[إِنِّي خَشِيتُ] I was afraid [أَن تَقُولَ فَرَّقْتَ بَيْنَ بَنِي إِسْرَائِيلَ وَلَمْ تَرْقُبْ قَوْلِ] I was very afraid that you're going
to come back to me. And you're going to say to me that you have
divided between Bani Israel. You've divided between the Israelites.
[وَلَمْ تَرْقُبْ قَوْلِ] and you didn't listen to my statement and you didn't listen
to my advice to you okay? Now, what is happening over here? The
difference of opinion that occurred between the Israelites and the
Israelites was a group of people said that our Lord happens to be
this golden calf right here. Another group of people said, No,
no, no, our Lord cannot be a calf. That's what the people of the
pharaoh used to do. But we are different people, we worship God we
have a messenger and so on and so forth. So we're going to follow the
lead of our messengers, right? So there's two narratives occurring
over here. One of them is the narrative of a group of people who
wish to worship Allah and other than Allah. Another is a narrative
of a group of people who have fell for the traps of Samiri. So it's
not a joking matter here. The matter is the matter of belief and
disbelief, okay. These are people who are literally worshipping other
than Allah (swt). Now in the light of this factor, now that you know
the difference of opinion that occurred in the Israelites, they
are now worshiping other than Allah (swt) Haroon (AS) said that I was
afraid that you will say [arabic] I was afraid that you will say you
have divided between the Israelites if I walked to you, O Musa (AS) and
I came to you by the Tur by the Jabal of Sinai if I came there to
you, you would have told me that you've now divided up to the
Israelites because you brought 12,000 odd men along with you and
the rest of them, you've left them there. Now when we go back, they're
going to go to war with us and they're going to go into a battle
with us. Right. So Harun (AS) is preferring unity even if some of
the people happen to be disbelieving in Allah (swt). Okay,
because he realized that Musa (AS) when he gets back, he's such a
strong leader that he's going to be able to lead all, if not all, at
least most of the people out of that disbelief. So he chooses to
remain united with the people of Israel who were not worshipping
other than Allah, all of that. So when Musa (AS) returns back, right,
he will be able to unite everyone. And that is the reasoning he gives
as well. I know some people tried to twist this word for their own
personal, you know, they don't like the message of unity. So they say
no, this verse doesn't really mean that read it yourself. Haroon (AS)
is saying, I'm afraid you're going to say you have divided the people.
Because if I started fighting against them, and if I started
telling them, if I started basically becoming too loud against
dissent against the popular view, at that time, what would have
happened is people would have been divided, right? There would be a
group with me another group with Samiri so I thought, let's just
wait till you come and you sort things out, because you're a
stronger leader, right? So he's willing to live temporarily, not
forever, willing to live temporarily in a circumstance,
which actually has within a disbelief, not for himself, he's
not worshiping other than Allah not for his people, but he's willing to
keep himself silent. Now, what I'm trying to get to over here is the
fact that people today some people today, they are not willing to
remain silent on something which is a legitimate difference of opinion,
let alone something which happens to be so grave and so serious. The
reality is, we have to judge every single situation in its specific
scenario with all the different circumstances that surround it.
Sometimes we have to remain silent, even if there happens to be some
evil there. Yes, that's true. One may say, Oh, no, you didn't know
the Hadith of the Prophet (pbuh) that yes, I know the Hadith of the
Prophet (pbuh) and I know the ayat of Al Amr bil Ma'roof as well.
Right. But this is Haroon (AS) a messenger and he knows better than
both of us, but he decided to remain silent for a little while
because he knew that when the time is right, then we'll be able to
solve this particular problem.