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