When we’re studying ‘Aqidah, there’s many many topics that we would have to go through. Obviously, there’s the basic issues of Tawhid and Shirk, and what is considered Tawhid and what if considered Shirk, and what actually makes someone enter Islam, or what are the conditions for someone to be Muslim.
As well as, how does someone leave Islam, because we need to know that as well. Just as important, to first of all to stay away from it ourselves, and also know who was actually considered Muslim, and who isn’t considered Muslim, because this is also something that’s from the Ahkam of our religion, so this is something that we’ll also go into as well.
Included in that, is the or in the issues of ‘Aqidah is talking about the pillars of Iman, which is belief in Allah, which would be related to the shirk and the tawhid, but also talking about what we believe about the Angels, the Prophets and the Messengers, the Books of Allah that He revealed and everything that’s included in that.
So, what are the rights of the Prophets, and what do we believe about what their abilities, and what the rulings are related to them, and likewise with the Angels, what are there powers, and what are their Sifat, and what don’t we give them, because many people may go too extreme with the Angels, and too extreme with the Rasul, so likewise those issues go into ‘Aqidah. Also, going into the Akhirah, and what we believe about the Adab, and the Na’im and the Qabr, also the Day of Judgement and Jannah wan-Naar, and the Sifat of these things and what are the rulings of people who reject certain aspects of the Din, all of these things come into the topic of ‘Aqidah.
Likewise, some issues related to seeking blessings from people and objects, and these types of things, and seeking protection from these things, all of these aspects are from ‘Aqidah, and insha’Allah we’ll work out way through all of these topics, bi’ithnillah, if we’re given tawfiq to do these things, but we need to start somewhere, so the first thing that we’ll start is with the most important issue which is the Tawhid and Shirk, and even that we’ll start with the most basic things. Generally, what is tawhid and what is shirk, and what are the rights of Tawhid, and what are the rights, when it comes to dealing with Shirk.
So, because of this, the Risalah that I printed in Arabi and in English, it’s called “Aslu Dīn Al-Islām wa Qā’idatuhu”. As you can see, even with the translation it’s only one page, but insha’Allah, it’s very beneficial and it will give us the basis of everything we will talk about after this with regards to the rights of Allah and the hukuk of La ilaha ila Allah and what this means. So insha’Allah we’ll start with this and we’ll go through it and if there’s any questions, we’ll leave them to the end, and we’ll leave the questions specifically to the stuff about this lesson.
So, here we see that this Risalah is based upon what’s the ‘Asl of the Din of the Islam, and we know that the ‘asl, it’s something that’s the basis or it’s the root, it’s the thing that everything else is built upon. Linguistically that’s what the ‘asl means, and it’s not too important to go into all the details of that. So, here when the Imam talks about this, he says “Aslu Din Al-Islam”, so the basis of the religion of the Islam. So, everything in Islam comes from these points or branches out from these points, and everything else is based upon or, having everything else without these things is essentially, in the end is useless.
So, if someone says they believe in Allah, and they pray five times a day, but they don’t have these matters that insha’Allah we’re going to talk about, then we can’t consider them to be Muslimin, because if someone has the branch of something but he doesn’t have the basis, then everything else that comes after it, is considered invalid or void and it’s pointless to really have because if you do something good, but then you cancel it out with something that invalidates it, then it’s considered void and it’s not acceptable to begin with. So, this is the reason why like I said why we’re starting with this point, because everything in our Din is contingent or dependent upon understanding these points, insha’Allah that’ll become clear.
Or when Allah said about Ibrahim, that he said:
“Surrender”, and he said: “I’ve surrendered to the Lord of the Worlds.” [2:131]
So, this is where the phrase Islam comes from, it’s from surrendering. And Allah said about Ibrahim:
“He is the One who called you Muslimin from before.” [22:78]
So, the phrase Islam, or the phrase Muslimin comes from when Ibrahim (as) called the ones who follow the true religion to be Muslimin, and it’s the surrendering to Allah. Some of the scholars have defined Islam as, “Surrendering to Allah with Tawhid, and surrendering to Him or obeying Him with complete obedience and being disavowed or having no ties with shirk or its people.” So, this is how the scholars have defined Islam. So, we see from this Islam has things that relate to the person himself and relate to how he deals with other people.
So, it’s not sufficient for someone to say “I’m Muslim,” and then it’s the end. Insha’Allah we’ll talk about this in a lot more detail when we talk about Iman or the reality of Iman and kufr, but Islam is something that’s outward and it’s inward. So, someone having belief in their heart isn’t sufficient, just like someone outwardly acting upon Islam isn’t sufficient.
We need both things because if someone has it on the inside and not on the outside, then he hasn’t actually followed the religion, he just believes it in his heart. We know that this is the case with many of the kuffar, and we know at the time of the Prophet (saws), we know that his uncle Abu Talib believed in Islam that it’s the true religion, he knew he was a Prophet and he even protected him, we don’t say he protected him necessarily because he was a Prophet, but he did protect him and he did know that this was the true religion.
Despite that, we know that the Prophet (saws) made shafa’a for him and despite the Prophet (saws) shafa’a for him, he’s still in Jahannam and the Prophet (saws) described his punishment, is that he’s given two slippers that cause his brain to boil. We know that despite all the good that came from his actions, in protecting the Prophet (saws) during his early days of the da’wah.
So, he had belief in his heart that Islam was the true religion and that the Prophet (saws) deserved to be protected, regardless of the reason why he protected him, but he did have this belief, but we know it didn’t help him. Likewise, if we know someone who acts upon it outwardly, if they pray, give Zakat, and fast, and make Hajj and perform Jihad and give Sadaqah and all these other things, but they don’t believe it in their heart, we know that their munafiqin and we know that only are they in the Fire, but they’re in the lowest level of the Fire.
Allah said,
“Verily, the munafiqin are in the lowest level of the Fire and you will never find any supporter for them.” [4:145]
So, we see from these two examples and also the example of Fir’awn and his people, Allah said,
“They rejected it outwardly, but inside they were certain of it and they did this out of pride.” [27:14]
So, we know that Fir’awn, and he’s from the Imams of kufr, inside he knew that what Musa and Harun came with was the truth but you know it didn’t benefit him. And Allah said they were certain of it. They were certain 100% that what Musa and Harun came with was correct and it was from Allah, but we know it didn’t help them.
So, this is why we see that Islam isn’t sufficient only on one of these two things, and likewise we’ll come to see Tawhid and Shirk, or Tawhid or kufr is related to the person himself and what he says and does, and it also relates to how he deals with other people.
So, we’ll see insha’Allah that the Muslimin, or someone being Muslim, gives them rights upon the other Muslimin, and someone being a disbeliever or a kafir, has certain implications on how we deal with them, and the rights that we give them as opposed to the Muslim. So, we’ll see that all of these matters all come back to the issue of Tawhid and shirk. So, we see here that this is the definition of Islam and we see that how they defined it, it was related to staying away from shirk and its people as well as submitting to Allah.
So, the evidence in this Risalah here, in this small paper that we have, that was given was the statement of Allah,
“And verily, We sent to every community a Messenger (proclaiming): ‘Worship Allah (Alone) and avoid the Taghut’.” [16:36]
So, we see here, Allah mentioned that every Ummah or every group of people whether it’s by time or by area, every group of people was sent a Messenger, and this could either be that literally they received a Messenger themselves or he was sent to an area that oversaw the other areas and then Messengers were sent out to them from him, or that they heard about it and they inherited the message was kept in those people. So, regardless generally every group received a Messenger, and they message they sent was,
“Worship Allah and avoid the Taghut.”
These are two things, so we see when we say, “worship Allah and avoid or stay away from the Taghut.” First, we have to understand a few things from this verse and we’ll get into that. First of all, what is ‘Ibadah? So, when Allah commands us to worship him, we have to understand what does worship even mean to begin with, and second of all what is a taghut, so we can stay away from it. Allah didn’t just say don’t worship the taghut, He said stay away from it, or avoid it. So, any coming near it or anything should be avoided.
So, what is a taghut? If we’re going to understand the verse, we need to understand what this word means. One of the best definitions or explaining of what a Taghut was given by Ibn Qayyim. He said,
“It is everything which a man
exceeds his limits with, whether it is being worshipped, followed or
obeyed. So, the Taghut of every people are those who take judgements to,
instead of what Allah and His Messenger have ruled; or the ones who
they worship, instead of Allah; or the ones who they follow without any
proof from Allah and the ones who they obey, and they don't know if
they're obeying these people in the obedience of Allah or not. If you
look at the Tawaghit of the world and if you contemplate the conditions
of the people in the world, you would see that most of the people have
turned away from worshipping Allah Alone, to worshipping the Taghut;
away from seeking judgement from Allah and His Messenger, to seeking
judgement from the Taghut; away from obeying Him and following His
Messenger, to obeying and following the Taghut.”
[Refer to I'lam Al-Muwaqqi'in (1/50)].
We
see from this definition that when Allah says that He sent in every
group of people, a Messenger, ordering to worship Allah and to stay away
from the Taghut, that He was ordering them to worship Allah and stay
away from worshipping anything else, following anything else with
complete obedience which we would give only to Allah and then the
Messenger (saws) because he was sent as a Prophet. Anything of this
nature was forbidden.
So,
this is the defining characteristics of what Tawhid is; worshipping
Allah and giving Allah all of the rights that only belong to Him, so
anything that is specified to the rights of Allah, then we give it to
Him, so the rights of any act of worship, such as Salat, giving Zakat,
performing Hajj and Umrah, or fasting, or slaughtering for other than
Allah or ruling with laws in which the right only belongs to Allah.
Anything
that is specifically designated by Allah in the Qur’an or by the
Messenger (saws) in the Sunnah, giving any of these things to other
than Allah is an act of Shirk, and this is why it's important to
understand what is actually worship of Allah, and what is the rights of
Allah, and eventually insha’Allah we’ll get into all of those aspects.
So,
we understand from now the basis of this whole discussion, is that
anything that belongs or is only the right of Allah can only be given to
Him, and if it’s given to anyone else, then it’s considered shirk and
this person would either be not Muslim to begin with or it’s considered
that he’s committed something that would take him out of Islam. So, this
is the first discussion.
1) Negating (Nothing is worthy of worship).
2) Affirming (Except Allah).
So,
what does this mean? We’re negating any sort of worship, so we say “La
ilaha”, nothing is worthy of worship, except Allah. So, we have to have
two of these things present in order for the person to be upon Tawhid.
So, if we just say “we worship Allah”, that’s not sufficient because
Quraysh used to worship, and many of the people before used to worship
Allah but they used to worship something with Him.
So,
just saying that isn’t enough. Just like the opposite, when we say
“There’s nothing worthy of worship”, and we stop there, this is also
completely false as well, because in order for someone to be Muslim,
first of all they have to say, “Nothing is worthy of worship except
Allah”. So, we have to have these two things.
In this verse, it's the same thing,
“Worship Allah (Alone)”and
“Avoid the Taghut”
whereby “worship Allah”, is very similar to “ila Allah” and 'Avoid the Taghut' is very similar to “La ilaha”, so the two things need to be present.
“Whoever disbelieves in the Taghut and believes in Allah then he has grasped the most trustworthy handhold.” [2:256]
Commenting
on this verse, many of the scholars have said that when Allah mentioned
this first, it shows that the heart has to be clear of anything else
before Tawhid can actually enter it, because the Muslim can't have Shirk
and Tawhid mixed in his heart and still be considered a Muslim, so
every aspect of Shirk has to be completely gone before Tawhid can
actually take place. So, this is one of the explanations that the ‘Ulama
give as to why Allah first mentioned, disbelieving in the Taghut and
believing in Him secondly.
So, for the first one, we can divide it into four parts:
a) Commanding the worship of Allah Alone without any partners.
b) Encouragement upon this.
c) Allegiance based upon that.
d) Declaring those who leave the Tawhid to be non-Muslim.
So,
we don’t accept people to worship other than Allah, in any aspect and
also say, “we’re also Muslims”, because this is something that can’t be.
It negates the whole point of why the Messengers were sent, because we
said many of the people before would worship Allah, but they would
worship other things with Allah. So, this is why we say, we don’t accept
anyone to claim Islam and accept their Islam, while they’re openly
committing acts of shirk. It’s not sufficient to have one.
2) Staying away from Shirk:
a) Warning against worshipping other than Allah.This would include ourselves; so us staying away from it and warning others to stay away from it.
b) Being harsh upon it.
We don’t say “this is okay, as long as he doesn’t do it lots”, or anything like this; any aspect of shirk is rejected.
c) Openly showing it.
We
don’t just keep it in our heart, if someone tells us that they do
shirk, then we tell them, we don’t accept this, this is wrong, this is
ridiculous. We don’t say that we’re going to be nice with them and keep
it in our heart. This is something that’s obligatory upon us to tell the
people that we don’t accept it, to tell them they need to stop it, to
call to other than it, because just keeping it in your heart isn’t from
our religion, we’re ordered to openly declare these aspects.
We
can’t have the hatred or the dislike for things that are wrong in our
heart and we don’t openly show it. Just like if we openly show but we
don’t actually have it in our heart, this is wrong as well, both things
have to be there because this is like we talked about before a little
bit, Islam is something that’s outward and inward, so both of these
things need to be present.
d) Declaring someone who worships besides Allah a Mushrik.
So,
if someone comes and they worship other than Allah, we say that this
person can’t be Muslim, because obviously he has negated the most basic
aspect of Islam. So, the idea that as long as someone says they’re
Muslim, no matter what they do, or what they say, or what they believe,
then we say they’re Muslim, this is something that’s completely false,
and insha’Allah we’ll get into that a little bit more.
Sharh Risālah Aslu Dīn Al-Islām wa Qā’idatuhu (The Foundation of Islam and its Principle) - By Shaykh Haytham Sayfaddeen
TO BE CONTINUED INSHA'ALLAH...
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