The Foundation of Islam & its Principle, PART-2.

So, insha’Allah now we’ll talk a little bit about each one of these four aspects of the first rule that he mentions. So, he says the first one is:

a) Commanding the worship of Allah Alone without any partners.
We know Allah said,
“Say: ‘O People of the Book, come to a word that is Just between us and you, that we worship none but Allah, and that we associate no partners with Him; and that none of us shall takes others as Lords besides Allah.’ Then if they turn away, say: ‘bear witness that we are Muslimin’”. [3:64]

So, we see from this verse that, first of all, we are ordered to call the people to this. It’s not something that we say “I believe and I’m not going to push my beliefs on anyone else”, because if we believe this is true, and we believe Allah has the right to be worshipped, and no one has the right to be worshipped other than Allah, this is something we have to openly declare.

Whether it’s to Muslimin who have problems with this, who fall into acts that contradict this, we should correct them and inform them that we don’t accept it. Likewise, taking part in other non-Muslim acts that are worship of other than Allah, or that contain any of these aspects, they should be openly declared because Allah ordered us here, “Qul ya Ahl-Kitab”, so the first one is the Prophet (saws), and we’re ordered to follow him in everything that’s not specific to him, and this is obviously one of the things that isn’t specific to him.

We also see here, that Allah said to call them to this word, that we don’t that we don't worship anybody except Allah, that we associate no partners with Him and that none of us shall take others a Lords besides Allah, so these three things. Then he said, if they turn away from this, then say, “bear witness that we are Muslimin.” So, if people don't accept these things, they're not Muslims.

This is clear from the Ayah because Allah wouldn’t tell us to tell them, do this and if they don’t follow this, tell them, we’re Muslimin at least, this is the point of it. So, if someone says “what is your evidence that someone worships Allah, and they also worship something with Him, what is your evidence that they’re not Muslim?” We tell them this verse. Allah told us to tell the people that this (worship of Allah Alone) is what we're going to agree on, and if you don’t agree then we are the Muslims, and you’re not Muslimin.

Also, another evidence for this rule is when Allah said,
“And your Lord has decreed that you worship none but Him.” [17:23].
So, Allah ordered us to worship none but Him, so we worship Him and no one else.

Allah also said,
“The judgement is for none but Allah, He has commanded you to worship none except Him, that is the straight religion, but most people do not know.” [12:40].
So, we see here that the Din itself is worshipping Allah, and not worshipping anyone else; so this is the basis of the religion. People might say the basis of the religion is being a good person, or not eating pork, or staying away from wine, not performing zina or doing any of these things. Yes, this is from our religion, but Allah said, “that is the straight religion”, after He mentioned to worship Allah, and to not worship anyone else. So, having all these other things is obviously from the religion, but, if you don’t the thing that defines the religion itself, then everything else after that is, it doesn’t benefit you in the end.

Allah also said,
“Alif, Lam, Ra. This is a Book the verses of which are perfected and then explained in detail, from One who is All-Wise and Well-Acquainted, (through a Messenger saying) ‘worship none except Allah, verily I am unto you are warner, and the bringer of glad-tidings from Him.’” [11:1-2].

So, Allah is saying here, He’s obviously commanding us to worship Him and not worship anyone with Him, and He is explaining that the Prophet (saws) is a warner and a bringer of glad-tidings. So, a warner against the people who worship other than Allah, or don't worship Him, and giving glad-tidings to the ones who worship Allah and don't have any partners with Him. We know that, this was also the call of the all of the Messengers.

So, all of the Messengers that came, we know that Allah said earlier in the verse that we mentioned that, “We have sent a Messenger in every people to worship Allah and to avoid the Taghut.”

We also know that in many, many verses when Allah would talk about the da’wah of a specific Messenger, that in his interaction with his people, he would say, “O my people, worship Allah, you have no other god or no Ilah other than Him.” So, we see here that this is the da’wah of all of the messengers.
There’s also the hadith that the Prophet (saws) said, “The prophets are children from co-wives.” So, what they say this means is, when the Prophet (saws) is saying this, he’s explaining that the ‘asl of us is all the same, even though the branches of us, that we come with might be different. So, we know that if a man has more than one wife, and he has children from more than one wife, all of them are attributed to the same father, even though they have different mothers.

There basis, or the thing that they go back to, or the thing that they came from is all the same, even though some aspects from it differ. So, even though they have different mothers, we can still say, “so and so, is the son of so and so,” it’s the same man, and if he has a different mother, you still say the same thing, they all go back to the same person.

Likewise, we know that the Anbiya all came with the same message. The basis of the message was the same, the Akham might have been different. So, certain things may be obligatory on some people, and not obligatory on others. We know certain things were obligatory in the time of ‘Isa (as) with regards to fasting, and with regards to najasah, and then they were lifted off of us and certain things were haram before, but made permissible for us like the “Ghana’im” or the spoils of war, or the Prophet (saws) said that, “All of the earth was made a masjid for his Ummah,” while before there were only certain places that the Muslimin could pray.

So, these types of things we see that there was a difference between the Anbiya with what they came with in these aspects, but in general they all called to worshipping Allah and staying away from the Taghut. So, this is something that need to understand.

Another very important point to understand from this is what many people call to today in the world, and we even see it in our city, probably on a monthly basis at least, this whole idea of 'interfaith' dialogues or even worse than this when they say, ‘the coming together of Abrahamic faiths.’ What they’re trying to say is that, we all say that we came from Ibrahim (as) so what's the big difference as we all accept him as a Prophet, and the Prophets after him, we accept most of old testaments, and we all accept that Allah sends Books or He sent Books and he sends Messengers, so we might as well work together on this and leave the other things we disagree on.

But we see here that what Ibrahim (as) actually came with, was the opposite of that. It was to worship of Allah and to reject everything that is worshipped besides Allah, and to reject the people who worship things besides Allah. So, for people, and it’s a shame for Muslimin to then use the name of Ibrahim (as), who are Din is even titled after him, or he’s the one who called you the Muslimin from before, and Allah said,
“Follow the Millah of Ibrahim as a Hanif.” [3:95]

So, meaning staying away from shirk, or He said when He was talking about the Millah of Ibrahim, he called it the Millah of Ibrahim, this is what He called our religion. So, for then people to say, these people they’re Jewish but they accept Ibrahim. But they also reject ‘Isa, and they also reject Muhammad (saws), and they also reject the Qur’an, and they reject the Injeel. Or these people are Christian, they reject Muhammad (saws), or they reject the Qur’an, and they worship ‘Isa as Allah, or as Allah’s son, or whatever sect they come from. For then to state that, this is some sort of tie that we have between other people, in fact it should be the division we have with other people based upon Ibrahim (as). So, this is the first point, or the first of the four points that is mentioned in this Risalah.

So, the second thing, he says the second is:

b) Encouraging people upon this:
We can see that there’s evidence from this from the Qur’an and from the Sunnah as well. Allah said,

“And who is better in religion than the one who submits his face to Allah and he is a Muhsin, and he follows the Millah of Ibrahim as the Haneef, and Allah did take Ibrahim as a Khalil.” [4:125]

So, Allah loved Ibrahim with the highest level that love can be given to a human being.

And Allah said,

“Allah has promised the male and female believers, gardens under which rivers flow therein forever, and beautiful mansions in the gardens of Eden, but the greatest bliss is the pleasure of Allah and that is the great success.” [9:72]

So, Allah being pleased with us is the greatest success.

And Allah said,

“And this a message for mankind, in order that they may be warned by it and that they may know that He is only One Illah and that men of understanding may take heed.” [14:52]

Allah gives many examples in which encouraging each other and encouraging ourselves, to worship Allah Alone is something from our religion. We know that the Prophet (saws) in many narrations that he used to go to the market, and that he would stand up in front of all the people, and first of all tell them this is something that they should be doing, and then he would give them encouragement upon it.

So, we know that if success comes from La ilaha ila Allah, and saying La ilaha ila Allah, and entering Islam and not worshipping anyone with Allah, and we know that the opposite of success which is failure, is falling into Shirk. So, this also gives us the way in which we should judge what is success and what is failure. If someone has lots of money, this isn’t necessarily a success, if they’re not giving it in the way of Allah, and if they’re not using it for the betterment of the Muslimin in order to assist the Muslimin.

Likewise, if they have properly, or if they’re good-looking, or if they have a large family, or they have these types of things, this isn’t how we judge success, because we know that saying “La ilaha ila Allah”, isn’t going to bring these things. So, what does saying “La ilaha ila Allah”, do which brings us success, it would save us from the Hell-Fire, and bring us into Jannah. Like Allah said,

“Whoever makes it away from the Fire, and enters the Jannah, then he is successful.” [3:185]

If we remember from the dars, from Shaykh Harith last week, when he talked about the hadith in Sahih Muslim about the story of the boy and the king, that in the end of that story, we know that all of the people ended up being killed, all of them because they said “La ilaha ila Allah”, and because they weren’t worshipping other than Allah. We even know the story, in the hadith mentions in the end, that the woman was scared, and her child actually spoke to her, and he was below the age of speaking, and then Allah mentioned this in the Qur’an as being a success. Allah said,

“That is the great attainment.” [85:11]

And the only places in the Qur’an where Allah said ذَٰلِكَ الْفَوْزُ الْكَبِيرُ. So, once in the Qur’an He said, and what did He say it for? He said it a place where everybody was killed, a whole town that believed in La ilaha ila Allah, a whole group in this town or in this city was killed, but despite that, Allah called it a success, He called it ‘Al-Khabeer’, or that is the biggest success, and this is the only time He actually used this phrase in the Qur’an. It was for the example where no-one was left, not one person was left, families, and children, and men, and women, everyone was gone, but despite that it was a success. So, this shows us, what’s a success, but it also shows us, what an absolute failure falling into Shirk is.

Someone worship other than Allah, putting your face down for other than Allah, what an absolute, disgusting failure that is. Using laws other than Allah, following a religion then what other than what Allah ordered us to do. Seeking help, or making du’a to a person, and all these things, this is an absolute failure, there’s nothing worse than it.

So this is what we can take, and this hadith, it’s narrated by Imam Ahmad, the one about where the Prophet (saws) would go to the market and say, “O you people, say La ilaha ila Allah, you’ll be successful”, it’s narrated by Imam Ahmad, and the Prophet (saws) saying that is authentic.

There’s different stories that details what was going on in the market at the time or different things like that, but in general, the Prophet (saws) going and saying this to the people and it being a thing that he used to do, is an authentic thing. Ibn Hazm authenticated it, and Ibn Mulakin, and from the mu’assirin or from the contemporary scholars also accepted it.

Insha’Allah we’ll stop there, and next time we’ll start talking about ‘Wilayah’ based upon Tawhid, then we’ll go into the last one, which is declaring people who leave Tawhid to be non-Muslim, and not accepting the Islam of people who leave Tawhid. Wallahul A’lam.

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-1 
• 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)