The Foundation of Islam & its Principle, PART-3.

Last week we talked about the issues of ‘Aqidah that are included in that topic. So, when we say we’re going to study ‘Aqidah, or this is a book about ‘Aqidah, what are the things that might be there and we talked a little bit about all the things that would be included, and what’s the most important and what’s the basis of those things and why we’re starting with that.

So, we said the most basic part of ‘Aqidah is Tawhid, so following Tawhid and staying away from Shirk and this is why we chose this small Risalah, it’s very basic and it gives you the most basic aspects of the ‘Aqidah of the Muslimin and these are aspects that don’t even fall, if someone contradicts them, they don’t even fall into aspects of Bi’dah, they actually fall out of the fold of Islam, because the most basic thing, if someone doesn’t have Tawhid, or they have Shirk then they’re not Muslim.

So, this isn’t a matter of, to say that this person is not from Ahlus-Sunnah or this person is a Mubtada’, we’d say that this person has actually left the fold of Islam and he’s not a Muslim, or he’s a Kafir or however you want to phrase what this person is, but the fact of the matter is that they’re not Muslim.

So, this is why we started with this and last week brother Jamal read it for us, and we see that it’s two aspects, so the first is thing that must be done by the Muslim, so that he must have Tawhid, act upon Tawhid and he must encourage upon that, and he must have his Wilayah for it, or forming his allegiances are based upon Tawhid and that the fourth is that he declares to be a disbeliever the people who don’t have Tawhid.

The second aspect was the opposite of that, so staying away from Shirk and encouraging or warning people against that, or having Bara’ah and disvowment from the people who fall into shirk, and then the fourth part is declaring the people who do it, to be non-Muslim, and be kuffar. The Imam who wrote this, he mentioned the evidence for all of these, when Allah said,

“And verily, We sent to every community a Messenger (proclaiming): ‘Worship Allah (Alone) and avoid the Taghut’.” [16:36]

We talked last week about what is the Taghut, and the Taghut is anything that’s worshipped other than Allah and is pleased with it, or followed other than Allah, in a way that would only be befitting for Allah to be followed or the commands of Allah to be followed or the commands of the Messenger (saws) to be followed, or that they’re obeyed in a way that’s at that level.

And we talked about that, and we talked about what is Islam, and that Islam is something that’s inward and outward, and someone isn’t Muslim if they only believe in their heart, and also they wouldn’t be Muslim if they perform all their actions on the outward with their body and their tongue, but they don’t believe in it in their heart, this would be the Munafiqin.

We also talked about the people who believed in the inside and don’t follow it on the outside, this is similar to Quraysh in the time of the Prophet (saws), and also like Fir’awn and his people, and we talked about some of the evidences for this as well.

So, insha’Allah this week we’ll go onto the third point from the first half of the Risalah which is Wilayah, or making allegiance or it’s translated here as having friendship based upon this, based upon Tawhid, so this is what insha’Allah we’ll talk about today, and depending on how much time we have, we’ll maybe get on the fourth point, which is declaring to be a Kafir, someone who doesn’t follow Tawhid.

So, the third point is making Wilayah for its sake or having allegiance for the sake of Tawhid, and the evidence for this is when Allah said,
“The believing men and women are allies of one another.” [9:71]

And Allah also said:

“The believers are nothing else, but brothers, so make reconciliation between your brothers.” [49:10].

So, here, Allah called the believers to be brothers, so He specified specific people that they’re brothers, so He mentioned that it’s the believers. So, this is a refutation, or rejection or declaration that anything that is stated to be a brotherhood other than Iman, is something that's false. So, people who state that brotherhood is based upon humanity, or brotherhood is based upon nationality, race, language or anything like this, we know that based upon this verse, all these things are completely rejected.

If someone has this tie with you, regardless if they have no other ties with you, then it doesn't really matter. If they have the tie of Iman with you, then everything else is irrelevant at that point. We don’t say that someone who is a believer is your brother because he’s a believer, but the one’s who speak your language are a little bit more of your brothers, or the one with the same skin colour or from the same nationality or anything like this, that they have some sort of higher status than anyone else, and likewise the opposite.

So, if we say that someone isn’t your brother, or you have no tie with him because he’s a disbeliever. Then, we don’t say “they’re all disbelievers but the Arabi ones aren’t as bad”, or the ones from Lebnan aren’t as bad, or the ones from Filistin aren’t as bad, or the ones fighting the Yahud aren’t as bad. None of these things in and of themselves have a tie to what your allegiance is with the Muslimin.

Yes there are disbelievers who are worse than others, that’s a separate issue, but that would be coming back to again the Islamic ties. So, if they haven’t contradicted Islam as much as the others, so that’s why they wouldn’t be as far, or you might say they’re not as bad as someone else, or that type of thing, but as far as the language, and the nationality, and the land and all these things, they have absolutely no bearing on what tie or what love or what allegiance you have with these people. So, this can all be taken when Allah said,

“The believing men and women are allies of one another.” [9:71]

So, He specified the believers for this.

Another point to talk about with this is what are the believers in this verse? The believers in this verse are obviously the Muslimin. Some people will try to say that the believers are anyone who believes in anything, but this is obviously false because Allah revealed this verse to the Prophet (saws) who was calling the Muslimin to Tawhid and fighting against or calling against the Shirk, which Quraysh had believed in, and they believed in Allah, and they believed that Allah was presented that He created everything, and they actually worshipped Him too. They had their own form of Salat they used to perform, they used to give Sadaqah, they used to perform Hajj in their own way, all of these things.

So, obviously we wouldn’t understand from this like some people claim nowadays that what’s meant by it is anyone who believes in Allah, and just like that. Yes, you always have to believe in Allah, but you believe in Allah the correct way that makes you a Muslim, and you perform the actions that keep you in Islam, and you don’t perform anything that takes you out of Islam.

So, this is what’s meant by the verse, and insha’Allah we’ll get  a lot more into that when we talk specifically about which things are Shirk, and which things are a condition for someone to be Muslim, and what actions and that’s a whole other discussion, but for now we’re just talking about the general foundation of Muslimin and kuffar, or Islam and kufr and the Wilayah and the allegiance that’s based upon this.

And Allah said,

“He is the One Who has supported you with His help and with the Mu'minin and He has united their hearts, and if you had spent all that is on the Earth, you could not have united their hearts, but Allah has united them. Certainly, He is Almighty, All-Wise.” [8:62-63]

Here, Allah was talking about Al-Aws and Al-Khazraj, these were two tribes who in jahiliyah were from the greatest of enemies, despite the fact they were from the same place. And when Allah joined between their hearts with the sending of the Prophet (saws) and it wasn’t from the fact that they were from the same place of Yathrib or they were both Arab, they both spoke Arabi, or they were both from the Arabian Peninsula. None of this mattered before Islam and Allah united them through sending the Prophet to them and that they were united upon Islam.

So, we see here that He didn’t say that, it was never mentioned “you’re from the same town or you speak the same language, why are you fighting”, or anything like this. When Islam came to them, this was the thing that united them and the other stuff was already present but it didn’t help, and this is what we can see from this verse that their Wilayah, or their understanding, they put away all of their enmity and hatred and fighting and everything that went before solely for the sake of Islam, which is something that should be done nowadays.

If you have a good relationship with them before, but then they leave Islam or then they start insulting Islam, then all these other things shouldn’t matter that was done before, and likewise the opposite, if you have someone who you fought with and you had no relationship with, and they used to steal from you and then they become Muslim, all those stuff, as much as humanely possible should be thrown away. There might remain some stuff in your heart you find difficult to get rid of, but technically it shouldn't matter and we should strive as much as possible, because if we look at how the Sahabah were with each other when Islam came, this is how they dealt with these matters. 

And Allah also said,

“And hold fast all of you together to the rope of Allah and do not fall into division.” [3:103]

Many people say, we shouldn't fall into division, dispute things or Muslimin shouldn’t dispute or we shouldn’t argue with each other or you don’t want to say something to somebody that’s going to make them mad if you’re trying to tell them about something good and stop something bad, and very often they’ll refer to the issue of unity and say that we’re supposed to be united and we’re not supposed to have any division.

Yes this is right but what did Allah tell us to be united upon, all of us to be upon the rope of Allah, and what is the rope of Allah? Depending on the Tafsir that you look at, it could be many different things. It can be the Qur’an, it can be Islam, it can be the Sunnah, it can be the Prophet (saws), it can be many different things, but the point of it is that this unity should be upon the Qur’an and the Sunnah.

So, if someone comes and says you telling someone not to do this, you’re making a problem, and you’re making division. This is division that’s accepted in Islam, and it’s a division that should be done as we're supposed to be bringing people back to the rope of Allah. So, if you’re not following, if you’re not holding onto the rope of Allah then you’ve already fallen into division. This is the most basic division or the most basic dispute to go away from the rope of Allah or the Sunnah of the Prophet (saws).

This idea that division should be fought against regardless of what the division is for or that unity is something that should be sought after regardless of what we’re given up for this unity, this is something that's completely false. So, when Allah ordered us to be united upon the rope of Allah, holding onto the rope of Allah is what should be the thing that unites us. It shouldn’t be that we’re united and that’s us being upon the rope of Allah, it’s actually the opposite. So, if everyone held onto the rope of Allah, then they would be united upon this.

If someone is still in the fold of Islam, but has fallen into acts of Bid’ah and they've contradicted the Sunnah, then we would give them our allegiance based upon how much their obedience is to Allah and their following of the Sunnah. So, someone who followed everything would have complete allegiance and someone who had less, he would have a little bit less of this wilayah, just like our love for a Muslim. The more someone follows the Sunnah, the more love we have for them.

When someone is Muslim, then we give them the basic Wilayah of that they’re Muslim, and then after that depending on how far they follow the Sunnah, that would be how far we go after that with our Wilayah and our love for them. Anyone who says they're Muslim and you don't openly see something that they do that takes them out of Islam, and you don't know if it's been clarified to them, then you would treat them as a Muslim. Insha’Allah we’ll get further into it, but for now I guess the basic rule, someone who claims Islam and you don’t have a clear evidence that they’ve left Islam, then you treat them as a Muslim and we’ll leave it at that for now.

And also Allah said,

“Work together and help each other in goodness and piety, and do not work together and help each other in sinfulness and transgression.” [5:2]

Here we see that Allah ordered us to work together for these things and what is the greatest act of Birr (righteousness), it’s Tawhid. The greatest act that someone can do that’s pleasing to Allah and that He commanded us to do is acts of Tawhid, and the greatest acts of transgression are acts of Shirk.

So, we see here that Allah is ordering us to deal with each other and help each other with something wasn’t based upon anything except for the acts itself and that the acts that the person is doing is what we help them with, or do we work with this person in something or not, it’s based upon whether what they’re doing is good or whether what they’re doing is bad. It has nothing to do with their familial relations to you or their nationality or anything like this, it all comes back to their actions that they're committing. 

This doesn't mean that we wouldn’t be good to our family if they're not Muslim, this is a separate issue, but the point of it is, when we're good to our family who isn't Muslim, the point of it is or the reason why we’re doing it is because Islam has told us to do it and because we want them to become Muslim and it has nothing to do with, in and of itself, we’re doing these things just because they’re our family, it’s because Allah has ordered us to do these things and to treat them well and to make da’wah to them, and to obey them in something that’s disobedience to Allah, and to obey them in things that aren’t in disobedience to Allah and so on. So, we see here that this is another verse that can be used to show that what is the tie or what is the relationship between people; that it’s based upon their actions; whether their actions are good or evil. 

With regards to some other things that’s important to mention, when Allah spoke in the Qur’an and he spoke about the earlier nations who before the Prophet (saws), so the nation of ‘Isa, and the nation of Musa and other nations. He spoke about these people and what they did, and their Iman, and their good deeds and the trials that they faced in calling the people to Islam. Despite that these people were divided by their lands, so some people were in Sham, some people were in Iraq, and some people in Egypt and some people we might not know exactly where they were from.

We also know that there were Prophets and Messengers that weren't mentioned in the Qur’an that we don’t know what lands they were in. But we know that every nation had received a Messenger, either directly or that their message stayed within the people for the people after them to receive it. After Allah talked about these people and the trials and stories, He said,

“Verily this is your Ummah, one Ummah, and I am your Lord so worship Me.” [21:92]

So, here we see that despite these people not being in the same time, and they weren’t from the same place and we know for a fact they were speaking different languages, Allah called them “One Ummah”, so what greater thing can we say that when we see that they were divided by centuries and sometimes maybe even a millennium, and they were divided by oceans or seas and rivers and all these stuff, and Allah called them one Ummah, but the people who they were calling to Islam, they were considered their enemies. And they were considered the people, who Allah told them to call to Islam, because they weren’t Muslim, or in certain aspects they were to fight them, and certain aspects they were ordered to flee from them, either leaving their lands or whatever the case may be, and Allah punished them once the Muslimin left.

So, we see here that despite living in the same area, speaking the same language, having ties, we know even Nuh (as‎) and Lut (as‎), their wives who lived in their houses actually married to them, they weren’t even from the same Ummah, technically , maybe linguistically you might say that they were both from, they spoke this language or they were this nationality or whatever you want to call it but in the end, these things didn’t benefit them. Allah called us that they're from our Ummah and we're from their Ummah. So, we see that we are closer to Nuh (عليه السلام‎) then we are to our cousins who aren’t Muslim, despite the fact we never met him or, we don’t specifically know where he was, where he died anything like this.

We see also, there’s a story in which the Companions were out fighting, or they were in a battle, and there’s a hadith from Jabir ibn Abdillah that he said: We were out in a battle and a man from the Muhajirin hit a man from the Ansar, so the Ansari said, “O Ansar, gather around.” The Muhajiri said “O Muhajirin, gather around.” Allah let his Messenger (saws) hear it, meaning he wasn't close but Allah let him hear it. So, he came out and said what is going on. They said a man from the Muhajirin hit a man from the Ansar and both parties told their own to gather around. The Prophet (saws) said, “Abandon this because it's something that’s putrid.” [Bukhari] Or similar to when there’s a dead body, when something’s rotten and disgusting, when the Prophet (saws) heard this, he said to abandon this because it’s putrid, or it’s filthy.

We know that the word ‘Muhajirin’, where did it come from? It’s from Allah, He calld the Muhajirin the Muhajirin so this is a Shar’i title that came from Allah and he gave specific rewards for the Muhajirin. Even from the ‘Aqidah of Ahlus-Sunnah, the Muhajirin have a place that's special. We even say when it comes to who’s best Abu Bakr, then ‘Umar, then ‘Uthman, then ‘Ali, and then they say, the ten who are given glad-tidings for the Jannah and the people who were from the Muhajirin were better than the Ansar, and the people who entered Islam before the Fath of Makkah were better than the ones who entered in Islam after the Fath of Makkah.

We see from all this that this term Muhajirin had a specific place in Islam, and the term Ansar had a specific place in Islam, and it's mentioned in the Qur'ān, it came from above the seven heavens, or seven skies that Allah revealed His verse, but despite this, when it came to having some sort of division, that the Muharijin comes to help the person who’s a Muhajir and the Ansar comes to help the person who’s from the Ansar, the Prophet (saws) called this is something that’s ‘putrid or filthy, or disgusting’ because it had this division.

Then what would we say about something that didn't come from Allah, and didn’t come from the Prophet (saws) in the Sunnah, it came from some guy who started a town, and another guy started another town and now they hate each other, because this guy started another town, something like that. Or the British came, and they divided up our land, so the guy who’s on the other side of the river, I hate him because he’s on the other side of the river, and the Filistinians hate the Jordanians and the Jordanians hate the Filistinians and the Saudis hate the Lebnani’s and this and that, and Pakistani’s hate Indians and on and on.

Who did this? First of all, it’s not from the Shar’a, it’s done after that, there should  be no discussion  about it, but not only that, it didn't even come from Muslimin, but then people started making their Wilayah based upon these things, and they’ll love the Muslim who's from this country more than they’ll love the Muslim who’s from another country and they will hate the Kafir who's from my country less than they hate the kafir from the other country. Sometimes, you’ll even see that it’s disgusting that they’ll love the Kafir from my country, more than they’ll love the Muslim from the other country.

So, they start making these ties based upon, it’s something that’s not only that’s baseless, the division in and of itself, the asl of it or the basis of it is something disgusting, that Kuffar took over Muslim lands and they started dividing it up, and now all of a sudden people are following these things.

Or, you’ll see that many Muslimin will come to this country and they’ll start loving kuffar who are Canadians, because I got my citizenship now, and now I’m a Canadian and we’re all Canadians. You weren’t even born here, you start seeing these ties and you think how can who’s read the Qur’an even think like this, but then you see that it’s like that, an these people they’ll start giving lessons, and running masajid and this and that and it makes you sick, and you can’t do anything about it and you complain to Allah only because it gets to the point where you think, these people are so far gone, there’s nothing else to do. I’m sure especially in the last month or two, I know for a fact have felt that way about certain issues and that, Allahul Musta’an, you don’t know what to say about it.

This is just a little bit to talk about the issue of Wilayah, and where does Wilayah come from, and what is Wilayah based upon, and what it shouldn't be based upon, and insha’Allah we’ll get more into it when we get into other topics about what’s the ruling on different types of Wilayah, and is this considered actually allegiance or not, and is this considered something that’s allowed with a non-Muslim or not, and that will come later on insha’Allah if you can be patient, but this is just kind of laying the ground work, to understand what are the ties based upon, and why are they based upon that, and what they shouldn’t be based upon and why they shouldn’t be based upon that. So, that’s the third point and we can move onto the fourth. 

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-2
• 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)