What’s the problem of saying this, and we talked about the dangers of that idea and that the real danger in this idea is that, we know that the Prophet (saws) was sent by Allah to teach the people what they needed to learn, so and what he came with was the Tawhid that was needed by the people, or that the people didn’t have at the time. So, we know also based upon that, that if Allah judged on the people at the time of the Prophet (saws), that they were disbelievers or kuffar, or that they were polytheists or mushrikin, that the Prophet (saws) came to bring the people away from that.
So, this is where we see the danger in saying that at the time of the Prophet (saws), the people didn’t believe in Allah at all, because then what this would lead us to say is that the Prophet (saws)
didn’t come to teach people to stop making Shirk and to worship Allah
Alone, but what he actually came to do, was to teach people about the
existence of Allah. If we accept this idea, then the next logical step
is that we would say that, as long as someone believes in the existence
of Allah, and that Allah created everything, and He is the Sustainer and
the Provider, and these types of Tawhid, that we called Tawhid
ar-Rububiyyah, that Allah is the Lord, then after that, whether the
person worships Allah or not, or whether her worships Allah Alone or
something with Him, that this wouldn’t affect their Islam, and it
wouldn’t affect their status in the Hereafter.
So, this is the danger in the claim that Quraysh didn’t believe in Allah at all, what we’re saying is that the Prophet (saws) was sent for a completely different reason and that the situation at the time of the Prophet (saws)
was a situation that was completely different than reality.
Alhamdulilah, we discussed some of the evidences that they use to try to
prove this, we mentioned four or five Ayat from the Qur’an and how they
try to use these things as evidence to say that they disbelieved in
Allah or they used to dispute the existence of Allah, or they
disbelieved in Ar-Rahman, or that most of them wouldn’t believe in Allah
to begin in and so on, and we discussed how they used them and the
refutation or response to these arguments.
“And this Tawhid, it is the meaning of your statement, La ilaha ila Allah because the ‘Ilah’ or the God is the One who is Sought out for these matters”.
So, meaning the types of Tawhid we talked about.
And:
“Whether
this person is an Angel or a Prophet, or a Wali, or a saint, or a Salih
person, or a tree, or a grave or jinn or something else. They didn’t
intend by the word Ilah that He was the One Who Created and the One Who
Provided and the One Who Sustained, because they knew that was for Allah
Alone. As was mentioned before (meaning the evidence that were
presented before) and at the time of the Prophet (saws),
what they meant when they would say the word Ilah was the same thing
that was meant by people nowadays (time of the author) when they would
say the word “Sayyid” (or Master).”
So,
people often would, in his time, and we see it nowadays with groups of
Sufis, that they’ll label people who they go to the graves and worship
them, they’ll label them as “Sayyid”.
“So, the Prophet (saws) came to them, calling them to the word of Tawhid, and it is “La ilaha ila Allah.”
So
this is what the author said on this topic, so what we need to take
from this or what we can call this section is that the Mushrikin, they
knew the meaning of La ilaha ila Allah, they knew the actual true
meaning of La ilaha ila Allah and this is why as we’ll see soon and
we’ll talk about in the future as well, why when they were called to say
La ilaha ila Allah, they refused because they knew what it entailed.
They knew that by saying this, they were accepting something that was
larger than just a statement, it actually had a general meaning and it
had an effect on their daily lives, and what they would be able to do,
and what they wouldn’t be able to do.
So,
this is what we’ll talk about today, is this statement of the author.
So, what we can say first is that, the “Ilah” or the God according to
Ahlu Sunnah wa’l Jama’ah, it means anything that is worshipped, or it
means anything that is intended with any act of worship, whether it’s
Salat or Zakat, or Hajj, or Fasting, or giving Sadaqah or making an
oath, or slaughtering, or any type of act of worship. So, this is the
meaning of the word “Ilah”, according to Ahlu Sunnah wa’l Jama’ah.
But
if we look to the word of “Ilah” or the word of God according to the
other groups, within Islam, or some that have actually left Islam,
whether it’s the Ash'ariyyah or the Jahmiyyah, or the Mu’tazillah, or
the Rafidah and others. What they say is that the meaning of the word
“Ilah” is the same as the word “Rabb” or same as the word “God”. So,
what that means is they say that, according to that, this comes back to
what we talked about a few weeks ago, that anyone who believes Allah
exists, then that’s sufficient for them to be Muslim, then they would be
sufficient for them to enter Jannah and to keep them away from the
Fire. So, this is the meaning of “Ilah” according to Ahlu Sunnah wa’
Jama’ah.
Well
if we understand the word “Ilah”, and we understand what an actual
“Ilah” or God is, then we come to understand what the meaning of “La
ilaha ila Allah” is, meaning that “There’s nothing that’s truly worthy
of worship or worthy of worship at all except Allah.”
So,
this is the definition of “La ilaha ila Allah”, according to Ahlu
Sunnah wa’l Jama’ah, but if we look to the meaning of “Ilah” or “La
ilaha ila Allah”, according to the Ash'ariyyah, or the Jahmiyyah, or the
Sufis and the Rafidah and the people who worship graves and the like,
then we see that, what they mean by the word “La ilaha ila Allah”, or
that statement, that there’s no one who’s able to create except Allah.
So, this again it comes back to the idea that they’ve restricted the
word “Ilah”, to have a different meaning than what it actually means
according to Ahlu Sunnah wa’l Jama’ah.
The next thing that the author says:
“And what is meant by that statement isn’t just the mere saying that statement”,
So,
meaning what is meant by “La ilaha ila Allah”, isn’t just saying “La
ilaha ila Allah.” Just saying it, in and of itself isn’t what is meant,
or isn’t what Allah sent the Prophet (saws) to teach the people. We know
this as well, because when the Prophet (saws)
came to Quraysh, and he called them to “La ilaha ila Allah”, they
didn’t say it. Even though it was leading to people leaving the
religion, and they were losing their power, and eventually it led to war
and the taking of their wealth and so on, and all these things were
happening, and all they had to say was just say it on their tongues, and
say “La ilaha ila Allah”, but they knew that this wasn’t what was meant
by it. They knew that this wasn’t the point of saying “La ilaha ila
Allah”, it was a statement yes, but every statement has a meaning, and
every meaning, there’s a point behind the meaning, it isn’t just a sound
that comes out of your mouth, there’s something that follows it,
there’s a belief behind it, there’s actions that are behind it.
So, then the author continues, and he says:
“Even the ignorant people of the Kuffar at the time, knew that the intention of this was to only worship Allah Alone, and to disbelieve or to disavow oneself from everything besides Allah.”
Meaning, they knew this was the meaning of the statement “La ilaha ila Allah.”
Then, the author mentions the verse in Surah Sa’d, when Allah said,
“For
when he said to them, “Say La ilaha ila Allah”, they replied, “Has he
made the Aliha (all the things that we worship) into One God? This is
something very strange.” [38:5]
And then he continues, the author he says:
“So,
if you know that the ignorant people from the disbelievers of Quraysh,
knew this meaning, then it is something extremely strange about someone
who claims to be upon Islam and he doesn’t know the meaning of this
word, the same level that the ignorant people of the kuffar knew the
understanding of this word. Rather, he thinks that just saying the word
on his tongue, and not having any belief behind it, this would be
sufficient for being accepted. And the smart one from amongst them
[meaning these people who claim to be on Islam now and, but they don’t
actually understand what Islam really is], would say that, it means that
“no-one Creates or Sustains, or does any of these types of things
except Allah.”
So,
he’s saying, the majority of people think it just means saying it with
your tongue, as long as you say it with your tongue, that’s sufficient
to be Muslim. But the smart one amongst them, and we’ll see how it’s
actually not smart, thinks that it means as long as you believe that
only Allah creates and sustains, that’s sufficient.
So, then he says:
“So, there is no good in a person who the disbelievers of Quraysh were more knowledgeable about the meaning of “La ilaha ila Allah” than him.”
All we need to refute this idea is that we say, what was the state of the hypocrites at the time of the Prophet (saws)? Allah said about them,
So,
anyone who tries to use these ahadith talking about the virtues of La
ilaha ila Allah or the ruling of someone who says La ilaha ila Allah,
just by the statement, then all we need to say in how they’re wrong in
their understanding if they say that, all that is this statement, is the
condition of the Mushrikin at the time of the Prophet (saws) or the Munafiqin at the time of the Prophet (saws).
Because if we say that, we only stick to the outward phrasing of these
hadith and say that, whoever says it, that’s all that’s needed, doesn’t
matter what they do, doesn’t matter what they believe, then according to
that, the Munafiqin would be in Jannah, and they would be at the same
level of Iman as all of the rest of the people, because they’ve said
what you need to do, or they’ve said what you need to say, in order to
be Muslim and fulfill all of those conditions. So, this is the first
group, or the way to refute the first group or argue against that first
understanding.
The second group is those who think that as long as you understand “La ilaha ila Allah”, in your heart or in your mind, then this is sufficient to be Muslim. If this was the case, then what other group was around at the time of the Prophet (saws) that would have been Muslim by having this understanding?
“So, there is no good in a person who the disbelievers of Quraysh were more knowledgeable about the meaning of “La ilaha ila Allah” than him.”
So,
we see from this, how there are some people who would claim Islam, and
claim to be calling to Islam and following Islam, but if we look at what
their understanding of “La ilaha ila Allah” is, and “La ilaha ila
Allah”, it’s not something that is a deep context in the religion that
would take after amounts of study, this is when you would come to learn
about “La ilaha ila Allah”. It’s the first thing that you say when you
enter into Islam, we say it daily, we say it in every Salat, it’s the
most basic aspect of Islam.
So,
he’s saying that there are people who claim Islam, but they know less
about the meaning of “La ilaha ila Allah”, then the disbelievers in the
time of the Prophet (saws)
actually knew about the meaning. So, this is what the author says, so
the author mentioned a number of people, he mentioned those who think
that this statement is just something that’s said upon the tongue and
they don’t know anything about the meaning of it. Then, he mentioned
another type of people, that they believe it has to do with whether
Allah created or not, or whether Allah exists or not.
So, the ones who say that it’s only on the tongue, so they’ll take certain ahadith, and they’ll say that, “The Prophet (saws) said, whoever says La ilaha ila Allah will enter Jannah”, or “Whoever’s last word in the dunya is La ilaha ila Allah, will enter Jannah”, or that the Prophet (saws) said, “I used to go to the markets and say, ‘say La ilaha ila Allah, and you’ll be successful.”
They’ll
use these types of statements and say, anyone who says La ilaha ila
Allah regardless of what they believe, regardless of what they say on
their tongue, regardless of what they do with their actions, this is
sufficient for the person to be Muslim and enter Jannah.
“Indeed the polytheists are in the lowest depths of the Fire, and you’ll never find any helper for them.” [4:145]
So,
we see from this, we know that the Munafiqun, they used to say La ilaha
ila Allah on their tongue, they used to perform the Salat, some of them
would give Sadaqah, they would go out and some of them would actually
perform Jihad, but not only are they in the Fire, they’re in the lowest
part of the Fire and what is the reason for this? Because the Iman
wasn’t in their heart.
The second group is those who think that as long as you understand “La ilaha ila Allah”, in your heart or in your mind, then this is sufficient to be Muslim. If this was the case, then what other group was around at the time of the Prophet (saws) that would have been Muslim by having this understanding?
We
just talked about them, Quraysh, because they knew, they knew the
meaning of La ilaha ila Allah, that’s why they wouldn’t say it. So, we
know obviously that if all that was meant was just understanding it,
then what was the point of saying it then, they refused to say it and
the Prophet (saws)
led to fighting them to say it, so obviously we know that just knowing
the meaning isn’t sufficient, and just saying it with your tongue isn’t
sufficient as well.
“Say: I seek refuge in the Lord of the people, the King of the people and the Ilah of the people.” [114:1-3]
So,
Allah differentiated between these, not that it’s a different entity,
Allah is all three of these, He’s the King over the people, He’s the God
of the people and He’s the Lord of the people, but these are different
characteristics. So, someone may accept Allah as their Rabb, but they
won’t accept Him as their Ilah, so just saying “I accept Allah created
everything, so that means that I accept Him as my God or as my Ilah”,
it’s a completely false statement, because there’s a difference between
the two. You can’t have one and not the other.
So, this is just a few comments on this that the author mentioned.
“If you know what I mentioned to you (all the things that have been discussed; Shirk and Tawhid) and you know it with your heart, and you know that Shirk, or making Shirk, or associating someone with Allah, which Allah said about, “Verily, Allah forgives not that partners should be set up with Him in worship, but He forgives everything less than that to whom He pleases and whoever sets up partners in worship, indeed he has invented a tremendous sin.” [4:48]
So, he (the author) says:
“If you come to know all these things that we’ve talked about, and you know that Shirk is the thing that Allah said this about, that He won’t forgive Shirk, but he’ll forgive everything that is less than that, and you know that the religion of Allah which He sent the Prophets with, from the first one until the last of them, and it’s the religion that Allah won’t accept anything or a religion other than it from anyone and you know that the majority of the people are ignorant about these issues, then this leaves you two points of benefit…”
“If you come to know all these things that we’ve talked about, and you know that Shirk is the thing that Allah said this about, that He won’t forgive Shirk, but he’ll forgive everything that is less than that, and you know that the religion of Allah which He sent the Prophets with, from the first one until the last of them, and it’s the religion that Allah won’t accept anything or a religion other than it from anyone and you know that the majority of the people are ignorant about these issues, then this leaves you two points of benefit…”
So,
what he’s saying is that, if we see that not having Shirk with Allah
and not performing Shirk, or performing Shirk, is the thing that Allah
said he won’t forgive and that staying away from Shirk is the religion
of Allah and the religion that He sent all of the Prophets with, and
that this is the only religion that Allah will accept from anyone, and
he won’t accept any religion other than this from the people, then if we
know this, there’s two things we can take away from this, or two
benefits we should see in this.
The first he says is:
“Being happy or being elated about the virtue and the mercy of Allah, and Allah said: “Say: in the bounty of Allah and His Mercy, therein let them rejoice, that is better than what they amass.” [10:58] And it also should give you extreme fear.”
So,
what the author’s saying here is that, if we see the benefits of
knowing the meaning of “La ilaha ila Allah”, and how the vast majority
of the people, first of all don’t even claim to be Muslims and then the
people who do claim to be Muslim, the vast majority of them won’t
actually know the real meaning of “La ilaha ila Allah.” If we learn the
real meaning of “La ilaha ila Allah” and we see how important it is, and
we’re able to understand what that actually entails, we should have two
things on our mind.
First
of all, we should be extremely happy with the Mercy that Allah and the
virtue that He gave to us, because He let us come to this understanding,
and come to learn this about our religion, and learn this about what He
sent His Prophets with. The second thing would be that we should have a
lot of fear about this issue.
So,
the first one is clear, he mentioned a verse from the Qur’an to explain
this or to prove this that the virtues and the mercy of Allah is
something that we should be very happy and thankful for, and the second
thing is having a lot of fear.
Another issue to mention here is that Allah mentioned in this verse that He doesn’t forgive any type of Shirk, and everything less than that, He would forgive. So, there’s two points here:
First
of all, if someone does a major act of Shirk, and this is what we
talked about in the last series, and the series before that, someone
worships other than Allah with a clear act of worship, they pray to
other than Allah, they fast for other than Allah, they slaughter for
other than Allah, they rule with the laws other than the laws of Allah.
They do something that is a major act of Shirk, this is something that
there’s a consensus that it would never be forgiven. So, if someone dies
upon this, then they would die as a non-Muslim and they would remain in
Jahannam forever. The issue, or where there’s a dispute is, when it
comes to minor Shirk, and we haven’t gone into minor Shirk very much,
we’ll talk about it in some other lessons, but if someone performs an
act of minor Shirk, and they die before they repent from that, is this
something that Allah would forgive, or would it require some punishment
in the Hereafter, whether in the grave or Jahannam, in order for it to
fall off a person or to be forgiven of or to be expiated off a person,
so, this is a matter of dispute. So insha’Allah, we’ll talk just a bit
about this now.
“Allah doesn’t forgive that any Shirk be performed with Him.” [4:116]
What
is meant here by the Shirk, is major Shirk, it doesn’t mean minor
Shirk, and they said that the context of the verse, it’s being mentioned
in the context of talking about disbelievers and the disbelievers in
the time of the Prophet (saws), and just disbelievers in general, so
it’s talking obviously about things that took someone out of the realm
of Islam or prevented them from entering into Islam to begin with. So,
this would be the meaning of the verse, that Allah wouldn’t forgive this
type of Shirk, or would only hold the person on major shirk, and minor
shirk is something that could be forgiven.
They also used the hadith of ‘Ubadah ibn Samit that he said, it’s a long hadith, but he said, “We swore allegiance, or we pledged allegiance to the Messenger of Allah (saws)
that we wouldn’t perform zina, or we wouldn’t perform fornication, or
we wouldn’t perform any acts of Shirk with Allah, but then whoever did
anything from that, and then the Hadd [punishment of the dunya] was
implemented upon him, then it would be a kaffarah, or an expiation for
him, and if Allah covered that and shielded him, and didn’t let people
know about that in the dunya, then if Allah wills, will punish him and
if He wills, he will forgive him.”
That
hadith is narrated by Imam Muslim in his Sahih, and Imam Ahmad in his
Musnad, so obviously it’s an authentic hadith, so what they said is
that, here the Prophet (saws)
obviously isn’t talking about major shirk because major shirk, it
doesn’t matter what happens to you in the dunya, you would die as a
non-Muslim, so there’s no expiation or kaffarah for major Shirk in the
dunya, so obviously the Prophet (saws)
isn’t talking about this type of Shirk. The type of Shirk he would be
talking about is the minor Shirk, so they say, the ones who argue this,
they say this is evidence that performing an act of minor Shirk should
be left up to Allah whether He will forgive you or not, and that it
would be similar to performing zina, or stealing, or drinking alcohol,
or the other types of major sins. So, this is the way they argue this,
and they use some other evidences as well and it’s the more widespread
opinion.
The
second opinion is that they said if you perform major Shirk, with minor
Shirk, it wouldn’t be forgiven with Allah, and the person would be
required to be punished in the Hereafter before that sin would be taken
off of them, and the argument that they use, is they use the same verse,
so Allah said,
“Allah doesn’t forgive that any Shirk be performed with Him.” [4:116]
“Abu Dard said or he reported the Messenger of Allah (saws) mentioned that, Allah said about himself, that if you were to come to me with the amount of the whole earth in sins, and then you came to me with not associating anyone with me or anything with me, then I would come to you with its amount (meaning amount of the Earth) with forgiveness.”
This hadith was also narrated by Imam Muslim as well. So, they argue that here the Prophet (saws)
when he was mentioning about Allah, again in this hadith it was a
general statement, it didn’t say major shirk, it didn’t say minor shirk,
it didn’t say “if you came to me as a Muslim”, because if it said that
then we would know that obviously it’s only referring to major shirk.
But “if you came to Me, not associating anything with Me at all”, the
word ‘anything’, if someone associates anything with Allah in a minor
way, have they associated something with Allah? They have, so just like
with something major.
So,
technically, it would fall under the meaning of this hadith as well.
Then they mention a number of other statements of the Prophet (saws)
arguing this point, that what is meant by this Shirk that won’t be
forgiven is any type of Shirk, whether it’s major or minor, and like we
said, this is a minority opinion, it was the opinion of Ibn Taymiyyah
and also the opinion of Ibn Qayyim and it was the opinion of a number of
the Imams of the Najdiyyah da’wah, so Muhammad ibn ‘Abdil-Wahhab and
some of the statements that he said and Abdur-Rahman ibn Qasim and some
of the others.
So,
even though it is a minority opinion, it’s definitely an opinion
amongst Ahlus-Sunnah wa’l Jama’ah, so it isn’t an opinion someone might
say this is an extremist opinion, or it’s going too far, or that it’s
the opinion of the khawarij, or the opinion of people who are too strict
on Muslimin, but in reality, many scholars of Ahlu Sunnah wa’l Jama’ah
have taken this opinion, they have clear evidence from the Qur’an, and
clear evidence from the Sunnah. So, even if someone doesn’t agree with
the opinion, this is a type of opinion where even if someone was to say I
don’t agree with it, it’s within the realm of Ahlu Sunnah wa’l Jama’ah
and it’s within the realm of an acceptable opinion, and it’s not
something that we would that this is going too far, or this is
unacceptable within the religion of Islam and myself, I’m convinced by
which is the stronger opinion, but it’s important to know the second
opinion.
Kashf ash-Shubuhat fit-Tawhid #4 [Transcribed] - By Shaykh Haytham Sayfaddeen
TO BE CONTINUED INSHA'ALLAH...
TO READ MORE, CLICK:
- Kashf ash-Shubuhat fit-Tawhid, PART-1
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