Kashf ash-Shubuhat fit-Tawhid, PART-12

Last week we began talking about the fourth misconception people use to justify the matters of Shirk that they perform, and like we said the first three are the main things that the author talks about. The last one that we talked about was the claim that people will say that when we make du’a to other than Allah, that this isn’t actually an act of ‘Ibadah, or it’s not an act of worship. So, we said that what they try to claim is that they say that “yes, we’re making du’a to other than Allah or we’re seeking something from the Prophet (saws), or we’re seeking something from our Sayyid, or our Wali, but there’s no problem with this, because this isn’t actually an act of worship.

So, they’ll say that every evidence you bring from the Qur’an or from the Sunnah to say that you’re not allowed to worship other than Allah, this doesn’t even apply to us because when we make du’a to other than Allah, this isn’t worship, so you’re using evidence in a place that it doesn’t belong. And like we said, this is rejected in the Qur’an and the Sunnah. In the Qur’an, Allah tells us to perform du’a or make du’a to Him or to supplicate to Him, when He says:

“And your Lord said supplicate to Me and I will answer you, indeed those who are stubborn concerning My worship will enter into Jahannam…” [40:60]

So, here we see that Allah told us to supplicate to Him, and then He said “those who refuse to worship Him.” So, he used them essentially in an interchangeable manner. And also the Prophet (saws) said in an authentic hadith, “Du’a is worship”, or it is the worship. It’s the act of worship itself, it encompasses everything that worship indicates, everything that worship would imply. So, really for someone to say that du’a isn’t worship, this is a false claim, it’s declared false by the Qur’an and it’s proven false by the Sunnah, and really it’s not something that’s even possible, that these people really believe, in the end it’s not something that’s real, strong misconception that people can say “I really didn’t understand this matter.”

So, to go further into this, we’ll follow what the author said when he takes us through the manner in which to debate with someone who says this claim or who makes this claim. So, as we know, as we talked about many times before, this small book is essentially a manual to refute the mushrikin or those people who claim Islam, but are really upon Shirk. So, the author takes you through step-by-step what to do with, if someone say this, this is what you say and if they answer with this, then you say this, and so on. So, really he takes you through in a manner that doesn’t really leave any room for misconceptions by the end.

So, first of all, after the introduction we had last week to this topic, if we look at what the author says or what this section would include, then we can see that, the first thing that we would say to these people is to define what worship is for us. So, if they say we’re not worshipping these people, we’re not worshipping our Shaykhs, or our Sayyids or our Wali’s or anything like this, then tell us what is worship.

So, either he’s going to have an answer or he’s not going to have an answer. If he says “I don’t know”, or “I don’t know what worship actually is”, then we would say to him, how can you tell us something is wrong or that it doesn’t include this, or it does include this when you don’t actually know the answer. So, then right at that point, the whole discussion is done. You’ve proven that this person doesn’t know what he’s speaking about, and really you have them where you want, and you can explain to them whatever you need to explain to them from the matters of Tawhid.

The other possibility that they will say is that they’ll give you a wrong definition, and there’s a number of wrong definitions that are more widespread by the people who stick to these misconceptions. So, the first definition that they would possibly give is that they said that, “Worship is to perform Sujud or to prostrate to idols,” and this was mentioned by a person named al-Qabani. So, this is what they say, all that worship is, is if you make Sujud to a statue, so this doesn’t fall under that, so, this is obviously something that’s false. So, that’s the first thing that they’ll say.

Another misconception or another false definition that they give for worship, is they say that it’s “for someone to lower themselves to make themselves lowly in front of a person or in front that they believe and bring about benefit and bring about harm.” So, again they bought it back to the matters of heart.

So, as we talked about before in a number of lessons, this complete or this constant tie of things on the outside to things on the inside isn’t from the ‘Aqidah of Ahlus-Sunnah wa’l Jama’ah. Ahlus Sunnah wa’l Jama’ah, yes we believe that there’s a tie between the outside and inside, we believe there’s a tie between the things that somebody says and does, as well as what’s in their heart, but we don’t say that everything that a person does or says, is only contingent upon what the person has in their heart.

So, we don’t say that if someone makes du’a to other than Allah, that this is only Shirk, if they believe the person can benefit them. Or that, we don’t say that the person only leaves Islam if they worship other than Allah, only if they believe that the thing that they’re worshipping is better than Allah. We don’t make any claims like this, these are the claims that are made by the group called Murji’ah, who tie everything to the inside and say that everything is based upon inside, whatever you do on the outside doesn’t have any effect unless you believe it in your heart or unless you reject Allah with your heart, otherwise you’re fine as long as you don’t reject Allah with your heart. So, again this second definition of ‘Ibadah has taken this route, it’s taken the route of tying everything outside to the inside and they bring it back to, “you can only leave Islam if you do something for someone other than Allah that’s a worship if you believe they’re at the level of Rabb.” 

A third definition was mentioned by a person named Abdullah Az-Zubayri, in a book called “Al-Sawa’ik wa-Ra’ud”, or this is a person who tried to bring about or try to prove the Shubuhat, or the misconceptions against the Muslimin and try to say that these type of Shirk are permissible and try to bring arguments for these things. So, what he said was that when we seek these things from other than Allah, that really there’s no problem with these types of things because we’re not making them at the level of Allah. So, when we seek something from the Prophet (saws), we make du’a for him or anything like this, it’s fine because it’s not worship, the reason it’s not worship is because we’re not raising them to the status of Allah.

A similar thing was mentioned by a person named Isma’il al-Tamimi in a book he has called “Al-Mineh al-Ilahiyah”, and he tried to propogate the same misconception. So, again if we go back to where we were, that either the person will say that they don’t know what worship is, so why are they making claims about that they’re not worshipping. How can you say you’re doing something and not doing something and you don’t even know what that thing is.

So, for example if someone said to you, or he was drinking something, and you said to him “you know it’s forbidden for you to drink alcohol,”, and he said “this isn’t alcohol”, and you said to him “what’s the definition of alcohol?”, and he said “I don’t know.” Then you can tell him, “how can you say this isn’t alcohol, and you don’t even know what alcohol is?”. So, at that point he’s already expressed his ignorance on the topic, and really there’s nowhere for him to go at that point. Or he’ll say, “Alcohol is only something that comes from grapes.” At this point, we would say, “Yes, alcohol can come from grapes but your specifying something…you’re taking one type of alcohol and restricting it to that, when there’s no evidence for that, if we look at what makes something alcohol, it’s the thing that plays with your mind.” Or khamr literally in Arabi is that it covers your mind, it changes the way your thought pattern is, and it makes you unclear in the way you think.

So, this is similar to if they say, “No, the only type of worship is if you make Sujud.” We say, it’s a type of worship but who said that, that’s the only type. If you want to say it’s the only type then we say, what makes something worship? It’s that Allah loves for us to do it for Him, and forbid us to do it for anyone else. This is what things of worship are. So, if you take anything that Allah has specified can only be done for Him, and you do it for someone else, then you’ve taken Allah right and given it to someone else, so you’ve worshipped them, in place of what Allah commanded you to worship Him with. So, this is what ‘Ibadah actually is.

So, this would be the next step, we would explain to them that their definition is wrong, this is how it’s wrong and that the correct definition is if we look at your actions within this, it falls directly underneath what ‘Ibadah is. So, this would be the next step that we would take with regards to showing how their misconception is actually completely false and it has no weight.

So, if they accept and say, “I accept that worshipping other than Allah or making du’a to other than Allah is something that would be Shirk”, then we have them in the next step or the next closer to where we want them to be. So, then at this point we would say, if someone did anything other than du’a for example something that Allah loves, He loves for us to sacrifice for Him, whether it’s at Eid al-Adha or whether it’s for ‘Aqiqah or whether it’s just for our daily food or anything like this. They would accept this as being yes, because already they’ve tried to say that du’a is something that’s different from every other act of worship, in the sense that, it isn’t worship. But now we get them to the point where they accept that it’s worship.

So, the next thing to say that is, what would the ruling on someone that does these other things? Does something else for other than Allah. Obviously they’re going to accept it because that’s where we actually started with in the topic. So, at this point we would bring them back and say “you’ve accepted that doing something specifically for other than Allah, that he’s asked or he’s told us to only do for Him, is an act of worship, so you either can continue doing it for other than Allah and be clearly in Shirk, or you can do it only for Allah and repent from that. So, at this point these are the steps that we would argue with the person on this point. So, that’s the end of the fourth misconception that the author talks about.

To go into the fifth, the author, now he is talking about what this argument evolves into. So, he says:

“If this person says, “do you reject the Shafa’a or the intercession of the Prophet (saws) and do you reject it, or free yourself from it?”

Because the whole point of this, is that they’ll say, “we’re worshipping or we’re making du’a to the Prophet (saws) because Allah has given him special rights. He’s given him that on the Day of Judgement, he will be able to intercede for us, so we’re asking the Prophet (saws) or we’re making du’a to him for these things. So, the first thing that they’ll say is that, do you reject that the Prophet (saws) can intercede for us? They’ll try to hold us to a point and say if you don’t accept us doing it, this can only be that you don’t accept that the Prophet (saws) will intercede for us. So, this is what they start with.

So, what we would say to them:

“Then say: I do not reject it, and nor am I free of having any need of it. Rather he is the one who will intercede and the one whose intercession will be granted. I hope in his intercession.”

Obviously as Muslimin no we don’t reject it, we accept it, and we hope for it, and we know that Allah has blessed the Prophet (saws) with the right of Shafa’a on the Day of Resurrection, and we hope that we will be deserving of it, and we ask Allah to let us be deserving of it on the Day of Judgement.

So, this whole claim or trying to push us into a corner by saying that you reject the Shafa’a of the Prophet (saws), no that’s not what it is, it’s nothing to do with that, and that type of argument or that type of arguing shows where a person’s mentality is; that it’s either this or this, if you don’t worship the Prophet (saws), you must reject everything that he has. No it has nothing to do with that, we take exactly what has come in the Qur’an and the Sunnah with regards to his rights. But we would say to him, yes, the Prophet (saws) has this, but:

“Allah has stated that all of the Shafa’a belongs to Him, when He said, “Say: To Allaah belongs all intercession.”” [39:44]

So, Allah has told us that even though He has given the Prophet (saws) the right of Shafa’a, all of the Shafa’a, whether it is to begin the Judgement on the Day of Judgement, or to stop people from going into Jahannam, or to remove them from Jahannam, or to raise them at a higher status into Jannah, and all of these types of Shafa’a or any other type of Shafa’a, and whether it belongs to the Prophet (saws) or if it’s from his rights, or from the Angels, or from the Shuhada’, from the Salihin or anything else, every single type of Shafa’a belongs to Allah, and that’s from His property or from His complete right to do with as He pleases. Also, we know that any Shafa’a that does take place, will only be after Allah gives permission for it. So, even the people or creations that Allah has given the right of Shafa’a to, they’ll only be able to do so after Allah gives permission. Then the author mentions for this:
“Who is it that would give intercession in front of Him or on his behalf, except after He gives permission to do so.” [2:255] 

Then the author continues and says: 
“And no-one would give Shafa’a even after His permission except with regards to people who Allah has given permission that they can receive intercession.” 

So, it has to be after His permission, and it can’t just be for anybody, it can only be for those who Allah has given permission that they can be interceded for.

And then he says that the evidence for that is that Allah said,
“They will not intercede except for those who He is pleased with.” [21:28] 

So, here already we see that the author is telling us, first we reject the concept that we don’t accept the Shafa’a. Secondly, we begin to show them what are the conditions for the Shafa’a? Can the Prophet (saws) perform Shafa’a without the permission of Allah? No he can’t. Can he intercede on behalf of someone who Allah isn’t pleased with? No, he can’t. So, already we see that it doesn’t belong to the Prophet (saws), it’s something that’s given to the Prophet (saws) by Allah as a virtue or as a blessing to him, but it still carries conditions that Allah has placed.

The author continues and says:
“He would not be pleased with anyone to receive intercession except for the people of Tawhid.” 

Then he mentions the verse where Allah said,

“And whoever seeks a religion or a way of life other than Islam, it won’t be accepted from him.” [3:85]

So, we know that this point that anyone who isn’t Muslim, doesn’t claim Islam, or anyone who claims Islam but isn’t actually Muslim, won’t be able to receive the Shafa’a of the Prophet (saws) or anyone else.

So, then the author continues and he says:

“So, if the Shafa’a is all for Allah or belongs all to Allah, and it be not be except after His Permission, and the Prophet (saws) and anyone else would not intercede except for people who Allah has given permission for, and that he would not give permission except for the people of Tawhid, then we see at this point, that all of the Shafa’a, every single aspect of the Shafa’a or intercession, belongs to Allah, so I should seek it from him.”

So, if the Prophet (saws) doesn’t control the Shafa’a and even the Prophet (saws) has all of these conditions to be met before he would intercede. Why would I then seek it from him, instead of seeking it from the One who first of all it belongs to, second needs to give permission, third needs to give permission for the person who’s going to receive it. So, all these things belong to Allah, so it only makes sense that we would seek it from Allah and not from anybody else.

And then he says:
“So, I would seek it from Him, and I would say, “O Allah, do not forbid his Shafa’a, so meaning the Prophet's (saws) Shafa’a, and O Allah make him an interceder on my behalf and the likes.”

Then he says…so now he is again going back to this way of debating or this argument:

“If the person says, “the Prophet (saws) was given the Shafa’a, so I will seek from him whatever Allah has given him.”

So, like if someone gave you some money and then someone wanted some money from you, they would ask you, not the person who gave it to you because it’s your money now. Or, if you needed some food and found that somebody gave your neighbour food, you wouldn’t ask the person who gave your neighbour, you would ask your neighbour because now it belongs to this person, because it wouldn’t make sense to go to the person who gave it away. So, this is their argument.

So, then the author says:

“The answer to this, is as follows: Indeed, Allah did give him the Shafa’a but he also forbid you from asking him for it when He said, “Do not supplicate to anyone other than Allah.” [72:18]

So, we know that the Prophet (saws) is given Shafa’a by Allah, so these people will say, we’re only following what Allah told us so how can you make ‘Inkar on us, or how can you rebuke us, if Allah told us that He gave the Prophet (saws) Shafa’a, or the Prophet (saws) told us that Allah gave him Shafa’a, then who are you to tell us that we’re wrong. So, we’re saying no, we’ll stick to this line of thinking that we’re going to follow what Allah told us and what the Prophet (saws) told us.

So, yes He did give him that but He is also the One Who told you, don’t seek anything except from Allah, so why are you accepting the verses of Allah and His Rulings on one issue, but then rejecting them on another issue. So, that’s what we would say. We would say, if you’re going to follow this, you have to follow the other one too, you can’t pick and choose, once you start picking and choosing, you’re on a path other than Islam, once you start trying to find, this is a way where I can do what I want, and this is a way where I can get around what Allah has actually told us to do.

And Allah said,

“Do not supplicate to anyone other than Allah.” [72:18]

So, Allah is the same One who told us both of these things, so we need to reconcile between His statements when He says different things. Also, these people only make du’a to the Prophet (saws) and the Anbiya, it’s rare if not completely that it doesn’t exist that they make du’a to the Mala’ika, this is something really amongst people who even claim Islam, even amongst the Mushrikin, you don’t really see them making du’a to Jibril, or Mika’il or Isra’fil or any  of the other Mala’ika that we know the names or don’t the names, we don’t see them making du’a to them. So, we would say to them:

“Also, intercession has been given to other than the Prophet (saws). It is authentic that the Angels will intercede, likewise the Pious Friends of Allah, and also others (who died before the age of puberty). Will you then say (and argue) that Allah has given them the right to intercede, and hence I ask for this intercession from them? If you were to say this, then you have reverted back to the worship of the righteous which Allah has mentioned in His Book. And if you were to say “No”, then your claim that “Allah has given him (i.e. the Prophet) the right to intercede, and I merely ask him from that which he has been given” is actually falsified.”

We know that other than the Prophet (saws) from the human beings, and even from the other creation such as the Mala’ika, they have Shafa’a as well, so why don’t you seek it from them as well, why are you only specifying the Prophet (saws), and not the Angels as well. If they say that, these are people who Allah has given the Shafa’a to and I seek it from them, then we’re going back in a circle now, so we’re bringing them back to the beginning.

So, this is what the author said or essentially what he said. So, this is what they’re saying, they have to either accept worshipping both or reject both of it, and if they accept that they’re different, then we also proven that that’s false as well because both Allah has given Shafa’a to, and He’s placed the same conditions on those types of Shafa’a.

So, insha’Allah next week we’ll go a little more into this Shubuha’ which is the Shubuha’ of intercession, and it’s a little bit longer. There’s about six steps that we can derive from the author’s statements, so he essentially put it into three, but if we follow it, and want to go a little bit deeper, we can get it into six different points which really tears down any type of argument that they may have, and it also will lead into some of the other Shubuha’. So insha’Allah to not go too long, we’ll finish that next week. Wallahul A’lam. 

Kashf ash-Shubuhat fit-Tawhid #12 [Transcribed] - By Shaykh Haytham Sayfaddeen

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• 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
• Kashf ash-Shubuhat fit-Tawhid, PART-5
• Kashf ash-Shubuhat fit-Tawhid, PART-6
• Kashf ash-Shubuhat fit-Tawhid, PART-7
• Kashf ash-Shubuhat fit-Tawhid, PART-8
• 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-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)