They also used to worship Allah with a number of types of worship. We mentioned that, they would perform Hajj, and within the Hajj, Tawaf and they would fast in general, and specifically we mentioned that, they used to fast the fast of Ashura, and they would mention or remember Allah and perform Thikr of Allah, and they would make du’a to Allah, and they would give Sadaqah, and they would do many of these acts of worship, and they claimed that they were upon the religion of Ibrahim, but despite this, this wasn’t sufficient for them to be considered Muslimin.
So, we see from this, that the idea that the person believes in the existence of Allah, or they believe in some of the Attributes of Allah, or they worship Allah with false or even if it’s a correct type of worship, that all of these things, in an of themselves, and even all of these things combined together isn’t sufficient for the person to be considered Muslim. There’s more to Islam than that and even if a person claimed to follow the Prophet (saws) and they worshipped Allah, and they believed in the existence of Allah, but then they associated or performed an act of Shirk with Allah, that this would be sufficient for them not to be Muslim.
So, in the end, it isn’t sufficient to worship Allah, it has to be worship sincerely for Allah, and it can’t be with any sort of intermediary or any sort of partner with Allah, whether we’re saying it’s the same as Allah, or whether we’re saying that it’s an intermediary between us and Allah, that worshipping this person or this thing, so that they will intercede for us with Allah, that this isn’t an argument or this isn’t an excuse for these acts and it doesn’t make this forgivable or it doesn’t make them to be valid excuses.
So, we’ll move on and mention the next point that the author mentions, so after mentioning all these points, he says:
“If this becomes known to you, that they accepted all this”.
So, meaning, they accepted Allah exists, and that He’s the Creator and the Sustainer.
So, meaning, they accepted Allah exists, and that He’s the Creator and the Sustainer.
Then he says:
“But
this did not include them or enter them into Tawhid, or the Tawhid
which the Messenger of Allah (saws) called them to, and you know that
the Tawhid which they rejected was the Tawhid of ‘Ibadah, that which the
Mushrikin of our time have called belief (I’tiqaad). So, they used to
call upon Allah in the day and in the night but then some of them would
call upon, or perform du’a to the Angels, due to their Salah, or their
righteousness and their nearness to Allah, and that they would do so
that they would intercede for them. Or they would make du’a to a
righteous person or righteous man such as “Al-Lat”, or a Prophet like
‘Isa, and you come to know that the Messenger of Allah fought them due
to their Shirk and called them to make their worship sincere for Allah
Alone, as He said:
“And the masajid belong to Allah, so do not perform du’a to anyone with Allah.” [72:18]
And Allah said,
“For Him is the Word of truth, so whom they invoke or perform du’a to or worship besides Allah, will not answer the, except the way that one who stretches out his hand in order for water to reach his mouth but it reaches him not and the invocations of the disbelievers is nothing but an error” [13:14]
And then he [the author] continues:
“And when you have established that the Messenger of Allah (saws) fought them so that all of invocation (du’a) would be for Allah [alone], likewise making oaths for Allah alone, [ritual] sacrificing (dhabh) for Allah alone, seeking aid [in times of hardship] from Allah alone, and all the various forms of worship for Allah alone. And when you have come to know that their [mere] affirmation of Tawhid ar-Rububiyyah did not enter them into Islam, and that their seeking the Angels, or the Prophets, or the Righteous, seeking their intercession and seeking nearness to Allah through all of that was the reason that made their blood and wealth lawful. When you have come to know all of these affairs], then you will have come to know [the true nature] of the Tawhid which the Messengers invited to and which the Mushrikin refused to affirm and accept [which is the Tawhid of ‘Ibadah].”
“For Him is the Word of truth, so whom they invoke or perform du’a to or worship besides Allah, will not answer the, except the way that one who stretches out his hand in order for water to reach his mouth but it reaches him not and the invocations of the disbelievers is nothing but an error” [13:14]
And then he [the author] continues:
“And when you have established that the Messenger of Allah (saws) fought them so that all of invocation (du’a) would be for Allah [alone], likewise making oaths for Allah alone, [ritual] sacrificing (dhabh) for Allah alone, seeking aid [in times of hardship] from Allah alone, and all the various forms of worship for Allah alone. And when you have come to know that their [mere] affirmation of Tawhid ar-Rububiyyah did not enter them into Islam, and that their seeking the Angels, or the Prophets, or the Righteous, seeking their intercession and seeking nearness to Allah through all of that was the reason that made their blood and wealth lawful. When you have come to know all of these affairs], then you will have come to know [the true nature] of the Tawhid which the Messengers invited to and which the Mushrikin refused to affirm and accept [which is the Tawhid of ‘Ibadah].”
So,
this is the section we’ll begin talking about today, so the author here
is following up on what we talked about last week. So, he is explaining
that accepting the existence of Allah and worshipping Him with acts of
worship and attributing to Allah some of the things that are correctly
attributed to Him, that He is the Creator and Sustainer and so on, that
this isn’t sufficient to enter the person into Islam, just like it isn’t
sufficient for someone who was in Islam to only accept these things,
and to mix in acts of Shirk with this.
So, what he argues here, is he says that, when Allah said,
“And the masajid belong to Allah, so do not perform du’a to anyone with Allah.” [72:18]
“And the masajid belong to Allah, so do not perform du’a to anyone with Allah.” [72:18]
This
is, Allah giving us the forbiddance of worshipping anything with Allah
and the reason for this. So, the masajid here in this verse, the
scholars differ upon the opinion. So, the masajid, the main
understanding of what the masajid are, are the place where you go to
pray. The other understanding of masajid is the limbs in which you
perform Sujud.
So,
in any case, whether it’s either of the explanations of what masajid in
this verse means, in any case Allah is giving us the reason why we
shouldn’t make Shirk. So, if the masajid which are the houses of Allah,
belong to Allah, then why would we go to this House of Allah, then
worship someone other than Him. And if it’s the limbs which we perform
Sujud with, so meaning our hands, our knees, our feet and our head, if
these belong to Allah, then why would we use them in worshipping someone
other than Allah.
So,
this is the point here. Allah is giving us a forbiddance and He’s
telling us the reason why which Is only logical. If someone did this in
the dunya, if someone gave you something and you thanked someone, it
would be illogical for you to do so. Or if someone gave you something as
a present and you did something wrong to them with that present, you
insulted them with that present, this would be illogical even in the
dunya. So how about, when it’s not a person giving you something, it’s
Allah creating you and giving you these virtues and these bounties, then
you use them to worship other than Him. So, this is the meaning of this
verse.
Then what Allah said in the other verse,
“And the du’a, or the acts of worships of the kafirin are nothing but an error.” [13:14]
So, Allah is saying here that, the Mushrikin who claim to believe in Allah, or they might actually believe in Allah, the acts of worships that they do when they’re in this state, in the end they won’t benefit them. So, the fact that they claim something and do something based upon that claim because it’s not being fulfilled in the correct way, meaning that because these acts of worship are either being done with Shirk in them, or they may be doing something sincerely but then performing Shirk elsewhere, it invalidates all of these things, and it makes them worthless in the end, and we’ll talk about that in a bit more detail.
“And the du’a, or the acts of worships of the kafirin are nothing but an error.” [13:14]
So, Allah is saying here that, the Mushrikin who claim to believe in Allah, or they might actually believe in Allah, the acts of worships that they do when they’re in this state, in the end they won’t benefit them. So, the fact that they claim something and do something based upon that claim because it’s not being fulfilled in the correct way, meaning that because these acts of worship are either being done with Shirk in them, or they may be doing something sincerely but then performing Shirk elsewhere, it invalidates all of these things, and it makes them worthless in the end, and we’ll talk about that in a bit more detail.
So,
now just to talk specifically about some of the things that the author
said. I’ll talk about some of the words, or some of the sentences that
he used. So, it’s been confirmed from these Ayat and these hadith that
we talked about, that the kuffar accepted a number of things which we
also accept. So, the Rububiyyah or the Lordship of Allah. We also know
that they used to worship Allah and we know that the Tawhid that the
Prophet (saws) called them too, wasn’t to accepting the existence of
Allah, but it was to the worshipping of Allah Alone, and to leave any
types of Shirk, and we talked about this last week, when we said that
the Mushrikin used to say “Labayk Allahumma Labayk”, but then they would
add something to it, which was an act of Shirk. So, the Prophet (saws)
didn’t say, “It’s good that you’re doing this, we have this in common,”
no, he said “Stop where you are, stop”, he said in the hadith that we
talked about. So, he didn’t say that we have these things in common, or
this is good that you’re doing this, it was like stop no, the whole
thing is needed. It’s not sufficient that you do just part of it, you
need to have the whole thing, because it’s not something where part of
it is sufficient. If you do something good, but then you put something
within that goodness that invalidates the whole thing, then really in
the end, the whole thing was worthless. It isn’t something where you
could say, part of it is sufficient, or part of it will fulfill what
needs to be fulfilled. It’s an all or none when it comes to Tawhid and
Shirk.
So, the author mentioned a number of
things that the Mushrikin would worship besides Allah. So, we see that
Allah mentioned that the kuffar at the time or the Mushrikin at the time
would worship Angels, or Prophets, or righteous people with Allah.
The
important thing to look here is that, if we look at what the Mushrikin
used to do, when they were questioned about, why are you worshipping
these things, they wouldn’t say “Because we believe they’re creating
us”, or “because we believe that they have power.” It was because their
good, because the Angels are righteous, because Allah has bought the
Angels near to Him, and He has given them specific virtues, because of
their righteousness, instead of worshipping Allah directly, we worship
these things to intercede for us with Allah. But despite this, this was
sufficient for them to be considered Mushrikin. So, the fact that they
claimed that, they weren’t saying “We’re not worshipping Allah”, if you
look at it, they’re saying, “we accept Allah should be worshipped, but
these creations have a better chance with Allah than us, so we’re going
to do an act of worship for them, and this will bring us nearer to
Allah.”
So,
for a Muslim, we look at this as quite ridiculous and it doesn’t make
any sense, as Allah told us to worship Him, why are you worshipping
something then hoping that’s going to intercede for you with Allah. But
it is quite common nowadays, they might go to a grave and make du’a to
that person to make du’a to Allah for them. Or they’ll make a sacrifice
of an animal, and do it for so and so, whether it’s for their father, or
someone in a grave a saint, in some of the countries, this is
widespread, that they’ll go to certain places and they’ll slaughter at
that area and they’ll say this is for the person in the grave, so
they’ll intercede with Allah on our behalf. It’s common also, you know
they call them saints or they call them or a Sayyid, amongst many groups
of the Sufis, throughout the world, and it’s become quite widespread
Allahul Musta’an in our city now, or the groups of the Rafidah who make
du’a to al-Hasan or al-Husayn or Fatimah, or ‘Ali, or the Imams.
These
types of things become very widespread now, where to us when we look at
it, it seems ridiculous, but it’s being done by people who claim to be
Muslimin, even in our time. So, this is the importance of knowing this,
because if someone was ignorant, and they went to some of these people,
and they said what are you doing, and they said “I’m going to this
grave, because if I worship this person here, then he’ll intercede on my
behalf with Allah.” Someone who doesn’t know about Tawhid, doesn’t know
about Islam, their fitrah will be “I want to please Allah, if this is
going to please Allah then I’m going to do it.”
So,
people who aren’t aware of these things, can fall into this trap, just
out of ignorance of the Qur’an and the Sunnah, so they might think
they’re doing something good, but really in the end, this is the exact
opposite of what Allah told us to do. So, this as we see becomes a trap
of the Shaytan, that someone will think they’re doing something good,
when in reality not only is it not what Allah ordered us, it’s the
completely opposite with what He ordered us, and it’s the thing that the
Messengers came with to actually fight and eradicate.
So
the point of them doing this, there’s something behind, there’s an
ideology behind it, and what that is, is that, if we establish from the
Qur’an and the Sunnah that someone who claims Islam, might not actually
be Muslim, if they worship other than Allah, and we use these evidences,
this will have implications on people doing things they shouldn’t do.
If someone follows a certain methodology in which they perform acts of
worship for their Shaykhs, or they perform acts of worship for their
Sayyid’s or whatever they call them, and they claim to be Muslim and
they claim this is from Islam. When this evidence is presented to them,
that the Mushrikin used to do things very similar to what you’re doing,
that they accepted Allah as their Creator, but they worshipped other
than Allah, or they associated other than Allah in their acts of worship
that were for Allah, so they had a partner with them.
This
has implications on what they’re doing because then this proves now, we
can’t continue doing what we’re doing, we can’t claim to be Muslim, and
claim that we’re worshipping Allah, but then also associate these
people, or these shrines or these Angels, we can’t associate them with
Allah, so what is the argument they try to put forth in order to reject
this?
They
say no, the whole concept that you’re coming up with is wrong to begin
with. This isn’t what the Mushrikin used to do, the Mushrikin actually
didn’t accept Allah, so this is why the Prophet (saws) was sent to them,
it wasn’t to make them worship Allah Alone, it was to make them accept
Allah to begin with. And they try to use a number of Ayat to prove this.
“And when it was said to them, “Protrate to Ar-Rahman”, they would say “And what is Ar-Rahman, shall we perform prostration to that which you command us”. And it increases them only in aversion.” [25:60]
Meaning
they would turn away from it even more so. So the ones who try to argue
against this idea that we’re showing in the Qur’an and the Sunnah that
they can’t worship anyone with Allah, and this was what the Prophet
(saws) was actually sent with to the Mushrikin to clarify, they say, no,
they didn’t even believe in Allah to begin with, they didn’t accept
Allah.
“Thus
have We sent you to a community before which (other) communities have
passed on so you might recite to them that which We revealed to you,
while they disbelieve in the Most Merciful. Say, "He is my Lord; there
is no deity except Him. Upon Him I rely, and to Him is my return.”
[13:30]
So,
they say this is another verse that shows they disbelieved in Allah to
begin with. They didn’t even accept the existence or the Lordship of
Allah, it had nothing to do with worshipping someone other than Allah,
the Prophet (saws) was sent to inform them about Allah to begin with.
So,
they mention these two verses, but if we look at these verses and the
context in which it was revealed. If we look at some of the incidences
that took place during the lifetime of the Prophet (saws), we see that
what is meant in these Ayat, isn’t what these people claim that these
Ayat mean.
So,
first of all when they said, “What is Ar-Rahman?”, if we look to the
treaty of Hudaybiyyah in which the Prophet (saws) wrote a contract with
the kuffar, we see that in this hadith, that the Prophet (saws)
commanded ‘Ali (ra) to write down, “Bismillahi al-Rahmani al-Rahim”, on
the contract. At this point, Suhail, who was from the kuffar of Quraysh
said, “What is Ar-Rahman?, we do not know what Ar-Rahman is, but instead
write the name of Allah”.
Another evidence that they try to use is the verse in which Allah said,
“And the thunder exalts (Allah) with praise of Him - and the angels (as well) from fear of Him - and He sends thunderbolts and strikes therewith whom He wills while they dispute about Allah ; and He is severe in assault.” [13:13]
So,
they say here that, Allah mentioned here that, they actually dispute
the existence of Allah to begin with, so they argue that, “you claim
that the Prophet (saws) fought Quraysh and called them to Islam”, it
wasn’t because they were performing Shirk, it wasn’t because they were
worshipping a Prophet, or it wasn’t because they were worshipping their
elders or their ancestors, and it wasn’t because they were worshipping
At-Lat and Uzza, it was because they didn’t accept Allah to begin with.
So, they say the evidence is, “They are disputing about Allah.” So, they say this is evidence enough to prove this point.
There’s
a number of ways to reply to this. First of all, we know that the name
of Allah comes from “Ilah”, which is The One that is Worshipped, so
their disputing the worship of Allah, they’re not disputing the
existence of Allah. Secondly, the beginning of the verse is talking
about worship, “the thunder praises and glorifies Allah”, this is an act
of worship, “as do the Angels due to awe”. So, Allah here is mentioning
that these creations, so the thunder which is from Allah’s creation and
the Angels, which are from Allah’s creation, they’re worshipping Allah,
due to their knowledge of the power and the awesomeness, and the awe of
Allah, but the kuffar are disputing this.
They also try to use the verse when Allah said,
“Nor would he order you to take the Angels and Prophets as Lords.” [3:80]
So,
meaning that the Prophet (saws) wouldn’t come to the people and order
them to take the Angels and the Prophets as Lords. Allah is saying here
that the Prophet (saws) didn’t come to teach the people to take these
things as Lords, on the contrary, he was coming to teach the people to
take Allah as their Lord. So, if we look at this again, what’s mean by
“Ar-bab” here or “Lords” is, Gods. Allah sent the Prophet (saws) to take
the people worshipping other things, to worshipping Allah, not that he
came to teach the people to accept the existence of Allah, or to take
Him as their Lord.
Likewise,
if we look at it the context in which this verse in the Qur’an was
revealed, there’s actually a story behind it. So, the story for this is
that there was a group of the kuffar, specifically they’re Christians
from Najran, and they came to the Prophet (saws), and the Prophet (saws)
called them to Islam, so their response was, “Do you want us to worship
you?”, so they’re asking is it you that you’re wanting us to worship,
so Allah revealed this verse. So, we see from this verse, that the
Prophet (saws)
was being asked, should we worship you, so Allah revealed this verse
explaining that it would be impossible, or that the Prophet (saws) would come with Islam then call people to worship himself.
So, if we look at this, we can see that, of all the creation, we know that the Prophet (saws)
is the best of creation, he’s the best of the humans, he’s better than
any of the creation of Allah, so if there was going to be a creation
which would be the most logical, even though it’s not logical, but if
it’s not accepted to worship the Prophet (saws),
than how about a Prophet that isn’t at his status, and how about on top
of that, someone who isn’t a Prophet, he’s only a righteous person, and
if he’s not a righteous person, he’s a fasiq, and how about if he’s not
a fasiq only, he’s not even a Muslim.
So, if it’s unacceptable to worship the Prophet (saws)
and to perform du’a to him, and to perform oaths based upon him or
oaths to him, and to slaughter things on his behalf, all these things
are unacceptable for him, then doing it for your Shaykh, or your Sayyid
or your Imam, or doing it for a Prophet or anything else would be even
more unacceptable.
Or that, “Most of them don’t believe in Allah, except that they are Mushrikun.” [12:106]
So,
they say that here that most of them didn’t believe in Allah. But if we
look at this in the context, Allah is saying, most of them didn’t
believe in Allah, except that they added to this, acts of Shirk. So,
again this is something that is exactly what we’re saying, if someone
worships Allah, or believes in Allah, then they perform an act of Shirk
with it, it makes their claim invalid. And I’ll stop there in regards to
mentioning the Ayat that they use, but I just want to add a bit more as
to the reason for this.
We would say that the problem with this is, first of all it’s not reality, the Prophet (saws)
didn’t come to Quraysh to tell them Allah exists, this was something
that was well established amongst them, they knew Allah exists and we
proved this last week, the author talked about it. So, what is the fall
out of accepting this?
The
results of following this misconception is that people who accept that
Allah exists, and they accept that Allah is the Creator and they worship
Allah, regardless of what they do, regardless of whether they worship
someone other than Allah, these people would be considered Muslims, and
they would be afforded the rights of Muslimin, and we would treat them
as Muslimin, and we would make du’a for them for goodness and we would
give them all the rights of the Muslimin, and we would say that
eventually they would enter Jannah.
This is why it’s a problem, because if we’re saying that the only reason the Prophet (saws)
came was to tell people that Allah exists, the next steps of this is
saying that, all we really need to do to be Muslim is accept that Allah
exists, and that He creates everything, and that we do some acts of
worship for Him, regardless of whether we worship Allah in the masjid,
then we go out and go to graveyard and prostrate to a grave, or we bring
someone to the masjid, and we pray our Salaat, and after we put someone
in front of the masjid and everyone makes Sujud for him. If we accept
this argument that the prophet (saws) came to teach Quraysh that Allah
exists and that was the only thing he came for, that’s the result of
that, that’s what that argument would lead to, because then we’re saying
what Quraysh did was correct because once they believed in Allah, they
were upon the correct religion.
Kashf ash-Shubuhat fit-Tawhid #3 [Transcribed] - By Shaykh Haytham Sayfaddeen
TO BE CONTINUED INSHA'ALLAH...
TO READ MORE, CLICK:
- Kashf ash-Shubuhat fit-Tawhid, PART-1
- Kashf ash-Shubuhat fit-Tawhid, PART-2
- Kashf ash-Shubuhat fit-Tawhid, PART-4
- Kashf ash-Shubuhat fit-Tawhid, PART-5
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- Kashf ash-Shubuhat fit-Tawhid, PART-12
- Kashf ash-Shubuhat fit-Tawhid, PART-13
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- Kashf ash-Shubuhat fit-Tawhid, PART-15
- Kashf ash-Shubuhat fit-Tawhid, PART-16
- Kashf ash-Shubuhat fit-Tawhid, PART-17
- Kashf ash-Shubuhat fit-Tawhid, PART-18
- Kashf ash-Shubuhat fit-Tawhid, PART-19 (LAST)
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