path. ⁵

He says a Muslim should be moderate in every matter, avoiding both dryness and excess, and that the community is a community of moderation. ⁷

He lists the traits of the moderate community as excellence, justice, ease, the lifting of hardship, wisdom and uprightness. ⁸

He holds that courage is the middle between recklessness and cowardice; he names a warrior from the early history of the Arabs, and cites a hadith on moderation in eating. ⁹

He says Islam opposes both miserliness and extravagance, and tells of a miser who refused to lend a needle to a prophet; he says the generous are near God, near Paradise and near people (needs_source: the story). ¹⁰

He holds that a person should balance serious work with rest, dividing his time between worship, family, relatives, funerals and celebrations. ¹¹

He tells a hadith about a rope tied between two pillars in the mosque for a woman who prayed until she was exhausted, and says the Prophet told her to pray within her capacity. ¹²

He holds that excess leads to neglect. He cites a Qur'anic passage against obeying one whose heart is heedless of God, and uses scattered grapes to describe a life lost to neglect. ¹³

He defines neglect as the opposite of righteousness, and says that deeds not grounded in knowledge and revelation have no value, and that speech about God must rest on revelation. ¹⁴

He distinguishes two kinds of sin: neglecting commanded acts, such as prayer, zakat and enjoining good, and committing forbidden acts, such as backbiting, gossip, lying and killing. ¹⁵

He tells a hadith in which the angels ask about a servant's voluntary acts to make up for what was lacking in his obligatory ones, and gives a warning to the person who habitually neglects the sunna. ¹⁶

He distinguishes an orphan who lost his father in childhood from a neglected child whose parents are alive but absent. ¹⁷

He tells a hadith on two extremes in the hereafter: a man who had every comfort of the world but no piety is dipped once in the fire and asked whether he ever saw comfort; a man who had hardship with piety is dipped once in Paradise and forgets his hardship. ¹⁸

He criticises those who judge the final state of people, assigning some to Paradise and others to the Fire or labelling them hypocrites and innovators; he counts this as excess and says that judging hearts belongs to God. ¹⁹

He criticises those who do not honour scholars or elders and those who cut ties of kinship, and calls these forms of both neglect and harshness. ²⁰

He criticises Muslims who do not observe time as Westerners do, and calls for keeping appointments tied to prayer times. ²¹

He holds that excessive sleep wastes a life, and works it out as eight hours a day, so that a person sleeps twenty years of sixty (needs_source: the figures). ²²

He criticises people who neglect the Qur'an and the sunna, meddle in others' lives and interfere in what does not concern them. ²³