So,
last week we went over or we began speaking about the general way that
we refute these evidences, that they try to bring from the Qur’an and we
call it general for a number of reasons, so the first reason is that
it’s general, it doesn’t go into the specific evidence that’s mentioned
by the people who are trying to call to this Shirk.
What
we said last week was that the general rules that we know in the Qur’an
and we know in the Sunnah, that Allah has forbid Shirk and that Allah
has forbid making du’a to anyone other than Him. So, regardless of what
evidence the person brings, even if the general person or the laymen or a
person who doesn’t have a lot of knowledge on the issue, even if he
doesn’t know how to refute this evidence specifically, he can always go
back to this general rule, which is that Allah has forbid Shirk, and he
can say, “I don’t understand or I can’t refute or discuss this specific
evidence that you’ve bought, but I know that in general these things are
forbidden in Islam, so whatever you’re trying to argue, must be wrong.”
So, if we have a general rule, we can use this to refute these ideas in
a general manner.
Secondly,
we call it general because it doesn’t just relate to the issue of Shirk
and kufr, it relates to the issues of bid’ah and it relates to the
issues that come into the Asma wa’l Sifat or the Names and the
Attributes of Allah, and it comes in many different areas in the
religion, that if we have a general rule and we understand what’s the
basis or what’s the most basic issue or ruling on this topic, then we
can use this rule to always go back to, and it will always be a way that
can help us.
With
regards to these types of rules, firstly as I said, it’s a type of rule
that can go and it can affect all matters of the religion. Secondly, it
can be used by someone who’s a scholar, but it can also be used by
someone who’s a student of knowledge, and it can also be used by someone
who’s from the lay people, from the ‘awwam and that he doesn’t really
have knowledge on specific issues, so it isn’t restricted to one level
of knowledge. Another point on these general rules is that it doesn’t
benefit others.
So,
what I mean by this, if someone comes and says that this is matter of
Shirk, or this you can make du’a to other than Allah, and they bring an
evidence, if a person uses just a general rule to refute this, all this
does is benefit them themselves. It doesn’t really teach other people
why it’s wrong, and it doesn’t really teach other people how to stay
away from this matter. So, like we mentioned last week, the evidence
that some of the people who worship graves, and the Sufis and the like,
what they mention from the Book of Allah is they say that, Didn’t Allah
say,
“Indeed, the ‘Awliya or the allies of Allah do not have any fear or they not grieve.” [10:62]
So,
this is what the author mentioned, or this is the misconception that
the author mentioned. We can also use this general rule, or this general
way of refuting things as a way, or we can use it in other areas of the
religion. For example, if someone tries to argue and say that the issue
of hijab or the issue of the veil is something in jahiliyyah, and all
it was, was a custom, it wasn’t part of the religion.
Likewise,
people nowadays for example will look at what’s going on a number of
countries, or the Muslimin are being fought, and they’ll say look what
these people are doing, this must show that the idea of Jihad or the
idea of defending yourself in general must be something wrong, and it
must not be from the religion, and what’s their evidence, they’ll say
“they did this and they did this,” and they’ll bring this general
misconception to try to argue against what the Muslimin are doing.
“And
this answer is very good, direct and strong, however none understand it
except those whom to Allah the Most High has granted success. So do not
belittle this answer.”“Indeed, the ‘Awliya or the allies of Allah do not have any fear or they not grieve.” [10:62]
So,
because of this, because they’re at the highest level, it makes more
sense to make du’a to them and they’ll make du’a to Allah for us. So, as
we said last week, the general refutation of this is to say that we
know that Shirk isn’t allowed in general so obviously making du’a to
other than Allah isn’t allowed in general, so this can’t be allowed.
Specifically, how to refute this verse, the person may not know how, but
this would be a general rule that would be enough to at least keep
himself safe, it wouldn’t benefit other people, because someone else
might say, “you didn’t really show me how this is wrong.” But the very
least, if you have general rule, this can show or this can keep the
person safe in and of themselves. So, this is some points when we talk
about the difference between a general refutation, and a specific
refutation.
The
person might not know how to specifically refute these things and say
that this argument isn’t correct, but in general they would be able to
say that, we know that there’s evidence in the Qur’an and evidence in
the Sunnah that this is from Islam, so because of this I know whatever
you’re saying is wrong, I may not know how to specifically refute what
you’re saying, but I know that this concept in general is incorrect.
So
a person might not be able to say “I know that this is wrong because of
this…”, so they might not be able to refute each individual thing, but
what they could say in general is “I know that this is something that
Islam came with, and I know that the people who perform these actions
are considered from the highest people in the religion of Islam, so
everything that you accuse thereafter, I know there must be something
wrong, and there must be some misconception that you have, and it must
not be completely the way that you’re doing it.”
This
is something that people can use as a general rule, and likewise this
general rule can also be used for other things with halal and haram. So,
they’ll have a store and they’re selling something that’s haram, it’ll
be pork, or it’ll be cigarettes or whatever the matter is, and they’ll
say, “no, it’s mixed with halal and haram”, or “it’s my business, I’ll
lose my business and so on”, and they’ll bring these things that they
consider to be rules, or that they’re trying to use as an argument to
try to prove these things, but the person might not be able to say I
know this argument is wrong because of this, they might not be able to
go through each one and argue it, but they can say it in general, “I
know Allah forbid these things, and I know that Allah wouldn’t forbid
something and permit it at the same time, so because of this, I know
whatever things you’re bringing, they must be wrong.”
So, these are just some issues to show that there’s general refutations and there’s specific refutations.
After that, the author finished this sub-section and he said that:
So, these are just some issues to show that there’s general refutations and there’s specific refutations.
After that, the author finished this sub-section and he said that:
This
is a very good answer, but most people will not understand it, except
those who Allah has given tawfiq to, or success too, so do not take it
as something light. Don’t look at the general refutation as being
something that we should take lightly, we should look at it being it’s a
great matter in the religion and it’s something that if it benefits
people and protects them in their religion, then it’s something that
shouldn’t be taken lightly. So, the fact that someone knows how to do
this and knows how to protect themselves, don’t take it lightly.
“And none will understand it except those who are patient, and none will understand it except those who have a great portion.” [41:35]
Meaning
that, even though to some people being able to refute things with
general statements, might look like not a big deal to some people, in
reality it really is a big deal, so someone being able to look at an
issue and say “I can’t refute every aspect of this, but I know it’s wrong in general”,
this is a great matter, it’s a very important thing, because it stops
the person from falling into Shirk, or maybe falling into matters of
innovation or bid’ah, or maybe falling into issues of major sins. So,
this is where the author left off, so where the author finished talking
about the general refutations of these misconceptions.
“And as for the detailed reply, then verily the enemies of Allah have many objections against the religion of the Messengers, by which they hinder the people from it. Amongst these objections is their saying: “We do not associate any partners with Allah, rather we testify that none creates, nor provides, nor benefits, nor harms except Allah alone, who has no partners. And that Muhammad (saws) cannot bring about any benefit for himself and nor bring about any harm, let alone the likes of Abdul Qadir and those like him. But I am a sinner and the Righteous have position and status with Allah, hence I ask Allah though them.”
As
for the specific answer, then the enemies of Allah have many arguments
that they use against the religion of the Messengers, which they use to
try to stop the people from coming to it. For example, when they say “We are not performing Shirk with Allah, rather we testify to La ilaha ila Allah…’” To the end of what he said there.
So,
here if we look at this, we’re going into the specific arguments people
use to try to defend themselves. So, as we talked about before there’s
many people, and it’s even spreading in this city Allahul Musta’an, and
they call on other than Allah, they call on the Prophet (saws), or
they’ll call on their Shaykhs or whatever they call, and some of them
even will take trips around the world to go to certain places in Morocco
or in Spain, and different places, and they’ll call this their Hajj,
and they’ll say that they’re going to go make du’a to a person there.
So,
as we said before, if we saw someone doing this, the first thing if you
didn’t really know what to say, if you bring a verse, I don’t know how
to refute, but I can say in general, I know that Allah forbid making
du’a to other than Him, and he forbid seeking things other than Him,
you’re doing that so I know it’s wrong. I might not know every detail of
the argument, but I know in my heart that what you’re doing is
definitely something wrong. So, that’s the benefit of having the general
answer.
The
specific answer is what we’ll go into now. So, in this section, the
author mentions three misconceptions that are used. The first is that
they say that, “we testify to La ilaha ila Allah”. We talked about this alhamdulilah in lots of detail, about merely saying “La ilaha ila Allah”
or merely saying that only Allah Creates or only Allah can benefit and
can harm, this isn’t sufficient for someone to be Muslims and we covered
that in great detail.
This
is just one of the most basic things that every Muslim should have and
what’s the evidence that this isn’t sufficient to be Muslim? We talked
about this lots before alhamdulilah, that the kuffar of Quraysh used to
believe these things. We know that Quraysh used to worship Allah, and
they used to do many acts of worship as we talked about before, and they
used to believe that Allah creates, and He is the One Who Protects, and
He is the One Who can harm, and He is the One Who gives sustenance and
so on, but despite this, the Prophet (saws) didn’t accept them as
Muslimin, and despite this, the Prophet (saws) called them to Islam, and
when they wouldn’t accept, and they fought against him and he fought
against them and so on. So, at no point were they considered to be
Muslims because they believed that no one Creates except Allah, because
and what was the reason, they performed acts of Shirk, when they were
supposed to be only worshipping Allah. So, this is the first
misconception that people will bring.
The second one, is that “we’re
not performing Shirk because we’re not worshipping other than Allah,
all we’re doing is asking this person to then ask Allah for us.” So,
the kuffar of Quraysh, they’ll say they were asking these people or
these idols in and of themselves, and when the Christians worship ‘Isa,
they’re asking ‘Isa in and of himself and they’re worshipping him. [They
say] “What we’re doing isn’t that, what we’re doing is that we’re
asking this person whether he’s a Prophet or from the Salihin or
whatever the person is, we’re asking him to ask Allah and it’s going
back to Allah, we’re not worshipping these things in and of themselves.” So, this is the second misconception that they bring, and insha’Allah we’ll begin discussing each one of these.
So, after we talked about the general way of refuting this or answering it, because a person might not know all the evidences from the Qur’an and the Sunnah to show that this is wrong, alhamdulilah we have that already. So, now specifically the first thing we would say is that the mere asking of someone for something that they themselves can’t provide and it belongs only to Allah, this is an act of Shirk. It doesn’t matter whether you’re putting them between you and Allah or whether you’re going to them directly. Sure, one might be worse than the other, but at the same time, it’s still an act of Shirk, and the evidence for that is if we look at what the kuffar of Quraysh were doing, they themselves, Allah said about them He said,
“Surely,
the religion is only for Allah, and those who take Awliya besides Him,
they say “We worship them, only that they may bring us near Allah”,
verily Allah will judge between them concerning that which they differ.
Indeed, Allah guides not him who is a liar and the disbeliever.” [39:3]
So,
here Allah is mentioning about the kuffar of Quraysh, and He’s saying
that what they used to do is that they would worship these things, not
for what these things were in and of themselves, the point of it in the
end was to bring us closer to Allah, but despite this, Allah said that
they would say, “we don’t worship them except that they bring us closer
to Allah.” So, He confirmed that they were worshipping them, and that
they were doing it to bring themselves closer to Allah, but despite
this, this didn’t safe them, this doesn’t make it okay, it just makes it
a different type of Shirk, that’s all it really does.
“And they worship besides Allah things that hurt them not, nor profit them, and they say “These are our intercessors with Allah”, Say: “Do you inform Allah of that which He knows not in the Heavens and on the Earth?” Glorified and Exalted be He above all which they associate partners with Him.” [10:18]
So,
here Allah mentioned about the kuffar of Quraysh as well, that they
were taking these people and they were taking these graves, and they
were taking these statues and whatever else they were doing, they were
taking these as interceders or intercessors between them and Allah. So,
they were using these things are a means to get closer to Allah, but
despite this, it didn’t help them, and it didn’t make what they were
doing right.
So, someone comes to you now and says, “when I go to this graveyard, and I make du’a to the dead person in the grave”,
whether they’re Muslim or non-Muslim, or if the person makes du’a to
the Prophet (saws) or to Abu Bakr or ‘Umar, or to al-Hasan, or Husayn,
or Fatimah, or whoever it is, then they say “no, we’re not
worshipping them as the end of our worship, we’re only worshipping them,
or asking them, or doing something for them so they bring us closer to
Allah, so in the end our goal is Allah, so you can’t say what we’re
doing is wrong.”
Then we say, yes we can and the reason for that is, what you’re doing is exactly what Quraysh was doing. Quraysh, the people who fought against the Prophet (saws) to stop the religion of Islam from being spread, this is the exact same thing that they were doing so you can’t then say it’s different or what we’re doing is okay, because if what you’re doing is okay, then what Quraysh was doing was okay, then it would mean what the Prophet (saws) did to them wasn’t okay.
So, the way the Prophet (saws)
dealt with them was wrong because they were actually Muslimin and so
on. So, by trying to defend themselves, by saying what we’re doing is
okay, in and of itself is a big deal, but it also leads to other things,
because then we have to say that Quraysh was right, and if Quraysh was
right then the Prophet (saws) was wrong and if the Prophet (saws)
was wrong, then who sent him? It was Allah, so you fall into these
bigger things, so instead of someone just saying it was wrong, I’m going
to stop doing this, this defending of themselves leads to things which
are even greater acts of kufr, and greater statements of kufr against
Allah.
So,
this is just a very short discussion on the first issue or the first
misconception that the people when they try to justify what they’re
doing from the acts of Shirk. So, what they say is that they try to say
things like “this is something that isn’t dua, because we’re asking them to ask Allah, so really in the end it’s going back to Allah.”
If
we look at what Ahlus-Sunnah wa’l Jama’ah what they consider is that
it’s the request or act itself to someone who doesn’t deserve it, that’s
the matter of Shirk. It doesn’t matter whether you’re going back to
Allah in the end. This shubuhat, it’s not something that’s new, it was
brought up in the time of Muhammad ibn ‘Abdil-Wahhab, and it was done by
a man named Muhammad ibn ‘Afalaq, who died in the year 1164 Hijri, and
he wrote a letter in the time. So, we know that in the beginning of
talking about this book, the circumstances of the time were one in which
people were far away from Islam, and many of them had actually left
Islam because they were worshipping Awliya or what they call Awliya, and
they were making Hajj to other than the Ka’bah, they were making Tawaf
around people’s graves and so on, and they were performing such acts of
Shirk that it was unrecognisable as Islam.
So,
this da’wah began to spread the Qur’an and the Sunnah, and to try to
fight off this Shirk, so at the same time just like anytime people are
told to stop doing something they don’t want to stop doing, people try
to justify it, so this person was one of the people who tried to justify
his actions, and he actually wrote two letters or two small books
trying to justify and trying to that because we’re not worshipping these
people as an end, they’re a means to Allah. He wrote a book called
“Tahakkum al-Mukhalidi li-Muda’i Tajli ad-Din”, and he wrote another
Risalah or another book called, “Risalatul Radda alayhim bi Mu’amal”,
and he tried to spread these misconceptions and tried to defend the
people who were performing these acts of Shirk in the time of Muhammad
ibn ‘Abdil-Wahhab.
Kashf ash-Shubuhat fit-Tawhid #8 [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-3
- Kashf ash-Shubuhat fit-Tawhid, PART-4
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- Kashf ash-Shubuhat fit-Tawhid, PART-9
- Kashf ash-Shubuhat fit-Tawhid, PART-10
- Kashf ash-Shubuhat fit-Tawhid, PART-11
- Kashf ash-Shubuhat fit-Tawhid, PART-12
- Kashf ash-Shubuhat fit-Tawhid, PART-13
- Kashf ash-Shubuhat fit-Tawhid, PART-14
- 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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