The Foundation of Islam & its Principle, PART-1.

Insha’Allah this is the first lesson we’ll start with ‘Aqidah, we had the Fiqh lesson for about a month, and you asked for something on ‘Aqidah. So, insha’Allah this will be a little bit different than the Fiqh, Fiqh is very long and we’re not really rushing to get through anything, and it’s one book, and we’ll stick with that book. For this topic, it’d be better to pick different small books or mutun, to go through one here and one here and to pick topics about different issues and start our way up. So, we’ll start from the bottom and it’ll take be very quick, and we’ll work our way up, and the more detail we get, the longer we’ll spend on the topic, but I think this will work better for the ‘Aqidah lessons.

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.

So, the first thing is that he says is the Foundation, so we talked about what the Foundation or the ‘asl is, or what is meant by that. So, the next thing is Islam, what is Islam? Islam is our religion, it’s the religion that Allah sent the Prophet Muhammad (saws) with and when Allah mentioned that Ibrahim surrendered to him,
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.

We see in this verse as well, it’s very similar to when we say ‘La ilaha ila Allah’. So, what does this mean, when we say La ilaha ila Allah, we're doing two things:
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.

Like Allah said,

“Whoever disbelieves in the Taghut and believes in Allah then he has grasped the most trustworthy handhold.” [2:256]

So, we see that these two things need to be present. We see here also that Allah first mentioned, disbelieving in the Taghut, so rejecting every single thing that's worshipped other than Allah, or that's given any rights above what it deserves from the rights of Allah.

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, these things the Imam mentioned in this Risalah, he mentioned two points and each point has four aspects under it. So, we’ll see that the two points that he mentioned was worshipping Allah and the second one was staying away from Shirk.

So, for the first one, we can divide it into four parts:

1) Worshipping Allah:
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.

The second one can also be divided into four as well:

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.

So, when talking about this, these two rules that have four sub-sections each one of the Ulama’, Abdur-Rahman ibn Hasan, he said: “The evidence for this from the Qur’an is more than can be counted,” because how many verses in the Qur’an reject Shirk and, how many verses in the Qur’an order Tawhid, or order the worship of Allah, or order to have ‘Wilayah’ or love for the Muslimin and hatred, or cutting off ties with the ones who worship other than Allah. So, if you added all these verses up, there’s so many that a person would have a very hard time counting them.

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...

TO READ OTHER PARTS, CLICK:

• The Foundation of Islam & its Principle, PART-2
• The Foundation of Islam & its Principle, PART-3
• The Foundation of Islam & its Principle, PART-4
• The Foundation of Islam & its Principle, PART-5
• The Foundation of Islam & its Principle, PART-6 (LAST)