The Foundation of Islam & its Principle, PART-6 (LAST).

Also Allah said,
“So flee towards Allah, verily I am from Him a plain warner to you, and set up no object of worship with Allah, verily I am from Him a plain warner to you.” [51:50-51]

And Allah said,

Say: Do you order me to worship other than Allah oh you fools?” [39:64]

Allah also said,

“And indeed it has been revealed to you, as it was revealed to those before you, if you commit Shirk, then indeed all of your deeds will be cancelled, and certainly you will be among the losers. No, so worship Allah Alone, and be amongst the grateful.” [39:65-66]

So, we see here that even the Prophet (saws), Allah mentioned that him, and any of the other Anbiya or the Rasul, if they had fallen into shirk, then their actions would’ve been void or their actions would’ve been cancelled out. So, if this was the case with the Anbiya and the Rasul, and we know that Allah protected them from shirk, but the point is that Allah is saying for the sake of argument, if they did fall into shirk, all their actions would’ve been void. So, what do we say about someone who has less good deeds, and someone who falls into shirk at that point.

So, if one of us were to fall into shirk, then we know we would be in a worst situation then them. So, this idea that people say that he says “La ilaha ila Allah”, so that’s enough, the shirk doesn't matter. Or he doesn’t pray, and he doesn’t fast and he doesn’t follow anything of Islam, but he says Islam is the correct religion. 

We know that things can cancel out other things, so even if we say yes it’s good to believe that Islam is the right religion and it’s required, that isn’t sufficient because we know that there’s other things that can cancel out those good deeds. And same thing if people say, he has memorised lots of Qur’an, or he gives lots of Sadaqah or he helps people or he helps his family or he’s good to his family, but then he worships other than Allah, in the end how’s that going to help him? Sure, it’s good to do those things but they’re not going to be accepted and those actions will be cancelled out because of the other thing that shirk.

And the last point, just for this first aspect or the first category is that Allah said,

“Verily, whoever commits Shirk with Allah, then Allah has forbidden Paradise upon him and the Fire will be his abode, and the Zaalimin have no helpers.” [5:72].

So, this is the first requisite which is abandoning shirk, so it has to do with how we ourselves deal with shirk itself and not with the people of shirk.

The second point that was mentioned in this Risalah was being severely harsh upon this and some of the points that the ‘Ulama’ mentioned on this topic or that when they explained this part in this Risalah some of the evidences that they use is that they say that Allah said,

“So slay the mushrikin wherever you find them, take hold of them, and circle them, and lie and wait to ambush them on each and every path.” [9:5].

And Allah also said,

“O Prophet, wage Jihad against the Kuffar, and the hypocrites, and be harsh against them, and their abode is Hell, and worst indeed is that as a destination.” [9:73]

So, this is some evidence from the Qur’an specifically about dealing with the Mushrikin, and being harsh against them. 

There are as well evidence from the Sunnah about being harsh against the things that are worshipped other than Allah, like statues, things that are used for barakah, or things that are…houses that are set up for worshipping other than Allah, or newspapers and magazines that are used to spread Kufr etc., then being harsh against these points, even though they’re not human, and even though you can’t reason with them and make da’wah to these things. Then also Allah and the Prophet (saws) have legislated for us to have harshness against these things.

We see this in the hadith from Abu al-Hayaj al-Asadi in Sahih Muslim that he said, Or Imam Muslim narrated from Abu al-Hayaj al-Asadi that ‘Ali Ibn Abi Talib said, “Shall they not send you with the same instructions that the Messenger of Allah (saws) sent me with, do not leave any image, without defacing it, nor any built-up grave without levelling it.”

So, we know that in jahiliyyah and even nowadays in some places, the graves would be built up very, very high as a means of trying to give respect to this person, and if the person was some sort of president or whatever he happens to be, then they’ll built things around the graves and they’ll make it up high. So, here we see that ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib was saying to his companion, that the Prophet (saws) sent him to not leave any picture, any statue, or anything like that, except that he would deface it. So, he would destroy it, because this is something that either is worshipped other than Allah, or it can lead to being worshipped other than Allah.

And also, in the hadith of ‘Umar bin Abasa that he said or he said to the Prophet (saws), “With what did Allah send you with?”, so that he said, and this hadith is also in Sahih Muslim, so “What were sent with?” So, he’s asking the Prophet (saws), what did he come with. He said, “I was sent to uphold the ties of kinship, to break the idols so that nothing is worshipped besides Allah.”

So, here we see that the Prophet (saws) was sent with this breaking of the idols. So, we can take from this and from other ahadith, and also from the story of Ibrahim in the Qur’an when he went to the idols and he broke all of them, except for one.

So, we see that the point of this even though technically people might say, what is the point of it, there’s still going to be kuffar, and what is the point of this, you’re only going to make a problem with the people, and you’re only going to be making people look like “oh these people are extremists.”

The point of it is we have dislike and hostility and enmity towards the belief itself, we have it towards the action itself, we have it towards the people who do the action and we have it towards the things that are set up for this reason too. So, if someone sets up an idol, or if they set up or they start spreading da’wah through websites, or through magazines, or newspapers or stuff like this, it’s perfectly legitimate for us to stop these things from being done, because these are means to worshipping other than Allah and these are things that are being used in da’wah to other than Allah and da’wah to Shirk.

Also, there’s a longer hadith from Jarir Ibn ‘Abdillah al-Bajali  that he said…so this hadith is narrated by Bukhari & Muslim from Jarir Ibn ‘Abdillah al-Bajali that he said, “The Messenger of Allah (saws) said to him, O Jarir, will you not relieve me of Dhul Kasla (and Dhul Kasla was a place that was set up as a Ka’bah in Yemen). Jarir replied: “I set out with 150 horsemen, and I used to not sit firm on horses (so, he wasn’t able to ride a horse very well and he had a problem with it).” The Prophet (saws) struck his chest and he said, “O Allah, give him means to sit well on a horse and make him someone who guides and is guided.” So, he said, “We went there and we burnt it down.”

So here we see that the Prophet (saws) wanted this thing which was a rival to the Ka’bah and was a rival to the Din, and was being used as a means of bringing people to worship other than Allah, the Prophet (saws) put an end to it immediately, and he sent out this companion and they burnt it down. We also know this in the long story and the Ahkam that come from the baseline masajid of Dirar, and the masajid that was set up during the time of the Prophet (saws) as a means to bring people away from the masjid of the Prophet (saws). The Prophet (saws) had it burnt down and it was turned into a garbage dump, so the Muslimin would throw all their garbage and all their najasah into these places.

So, it would’ve been simple enough for the Prophet (saws) to put an end to people praying there, unless he gave them permission because then it would’ve been used as a means to worship Allah. But, because it was used as something against Islam, the Prophet (saws) made an example of it, and he burnt it down and then he turned it into the garbage dump. So, it was done with, but even the land it was on was turned into something that Muslimin would humiliate, it’s only good enough for garbage.

So, this shows the idea that always being overly nice and accepting of everything, it goes against the Ahkam of Islam, but it even goes against the Fitrah; that if someone is calling to another religion and insulting your religion, and you just just go “everything’s okay and everyone can make their choice.”

Sure, we can’t force someone to believe something in their heart, but that doesn’t mean we should just be fine with it and we shouldn’t hate it. How can someone say they love Islam and do things like this. These ahadith are just to show that the idea, because we talked about first, no-one who is Muslim would say, “you shouldn’t in your heart, dislike Kufr”, unless they’re so far gone, you can’t even talk to them anymore.

So, that’s something, but there’s also that we should also dislike the people who are doing this, because they are insulting Allah, and they’re insulting the Prophet (saws). Just like if someone insulted your dad, you’d get mad at them, and if you didn’t get mad at them, people would look at you like what’s wrong with you. But, when it comes to Allah, it should be worse even. So, also we have it against the belief, we have it against the action and we have it against the things that are being used for this action.

So, this is the second point.

The third thing he says is, being hostile for its sake.

So, here we see that, it’s being hostile or openly showing that we don’t agree and that we’re not accepting of the shirk and the things that they’re doing.

So, we see that when Allah mentioned about Ibrahim, He said,
“Do you see that which you have been worshipping, you and your old fathers, for verily they are all my enemies except for the Lord of the Worlds.” [26:75-77].

So, we see Ibrahim told them the truth, which is that worshipping Allah is the correct thing, but he also mentioned the opposite, so he didn’t say what people say nowadays, we’ll talk about the thing that we share and we’ll leave everything else out. It has to be both.

And Allah also mentioned about Ibrahim that he said,

“I shall turn away from you and which you worship other than Allah.” [19:48].

So, we see here that Ibrahim mentioned the things that are worshipped other than Allah and he mentioned the people who are worshipping other than Allah. So, he didn’t just mention the act, which is another discussion I’ve had with Imams in this city, that they say, “you can hate the Shirk, but you don’t have to hate the kuffar or you can’t hate the kuffar”, or some even go that you should love them. So, they’ll say “you hate the action, but you love the people.”

So, here we see that Ibrahim said here, and he’s our good example that Allah told us about, he mentioned the things that they worship other than Allah, but he mentioned the people and he mentioned them first. So, this idea that it’s only the action, and not the people is completely wrong.

So, this is just some points about the third point and insha’Allah, we’ll try to finish right now. The fourth point is that Allah has obligated us to consider the ones who don’t worship Allah, and who don’t enter Islam, to consider them kuffar.

We don’t consider them to be Muslimin, if they worship other than Allah, with a few exceptions where we say that, this is not something that’s very well known, so the people might have fallen into it because of ignorance, this is a separate issue, we’re not talking about specific people. But, in general, if there’s a group that rejects a part of Islam, then we say they’re not Muslimin, and if there’s a group that does something, that doesn’t conform with Islam, and or that contradicts Islam at its basis, then we say that they’re not Muslimin.

If someone says, “you don’t have to pray”, we’re not going to say that you’re Muslim. If someone says, “you can worship other than Allah, or you can pray to someone in a grave or you can make up laws that have nothing to do with Islam or you can say that Islam is in the home and in the heart and has nothing to do with politics”, all these types of things, we can’t as Muslimin say, “it’s fine, they’re still Muslimin”, because if we do that then we’re lying on the Din, and we’re lying on Allah in his Ahkam that He’s put down for the religion.

This is clear when Allah says,
"And they set up rivals to Allah, in order to mislead others from His Path, say take pleasure in your Kufr for a while, surely you are the people of the Fire.” [39:8]

And Allah said,
“Tell those who commit kufr, you will be defeated and you will be gathered together in Hell, and worst indeed is that a place of rest.” [3:12].

So, Allah told us to call them people who commit kufr, and to call them those who have disbelieved. And we know in Surah Kafirun, Allah said,
“Say O you disbelievers”. [109:1]

So, this idea that you can say that they’re wrong, but you can’t call them kuffar, or you can say that they’re not Muslimin, but you can’t call them kuffar. This is a complete false idea, and in the first week we talked about this in detail so there’s not really much more to talk about here.

So, with this, we’ll have finished this Risalah, this small Risalah, “Aslu Din al-Islam wa Qa'idatuhu”, by Muhammad ibn ‘Abdil-Wahhab.

Sharh Risālah Aslu Dīn Al-Islām wa Qā’idatuhu (The Foundation of Islam and its Principle) - By Shaykh Haytham Sayfaddeen

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TO READ OTHER PARTS, INSHA'ALLAH CLICK:

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