Wednesday, April 10, 2019

Kashf ash-Shubuhat fit-Tawhid, PART-13

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/73/dc/0e/73dc0e9509263789dbd9507969c2e540.jpgSo, we’ll continue, last week we left off, we were speaking about the seeking of the Shafa’a from the Prophet (saws) which is something that some of the Mushrikin do when they ask the Prophet (saws) directly for Shafa’a. Either when they go to his grave or even when they’re away from his grave, they’ll ask the Prophet (saws) to give them Shafa’a and sometimes they ask for it, for things in the dunya, for help from the Prophet (saws). 

More specifically when it comes to this point, they ask for the Shafa’a in the Akhirah, but they ask for it now. So, we talked about the author’s word last week and I said we’re going to go into it in a little more detail, and to go step-by-step as how the author tells us to go through this Shubuha’, or go through this misconception insha’Allah so we’ll do that. 

So, the author mentions, if we break his words down, we can find that there’s about 7 steps that he mentions when we’re talking about dealing with this Shubuha’ and people who call to this Shirk. So, the first thing that the author tells us to do is to clearly accept the Shafa’a of the Prophet (saws). So, we would say, because the author tells us how the conversation would go with someone who holds this belief or performs these actions. 

So, he says what they will try to do is say, “if you don’t accept this, if you don’t accept asking the Prophet (saws) for his Shafa’a, this can only mean you reject his Shafa’a to begin with.” Meaning that, you don’t accept that he will intercede for Muslimin on the Day of Resurrection. 

So, the first step that the author says if we tell this person, “No, we accept the Shafa’a of the Prophet (saws) and we hope that Allah will make us from those who are worthy of receiving his Shafa’a either by not going into Jahannam if they were deserving of being so or by being raised higher in Jannah, or any of the types of Shafa’a that the Prophet (saws) will be given on the Day of Resurrection.” 

So, this is the first thing because then it takes all the ammunition away from the person who is arguing this point, because if their whole thing is try to push you into a corner and say, “This means you don’t accept the Shafa’a”, take that away from them right away, then essentially their whole argument will crumble at that point because the point that they try to use is no longer present, it’s been taken away from them.
The next [second] thing that we would say is that, even the Shafa’a that the Prophet (saws) was given, when does it take place? When did Allah tell us that people will ask for it from him, and they will be given to them? Was it in this dunya that they ask things for this dunya, or was it in this dunya that they ask things for the Akhirah, asking for things in the Akhirah?

So obviously the answer is if we look to the ahadith that talk about this topic, we know that it’s relating to the Akhirah. So, we know that one of the Shafa’a that the Prophet (saws) will be given is the beginning of the questioning on the Day of Resurrection. So, we know that the Prophet (saws) will be the one, when the people go to Adam, and then they go to Nuh and Ibrahim and so on, until they get to the Prophet (saws), this is when the Shafa’a will be sought from him, and when it will be granted. So, to ask from it in the dunya, we’re not even following the timing of when it should be done with the actual legislated typed of Shafa’a. So, this is the second point. 

So first of all we accept it, but we do it in the manner that the Prophet (saws) instructed or told us it will take place, which is on the Day of Resurrection. We don’t ask for it now because it’s pointless to ask for it now, because we know for a fact that it won’t begin until the Prophet (saws) intercedes or mankind to begin the questioning, and despite all the people who are asking for the Prophet's (saws) Shafa’a now, we know that it’s still going to take him to do so on the Day of Resurrection, so, the whole point of doing it now is pointless, it doesn’t hold any weight and it doesn’t do anything. 

The next step, or step number three is that we clarify that this isn’t the Prophet's (saws) property, it’s not in his Mulk, it doesn’t belong to him specifically. It’s something that Allah gave to the Prophet (saws) to use on the Day of Resurrection with specific conditions.
 
So, now this is the next thing and we talked about this alhamdulilah in detail last week, that the Shafa’a belongs to Allah, and doesn’t belong to the Prophet (saws) even the Shafa’a that the Prophet (saws) will intercede with, doesn’t belong to him, it’s been given to him by Allah. And we know that Allah said:
“And to Allah belongs all of the Shafa’a.” [39:44]

So, that means every type of Shafa’a and every part of every type. So, seeking it or anything like this all of it belongs to Allah.

So, after we have this point which is the third step, then the fourth one is to explain to them, or to clarify to them that if something belongs to somebody, then you ask for it from that person. If something doesn’t belong to somebody, you don’t ask it from that person. It makes no sense in the dunya, and it makes no sense in matters of the Din even more so when it comes to Allah’s rights.

And we know that again, we talked about this last week, what we said last week was that, one of the arguments that the Mushrikin will try to use at this point is that they’ll say, “The Prophet (saws) was given it so we’re going to ask it from the Prophet (saws) because Allah told us that it was given to the Prophet (saws).”

So, they try to bring evidence from Qur’an, or evidence from the Sunnah to say that, we’re following the Qur’an and the Sunnah so what’s the problem?

So, then again like we said, the fifth [step] said in this argument which is what we talked about last week, we would say, “just as you’re following Shari’ah in believing that the Prophet (saws) has Shafa’a, following the Shari’ah, when Allah says, or tells us to not make du’a to anyone other than to Him, so just as you’re following it here, also follow it here and then you’ll be in a good state.” So, don’t pick and choose parts of the Shari’ah that you feel comfortable with, or that you were taught by your parents and so on, stick with the Shari’ah the whole way and then you’ll be fine. But you can’t say we’re going to follow it here and then reject it in other spots.

So, just as Allah forbid making du’a to other than him. As we talked about before, du’a is asking for something from Allah or asking, more specifically, the definition of du’a is asking for something from someone who is higher than you.

When it comes to Allah, then any request from Allah can be du’a and when it comes to things from the creation, when it’s something that the creations is able to do, and they’re present and they can hear you, then this would be fine, but when it comes to things that the creation isn’t able to do, for example when it comes to forgiving sins, or performing things in the Hereafter or removing sicknesses or things like this, this would be a form of Shirk but asking things that are legislated that’s fine.

The sixth step in this, is that we say, that the Shafa’a isn’t specifically for the Prophet (saws). We know that he does have Shafa’a, and we know that he does have numerous types of Shafa’a, but we know also that the Shuhada have Shafa’a, and we know that they have 70 people from their family. We know that the Mala’ika will have Shafa’a. We know that when Allah tells or in the Hadith al-Qudsi, when the Prophet (saws) tells us what Allah said,
“The Anbiya will perform the shafa’a, the Angels will perform the shafa’a and then the Most Merciful of the Merciful remains.”

So, we know that the Anbiya or that the Mala’ika also have shafa’a, and we know that the Salihin also have shafa’a as well from others evidences. 

So, the next step [seventh step] would be say to them, why don’t you make it to the other creation? If they say, “yes we do”, then we would tell them no you don’t, we know for a fact by watching your actions, you never do this, so we would say that they’re essentially lying, trying to get out of the argument by saying it’s equal for everybody. So, this is one possible answer that they would give, they say we do it for everyone and then we would say to them “that’s not the case, why are you making it up?”

The next step or the next possible answer that they would give, is that they say, “We don’t ask them because their shafa’a would come on the Day of Judgement.” So, then we would say to them, the Prophet's (saws) shafa’a is on the Day of Judgement as well, so why are you differentiating between the two. So, then they will say “the Prophet (saws) was given the shafa’a”, and we would say “the same as the other ones too, so why are you differentiating between the two.” And if they say, “asking someone other than the Prophet (saws) is shirk”, then we would say, “asking the Prophet (saws) is also shirk”.

So, the author walks us through the steps on how to argue these points with the people who try to prove that these are from the Shari’ah. Because this wasn’t based upon...it wasn’t strictly theoretical, the author lived this, and went through these arguments in his life-time.

So, he had arguments and he saw the arguments and the proofs that people tried to bring to prove these things, then he was able to see this doesn’t make sense because this and this. So, it’s not as though the person who’s writing this book said this is what might happen. He’s had these arguments with people and seen this is how it goes, and if it goes this way, this is the answer you take and if it goes the other way, you give this answer, so, these are matters that have been tested before.

So, this is the end of the sixth Shubuha’ or misconception, and alhamdulilah we’ve gone through it thoroughly, so we don’t need to go through it anymore. 

The next Shubuha’ that the author mentions, is he says…so again he’s saying:
“If this person [so this Mushrik], if he says to you, “I do not perform Shirk with Allah, but this seeking of asylum or this seeking of protection from the Salihin isn’t Shirk.”

So, again he’s arguing or giving us the argument that the Mushrik would try to tell us.

Then he says,
“Then say to him: “If you accept that Allah has forbidden Shirk with a forbiddance that’s greater than the way he forbid Zina, and you accept that Allah won’t forgive this, then tell us what is the Shirk exactly then?” Then if he says: “I don’t know”, then you can to say to him: “How can you say that this isn’t Shirk when you don’t even know the thing is that you’re defining.” 

So, we talked about this before, if you said to someone, “you can’t drink alcohol”, and he said “this isn’t alcohol, it’s wine”, and you said to him “define what alcohol is”, and he said “I don’t know what alcohol is”, then you can say to him, “how are you saying that, that’s not alcohol when you don’t even know what it is to begin with?” 

Same thing with shirk, if someone says, “this isn’t Shirk”, then you say, “What is shirk then, if you’re saying this isn’t, you must know what it is then.” If he says, “I don’t know”, then again you can say, “how are you arguing for something when you don’t even really know the definition of the thing that you’re supposed to stay away from.” So again, he brings this to begin with. 

So, again it comes a number of times in the book, that the person can either give the answer that he doesn’t know, or he can give the wrong answer, or he can give the correct answer. So, if he doesn’t know, then alhamdulilah we’ve talked about that and all you’ve got to do is explain to him what shirk is, how this falls into shirk and it should be hopefully something he gives. 

The next possibility that we’ve talked about this before is that he says that shirk is “worshipping idols and we don’t worship idols.” 

So, for example he’ll say that, if someone went to a statue and made sujud to it, that’s shirk, or if someone went to a tree and made a sacrifice before it then that would be worship, but what we’re doing asking things from Salihin isn’t worship or it isn’t shirk so that’s fine. So, at that point we would say: “What does it mean to worship a statue? Define that for us.” 

So, again we take them to really explain everything that they believe, so we can break it down and show how it’s actually false. So, if he says that: “Worshipping these statues or these idols, what it means is that, you believe that they take some sort of characteristic of Allah, that these things create, or that they give the rizq, or they control matters of the universe and so on.” 

This is one answer that they’ll give, so then at the point we would say and again this is a repeat from before,
“Allah declared the kuffar of Quraysh to be mushrikin, and He sent the Prophet (saws) to remove all of the shirk that they have. What did they used to do? They used to believe that statues created, they used to believe that statues would create or that they would give rizq or anything like this. We know for a fact in the Qur’an that Allah tells us that they didn’t believe these things. So, He called them mushrikin, He called their action shirk, but they weren’t doing what you’re saying is Shirk. So, either you’re right and Allah is wrong, and then you have a whole other problem of why you’ve left Islam, or you’re wrong and Allah is right so follow what Allah is telling us that shirk is.” 

So, this is one possibility. 

So if he gives us the right answer which would be that, shirk is taking something that belongs to Allah and doing it specifically for something else, whether it’s a piece of wood, whether it’s a statue, a tree, anything else like this, then we would say, this is correct, but is this the only type of shirk, that if someone does these same actions for a human being who’s alive or dead, does this fall under shirk or not. If he says yes, then we’ve explained exactly what we need to explain to them. If he says no, then we can say that,
“Then this actually goes against what Allah has mentioned in His Book about the disbelief of the one who is attached to the Angels, or ‘Isa (as), or the Righteous.”

We know that Allah called the Christians mushrikin and they were worshipping ‘Isa and we know that Allah mentioned about the other types of kuffar that they would worship Mala’ika and others would worship Salihin and so on. So, despite all of this, Allah called them all mushrikin. So, again we would say that you’re right and Allah is wrong and we know that’s not the case, or Allah is right and you’re wrong and that is the case definitely, and what you’re doing is shirk.

So, again this is a very condensed reading of what the author said because you can find this translated in English, and the original’s in Arabi so I don’t need to read his words word for word, but to comment a bit on what the author says in this Shubuha’ or when he discusses this misconception is that this whole misunderstanding as what they define shirk as, which is that it’s related specifically to Rububiyyah, that it’s related to Allah creating things, or Allah giving rizq or controlling matters of the universe, or bringing life and death and so on, this is all based upon their understanding of Tawhid to begin with.

So, Allah sent the Prophet (saws) to teach Tawhid, and what is Tawhid according to Ahlus-Sunnah wa’l-Jama’ah? That nothing is worshipped except Allah. We know that Quraysh accepted aspects of Tawhid that were correct, they accepted that Allah created and He’s the Only One Who Creates, that He controls the matters and He’s the Only One Who does so and so on. So, when the Prophet (saws) was sent, it wasn’t to teach these things and to wipe out shirk with regards to Rububiyyah, it was specifically, or it was more related to matters of Ilahiyah or Uluhiyyah.

So, again, just to add a bit more to this, this Shubuha’ or this misconception is nothing new now, and it was argued during the lifetime of the author, Muhammad ibn ‘Abdil-Wahhab. The person who propagated this Shubuha’ or misconception the most, was a person named Muhammad ibn ‘Abdil-Majeed al-Fasi and he died in the year 1227 Hijri, and he wrote a book called, “Ar-Radd A’la-Ba’d al-Mubtadi’a mina Ta’ifah al-Wahhabiyyah”. So, even back then, this label of people who argue against shirk or call to Tawhid or these types of things, at that time even people would try to call it Wahhabiyyah, which is a made-up false thing, it’s not even a thing to really discuss, but he was one of the first people who argued this, and this was the book he argued it in.

And one of the things he said in this book is that, the people in Jahiliyah, the only reason he disbelieved or fell into Kufr was because they worshipped idols, so this was what he said. So, the point of this is that they would say that everything else they did, them doing it for the Mala’ika, them doing it for the Anbiya, or the Salihin, all these types of things, this didn’t affect their Iman, it was only the fact that idols were involved. So, if you worshipped a human, that’s fine, if you made an idol of that human and worshipped them, that’s not fine anymore. Even though they both are worship of other than Allah, and they are both worship of creation, this is what they try to argue.

Also, another person during the lifetime or just after the lifetime of the author, he was the mufti of the Shafi’iyyah at the time, he used to argue similar things as well and his book was called, “At-Tu’huf as-Sunni’yyah fi-Radd al-Wahhabiyyah”, and again he would say very similar things. He would say that shirk, what is shirk, we say it’s giving worship to other than Allah, they say it’s believing that something other than Allah has control of matters, or the thing other than Allah can bring about life and death and so on.

So, again we see that one of the main components of all of the misconceptions that they have is because they misunderstand what Tawhid is to begin with, and they misunderstand what shirk is to begin with.

And the steps with regards to arguing against this misconception, they’re very similar to when it came to the fourth misconception which was when they said that, “Making du’a to other than Allah isn’t worship” – when we make du’a it’s not an act of worship, so if you tell us, du’a to other than Allah is shirk, we would say it can’t be because it’s not even worship. So, if you back to that Shubuha’ and the way we spoke about that, it’s essentially the same arguments in how you would argue those points.

The next misconception that the author talks about is that the people disbelieve because they said that Allah has a son, or that the Angels are the daughters of Allah, so this is the next misconception that he goes into, but since that might take a while , insha’Allah we’ll stop there for tonight and if there’s any questions...Wallahul A’lam.

Kashf ash-Shubuhat fit-Tawhid #13 [Transcribed] - By Shaykh Haytham Sayfaddeen

TO BE CONTINUED INSHA'ALLAH...


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