Origins and spread of Shirk in the Ummah

Allah guided mankind through Muhammad (saws) and through what he brought of clear manifest evidences and guidance - a guidance that could not be described by those who were proficient in giving descriptions and surpassed the knowledge of those with great perception. So, through this guidance that was given to the Messenger of Allah (saws), Allah opened the eyes of the blind ones, the ears of the deaf ones and the hearts of the heedless ones. Allah united them upon one religion - the religion of Islamic monotheism; Ibraheem’s (as) religion of pure monotheism - after they had been in complete disunity, enmity towards one another, upon destructive and corrupt creeds. Allah united their hearts and they became true brothers in Islam by way of this great blessing. And thereafter everything that was worshiped besides Allah such as graves, trees, stones, graven images, idols etc, ceased to exist and all worship was carried out for Allah (alone).

The people followed the true Religion of Islamic monotheism; they worshipped Allah alone and established worship sincerely for Allah, except those whom Allah willed that they were to remain as people of polytheism, hypocrisy and followers of the altered and distorted previous scriptures. The darkness of shirk was dispelled and the banner of Tawheed was raised in the lands amongst the Arabs and non-Arabs. 

Allah took away the soul of His Messenger (saws) whilst Islam was established and in authority-superseding all other ways of life and creeds. Then the rightly guided khulafah of the Messenger continued upon this path until the two powerful and great nations at the time-Rome and Persia-ended up in humiliation, degradation and in a state of fear after they had been in a state of security, and thus Caesar was restricted and besieged, and khosrau was subdued and destroyed.

So when the enemies of Islam saw that they were unable to do away with this religion, they implanted their disbelieving agents within Islam, who pretended to be Muslims in order to foment confusion, trials and tribulations; and in order to spread shirk by exaggerating the status of the pious people and exalting their graves with (beliefs and practices) that were not ordained by Allah.

So, this Ummah was put to trial through the plots of the (atheist, heretic and hypocrite) Abdullah Bin Saba, who claimed Uloohiyyah (i.e. the right to be worship) for Ali Ibn Abi Talib. Abdullah Bin As-Sabah’s followers were known as the Saba'iyyah, and later on they were known as the Rawafid (Shiites), the Ismaliyyah (Shiites), the Nusayriyah (Shiites) and other than them amongst the Batiniyyah. They used to worship the graves and the dead, and they used to build places of worship and domed (shaped) shrines upon these graves. So, by way of this they revived the practices of the Yahood, the Nasarah and the idol worshippers, and thus the practices of the worshippers of graves in this Muslim Ummah manifested itself in actions that were carried out by the Rawafid (Shiites).

Secondly: The books of Greek philosophy that contained the ideas of grave and idol worship were translated into Arabic, so many of those who attributed themselves to Islam busied themselves with these books such  as the likes of Al-Farabi (a) Ibn Sinaa Al-Hanafi (b) Naseer At-Toosi the advocator of disbelief and shirk (c) and other than them amongst those who played tricks with Islam, just as Paul played tricks with Christianity.

They were influenced by the ideas of the Greek Philosophers, such as the creed of grave worship, so they became callers to grave worship through Greek Philosophy. The practices of these people was rife within the ranks of the people of rhetoric amongst the Hanafi Maturidiyyah (d) and the Ashariyyah Kullabiyyah due to busying themselves with the Books of the Philosophers; so they were influenced by the creed of grave worship. They became callers to grave worship and callers to the creed of the Jahmiyyah at the same time, such as the likes of Taftazani Al-Hanafi (The Philosopher of the Maturidiyyah and Grave worshipers) and Jurjani Al-Hanafi (a caller to superstition).

[a] Al-Farabi: Al-Farabi said that Philosophy is more perfect than Prophethood. Shaykhul Islam Ibn Taymiyyah said about him: "Misguided; a disbeliever!" Ibn Sinaa adopted his books and ideas of disbelief. [For further details concerning Al-Farabi see Majmoo Al-Fatawa 2/67—86] [Dar At-Ta’aarud 1/10] [Ighathatul Luhfaan 2/372-373].

[a] Ibn Sinaa: Imaam Ibnu Salaah said about him: "He was a devil amongst the human devils." [See Fatawaa Ibn Salaah 1/209] [Also see: ‘Ar-Radd Alal Mantaqiyyeen’ of Shaykhul Islam Ibn Taymiyyah 278-279] [Ighaathatul Luhfaan of Imaam Ibnul Qayyim 2/373-380] [Bidayah Wan-Nihayah of Imaam Ibn Katheer 12/43]

[b] Naasir At-Toosi: He was a magician and a minister of the Tartars. He rejected the ‘resurrection’. [For further details see: As-Sawaa'iq Al-Mursalah of Imaam Ibnul Qayyim 2/790; 3/1077-1078]

[C] Followers of the Jahmi Abu Mansoor Al-Maturidi Al-Hanafi. [For further details see the Book of Shaykh Shamsudeen al-Afgani titled: ‘Al-Maturidiyyah’ 1/205—376]

Thirdly: A people appeared among the Muslims manifesting asceticism. These people were more dangerous to the masses and more severe in misguidance. They were a people who appeared in the garb of the righteous,  with tearful eyes smeared with kohl, long flowing beards, elevated turbans, carrying rosary beads and pretending to be calling to the Sunnah of the leader of humankind (Muhammad (saws)), whilst secretly practicing the disgraceful acts inherited from the false and vanished religions. And from their plots was that they used to mix manifest lies with the authentic explanations of the Qur’an and the authentic narrations in order to corrupt the clear proofs of the Qur’an and the Sunnah. These deviant heretics were known as the hulooliyyah and ittihadiyyah Grave worshippers such as the likes of al-Hallaaj, ibnul Faarid, ibn Arabi, ibn Sinaa, etc.

[Excerpt from Juhoodu Ulamaa Al-Hanafiyyah Fi Ibtaal Aqaa’id Al-Qubooriyyeen. Vol 1. Page 19-25]

ADDITIONAL NOTES: 

Hulooliyyah and ittihadiyyah:

Hulool - Lit. “Entering” – Divine indwelling. The belief that Allah dwells within a particular human i.e. that Allah dwells in a particular Soofi shaykh, a pious person, a Prophet – This belief is shared by Christians, certain Soofies, certain Shiites, Sikhs and others.

Wahdaatul Wujood – Lit. "Unity of Existence." The belief that all existence is a single existence and everything we see are only aspects of the Essence of Allah. This belief is also held by certain Soofies, Hindus and others.

Those who believe in hulool say that Allah dwells and is incarnate in human beings, High is Allah above and far removed from that. This was openly called to by some of the extreme Soofis, such as al-Husayn ibn Mansoor al-Hallaaj who was declared to be an unbeliever by the scholars. They ordered that he be executed and he was crucified in the year 309H. The following saying is attributed to him: “Glory to Him who manifested His human nature, Hiding the piercing brightness of His divinity: Till His creation saw Him openly, In the form of one eating and drinking.” [Attributed by al-Wakeel to the book at Tawaseen of al Hallaaj (p.130)]

And his saying: “I am the one who loves and the One who is loved is me, We are two spirits who dwell in a single body. So when you see me you see Him, and when you see Him you see us both.” So al-Hallaaj was a believer in hulool and believed in the duality of the divine nature and that the Deity had both a divine and a human nature. Thus the divine becomes incarnate within the human so that the human spirit is the divine nature of the Deity and the body is its human form. Despite the fact that he was killed for his evil apostasy and although some of the Soofis declare themselves free of him, yet others count him as a Soofi, hold that his beliefs were correct, and write down his words. From them is Abdul-‘Abbaas ibn ‘Ataa al-Baghdadi, Muhammad ibn Khaleef ash-Sherazi and Ibraheem an-Nasrabadhi, as is reported by al-Khateeb al-Baghdadi.

Wahdatul-Wujood i.e. that all in existence is a single reality, and that everything we see is only aspects of the Essence of Allah. The chief claimant of this belief was Ibn ‘Arabi al-Hatimi at-Taa’ee, who was buried in Damascus having died in the year 638H. He himself says about this belief in his book al-Fatoohaat-ul-Makkiyyah: “The slave is the Lord and the Lord is a slave, I wish that I knew which was the one required to carry out the required duties.  If I were to say the servant then that is true, or if I were to say the Lord, then how can that be required for Him.” [Al-Fatoohaat-ul-Makkiyyah as it is attributed by Dr. Taqiyyuddeen al-Hilaali in his book al-Hadiyyatul-Hadiyah (p.43)]

He also says in al-Fatoohat: “Those who worshipped the calf worshipped nothing except Allah.” Quoted as Ibn ‘Arabi’s saying by Ibn Tayrniyyah in al-Fatawa (vol.11), who attributes it to the book al-Fatoohat. Ibn ‘Arabi is called ‘al-‘Aarif billaah’ (The one having great knowledge of Allah) by the Soofis, and also ‘al-Qutubul Akbar’ (The great pivot), ‘al-Miskul-Adhfar’ (the sweetest smelling musk), “al-Kibreetul-Ahmar’ (the reddest brimstone), despite his belief in wahdatul-wujood and other calamitous sayings. Indeed he praised Fir’awn (Pharaoh) and declared that he died upon Imaan! Furthermore he speaks against Haroon for his criticism of his peoples worship of the calf, thus directly opposing the text of the Qur’an. He also held that the Christians were Unbelievers only because they made divinity particular to ‘Isaa, whereas if they had made it general to all then they would not have been unbelievers. Despite all the gross deviation of Ibn ‘Arabi and the fact that the scholars declared him to be an Unbeliever, yet he is revered by the Sufis and others who do not distinguish between the truth and falsehood, and those who turn away from accepting the truth even when it is as clear as the sun. But his books, which are filled with clear apostasy, such as al-Fatoohatul-Makkiyyah and Fusoosul-Hikam are still circulated. He even has a tafseer, which he called at-Tafseerul-Baatin since he holds that there is an apparent and a hidden meaning for every Ayah, so the outer meaning is for the people of Ta’weel. From this group came Ibn Basheesh who said: “O Allah rescue me from the mire of Tawheed, and drown me in the centre of the sea of unity, and mix me into the state of unity and oneness until I do not see, nor hear, nor sense except through it.”