Who are the Ahl as-Sunnah wa'l Jama'ah

by Sayf ad-Din Ahmed Ibn Muhammad, hafazah-Ullah

Chapter 16 of "Al-Albani Unveiled, An Exposition of His Errors and Other Important Issues",

An-Noor Bookshop, 2nd Edition, Muharram/July, 1415/1994, p.122-146.

Courtesy ofal-Noor Bookshop, 54 Park Road, London

Many people today like to classify themselves as belonging to the Saved Sect (Firqatun-Najiyyah) - Ahl as-Sunnah Wa'l Jama'ah; but do these people really know which is the Saved Sect, from the many sects we have today? The following is an attempt to clarify some misconceptions by way of definitive proofs from the Qur'an and Sunnah, as well as quotes from the profoundly learned Classical Scholars of Islam. Know that there is only one Saved Sect in Islam, and this is the original pristine form of Islam that has been transmitted to us by Allah Subhana Wa Ta'ala in his Qur'an, his Rasul (Peace and blessings be upon him), the blessed Companions (may Allah be pleased with them all) and the great scholars of Islam (Allah's mercy be upon them all) who have been following their Straight Path for

more than one thousand years of Islam's history. The first question that should be raised is: "What differentiates one sect from another sect?" The answer to this is simple and definitive! Know that the chief characteristic that distinguishes one sect from another, lies not in the differences of opinion that its scholars have attained by making ijtihad from the sources of the Shari'ah (this leads to the formation of the Madhhabs), but rather the actual belief (aqid'ah or i'tiqad in Arabic) that the scholars and laity of the sect in question are clinging onto - since the founding of their respective sect. 

According to Shaykh Husseyn Hilmi 'Ishiq, author of the book Belief and Islam, (pp. 78-9), the faith of the People of the Sunnah and Jama'ah was spread as follows: 

"Nowadays, some mouths frequently use the name of 'Salafiyya'. Every Muslim should know very well that in Islam there is nothing in the name of the Madhhab of Salafiyya but there is the Madhhab of the Salaf as-salihin who were the Muslims of the first two Islamic centuries (i.e; the Companions, their successors and the followers of the successors) which were lauded in a Hadith sharif. The ulama of Islam who came in the third and fourth centuries are called Khalaf as-sadiqin. The i'tiqad (belief) of these honourable people is called the Madhhab of Ahl as-Sunnah wa'l Jama'ah. This is the Madhhab of Iman, tenets of faith. The Iman held by the Sahaba al-Kiram (may Allah be pleased with them all) and by the Tabi'un (Allah's mercy be upon them all) was the same. There was no difference between their beliefs. Today most Muslims in the world are in the Madhhab of Ahl as-Sunnah (i.e; most Muslim's claim to be Sunni's). All the seventy-two heretical groups (see later for the actual Hadith and its commentary) of bid'ah appeared (mainly) after the second century of Islam. Founders of some of them lived earlier, but it was after the Tabi'un that their books were written, and that they appeared in groups and defied the Ahl as-Sunnah. 

Rasulullah (Peace and blessings be upon him) brought the beliefs of Ahl as-Sunnah. The Sahaba al-kiram (may Allah be pleased with them all) derived these teachings of Iman from the source (the Qur'an and Sunnah). And the Tabi'un (successors), in their turn, learned these teachings from the Sahaba al-kiram. And from them their successors learned, thus the teachings of Ahl as-Sunnah reached us by way of transmission and tawatur (through many undeniable chains of transmission). These teachings cannot be explored by way of reasoning. Intellect cannot change

them and will only help understand them. That is, intellect is necessary for understanding them, for realizing that they are right and for knowing their value. All the scholars of Hadith held the beliefs of the Ahl as-Sunnah. The Imams of the four Madhhabs in deeds, too, were in this Madhhab. Also, al-Maturidi and al-Ashari (Allah's mercy be upon them), the two Imam's of our Madhhab in beliefs, were in the Madhhab of the Ahl as-Sunnah. Both of these Imams promulgated this Madhhab. They always defended this Madhhab against heretics and materialists, who had been stuck in the bogs of ancient Greek philosophy. Though they were contemporaries, they lived in different places and the ways of thinking and behaving of the offenders they had met were different, so the methods of defence used and the answers given by these two great scholars of Ahl as-Sunnah were different. But this does not mean that they belonged to different Madhhabs (rather they were both from the Ahl as-Sunnah). Hundreds of thousands of profoundly learned ulama and awliya (friends of Allah) coming after these two exalted Imams studied their books and stated in consensus that they both belonged to the Madhhab of the Ahl as-Sunnah. The scholars of the Ahl as-Sunnah took the nass (Qur'an and Sunnah) with their outward meanings. That is, they gave the ayats and Hadiths their outward meanings, and did not explain away (ta'wil) the nass or change these meanings unless there was a darura (necessity) to do so. And they never made any changes with their personal knowledge or opinions. But those who belonged to heretical groups and the la-Madhhabi (those who do not belong to one of the four Madhhabs) did not hesitate to change the teachings of Iman and Ibadat (worship) as they had learned from (the books of) Greek philosophers and from sham scientists, who were Islam's adversaries."

Let us now see what the definition of Ahl as-Sunnah wa'l Jama'ah was according to the classical scholars of this aided, Victorious sect (Tai'fatul-Mansoorah) of Islam.

(1) Shaykh al-Islam Ahmad ibn Hajar al-Haytami (d. 974/1567; R.A.) 

Hafiz Ibn Hajar al-Haytami defined the Sunni Muslims as follows in his book Fath al-jawad: 

"A mubtadi (innovator) is the person who does not have the faith (aqid'ah) conveyed unanimously by the Ahl as-Sunnah. This unanimity was transmitted by the two great Imam's Abu'l Hasan al-Ashari (d.324/936; Rahimahullah) and Abu Mansur al-Maturidi (d.333/944; Rahimahullah)

and the scholars who followed their path." Hafiz Ibn Hajar al-Haytami also said in his book al-Fatawa al-Hadithiyya (pg. 205): "Man of bid'ah means one whose beliefs are different from the Ahl as-Sunnah faith. The Ahl as-Sunnah faith, is the faith of Abu'l Hasan al-Ashari, Abu Mansur al-Maturidi and those who followed them. One who brings forth something which is not approved by Islam becomes a man of bid'ah."

(2) Imam Ahmad Shihab ad-Din al Qalyubi (d.1069/1659; R.A.) 

Imam al-Qalyubi wrote on the fourth volume of his marginalia to the book Kanz ar-raghibin: 

"One who departs from what Abu'l Hasan al-Ashari and Abu Mansur al-Maturidi (Allah's mercy be upon them) reported is not a Sunni. These two Imam's followed the footprints of Rasulullah (Peace be upon him) and his Sahaba (may Allah be pleased with them all)." 

(3) Imam Abdullah ibn Alawi al-Haddad (d. 1132 AH; Rahimahullah) 

Imam al-Haddad stated in The Book of Assistance (pg. 40): 

"You must correct and protect your beliefs and conform to the pattern of the party of salvation, who are those known from among the other Islamic factions as the "People of the Sunnah and Jama'ah" (Ahl as-Sunnah wa'l Jama'ah). They are those who firmly adhere to the way of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), and of his Companions (may Allah be pleased with them all). 

If you look with a sound understanding into those passages relating to the sciences of faith in the Book (Qur'an), the Sunnah, and the saying of the virtuous predecessors, whether they be Companions or followers, you will know for certain that the truth is with the party called the Ashari (NB-the Maturidi's are also upon the truth), named after the Shaykh Abu'l Hasan al-Ashari, may Allah have mercy on him, who systematized the foundations of the creed of the people of the truth, and recorded its earliest versions, these being the beliefs with the Companions and the best among the followers agreed upon."

(4) Imam Abdal Ghani an-Nablusi (d. 1143/1733; Rahimahullah) 

Imam an-Nablusi stated in his book al-Hadiqat an-Nadiyya (vol. 2, pg. 103): 

"Jama'ah is rahma, that is, the union of Muslims on truth brings Allahu ta'ala's Compassion. Tafriqa is adhab, that is, separation from the Community of Muslims brings about punishment from Allahu ta'ala. Hence, it is necessary for every Muslim to unite with those who are on the right path. He must join and believe like them even if they are only a small group. The right path is the path of as-Sahaba al-Kiram. Those who follow this path are called Ahl as-Sunnah Wa'l Jama'ah. It should not confuse us that many heretical groups appeared after the time of as-Sahaba al-Kiram. Al-Imam al-Bayhaqi (d. 458/1066; Rahimahullah) said, 'When Muslims go astray, you should follow the right path of those who came before them! You should not give up that path even if you are left alone on the path!' Najm ad-Din al-Ghazzi (d. 1061/1651; Rahimahullah) wrote: 'Ahl as-Sunnah Wa'l Jama'ah are those ulama who keep on the right path of Rasullullah (Peace and blessings be upon him) and as-Sahaba al-Kiram. As-Sawad al-Azam, that is, the majority of Islamic scholars, have followed this right path. The Firqatun-Naajiyyah which was defined to be the group of salvation among the seventy three groups is this true Jama'ah.' The Qur'an al-Karim declares, 'Do not disunite!' This ayat means 'Do not disunite in i'tiqad, in the teachings of beliefs!' Most ulama, for example, Abdullah ibn Masood (may Allah be pleased with him), interpreted this ayat as above and said that it meant, 'Do not deviate from the right path by following your desires and corrupt ideas.' This ayat does not mean that there should be no disagreement in the knowledge of fiqh. It forbids separation which causes discord and dissension in the knowledge of i'tiqad (see Imam al-Qurtubi's opinion later). The disagreement in the knowledge (of fiqh) derived through ijtihad in the field of practices (amal) is not a discord, because such disagreement has brought to sight the rights, the fards and the subtle teachings in amal and Ibadah (worship). As-Sahaba al-kiram (Allah be pleased with them all), too, differed from one another in those teachings that explained the daily life, but there was no disagreement among them in the knowledge of i'tiqad."

(5) Allamah Sayyid Ahmad at-Tahtawi (d. 1231/1816; Rahimahullah) 

Allamah Sayyid Ahmad at-Tahtawi, a great Hanafi fiqh scholar of Egypt, wrote on the subject of 'Zabayih' in his Hashiya al-Durr al-Mukhtar: 

"According to the majority of scholars of tafsir, the ayat, 'They parted into groups in the religion,' referred to the people of bid'ah who would arise in this Ummah. In a Hadith reported by Umar (may Allah be pleased with

him), Rasulullah (Peace and blessings be upon him) said to Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her), 'The ayat about the partitions into groups in the religion refers to the people of bid'ah and to the followers of their nafs who would arise in this Ummah.' Allah declared in the 153rd ayat of Surah Al-An'am, 'This is My Straight path, so follow it! Follow not other ways, lest you be parted from His way!' (that is, Jews, Christians, and other heretics departed from the right path; you should not part like them!). In the 103rd ayat of Surah Al-Imran, Allah declares, 'And hold fast, all of you together, to the rope of Allah, and do not separate!' (see later for a brief commentary). Some scholars of tafsir said that Allah's rope meant Jama'ah, unity. The command, 'Do not separate', shows that it is so and the Jama'ah are the possessors of fiqh and ilm (knowledge). One who descents from fuqaha (scholars of fiqh) as much as a span falls into heresy, becomes deprived of Allah's help and deserves Hell, because the fuqaha have been on the right path and have held on to the Sunnah of Rasulullah (Peace and blessings be upon him) and on to the path of al-Khulafa ar-Rashideen, the Four Khaliphs (may Allah be pleased with them). As-Sawad al-Azam, that is, the majority of the Muslims, are on the path of fuqaha. Those who depart from their path will burn in the fire of Hell. O believers! Follow the unique group which is protected against Hell! And this group is the one that is called Ahl as-Sunnah Wa'l Jama'ah. For, Allah's help, protection and guidance are for the followers of this group, and His wrath and punishment are for those who dissent from this group. Today, this group of salvation comes together in the Four Madhhabs, namely the Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, and Hanbali." 

It is very important to have unity in the Ummah, and to achieve this goal of unity it is incumbent that the whole Ummah has the correct and preserved aqidah of the Salaf as-salihin (may Allah be pleased with them all); since Allah will no doubt ask us about our aqidah if it is not in conformity with the divine revelation and what his Messenger (Peace and blessings be upon him) transmitted to us. The way of the Salaf as-salihin is the way of the saved sect of the Ahl as-Sunnah wa'l Jama'ah. And we should all know that the Jama'ah is the sect which has the most correct and united aqid'ah out of all other Jama'ahs. To know what is the real Jama'ah, one must look into the Qur'an and Hadith for evidence. If one was to look deeply in to this matter with an open and scholarly mind, one will come to the conclusion that this great Jama'ah is the one which is composed of the foremost scholars of Qur'anic commentary, Hadith, fiqh and other Islamic sciences; it is no doubt the Jama'ah which has had the greatest following throughout Islamic history in terms of scholars and

laity, and this alone is the main body of Islam which represents the views of the great mass of believers (as-Sawad al-Azam) as we shall see from the Hadith evidence below. Let us now see what Allah ta'ala has said about unity and schism in the Holy Qur'an. 

Qur'anic Evidence

(1) Surah al-Imran (3:103): 

"And hold fast, all of you together, to the rope of Allah and be not divided."

Imam Sayf ad-Din al-Amidi (d. 631/1233; Rahimahullah) said in his al-Ihkam fi usul al-ahkam (The proficiency: on the fundamentals of legal rulings, pg. 295) with regard to the above Qur'anic verse: 

"Allah has forbidden separation, and disagreement with consensus (ijma) is separation." 

Hence, if Allah has forbidden separation then surely we must all unite on the unanimously accepted aqid'ah of our pious predecessors. And I have already quoted Hafiz Ibn Hajar al-Haytami (Rahimahullah) as saying: "This unanimity (in aqidah) was transmitted by the two great Imam's Abu'l Hasan al-Ashari and Abu Mansur al-Maturidi (Allah's mercy be upon them) and the scholars who followed their path." 

Mahmoud Ayoub wrote in The Qur'an and Its Interpreters (vol. II, 275-6): 

"Ibn Kathir (d. 774/1373) interprets the 'rope of Allah' in verse 103 as 'The covenant of Allah,' citing in support of this interpretation verse 112 below (in Surah al-Imran). Another view, he adds, is that 'The rope of Allah' here refers to the Qur'an, as reported on the authority of Ali (Allah be pleased with him) who said that 'The Qur'an is Allah's strong rope and the straight way.' He cites another Hadith, on the authority of Abu Sa'id al-Khudri (Allah be pleased with him), where the Prophet (Peace be upon him) declared, 'The book of Allah is Allah's rope stretched from heaven to earth.' Abd Allah ibn Mas'ud (Allah be pleased with him) reported -that the Messenger of Allah (Peace be upon him) said, 'Surely this Qur'an is Allah's strong rope, manifest light, and beneficial source of healing. It is protection for those who hold fast to it, and a means of salvation for those who abide by it.' 

Ibn Kathir interprets the injunction, 'and do not be divided' to mean strict adherence to unity among Muslims. He reports on the authority of Abu Hurayrah (Allah be pleased with him) that the Prophet (Peace be upon him) said, 'Allah will be pleased with three acts from you, and wrathful with three others. He wishes that you worship Him alone without associating any thing with Him; that you hold fast all together to the rope of Allah and be not divided; and that you show loyalty to those whom Allah has set in authority.' (Tafsir Ibn Kathir, II, pp. 83-4) 

Qurtubi (d. 671/1273; Rahimahullah) agrees with Tabari (d. 923 CE; Rahimahullah) and Ibn Kathir regarding the meaning of 'the rope of Allah' in verse 103. He cites with approval the famous traditionist Ibn al-Mubarak (d. 181/797; Rahimahullah) who said, 'Surely unity is Allah's rope; therefore hold fast all together to 'its firm handle' (see Qur'an 2:256).' Qurtubi adds that 'Allah enjoins concord and forbids dissension, for in disunity is perdition, and in unity salvation.' 

Qurtubi offers two possible interpretations of the phrase 'And be not divided': 

'Be not divided in your religion as were the Jews and Christians divided in their religions' and 'Be not divided in following different false opinions and purposes. Rather, be brothers in Allah's religion.' 

As a jurist, Qurtubi observes that, 'There is no indication in this verse of the prohibition of disagreement in the branches (furu') [of fiqh] as this in reality is not dissension. This is because true dissention is one wherein concord and unity become virtually impossible. As for disagreement in judgements based on personal effort (ijtihad), it is due to differences in deducing obligations (fara'id) and the minutiae of law.' On page 279, Imam al-Razi (d. 606/1210; Rahimahullah) was quoted as saying in conclusion to his commentary on the above ayat: 

'If a person going down into a well must hold fast to a rope in order that he may not fall in, so also the Book of Allah, His covenant, religion and obedience to Him, as well as unity and harmony among the people of faith are means of security for anyone who holds fast to them from falling into the bottom of Hell.'" 

(2) Surah al-Imran (3:105): 

"And be not like those who separated and disputed after the clear proofs had come unto them: For such there is an awful doom." 

(3) Surah al-Imran (3:110): 

"Ye are the best community that has been raised up for mankind. Ye enjoin the good and forbid the evil; and ye believe in Allah" 

(4) Surah Al-An'am (6:159): 

"As for those who divide their religion and break up into sects, thou has no part in them in the least: Their affair is with Allah: He will in the end tell them the truth of all that they did." 

(5) Surah Al-Mu'minun (23:52-53): 

"And verily this Ummah of yours is a single Ummah and I am your Lord, so keep your duty unto Me. But they have broken their religion among them into sects, each sect rejoicing in its tenets." 

(6) Surah Al-Rum (30:32): 

"Those who split up their Religion, and become Sects, each sect exulting in its tenets." 

(7) Surah Al-Nisa (4:115): 

"He that disobeys the Apostle (Muhammad) after guidance has been made clear to him and follows a way other than that of the believers, We appoint for him that unto which he himself hath turned, and expose him unto Hell - a hapless journey's end!" 

(8) Surah Al-An'am (6:153): 

"This is My Straight path, so follow it. Follow not other ways, lest ye be parted from His way. This has he ordained for you, that ye may ward off (evil)."

Hadith Evidence

(1) Imam Abu Dawood (Rahimahullah) has quoted the well known Hadith concerning the division of the Muslim Ummah into seventy-three sects in his Sunan (3/4580, English ed'n):

Abu Amir al-Hawdhani said, "Mu'awiyah ibn Abi Sufyan (may Allah be pleased with him) stood among us and said, 'Beware! The Apostle of Allah (may peace be upon him) stood among us and said': 'Beware! The People of the Book before (you) were split up into 72 sects, and this community will be split up into 73, seventy-two of them will go to Hell and one of them will go to Paradise, and it is the majority group (Jama'ah).' 

Another version of the above Hadith has been reported by Hafiz Ibn Kathir (Rahimahullah) in The signs before the day of Judgement (pg. 14): 

"Awf ibn Malik reported that the Prophet (Peace be upon him) said, 'The Jews split into 71 sects: one will enter Paradise and 70 will enter Hell. The Christians split into 72 sects: 71 will enter Hell and one will enter Paradise. By Him in Whose hand is my soul, my Ummah will split into 73 sects: one will enter Paradise and 72 will enter Hell.' Someone asked, 'O Messenger ofAllah (Peace be upon him), who will they be?' He replied, 'The main body of the Muslims (al-Jama'ah).' Awf ibn Malik is the only one who reported this Hadith, and its isnad is acceptable." And in another version of this Hadith the Prophet (Peace be upon him) goes onto say that the saved sect, "...Are those who follow my and my Sahaba's path" (Tirmidhi, vol. 2, pg. 89) 

Shaykh al-Islam Ahmad al-Sirhindi (d. 1034/1624; Rahimahullah) who is regarded by many people in the Indian sub-continent as a great renovator of the Tenth Islamic Century (Mujaddid alf Thani) wrote in his Maktubat (Vol. 3, Letter 38): 

"It was declared in a Hadith that this Ummah would part into 73 groups, 72 of which would go to Hell. This Hadith informs us that the 72 groups will be tormented in the Fire of Hell. It does not inform us that they will remain in torment eternally. Remaining in the torment of Hell Fire eternally is for those who do not have Iman. That is, it is for disbelievers. The 72 groups, on account of their corrupt beliefs, will go to Hell and will burn as much as the corruptness of their beliefs. One group, the 73rd, will be saved from Hell Fire because their belief is not corrupt. If among the members of this one group there are those who committed evil deeds and if these evil deeds of theirs have not been forgiven through repentance or intercession, it is possible that these, too, will burn in Hell as much as their sins. All of those who are in the 72 groups will go to Hell. But none of them will remain in Hell eternally. Not all of those who are in this one group will go to Hell. Of these only those who have committed evil deeds will go to

Hell. The 72 reported groups of bid'ah, which will go to Hell, should not be called disbelievers, because they are Ahl al-Qibla (people of the Qibla in prayer). But, of these, the ones who disbelieve those facts in the Deen that are indispensably required to be believed, as well as those who deny the rules of the Shari'ah which every Muslim has heard and knows, become disbelievers." 

In another letter (vol. 1, letter 80) he said: 

"There is no doubt whatsoever that the sect that made conforming to the conduct of the Prophet's Companions (may Allah be pleased with them all) necessary, that alone is the Ahl as Sunnah wa'l Jama'ah." 

Shaykh Abdal Qadir al-Jilani (d. 561/1166; Rahimahullah) stated in his commentary to the above Hadith in Ghunyat at-Talibin (pg. 90), 

"The Believer should adapt himself to the Sunnah and to the Jama'ah. The Sunnah is the way shown by Rasulullah (Peace be upon him). The Jama'ah is composed of the things done unanimously by the Sahaba al-Kiram who lived in the time of the four caliphs called Khulafa' ar-Rashidin (and others in their path). A Muslim must prevent the multiplication of the men of bid'ah and keep away from them, and should not greet them (as given in many Hadith on this issue). Ahmad ibn Hanbal (rahimahullah), the Imam of our Madhhab, said that greeting a man of bid'ah meant loving him since it had been declared in a Hadith, 'Disseminate (your) greeting (salaam)! Love one another in this way!" He also said (pg. 143): "The title, Ahl as-Sunnah, which the innovators have expressed for themselves is not appropriate for them." 

Although Ibn Taymiyya was accused of holding certain corrupt points in his aqid'ah, which led so many scholars to denounce him for his heresy, he never the less hit the right point when he described those who are the real Sunni's in his Aqeedat-il-Wasitiyyah (pg. 154): 

"Their creed is the religion of Islam which was sent to the world by Allah through the Prophet (Peace be upon him). But the Prophet (Peace be upon him) said, 'My Ummah will get divided into 73 sects and each one will go to Hell save one and that one is the Jama'at.' Also in one Hadith he said, 'They are those people who will follow this path which I and my Sahaba follow today.' Therefore they have caught hold of Islam unalloyed from every adulteration and these are the people of Ahl as-Sunnah Wa'l Jama'ah. This group includes the truthful, the martyrs and the virtuous; it

includes the minarets of guidance, lamps in the darkness and owners of such superiorities and virtues who have been already mentioned. It includes the saints and also those Imams on whose guidance Muslims are unanimous. It is this successful group about which the Prophet (Peace be upon him) has said: 'One group from my Ummah will always remain dominant with truth; the opponents will never be able to harm its members or afflict them upto the Doomsday.'" 

(2) Imam Muslim (Rahimahullah) has collected a number of variant Hadith on the saved sect. He has related a longer version of the last Hadith quoted above: 

"Abdal Rahman ibn Shamasa al-Mahri said: 'I was in the company of Maslama bin Mukhallad and Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-Aas (may Allah be pleased with them).' Abdullah said, 'The Hour shall come only when the worst type of people are left on the earth. They will be worse than the people of pre-Islamic days. They will get what ever they ask of Allah.' While we were sitting Uqba ibn Amir came, and Maslama said to him, 'Uqba, listen to what Abdullah says.' Uqba said, 'He knows, so far as I am concerned, I heard the Prophet (Peace be upon him) say: A group of people from my Ummah will continue to fight in obedience to the Command of Allah, remaining dominant over their enemies. Those who will opose them shall not do them any harm. They will remain in this condition until the Hour over takes them.' (At this) Abdullah said, 'Yes. Then Allah will raise a wind which will be fragrant like musk and whose touch will be like the touch of silk; (but) it will cause the death of all (faithful) persons, not leaving behind a single person with an iota of faith in his heart. Then only the worst of men will remain to be overwhelmed by the Hour.'" (Sahih Muslim, 3/4721, English ed'n, see also Sahih al-Bukhari, 9/414, English ed'n) 

Imam Nawawi (d. 676/1277, Rahimahullah) said in his Sharh Muslim (vol. 2, pg. 143): 

"The group of people (mentioned in the above Hadith) consists of scholars, jurisprudents, authorities on Hadith, those who enjoin Good (Maroof) and forbid Evil (Munkar) and all such persons who do good deeds. Such righteous persons may be found spread all over the world." 

Imam al-Tirmidhi (Rahimahullah) said: 

"The explanation of al-Jama'ah according to the people of knowledge: They are the people of fiqh, knowledge and Hadith." (Sunan al-Tirmidhi, 4/2167; Ahmad Shakir ed'n) 

Imam Bukhari (Rahimahullah) stated in his Sahih (vol. 9, chapter. 10, English ed'n), 

"The statement of the Prophet (Peace be upon him): 'A group of my followers will remain victorious in their struggle in the cause of the Truth.' Those are the religious(ly) learned men (Ahl ul-Ilm)." 

Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal (Rahimahullah) said about this group: 

"If it is not the people of Hadith, then I do not know who they may be." (Sahih Muslim Sharif-Mukhtasar Sharh Nawawi, vol. 5, pg. 183, W. Zaman) 

Qadi Iyad (Rahimahullah) said in ash-Shifa (pg. 188): "In a Hadith from Abu Umama (Allah be pleased with him), the Prophet (Peace be upon him) said, `A group of my community will remain constant to the truth, conquering their enemy until the command of Allah comes to them while they are still in that condition.' He was asked, 'Messenger of Allah (Peace be upon him), where are they?' He replied, `In Jerusalem.'"

(3) Imam Muslim (Rahimahullah) has related in his Sahih (3/4553) under the chapter heading 'Instruction to stick to the main body of the Muslims in the time of the trials and warning against those inviting people to disbelief', a Hadith on the authority of Hudhaifa ibn al-Yaman (Allah be pleased with him), who said: 

"People used to ask the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) about the good times, but I used to ask him about (the) bad times fearing lest they overtake me. I said, 'Messenger of Allah, we were in the midst of ignorance and evil, and then Allah brought us this good (time through Islam). Is there any bad time after this good one?' He said, 'Yes'. I asked, 'Will there be a good time again after that bad time?' He said, 'Yes, but therein will be a hidden evil.' I asked, 'What will be the evil hidden therein?' He said, '(That time will witness the rise of) the people who will adopt ways other than mine and seek guidance other than mine. You will know good points as well as bad points.' I asked, 'Will there be a bad time after this good one?' He said, 'Yes. (A time will come) when there will be people standing and inviting at the gates of Hell. Whoso responds to their

call, they will throw them into the fire.' I said, 'Messenger of Allah (Peace be upon him), describe them for us.' He said, 'All right. They will be a people having the same complexion as ours and speaking our language.' I said, `Messenger of Allah (Peace be upon him), what do you suggest if I happen to live in their time?' He said, 'You should stick to the main body of the Muslims and their leader' I said, 'If they have no (such thing as the) main body of the Muslims and have no leader?' He said, 'Separate yourself from all these factions, though you may have to eat the roots of trees until death comes to you and you are in this state.'" 

(NB-It is not likely that there will be an absence of a Jama'ah, since I have already quoted the Prophet, peace be upon him, as saying: 'A group of people from my Ummah will continue to fight in obedience to the command of Allah, remaining dominant over their enemies. Those who will oppose them shall not do them any harm. They will remain in this condition until the Hour overtakes them.') 

(4) Abu Hurayra (Allah be pleased with him) reported the Messenger of Allah (Peace be upon him) as saying: 

"Who (ever) defected from the obedience (to the Amir) and separated from the main body of the Muslims - then he died in that state - would die the death of one belonging to the days of Jahiliyya (pre-Islamic ignorance). And he who is killed under the banner of a man who is blind (to the cause for which he is fighting), who gets flared up with family pride and fights for his tribe - is not from my Ummah, and whoso from my followers attacks my followers (indiscriminately) killing the righteous and the wicked of them, sparing not (even) those staunch in faith and fulfilling not his obligation towards them who have been given a pledge (of security), is not from me." (Sahih Muslim, 3/4557 & 4555; English ed'n)

Imam al-Bayhaqi (d. 458/1066; Rahimahullah) stated in his: The Seventy-Seven Branches of Faith (pg. 42-3), under the fiftieth branch of faith (50 - Holding firmly to the position of the majority): "Allah Most High has said: Hold fast, all together, to the rope of Allah, and do not be disunited. [3:103]. Muslim (Rahimahullah) relates on the authority of Abu Hurayra (Allah be pleased with him) that the Prophet (Peace be upon him) said, 'Whoever is disobedient, and departs from the majority, and then dies, has died in a state of Jahiliyya.' He also relates the following Hadith on the authority of Ibn Shurayh (Allah be pleased with him): 'After I am gone, there will come days of corruption and turmoil. When you see people

damaging the unity of the Community of Muhammad (Peace be upon him), you must fight them, whoever they may happen to be.' 

Abdal Hakim Murad (the translator of the above book) said in the footnote to the fiftieth branch of faith: 'Orthodoxy in Islam is defined as the doctrine of ahl al-sunna wa'l jama'a, the People of the Sunna and the Community. To know whether a doctrine or practise is orthodox or heretical, the Muslim is required to find out whether it is recognised by the majority of Muslim scholars (see later for Imam al-Munawi's commentary). Thus even without looking into their theology, he will know that sects such as the Isma'ilis, the Khariji's, the Wahhabi's, the Twelver Shi'a and others (not to mention anti-Islamic groupings such as the Ahmadiya and the Bahais) are to be repudiated.'" 

(5) Ibn Abbas (Allah be pleased with him) reported the Prophet (Peace be upon him) as saying: 

"One who found in his Amir (the ruler of the true Islamic state; which is absent today) something which he disliked should hold his patience, for one who separated from the main body of the Muslims even to the extent of a handspan and then he died, would die the death of one belonging to the days of Jahiliyya." (Sahih Muslim, 3/4559; English ed'n & Sahih al-Bukhari, 9/257; English ed'n)

(6) Imam's Ahmad and Abu Dawood (Allah's mercy be upon them) said that Abu Dharr (Allah be pleased with him) reported the Prophet (Peace be upon him) as saying: 

"He who separates from the main body (of the Ummah) by even a hand's breadth from the Community he throws off Islam from his neck." (Mishkat-ul-Masabih, 1/185 & Sunan Abu Dawood, 3/4740)

NB-The following five Hadith have been mentioned by the great scholar of Hadith, Hafiz Abd al-Rahman ibn al-Jawzi (d. 597/1201; Rahimahullah) in his Talbis Iblis (section entitled: Adherence to the Sunnah and Jama'ah). A section of the above work has been translated by Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips in to English, under the title: The Devil's Deception of the Shee'ah (pp. 4-5). Bilal Philips has put footnotes to the five Hadith that I will be quoting below (to declare some of the Hadith to be Da'eef), but one thing that should be mentioned is that he has mainly relied upon al-Albani's classification of the Hadiths in question; hence these 'classifications' of al-Albani need re-verifying! I say this because it is a well known fact that

Hafiz Ibn al-Jawzi was noted for his exceptional stringency in accepting Hadith, and he has been known to have declared some of the Hadith in Bukhari/Muslim to be Da'eef, as well as declaring some sound Hadith to be fabricated! Nevertheless, I would like to make it clear to those readers who are unaware of the status of Bilal Philips, that he has heavily depended on the classifications of al-Albani in most of his books! If the esteemed reader is convinced that the errors of al-Albani are most apparent, then one should beware of the status of those Hadiths that have been used by Bilal Philips (on account of his accepting al-Albani's classifications). Bilal Philips seems to be a leading critic of Taqleed who has been swept away by the tide of modern day "Salafiyyism"; and it seems that he has 'blindly' accepted the classifications of al-Albani without himself reverifying al-Albani's classifications! I ask you, is this not a clear cut example of Taqleed? If it has been proven that al-Albani's classifications are unreliable, would it not be just for Bilal Philips to re-verify all the Hadiths that have been authenticated by al-Albani and correct any misclassifications in his books? Allah know's best. 

(7) 'Umar (Allah be pleased with him) reported that on one occasion Allah's Messenger (Peace and blessings be upon him) stood up among them and said, "Whoever among you desires the centre of paradise should keep close to the Jama'ah for the Devil closely accompanies the solitary individual and is more distant from two." (Collected by Imam Tirmidhi) 

(8) And 'Arfajah (Allah be pleased with him) reported (Allah's Messenger, peace be upon him, as saying): "that Allah's hand is over the Jama'ah and the Devil is with whoever deviates from the Jama'ah." (Collected by Imam al-Tabarani) 

(9) 'Abdullah ibn Masood (Allah be pleased with him) reported that once Allah's Messenger (Peace be upon him) drew a line in the dust with his hand and said, "This is the straight path of Allah." Then he drew a series of lines to the right of it and to the left and said, "Each of these paths has a devil at its head inviting people to it." He then recited (Qur'an 6:153), "Verily this is my straight path so follow it and do not follow the (twisted) paths." (Collected by Ahmad, Nisai and Darimi; see Mishkat ul-Masabih, 1/166) 

(10) Mu'adh ibn Jabal (Allah be pleased with him) reported that Allah's Messenger (Peace be upon him) said, "The Devil is like a wolf among humans as a wolf is among sheep; it snatches the stray sheep. So beware of

the paths which branch off and adhere to the Jama'ah, the masses and the masjid." (Collected by Imam Ahmad; NB- The version given in Mishkat, 1/184, also on the authority of Imam Ahmad does not have the addition 'the masses and the masjid.') 

(11) And Abu Dharr (Allah be pleased with him) reported from the Prophet (Peace be upon him) that, "Two are better than one, and three better than two; so stick to the Jama'ah for verily Allah, Most Great and Glorious, will only unite my nation on guidance." (Collected by Ahmad) 

(12) Al-Harith al-Ashari (Allah be pleased with him) reported that the Messenger of Allah (Peace be upon him) said: 

"I bid you to do five things: to remain attached to the main body (Jama'ah of Muslims), listen to your ruler (the Khalif of the Islamic state) and obey him, and migrate, and fight in the way of Allah. And he who detaches himself from the main body of the Muslims (Jama'ah) to the extent of one span of hand, he in fact, throws off the yoke of Islam from his neck, and he who calls with the call of ignorance, he is one from the denizens of Hell beyond doubt, even if he observes fast and says prayers and considers himself as a Muslim." (Musnad Ahmad, vide: Selection from Hadith, no. 288; by A.H. Siddique)

(13) Ibn Umar (Allah be pleased with him) reported Allah's Messenger (Peace be upon him) as saying: 

"Follow the great mass (as-Sawad al-Azam) for he who kept himself away from it, in fact would be thrown in Hell Fire." (Ibn Majah; vide: Mishkat, 1/174, by A.H. Siddiqui). 

The translator of Mishkat-ul-Masabih (A.H. Siddiqui, pg. 113) said in the footnote to the last Hadith: 

"There is a good deal of difference of opinion as to what the term Sawad al-Azam implies. The overwhelming majority of the scholars are of the view that As-Sawad al-Azam means the largest group of the learned scholars and pious persons whose opinions are held in high esteem in Islam." 

(14) Imam al-Shafi'i (Rahimahullah) said in his Risala (pg. 252-3): 

"Sufyan (ibn Uyayna) told us from Abd al-Malik ibn Umayr from Abd al-Rahman ibn Abd Allah ibn Masood from his father, that the Prophet (Peace be upon him) said, `God will grant prosperity to His servant who hears my words, remembers them, guards them, and hands them on. Many a transmitter of law is no lawyer (faqih) himself, and many may transmit law to others who are more versed in the law than they. The heart of a Muslim shall never harbour vindictive feelings against three: sincerity in working for Allah; faithfulness to Muslims; and conformity to the community of believers (Jama'ah) - their call shall protect (the believers) and guard them from (the Devil's) delusion.'" (vide: Sunan al-Darimi, vol. 1, pp. 74-6; Ibn Hanbal, vol. 6, pg. 96; Musnad al-Shafi'i, vol. 1, pg. 16; Mishkat-ul-Masabih, 1/228; and al-Bayhaqi in his al-Madkhal). Imam al-Shafi'i said (pg. 253): "The Apostle's (Peace be upon him) order that men should follow the Muslim community is a proof that the ijma (consensus) of the Muslims is binding." 

(15) Imam al-Shafi'i (Rahimahullah) stated in al-Risala (pg. 286-7): 

"And Sufyan (also) told us from `Abd Allah ibn Abi Labid from `Abd Allah ibn Sulayman ibn Yasar from his father, who said: `Umar ibn al-Khattab (Allah be pleased with him) made a speech at al-Jabiya in which he said: The Apostle of Allah (Peace be upon him) stood among us by an order from Allah, as I am now standing among you, and said: Believe my Companions, then those who succeed them (the Successors), and after that those who succeed the Successors; but after them untruthfulness will prevail when people will swear (in support of their saying) without having been asked to swear, and will testify without having been asked to testify. Only those who seek the pleasure of Paradise will follow the community, for the devil can pursue one person, but stands far away from two. Let no man be alone with a woman, for the devil will be third among them. He who is happy with his right (behaviour), or unhappy with his wrong behaviour, is a (true) believer.'" (see also Musnad al-Shafi'i, vol. 2, pg. 187; and Ibn Hanbal, vol. 1, pg. 112-13, 176-81).

Imam al-Shafi'i said in conclusion to this Hadith: 

"He who holds what the Muslim community (Jama'ah) holds shall be regarded as following the community, and he who holds differently shall be regarded as opposing the community he was ordered to follow. So the error comes from separation; but in the community as a whole there is no error concerning the meaning of the Qur'an, the Sunnah, and analogy (qiyas)."

(16) Imam Hakim (1/116) has related a Sahih Hadith from the Prophet (Peace be upon him) in the following words: "My Ummah shall not agree upon error." 

(17) Imam al-Tirmidhi (4/2167) reported on the authority of Ibn Umar (Allah be pleased with him) from the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), who said: "Verily my Ummah would not agree (or he said the Ummah of Muhammad) would not agree upon error and Allah's hand is over the group and whoever dissents from them departs to Hell." (see also Mishkat, 1/173) 

Imam al-Azizi (d. 1070/1660; Rahimahullah) quoted Imam al-Munawi's (d. 1031/1622; Rahimahullah) commentary to the last Hadith in his al-Siraj al-munir sharh al-Jami al-saghir (3.449), as follows:- Allah's hand is over the group 

(al-Azizi): Munawi says, "Meaning his protection and preservation of them, signifying that the collectivity of the people of Islam are in Allah's fold, so be also in Allah's shelter, in the midst of them, and do not separate yourselves from them." The rest of the Hadith, according to the one who first recorded it (Tirmidhi), is: and whoever descents from them departs to hell.  Meaning that whoever diverges from the overwhelming majority concerning what is lawful or unlawful and on which the Community does not differ has slipped off the path of guidance and this will lead him to hell." (vide: The Reliance of the Traveller, pg. 25)

'Ilmu Usuli-l-Islam

Insha Allah Ta'ala, this section will deal with presenting the pristine teaching upon which Islam is based. Please revisit for upcoming articles

About ijtihad, taqlid and talfiqQuestions by Issam al-Barwani Sahib to Shaykh Abu Omar Abdul Hadi

Palazzi

At 18.12 Saturday, May 8 1999 M, Brother Issam al-Barwani wrote to the Shaykh:

 

Al Salam Aleykum,

I have this question.

I am a Muslim and every one asks me to join a mathhab whether its Shafi or Malki etc...

My question is: Do I have to follow one of any of the Islamic Mathhab? and if yes Why?

As I believe in all the pillars of Islam and the Iman and do my best in the Islam Shariah and when I look at the other Muslims with all different sects (mathhab) they just follow without even knowing what they are on about just they found their parents and they follow

please, advise me.

Thank you

At 12:12 Tuesday, May 11 1999, Shaykh Abu Omar answered:

Wa 'alaykum salam wa rahmat-Ullahi wa barakatuH.

Dear Brother Issam,

A person who believes in Allah and the last day must try his best to worship Allah with ikhlas and to obey  him by abstaining from harams and increasing the number of 'ibadat. When we have to perform a task, we can either base ourselves on our own expertise, or look for help by someone we consider an expert in a different field. If we are seriously sick, we do not trust a person who says, "I have read some books about medicine", but we look for a doctor who has a degree, a good professional reputation, etc.

As about abiding by the Shari'ah, we cannot think we are able to read the Holy Qur'an and hadiths and deduce the ahkam by ourselves. We are not experts in distinguishing nasikh and mansukh ayat, we do not know how to distinguish between 'amm and khass, muhkamat and mutashabihat; we do not know all the rules of 'ilmu-l-hadith, 'ilmu-r-rijal, etc. Form this reason, as Allah has ordered us, when we do not know, we must ask Ahlu-d-Dhikr. The problem is whom we regard as authoritative source of our taqlid in fiqh.

Allah Ta'ala has shown an order of precedence in Islam, by saying, "As-sabiquna al-awwaluna mina-l-muhajirina... al-ayah". After Rasul-Ullah (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam), those having a best knowledge of Islam are Ashab al-kiramah, after them there are Tabi'un, and after them Itba'u-t-Tabi'un. We know that Allah is pleased with them. Rasul-Ullah (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) warned his Ummah by saying, "Those who will live after me will se many discrepancies. You must abide by my Sunnah and by the Sunnah of my khulafa'u-r-rashidun." He also informed them that this Ummah will be divided in 73 groups, one of which will be protected from hell, while the other 72 ones will be sects of bid'ah and dalalah. We must be very careful in avoiding getting involved in sects of bid'ah.

Sahabah were mujtahids of high rank, and they were completely sincere in the desire to please Allah Ta'ala. Had we the opportunity to make taqlid of their ijtihad, that would be the best option. Masha Allah, they never wrote treatises on fiqh, and we do not have the opportunity of abiding by their taqlid. Among the second generation, fiqh was collected in books by Imam Abu Hanifah, and among the third generation by Imams Malik as-Shafi'i and Ibn Hanbal. The consensus of 'ulema from Ahlu-s-Sunnah is that their ijtihad is corrected and acceptable. Even the greatest scholars of following generations chose to practice the Shari'ah according to one of their madhhab. For more than ten centuries, there was no divergence among Muslims about this matter.

The difficulty started during the twelve century of hijrah, when a person called Muhammad ibn 'Abdi-l-Wahhab  started preaching in Hijaz against Ahlu-s-Sunnah, and founded a new sect that rejected taqlid of the four madhhabs. Sunni scholars, including the Mufti of Mecca, wrote a fatwa against him and refuted his errors. By siding with the British kuffars against The Khalifatu-l-Muslimin, they caught power in al-Jazirah, and founded the so-called Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, were Wahhabism is official religion. Most of contemporary sects like Salafis, Ikhwans, Albaniyyuns, etc., are a consequence of the Wahhabi bid'ah and refuse the ijtihad of

madhhabs, but they follow the ijtihad of their co-sectarian; some of them has recently met what Allah has prepared for them, while some others go on being adallu sabilah.

By trusting in Allah, we must refuse to follow the doubtful taqlid of al-akharun, and abide by the confirmed taqlid of al-awwalun. This is the only mean through which we can be sure that our 'aqidah and 'ibadats are sahih.

Please, remember us in your du'ahs, wa-s-salamu 'alaykum wa rahmat-Ullahi wa barakatuH.

Shaykh Prof. Abdul Hadi PalazziDirector-----------------------------------------------------------------------Cultural Institute of the Italian Islamic Communityhttp://amislam.commailto:islam.inst@flashnet.it-----------------------------------------------------------------------Subscribe our list by sending a blank messageislaminst-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

At 16.48 Tuesday May 14, 1999, Brother Issam wrote:

Salamu Aleykum brother,

Thank you for the information but I'm still not sure which Mathhad I should follow as I do read and listen to all the Mathhabs and I find it all appealing as all Ulama's are relating their Tafsir and Hadith and Shriah and Ahkam from the books of ahulu al Sunah and some sects like Ibadhi and Shia, Wahabi etc...

Shaykh Abdul Hadi answered at 10.27 Friday May 14, 1999:

Ba'da-s-salam, Rasul-Ullah (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) order us: "Let what creates doubts for what creates no doubt". If applied to the problem of madhhabs of fiqh, we must beware of sects of bid'ah that were refuted by Sunni scholars, and abide by one the four madhhabs that are unanimously regarded as authoritative. The best way is not learning from books, but finding a pious 'alim that teaches fiqh according to the Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i or Hanbali madhhab, and is not influenced by Shi'ism, Wahhabism, Ikhwanu-l-Muslimun, etc. If Allah, subhanaHu, blesses us with the opportunity to be in touch with such a Shaykh, we must spend our free time in his company, asking him questions and attending his classes. Otherwise, when we do not have such a possibility, we can learn from books, or even from the Web. Ikhlas Waqf from Istanbul is formed by heirs of Shaykh Abdu-l-Hakim al-Arwasi, teaches fiqh according to the Hanafi madhhab, and distribute books in English, Arabic and other languages; another Sunni organization, called Association for Islamic Charitable Project

is formed by disciples of Shaykh 'Abdullah al-Harari, and teaches Shafi'i fiqh on the Web under the direction of Shaykh Samir al-Kadi.

 Issam:

Now for example : Salat Al Safar every Mathab has its rules from Shafi, Hanafy, Hanbaly, Malki ,Ibhadi ,Shia etc..and so many other Ahkam and Sharia .And the Hadith is as you stated 72 sects will go to hell fire except one now this pauses a question to me if you continue the Hadith it says : The Sahaba asked the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) if we reached that time what should we do ? The Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) replied worship Allah the best you can away from all sects.

On whose authority should I follow out of the Mathab (73) as the Hadith Sharif stated?

The Shaykh:

We must not confuse the four madhhabs of Sunni fiqh with the 72 sects of dalalah. "The best you can" means "according to you level of 'ilm and taqwah". For a layperson, it is enough to learn from a Shaykh or from books of 'ilmu-l-hal according to a single madhhab, those who are at a medium level can study "Al-fiqh 'ala-l-madhhaibu-l-arba'" by Shaykh 'Abdu-r-Rahman al-Jaza'iri, while those who are more advanced can study 'ilm usuli-l-fiqh and learn the differences of methodology between madhhabs. About a certain hukm, one madhhab will give space to facility, while another will be stricter. Knowing the different ijtihads and choosing the most difficult one - if done li-wajhi-Llah - is an exercise of wara' and taqwah. To do so, one need to be a faqih, enough competent in all of the four madhhabs.

Issam:

Why do Ulama tell us to follow one ONLY  or I will be lost in my Iman.

The Shaykh:

For those who are not enough competent in fiqh and ijtihad, the safest way is taqlid of a single madhhab. When questioned about your 'ibadat in al-akhirah, you justification will be, "I was not a mujtahid, and I worshipped Allah according to Imam Abu Hanifah (or Malik, or Shafi'i or Ahmad) and this was confirmed by  ijma'u-l-'ulema' during all centuries". By practicing ahkam of Shari'ah in a wrong way, one does not - as such - risk to loose his Iman, but to make its 'ibadat batil. Iman does not depend on our actions, but on what we believe about Allah, His Angels, His Books, His Messengers and the last Day. The risk is, as to say, indirect. If one start following a

bid'ah holder in fiqh, he will probably follow him in 'aqidah, too. If a certain person, for instance, accept to follow Ibn Baz or al-Albani as a "Shaykh", he will follow them when they wrongly say that "practicing tawassul of ahlu-l-qubur" is "shirk"; by doing so, he will accuse Sunni Muslims of "shirk", an became a murtaddid. May Allah protect us all from this risk, and prevent deviations in both fiqh and 'aqidah.

Issam:

Why should I stick to one Mathahb and why can't I take the Sharia from different school of thoughts and not to define myself as a follower of one Mathhab.

The Shaykh:

On the contrary, trying to make a "collage" of different ijtihad means that we judge ourselves as able to say "On this point Imam X is wrong and Imam Y is right", and this is nothing but kibr. Moreover, after Rasul-Ullah (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) we had khilafah rashidah, then khilafah ghayru rashidah, and now we have no khilafah and no rushdah, and a consistent part of former Daru-l-Islam is under the mundane sultanate of ahlu-d-dalalah. By assembling ijtihads from different sources, the real risk is the possibility of mingling hudah and dalalah. Take for example the books of la-madhhabis people who are regarded as scholars: al-Bannah, AbduH, al-Afghani, Sa'id Sabiq, Mawdudi, Qutb, Abu Bakr al-Jazairi, Ibn Baz and al-Albani. They regularly mingle what is transmitted by Ahlu-s-Sunnah with innovations coming from firqatu-n-najdiyyah, the heritage of Asrafu-l-Mursalin (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) with the zhann coming from the heirs of Musaylimah al-Kadhhab.

Issam:

Don't you think the mathab is more political than its religious?

The Shaykh:

No, I think that ahlu-l-madhhayb developed 'ilm searching for ridwanu-Llah, but those interested in power in dunya' tried to made scholars subservient to their goals. Imam Abu Hanifah and Ibn Hanbal (radi Allahu 'anh) were imprisoned and underwent pressure, but never accepted to become 'ulema'u-s-sultaniyyah. On the contrary, those who exchange akhirah for dunya are running after appointments like chief mufti and qadi under the rule of zhalimun. May Allah guide them to tawbah nasuhah.

Issam:

Going to Mecca Al Mukarama you see people praying in different styles( some have their hands on their bellies some on their chests some they don't move their hands except on Takbir and some don't move at all) now you tell me the Wahabi sect which most of Saudi Ulama are wrong in not so many words the Ibadisum (Al Khawarij) as they call them are wrong , some Shafi says that Hanbali are wrong some Malki don't like Hanafi and above all Shia are the outcast and now the Wahaby are heritics and Ibhadi are kafarah .

The Shaykh:

We have reliable dalils about the fact that Rasul-Ullah (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) prayed, in different times, with hands in all of these positions, sometimes moving them in takbirs of ruku' and qiyam, and sometimes in takbiratu-l-ihram only. None of the four madhhabs says that putting the hand along the body, on the chest or on the navel makes salah batil; they differ in what they regard as mustahhab, and this depends on the fact that they have a different method in usul. The correct ijtihad confirmed in all of the four madhhabs is that all the other three are correct, and their ijtihad acceptable. If a certain "Hanafi" scholar says something against taqlid of Imam Maliki, Imam Shafi'i or Imam Ahmad, in doing so he is responsible of ta'assub and exaggeration, and contradicts the same school he claims to belong to. Insha Allah Ta'ala, read al-Muwatta', and you will realize that, before expressing his own ijtihad, Imam Malik quotes the opinion of Abu Hanifah and his main disciples, Shaykhayn Abu Yusuf and Muhammad Shaybani. Imam Shafi'i developed his system by comparing Hanafi and Maliki fiqh, will Imam Ahmad, when in Cairo, used to make ziyarah of the grave of Imam Shafi'i, and asked to touch his turban and jilbab to get tabarruk. He used to say, "If compared to Abu Hanifah, all scholars living today are children". A real Sunni scholar is rahim toward the other three Sunni school, and shadid against bid'ah holders and ahlu-t-talfiq.

Issam:

Now why should we be in between  sects ? I do relate to all Ahkam which ever suits us from different Mathhabs to make our life easy but my Brother I prefer not to belong to any sects but take all good as Islam is All good from different Mathhabs and call Myself Im a Muslim my Mathhad is Al Mathab Al Islami.

The Shaykh:

But when you are to pray, you must choose to put your hands in a certain place and not in another; to do so, you can either choose taqlid  or your own opinion; taqlid is confirmed by ijma', while individual opinion is not.

Issam:

I don't agree at all if Ulama tells me to follow a mathab but if you tell me the Shariah (according to Imam so and so) I will ask what did the rest of Ulama agree on and that would take me a whole life time.

As the Bedouin who went to our Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) and asked him of what should he do and what he gets the Prophet told him of Arkan Al Islam and Al Iman and commandments and the Bedouin said By God I wont add anything the Prophet replied if you do it all you have fulfilled your duties.

Sahabi Masaab Bin Omeir when he died the prophet covered part of his leg with bush .Why all Mathhabs has different law of how many times you cover the dead person with a white cloth is it 2 or 3 or 4 or 1 we get lost .

To me Islam Deen Yuser and not Usr(Difficult) .

The Shaykh:

You are absolutely right. Practicing taqlid of one of the four Imams means having a yusr Din. You are not requested to judge, "this hadith is prevalent and this is relative, this ayah is abrogated by another ayah, this hadith is sahih, this is hasan and this is weak." The Imams have done all this work for you centuries ago. You only say, "I abide by the fatwa of a mujtahid that is regarded as authoritative by ijma'u-l-Ummah, period."

Issam:

My whole thing is who should we follow or why and by whose authority as indeed it parts the Muslims and create conflicts in so many countries in Bahrain the Sunnis are the ones who have higher position. In Iran the Shiat have the upper hand and position .In Afghanistan the Mujahideen fight between each other because mainly of the sects (Mathhabs) and so many other countries.

please answer me soon as I am looking for the truth.

Yahfadhukum Allah:

Salam aleikum: 

Issam

The Shaykh:

After the end of Khilafatu-l-'Uthmaniyyah confusion is increasing; Wahhabis and their sub-sects disguise their true nature and say "We are Sunni", while Shi'as are saying, "There is no real different situation between Sunnis and us". That is the reason why our Institute, in cooperation with other Sunni institutions, is working hard for refutation of heretics and Sunni da'wah. May Allah Ta'ala guide us and you to islah and extend to all of us His rahmah.

Wa-salamu 'alaykum wa rahmat-Ullahi wa barakatuH.

Abdul Hadi Palazzi

Latest additions from the Islamic Institute:

New: A Letter by al-Hafiz Imam ad-Dhahabi    New: The Sunni Articles A refutation of Ibn Taymiyyah New: In Defense of Tawassul About deviations in 'Aqidah New: Fitnatu-l-Wahhabiyyah  by Shaykh Dahlan Mufti al-Haramayn New: A Warning against Muhammad Ibn 'Abdi-l-Wahhab and his

Bid'ahs New: Bayan: a Refutation of the Wahhabi Cult Text of the basic

ahadith New: A Refutation of Bilal Philips and his Slanders against Ahlu-s-

Sunnah  New: Antizionism and Antisemitism in the Contemporary Islamic

Milieu  New: Nazim al-Qubrusi and his Deviation from the Naqshbandi

Tariqah New: Khutoot Al Areedah An exposition and refutation of the sources

of Shi'sm New: Ask Ahlu-d-Dhikr if you Don't Know Answers covering various

subjects New: Fatwa on the Deviated "Nation of Islam" New:  Questions and Answers concerning Mawlid New: History of   The Italian Muslim Assembly and the Cultural

Institute

Home|Contact|New|Islam|Tasawwuf|Iman|Kalam|'Aqidah|Fatawa

'Ilmu-l-Tasawwuf

Extracts from Ali K. Pekkedir's Darasat and English compendium of Risalat that were written by Hadrat al-Shaykh Bediuzzaman Said Nursi al-Barlawi, Turkey (1928-1932).

24th Letter - The Third Mystery of the Universe

In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate.

Allah does what He wishes, and decrees what He wills.

Q u e s t i o n : How can the solicitous nurturing, the purposeful and beneficial planning, the loving kindness of the Names of All-Compassionate, All-Wise, and Loving, which are among the greatest of the Divine Names, be reconciled with death and non-existence, decline and separation; and disaster and hardship, which are awesome and terrible?

Very well, man goes to eternal happiness, so we can tolerate his passing down the road of death, but for the delicate, lovely species of trees and plants, and the flowers, all living creatures, and the species of animals, which are worthy of existence, lovers of life, and desire permanent life - what compassion and kindness is there in their continuously, without exception, being annihilated, in their swiftly being dispatched to non-existence without being allowed to so much as open their eyes, in their being made to work and labor without being allowed to so much as take a breath, in their being changed by calamities with not one of them being left in peace, in their being killed without exception, in their dying with not one of them remaining, in their departing with not one of them being gratified - what wisdom and purpose, what favor and mercy are there in this?

T h e A n s w e r : Through Five Signs which show the necessitating cause and reason, and Five indications which point out the aims and benefits, we shall try to look from afar at the mighty truth which solves this question, and which is extremely broad, profound, and elevated.

FIRST STATION

[This consists of Five Signs]

- First sign

As is described at the end of the Twenty-Sixth Word, when making a precious bejeweled and embroidered garment, a Skillful Craftsman employs a poor man in return for a commensurate wage. In order to display his skill and art, he dresses the poor man in the garment, then measures it and cuts it, and lengthens and shortens it, and making the man sit down and stand up, he gives it various forms. So does the wretched man have the right to say to the craftsman ? :

"Why are you interfering with this garment which makes me beautiful, and altering and changing it? Why are you making me stand up and sit down, disturbing me and causing me trouble?"

In exactly the same way, in order to display the perfections of His art through the embroideries of His Names, the All-Glorious Maker takes the essential nature of every sort of being as a model, then He clothes everything and especially living creatures in the garment of a body bejeweled with senses, and inscribes it with the pen of Divine Decree and Determining; thus demonstrating the manifestation of His Names. In addition, He gives to every being a perfection, a pleasure, an effulgence, in a way suitable to it and as a wage.

Has then anything the right to say to the All-Glorious Maker, Who manifests the meaning of, the Lord of All-Dominion has free disposal over His realms as He wishes :

"You are giving me trouble and disturbing me."? God forbid! In no way do beings have any rights before the Necessarily Existent One, nor can they claim them; their right rather is to carry out through offering thanks and praise, what is required by the degree of existence He has given them.

For all the degrees of existence that are given are occurrences, and each requires a cause. Degrees which are not given are possibilities, and possibilities are non-existent, as well as being infinite. As for instances of non-existence, they do not require a cause. For example, minerals cannot say: "Why weren't we plants?" they cannot complain. Rather, their right, since they have received mineral existence, is to offer thanks to their Creator. And plants may not complain asking why they were not animals; their right is to offer thanks, since they have received life as well as existence. As for animals, they may not complain that they are not humans; the right over them rather, since they have

been given the precious substance of spirit in addition to life and existence, is to offer thanks. And so on...

O complaining man! You did not remain non-existent; you were clothed in the bounty of existence, you tasted life. You did not remain inanimate, nor become an animal; you received the bounty of Islam; you did not remain in misguidance; you have experienced the bounties of good health and well-being!

O ungrateful one! Where did you win the right not to offer thanks in return for the degrees of existence which Almighty God has given you and are pure bounty (blessing). How is it that because exalted bounties which are contingencies and non-existent and which you do not deserve have not been given to you, you complain about Almighty God with meaningless greed, ungrateful for the bounties you have received?

If a man rises to an exalted degree like climbing to the top of a minaret and finds a high station, and on every step receives a large bounty, then does not thank the one who gave him the bounties and complainingly asks why he could not have risen higher than the minaret, how wrong he would be, what an ungrateful denial of the bounties, what great foolishness it would be; as even a lunatic would understand.

O discontented greedy, thriftless wasteful, unjustly complaining, heedless man! Know certainly that contentment is profitable thanks; greed is loss-causing ingratitude, and frugality, fine and beneficial respect for bounties. As for wastefulness, it is ugly and harmful contempt for bounties.

If you have intelligence, grow accustomed to contentment and try to be satisfied with little. If you cannot endure it, say: "O Most Patient One!" and seek patience. Be satisfied with your lot and do not complain. Understand who is complaining about whom, and be silent. If you have to complain, then complain about your soul to God Almighty, for the fault is its.

- Second sign

As is stated at the end of the final matter of the Eighteenth Letter, one instance of wisdom in the All-Glorious Creator constantly changing and renewing beings in an astonishing and awesome fashion through the activity of His Dominicality (Lordship) is as follows:

Activity and motion in creatures arises from an appetite, a desire, a pleasure, a love. It may be said that in all activity there is a sort of pleasure; even, that every activity is a sort of pleasure. Pleasure too is turned towards a perfection; it is even a sort of perfection. Since activity indicates a perfection, a pleasure, a beauty; and since the Necessarily Existent One, Who is Absolute Perfection and the Perfect One of Glory, unites in His essence, attributes, and Names every sort of perfection, for sure, in a manner fitting for the necessary existence and holiness of the Necessarily Existent Essence, in a form suitable to His absolute riches and the self-sufficiency of His essence, in a way appropriate to His absolute perfection and freedom from defect, He has a boundless sacred compassion and infinite pure love.

Of a certainty, there is an infinite holy eagerness arising from that sacred compassion and pure love; and from that holy eagerness arises an infinite sacred joy. And arising from that sacred joy, is, if the term is permissible, an infinite holy pleasure. And from this holy pleasure and from the gratitude and perfections of creatures which result from the emergence and development of their potentialities within the activity of His power, arise, if one may say so, an infinite sacred gratification and holy pride pertaining to that Most Merciful and Compassionate Essence; and it is these which necessitate a boundless activity.

And that boundless activity in turn necessitates boundless change, and transformation, and alteration, and destruction. And that boundless change and transformation necessitate death and extinction, decline and separation.

At one time, the benefits shown by human science and philosophy concerning the purposes of beings appeared most insignificant in my view. And I understood from this that such philosophy leads only to futility. It is for this reason that leading philosophers either fall into the swamp of Nature, or they become Sophists, or they deny Divine knowledge and choice, or they call the Creator "self-necessitating."

At that point, Divine mercy sent the Name of All-Wise to my aid, and it showed me the great aims of creatures. That is to say, every creature, every artifact, is such a Dominical missive that all conscious beings study it.

This aim satisfied me for a year. Then the wonders in the art of beings were unfolded to me, and the former aim started to appear insufficient.

Another, much greater aim became apparent. That is, the most important aims of all creatures look to their Maker. I understood that this aim is to present to His gaze the perfections of His art, the embroideries of His Names, the embellishments of His wisdom, and the gifts of His mercy; it is to be mirrors to His beauty and perfections. This aim satisfied me for a long time.

Then the miracles of Divine power and functions of Dominicality in the extremely swift changes and transformations within the astonishing activity in the art and creation of things became apparent. The former aim too began to appear insufficient. I understood that a necessitating cause, a motive, as great as this aim was necessary. It was then that the causes in this Second Sign and aims in the Indications to follow became apparent.

It was made known to me with complete certainty that "the activity of Divine Power in the Universe and the constant flood of beings is so meaningful that through it the All-Wise Maker causes all the realms of beings in the universe to speak.". It is as if the beings of the earth and the skies and their motion and actions are the words of their speech; their motion is their speech. That is, the motion and decline arising from activity is speech glorifying God. And the activity in the Universe, too, is the silent speech of the Universe and that of the varieties of its beings..

- Third sign

Things do not go to non-existence, they rather pass from the sphere of power to the sphere of knowledge; they go from the Manifest World to the World of the Unseen; they turn from the world of change and transience to the worlds of light and eternity.

From the point of view of reality, the beauty and perfection in things pertain to the Divine Names and are their impresses and manifestations. Since the Names are eternal and their manifestations, perpetual, certainly their impresses will be renewed, refreshed, and made beautiful. They do not pass and depart for non-existence, only their relative positions change; their realities, essences, and identities, which are the means of beauty and loveliness, effulgence and perfection, are enduring.

The beauty and fineness in Beings with no spirits pertain directly to the Divine Names; the honor is their; praise is due to them; the beauty is their; Love goes to them; they suffer no harm on those mirrors changing.

If they are Beings with spirits but no intellect, their death and departure is not extinction and vanishing into non-existence, it is rather being saved from physical existence and the turbulent duties of life. Making over to their spirits, which are immortal, the fruits of the duties they have gained, each relying on a Divine Name, their immortal spirits persist, attaining a happiness worthy of them.

If they are Beings possessing both spirits and intellects, their demise is anyway a journeying to everlasting happiness, to the eternal realm, which is the means to perfections, material and non-material, and to the other dwelling-places of the All-Wise Maker, like the Intermediate Realm, the World of Similitudes, and the Spirit World, which surpass this World in beauty and luminosity. Their passing is not death and extinction, separation and non-existence, it is attaining perfection.

I n S h o r t : Since the All-Glorious Maker exists and He is Eternal and since His attributes and Names are perpetual and everlasting; certainly His Names' manifestations and impresses are renewed, affording a sort of perpetuality; they are not destroyed and transitory, departing for non-being.

It is clear that by reason of his humanity, man is connected with most of the other beings; he receives pleasure at their happiness, and is grieved at their destruction. And he is more grieved at the suffering of living creatures, of mankind in particular, and particularly of those possessing perfection he loves and admires; and his happiness is greater at their happiness.

Like a fond mother, even, he sacrifices his own happiness and comfort for their happiness. Thus, in accordance with their degree, through the light of the Qur'an and mystery of belief, all believers may be happy at the happiness of all beings, and at their enduring and being saved from nothingness and their being valuable Dominical missives; they may gain a light as extensive as the world. Everyone may profit from this light according to his degree.

As for the people of misguidance, they are grieved at the destruction of all beings, at their transience and their apparent dispatch to non-existence - and if they have spirits, at their suffering, in addition to their own pains. That is to say, their unbelief fills their world with non-existence; it empties it over their heads, causing them Hell before they go there.

- Fourth sign

As we have said in many places, a Monarch has various different offices and departments proceeding from his titles like Sultan, Khalifah, Judge, and Commander-in-Chief, and in the same way, Almighty God's Most Beautiful Names have innumerable different sorts of manifestations. The varieties and different sorts of creatures arise from the varieties of manifestations.

Thus, in accordance with the fact that every possessor of beauty and perfection has an innate desire to see and display his beauty and perfection, those various Names too - since they are constant and eternal - want to be displayed in permanent fashion on account of the Most Pure and Holy Essence. That is to say, they want to see their impresses; that is, to see the manifestation of their beauty and reflection of their perfection in the mirrors of their embroideries; that is, to renew every instant the mighty book of the universe and the different missives of beings; that is, to constantly write them anew; that is, to write thousands of different missives on a single page and to display each missive to the witnessing gaze of the Sacred Essence, the Most Pure and Holy One Who is Signified; and together with this, to exhibit them to the meditative gazes of all sentient beings, and cause them to read them.

Consider the following poem which alludes to this truth:

The leaves of the Book of the World are of variety incalculable.Its letters and words, too, are of number infinite;Inscribed on the workbench of the Preserved Tablet of RealityAn embodied meaningful word, is each Being in the Universe.Study the lines of the Universe; they are missives to you from the Sublime Assembly.

- Fifth Sign

The Fifth Sign consists of Two Points.

F i r s t P o i n t : Since Almighty God exists, everything exists. Since there is a relation with Almighty God, all things exist for everything. For through the mystery of Unity, through the relation with the Necessarily Existent One, all beings become connected with all other beings. That means, through the mystery of Unity, every being which knows its relation with the Necessarily Existent One, or whose relation is known, becomes related with all beings which are related to Him. This means, from the point of view of the relation, every being may manifest endless lights of existence. There is no separation or

death from that point of view. To live for a single passing second is the means to innumerable lights of existence.

Whereas if the relation does not exist or is not known, the being manifests infinite separations and deaths. For in that case, in the face of every being with which he could have been connected, he is exposed to a separation, a parting, a death. That is, he burdens his own personal existence with endless instances of non-existence and separation. Should he remain in existence for a million years even (without connection), it would not be as much as living for an instant being related in the former respect.

Those who have penetrated to the realities have said therefore:

"Illumined existence for even a passing instant is preferable to a million years of profitless existence."

And it is also because of this that those who have researched into the realities of creation have said:

"The lights of existence become apparent through recognizing the Necessarily Existent One."

That is to say: "In that case, the Universe is seen to be full of angels, spirit beings, and conscious beings within lights of existence. Whereas without them, the darkness of nonexistence and pains of death and separation encompass all beings. The world appears in such a man's view to be an empty and desolate wasteland."

Indeed, each one of a tree's fruits has a relation with all the other fruits on the tree, and since through the relation, each is his friend and brother, he possesses accidental existences to their number. But when the fruit is plucked from the tree, a separation and death comes about in the face of all the other fruits; they all become as though non-existent for it; a darkness of external non-existence results for it.

In exactly the same way, in respect of being related to the Power of the Single Eternally Besought One, for everything, all things exist. lf not for that relation, there would be external non-existences for all things to the number of things.

And so, from this Sign you may see the vastness of the lights of belief, and the terrifying darkness of misguidance. That is, belief is the title of the essential reality of the elevated truth described in this Sign; and it may be

benefited from through belief. In the absence of belief, just as everything is non-existent for someone who is blind, deaf, dumb, and stupid, so is everything non-existent and dark for one without belief.

S e c o n d P o i n t : The world and all things have three faces: The First Face looks to the Divine Names and is their mirror. Death, separation, and non-existence cannot intrude on this face; there is rather renewal and renovation.

The Second Face looks to the Hereafter and gazes upon the World of Eternity; it is like its arable field. Enduring fruits and produce are raised on this face. It serves eternity, and makes transitory things as though eternal. On this face too there is no death and decline, but the manifestations of life and eternity.

The Third Face looks to transient beings, that is, to us. It is the beloved of ephemeral beings and those who follow the caprices of their souls; the place of trade for the conscious; the arena of trial and examination for those charged with duties. Thus, the salve and cure for the pains and wounds of the transience and decline, the death and extinction, on this third face, are the manifestations of life and eternity in its inner face.

I n S h o r t : This flood of beings, these traveling creatures, are moving mirrors and changing places of manifestation for the renewal of the lights of creation and existence of the Necessarily Existent One.

Latest additions from the Islamic Institute:

New: A Letter by al-Hafiz Imam ad-Dhahabi    New: The Sunni Articles A refutation of Ibn Taymiyyah New: In Defense of Tawassul About deviations in 'Aqidah New: Fitnatu-l-Wahhabiyyah  by Shaykh Dahlan Mufti al-

Haramayn New: A Warning against Muhammad Ibn 'Abdi-l-

Wahhab and his Bid'ahs New: Bayan: a Refutation of the Wahhabi Cult Text of

the basic ahadith New: A Refutation of Bilal Philips and his Slanders against Ahlu-s-

Sunnah  New: Antizionism and Antisemitism in the Contemporary Islamic

Milieu 

New: Nazim al-Qubrusi and his Deviation from the Naqshbandi Tariqah

New: Khutoot Al Areedah An exposition and refutation of the sources of Shi'sm

New: Ask Ahlu-d-Dhikr if you Don't Know Answers covering various subjects

New: Fatwa on the Deviated "Nation of Islam" New: Questions and Answers concerning Mawlid New: History of   The Italian Muslim Assembly and

the Cultural Institute

 

Home|Contact|New|Islam|Tasawwuf|Iman|Kalam|'Aqidah|Fatawa

'Ilmu-l-Tasawwuf

Extracts from Ali K. Pekkedir's Darasat and English compendium of Risalat that were written by Hadrat al-Shaykh Bediuzzaman Said Nursi al-Barlawi, Turkey (1928-1932).

24th Letter - The Third Mystery of the Universe

In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate.

Allah does what He wishes, and decrees what He wills.

Q u e s t i o n : How can the solicitous nurturing, the purposeful and beneficial planning, the loving kindness of the Names of All-Compassionate, All-Wise,

and Loving, which are among the greatest of the Divine Names, be reconciled with death and non-existence, decline and separation; and disaster and hardship, which are awesome and terrible?

Very well, man goes to eternal happiness, so we can tolerate his passing down the road of death, but for the delicate, lovely species of trees and plants, and the flowers, all living creatures, and the species of animals, which are worthy of existence, lovers of life, and desire permanent life - what compassion and kindness is there in their continuously, without exception, being annihilated, in their swiftly being dispatched to non-existence without being allowed to so much as open their eyes, in their being made to work and labor without being allowed to so much as take a breath, in their being changed by calamities with not one of them being left in peace, in their being killed without exception, in their dying with not one of them remaining, in their departing with not one of them being gratified - what wisdom and purpose, what favor and mercy are there in this?

T h e A n s w e r : Through Five Signs which show the necessitating cause and reason, and Five indications which point out the aims and benefits, we shall try to look from afar at the mighty truth which solves this question, and which is extremely broad, profound, and elevated.

FIRST STATION

[This consists of Five Signs]

- First sign

As is described at the end of the Twenty-Sixth Word, when making a precious bejeweled and embroidered garment, a Skillful Craftsman employs a poor man in return for a commensurate wage. In order to display his skill and art, he dresses the poor man in the garment, then measures it and cuts it, and lengthens and shortens it, and making the man sit down and stand up, he gives it various forms. So does the wretched man have the right to say to the craftsman ? :

"Why are you interfering with this garment which makes me beautiful, and altering and changing it? Why are you making me stand up and sit down, disturbing me and causing me trouble?"

In exactly the same way, in order to display the perfections of His art through the embroideries of His Names, the All-Glorious Maker takes the essential nature of every sort of being as a model, then He clothes

everything and especially living creatures in the garment of a body bejeweled with senses, and inscribes it with the pen of Divine Decree and Determining; thus demonstrating the manifestation of His Names. In addition, He gives to every being a perfection, a pleasure, an effulgence, in a way suitable to it and as a wage.

Has then anything the right to say to the All-Glorious Maker, Who manifests the meaning of, the Lord of All-Dominion has free disposal over His realms as He wishes :

"You are giving me trouble and disturbing me."? God forbid! In no way do beings have any rights before the Necessarily Existent One, nor can they claim them; their right rather is to carry out through offering thanks and praise, what is required by the degree of existence He has given them.

For all the degrees of existence that are given are occurrences, and each requires a cause. Degrees which are not given are possibilities, and possibilities are non-existent, as well as being infinite. As for instances of non-existence, they do not require a cause. For example, minerals cannot say: "Why weren't we plants?" they cannot complain. Rather, their right, since they have received mineral existence, is to offer thanks to their Creator. And plants may not complain asking why they were not animals; their right is to offer thanks, since they have received life as well as existence. As for animals, they may not complain that they are not humans; the right over them rather, since they have been given the precious substance of spirit in addition to life and existence, is to offer thanks. And so on...

O complaining man! You did not remain non-existent; you were clothed in the bounty of existence, you tasted life. You did not remain inanimate, nor become an animal; you received the bounty of Islam; you did not remain in misguidance; you have experienced the bounties of good health and well-being!

O ungrateful one! Where did you win the right not to offer thanks in return for the degrees of existence which Almighty God has given you and are pure bounty (blessing). How is it that because exalted bounties which are contingencies and non-existent and which you do not deserve have not been given to you, you complain about Almighty God with meaningless greed, ungrateful for the bounties you have received?

If a man rises to an exalted degree like climbing to the top of a minaret and finds a high station, and on every step receives a large bounty, then does

not thank the one who gave him the bounties and complainingly asks why he could not have risen higher than the minaret, how wrong he would be, what an ungrateful denial of the bounties, what great foolishness it would be; as even a lunatic would understand.

O discontented greedy, thriftless wasteful, unjustly complaining, heedless man! Know certainly that contentment is profitable thanks; greed is loss-causing ingratitude, and frugality, fine and beneficial respect for bounties. As for wastefulness, it is ugly and harmful contempt for bounties.

If you have intelligence, grow accustomed to contentment and try to be satisfied with little. If you cannot endure it, say: "O Most Patient One!" and seek patience. Be satisfied with your lot and do not complain. Understand who is complaining about whom, and be silent. If you have to complain, then complain about your soul to God Almighty, for the fault is its.

- Second sign

As is stated at the end of the final matter of the Eighteenth Letter, one instance of wisdom in the All-Glorious Creator constantly changing and renewing beings in an astonishing and awesome fashion through the activity of His Dominicality (Lordship) is as follows:

Activity and motion in creatures arises from an appetite, a desire, a pleasure, a love. It may be said that in all activity there is a sort of pleasure; even, that every activity is a sort of pleasure. Pleasure too is turned towards a perfection; it is even a sort of perfection. Since activity indicates a perfection, a pleasure, a beauty; and since the Necessarily Existent One, Who is Absolute Perfection and the Perfect One of Glory, unites in His essence, attributes, and Names every sort of perfection, for sure, in a manner fitting for the necessary existence and holiness of the Necessarily Existent Essence, in a form suitable to His absolute riches and the self-sufficiency of His essence, in a way appropriate to His absolute perfection and freedom from defect, He has a boundless sacred compassion and infinite pure love.

Of a certainty, there is an infinite holy eagerness arising from that sacred compassion and pure love; and from that holy eagerness arises an infinite sacred joy. And arising from that sacred joy, is, if the term is permissible, an infinite holy pleasure. And from this holy pleasure and from the gratitude and perfections of creatures which result from the emergence

and development of their potentialities within the activity of His power, arise, if one may say so, an infinite sacred gratification and holy pride pertaining to that Most Merciful and Compassionate Essence; and it is these which necessitate a boundless activity.

And that boundless activity in turn necessitates boundless change, and transformation, and alteration, and destruction. And that boundless change and transformation necessitate death and extinction, decline and separation.

At one time, the benefits shown by human science and philosophy concerning the purposes of beings appeared most insignificant in my view. And I understood from this that such philosophy leads only to futility. It is for this reason that leading philosophers either fall into the swamp of Nature, or they become Sophists, or they deny Divine knowledge and choice, or they call the Creator "self-necessitating."

At that point, Divine mercy sent the Name of All-Wise to my aid, and it showed me the great aims of creatures. That is to say, every creature, every artifact, is such a Dominical missive that all conscious beings study it.

This aim satisfied me for a year. Then the wonders in the art of beings were unfolded to me, and the former aim started to appear insufficient. Another, much greater aim became apparent. That is, the most important aims of all creatures look to their Maker. I understood that this aim is to present to His gaze the perfections of His art, the embroideries of His Names, the embellishments of His wisdom, and the gifts of His mercy; it is to be mirrors to His beauty and perfections. This aim satisfied me for a long time.

Then the miracles of Divine power and functions of Dominicality in the extremely swift changes and transformations within the astonishing activity in the art and creation of things became apparent. The former aim too began to appear insufficient. I understood that a necessitating cause, a motive, as great as this aim was necessary. It was then that the causes in this Second Sign and aims in the Indications to follow became apparent.

It was made known to me with complete certainty that "the activity of Divine Power in the Universe and the constant flood of beings is so meaningful that through it the All-Wise Maker causes all the realms of beings in the universe to speak.". It is as if the beings of the earth and the

skies and their motion and actions are the words of their speech; their motion is their speech. That is, the motion and decline arising from activity is speech glorifying God. And the activity in the Universe, too, is the silent speech of the Universe and that of the varieties of its beings..

- Third sign

Things do not go to non-existence, they rather pass from the sphere of power to the sphere of knowledge; they go from the Manifest World to the World of the Unseen; they turn from the world of change and transience to the worlds of light and eternity.

From the point of view of reality, the beauty and perfection in things pertain to the Divine Names and are their impresses and manifestations. Since the Names are eternal and their manifestations, perpetual, certainly their impresses will be renewed, refreshed, and made beautiful. They do not pass and depart for non-existence, only their relative positions change; their realities, essences, and identities, which are the means of beauty and loveliness, effulgence and perfection, are enduring.

The beauty and fineness in Beings with no spirits pertain directly to the Divine Names; the honor is their; praise is due to them; the beauty is their; Love goes to them; they suffer no harm on those mirrors changing.

If they are Beings with spirits but no intellect, their death and departure is not extinction and vanishing into non-existence, it is rather being saved from physical existence and the turbulent duties of life. Making over to their spirits, which are immortal, the fruits of the duties they have gained, each relying on a Divine Name, their immortal spirits persist, attaining a happiness worthy of them.

If they are Beings possessing both spirits and intellects, their demise is anyway a journeying to everlasting happiness, to the eternal realm, which is the means to perfections, material and non-material, and to the other dwelling-places of the All-Wise Maker, like the Intermediate Realm, the World of Similitudes, and the Spirit World, which surpass this World in beauty and luminosity. Their passing is not death and extinction, separation and non-existence, it is attaining perfection.

I n S h o r t : Since the All-Glorious Maker exists and He is Eternal and since His attributes and Names are perpetual and everlasting; certainly His Names' manifestations and impresses are renewed, affording a sort of

perpetuality; they are not destroyed and transitory, departing for non-being.

It is clear that by reason of his humanity, man is connected with most of the other beings; he receives pleasure at their happiness, and is grieved at their destruction. And he is more grieved at the suffering of living creatures, of mankind in particular, and particularly of those possessing perfection he loves and admires; and his happiness is greater at their happiness.

Like a fond mother, even, he sacrifices his own happiness and comfort for their happiness. Thus, in accordance with their degree, through the light of the Qur'an and mystery of belief, all believers may be happy at the happiness of all beings, and at their enduring and being saved from nothingness and their being valuable Dominical missives; they may gain a light as extensive as the world. Everyone may profit from this light according to his degree.

As for the people of misguidance, they are grieved at the destruction of all beings, at their transience and their apparent dispatch to non-existence - and if they have spirits, at their suffering, in addition to their own pains. That is to say, their unbelief fills their world with non-existence; it empties it over their heads, causing them Hell before they go there.

- Fourth sign

As we have said in many places, a Monarch has various different offices and departments proceeding from his titles like Sultan, Khalifah, Judge, and Commander-in-Chief, and in the same way, Almighty God's Most Beautiful Names have innumerable different sorts of manifestations. The varieties and different sorts of creatures arise from the varieties of manifestations.

Thus, in accordance with the fact that every possessor of beauty and perfection has an innate desire to see and display his beauty and perfection, those various Names too - since they are constant and eternal - want to be displayed in permanent fashion on account of the Most Pure and Holy Essence. That is to say, they want to see their impresses; that is, to see the manifestation of their beauty and reflection of their perfection in the mirrors of their embroideries; that is, to renew every instant the mighty book of the universe and the different missives of beings; that is, to constantly write them anew; that is, to write thousands of different missives on a single page and to display each missive to the witnessing gaze of the Sacred Essence, the Most Pure and Holy One Who is Signified; and together with this, to exhibit

them to the meditative gazes of all sentient beings, and cause them to read them.

Consider the following poem which alludes to this truth:

The leaves of the Book of the World are of variety incalculable.Its letters and words, too, are of number infinite;Inscribed on the workbench of the Preserved Tablet of RealityAn embodied meaningful word, is each Being in the Universe.Study the lines of the Universe; they are missives to you from the Sublime Assembly.

- Fifth Sign

The Fifth Sign consists of Two Points.

F i r s t P o i n t : Since Almighty God exists, everything exists. Since there is a relation with Almighty God, all things exist for everything. For through the mystery of Unity, through the relation with the Necessarily Existent One, all beings become connected with all other beings. That means, through the mystery of Unity, every being which knows its relation with the Necessarily Existent One, or whose relation is known, becomes related with all beings which are related to Him. This means, from the point of view of the relation, every being may manifest endless lights of existence. There is no separation or death from that point of view. To live for a single passing second is the means to innumerable lights of existence.

Whereas if the relation does not exist or is not known, the being manifests infinite separations and deaths. For in that case, in the face of every being with which he could have been connected, he is exposed to a separation, a parting, a death. That is, he burdens his own personal existence with endless instances of non-existence and separation. Should he remain in existence for a million years even (without connection), it would not be as much as living for an instant being related in the former respect.

Those who have penetrated to the realities have said therefore:

"Illumined existence for even a passing instant is preferable to a million years of profitless existence."

And it is also because of this that those who have researched into the realities of creation have said:

"The lights of existence become apparent through recognizing the Necessarily Existent One."

That is to say: "In that case, the Universe is seen to be full of angels, spirit beings, and conscious beings within lights of existence. Whereas without them, the darkness of nonexistence and pains of death and separation encompass all beings. The world appears in such a man's view to be an empty and desolate wasteland."

Indeed, each one of a tree's fruits has a relation with all the other fruits on the tree, and since through the relation, each is his friend and brother, he possesses accidental existences to their number. But when the fruit is plucked from the tree, a separation and death comes about in the face of all the other fruits; they all become as though non-existent for it; a darkness of external non-existence results for it.

In exactly the same way, in respect of being related to the Power of the Single Eternally Besought One, for everything, all things exist. lf not for that relation, there would be external non-existences for all things to the number of things.

And so, from this Sign you may see the vastness of the lights of belief, and the terrifying darkness of misguidance. That is, belief is the title of the essential reality of the elevated truth described in this Sign; and it may be benefited from through belief. In the absence of belief, just as everything is non-existent for someone who is blind, deaf, dumb, and stupid, so is everything non-existent and dark for one without belief.

S e c o n d P o i n t : The world and all things have three faces: The First Face looks to the Divine Names and is their mirror. Death, separation, and non-existence cannot intrude on this face; there is rather renewal and renovation.

The Second Face looks to the Hereafter and gazes upon the World of Eternity; it is like its arable field. Enduring fruits and produce are raised on this face. It serves eternity, and makes transitory things as though eternal. On this face too there is no death and decline, but the manifestations of life and eternity.

The Third Face looks to transient beings, that is, to us. It is the beloved of ephemeral beings and those who follow the caprices of their souls; the place of trade for the conscious; the arena of trial and examination for those charged with duties. Thus, the salve and cure for the pains and wounds of the transience and decline, the death and extinction, on this third face, are the manifestations of life and eternity in its inner face.

I n S h o r t : This flood of beings, these traveling creatures, are moving mirrors and changing places of manifestation for the renewal of the lights of creation and existence of the Necessarily Existent One.

Latest additions from the Islamic Institute:

New: A Letter by al-Hafiz Imam ad-Dhahabi    New: The Sunni Articles A refutation of Ibn Taymiyyah New: In Defense of Tawassul About deviations in 'Aqidah New: Fitnatu-l-Wahhabiyyah  by Shaykh Dahlan Mufti al-

Haramayn New: A Warning against Muhammad Ibn 'Abdi-l-

Wahhab and his Bid'ahs New: Bayan: a Refutation of the Wahhabi Cult Text of

the basic ahadith New: A Refutation of Bilal Philips and his Slanders against Ahlu-s-

Sunnah  New: Antizionism and Antisemitism in the Contemporary Islamic

Milieu  New: Nazim al-Qubrusi and his Deviation from the

Naqshbandi Tariqah New: Khutoot Al Areedah An exposition and refutation of

the sources of Shi'sm New: Ask Ahlu-d-Dhikr if you Don't Know Answers

covering various subjects New: Fatwa on the Deviated "Nation of Islam" New: Questions and Answers concerning Mawlid New: History of   The Italian Muslim Assembly and

the Cultural Institute

 

In defense of Tawhidand Ahl at-Tawhid

Part 1

by al-murid Zubeir Ashari-Maturidi

 

After praising Allah, Lord of the worlds, and sending blessings and peace upon the noblest among His Prophets, I just read 3 chapters of the book bearing the inadequate title  “The Fundamentals of Tawhid,” by Abu Aminah Bilal Philips, the grand wahhabi of Jamaica and my colleague in University. Below is a list of heretic statements by him. Imagine how many more wrong statements I would’ve gotten if I had read the entire book. Insha Allah Ta'ala, this is the beginning of a serious refutation of Bilal Philips. This book alone will take at least a few weeks or more to refute with sahih dalail. I intend to add his other popular books to the refutation like “Evolution of Fiqh.” If any of you have any other sources besides web-sites, please let me  know. If any of you can ask specific questions to Ahl al-Sunna shuyukh in your area, I’ll quote them in the refutation.

 Assalam-u-‘alaykum wa rahmat-Ullahi wa barakatuH.

A Collection of Heretic Statements by Bilal Philips, Implying Anthropomorphism, Wrong Theories about Tasawwuf and Slanders against Shaykh Muhiddin Ibn

al-‘Arabi

Abu Aminah Bilal Philips’ heresy is expressed in the following propositions:

- Undued “tri-categorization” of Tawhid.

- His words: “An example of this form of Shirk among some Muslims is that of many Sufis like  Ibn ‘Arabi who claim that only Allah exists (All is Allah, and Allah is all).”

- His words: “Claims of Sufis (muslim mystics) like al-Hallaj that they have become one with God and as such exist as manifestations of the Creator within His creation may also be included in this aspect of Shirk in al-Asma' was-sifat.” 

- His words: “These designations have led the masses to either seek intercession through them or to worship them as gods. Consequently, these religious traditions have lists of saints to whom the masses fervently pray. Islam, on the other hand, opposes even the excessive praise of Prophet Muhammad (saws).”

- His words: “Among the ignorant masses, the main criterion for Wilayah (“Sainthood”) is the performance of miracles which are commonly called Karamat to distinguish them from the miracles Mu’jizat of the prophets.” 

- His words: “ However, nowhere has Allah made the working of miracles a stipulation for being His Wali. Therefore, as earlier stated, all believers who have Iman and Taqwa are Walis of Allah and He is their Wali...”. 

- His words: “Consequently, Muslims are not allowed to designate certain believers as being Awliya' of Allah and not others.”

- His words: “This body of mythology has been borrowed from Christianity, just as Dhikr beads were adopted from the Christian rosary, and Mawlid from the Christian celebration of Christmas.”

- His words: “A group of Muslims who were not satisfied with what the Shari’ah (Islamic Law) had to offer, developed a parallel system which they named the Tariqah (the way). Just as the ultimate goal of the Hindu was unity with the world soul and of the Christian mystic union with God; the ultimate goal of this movement became Fana', the dissolution of the

ego, and Wusool the meeting and unification of the human soul with Allah in this life. A series of preliminary stages and states which had to be attained were defined.  They were called Maqamat (stations) and Halat (states). A system of spiritual exercises was also designed for the initiate in  order to bring about this “meeting.” These exercises of Dhikr 133 often involved head and body movements and sometimes even  dance, as in the case of whirling dervishes. All of these practises were attributed to the Prophet (saws) through chains of narration in order to validate them, but there does not exist any authentic support for them in any of the classical books of Hadith. A multiplicity of systems evolved, and orders, similar to those among Christian monks, appeared named after their founders, like the  Qadiri, Chishti, Nakhshabandi, and Tijani orders. Along with that, volumes of legends and fairy tales were spun around the  founders and the outstanding personalities of these orders. And, just as Christian and Hindu monks chose special isolated structures  (i.e. monasteries) in which to house their communities, the Sufi orders developed similar housing schemes called Zawiyahs (lit. corners).”

- His words: “The Shari’ah came to be looked at as the outer path designed for the ignorant masses, while the Tariqah was the inner path of  an elite enlightened few. Opinionated Tafsir (Qur’anic commentary) appeared in which the meanings of the Qur’anic verses were  bent and twisted to support the heretical ideas of the mystic movement.”

- His words: “The early generation of pious individuals, like ‘Abdul-Qadir al-Jilani, and others to whom some orders were attributed, clearly understood the importance of distinguishing between the Creator and the created. The two could never become one, as One was  Divine and Eternal, while the other was human and finite.”

- His words: “He has neither corporeal body nor is He a formless spirit. He has a form befitting His majesty, the like of which no man has ever seen or conceived, and which will only be seen (to the degree of man’s finite limitations) by the people of paradise.”

- His words: “ When verses are taken out of context, the meanings of the Qur’an can easily be distorted.” [funny coming from a wahhabi]

- His words: “As for using the Qur’an like a charm or amulet by wearing or carrying Qur’anic verses on chains or in pouches to ward off evil or  to bring good fortune, there is little difference between such practices and

those of the pagans. Neither the Prophet (saws) nor his  Companions used the Qur’an in this fashion, and the Prophet (saws) said, “Whoever innovates in Islam something which does not  belong to it will have it rejected.”

- His words: “He did not write them down [Quranic ayat] and hang them around his neck, tie them on his arm or around his waist, nor did he tell others to do so.” 

- His words: “Furthermore, there is no need for any form of intercessor or intermediary between man and God.”

- His words: “If someone prays to the Prophet (saws), to so-called saints, Jinns or angels asking for help or asking them to request help from Allah for them, they have also committed Shirk.” [Subhan-Allahi  'amma yasifun, such a declaration cna lead to the loss of Iman and irtidad].

- His words: “According to the Qur’an, when the Makkans were questioned about directing their prayers to their idols, they answered, “We only worship them so that they may bring us closer to Allah.” The idols were only used as intermediaries yet Allah called them pagans for their practice. Those among Muslims who insist on praying to other than Allah would do well to reflect on this fact.”

1st Appendix

In defense of Tawhidand Ahl at-Tawhid

Part 2

by al-faqir Zubeir Ashari-Maturidi

Al-hamdu Lillah I just finished listing  Bilal Philips' heretic claims. Insha Allah Ta'ala and with His help, I am now beginning their  refutation, and am going to modify it a few times before finalizing it.

Dear Shaykh Abdul Hadi, if you can, please read it and give me a statement of yours which I can quote. Please make it concise and to the point, since the refutation is already long enough. 

BarakAllahu-fik. 

As-salamu ‘alaykum wa Rahmatullah.

A Refutation of Contemporary Anthropomorphism as Expressed in the So-called "Fundamentals of

Tawheed"

Bilal Philips says:

“He has neither corporeal body nor is He a formless spirit. He has a form befitting His majesty, the like of which no man has ever seen or conceived, and which will only be seen (to the degree of man’s finite limitations) by the people of paradise.” 

The above statement made by Bilal Philips proves that he is from the mujassima (anthropomorphists), who commit tajsim by attributing a body to Allah Azza Wajal. None of the Sahaba, Tabi’in or Tabi al-Tabi’in, also known as the salaf us-salih (or pious predecessors), said that Allah has a “form” because for anything to have a form, it must be composed of parts,

dimensions, and limits. Bodies, parts, dimensions, and limits are all attributes of the weak creation which Allahu Ta’ala, the Majestic, is not attributed with. The ulema of Ahl al-Sunna wa’al Jama’ah use the verse “Laysa ka mithlihi shayy...(42:11)” to refute the false claims of the mujassima. That is, “There is nothing like Him whatsoever...” 

Imam Abu Ja’far at-Tahawi (239-321), who lived most of his life in the noble and blessed time period of the “salaf” praised by the Prophet (‘Alayhi-salatu-wassalam) in sahih ahadith refutes the mujassima in his famous Statement of Islamic Doctrine, “Al-Aqida al-Tahawiyya.” Imam Tahawi states in #38 of his Al-Aqida: “He [Allah] is beyond having limits placed on Him, or being restricted, or having parts or limbs....” Such a statement clearly states that it does not befit Almighty Allah to be attributed with a “form,” since parts, limbs, and restrictions are characteristics of anything which has a form. It must be noted that Imam Tahawi lived at a time when both the  direct and indirect disciples of the four Imams of Islamic Law (Abu Hanifa, Shafi’i, Malik, and Ahmad ibn Hanbal) were teaching and practicing. This period was the greatest age of Hadith and fiqh studies, and Imam Tahawi studied with all the living authorities in his  days. 

Al-Badr al-‘Ayni said that when the mujtahid Ahmad ibn Hanbal died, Tahawi was 12; when Imam Bukhari died, he was 27;  when Imam Muslim died, he was 32; when Imam Ibn Majah died, he was 44; when Imam Abu Dawud died, he was 46; when Tirmidhi  died, he was 50, and when Imam Nisa’i died, he was 74. 

Ahl al-Sunna scholars like Imam Muhammad Zahid al-Kawthari have praised  Imam Tahawi for his knowledge in hadith and fiqh. This is agreed upon by Ibn Kathir and Dhahabi also. Ibn Taymiya disagreed with  this consensus as it is a common habit of his in many issues of fiqh and ‘aqida.

Hujjat ul-Islam Imam Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, the renowned Ahl al-Sunna Mujaddid, said in his “Ihya ‘ulum al-din,” under the section  explaining the “Transcendence” of Allahu-Ta’ala: 

“He [Allah] is not a body with a form, or a limitary, quantitative substance, not resembling bodies in quantifiability or divisibility, or in being a substance or qualified by a substance....He does not resemble anything  that exists, nor anything that exists resembles Him. There is nothing whatsoever like unto Him, nor is He like unto anything. He is not 

delimited by magnitude, contained in places, encompassed by directions, or bounded by heavens or earth....”

What Bilal Philips said: “He has a form befitting His majesty...” means that Allah has a form which is not like the form of the creation. 

Furthermore, Bilal Philips said: “He has neither corporeal body...” to mean that Allah’s form is not corporeal like that of the creation, but non-corporeal. That is, he claims that Allah has a non-corporeal body, or a body not like other bodies.

 According to Imam al-Baihaqi,  in his “Manaqib Ahmad,” he relates with a sahih chain that Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal said: “A person commits an act of disbelief (kufr) if  he says Allah is a body, even if he says: Allah is a body but not like other bodies.”

 He continues: “The expressions are taken from  language and from Islam, and linguists applied ‘body’ to a thing that has length, width, thickness, form, structure, and components. The  expression has not been handed down in Shari’a. Therefore, it is invalid and cannot be used.” 

One can see that Bilal Philips is in  opposition to what the Shari’a teaches, as the mujtahid mutlaq Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal beautifully refutes his anthropomorphic claims. 

Other false claims of the mujassima, in addition to Bilal Philips, are made by other wahhabis also like the late so-called Mufti of Saudi Arabia Abdl Aziz bin Abdullah bin Baz. Bin Baz, in his commentary of Imam Abu Ja’afar at-Tahawi’s “Al-Aqida,” says under footnote #3: 

“By hudood (limits) the author [refering to Imam Tahawi] means such as known by humans since no one except Allah Almighty knows His limits.” 

One can see that Bin Baz, the majassim, says that Allah has limits, when it is clearly stated by Ahl al-Sunna scholars like Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Imam Ghazali, and Imam Baihaqi that Allah is clear of any limits whatsoever. The noble Imam Tahawi clearly said: 

“He [Allah] is beyond...being restricted...” 

He did not say: 

“Allah has restrictions which humans don’t know but restrictions which only Allah knows.” 

Bin Baz misrepresents the pious Salaf and is following the footsteps of Shaytan by trying to twist the correct explanations of sahih treatises written by Ahl al-Sunna wa’al Jama’ah. Wahhabis are infamous for their mockery and misrepresentation of Ahl al-Sunna scholars. Furthermore, Bin Baz says in the same footnote: 

“Similarly, his [refering to Imam Tahawi] saying “The six directions do not surround Him like all other innovations ” means the six created directions. He does not means the negation of Allah being above His creation and established on His throne because His position is not covered by the six directions, as He is above this universe and surroundings.” 

Like Bilal Philips, Bin Baz has also contradicted himself. According to Bin Baz, Allah is not bound by the “created directions,” but then contradicts himself by saying,

 “All the evidence from the Book and the authentic Mutawatir Sunnah prove that He is in the direction above us” 

later in the same footnote. The deviation of their intellectc compel them to contradictory statments and the do not heven realized it. Bin Baz is not only contradicting himself, but also lying in behalf of the Qur’an and the authentic Mutawatir Sunnah. The fact is that the Qur’an, Sunna and the Ahl al-Sunna scholars have never attributed a direction to Allah.

A hadith related by Imam Bukhari states: 

“Allah existed eternally when there was nothing else with Him.” 

This means that absolutely nothing existed, including the throne. Everything that came into existence after once having been in a state of non-existence is a creation which does not possess eternal attributes. The Ahl al-Sunna ulema say that the claim that Allah is sitting on His Throne indeed stipulates a direction because the throne is a creation of Allah, and all of creation is located in “created directions.” Saying that Allah is in the “direction” of the throne is indeed imposing a sensory limitation to Allahu Ta’ala. After all, is the throne not located in a particular direction? The fact is that the throne is located in a certain direction and a certain place. For Allah to be localized on the Throne would mean that Allah is in a

place. This opposes the creed of Ahl al-Sunna wa’al Jama’ah. Imam Bukhari, who passed away in 256 AH, believed that Allah exists without a place, as it is authentically stated by Hafiz Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani in his “Fath al-Bari.”

In addition to Bilal Philips and Bin Baz, other wahhabis have also imposed directions for Allahu Ta’ala, and opposed the sahih creed of Ahl al-Sunna wa’al Jama’ah. Muhammad Khalil Harras, another wahhabi, writes in his translation of Ibn Taymiya’s “Sharh Aqidah al-Wasitiyyah,” page 73:

“The Mutazila deny the vision. This denial is based on refusing to accept Allah in any direction for it is necessary for a thing being seen to  be in the direction of the seer...”

Al-Harras thus claims Allah must be in a direction to be seen in the Hereafter. This makes him a  mujassim like Bilal Philips and Bin Baz. The Ahl al-Sunna scholar Imam Abu Ja’far at-Tahawi in his “al-Aqida” once again refutes this  mujassim by saying:

#35 says: “The Seeing of Allah by the People of the Garden is true, without their vision being all-encompassing and without the manner of  their vision being known....We do not delve into that, trying to interpret it according to our own opinions or letting our imaginations have  free rein.” 

Also, remember that “Allah is not contained by the six directions.” 

Bilal Philips also opposes the sahih creed of the salaf us- salih like a-Harras by saying: 

“He has a form befitting His majesty, the like of which no man has ever seen or conceived, and which will  only be seen (to the degree of ma's finite limitations) by the people of paradise.” (emphasis added),

One clearly sees that this statement of Bilal Philips is based on his imagination and sensory delusion, and it is in opposition to the creed of the pious salaf. 

Other wahhabis like Muhammad Saleh al-Uthaymin, shows that he is also a mujassim by saying in his “Aqidat al-muslim” that 

“Allah’s establishment on the throne means that He is sitting ‘in person’ on His Throne.” 

The hafiz Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani in his “Fath al-Bari” rejected the statement that Allah is on the Throne “in person” as equally preposterous as saying that Allah is everywhere. Ibn al-Jawzi in  his “Daf shubah al-tashbih said:

“They said: He is established on the Throne “in person.” But this addition is not related by anyone!” 

Even Sulayman ibn ‘Abd Allah ibn  Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, the wahhabi founder’s grandson, declared anyone a kafir who used the term “in person” in relation to Allah being in a place in his “al-Tawdih ‘an tawhid al-khallaq fi jawab ahl al-‘Iraq.” 

Be attentive that the Ahl al-Sunna scholars in Ibn Taymiya’s time accused him of being a mujassim. Ibn Hajar al-‘Asqalani’s biography  of Ibn Taymiyya in “al-durar al-kamina fi a‘yan al-mi’at al-thamina” [The Hidden Pearls Concerning the Famous People of the  Eighth Century] is sahih dalail (proof) to justify such a claim. Ibn Hajar states authentic statements in his book such as: 

“People were divided into parties because of him. Some considered him an anthropomorphist [mujassim] because of what he mentioned  in ‘al- ‘aqida al-Hamawiyya’ and ‘al-‘aqida al-Wasitiyya’ and other books of his, such as Allah’s hand, foot, shin, and face being  litteral attributes of Allah (Sifatun Haqiqiyyatun lillah) and that He is established upon the Throne with His Essence (wa annahu  mustawin ‘ala al-‘arshi bi dhatihi). It was said to him that were this the case He would necessarily be subject to spatial confinement (al-tahayyuz) and divisibility (al-inqisam). He replied: “I do not concede that spatial confinement and divisibility are (necessarily) properties of bodies (ana la usallimu anna al-tahayyuz wa al-inqisam min khawass al- ajsam),” whereupon it was adduced against him (ulzima) that he held Allah’s Essence to be subject to spatial confinement.” 

Shaykh ul-Islam Ibn al-Jawzi (508-597), a Hanbali scholar, warned people of the ‘mujassima’ who speak in the name of Ahmad ibn Hanbal falsely in his “Daf shubah al-tashbih be akuff al-tanzih” (The repelling with hands of transcendence of the sophistries of likening Allah to His creation). The wahhabis are not the only mujassima in the history of Islam. The mujassima have existed before them and have been refuted by scholars of Ahl al-Sunna. For example, the scholar Ibn Hibban, who died in 354 AH, was expelled from Sijistan  for refusing to assert limits to Allah. Wahhabis

are only reving the tajsim of the mujassima of the past. Today and in the past,  wahhabis have been refuted by scholars of Ahl al-Sunna as the mujassima in the past were refuted by the ulema in their times. 

The  Wahhabis are the mujassima of today, and mujassims like Bilal Philips, Abdl Aziz bin Abdullah bin Baz, Muhammad Khalil Harras, and  Muhammad Saleh al-Uthaymin must be refuted in light of the proof provided by the Ahl al-Sunna wa’al Jama'ah, the noble adherents of  the Hanafi, Shafi’i, Maliki, and Hanbali schools of Jurisprudence.

Part 3

 

In defense of Tawhidand Ahl at-Tawhid

Part 3

by al-faqir Zubeir Ashari-Maturidi

 

First and foremost, congratulations to Shaykh Abdul Hadi on the birth of his son Omar. I am glad being informed about the  the delivery. May Allah bless you and your family. Amin. You and your family are in my prayers.

This is part 3, dealing with TAWASSUL. Please read it in your spare time and tell me what you think. I literally spent more than 15 hours on it! Al-hamdu Lillah. Please pray for me.

Brother Jamaal, please save all of these refutations in a separate file. I have copies of these refutations, but it’s better if we save them incase anything goes wrong. Barak-Allahu fik wa-s-salamu ‘alaykum.

 I am glad that someone from the so-called  Ahlu Sunnah Foundation of America has finally responded to me. I am going to ask him “specific” questions about  Nazim’s books. I’m curious to hear what he says. I’ll send “CC” to all of you.

As-salamu ‘alaykum wa-Rahmatullah.

A Refutation of Wrong Opinions about Tawassul as Expressed in the So-called "Fundamentals of

Tawheed"

Bilal Philips, in his “Evolution of Fiqh,” page 130, says:

“Furthermore, in opposing tawassul...the twentieth century descendants and followers of Ibn ‘Abdul-Wahhaab were attacking unislamic practices.” (emphasis added).

The above statement from Bilal Philips tells the readers two things about him. First, he acknowledges to be a supporter of wahhabees and hence becomes a wahhabee himself. Second, he claims that tawassul is an unIslamic practice. The false claims of Bilal Philips opposes the perspectives of Ahl al-Sunna wa’al Jama’ah, whom make up the majority of the best of Ummahs. To read a refutation of the wahhabee movement, one can read plenty of books by Ahl al-Sunna scholars. “Al-Fitnatul- Wahhabiyya,” by the Mufti of Mecca, Ahmad ibn Zayni Dahlan ash-Shafi’i and “The Beacon of Humanity and the Clarification of Ignorance,” by the great Shaykh Ibn Alawi Al-Haddad. There are hundreds of other books written by other ulema although the aforementioned refutations are sufficient to expose wahhabee deviance. For your reference, here are a few more sources of refutation against the wahhabees: Shaykh Muhammad Sa‘id Ramadan Al-Buti’s “Al-salafiyyatu marhalatun zamaniyyatun mubarakatun la madhhabun islami” [”The Salafiyya is a blessed historical period not an Islamic school of law”], Al-muhaddith Muhammad al-Hasan ibn ‘Alawi Al-Maliki al-Husayni’s “Mafahimu yajibu an tusahhah” [”Notions that should be corrected”], and al-Sayyid Mustafa ibn Ahmad

ibn Hasan Al-Shatti al-Athari al-Hanbali’s “al-Nuqul al-shar’iyyah fi al-radd ‘ala al-Wahhabiyya” [”The Legal Proofs in Answering the Wahhabis”]. One will have ample evidence from these sources to prove that Bilal Philips’ defense of wahhabees is tantamount to defending ignorance and reprehensible innovations. Claims that seeking an intermediary between Allah and man is unIslamic are also made by other wahhabee “scholars.” For example: Muhammad bin Suleiman At-Tamimi, in his article, “What Negates One’s Islam,” says:

“Whoever sets up an intermediary between himself and Allah, whom he prays to, seeks intercession from and puts his reliance in, has blasphemed according to the consensus of the scholars.” (emphasis added).

 Al-Tamimi is lying in behalf of the majority of scholars because you will read below that the majority of scholars have considered setting up an intermediary between oneself and Allah and seeking intercession a permissible and meritorious act. Al-Tamimi only speaks in behalf of the wahhabees who are in opposition to the Sunni majority. A similar statement is made by the so-called Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Abdl-Aziz bin Abdullah Bin Baaz. Bin Baaz, in his article “Ten Things Which Nullify One’s Islam,” says:

“Setting up intermediaries between oneself and Allah, making supplication to them, asking their intercession with Allah, and placing ones trust in them is unbelief (kufr).” (emphasis added).

What Bin Baaz and al-Tamimi call “kufr,” i.e. setting up intermediaries when asking Allah, is in fact a practice of the noble Sahaba and their pious followers. This will be explained in more detail below. Bilal Philips’ claim that tawassul is an “unIslamic practice” opposes the Qur’an, Sunnah, and consensus of our beloved orthodox Sunni ulema. You will see very clearly how wahhabees mix truth with falsehood, by equating pagan practices with practices of the noble and pious Sahaba, Tabi’een, Tabi al-Tabi’een, and the khalaf whom adhered to their footsteps. This will be explained in more detail below. The defintion of Tawassul is: Supplicating Allahu Ta’ala by means of anintermediary, whether it be a living person, dead person, a good deed, or a name or attribute of Allahu Ta’ala. Tawassul is a “means” Muslims seek, using an intermediary, when asking Allahu Ta’ala for something. One of the many verses in the noble Qur’an which permit Tawassul is: “Allah the Blessed and the Exalted said:

“O ye who believe, fear Allah and seek ye the means to Him” (al-Ma’ida, 34)

 Shaykh ul-Islam Yusuf ibn al-Sayyid Hashim al-Rifa’i, a Shafi’i scholar, former minister of state, educator, Sufi, and author explains the issue of tawassul very clearly in his “Adilla Ahl al-Sunna wa al-Jama’ah.” The following is a translation of part of this book by Shaykh Nuh Ha Mim Keller, a Shafi’i scholar, who added this as a section in his translation of “Al-‘Umdat al- salik” (The Reliance of the Traveller) by Shaykh Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri, a student of the famous Shafi’i mujtahid Taqi al- Din al-Subki. Shaykh Yusuf al-Rifa’i says:

“I here want to convey the position, attested to by compelling legal evidence, of the orthodox majority of Sunni Muslims on the subject of supplicating Allah through an intermediary (tawassul), and so I say (and Allah alone gives success) that since there is no disagreement among scholars that supplicating Allah through an intermediary is in principle legally valid, the discussion of its details merely concerns derived rulings that involve interschool differences, unrelated to questions of belief or unbelief, monotheism or associating partners with Allah (shirk); the sphere of the question being limited to permissibility or impermissibility, and its ruling being that it is either lawful or unlawful. There is no difference among groups of Muslims in their consensus on the permissibility of three types of supplicating Allah through an intermediary (tawassul): (1) TAWASSUL through a living righteous person to Allah Most High, as in the hadith of the blind man with the Prophet (Allah bless him and grant him peace) as we shall explain; (2) The TAWASSUL of a living person to Allah Most High through his own good deeds, as in the hadith of the three people trapped in a cave by a great stone, a hadith related by Imam Bukhari in his “Sahih;” (3) And the TAWASSUL of a person to Allah Most High through His entity (dhat), names, attributes, and so forth.

Since the legality of these types is agreed upon, there is no reason to set forth the evidence for them. The only area of disagreement is supplicating Allah (tawassul) through a righteous dead person. The majority of the orthodox Sunni Community hold that it is lawful, and have supporting hadith evidence...”

Shaykh Yusuf al-Rifa’i goes on to present the dalail (proof) of the hadeeth of the blind man, who asked the Prophet (Salla- Allahu-‘alayhi-wasallam) to ask Allah to restore his eyesight afterwhich the Prophet (‘alayhi salatu

wassalam) taught him a du’a and instructed him to say it after completing ablution (wudu) and two rak’as of prayer:

“Oh Allah, I ask You and turn to You through Your Prophet Muhammad, the Prophet of mercy; O Muhammad (Ya Muhammad), I seek your intercession with my Lord for the return of my eyesight [and in another version: “for my need, that it may be fulfilled. O Allah, grant him intercession for me”].”

The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) added,

“And if there is some need, do the same.” (Related by Tirmidhi and 15 other ahadeeth masters and classified as rigorously authentic (sahih) .

Shaykh Yusuf al-Rifa’i continues:

“Scholars of Sacred Law infer from this hadith the recommended character of the “prayer of need,” in which someone in need of something from Allah Most High performs such a prayer and then turns to Allah with this supplication together with other suitable supplications, traditional or otherwise, according to the need and how the person feels. The express content of the hadith proves the legal validity of “tawassul” through a living person (as the Prophet - peace be upon him - was alive at that time). It implicitly proves the validity of tawassul through a deceased one as well, since tawassul through a living or dead person is not through a physical body or through a life or death, but rather through the positive meaning (ma’na tayyib) attached to the person in both life and death. The body is but the vehicle that carries that significance, which requires that the person be respected whether dead or alive; for the words “O Muhammad” are an address to someone physically absent - in which state the living and dead are alike - an address to the meaning, dear to Allah, that is connected with his spirit, a meaning that is the ground of “tawassul,” be it through a living or dead person.”

It must be noted that plenty of other ahadeeth exist to prove the validity of Tawassul through an alive or dead person. Shaykh Muhammad al-Hamid, a Hanafi scholar says:

 “Those who call on them [the intermediaries] cannot be blamed. As for someone who believes that those called upon can cause effects, benefit, or harm, which they create or cause to exist as Allah does, such a person is an idolator who has left Islam—Allah be our refuge!”

 By the Shaykh’s words, it is understood that Allah fulfills the du’as whether Allahu Ta’ala is asked directly or asked using an intermediary—dead or alive. The wahhabees claim that it is only permissible to do tawassul while the intermediary is present and alive, but not when the intermediary is in his grave. Ibn Taymiya said that doing tawassul using an intermediary who is dead is haraam, while Muhammad ibn Abdl- Wahhab said that it is “Shirk ul-Akbar”—the “major shirk” which makes one a “mushrik” or polytheist. Both of them oppose the consensus of the Ahl al-Sunna majority, and Muhammad ibn Abdl-Wahhab accuses the majority of the Sunni ulema to be mushrikeen. This is one of many examples of how the Wahhabees revive the creed of the Kharijites who lived at the time of the noble Sahaba. The Kharijites believed they were the only Muslims while everyone else, including Ali and Mu’awiya (Allah bless them), were Kuffar. The Wahhabees believe that for more than a thousand years Muslims were attributing partners to Allah and were kuffar because they did tawassul. By such satanic thinking, Ibn ‘Abdl-Wahhab made the blood of countless Muslims halal, and commanded his followers to butcher them in the name of Islam. Imam Muhammad Amin Ibn Abidin, a Hanafi scholar who passed away in 1836 CE, said in his “Hashiyya radd al-Mukhtar,” volume 3, page 309:

“In our time Ibn Abdl-Wahhab (Najdi) appeared, and attacked the two noble sanctuaries (Makkah and Madinah). He claimed to be a Hanbali, but his thinking was such that only he alone was a Muslim, and everyone else was a polytheist! Under this guise, he said that killing the Ahl al-Sunna was permissible...”

Another hadeeth to prove the legitimacy of tawassul, even after the intermediary is dead is the hadeeth of the man in need. Shaykh Yusuf al-Rifa’i states:

“Moreover, Tabarani, in his “al-Mu’jam al saghir,” reports a hadith from ‘Uthman ibn Hunayf that a man repeatedly visited Uthman ibn Affan (Allah be pleased with him) concerning something he needed, but Uthman paid no attention to him or his need. The man met Ibn Hunayf and complained to him about the matter - this being after the death (wisal) of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) and after the caliphates of Abu Bakr and Umar - so Uthman ibn Hunayf, who was one of the Companions who collected hadiths and was learned in the religion of Allah, said: “Go to the place of ablution and perform ablution (wudu), then come to the mosque, perform two rak’as of prayer therein, and say:

‘O Allah, I ask You and turn to You through our Prophet Muhammad, the Prophet of mercy; O Muhammad (Ya Muhammad), I turn through you to my Lord, that He may fulfill my need,’ and mention your need. Then come so that I can go with you [to the caliph Uthman].”

So the man left and did as he had been told, then went to the door of Uthman ibn Affan (Allah be pleased with him), and the doorman came, took him by the hand, brought him to Uthman ibn Affan, and seated him next to him on a cushion. ‘Uthman asked, “What do you need?” and the man mentioned what he wanted, and Uthman accomplished it for him, then he said, “I hadn’t remembered your need until just now,” adding, “Whenever you need something, just mention it.” Then, the man departed, met Uthman ibn Hunayf, and said to him, “May Allah reward you! He didn’t see to my need or pay any attention to me until you spoke with him.” Uthman ibn Hunayf replied,

“By Allah, I didn’t speak to him, but I have seen a blind man come to the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace) and complain to him of the loss of his eyesight. The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, “Can you not bear it?’ and the man replied, ‘O Messenger of Allah, I do not have anyone to lead me around, and it is a great hardship for me.’ The Prophet (Allah bless him and grant him peace) told him, ‘Go to the place of ablution and perform ablution (wudu), then pray two rak’as of prayer and make the supplications.’”

Ibn Hunayf went on,

“By Allah, we didn’t part company or speak long before the man returned to us as if nothing had ever been wrong with him.”

 This is an explicit, unequivocal text from an eminent Salaf proving the legal validity of tawassul through the dead. The account has been classified as rigously authenticated (SAHIH) by the famous Huffaz Baihaqi, Mundhiri, and Haythami. It is sufficient to accept the hadeeth of the blind man and the hadeeth of the man in need to justify that tawassul by the dead or alive is permissible. This is agreed upon by the majority of the Sunni ulema. It must be noted that Muhammad Nasirudin Al-Albani, a wahhabi and so-called muhaddith, wrote a book titled “Tawassul” trying to disprove this practice after the intermediary is in his grave. His interpretations are of no significance since he opposes the interpretations of the majority of huffaz of Ahl al Sunna wa’al Jama’ah. The hadeeth of Ibn Mas’ud, related by Imam Ahmad in his “Musnad,” states:

“Whatever the majority of Muslims see as right, then that is good to Allah, and whatever the majority of Muslims see as wrong, it is wrong to Allah.”

By this dalil, Al-Albani becomes among the stray and lost sheep because his opinions oppose that of the scholarly Sunni majority. Al-Albani’s and Bilal Philips’ opinions only represent the wahhabee minority. It is also a fact that Al-Albani is “self-taught” and that he never had a Shaykh to teach him the knowledge of hadeeth. He does not possess a continuous chain of knowledge that goes back to the Prophet (Salla Allahu ‘alayhi wasallam) as the other true Sunni huffaz, like Imams Nawawi, Baihaqi, Bukhari, Muslim, Ibn Majah, Tirmidhi, Nisa’i, and Ibn Hajar do. Hence, Al-Albani’s interpretations and understanding that “tawassul done by an intermediary who is in his grave is Islamically unlawful” is false and meaningless. In “The Fundamentals of Tawheed,” Bilal Philips says:

“If someone prays to the Prophet (saws), to so-called saints, Jinns or angels asking for help or asking them to request help from Allaah for them, they have also committed Shirk.”

This statement has both truth and falsehood in it. The truth is that whoever prays to other than Allah is undoubtedly a polytheist. Therefore, praying to the Prophet, saints, jinns, and angels is indeed shirk because such people are mushrikeen who attribute partners to Allahu Ta’ala in worship. Only Allah is to be worshipped. Only Allah Azza Wajal creates the fulfillment of a supplication, as those who do tawassul by the alive or dead are very well aware of.

However, the last part of Bilal Philips’ statement, “Or asking them to request help from Allaah for them, they have also commited shirk” is an accusation against the Sahaba and Tabi'un that they committed shirk! May Allah protect us from falling into the abyss of ignorance as Bilal Philips has. It is well known that a companion of the Prophet (Salla Allahu ‘alayhi wasallam), Bilal ibn al-Harith, went to the grave of the Prophet (Salla Allahu ‘alayhi wasallam) when there was a drought, and said:

“O Messenger of Allah, ask Allah to give rain to your Ummah; they are close to perish...”

It is correct to call what he did tawassul and istighathah (seeking or asking for help), because he went to the grave of the Messenger (Salla Allahu ‘alayhi wasallam) asking him to save them from the calamity that hit them by him asking Allahu Ta’ala to give them rain. The Huffaz Al-Baihaqi,

and Ibn Kathir (in his “Tarikh,” and “al- Bidaaya”) said that this hadeeth is SAHIH. This occurring from Ibn Kathir is evidence that he did not follow Ibn Taymiya in the issue of tawassul, because he did not find the evidence for his fallacious claims that tawassul is haram after one’s death. In the issue of tawassul, Ibn Kathir adhered to the majority of Sunni ulema. However, he agreed with Ibn Taymiya on the issue of divorce, which opposed ‘ijma, and was punished for it. Al-Albani said that the hadeeth is unreliable, but his words are meaningless because the real and qualified huffaz of Ahl al-Sunna have classified it has SAHIH.

 Furthermore, Hafiz Ibn Abi Shayba ranks the hadeeth as SAHIH in his “Musannaf,” and Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani in his “Fath al-Bari” said its chain of transmission is sound (isnaaduhu Sahih). One can clearly see that Bilal Philips has actually accused Bilal ibn al-Harith (may Allah bless him), a companion of the Prophet (Salla Allahu ‘alayhi wasallam), of being a mushrik. We seek refuge with Allah from such innovators and shun them as much as possible. These are the people who stab the heart of the Ummah of Prophet Muhammad (Salla Allahu ‘alayhi wasallam). They stab the heart of the Ummah repeatedly because they don’t refrain from such false accusations even after they are given the dalail (proof) by the pious followers of Ahl al-Sunna wa’al Jama’ah. Ahl al-Sunna scholars have been doing tawassul after the death of the Prophet (Salla Allahu ‘alayhi wasallam). For example, Hafiz Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani performed tawassul by the Prophet (Salla Allahu ‘alayhi wasallam) in his poems known as “an- Nayyirat-us-Sab,” as did his shaykh Zayn-ud-Din al-‘Iraqi at the end of his poem in “Tafsiru Mufradat-il-Qur’an.” According to Bilal Philips’ statements, these scholars would be “unIslamic.” There has never been a scholar who has called Hafiz Ibn Hajar or Hafiz al-‘Iraqi “unIslamic.” Bilal Philips should correct his false accusations and make tawba to Allah.

As for Al-Albani, he quotes Hafiz Ibn Hajar as a reliable source of information in his book, “Tawassul.” For instance, on page 5 of this book, Al-Albani says: “Al-Haafidh Ibn Hajr, rahimahullaah...” However, Al-Albani’s deception and hypocrisy is now evident because we know that Hafiz Ibn Hajar did tawassul after the death of the Prophet (Salla Allahu ‘alayhi wasallam) in his poem, “an-Nayyirat-us-Sab” What does Al-Albani have to say about this? Does he want Muslims to accept his claims “blindly?” Moreover, Al-Albani, in his “Tawassul,” page 16 says:

“...such a call for aid (istighaatha) is nothing but major shirk.” (emphasis added).

By saying that istighaatha is major shirk, he now joins Bilal Philips in accusing the Companion Bilal ibn al-Harith of “Shirk ul- Akbar” because it has been proven by sahih dalil that he did istighaatha. In addition, to Al-Albani’s surprise (?), Hafiz Ibn Hajar states the following hadeeth as HASSAN in his “al-‘Amali:”

“Ibn Abbas related that the Prophet (Salla Allahu ‘alayhi wasallam), said:

‘...If any of you feel in a calamity in a desert, let him call: Oh slaves of Allah, help me. This because Allah has servants you do not see.” (emphasis added).

 This is without a doubt “istighaatha” (seeking help) so it is now evident that Al-Albani is also accusing the Prophet (Salla Allahu ‘alayhi wasallam) of committing “major shirk” since the Prophet (Salla Allahu ‘alayhi wasallam) taught “istighaatha” to the to the Sahaba. Ibn Hajar is in compliance with the Prophet’s (Salla Allahu ‘alayhi wasallam) words because he accepts “istighaatha” to be valid. What does Al-Albani have to say about this? May Allah protect us from the ignorance of Al- Albani and his blind followers. Ameen. Bilal Philips, in his “Fundamentals of Tawheed,” says:

 “According to the Qur’aan, when the Makkans were questioned about directing their prayers to their idols, they answered, “We only worship them so that they may bring us closer to Allaah.” The idols were only used as intermediaries yet Allaah called them pagans for their practice. Those among Muslims who insist on praying to other than Allaah would do well to reflect on this fact.”

This is an explicit example of how the Wahhabees revive a practice of the Kharijites who lived at the time of the noble Sahaba. Imam Bukhari has recorded Ibn ‘Umar as saying in his Sahih [vol.9,page 50; English edition]:

“These people (the Khawarij and heretics) took some verses that had been revealed concerning the disbelievers and interpreted them as describing the believers.”

The Ahl al-Sunna wa’al Jama’ah have warned Muslims from this Kharijite practice which the Wahhabees uphold today in the name of

“Tawheed.” By their lack of adherence and knowledge to the path of Ahl al-Sunna, they misinterpret verses from the noble Qur’an and make idol-worshippers equal in belief to the pious Muslims who are of the Ahl al-Sunna, and commit “takfeer.” The above verse, stated by Bilal Philips in an attempt to invalidate the permissibility of Tawassul, is in fact refering to the idol-worshippers—not Muslims. The Iraqi scholar, Jamil Effendi al-Zahawi, says in his “al-Fajr al-sadiq fi al-radd ‘ala munkiri al-tawassul wa al-khawariq” [The True Dawn: A Refutation of Those Who Deny The Validity of Using Means to God and the Miracles of Saints”]:

“The Wahhabis say: the defense of those who practice tawassul is the same apology the idolaters of the Arabs offered as the Qur’an says describing the way the idolaters defended their worship of idols: “We only worship them in order that they may bring us nearer” (39:3). Hence, the idolaters do not believe that the idols create anything. Rather, they believe that the Creator is God, the Exalted, by evidence of the following verse: “If thou ask them, Who created them, they will certainly say, God” (43:87) and: “If indeed thou ask them who is that created the heavens and the earth, they would be sure to say, God” (39:38). God has only judged against them for their disbelief because they say “We only worship them in order that they may bring us nearer.” The Wahhabis say: Thus, do people who implore God by prophets and the pious use the phrase of the idolaters: “In order to bring us nearer” in the same sense.”

 Shaykh Jamil al-Zahawi, in the section of his book “Refutation of That False Comparison,” continues to say:

“The answer [to the false claims of the wahhabees] contains several points: (1) The idolaters of the Arabs make idols gods; while the Muslims only believe in one God. In their view, prophets are prophets: awliya are awliya only. They do not adopt them as gods like the idolaters. (2) The idolaters believe these gods deserve worship contrary to what Muslims believe. Muslims do not believe that anyone by whom they implore God deserves the least amount of worship. The only one entitled to worship in their view is God alone, May He be Exalted. (3) The idolaters actually worship these gods as God relates: “We only worship them...” Muslims do not worship prophets and pious persons by the act of imploring God by means of them. (4) The idolaters intend by their worship of their idols to draw near God just as He relates concerning them. As for the Muslims, they do not intend by imploring God by means of prophets and saints to draw close to God, which is only by worship. For that reason, God said in relating about the

idolaters: “... in order that they bring us nearer.” However, Muslims only intend blessings (tabarruk) and intercession (shafa‘a) by them. Being blessed by a thing is obviously different from drawing near to God by it. (5) Since the idolaters believe that God is a body in the sky, they mean by “to bring us near” a literal bringing near. What indicates this is its being stressed by their use of the word zulfa—nearness to power— inasmuch as emphasizing something by its own same meaning indicates for the most part that what is intended by it is the literal meaning and not the metaphorical. For when we say: “He slew him murderously” (qatalahu qatlan) a literal killing rushes to the understanding, not that of “a hard blow” in counterdistinction to what we mean when we just say: “He slew him”; for that might mean only a hard blow. The Muslims do not believe that God is a body in the sky remote enough from them to see a literal proximity to Him by imploring God through a prophet. The ruling of Shari‘a contained in the verse does not apply to them, whereas since the Wahhabis believe that God is a body who sits on his throne, they do not discover a meaning of blessing which the Muslims intend by their imploring God by prophets and awliya, but only that of drawing near which belongs to bodies. For that reason, these verses are applicable to them, not to Ahl al-Sunna.”

Last but not least, Shaykh Abdul Hadi Palazzi, an Ahl al-Sunna scholar with ijazah from Al-Azhar, says: 

“The central feature to identify the Khawarij of out time is always “they apply to Muslims the ayat that were revealed for the kuffar,” and “their frequently read the Qur’an, but the Qur’an does not exceed their throats.” The Glorious Qur’an is a bayan between Iman and kufr, but the ignoramuses within the sect from Najd dare to equate Muslims who search Anbiyas’ and Awliyas’ intercession as a wasila ila Allah to mushrikun that worship idols.”

“When one is sick, one usually calls for a doctor, and none will tell him, “You are a mushrik, since Allah only has the power to heal.” Muslims believe that healing or death are in Allah’s hands, and make the doctor an indirect means (wasila) toward His healing, if He wishes so. Praising an-Nabiyyu-r-Rahmah is the noblest of wasa'il, but they dare to call “eccessive” what actually increases the hasanat of a Believer. Because of this heresy of theirs, new fatawa which they add are frequently an increase in misguidance, and most of their conjectures are firther darkness added

to darkness. Those who do not receive Nur from Allah will have no Nur whatsoever.”

From the aforementioned evidence from Sahih ahadeeth and the interpretations and understandings of the Ahl al-Sunna wa al-Jama‘ah, it is understood that Tawassul (and seeking or asking help—istighaathata) are meritorious practices approved by the majority of Sunni ulema. Tawassul can be done using an intermediary who is living in this life, or living the life of the grave (barzakh). Seeking the wasila by pious individuals is not the same as worshipping the intermediaries as the Wahhabees claim it is. The ignorance of Bilal Philips, Al-Albani, Bin Baaz, and al-Tamimi has caused them to accuse the Prophet (sall-Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam), the Companions, and the majority of the Sunni ulema of blasphemy (kufr). We seek refuge with Allah from such Ahl al-Bida’ who curse the “best Ummah”, The Ummah of Prophet Muhammad (sall-Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam).

Wa-l-‘aqibatu li-l-muttaqin.

Part 4

In defense of Tawhid and Ahl at-Tawhid

Part 4

by Zubeir Ashari-Maturidi

Al-hamdu Lillah, my work is completed. I am waiting for your suggestions and for approval before publishing it. Barak-Allahu fik.

May Allah Ta'ala forgive us and you and guide us both to the right path.   

As-salamu ‘alaykum wa Rahmatullahi wa barakatuH.

A Refutation of Those Ignoramuses Who Dare to Accuse  Shaykh Muhiddin Ibn al-‘Arabi of Being a

Kafir

Abu Aminah Bilal Philips, in his “Fundamentals of Tawheed,” says:

“An example of this form of Shirk among some Muslims is that of many Sufis like Ibn ‘Arabee who claim that only Allaah exists (All is Allaah, and Allaah is all).” 

If Bilal Philips is refering to Shaykh al-Akbar Muhiyiddin Ibn al-‘Arabi, then this is an ugly accusation by Bilal Philips against  one of the greatest Ahl al-Sunna Shuyukh in the history of Islam. Wahhabee hatred for Sufis will undoubtedly cause  statements of innovation and even kufr to come out of their mouths against these ‘awliya. It must be noted that this  wahhabee’s attack against Shaykh Ibn al-‘Arabi is not limited to just him but to other great sufis as well. Numerous  wahhabee ignoramuses have accused Ibn al-‘Arabi of kufr in their websites and books. 

Shaykh Nuh Ha Mim Keller, in his translation of Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri’s “Umdat al-salik,” explains Ibn al-‘Arabi’s  background and elaborates on why some people have misunderstood and misrepresented his true position:

“Muyiddin ibn al-‘Arabi is Muhammad ibn ‘Ali ibn Muhammad ibn al-‘Arabi, Abu Bakr Muhyi al-Din al-Hatimi al-Ta’i, The  Greatest Sheikh (al-Shaykh al-Akbar), born in Murcia (in present-day Spain) in 560/1165. A “mujtahid” Imam in Sacred Law,  Sufism, Qur’anic exegesis, hadith, and other Islamic sciences, and widely regarded as a friend (wali) of Allah Most High, he  was the foremost representative of the Sufi school of the “oneness of being” (wahdat al-wujud), as well as a Muslim of strict  literal observance of the prescriptions of the Qur’an and sunna. He first took they way of Sufism in A.H. 580, and in the years  that followed authored some 600 books and treatises in the course of travels and residences in Fez, Tunis, Alexandria, Cairo,  Mecca, Baghdad, Mosul, Konya, Aleppo, and

finally Damascus, where he lived till the end of his life and completed his “al-Futuhat al-Makkiyya” [The Meccan Revelations] and “Fusus al-Hikam” [The Precious Stones of the ring-settings of the  Wisdoms]. Since interest in his work continues among even non-Muslim scholars, a number of hermeneutical obstacles are  worth mentioning here that have in some measure so far hindered serious efforts to understand the Sheikh’s works, by friend and foe alike.

The first lack of common ground with the author, who has written, 

“We are a group whose works are unlawful to peruse,  since the Sufis, one and all, use terms in technical senses by which they intend other than what is customarily meant by their  usage among scholars, and those who interpret them according to their usual significance commit unbelief.” 

While this may  not be particularly intimidating to someone who is already an unbeliever, it does at least implicitly deny the validity of a do-it- yourself approach to the Sheikh’s thought and point up the relevance of the traditional maxim,

 “Knowledge is to be taken from those who possess it. 

A related difficulty is that the context of much of Ibn al-‘Arabi’s “Futuhat” and other works is not only the outward Islamic  sciences, but also their inner significance, not by any means an “esoteric symbolism” that nullifies the outward content of  the Sheikh’s inquiries, but a dimension of depth, a reflective counterpart to their this-worldly significance whose place and  existential context is the world of the spirit, to which the physical universe—in which many of his would-be interpreters are firmly enmeshed and know nothing besides, especially those who are atheists—is like a speck of dust in the sea. While the  present discussion cannot adequately do justice to the topic, one may yet observe that the heart of someone familiar only with the “What will I eat,” “What will I say,” “Will it prove feasible,” and other physical and intellectual relations of  instrumentality that make up this world isno more capable of real insight into the world of someone like the Sheikh than a  person inches away from a giant Monet is capable of “seeing” the picture he believes is “before his very eyes.” The way of  Ibn al-‘Arabi is precisely a “way,” and if one has not traveled it or been trained to see as Ibn al-‘Arabi sees, one may well produce intelligent remarks about one’s perceptions of the

matter, as attested to by a whole literature of “historical studies”  of Sufism, but the fact remains that one does not see.

A third difficulty is he problem of spurious interpolations by copyists, as once happened to ‘Abd al-Wahhab Sha’rani, who  had to bring his own handwritten manuscript to court to prove he was innocent of the unbelief that enemies had inserted into  his work and published in his name. The “Hashiya” of Ibn ‘Abidin notes that this has also happened to the “Fusus al- Hikam” of Ibn al-‘Arabi, the details being given in a promulgation by the Supreme Ottoman Sultanate exonerating the author  of the statements of unbelief (kufr) it said that it was interpolated into the work. This is supported by the opinion of  Mahmud Mahmud Ghurab, an Ibn al-‘Arabi specialist of Damascus who has published more than twelve books on the  Sheikh’s thought, among them “al-Fiqh ‘ind al-Shaykh al-Akbar Muhyiddin ibn al-‘Arabi” [Sacred Law According to the Greatest Sheikh, Muhyiddin ibn al-‘Arabi], which clarifies Ibn al-‘Arabi’s position as a Zahiri Imam and mujtahid in Sacred Law; and “Sharh Fusus al-Hikam” [Exegesis of “The Precious Stones of the ring-settings of the Wisdoms], in which Ghurab indicates eighty-six passages of the “Fusus” that he believes are spurious, adducing that they contradict the letter and spirit of “al-Futuhat al-Makkiyya,” which must be given precedence because we possess a manuscript copy in the author’s own handwriting, while there are no such copies of the “Fusus.”

One may summarize the above-mentioned difficulties and others by the general observation that without a master with whom  to read these texts, someone who has himself read them with a teacher aware of their place in the whole of the Sheikh’s work,  one is in danger of projecting one’s own limitations onto the author. This happens in our times to various groups of  interpreters, among them non-Muslim “sufis” who have posthumously made Ibn al-‘Arabi an "honorary syncretist", saying that he believed all religions to be equally valid and acceptable—which Ghurab says is an ignorant misreading, and to which the Sheikh himself furnishes a sufficient reply in his account of his convictions (‘aqida) at the first of the “Futuhat” where he says, 

“Just as I charge Allah, His angels, His entire creation, and all of you to bear witness upon me that I affirm His Unity, so too I charge Him Most Glorious, His angels, His entire creation, and all of you to bear witness upon me that I believe in the one He has elected, chosen, and selected from all His existence, Muhammad (Allah bless him and give him peace, who He

has sent to all mankind entirely (ila jami’ al-nas kaffatan) to bring good tidings and to warn and to call to Allah by His leave” (“al-Futuhat al-Makkiyya”). 

Other interpreters who error are well-meaning Muslims who do not and cannot understand the Sheikh’s words, which they read in their native Arabic as if it were a newspaper and then level accusations of unbelief against the author on the basis of  what comes to their minds while doing so. For all groups of interpreters, there is a pressing need for scholarly modesty and candor about our exegetical limitations, and to draw attention to the fact that without a guide in reading the Sheikh’s thought, one is adrift in a sea of one’s own guesswork.

Aside from these basic hermeneutic requirements for reading the work of Ibn al-‘Arabi, other, existential qualifications are  needed, for as mentioned above, the Sheikh’s method is a way, and as such entails not only curiosity, but commitment and most of all submission to Allah Most High as the Sheikh had submission to Him, namely through Islam—as well as other  conditions mentioned by Ibn Hajar Haytami in a legal opinion in which, after noting that it is permissible or even meritorious (mustahabb) to read the Sheikh’s works, but only for the qualified, he writes:

“Imam Ibn al-‘Arabi has explicitly stated: 

‘It is unlawful to read [the Sufis’] books unless one attains to their level of character  and learns the meaning of their words in conformity with their technical usages, neither of which is found except in someone  who has worked assiduously, rolled up his sleeves, abandoned the wrong, tightened his belt, filled himself replete with the outward Islamic sciences, and purified himself from every low trait connected with this world and the next. It is just such a  person who comprehends what is being said and is allowed to enter when he stands at the door.’” 

The Sheikh outlines what  is entailed by “working assiduously” in a series of injunctions (wasaya) at the end of his “Futuhat” that virtually anyone can benefit from, and by which one may infer some of the outward details of the Sheikh’s way. By all accounts, he lived what he  wrote in this respect, and his legacy bears eloquent testimony to it. He died in his home in Damascus, a copy of Ghazali’s  “Ihya’ ‘ulum al-din” on his lap, in 638/1240.”

One can see that Shaykh al-Akbar Muhyiddin Ibn al-‘Arabi was a great saint of Islam who adhered to the footsteps of the  pious salaf us-salih. Unfortunately, many Muslims quote from non-Muslim sources and orientalist translators like William C. Chittick and Peter Lamborn Wilson to accuse Ibn al-‘Arabi of heresy. The ulema of Ahl al-Sunna wa’al Jama’ah praised Ibn  al-‘Arabi very much, and continue to praise him until this day. 

Shaykh Abu Omar ‘Abdul-Hadi, an Ahl al-Sunna scholar, says: 

“The prevalent verdict of Ahlu-s-Sunnah scholars is that Shaykh Muhi-d-Din Ibnu-l-Arabi was a mu’min, and a zayd, an ‘alim, a faqih, a muhaddith, a Zahiri qadi and a  mufassir. The mistake  of calling him kafir or a mushrik (astaghfir-Ullah al-‘Azhim) started with Ibn Taymiyyah’s ignorance and survives in his misguided  disciples. Ahl al-Tasawwuf wa-l-Ihsan agree on the fact he was a wali, having a high status by Allah.  A relevant number of mashaykh of Tasawwuf think he was a qutb in his time, and turuq like ‘Alawiyyah and  Darqawiyyah also think he was the Khatm al-Wilayyah al-Muhammadiyyah.

“His doctrine of “wahdatu-l-wujud” is the more complete expression of manzilat al-ahadiyyah in a intoxicated and permanent  maqam ar-Rububiyyah. Sober mashaykh like ‘Ala-u-Dawlah as-Simnani criticized some points of his doctrine from a stricter Ash’ari point of view, but notwithstanding this, they were treating him with the maximum respect. 

“Imam Rabbani as-Sarhindi developed the sober doctrine of “wahdatu-s-shuhud,” but thid does not prevent him treating  Ibn ‘Arabi as a great wali and a murshid kamil. One line of his “Futuhat” or “Fusus” is more valuable than all of the abstruse books by Ibn Baz, Albani and Philips together. 

“A masterpiece of a refutation against those who falsely think about Ibn Taymiyyah as “’alim” and “mujaddid” and accept  his baseless takfir against Shaykh al-Akbar Ibn al-‘Arabi is in the book Al-Ni’matu-l-Kubrah, by Imam Shihabu-d-Din Ahmad  Ibn Hijr al-Haytami as-Shafi’i. This text is highly praised by Shaykh ‘Abdu-s-Samad Ibn Hamid, a Sunni scholar from  Cameroon.

“Numberless Sunni Ulemas call him “Shaykh al-Akbar”. His doctrine is praised and defended by: Shaykh ‘Abdu-r-Razaq al-Kashani (Tawilat),

Shaykh Sadru-d-Din al-Qunawi (Sharh Fusus al-Hikam), Jalalu-d-Din Rumi (Mathnawi and Diwan), Fakhru-d-Din al-Hamadani (Rub’iyyat) Ibnu-l-Farid al-Misri (Ghazal), Mahmud Shahristani (Ghulshan-e Raz), ‘Abdu-l-Karim al-Jili (Al-Insan al-Kamil), Ibn Hamzah al-Fanari (Miftah al-Uns), Nuru-d-Din Jami (Nafahat al-Uns), Imam Rabbani (Maktubat, expecially letter 55 & 163, Muntahabat, Ta’idu Ahl as-Sunnah, and Ithbat an-Nubuwwah), Khalid al-Baghdadi (Ihtiqad-Nama, and Risalah fi Tahqiq ar-Rabitah), ‘Abdu-l-Ghani an-Nablusi (Fayd al-Muqbas, and Khulasah at-Tahqiq), Khwaja Muhammad Hasan Khan (Al-Usul al-Arba’h), Yusuf an-Nabhani (Khulasah al-Kalam, Hujjat-Ullahi ‘ala al-‘Alamin, and Shawaiq al-Haqq), Malik ibn Shaykh Dawud (Haqiqah al-Islamiyyah fi Raddi ‘ala al-Mazhaim al-Wahhabiyyah), Muhammad Hayat Sindi (Risalah Ghayah at- Tahqiq), Omar Nasfi (‘Aqaid an-Nasafiyyah), Shah Ghulam ‘Ali Dehlawi (Mukatib as-Sharifah), Ahmad Waliyy-Ullah Dehlawi (Al-Insaf, Ikd al-Jayyid, and Al-Mikyas), Ahmad Ibn Zayni Dahlan (Futuhat al-Islamiyya, and Khulasah al-Kalam), Jajalu-D-Din as-Suyuti (Karasatu-t-Tanwir), Sulayman Ibn ‘Abdi-l-Wahhab (As-Shawaiq al-Ilahiyyah), Fadli-r-Rasul (Sayf al-Jabbar), the Egyptian Jami’at al-Madari (Nahs as-Sawiyyi fi Raddi ‘ala Sayyid Qutb wa Faisal Mawlawi), Ahmed Rida Khan Berlewi (Fatawa al-Haramayn), Siraju-Din ‘Ali Ushi (Nukbat al-Laali), Abu Muhammad al-Wailturi (Fatawa ‘Ulama’ al-Hind), Qadi Habib al-Haqq Permuli (Tanqid wa Tardid), Tahir Muhammad (Zahirat al-Fiqh al-Kubra), Muhammad Rebhami (Riyad an-Nasihin), Muhammad Yusuf al-Banuri (Al-Ustadh Mawdudi and Kashf as-Sublah), Sa’id ar-Rahman at-Tirahi (Habl al-Matin), Muhammad Bawa Wiltori (Hidayah al-Muwaffiqin), ‘Abdu-l-Wahhab as-Shahrani (Tadhkira al-Awliyyah, and Mizan al-Kubrah) Mudarris Hamid-Ullah Najwi (Al-Basayr li-l-Munkir at-Tawassuli bi-Ahl al-Maqabir), Muhammad Khadimi (Al-Bariqah), Muhammad Birjiwi (Tariqah al-Muhammadiyyah), ‘Abdu-r-Rahman Kutti (Sabil an-Najat), Rauf Ahmad Mujaddid (Durr al-Ma’arif), Dawud ibn Said Sulayman (Al-Mihah al-Wahbiyyah), Dawud al-Musawi al-Baghdadi (Ashadd al-Jihad) Mahmud Effendi al-Alusi (Kashf an-Nur), Muhammad Ibn ‘Abdi-Lllah al-Khani (Al-Bahjah as-Saniyyah), Hasan Dhu Zajwa’i at-Turki (Ir’am al-Murid), ‘Abdur-r-Rahim Mancuso al-Itali (al-Fatihah ma Hiya, ‘Ulum al-Tafsir al-Qur’aniyyah, and ‘Ala Khatam al-Wilayyah al-khassa al-Muhammadiyyah), Hajj Ibrahim Yare as-Somali (Tarbiyyah ar-Rabbaniyyah), Shaykh Ibrahim al-Ahmadi al-Idris (Azhimah al-Qadr), Mo’allim Hussein al-Badawi as-Siddiqi (Kalimat al-Muhlasin), Ahmad ‘Ali al-Layji al-Katibi as-Shahir (Fajr as-Sadiq), ‘Abdu-l-Hakim al-Arwasi (Sa’adah al-Abadiyyah, with tafsir by Shaykh Hilmi ‘Ishiq), Zahir Shah

Ibn ‘Abdi-l-‘Azhim Miyanu-d-Din (Diya’ as-Sudur), Mustafa Ibn Ahmad Ibn Hasan al-Shati al-Hanbali (Nuqul as-Shari’ah), Muhammad Najib al-Mati’i al-Hanafi (Tathir al-Fu’ad), Taqiyyu-d-Din ‘Ali as-Sabaki (Shifa’ as-Siqam, and Intisar al-Awliyya’ ar-Rahman), Effendi Sadiq az-Zahawi (Fajru-s-Sadiq), Sulayman Islambuli (Miftah al-Falaq, and Khutbatu ‘Id al-Fitr), ‘Abdu-l-Majid Ibn Muhammad al-Khani (Sa’adah al-Abadiyyah), ‘Ali Muhammad al-Balkhi (Al-Hadiqah an-Nadiyya), Muhammad Mahbubu-l-Haqq Ansari (Hujjah al-Qati’ah), Qasim Ibn Qatalubgha’ al-Hanafi al-Bankoghi (Nur al-Yaqin), Qadi Habibu-l-Haqq Firmulewi (Dalayl al-Hujjaj), Ibn Ata’ Allah al-Iskandari, (Hikam, Lataif al-minan fi manaqibi Abi ‘Abbas wa Shaykhihi Abi Hasan, Miftah al-Falah wa Misbah al-Anwar, and Kitab at-Tanwir fi Isqah at-Tadbir), ‘Aziz Ahmad (Ta‘lim as-Shaykh Ahmad as-Sirhindi), Al-Aflaki (Manaqib al-‘Arifin), Muhammad ‘Abdu-l-Qayyum al-Qadiri al- Hazarawi (At-Tawassul bi-n-Nabi wa as-Salihin), Muhammad Hafiz at-Tijani (Ahl al-Haqq al-‘Arifun bi-Llah), ‘Abdus-s-Samad at-Tijani (Allah wa al-Rakam Sitta wa Sittin), etc.

“Even the shi‘ite Ruh-Ullah al-Musawi al-Khomeini praised Shaykh al-Akbar very much in his letter to Mikhail Gorbachev.

“Many of these books are forbidden by the so-called Saudi Dar al-Ifta’, but - al-hamdu Lillah - are preserved through a waqf  from Shaykh al-Arwasi. I ask everyone who reads this message to recite al-Fatihah for his blessed soul.” 

May Allahu Ta’ala bless Shaykh al-Akbar Muhi-d-Din Ibn al-‘Arabi al-Hatimi at-Ta’i al-Andalusi and those who spoke the truth about this wali, and may Allah Azza wajal protect him from the false accusations and takfeer by wahhabees, orientalists, and the kuffar. Ameen.

My refutation is complete, w-l-hamdu Lillahi Rabbi-l- ‘alamin.

In Defense of TawassulA Reason for the Fulfillment of Needs

Praise be to Allah. I ask Allah humbly to raise the rank of Prophet Muhammad, his Al and Companions, and to protect his Ummah from that which he fears for it. I ask Allah to teach us that which we have forgotten, to add to our knowledge, and to grant us the sincere intentions. I humbly ask Allah to facilitate for us the routes of goodness and to protect us from the routes that lead to Hellfire. Thereafter:

In Al-Mu’jam al-Kabir and Al-Mu’jam as-Saghir, Imam at-Tabarani related the hadith about the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) from the route of ‘Uthman Ibn Hunayf who was in a circle with the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) when a blind man came to address Prophet Muhammad, sall-Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam:

The blind man addressed the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) by saying, "O Messenger of Allah, ask Allah for me to cure my blindness." The Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) replied by saying, "If you wish, you would be patient with your calamity, and if you wish, I will ask Allah to cure your blindness."

However, the blind man told the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam): "The loss of my sight is a great hardship for me, and there is no one near to guide me around."

At this moment, the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) ordered the man to go to the place where wudu' would be performed, perform -wudu', pray two rak‘ah, end his salat by saying as-salamu ‘alaykum, and then say the following words:

which mean: “O Allah, I ask You, and I direct myself to You in supplication by our Prophet Muhammad, the Prophet of Mercy. O Muhammad, I direct myself to Allah by you, so my need [here the specific need is mentioned] would be fulfilled.” The blind man went and did as the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) ordered. Shortly thereafter, he returned to the Prophet's session with his blindness cured.

Then, after the death of the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam), and during the time of the caliphate of ‘Uthman Ibn ‘Affan, a man came to ‘Uthman Ibn Hunayf. This man complained to ‘Uthman Ibn Hunayf about a matter which he needed to be fulfilled through the caliph, but which was not being fulfilled. ‘Uthman Ibn Hunayf ordered the man to go to the place where al-wudu' would be performed, perform wudu', perform two rak‘ah, and after saying salam to say the following words: “O Allah, I ask You and I direct myself to You in supplication by our Prophet Muhammad, the Prophet of Mercy. O Muhammad, I direct myself to Allah by you, so my need [specify need] would be fulfilled.”

‘Uthman Ibn Hunayf told him to return after doing this, and they would go together to the caliph. This man went and performed what ‘Uthman Ibn Hunayf ordered him to do. However, instead of returning to ‘Uthman Ibn Hunayf, he elected to go on his own to the caliph--which he did. When he reached the door of the caliph, the gateman took him by the hand to the caliph. ‘Uthman Ibn ‘Affan sat him on a carpet next to him and asked him, “What is your need that you wanted fulfilled? I forgot all about it until just now.” The man informed the caliph about his need, which he fulfilled. The caliph told him, “Whenever you have a need, come to me and I will satisfy it for you.”

It is because of the prayer this man performed, and the  du‘a' that he made--asking Allah for his need by the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam)--that Allah made the heart of the caliph move towards fulfilling the need of that man. This prayer and the du‘a' afterwards in which one is asking Allah to fulfill a need is called “Salat al-Hajah”. Let the one who

has a need: perform wudu', pray two rak‘ah, and then say that du‘a' as mentioned, and insha Allah, his need will be fulfilled.

This hadith was narrated by many scholars of hadith. Some of them related the part of the hadith which occurred during the lifetime of the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam), and some narrated both parts of the hadith, i.e., the part which took place during the lifetime of the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) and the part which took place after his death and during the caliphate of Sayyiduna ‘Uthman Ibn ‘Affan. Imam at-Tabarani is among those scholars who narrated the entire hadith, in both parts--the part that took place during the life of the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam), as well as the part that took place after the death of the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam). After narrating that hadith, he said, "The classification of this hadith is sahih."

This hadith carries the proof that it is permissible in Islam for one to ask Allah for things by the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) during the lifetime of the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) and after the death of the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam). Hence, there is no difference in the permissibility of asking Allah for things by the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam), whether done during the lifetime of the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) or after his death. The scholars of Ahlu-s-Sunnah wa-l-Jama‘ah said that it is permissible to make that tawassul during the lifetime of the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) and after his death. Knowing that, one concludes that the claim of some people that it is not permissible to ask Allah for things except by he who is alive and present, is something which is rejected.

The first person to make this false claim was a man who lived some 600 years ago, by the name of Ahmad Ibn Taymiyyah. This man falsely stated that it is not permissible to ask Allah for things except by he who is alive and present. This is wrong! It is contrary to what is stated in the rules of the Religion of Islam. During the time of Ahmad Ibn Taymiyyah, scholars of Ahlu-s-Sunnah refuted his argument, and as a result his false claim did not spread at that time. However, some 200 years ago, a man named Muhammad Ibn Abdul-Wahhab emerged in a place in the Arabian Peninsula called Najd which the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) dispraised. Al-Bukhari related a hadith about the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) in which he said:

 

This means: “From this spot, [which is called Najd] the tribulations and the sedition will occur.” The Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) conveyed the truth. Many tribulations and sedition have occurred from that region. Among the most recent was this man by the name of Muhammad Ibn ‘Abdul-Wahhab. Muhammad Ibn ‘Abdul-Wahhab followed Ahmad Ibn Taymiyyah in the aforementioned case and in other cases as well. He started repeating the false statement of Ibn Taymiyyah that it is not permissible for one to ask Allah for things except by he who is alive and present. This rule has no foundation whatsoever in the Religion of Allah. Rather, this rule and this statement was innovated by Ahmad Ibn Taymiyyah as a innovation of misguidance.

As a result of their stubbornness and arrogance, the leaders of the Wahhabi movement rejected the part of the hadith which signifies the man asking Allah for things by the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam), after the Prophet's death. The great scholars of Ahlu-s-Sunnah told these people that the scholars classified that entire hadith as sahih, i.e., the part that took place during the lifetime of the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) and the part that took place after his death. Hence, one must reject the false claim of Ibn Taymiyyah and Muhammad Ibn ‘Abdul-Wahhab,because it stands against the sayings of those reliable and dependable scholars of hadith. Al-Hafiz at-Tabarani narrated that hadith, among others, including al-Hafiz al-Bayhaqi, al-Hafiz as-Subki and al--Hafiz al-‘Ala'i; they all classified it as sahih. The status of those huffaz, i.e., their high knowledge and high level in the Science of hadith, is a case of unanimous agreement among the scholars of Islam.

However, those Wahhabis, in an attempt to back their stubbornness and their false claim, rejected the sahih hadith of the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam); may Allah protect us from such misguidance. They refuted and rejected that which was proved to be mentioned by the Companions. It is obvious they are not following a correct methodology on their part. What is correct is for one to follow the path of the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) and the path of his Companions. One must adhere to that which the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) prescribed, and that which was put forth by the Companions, and one does not adhere to the example of someone deluded about things.

There are other ahadith that stand as a proof to the validity and the correctness of the statements of Ahlu-sSunnah. Among of which is the

hadith narrated by Imam al-Bukhari and others about three people from a previous nation who went inside a cave seeking protection from a heavy rain they encountered in their travels. A big rock rolled down from the top of the mountain shutting off the mouth of the cave and blocking their exit. One of the three men suggested they all make du‘a' to Allah by virtue of their good deeds. The first one stood up and made a du‘a' to Allah asking Him by one of the good deeds that he had done. He said, “O Allah, if that good deed I did previously was done in sincerity to You, then I ask You to relieve us of this calamity we are facing.” Once he finished his du‘a', the rock moved slightly; however, it did not move enough for them to come out of the cave. The second man stood up and asked Allah to relieve them of their calamity by virtue of a good deed which he had done in the past. Again the rock moved a little bit more; however, it was still not enough for them to be able to leave the cave. The third man did the same as the first two, and the rock was moved completely out of the way, and the men were able to leave the cave. This hadith is very famous. It is confirmed and is classified as sahih. It was narrated by Imam al-Bukhari and others and confirms those three people asked Allah for something, i.e., to relieve them of their calamity, by their good deeds.

If asking Allah for things by the good deeds of a person, is something permissible in the Religion, then asking Allah for things by the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) takes precedence--since the good deed is a creation of Allah, and the best of all the creations is the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam). Moreover, one should note that the good deeds of those people are not categorized as 'alive' or 'present,' as Ibn Taymiyyah made a condition. From where did Ibn Taymiyyah bring this condition? It is only a delusion on his part. He deduced that from his own delusions, and it is not founded on sound religious proofs.

The Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam), his Companions, the followers of those Companions, and the followers of those followers of the Companions are all in unanimous agreement that it is permissible to ask Allah for things by the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) and by the good and pious Muslims, whether during their life or after their death. All the scholars from among the four reputable schools, i.e., the school of Imam ash-Shaf‘i, the school of Imam Ahmad Ibn Hanbal, the school of Imam Abu Hanifah, and the school of Imam Malik, concur on this issue.

Ahmad Ibn Taymiyyah started this wrong doctrine, and his followers among the Wahhabis made it even more extreme, by claiming that he who

asks Allah for things by the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) after his death or during his absence is doing an act of shirk, i.e., associating partners with Allah. Again, this is contrary to what is founded in the Religion of Allah. The hadith of the blind man previously mentioned indicates that this blind man left the session of the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam), i.e., he went away and was no longer in the presence of the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) when he made his wudu', performed his salat, and made his du‘a'. How could this be classified as shirk? If it had been a shirk, then the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) would not have ordered the blind man to do as he did. The Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) is more knowledgeable than Ibn Taymiyyah and all the others like him.

The scholars of Islam opposed those who claimed that the one who asks Allah for things by the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) after his death or during his absence is doing an act of shirk. The Wahhabis claim they are following the school of Imam Ahmad Ibn Hanbal. However, Imam Ahmad Ibn Hanbal and the scholars who belong to his school all agree that it is permissible to ask Allah for things by the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam)--during his lifetime and after his death. Even the grandfather of Ahmad Ibn Taymiyyah, himself, who was among the great scholars following the school of Imam Ahmad, used to say it is permissible to ask Allah for things by the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) during his lifetime and after his death. This was narrated by one of the greatest students of Imam Ahmad Ibn Hanbal, Abu Bakr alMarwazi. This scholar, in copying the saying of Ahmad Ibn Hanbal, said that it is liked during drought to ask Allah for rain by the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam). Imam Ahmad told about one of the great followers of the companions, Safwan Ibn Sulaym, who was a pious, humble, and very knowledgeable Muslim, that just by mentioning his name a person would hope the rain would come down as a sign of Allah's mercy to the people. The meaning is if the people mention the name of Safwan Ibn Sulaym in their session, it is because of his great status, and as a blessing from Allah, the rain would start falling. One can observe for himself that Imam Ahmad Ibn Hanbal was among those who established it is liked for one to ask Allah for things by the status of the pious Muslims and by the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam), yet those among the Wahhabis who claim to be followers of Imam Ahmad, say this is shirk if it is done after the death of the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam). Imam Ahmad is in one direction, and those Wahhabis are in a totally different direction.

The first case was mentioned about Imam Ahmad in a book compiled by his own son, ‘Abdullah, containing questions and answers about Imam Ahmad. The second statement, about Safwan Ibn Sulaym, in was narrated by al-Hafiz al Mizzi and al-Hafiz al-’Ala'i and az-Zabidi. In a matter such as this, i.e., asking Allah for things by the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam), the teachings of someone like Imam Ahmad would be followed as opposed to those of Ibn Taymiyyah and his followers--the Wahhabis. All of these reliable scholars have praised Imam Ahmad Ibn Hanbal. He is the one among the scholars of hadith who narrated the most ahadith of the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam). It is not known among the scholars of hadith about another scholar who narrated in quantity as much as Imam Ahmad did. Those Wahhabis left Imam Ahmad and followed their own delusions. Those delusions are contrary to the rules of the Religion of Allah.

Be cautious! If you hear someone claim that it is not permissible to ask Allah for things in the absence of the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) or after his death, do not lend him a listening ear. Respond to him. Tell such a person about the hadith of the blind man, and the hadith of al-Bukhari regarding the three men who went into the cave. This is defending the Religion of Allah.

It is not permissible for one to remain silent when he sees someone perverting the Religion of Allah--if he is able to stand up to him. It is not permissible to leave the Muslims without guiding them and warning them against such people who pervert the Religion of Allah--once they are able to do so. This falls under the obligatory advice to the Muslims, as it was indicated by the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam). If the person leaves out ordering alma‘ruf and forbidding a-lmunkar, when it is obligatory on him, then this person is committing a sin. The scholars used to take many hardships to warn against someone perverting the Religion of Allah. This has great reward for them. If that obligation was left out in a community, those people would lose the support of Allah.

We ask Allah to bless us with the guidance and to make us steadfast in following the methodology and the path of the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam). We ask Allah to let us consume all of our life in following the methodology of the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam). We ask Allah to make us among those who order with al-ma‘ruf and forbid al-munkar.

After reading this document Shaykh 'Ali Mo'allim said: "May Allah bless the author and help all of us in refutation of ahlu-d-dalalah." Shaykh 'Abdul Hadi ordered - insha Allah - it to be published and translated.

Praise be to Allah and Allah knows best.

A REFUTATION OF BILAL PHILIPSAND HIS SLANDERS AGAINST

AHLU-S-SUNNAH 

In the name of Allah, the Merciful to the Muslims in the World and the HereAfter, and Merciful to the unbelievers only in this World.

BILAL PHILIP'S ACCUSES AHL AL-SUNNA SCHOLAR OF SHIRK AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN FUNDRAISING EVENT

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In the recent fundraising event at Madison Square Garden, Bilal Philips, a follower of wahhabi (=also called "salafi") ideologies accused a reputable orthodox Sunni (Shafi'i) Shaykh, Nuh Ha Mim Keller, of shirk. The exact words of Bilal Philips, who spoke over a telephone to the large audience, were:

"We also have a distorted view coming from certain religious innovations, most of which could be attributed back to the principles of mysticism, Sufism which has appeared in the Muslim ummah, which though they attribute it back to Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam), though the form which we cited [?] in half the countries have nothing to do with the Prophet's (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) teachings at all...."

Bial Philips continues to say:

"And perhaps the greatest evil which came out of it is the principle of calling upon others beside Allah, where human beings are set up as intermediaries between man and God. And so we find people today, under the guise of Sufism etc., calling for such things. PEOPLE LIKE NUH HA MIM KELLER, IN HIS BOOK "THE RELIANCE OF THE

TRAVELLER", HE SPENDS A GREAT DEAL OF EFFORT AND TIME IN THE APPENDIX OF THE BOOK JUSTIFYING PRAYING TO PROPHET MUHAMMAD (Caps mine)..."

As you clearly see, Bial Philips accused a Muslim scholar of justifying praying to Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), and when I checked the book, "The Reliance of the Traveller" thoroughly, there was absolutely no indication that Shaykh Nuh Ha Mim Keller was supporting shirk. Rather, Nuh Ha Mim Keller's book had a whole section on "TAWASSUL," which is to ASK ALLAH FOR SOMETHING USING AN INTERMEDIARY. Using someone as an intermediary is not the same as actually "worshipping" the intermediary. This is a slander by Abu Aminah Bilal Philips against Ahl al-Sunna wa'al Jama'a who have supported "Tawassul" for over a thousand years. Tawassul was done by the Prophet (pbuh) himself, and was practiced by great Companions (like Bilal ibn al-Harith; may Allah bless him), and others of the pious salaf us-salih (Imam Shafi'i did tawassul by means of Imam Abu Hanifah).

So in actuality, Bilal Philips is slandering not just Nuh Keller, but the Prophet (pbuh), the Companions, and the others of the salaf us-salih, and the ulema of the khalaf who followed their footsteps.

It is not new that Bilal Philips has called "tawassul," which is a permissible Islamic practice, to be unIslamic. He says the same in his books.

 

BILAL PHILIPS' STATEMENT IN HIS BOOK THAT TAWASSUL IS "UNISLAMIC", AND HIS REVEALING HIMSELF AS A WAHHABI

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Bilal Philips, in his "Evolution of Fiqh," page 130, says:

"Furthermore, in opposing tawassul...the twentieth century descendants and followers of Ibn 'Abdul-Wahhaab WERE ATTACKING UNISLAMIC PRACTICES (caps mine)."

The above statement from Bilal Philips tells the readers two things about him. First, he acknowledges to be a supporter of wahhabees and hence becomes an innovator himself. By showing respect to Muhammad ibn 'Abdl-Wahhab, the biggest innovator of the modern era, he contributes to

the efforts of those who wish to destroy Islam. Ibrahim ibn Maisara reported Allah's Messenger (Salla-Allahu-'alayhi-wasallam) as saying: "He who showed respect to an innovator he in fact aided in the demolishing of Islam (narrated by Baihaqi)."

Second, Bilal Philips claims that tawassul is an "unIslamic practice" (which is why he accused Nuh Ha Mim Keller of shirk in the Madison Square Garden fundraising dinner). The false claims of Bilal Philips opposes the perspectives of Ahl al-Sunna wa'al Jama'ah (=scholars and followers of the Hanafi, Shafi'i, Maliki, and Hanbali madhahib, of which 99% of Muslims have been part of). Tawassul is in fact permissible and even recommended by the Sunni ulema and plenty of evidence in the Qur'an and Sunna exists for it. Tawassul (or asking Allah for something by means of an intermediary after the latter's death -- one of the ways of the legal ways of tawassul) is only rejected by the wahhabis today.

 

WAHHABIS DEVIANCE AND THEIR REFUTATIONS; AL-ALBANI, TAMIMI, AND IBN BAAZ SHARE BILAL PHILIPS' DEVIANCE AND SPEAK AGAINST TAWASSUL

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To read a refutation of the wahhabee movement, one can read plenty of books by Ahl al-Sunna scholars. "Al-Fitnatul-Wahhabiyya," by the Mufti of Mecca, Ahmad ibn Zayni Dahlan ash-Shafi'i and "The Beacon of Humanity and the Clarification of Ignorance," by the great Shaykh Ibn Alawi Al-Haddad.

There are hundreds of other books written by other ulema although the aforementioned refutations are sufficient to expose wahhabee deviance. For your reference, here are a few more sources of refutation against the wahhabees: Shaykh Muhammad Sa`id Ramadan Al-Buti's "Al-salafiyyatu marhalatun zamaniyyatun mubarakatun la madhhabun islami" ["The Salafiyya is a blessed historical period not an Islamic school of law"], Al-muhaddith Muhammad al-Hasan ibn `Alawi Al-Maliki al-Husayni's "Mafahimu yajibu an tusahhah" ["Notions that should be corrected"], and al-Sayyid Mustafa ibn Ahmad ibn Hasan Al-Shatti al-Athari al-Hanbali's "al-Nuqul al-shar'iyyah fi al-radd 'ala al-Wahhabiyya" ["The Legal Proofs in Answering the Wahhabis"]. One will have ample evidence

from these sources to prove that Bilal Philips' defense of wahhabees is tantamount to defending ignorance and reprehensible innovations.

Claims that seeking an intermediary between Allah and man is unIslamic are also made by other wahhabee "scholars." For example: Muhammad bin Suleiman At-Tamimi, in his article, "What Negates One's Islam," states:

"WHOEVER SETS UP AN INERMEDIARY BETWEEN HIMSELF AND ALLAH, whom he prays to, SEEKS INTERCESSION FROM and puts his reliance in, has BLASPHEMED according to the consensus of the scholars."

Al-Tamimi is lying in behalf of the majority of scholars because you will read below that the majority of scholars have considered setting up an intermediary between oneself and Allah and seeking intercession a permissible and meritorious act (provided that one believes that Allah is granting the wish and not the intermediary, which is clearly stated in Nuh Keller's "Reliance of the Traveller."

Furthermore, a similar statement is made by the so-called Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Abdl-Aziz ibnn Abdullah Ibn Baaz. Ibn Baaz, in his article "Ten Things Which Nullify One's Islam," says:

"SETTING UP INTERMEDIARIES BETWEEN ONESELF AND ALLAAH, making supplication to them, ASKING THEIR INTERCESSION WITH ALLAH, and placing ones trust in them IS UNBELIEF (KUFR)."

What Bilal Philips, Ibn Baaz, and al-Tamimi call kufr, i.e. setting up intermediaries when asking Allah, is in fact a practice of the noble Sahaba and their pious followers. This will be explained in more detail below.

THE DEFINITION OF TAWASSUL

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According to the "Reliance of the Traveller" (the book which Bilal Philips accuses of shirk), the defintion of Tawassul is: Supplicating Allahu Ta'ala by means of an intermediary, whether it be a living person, dead person, a good deed, or a name or attribute of Allahu Ta'ala. Tawassul is a "means"

Muslims seek, using an intermediary, when asking Allahu Ta'ala for something."

One of the many verses in the noble Qur'an which permit Tawassul is:

"Allah the Blessed and the Exalted said: "O ye who believe, fear Allah and seek ye the means to Him"  (Sura al-ma'ida, verse34, juz' 4)

 

AHL AL-SUNNA SHAYKH YUSUF RIFA'I APPROVES OF TAWASSUL AND PRESENTS THE EVIDENCE

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Shaykh ul-Islam Yusuf ibn al-Sayyid Hashim al-Rifa'i, a Shafi'i scholar, former minister of state, educator, Sufi, and author explains the issue of tawassul very clearly in his "Adilla Ahl al-Sunna wa al-Jama'ah." The following is a translation of part of this book by Shaykh Nuh Ha Mim Keller, who added this as a section in his translation of "Al-'Umdat al-salik" (The Reliance of the Traveller) by Shaykh Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri, a student of the famous Shafi'i mujtahid Taqi al-Din al-Subki.

Shaykh Yusuf al-Rifa'i says:

"I here want to convey the position, attested to by compelling legal evidence, of the orthodox majority of Sunni Muslims on the subject of supplicating Allah through an intermediary (tawassul), and so I say (and Allah alone gives success) that since there is no disagreement among scholars that supplicating Allah through an intermediary is in principle legally valid, the discussion of its details merely concerns derived rulings that involve interschool differences, unrelated to questions of belief or unbelief, monotheism or associating partners with Allah (shirk);"

"the sphere of the question being limited to permissibility or impermissibility, and its ruling being that it is either lawful or unlawful. There is no difference among groups of Muslims in their consensus on the permissibility of three types of supplicating Allah through an intermediary (tawassul):

(1) TAWASSUL through a living righteous person to Allah Most High, as in the hadith of the blind man with the Prophet (Allah bless him and grant him peace) as we shall explain;

(2) The TAWASSUL of a living person to Allah Most High through his own good deeds, as in the hadith of the three people trapped in a cave by a great stone, a hadith related by Imam Bukhari in his "Sahih;"

(3) And the TAWASSUL of a person to Allah Most High through His entity (dhat), names, attributes, and so forth.

Since the legality of these types is agreed upon, there is no reason to set forth the evidence for them. The only area of disagreement is supplicating Allah (tawassul) through a righteous dead person. The majority of the orthodox Sunni Community hold that it is lawful, and have supporting hadith evidence..."

Shaykh Yusuf al-Rifa'i goes on to present the dalail (proof) of the hadeeth of the blind man, who asked the Prophet (Salla-Allahu-'alayhi-wasallam) to ask Allah to restore his eyesight afterwhich the Prophet ('alayhi salatu wassalam) taught him a du'a and instructed him to say it after completing ablution (wudu) and two rak'as of prayer:

"Oh Allah, I ask You and turn to You through my Prophet Muhammad, the Prophet of mercy; O Muhammad (Ya Muhammad), I seek your intercession with my Lord for the return of my eyesight [and in another version: "for my need, that it may be fulfilled. O Allah, grant him intercession for me"]."

The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) added, "And if there is some need, do the same."  (Related by Tirmidhi and 15 other ahadeeth masters and classified as rigorously authentic (sahih))

Shaykh Yusuf al-Rifa'i continues: "Scholars of Sacred Law infer from this hadith the recommended character of the "prayer of need," in which someone in need of something from Allah Most High performs such a prayer and then turns to Allah with this supplication together with other suitable supplications, traditional or otherwise, according to the need and how the person feels."

"The express content of the hadith proves the legal validity of "tawassul" through a living person (as the Prophet - peace be upon him - was alive at

that time). It implicitly proves the validity of tawassul through a deceased one as well, since tawassul through a living or dead person is not through a physical body or through a life or death, but rather through the positive meaning (ma'na tayyib) attached to the person in both life and death. The body is but the vehicle that carries that significance, which requires that the person be respected whether dead or alive; for the words "O Muhammad" are an address to someone physically absent - in which state the living and dead are alike - an address to the meaning, dear to Allah, that is connected with his spirit, a meaning that is the ground of "tawassul," be it through a living or dead person."

So now it is known that Bilal Philips has not only accused Shaykh Nuh Ha Mim Keller of shirk, but also Shaykh Yusuf Rif'ai (and the plenty of shuyukh who revised and approved of Shaykh Nuh Keller's translation of "The Reliance of the Traveller").

It must be noted that plenty of other ahadeeth exist to prove the validity of Tawassul through an alive or dead person. Shaykh Muhammad al-Hamid, a Hanafi scholar says (as quoted in "The Reliance of the Traveller"): "Those who call on them [the intermediaries] cannot be blamed. As for someone who believes that those called upon can cause effects, benefit, or harm, which they create or cause to exist as Allah does, such a person is an idolator who has left Islam -- Allah be our refuge!"

By the Shaykh's words, it is understood that Allah fulfills the du'as whether Allahu Ta'ala is asked directly or asked using an intermediary -- dead or alive. The wahhabees claim that it is only permissible to do tawassul while the intermediary is present and alive, but not when the intermediary is in his grave. Ibn Taymiya said that doing tawassul using an intermediary who is living in the life of barzakh is haraam (which is against the understanding of the Muslim majority), while Muhammad ibn Abdl-Wahhab said that it is "Shirk ul-Akbar" -- the "major shirk" which makes one a "mushrik" or polytheist. Bilal Philips, Tamimi, Ibn Baaz, and other wahhabees like Nasirudin Al-Albani, are simply following what Muhammad ibn Abdl-Wahhab said about tawassul, and they are ignoring what the other thousands of ulema said regarding its permissibility.

The wahhabees oppose the consensus of the Ahl al-Sunna majority, and Muhammad ibn Abdl-Wahhab accuses the majority of the Sunni ulema to be mushrikeen. That's why Bilal Philips accused Nuh Keller of shirk. This is one of many examples of how the Wahhabees revive the creed of the Kharijites who lived at the time of the noble Sahaba.

The Kharijites believed they were the only Muslims while everyone else, including Ali and Mu'awiya (Allah bless them), were Kuffar. The Wahhabees believe that for more than a thousand years Muslims were attributing partners to Allah and were kuffar because they did tawassul.

By such satanic thinking, Ibn 'Abdl-Wahhab made the blood of countless Muslims halal, and commanded his followers to butcher them in the name of Islam.

Imam Muhammad Amin Ibn Abidin, a Hanafi scholar who passed away in 1836 CE, said in his "Hashiyya radd al-Mukhtar," volume 3, page 309:

"In our time Ibn Abdl-Wahhab (Najdi) appeared, and attacked the two noble sanctuaries (Makkah and Madinah). He claimed to be a Hanbali, but his thinking was such that only he alone was a Muslim, and everyone else was a polytheist! Under this guise, he said that killing the Ahl al-Sunna was permissible..."

Another hadeeth to prove the legitimacy of tawassul, even after the intermediary is dead is the hadeeth of the man in need. Shaykh Yusuf al-Rifa'i states:

"Moreover, Tabarani, in his "al-Mu'jam al saghir," reports a hadith from 'Uthman ibn Hunayf that a man repeatedly visited Uthman ibn Affan (Allah be pleased with him) concerning something he needed, but Uthman paid no attention to him or his need. The man met Ibn Hunayf and complained to him about the matter - this being after the death (wisal) of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) and after the caliphates of Abu Bakr and Umar - so Uthman ibn Hunayf, who was one of the Companions who collected hadiths and was learned in the religion of Allah, said: "Go to the place of ablution and perform ablution (wudu), then come to the mosque, perform two rak'as of prayer therein, and say:

'O Allah, I ask You and turn to You through our Prophet Muhammad, the Prophet of mercy; O Muhammad (Ya Muhammad), I turn through you to my Lord, that He may fulfill my need,' and mention your need. Then come so that I can go with you [to the caliph Uthman]."

So the man left and did as he had been told, then went to the door of Uthman ibn Affan (Allah be pleased with him), and the doorman came, took him by the hand, brought him to Uthman ibn Affan, and seated him next to him on a cushion. 'Uthman asked, "What do you need?" and the

man mentioned what he wanted, and Uthman accomplished it for him, then he said, "I hadn't remembered your need until just now," adding, "Whenever you need something, just mention it." Then, the man departed, met Uthman ibn Hunayf, and said to him, "May Allah reward you! He didn't see to my need or pay any attention to me until you spoke with him." Uthman ibn Hunayf replied:

"By Allah, I didn't speak to him, but I have seen a blind man come to the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace) and complain to him of the loss of his eyesight. The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace said, "Can you not bear it?' and the man replied, 'O Messenger of Allah, I do not have anyone to lead me around, and it is a great hardship for me.' The Prophet (Allah bless him and grant him peace) told him, 'Go to the place of ablution and perform ablution (wudu), then pray two rak'as of prayer and make the supplications.'" Ibn Hunayf went on, "By Allah, we didn't part company or speak long before the man returned to us as if nothing had ever been wrong with him."

This is an explicit, unequivocal text from a prophetic Companion proving the legal validity of tawassul through the dead. The account has been classified as rigously authenticated (SAHIH) by the famous Huffaz Baihaqi, Mundhiri, and Haythami.

It is sufficient to accept the hadeeth of the blind man and the hadeeth of the man in need to justify that tawassul by the dead or alive is permissible. This is agreed upon by the majority of the Sunni ulema.

It must be noted that Muhammad Nasirudin Al-Albani, a wahhabi and so-called muhaddith, wrote a book titled "Tawassul" trying to disprove this practice after the intermediary is in his grave. His interpretations are of no significance since he opposes the interpretations of the majority of huffaz of Ahl al Sunna wa'al Jama'ah.

The hadeeth of Ibn Mas'ud, related by Imam Ahmad in his "Musnad," states: "Whatever the majority of Muslims see as right, then that is good to Allah, and whatever the majority of Muslims see as wrong, it is wrong to Allah." By this dalil, Al-Albani becomes among the stray and lost sheep because his opinions oppose that of the scholarly Sunni majority.

Al-Albani's and Bilal Philips' opinions only represent the wahhabee minority. It is also a fact that Al-Albani is "self-taught" and that he never had a Shaykh to teach him the knowledge of hadeeth. He does not possess

a continuous chain of knowledge that goes back to the Prophet (Salla Allahu 'alayhi wasallam) as the other true Sunni huffaz, like Imams Nawawi, Baihaqi, Bukhari, Muslim, Ibn Majah, Tirmidhi, Nisa'i, and Ibn Hajar do. Hence, Al-Albani's interpretations and understanding that "tawassul done by an intermediary who is in his grave is Islamically unlawful" is false and meaningless.

 

BILAL PHILIPS IN ACTUALITY ACCUSES A COMPANION OF SHIRK

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In "The Fundamentals of Tawheed," Bilal Philips says:

"If someone prays to the Prophet (saws), to so-called saints, Jinns or angels asking for help or asking them to request help from Allaah for them, they have also committed Shirk."

This statement has both truth and falsehood in it. The truth is that whoever prays to other than Allah is undoubtedly a polytheist.

Therefore, praying to the Prophet, saints, jinns, and angels is indeed shirk because such people are mushrikeen who attribute partners to Allahu Ta'ala in worship. Only Allah is to be worshipped. Only Allah Azza Wajal creates the fulfillment of a supplication, as those who do tawassul by the alive or dead are very well aware of.

However, the last part of Bilal Philips' statement, "OR ASKING THEM TO REQUEST HELP FROM ALLAAH FOR THEM, THEY HAVE ALSO COMMITTED SHIRK" is an ugly accusation against the Sahaba that they committed shirk! May Allah protect us from falling into the abyss of ignorance as Bilal Philips has.

It is well known that a companion of the Prophet (Salla Allahu 'alayhi wasallam), Bilal ibn al-Harith, went to the grave of the Prophet (Salla Allahu 'alayhi wasallam) when there was a drought, and said:

"O Messenger of Allah, ask Allah to give rain to your Ummah; they are close to perish..."

It is correct to call what he did tawassul and istighathah (seeking or asking for help), because he went to the grave of the Messenger (Salla Allahu 'alayhi wasallam) asking him to save them from the calamity that hit them by him asking Allahu Ta'ala to give them rain. The Huffaz Al-Baihaqi, and Ibn Kathir (in his "Tarikh") said that this hadeeth is SAHIH. In the issue of tawassul, Ibn Kathir adhered to the majority of Sunni ulema and agreed to the permissibility of tawassul. It is now obvious that Bilal Philips and other wahhabees are also then accusing Hafiz Ibn Kathir of shirk. May Allah protect us from wahhabi deviance.

Al-Albani said that the above hadeeth is unreliable, but his words are meaningless because the real and qualified huffaz of Ahl al-Sunna have classified it has SAHIH. Furthermore, Hafiz Ibn Abi Shayba ranks the hadeeth as SAHIH in his "MuSannaf," and Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani in his "Fath al-Barri" said its chain of transmission is sound (isnaaduhu Sahih).

One can clearly see that Bilal Philips has actually accused Bilal ibn al-Harith (may Allah bless him), a companion of the Prophet (Salla Allahu 'alayhi wasallam), of being a mushrik. We seek refuge with Allah from such innovators and we should shun them as much as possible. These are the people who stab the heart of the Ummah of Prophet Muhammad (Salla Allahu 'alayhi wasallam). They stab the heart of the Ummah repeatedly because they do not refrain from such false accusations even after they are given the dalail (proof) by the pious sunni ulema (like Ibn Kathir) of Ahl al-Sunna wa'al Jama'ah.

 

HAFIZ IBN HAJAR AL-`ASQALANI AND HIS SHAKYH ZAYN UD-DIN AL-`IRAQI DO TAWASSUL; UNVEILING THE DECEPTION OF NASIRUDEEN AL-ALBANI

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Ahl al-Sunna scholars have been doing tawassul after the death of the Prophet (Salla Allahu 'alayhi wasallam). For example, Hafiz Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani performed tawassul by the Prophet (Salla Allahu 'alayhi wasallam) in his poems known as "an-Nayyirat-us-Sab," as did his shaykh Zayn-ud-Din al-'Iraqi at the end of his poem in "Tafsiru Mufradat-il-Qur'an." According to Bilal Philips' statements, these scholars would be "unIslamic." There has never been a scholar who has called Hafiz Ibn

Hajar or Hafiz al-'Iraqi "unIslamic." Bilal Philips should correct his false accusations and make tawba to Allah.

As for Al-Albani, he quotes Hafiz Ibn Hajar as a reliable source of information in his book, "Tawassul." For instance, on page 5 of this book, Al-Albani says: "Al-Haafidh Ibn Hajr, rahimahullaah..." However, Al-Albani's deception and hypocrisy is now evident because we know that Hafiz Ibn Hajar did tawassul after the death of the Prophet (Salla Allahu 'alayhi wasallam) in his poem, "an-Nayyirat-us-Sab!" This is an explicit example of how wahhabees choose statements from a scholar which suit their views, but fail to acknowledge the statements made by the same scholar against them! Ibn Hajar al-'Asqalani would definitely refute and testify against Al-Albani for this deception and mockery against Muslims.

What does Al-Albani have to say about this? Does he want Muslims to accept his claims "blindly?"

Moreover, Al-Albani, in his "Tawassul," page 16 says:

"...such a call for aid (ISTIGHAATHA) IS NOTHING BUT MAJOR SHIRK."

By saying that istighaatha is major shirk, he now joins Bilal Philips in accusing the Companion Bilal ibn al-Harith (and Hafiz Ibn Kathir, Shaykh Yusuf Rif'ai, and Shaykh Nuh Keller) of "Shirk ul-Akbar" because it has been proven by sahih dalil that he did istighaatha. In addition, to Al-Albani's surprise (?), Hafiz Ibn Hajar states the following hadeeth as HASSAN in his "al-'Amali:"

"Ibn Abbas related that the Prophet (Salla Allahu 'alayhi wasallam), said:'....IF ANY OF YOU FELL IN A CALAMITY IN A DESERT LET HIM CALL: OH SLAVES OF ALLAH, HELP."

This is without a doubt "istighaatha" (seeking help) so it is now evident that Al-Albani is also accusing the Prophet (Salla Allahu 'alayhi wasallam) of committing "major shirk" since the Prophet (Salla Allahu 'alayhi wasallam) taught "istighaatha" to the to the Sahaba. Ibn Hajar is in compliance with the Prophet's (Salla Allahu 'alayhi wasallam) words because he accepts "istighaatha" to be valid.

Al-Albani, Bilal Philips, and their deceptive followers can only wish that Ibn Hajar supported their innovative perspectives. Ahl al-Sunna will never

be a partner to innovators like Al-Albani. May Allah protect us from the ignorance of Al-Albani and his blind followers. Ameen.

 

BILAL PHILIPS WRONGLY QUOTES AYAT IN QUR'AN WHICH REFER TO THE MUSHRIKEEN TO REFER TO THE MUSLIMS (AS THE KHAWARIJ DID).

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bilal Philips, in his "Fundamentals of Tawheed," says:

"According to the Qur'aan, when the Makkans were questioned about directing their prayers to their idols, they answered, "We only worship them so that they may bring us closer to Allaah."

"The idols were only used as intermediaries yet Allaah called them   pagans for their practice. Those among Muslims who insist on praying to other than Allaah would do well to reflect on this fact (end quote)."

This is an explicit example of how the Wahhabees revive a practice of the Kharijites who lived at the time of the noble Sahaba. Imam Bukhari has recorded Ibn 'Umar as saying in his Sahih [vol.9,page 50; English edition]:

"These people (the Khawarij and heretics) took some verses that had  been revealed concerning the disbelievers and interpreted them as describing the believers."

The Ahl al-Sunna wa'al Jama'ah have warned Muslims from this Kharijite practice which the Wahhabees uphold today in the name of "Tawheed." By their lack of adherence and knowledge to the path of Ahl al-Sunna, they misinterpret verses from the noble Qur'an and make idol-worshippers equal in belief to the pious Muslims who are of the Ahl al-Sunna, and commit "takfeer." The above verse, stated by Bilal Philips in an attempt to invalidate the permissibility of Tawassul, is in fact refering to the idol-worshippers -- not Muslims.

The Iraqi scholar, Jamil Effendi al-Zahawi, says in his "al-Fajr al-sadiq fi al-radd `ala munkiri al-tawassul wa al-khawariq" [The True Dawn: A Refutation of Those Who Deny The Validity of Using Means to God and the Miracles of Saints"]:

"The Wahhabis say: the defense of those who practice tawassul is the  same apology the idolaters of the Arabs offered as the Qur'an says   describing the way the idolaters defended their worship of idols: "We only worship them in order that they may bring us nearer" (39:3)." "Hence, the idolaters do not believe that the idols create anything. Rather, they believe that the Creator is God, the Exalted, by evidence of the following verse:

"If thou ask them, Who created them, they will certainly say, God" (43:87) and: "If indeed thou ask them who is that created the heavens and the earth, they would be sure to say, God" (39:38). God has only judged against them for their disbelief because they say "We only worship them in order that they may bring us nearer."

"The Wahhabis say: Thus, do people who implore God by prophets and the pious use the phrase of the idolaters: "In order to bring us nearer" in the same sense."

Shaykh Jamil al-Zahawi, in the section of his book "Refutation of That False Comparison," continues to say:

"The answer [to the false claims of the wahhabees] contains several  points:

(1) The idolaters of the Arabs make idols gods; while the Muslims   only believe in one God. In their view, prophets are prophets: awliya are awliya only. They do not adopt them as gods like the idolaters.

(2) The idolaters believe these gods deserve worship contrary to what Muslims believe. Muslims do not believe that anyone by whom they  implore God deserves the least amount of worship. The only one entitled to worship in their view is God alone, May He be Exalted.

(3) The idolaters actually worship these gods as God relates: "We   only worship them..." Muslims do not worship prophets and pious persons by the act of imploring God by means of them.

(4) The idolaters intend by their worship of their idols to draw near   God just as He relates concerning them. As for the Muslims, they do not intend by imploring God by means of prophets and saints to draw  close to God, which is only by worship. For that reason, God said in relating about the idolaters: "... in order that they bring us nearer." However, Muslims only

intend blessings (tabarruk) and intercession (shafa`a) by them. Being blessed by a thing is obviously different from drawing near to God by it.

(5) Since the idolaters believe that God is a body in the sky, they   mean by "to bring us near" a literal bringing near. What indicates this is its being stressed by their use of the word zulfa -- nearness to power -- inasmuch as emphasizing something by its own same meaning indicates for the most part that what is intended by it is the literal meaning and not the metaphorical. For when we say: "He slew him murderously" (qatalahu qatlan) a literal killing rushes to the understanding, not that of "a hard blow" in counterdistinction to what we mean when we just say: "He slew him"; for that might mean only a hard blow. The Muslims do not believe that God is a body in the sky remote enough from them to see a literal proximity to Him by imploring God through a prophet. The ruling of Shari`a contained in the verse does not apply to them, whereas since the Wahhabis believe that God is a body who sits on his throne, they do not  discover a meaning of blessing which the Muslims intend by their imploring God by prophets and awliya, but only that of drawing near which belongs to bodies. For that reason, these verses are applicable to them, not to Ahl al-Sunna." (end of quote)

ANOTHER HADEETH WHICH PROVES THE LEGITIMACY OF TAWASSUL

--------------------------------------------------------

"Whoever says when he goes out to the masjid (mosque): Oh Allah, I   ask You by the right of the askers upon You and by the right of this walking of mine, because I did not go out dicontentedly, or to be praised or for fame; I went out to avoid Your anger and seeking Your acceptance. I ask You to save me from Hellfire, and to forgive my sins; no one forgives the sins except You. Allah accepts his du'a and 70,000 angels ask Allah to forgive him."

The hadeeth is related by Ibn Majah. Hafiz Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani and Hafiz Abul-Hassan al-Maqdissi said: it is HASSAN. (We do not listen to Al-Albani's tad'if (ruling that a hadeeth is da'if) of the hadeeth after these Hafizan said it is authentic).

 

MUJTAHID MUTLAQ AHMAD IBN HANBAL APPROVES OF TAWASSUL

-----------------------------------------------------

Last but not least, one of the greatest scholars in the history of Islam, the mujtahid mutlaq Ahmad ibn Hanbal, approved the practice of tawassul by the Prophet (Salla-Allahu-'alayhi-wasallam) -- during his lifetime and after his death. This was narrated by one of the greatest students of Imam Ahmad Ibn Hanbal, Abu Bakr al-Marwazi. This scholar, in copying the saying of Imam Ahmad, said that it is liked during drought to ask Allah for rain by the Prophet (Salla-Allahu-'alayhi-wasallam).

Imam Ahmad told about one of the great followers of the Companions, Safwan Ibn Sulaym, who was a pious, humble, and very knowledgeable Muslim, that just by mentioning his name, a person would hope the rain would come down as a sign of Allah's Mercy to the people. The meaning is if the people mention the name of Safwan Ibn Sulaym in their session, it is because of his great status, and as a blessing from Allah, the rain would start falling. This was narrated by al-Hafiz al-Mizzi, al-Hafiz al-'Ala'i, and Zabidi.

Imam Ahmad was also asked about touching and kissing the minbar of the Prophet (Salla-Allahu 'alayhi wasallam) for the blessing and about seeking the blessing by visiting the grave of the Prophet (Salla-Allahu 'alayhi wasallam). He responded by saying: "This matter is not prohibited," as was narrated by 'Abdullah, the son of Imam Ahmad, in his book titled "Al-'Ilal wa Ma'rifat ur-Rijal.

This is far from what the wahhabees believe, who say that it is shirk al-akbar to do tawassul by the Prophet (Salla-Allahu-'alayhi-wasallam) or the awliya after their death. Muhammad ibn 'Abdl-Wahhab, and his ignorant followers (Bilal Philips, Albani, Ibn Baaz, etc) are in a completely different direction from the methodology of Imam Ahmad Ibn Hanbal, the pious member of the praised Salaf who narrated more ahadeeth than any other Muslim.

Do Ibn 'Abdl-Wahhab, Al-Albani, Bilal Philips, and Ibn Baaz claim to be more knowledgeable than Imam Ahmad Ibn Hanbal? None of these innovators have lived in the time period of the praised Salaf us-Salih as Imam Ahmad Ibn Hanbal and his students have. We cling to the practices of the Salaf -- not the so-called "salafi" or wahhabee innovators.

CONCLUSION

-----------

By the aforestated evidence from Qur'an, Sunna, and sayings of the noble ulema, it is clear that tawassul is valid, whether the intermediary is in his grave living the life of barzakh, or living the life of the world.

Bilal Philips, Al-Albani, Tamimi, Ibn Baaz -- and others who followed Muhammad ibn Abdl-Wahhab's deviant methodology -- oppose the practices of the majority of Sunni Muslims who belong to either the Hanafi, Shafi'i, Maliki, or Hanbali madhahib. It is also clear that the wahhabis, although they claim to follow the madhab of Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal, are in complete contradiction to it. Also, plenty of ulema like Imam Yusuf Rifa'i, Nuh Keller, Ibn Kathir, and plenty of others like Taqi al-Din Subki, Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri, Nuh Sulayman Ali, Imam Nawawi, Imam Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, and countless other ulema agree to the permissibility of tawassul. The wahhabees are contradicting the statements and interpretations of these noble Sunni ulema. Last but not least, after quoting extensively from Nuh Ha Mim Keller's "Reliance of the Traveller," there is absolutely no indication that Nuh Keller is supporting "worshipping Prophet Muhammad" as Bilal Philips falsely alleges.

May Allah protect us from the wahhabi deviance and keep us in the fold of the Muslim majority who follow the footsteps of the pious Salaf us-salih.

Ameen.

P.S.

Bilal Philips criticized sufism, and called them innovators. However, it is well known that famous ulema have either been sufis or supported sufis.

Some prominent ulema are: Imam Nawawi, Imam Abdl-Qadir Jeelani, Imam Abu Hamid Ghazzali, Imam Izz ibn Abdl Salaam, Ibn Daqiq al-Eid, Badr Din ibn Jama'a, Abdl Ghani Nubulsi, Imam Qurtubi, Imam Ibn Hajar Haythami, Imam Jalal ud-Din Suyooti, Taqi al-Din Subki, Taj al-Din Subki, Ahmad Rifa'i, etc. Can any sane Muslim call any one of these intellectual giants "innovators?"

May Allahu Ta'ala protect us from the Ahl al-bid'a wal Ahwa and their heresy. Ameen.

 

'Ilmu Usuli-l-Islam

Insha Allah Ta'ala, this section will deal with presenting the pristine teaching upon which Islam is based. Please revisit for upcoming articles

About ijtihad, taqlid and talfiqQuestions by Issam al-Barwani Sahib to Shaykh Abu Omar Abdul Hadi

Palazzi

At 18.12 Saturday, May 8 1999 M, Brother Issam al-Barwani wrote to the Shaykh:

 

Al Salam Aleykum,

I have this question.

I am a Muslim and every one asks me to join a mathhab whether its Shafi or Malki etc...

My question is: Do I have to follow one of any of the Islamic Mathhab? and if yes Why?

As I believe in all the pillars of Islam and the Iman and do my best in the Islam Shariah and when I look at the other Muslims with all different sects (mathhab) they just follow without even knowing what they are on about just they found their parents and they follow

please, advise me.

Thank you

At 12:12 Tuesday, May 11 1999, Shaykh Abu Omar answered:

Wa 'alaykum salam wa rahmat-Ullahi wa barakatuH.

Dear Brother Issam,

A person who believes in Allah and the last day must try his best to worship Allah with ikhlas and to obey  him by abstaining from harams and increasing the number of 'ibadat. When we have to perform a task, we can either base ourselves on our own expertise, or look for help by someone we consider an expert in a different field. If we are seriously sick, we do not trust a person who says, "I have read some books about medicine", but we look for a doctor who has a degree, a good professional reputation, etc.

As about abiding by the Shari'ah, we cannot think we are able to read the Holy Qur'an and hadiths and deduce the ahkam by ourselves. We are not experts in distinguishing nasikh and mansukh ayat, we do not know how to distinguish between 'amm and khass, muhkamat and mutashabihat; we do not know all the rules of 'ilmu-l-hadith, 'ilmu-r-rijal, etc. Form this reason, as Allah has ordered us, when we do not know, we must ask Ahlu-d-Dhikr. The problem is whom we regard as authoritative source of our taqlid in fiqh.

Allah Ta'ala has shown an order of precedence in Islam, by saying, "As-sabiquna al-awwaluna mina-l-muhajirina... al-ayah". After Rasul-Ullah (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam), those having a best knowledge of Islam are Ashab al-kiramah, after them there are Tabi'un, and after them Itba'u-t-Tabi'un. We know that Allah is pleased with them. Rasul-Ullah (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) warned his Ummah by saying, "Those who will live after me will se many discrepancies. You must abide by my Sunnah and by the Sunnah of my khulafa'u-r-rashidun." He also informed them that this Ummah will be divided in 73 groups, one of which will be protected from hell, while the other 72 ones will be sects of bid'ah and dalalah. We must be very careful in avoiding getting involved in sects of bid'ah.

Sahabah were mujtahids of high rank, and they were completely sincere in the desire to please Allah Ta'ala. Had we the opportunity to make taqlid of their ijtihad, that would be the best option. Masha Allah, they never wrote treatises on fiqh, and we do not have the opportunity of abiding by their taqlid. Among the second generation, fiqh was collected in books by Imam Abu Hanifah, and among the third generation by Imams Malik as-Shafi'i and Ibn Hanbal. The consensus of 'ulema from Ahlu-s-Sunnah is that their ijtihad is corrected and acceptable. Even the greatest scholars of following generations chose to practice the Shari'ah according to one of their madhhab. For more than ten centuries, there was no divergence among Muslims about this matter.

The difficulty started during the twelve century of hijrah, when a person called Muhammad ibn 'Abdi-l-Wahhab  started preaching in Hijaz against Ahlu-s-Sunnah, and founded a new sect that rejected taqlid of the four madhhabs. Sunni scholars, including the Mufti of Mecca, wrote a fatwa against him and refuted his errors. By siding with the British kuffars against The Khalifatu-l-Muslimin, they caught power in al-Jazirah, and founded the so-called Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, were Wahhabism is official religion. Most of contemporary sects like Salafis, Ikhwans, Albaniyyuns, etc., are a consequence of the Wahhabi bid'ah and refuse the ijtihad of madhhabs, but they follow the ijtihad of their co-sectarian; some of them has recently met what Allah has prepared for them, while some others go on being adallu sabilah.

By trusting in Allah, we must refuse to follow the doubtful taqlid of al-akharun, and abide by the confirmed taqlid of al-awwalun. This is the only mean through which we can be sure that our 'aqidah and 'ibadats are sahih.

Please, remember us in your du'ahs, wa-s-salamu 'alaykum wa rahmat-Ullahi wa barakatuH.

Shaykh Prof. Abdul Hadi PalazziDirector-----------------------------------------------------------------------Cultural Institute of the Italian Islamic Communityhttp://amislam.commailto:islam.inst@flashnet.it-----------------------------------------------------------------------Subscribe our list by sending a blank messageislaminst-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

At 16.48 Tuesday May 14, 1999, Brother Issam wrote:

Salamu Aleykum brother,

Thank you for the information but I'm still not sure which Mathhad I should follow as I do read and listen to all the Mathhabs and I find it all appealing as all Ulama's are relating their Tafsir and Hadith and Shriah and Ahkam from the books of ahulu al Sunah and some sects like Ibadhi and Shia, Wahabi etc...

Shaykh Abdul Hadi answered at 10.27 Friday May 14, 1999:

Ba'da-s-salam, Rasul-Ullah (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) order us: "Let what creates doubts for what creates no doubt". If applied to the problem of madhhabs of fiqh, we must beware of sects of bid'ah that were refuted by Sunni scholars, and abide by one the four madhhabs that are unanimously regarded as authoritative. The best way is not learning from books, but finding a pious 'alim that teaches fiqh according to the Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i or Hanbali madhhab, and is not influenced by Shi'ism,

Wahhabism, Ikhwanu-l-Muslimun, etc. If Allah, subhanaHu, blesses us with the opportunity to be in touch with such a Shaykh, we must spend our free time in his company, asking him questions and attending his classes. Otherwise, when we do not have such a possibility, we can learn from books, or even from the Web. Ikhlas Waqf from Istanbul is formed by heirs of Shaykh Abdu-l-Hakim al-Arwasi, teaches fiqh according to the Hanafi madhhab, and distribute books in English, Arabic and other languages; another Sunni organization, called Association for Islamic Charitable Project is formed by disciples of Shaykh 'Abdullah al-Harari, and teaches Shafi'i fiqh on the Web under the direction of Shaykh Samir al-Kadi.

 Issam:

Now for example : Salat Al Safar every Mathab has its rules from Shafi, Hanafy, Hanbaly, Malki ,Ibhadi ,Shia etc..and so many other Ahkam and Sharia .And the Hadith is as you stated 72 sects will go to hell fire except one now this pauses a question to me if you continue the Hadith it says : The Sahaba asked the Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) if we reached that time what should we do ? The Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) replied worship Allah the best you can away from all sects.

On whose authority should I follow out of the Mathab (73) as the Hadith Sharif stated?

The Shaykh:

We must not confuse the four madhhabs of Sunni fiqh with the 72 sects of dalalah. "The best you can" means "according to you level of 'ilm and taqwah". For a layperson, it is enough to learn from a Shaykh or from books of 'ilmu-l-hal according to a single madhhab, those who are at a medium level can study "Al-fiqh 'ala-l-madhhaibu-l-arba'" by Shaykh 'Abdu-r-Rahman al-Jaza'iri, while those who are more advanced can study 'ilm usuli-l-fiqh and learn the differences of methodology between madhhabs. About a certain hukm, one madhhab will give space to facility, while another will be stricter. Knowing the different ijtihads and choosing the most difficult one - if done li-wajhi-Llah - is an exercise of wara' and taqwah. To do so, one need to be a faqih, enough competent in all of the four madhhabs.

Issam:

Why do Ulama tell us to follow one ONLY  or I will be lost in my Iman.

The Shaykh:

For those who are not enough competent in fiqh and ijtihad, the safest way is taqlid of a single madhhab. When questioned about your 'ibadat in al-akhirah, you justification will be, "I was not a mujtahid, and I worshipped Allah according to Imam Abu Hanifah (or Malik, or Shafi'i or Ahmad) and this was confirmed by  ijma'u-l-'ulema' during all centuries". By practicing ahkam of Shari'ah in a wrong way, one does not - as such - risk to loose his Iman, but to make its 'ibadat batil. Iman does not depend on our actions, but on what we believe about Allah, His Angels, His Books, His Messengers and the last Day. The risk is, as to say, indirect. If one start following a bid'ah holder in fiqh, he will probably follow him in 'aqidah, too. If a certain person, for instance, accept to follow Ibn Baz or al-Albani as a "Shaykh", he will follow them when they wrongly say that "practicing tawassul of ahlu-l-qubur" is "shirk"; by doing so, he will accuse Sunni Muslims of "shirk", an became a murtaddid. May Allah protect us all from this risk, and prevent deviations in both fiqh and 'aqidah.

Issam:

Why should I stick to one Mathahb and why can't I take the Sharia from different school of thoughts and not to define myself as a follower of one Mathhab.

The Shaykh:

On the contrary, trying to make a "collage" of different ijtihad means that we judge ourselves as able to say "On this point Imam X is wrong and Imam Y is right", and this is nothing but kibr. Moreover, after Rasul-Ullah (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) we had khilafah rashidah, then khilafah ghayru rashidah, and now we have no khilafah and no rushdah, and a consistent part of former Daru-l-Islam is under the mundane sultanate of ahlu-d-dalalah. By assembling ijtihads from different sources, the real risk is the possibility of mingling hudah and dalalah. Take for example the books of la-madhhabis people who are regarded as scholars: al-Bannah, AbduH, al-Afghani, Sa'id Sabiq, Mawdudi, Qutb, Abu Bakr al-Jazairi, Ibn Baz and al-Albani. They regularly mingle what is transmitted by Ahlu-s-Sunnah with innovations coming from firqatu-n-najdiyyah, the heritage of Asrafu-l-Mursalin (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) with the zhann coming from the heirs of Musaylimah al-Kadhhab.

Issam:

Don't you think the mathab is more political than its religious?

The Shaykh:

No, I think that ahlu-l-madhhayb developed 'ilm searching for ridwanu-Llah, but those interested in power in dunya' tried to made scholars subservient to their goals. Imam Abu Hanifah and Ibn Hanbal (radi Allahu 'anh) were imprisoned and underwent pressure, but never accepted to become 'ulema'u-s-sultaniyyah. On the contrary, those who exchange akhirah for dunya are running after appointments like chief mufti and qadi under the rule of zhalimun. May Allah guide them to tawbah nasuhah.

Issam:

Going to Mecca Al Mukarama you see people praying in different styles( some have their hands on their bellies some on their chests some they don't move their hands except on Takbir and some don't move at all) now you tell me the Wahabi sect which most of Saudi Ulama are wrong in not so many words the Ibadisum (Al Khawarij) as they call them are wrong , some Shafi says that Hanbali are wrong some Malki don't like Hanafi and above all Shia are the outcast and now the Wahaby are heritics and Ibhadi are kafarah .

The Shaykh:

We have reliable dalils about the fact that Rasul-Ullah (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) prayed, in different times, with hands in all of these positions, sometimes moving them in takbirs of ruku' and qiyam, and sometimes in takbiratu-l-ihram only. None of the four madhhabs says that putting the hand along the body, on the chest or on the navel makes salah batil; they differ in what they regard as mustahhab, and this depends on the fact that they have a different method in usul. The correct ijtihad confirmed in all of the four madhhabs is that all the other three are correct, and their ijtihad acceptable. If a certain "Hanafi" scholar says something against taqlid of Imam Maliki, Imam Shafi'i or Imam Ahmad, in doing so he is responsible of ta'assub and exaggeration, and contradicts the same school he claims to belong to. Insha Allah Ta'ala, read al-Muwatta', and you will realize that, before expressing his own ijtihad, Imam Malik quotes the opinion of Abu Hanifah and his main disciples, Shaykhayn Abu Yusuf and Muhammad Shaybani. Imam Shafi'i developed his system by comparing Hanafi and Maliki fiqh, will Imam Ahmad, when in Cairo, used to make ziyarah of the grave of Imam Shafi'i, and asked to touch his turban and jilbab to get tabarruk. He used to say, "If compared to Abu Hanifah, all scholars living today are children". A real Sunni scholar is rahim toward the other three Sunni school, and shadid against bid'ah holders and ahlu-t-talfiq.

Issam:

Now why should we be in between  sects ? I do relate to all Ahkam which ever suits us from different Mathhabs to make our life easy but my Brother I prefer not to belong to any sects but take all good as Islam is All good

from different Mathhabs and call Myself Im a Muslim my Mathhad is Al Mathab Al Islami.

The Shaykh:

But when you are to pray, you must choose to put your hands in a certain place and not in another; to do so, you can either choose taqlid  or your own opinion; taqlid is confirmed by ijma', while individual opinion is not.

Issam:

I don't agree at all if Ulama tells me to follow a mathab but if you tell me the Shariah (according to Imam so and so) I will ask what did the rest of Ulama agree on and that would take me a whole life time.

As the Bedouin who went to our Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) and asked him of what should he do and what he gets the Prophet told him of Arkan Al Islam and Al Iman and commandments and the Bedouin said By God I wont add anything the Prophet replied if you do it all you have fulfilled your duties.

Sahabi Masaab Bin Omeir when he died the prophet covered part of his leg with bush .Why all Mathhabs has different law of how many times you cover the dead person with a white cloth is it 2 or 3 or 4 or 1 we get lost .

To me Islam Deen Yuser and not Usr(Difficult) .

The Shaykh:

You are absolutely right. Practicing taqlid of one of the four Imams means having a yusr Din. You are not requested to judge, "this hadith is prevalent and this is relative, this ayah is abrogated by another ayah, this hadith is sahih, this is hasan and this is weak." The Imams have done all this work for you centuries ago. You only say, "I abide by the fatwa of a mujtahid that is regarded as authoritative by ijma'u-l-Ummah, period."

Issam:

My whole thing is who should we follow or why and by whose authority as indeed it parts the Muslims and create conflicts in so many countries in Bahrain the Sunnis are the ones who have higher position. In Iran the Shiat have the upper hand and position .In Afghanistan the Mujahideen fight between each other because mainly of the sects (Mathhabs) and so many other countries.

please answer me soon as I am looking for the truth.

Yahfadhukum Allah:

Salam aleikum: 

Issam

The Shaykh:

After the end of Khilafatu-l-'Uthmaniyyah confusion is increasing; Wahhabis and their sub-sects disguise their true nature and say "We are Sunni", while Shi'as are saying, "There is no real different situation between Sunnis and us". That is the reason why our Institute, in cooperation with other Sunni institutions, is working hard for refutation of heretics and Sunni da'wah. May Allah Ta'ala guide us and you to islah and extend to all of us His rahmah.

Wa-salamu 'alaykum wa rahmat-Ullahi wa barakatuH.

Abdul Hadi Palazzi

Wahhabi Tampering of Imam an-Nawawi,

rahimah-Ullah

by the "Ahlus Sunnah Muslim Association of Sri Lanka" and Dr. Gibril Fouad Haddad

revised edition and tashih by the Cultural Institute of the Italian Islamic Community

A review of the translation of Imam al-Nawawi's Riyad as-Salihin published in 1999

by Darussalam Publishing House, Riyad: http://www.dar-us-salam.com/h4riyad-us.htm

A team of unprincipled editors and translators out of a Saudi publishing house by the name of Darussalam was commissioned to produce a glossy 2-volume English edition of Imam al-Nawawi's Riyad al-Salihin - being distributed for free to Islamic schools around the world - designed to

propagate Wahhabi pseudo-Salafi heresy to the unwary English-speaking Muslim students of Islamic knowledge. This ideology is couched within a thoroughly unscrupulous and deviant "commentary", inserted into the book chapters and authored by an unknown or spurious "Hafiz Salahuddin Yusuf of Pakistan," "revised and edited by Mahmud Rida Murad" (1:7). Following are some examples of what is contained in this Wahhabi attempt of falsifying the science transmitted by Sunni Ulema.

(a) The work is laced with unabashed eulogy of the arch-innovator Nasir al-Albani, the well-known falsifier of 'ilm al-hadith, the impostor who who uttered evident kufr not only against many ayat and ahadith mutawatur, but even against Surah al-Bayyinah as a whole, since he said - wa na'udhu bi-Llah - "every kafir is mushrik, every mushrik is kafir", while Allah Ta'ala distinguished between kuffar among the ahl al-Kitab, and kuffar among the mushrikun, when He says "Inna-lladhina kafaru min ahli-l-Kitabi wa-l-mushrikin". He also said "there exist some shirk which is forgivable", while Allah Ta'ala says what means "Allah does not forgive associating anything to Him, an forgives apart from this to whomever He wants." Both the sentences when classified as kufriyyah by the consensus of the eminent Shafi'i fuqaha of our time, by Shaykh Isma'il al-Azhari, Shaykh Husayn al-Khalwati, by Shaykh Salih al-Ja'fari, Shaykh Muhammad Hafiz al-Tijani, al-Muhaddith al-Ghumari (rahimahum-Ullah) and by al-Muhaddith al-Harari (hafazah-Ullah), who after reading them said: "Unless he does tawbah for saying so, he is prevented to enter the hereafter as a Muslim". This same heretic in 'aqidah, innovator if fiqh and liar in hadith is referred in the "commentary" as "the leading authority in the science of hadith" (1:88). The fact is that the only agreed-upon title Albani has been able to earn from the verifying Ulema of the Umma from East to West, is that of erratic innovator, and a relevant group of them also faught him as a kafir murtaddid, a shaytan of fitnah Najdiyyah and a forerunner of ad-Dajjal.

(b) Declaring that "ours should not be the belief that the dead do hear and reply [to our greeting]" (1:515). The Jumhur says exactly the opposite.

(c) "Prohibition [of kissing] is only effective if the kissing of hands is also involved." (2:721). Note that among the salaf Imam Sufyan al-Thawri called the kissing of the hands of the Ulema a Sunna, and that the majority of the scholars concur on its permissibility.

(d) Saying "unapproved hadith" - an invented classification only meaning

"rejected by al-Albani alone" - for the sahîh hadith of the two Jews who kissed the Prophet's - Allah bless and greet him - hands and feet as narrated by al-Tirmidhi (sahîh) and others.

(e) A very extravagant heresy according to which "there is not proof that the Prophet, sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam, used to kiss". On the contrary, that he used to kiss (Ay'shah, Fatimah and al-Husayn) is sahih authenticated by Imam al-Bukhari, rahimah-Ullah, and that he also used to kiss non-relatives Zayd ibn Haritha is hasan according to Imam at-Tirmidhi.

(f) Declaring "the hadiths about the kissing of hands are weak and deficient from the viewpoint of authenticity," an outright lie. They are sahih, and prove that the Jews kissed both his blessed hand and his blessed feet, and neither he, nor any of the Sahabah opposed them.

(g) Declaring after the hadith stating: "I suffer like two men of you": "This Hadith... throws light on the fact that the Prophet - Allah bless and greet him - was merely a human being." (2:737) This discourse is that of the disbelievers mentioned in many places of the Qur'an: {They said: You are but mortals like us} (14:10), {Shall we put faith in two mortals like ourselves?} (23:47), {They said: You are but mortals like unto us} 36:15, {Shall mere mortals guide us?} (64:6). The ijma' of the Shafi'i madhhab is that comparing the Prophet, sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam, to other human being makes tawbah compulsory, and is kufr is done with the intention of diminishing his exalted rank. Saying "he was a man like other men" is not permissible, without adding "but he was inspired".

(h) Claiming: "We are uncertain that after saying a funeral prayer, the Prophet - Allah bless and greet him - and his Companions ever stood around the bier and supplicated for the dead body. It is an innovation and must be abolished"! (2:755) This is flatly contradicted by the sound narrations ordering the Companions to make du`â for the deceased directly after burial. The commentar(s) go on to say: "It looks strange that believers should persist in reciting supplications in their own self-styled way after the funeral prayer, but desist from them during the funeral prayer to which they have relevance. It implies that prayer is not the object of their pursuit, otherwise they would have prayed in accordance with the Sunnah. In fact, they cherish their self-fabricated line of action and seem determined to pursue it." Yet the commentator(s) a few pages later (2:760) state: "The Prophet - Allah bless and greet him - has

instructed his followers that after a Muslim's burial, they should keep standing beside his grave for some time and pray for his firmness"!

(i) Omitting (2:760) to translate the words of Imam al-Shafi`i related by al-Nawawi in Chapter 161 ("Supplication for the Deceased after his Burial"): ""It is desirable (yustahabb) that they recite something of the Qur'an at the graveside, and if they recite the entire Qur'an it would be fine." Omitting to translate these words which are in the original text of Riyad al-Salihin is deceit and a grave betrayal of the trust (amâna) of the translation of one the motherbooks of knowledge in Islam. This because the raving belief of Albaniyyun is that "it is innovation to read for the dead more than al-Fatihah alone". The truth is remote from their conjectures: Ma'qil Ibn Yasar, radi Allahu 'anh, narrated that Rasul-Ullah, sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam, said: "Read Ya Sin over your dead ones." It is Sahih mashur, mentioned in the collections of the Imams Abu Dawud, Nisa'i, Ibn Majah, Ibn Hanbal, al-Hakim and Ibn Hibban. Imam Ibn Hnabal also authenticated another riwayah: "Verily Ya Sin is the heart of the Qur'an, and the one who reads it for Allah and the hereafter will find it is accepted. So read it for your dead ones." And 'Abdullah Ibn 'Omar Ibn al-Khattab, radi Allahu 'anh, narrated that he heard from his father that Rasul-Ullah, sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam, said: "When some of you dies, read al-Fatihah over his head and the last two ayat of al-Baqarah over is feet." Narrated by at-Tabarani and authenticated by Imam Ibn Hajar in Fath al-Bari. Albaniyyun also claim: "Ibn Hajar and al-Albani are Muhaddithun of the same level", and also add - wa na'udhu bi-Llah - "Imam Abu Hanifah was not a muhaddith!"

(j) As if the above were not enough, the "commentary" goes on to state: "The reference made to Imam al-Shafi`i about the recitation of Qur'an beside a Muslim's grave is in disagreement with the Prophet's - Allah bless and greet him - practice... the reference made to Imam al-Shafi`i seems to be of doubtful authenticity"! However, al-Za`farani said: "I asked al-Shafi`i about reciting Qur'an at the graveside and he said: la ba'sa bihi - There is no harm in it." This is narrated by Imam Ahmad's student al-Khallal (d. 311) in his book al-Amr bi al-Ma`ruf (p. 123 #243). Similar fatawa are reported from al-Sha`bi, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Ishaq ibn Rahuyah, and are also confirmed, not only by the Ahlu-s-Sunnah, but even by the heretics Ibn al-Qayyim and al-Shawkani - the putative authorities of the Wahhabi movement.

(k) Stating (2:761): "Qur'an reading meant to transmit reward to the dead

man's soul is against the Prophetic Sunnah. All such observances are of no use to the dead." This is the exact same position as the Mu'tazilah on the issue, who went so far as to deny the benefit of the Prophet's intercession. It should be noted that the manipulative editors/commentators of Riyad as-Salihin deliberately omit any mention of the Companions' practice, as it is authentically recorded from 'Abdullah Ibn 'Omar, radi Allahu 'anh, that he ordered in his testament the Qur'an be read over his grave after his death, adding "since this is the Sunnah of Rasul-Ullah, sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam."

(l) Stating (2:761): "For further detail, one can refer to Shaykh al-Albani's Ahkam al-Jana'iz." This is the book in which this man lists among the innovations of misguidance the fact that the Prophet's Blessed Grave is inside his Mosque in Medina and the fact that it has a dome built over it, and he asks for both of them to be removed, and for Masjidu-n-Nabi to destroyed and rebuilt to make the Blessed Grave exterior to it.

(m) Stating (2:791-792): "If a woman has no husband or Mahram, Hajj is not obligatory on her. Neither can she go for Hajj with a group of women, whether for Hajj or any other purposes.... Under no circumstances a woman may travel alone." This contradicts the fatwa which prevails it the Shafi'i and Hanafi madhhab, as well as the principle that when there is scholarly disagreement over an issue, it becomes automatically impermissible to declare it prohibited.

(n) Rephrasing a hadith (2:810-811) by omitting key words which invalidate their position. In chapter 184 of Riyad al-Salihin titled "Desirability of Assembling for Qur'an-Recitation," al-Nawawi cites the hadith of Muslim whereby the Prophet - Allah bless and greet him - said: "No group of people assemble in one of the Houses of Allah, all of them reciting [plural pronoun] the Book of Allah (yatlûna kitâb Allâh) and studying It among themselves except Serenity (al-sakîna) shall descend upon them, etc." The editor/ commentator(s) of Riyad al-Salihin rephrased the hadith thus: "Any group of people that assemble in one of the Houses of Allâh to study the Qur'ân, tranquillity will descend upon them, etc." omitting the key words: "all of them reciting the Book of Allah." Then the same editor/ commentator(s) had the gall to comment: "This Hadith... does not tell us in any way that this group of people recite the Qur'an all at once. This is Bid`ah for this was not the practice of the Messenger of Allah - Allah bless and greet him -." This is tampering compounded with a shameless lie. This misinterpretation and false claim of bid'a is, of course,

directed at the Maghribi style of Qur'anic recitation that relies heavily on collective tilâwa in order to strengthen memorization.

(o) The statement (2:848) concerning the Prophet's miracle of seeing behind his back: "It must be borne in mind that a miracle happens with the will of Allah only. It is not at all in the power of the Prophet - Allah bless and greet him -. Had he been capable of working a miracle on his own, he would have shown it at his own pleasure. But no Prophet was ever capable of it, nor was the Prophet - Allah bless and greet him - an exception to this rule." In truth this speech comes directly from books such as Isma'il Dehlvi's Taqwyatul Iman concerning which Abu al-Hasan al-Thanvi said: "The words used by Isma'il Dehlvi are, of course, disrespectful and insolent. These words may never be used." (Imdad al-Fatawa 4:115)

(p) The statement (2:861): "The right number of rak'ats in the Tarawih prayers is eight because the Prophet - Allah bless and greet him - never offered more than eight rak'ats... It is not in any case twenty rak'ats. Authentic Ahâdith prove this pont abundantly." This is a transgressive innovation (bid'a mufassiqa) as it rejects the command of the Prophet, sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam, to "obey my Sunnah and the Sunnah my rightly-guided caliphs" and also kufr as it violates the passive Consensus (ijmâ` sukûtî) of the Companions over twenty rak`ats order by Sayyiduna 'Omar, radi Allahu 'anh.

(q) The statement (2:905): "Twenty rak'at Tarawih is not confirmed from any authentic hadith, nor its ascription to 'Omar ( is proved from any muttasil (connected) hadith." This is a blatant lie, as the number of hadith masters who graded as sahîh the connected chains back to 'Omar establishing twenty rak'at tarawih are too numerous to count. They provided the basis on which the Ulema concur in declaring that Consensus formed on the matter among the Companions as stated by al-Qari, al-Zayla'i, al-Haytami, Ibn al-Humam, Ibn Qudama, and a number of other major jurists of the Four Madhhayb.

(r) The heretic statement (2:1025): "In the present age Shaykh Nasir al-Din al-Albani has done a very remarkable work in this field [hadith]. He has separated the weak ahadith found in the four famous volumes of ahadith (Abu Dawud, al-Tirmidhi, al-Nasa'i, and Ibn Majah) from the authentic and prepared separate volumes of authentic and weak ahadith. This work of Albani has made it easy for the ordinary Ulema to identify

the weak ahadith. Only a man of Shaykh Albani's caliber can do research on it. The ordinary Ulema and religious scholars of the Muslims are heavily indebted to him for this great work and they should keep it in view before mentioning any hadith. They should mention only the authentic ahadith and refrain from quoting the weak ones [meaning those classified as "authentic" and "weak" by al-Albani himself]. It is wrong to ignore this work on the ground that Shaykh al-Albani is not the last word on the subject.... As Muhaddithun have done a great service to the Muslim Umma by collecting and compiling the ahadith, similarly in the style of Muhaddithun, and in keeping with the principles laid down by them, the research carried out to separate the authentic ahadith from the weak is in fact an effort to complete their mission. In this age, Almighty Allah has bestowed this honor on Shaykh al-Albani", and we seek refuge by Allah, Who majestically transcends what those "commentators" conceive about Him. All this fawning will not hide the facts that al-Albani has been repeatedly warned against his tens of kufriyyat, and exposed as the innovator of this age par excellence and that his splitting of the books of Sunan into Sahih al-Tirmidhi and Da`if al-Tirmidhi and so forth is an unprecedented attack on the Motherbooks of Islam for which, undoubtedly, he shall be brought to account on the Day of Judgment as he was rejected for it by the Ulema of the Umma from East to West.

(s) Another systematic mistranslation for the Chapter-title 338 (2:1294) states: "Prohibition of placing the hands on the sides during Salat" when the Arabic clearly states al-khâsira which means "waist" or "hip" rather than "sides." The same mistranslation is then repeated in the body of the chapter, then a third time in the commentary. This mistranslation is part of the Wahhabi campaign against the Maliki form of sadl consisting in letting the arms hang down by the sides during the standing part of Salat. In some places of North Africa today, such as Marrakech, certain people are paid to declare takfir and tadlil, in the name of the Sunnah, of those who pray with their arms hanging by their sides although it is an established Sunnah, not disapproved in any of the Four Madhhayb, and even declared as the best for fard salawat in the fatwa of Imam Malik.

Truly we belong to Allah and to Him is our return, and there is no power nor might except in Allah the Exalted and Almighty Lord.

All sincere Muslims should consider themselves warned and warn others that this is NOT a Sunni translation of the great classic of Imam al-

Nawawi but an innovative, deviant, and inauthentic translation which should never have been allowed. And from Allah comes all success.

2nd Appenix

Question about Re-Forming Classical Texts

As far as Wahhabi tamperings with classical texts goes, how widespread is this heinous crime?

Can you give some serious examples of this?

Answer by Shaykh Ha Mim Nuh Keller

I do not know how widespread it is, but it certainly does exist. Of hard evidence that I have personally seen, there is the work that I am currently translating, Kitab al-adhkar [The book of remembrances of Allah] by Imam Nawawi. The text that Nawawi wrote in the Book of Hajj of the Adhkar reads: 

"Section: The Visit to the Tomb of the Messenger of Allah (Allah Bless Him and Give Him Peace), and the Remembrances of Allah Made There" 

"Know that everyone who performs the hajj should set out to visit the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace), whether it is on one’s way or not, for visiting him (Allah bless him and give him peace) is one of the most important acts of worship, the most rewarded of efforts, and best of goals. 

"When one sets out to perform the visit, one should do much of the blessings and peace upon him (Allah bless him and give him peace) on the way. And when one’s eye falls on the trees of Medina, and its sanctum and landmarks, one should increase saying the blessings and peace upon the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), asking Allah Most High to benefit one by one’s visit to him (Allah bless him and give him peace), and grant one felicity in this world and the next through it. One should say, "O Allah, open for me the doors of Your mercy, and bestow upon me, through the visit to the tomb of Your prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace),

that which You have bestowed upon Your friends, those who obey You. Forgive me and show me mercy, O Best of Those Asked"." (al-Adhkar al-Nawawiyya, 28384).

In the 1409/1988 printing of this work, published by Dar al-Huda in Riyad, Saudi Arabia, under the inspection and approval of the Riyasa Idara al-Buhuth al-‘Ilmiyya wa al-Ifta’ or "Presidency of Supervision of Scholarly Studies and Islamic Legal Opinion," the same section has been changed to agree with Ibn Taymiya’s view that setting out to visit the Prophet’s tomb (Allah bless him and give him peace) is disobedience. (It only becomes permissible, according to this point of view, if one intends visiting the mosque of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace).) The re-formed version reads as follows, italics showing the alterations made to Nawawi’s text: 

"Section: The Visit to the Mosque of the Messenger of Allah (Allah Bless Him and Give Him Peace) [deletion]" 

"Know that it is preferable, for whoever wants to visit the Mosque of the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace), [deletion] to make much of the blessings and peace upon him (Allah bless him and give him peace) on the way. And when one’s eye falls on the trees of Medina, and its sanctum and landmarks, to increase saying the blessings and peace upon the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), asking Allah Most High to benefit one by one’s visit to his mosque (Allah bless him and give him peace), and grant one felicity in this world and the next through it. One should say: "O Allah, open for me the doors of Your mercy, and bestow upon me, through the visit to the mosque of Your prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), that which You have bestowed upon Your friends, those who obey You. Forgive me and show me mercy, O Best of Those Asked".(al-Adhkar, 295)

The same printing has completely dropped nearly a half page of the section of tawassul (supplicating Allah through the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace)) when visiting the Prophet’s tomb - apparently to promote the Wahhabi doctrine that this is shirk or "assigning co-sharers to Allah." They have attributed the above words to Imam Nawawi without mentioning that it has been altered in any way. 

This should not surprise Westerners, who have had before them Muhammad Muhsin Khan’s translation of Sahih al-Bukhari for some

years now. In it, we find Bukhari’s heading about the effects of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace): "and of his hair, his sandals, and his vessels, of that which his Companions and others used to obtain blessings through after his death (yatabarraka bihi As-habuhu wa ghayruhum ba‘da wafatihi)," in which the words yatabarraka bihi have been rendered as "were considered as blessed things" in the English (Khan, Sahih al-Bukhari, 4.218). The Arabic verb tabarraka bihi signifies "He had a blessing; and he was, or became, blest; by means of him, or it" (Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon, 1.193), or often, "he looked for a blessing by means of," or "regarded as a means of obtaining a blessing from," him or it (ibid.)—in either case actually obtaining, or hoping to obtain, a blessing by means of these things, a nuance quite different from the passive "were considered as blessed," which does not entail any special benefit from them. 

Or consider the seventy-three-page "introduction" to volume one of this same translation, a tract that explains the Muslim Trinity: Tawhid al-Rububuyya, Tawhid al-Uluhiyya, and Tawhid al-Asma wa al-Sifat—the (1) Tawhid of Lordship, (2) Tawhid of Godhood, and (3) Tawhid of Names and Attributes. By way of preface to it, Dr. Khan notes that many Western converts enter Islam without knowing what belief in the Oneness of Allah really means. He clarifies that tawhid is not one; namely, to say and believe the shahada of Islam with complete conviction—as it was from the time of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) until the advent of Ibn Taymiya seven centuries later—as new converts might imagine, but must now be three in order to be one, and cannot be one without being three. While such logic may be already familiar to converts from Christianity, Imam Bukhari (d. 256/870) certainly never knew anything of it, and its being printed as an "introduction" to his work seems to me to qualify as "tampering with classical texts"—aside from being a re-form of traditional ‘aqida, in which Islam, in the words of the Prophet of Islam (Allah bless him and give him peace), "is to testify that there is no Allah except Allah, and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah . . ." (Sahih Muslim, 1.37: 8). 

Another example is found in the commentary of the famous Maliki scholar Ahmad Sawi (d. 1241/1825) on the Qur’anic exegesis Tafsir al-Jalalayn of Jalal al-Din Mahalli and Jalal al-Din Suyuti, in which he says of the verse "Truly, the Devil is an enemy to you, so take him as an enemy: he only calls his party to become of the inhabitants of the blaze" (Qur’an 35:6): 

"It is said this verse was revealed about the Kharijites [foretelling their appearance], who altered the interpretation of the Qur’an and sunna, on the strength of which they declared it lawful to kill and take the property of Muslims - as may now be seen in their modern counterparts; namely, a sect in the Hijaz called "Wahhabis," who "think they are on something, truly they are the liars. Satan has gained mastery over them and made them forget Allah’s remembrance. Those are Satan’s party, truly Satan’s party, they are the losers"." (Qur’an 58:1819). We ask Allah Most Generous to extirpate them completely (Sawi: Hashiya al-Sawi ‘ala al-Jalalayn, 3.255)

This passage is quoted from the ‘Isa al-Babi al-Halabi edition published in Cairo around the 1930s. It was also printed in its entirety in the Maktaba al-Mashhad al-Husayni edition (3.3078) published in Cairo in 1939, which was reproduced by offset by Dar Ihya’ al-Turath al-‘Arabi (3.3078) in Beirut in the 1970s. By the early 1980s, the Salafi movement, or oil money, or some combination of the two, had generated enough of a market to tempt Dar al-Fikr in Beirut to offset the same old printing, but with a surreptitious change. In the third volume, part of the bottom line of page 307 and the top line of 308 have been whited out, eliminating the words "namely, a sect in the Hijaz called ‘Wahhabis,’" venally bowdlerizing the whole point of what the author is trying to say about the modern counterparts of the Kharijites in order to sell it to them. The deletion was virtually indistinguishable from an ordinary spacing mistake, coming as it does at the ends of the two pages, though Dar al-Fikr made up for any technical shortcomings in this respect in 1993 with a newly typeset four-volume version of Hashiya al-Sawi ‘ala al-Jalalayn, which its title page declares to be "a new and corrected (munaqqaha) printing." The above passage appears on page 379 of the third volume with the same wording as the previous coverup, but this time in a continuous text, so no one would ever guess that Sawi’s words had been removed. 

Or consider the example from the two-volume Qur’anic exegesis of Abu Hayyan al-Nahwi (d. 754/1353), Tafsir al-nahr al-madd [The exegesis of the far-stretching river] condensed mainly from his own previous eight-volume exegesis al-Bahr al-muhit [The encompassing sea], arguably the finest tafsir ever written based primarily on Arabic grammar. Abu Hayyan, of Andalusion origin, settled in Damascus, knew Ibn Taymiya personally, and held him in great esteem, until the day that Barinbari (d. 717/1317) brought him a work by Ibn Taymiya called Kitab al-‘arsh [The book of the Throne]. There they found, in Ibn Taymiya’s own handwriting

(which was familiar to Abu Hayyan), anthropomorphic suggestions about the Deity that made Abu Hayyan curse Ibn Taymiya until the day he died. This was mentioned by the hadith master (hafiz) Taqi al-Din Subki in his al-Sayf al-saqil (85). Abu Hayyan, in his own Qur’anic exegesis of Ayat al-Kursi (Qur’an 2:258) in surat al-Baqara, recorded something of what so completely changed his mind: 

"I have read in the book of Ahmad ibn Taymiya, this individual whom we are the contemporary of, and the book is in his own handwriting, and he has named it Kitab al-‘arsh [The book of the Throne], that "Allah Most High is sitting (yajlisu) on the Kursi but has left a place of it unoccupied, in which to seat the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace)" [italics mine]. Al-Taj Muhammad ibn ‘Ali ibn ‘Abd al-Haqq Barinbari fooled him [Ibn Taymiya] by pretending to be a supporter of his so that he could get it from him, and this is what we read in it." (al-Nahwi, Tafsir al-nahr al-madd, 1.254)

This is of interest not only because it documents (at the pen of one of Islam’s greatest scholars) that Ibn Taymiya had a "double ‘aqida," one for the public, and a separate anthropomorphic one for an inner circle of initiates - but also because when Abu Hayyan’s work was first printed on the margin of his longer exegesis al-Bahr al-muhit in Cairo by Matba‘a al-Sa‘ada in 1910, the whole passage was deleted - intentionally, as the guilty party later confessed to Muhammad Zahid Kawthari, who quotes the above passage in a footnote to al-Sayf al-saqil and then says: 

"This sentence is not in the printed exegesis al-Bahr [al-muhit], for the copy editor at Matba‘a al-Sa‘ada told me he found it so extremely revolting that he deemed it too enormous to ascribe to a Muslim, so he deleted it, so it would not be exploited by the enemies of the religion. He asked me to record that here by way of making up for what he had done, and as a counsel (nasiha) to Muslims." (al-Sayf al-saqil, 85)

The deception was perpetrated anew when Abu Hayyan’s Tafsir al-nahr al-madd was printed on its own in Beirut with the same deletion by Dar al-Fikr in 1983, and was not rectified until Dar al-Janan and Mu’assasa al-Kutub al-Thaqafiyya in Beirut brought it out using original manuscripts of the work in 1987. 

I think these examples are sufficient to give a general idea of the process, though the motives may differ from case to case. And Allah knows best. 

3rd Appendix

Sunni Perceptions of Jihad and Martyrdom

by Shaykh Abu Omar Abdul Hadi Palazzi

[Text of the address to the February 20-23, 2000 International Conference on Countering Suicide Terrorism, organized by the Institute for Counter-Terrorism of the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzlyia]

As-salamu 'alaykum wa rahmat-Ullahi wa barakatuH.

I want to thank the International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism for the invitation to speak at this International Conference, in front of this distinguished and highly qualified public.

My main goal is marking a distinction between the traditional Islamic notion of jihad and martyrdom, and the distortion of those values made by radical and heretic movements which promote terrorism, and claim to do so "in the name of Islam".

This distinction is obviously a more general aspect of a basic dualism, and permits us to understand in details the differences between orthodox and traditional Islam -- the religion that was revealed by the Prophet Muhammad and whose main sources are the Qur'an and the Prophetic tradition (Sunnah) -- and the contemporary ideology that is commonly referred in the West as "Islamic fundamentalism".

As a Muslim scholar, I must first of all remark that I cannot agree with this same definition, so common in the contemporary media.  As a matter of fact, I personally never deal with "Islamic fundamentalism" or "Islamic radicalism", but rather with "pseudo-Islamic radicalism".  This depends on the fact that, according to my humble point of view, that contemporary extremism is not one of the legitimate keys of lecture of the Islamic message, but an evident distortion of Islamic values, an attempt to change Islam from a religious tradition into a political, totalitarian ideology.

Some Muslim scholars, like my friend and colleague Prof. Khalid Duran of Temple University of Philadelphia, mark the distinction between the orthodox Islamic doctrine and its political counterfeit by calling "Islam" the former, and "Islamism" the latter.

Prof. Duran writes:

"Whether Islamists like the term fundamentalist or not, their understanding of religion resembles that of fundamentalists in other religions.  This is not to say that Islamists are more religious or more genuinely Islamic than other Muslims.  A common misunderstanding in the West has it that Islamists are the one hundred percenters among Muslims, and that they are the people of tradition.  This is not at all the case. Islamists have a problem with the people of tradition, especially the Sufis (mystics).  Islamism is a late 20th century totalitarianism.  It follows in the wake of Fascism and Communism, picking up from those and seeking to refine their methods of domination.  Islamists mold tradition so as to serve their political ends.  This causes them to clash with traditionalist Muslims who resist this manipulation of religion for power politics.  Islamism is not a reaction of people feeling a loss of religious meaning, but a reaction to a sense of loss in the political sphere; it is a quest for power, an attempt to conquer the state, not to regain independence for religion, least of all individual faith".

"Like most totalitarian ideologies, Islamism is a utopianism.  Islamists seek to dominate by the most advanced technologies; in that sense they are modernists.  But their model for an ideal society takes inspiration from an idealized seventh century Arabia and an a-historical view of religion and human development in general.  It is an anachronistic mode of thinking in conflict with modern concepts of democracy, pluralism and human rights".

A relevant difference between Sunni Islam and Islamism is in the way of understanding the link between religion and politics.

"Few Muslims would deny that political commitment is part of Islamic ethics, but most disagree with the Islamist insistence that there exists a clearly defined 'Islamic system', different from all other political systems.  Islamists refuse to accept a secular state that puts a member of a non-Muslim minority at par with a member of the Muslim majority, and a woman at par with man".

According to the traditional Islamic theology, prophets are sent among human beings to teach them the necessary truths about the nature of Allah, about ethics, about those actions and those omissions which cause prosperity in this world and beatitude in the hereafter.  It can sometimes happen that those Prophets are called to preach in a milieu where a state and a complex social organization does not exist at all, and this causes them to assume a role of political leadership.

This was, for instance, the role of Moses as a leader of the Children of Israel in the exodus from Egypt, or the position of Muhammad as a governor of the State centered in Medina.  Even so, the Sunni belief teaches that this happens per accident, and political leadership is not among the necessary elements of the prophetic mastership.  As a matter of fact, the Noble Qur'an uses different titles to describe the Prophet Muhammad, sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam, but none of these titles is referred to a political function.

The Glorious Qur'an says that Sayyiduna Muhammad, sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam,  was sent as an "Admonisher", as a "Warner", as "someone who calls to Allah", as "a shining light", but it never says that he was send as a political leader or as a head of State.

Pseudo-Islamic radicals, on the contrary, have a completely opposite attitude. According to their point of view, the diffusion of Islam cannot be separated from the creation of a claimed "Islamic State", and the role of Muslim Ulema is immediately confused with the role of the leaders of a political movement or party.

Islamists continuously repeat that "Islam is both religion and government", and this is the basic description of their creed.  What they forget to underline is that those words "Islam is both religion and government" (al-Islam din wa dawlah), are never found in the Noble Qur'an, in the Hadith (the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad,  sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam) or in the ancient, authoritative Islamic sources.

As a matter of fact, this slogan was coined by Taqiyyu-d-Din Ibn Taymiyyah al-Harrani, an extravagant intellectual who lived during the thirteen and fourteenth century C.E., and who was condemned to life imprisonment for his numerous heresies.

Those who repeat his slogan "Islam is religion and government" are the same ones who, for instance,  deal with the supposed "liberation of Jerusalem from the hands of the Jews".  Unfortunately from them, the heretic Ibn Taymiyyah, from whom they take their slogan, is the same one who strongly denies any special role of Jerusalem in Islam.  Ibn Taymiyyah openly writes "there is no Muslim holy place in Jerusalem", but his followers claim to fight for the "liberation of Jerusalem" in the name of Ibn Taymiyyah.  This is a clear example of how Islamism is a confused ideology, wherein contradictions are simply passed under silence.

While many Western researchers are inclined to describe Islamism as a form of "resurgence of Islam", Muslim traditional Ulema read its appearance as a symptom of secularization, as a reshaping of their religion as a modern, ideological totalitarianism.  This is especially evident in the Islamist deformation of the role of jihad.  In the original meaning, jihad is not limited to the military field, but generally means "striving hard toward a goal".

According to some sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam,  that are contained in the compilation called Sahih al-Bukhari, "Pilgrimage is the jihad of  women", while "The jihad of someone who has old parents is taking care of them".  The military jihad was not a form of "expansion of the religion by means of the sword", but a form of defense against religious persecution.

The Qur'anic ayah giving permission for military jihad say:

"To those against whom war is made, permission is given [to defend themselves], because they are wronged.  And verily Allah is Most powerful for their aid.  [They are] those who have been expelled from their homes in defiance of right [for no cause] except that they say, 'Our Lord is Allah'.  Did not Allah check one people by means of another, there would surely have been pulled down monasteries, churches, synagogues and mosques, in which the name of Allah is commemorated in abundant measure. Allah will certainly help those who help His cause, for verily Allah is full of strength, exalted in Might".  [Qur'an, Sura 22:39-40]

As one can see, military jihad is not conceived to expand a certain faith by means of cohercition, but to defend the rights of those who are persecuted because of their religion.  The verses which describe violation of religious freedom as a justification for self-defense are clear in including not only

mosques, but also monasteries, churches and synagogues, among the places where Allah's name is frequently mentioned, and among the places that are necessary to protect, even by the recourse to war.

Apart from this, the legitimate form of military jihad is regulated by very strict rules:

1.  It must be waged by a regular army which wages war against another army.  Terrorist acts against civil population are not included in the definition of jihad.  The collection of Prophetic sayings that we have already mentioned, Sahih al-Bukhari, narrates that when the Prophet Muhammad was informed that a certain group of fighters of jihad had killed some women, he raised his hands and prayed by saying, "O Allah, be my witness that my hands are innocent of this crime".

2.  The reaction in self-defense must not be exaggerated.  The typical example of this is the story of Moses, 'alayhi-s-salam, and the Egyptian, as narrated in the Glorious Qur'an.  To defend an Israelite who was being beaten by an Egyptian, Moses, 'alayhi-s-salam killed an Egyptian.  No doubt, the Israelite was a member of the oppressed people, one of those who were persecuted because of their religion and enslaved, while the Egyptian was one of the oppressors.  The event could even been described as a legitimate form of jihad, but the Generous Qur'an does not support this opinion, and condemns Moses' reaction as exaggerated.  Moses himself, 'alayhi-s-salam, asks forgiveness for his excess.

The Noble Qur'an says, "And he [Moses] entered the city at a time when its inhabitants were in a state of heedlessness; and he found therein two men fighting one of his own religion and the other of his enemies.  And he who was of his party sought his help against him who was of his enemies.  So Moses struck the latter with his fist, and thereby caused his death.  Then Moses said, 'This is Satan's doing, he is indeed an enemy, a manifest misleader'.  He said, 'My Lord, I have wronged my soul, so do Thou forgive me'.  So He forgave him; for He is Most Forgiving, ever Merciful".  [Qur'an, Sura 28:15-16]

Moreover, the Glorious Qur'an also says, "And fight in the way of Allah against those who fight against you, but do not exaggerate.  Verily, Allah does not love those who exaggerate".  [Qur'an, Sura 2:190]

3.  When the former enemy is ready to stop hostilities and is looking for an

opportunity for peace, Muslims must stop fighting and accept to look for a peaceful solution.

The Qur'an says, "And make ready for those who fight you whatever you can of armed force and of mounted pickets at the frontier, whereby you may frighten the enemy of Allah and your enemy and others besides them whom you know not, but Allah knows them.  And whatever you spend in the way of Allah, it shall be paid back to you in full, and you shall not be wronged.  But if they incline towards peace, incline thou also towards it, and put thy trust in Allah.  Surely, it is He Who is All-Hearing, All-Knowing".  [Qur'an, Sura 8:60-61]

Martyrdom is in Islam, the praiseworthy condition of the one who offers his life as a witnessing for the Truth.  "Shahid", the word that we translate in English as "martyr", etymologically means "witness", someone whose existence is a living witnessing, even after his death.

About martyrs, the Qur'an says, "Think not of those who have been slain in the cause of Allah, as dead.  Nay, they are alive in the presence of their Lord, and are granted gifts from Him; jubilant because that which Allah has given them of His bounty; and rejoicing for the sake of those who have not yet joined them from behind them, because on them shall come no fear nor shall they grieve.  They rejoice at the favour of Allah and His bounty, and at the fact that Allah suffers not the reward of the believers to be lost".  [Qur'an, Sura 3:169-170]

As about suicide, it is clearly forbidden by Islamic law, even in the case when someone is committing it for a supposed good cause.  The Qur'an says, "And do not kill yourselves, for Allah is indeed merciful to you" [Qur'an, Sura 4:29].

The verse underlines how committing suicide is a direct negation of the Divine mercy.

In another verse it says "...And do not throw yourselves into  destruction with your own hands" [Qur'an, Sura 2:195]

The evil status in the hereafter of those who commit suicide is described in a saying of the Prophet Muhammad that is contained in Sahih Muslim, another authoritative compilation.  It says, "Whoever kills himself with a knife will be in hell forever stabbing himself in the stomach.  Whoever

drinks poison and kills himself will drink it eternally in the Hell fire.  And whoever kills himself by falling off a mountain will forever fall in the fire of Hell".

In the face of all these evident proofs, one is spontaneously led to ask himself a question:  how it is possible for some groups which claim to be "Islamic" and to "represent Islam" to advocate both terrorism against civil populations and suicide terrorism?

In my humble opinion, this is just one of the fruits of a heretical tendency, based on the deformation and the falsification of many basic elements of the Islamic belief.  Although those extreme consequences are recent enough, their point of departure must be identified with the beginnings of the Wahhabi heretical movement.  We think that understanding the nature and the theoretical apparatus of Wahhabism is essential to the comprehension of the contemporary Islamist radicalism, and also to the conception of possible countermeasures.

Moreover, in traditional Islam it is clear that military jihad, and all other forms of material jihad, only constitute the external aspect of jihad, while the inner dimension of jihad is the struggle that every Muslim undertakes to purify his soul from mundane desires, from defects, from egotism.  According to a well-known tradition, after coming back from a military expedition, the Prophet Muhammad said, "We have returned from the lesser jihad to the greater jihad" [Raja'na min jihad al-asghar ila jihad al-akbar].

Muhammed was asked, "O Messenger of Allah, what is the greater jihad?"  He answered, "It is the jihad against one's soul".

This narration has always been quoted by Sunni scholars as a means to explain the inner dimension of jihad, and especially Sufis have quoted it as an antidote against a limited, physical understanding of the nature of jihad.

Wahhabis, on the contrary, completely reject this tradition, in the same way that they deny any deeper understanding of the Islamic doctrine.  The recently disappeared leader of the Wahhabi sect, Nasir ad-Din al-Albani, recurred to all possible captious arguments to prove that this tradition is not authentic, and that the greater jihad simply does not exist.

On the contrary, we think that meditating on its contents can contribute very much to understanding the present situation of those who confuse jihad with terrorism.  Crimes against civil populations can by no means be a legitimate form of jihad, for the simple reason that they are caused by hate, the most irrational of human passions.  Since fighting those anti-human passions is in itself the greater jihad, refuting those who abuse the Islamic belief to legitimate terrorism is also a very important form of the real jihad.

For what concerns the origin on the Wahhabi movement, we must remember that the beginning of the eighteenth century of the common era witnessed the emergence of a movement in the Arabian Peninsula that would shatter the spiritual equilibrium of the Islamic world and lead to an explosion of primitive, violent and anti-intellectual tendencies.

The rallying cry of "returning to origins" was the primal scream of a primitivism that destroyed the life giving variety of Islamic culture. Multiplicity of opinion was replaced with a monolithic and simple-minded dogmatism.

Eighteenth century Arabia was among the most desolate areas of the Ottoman Empire.  Arabia's only claim to fame was the fact that its territory included the two Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina.  Ottoman Sultans were satisfied with nominal sovereignty over this region.  Power was effectively in the hand of local emirs and tribal chieftains whose loyalty toward the Sultan was dependent on cash payoffs such as exemption from taxation and a share in government revenues.

The City of Mecca was an autonomous district under the authority of the Sharif, the oldest representative of the Hashemite family.  As a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, the Sharif of Mecca was among the first to pledge allegiance when a new Sultan was elected. The Sharif's support was regarded as one of the most important forms of legitimacy for the Ottoman government.

The man who broke the chain of the pluralistic transmission of Islamic teachings was Muhammad Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab, a descendent of the Banu Tamim tribe, who was born in the Uyaynah village (Najd) in 1699 C.E.  His father was a learned Hanbali scholar, and sent him to study Qur'anic exegesis, jurisprudence and mysticism in Mecca, Medina, Baghdad, Basrah and Damascus, as well as in Iran and India.

Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab's attitude from the beginning was very polemical, and he took active part in scholarly debates.  At the age of thirty-two, Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab returned to Najd and started working as a teacher for Bedouins.  He demonstrated proficiency in academic debates and independence in judgment.

He did not follow the principles of any one of the four Sunni schools of Islamic jurisprudence.  Rather, he liked to reach his own conclusions and was ready to criticize sages regarded by all Muslim scholars as authoritative.

Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab became convinced that Islamic society was degenerate and in need of reform.  In his opinion, the traditional veneration of Muslim saints was idol-worship.  Those involved in it were apostates from Islam.  In his analysis of alleged "deviations" and "corruptions" he became more and more extremist.  He was finally excommunicated by his former teachers and even by scholars from his own family.

In 1730 C.E. Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab met Muhammad Ibn Sa'ud, chief thug of a gang of roving raiders whose "profession" was robbing pilgrims and travelers in the desert of Najd.  As most Bedouins living in Dar'iyyah were completely illiterate, Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab had no difficulty in convincing them of his ideas.

Ibn Sa'ud and Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab made a deal whereby the former was proclaimed political leader (emir) and the latter was proclaimed the religious authority (shaykh).  The "Shaykh" declared that he was ready to issue a religious decree (fatwa) whereby non-Wahhabi Muslims were branded "apostates" and "idol-worshippers".

This arrangement gave Ibn Sa'ud the cloak of religious legitimacy he needed to respectably persecute innocent people.  His gang was no longer a mob of traveling thugs and his victims were no longer innocent people. Ibn Sa'ud goons were now "fighters for jihad", authorized to murder "unbelievers", plunder their property and rape their women.  For the first time in the history, jihad was proclaimed against Muslims, and even against the Ottoman State, whose Sultan was considered the heir of the prophet Muhammad and the highest Islamic authority.  This obviously opened the way for many other cases in which the concept of jihad was

deformed.

Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab also ordained missionaries (wakil) and sent them to preach his heresy in Mecca.  However, scholars living in the Holy City already understood how dangerous his doctrine was.  Sayyid Ahmad Zayni Dahlan was at that time Chief Mufti of Mecca.  He wrote in his book "Al-Futuhat al-Islamiyyah":

"To deceive scholars in Mecca and Medina, those people sent emissaries to Mecca and Medina, but these missionaries were not able to answer questions asked by Sunni scholars.  It became evident that they were ignorant heretics.  Muftis of the four schools wrote a fatwa that declared them renegades, and this document was distributed throughout the entire Arabian Peninsula.  The emir of Mecca, Sharif Mas'ud ibn Sa'id, ordered the Wahhabis imprisoned.  Some Wahhabis fled to Dar'iyyah and informed their leader of what was happening".

Another scholar of that period, Muhammad Ibn Sulayman Effendi wrote:

"O Muhammad Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab, do not slander Muslims!  I admonish you for Allah's sake!  Does anyone of them say that there is a Creator besides Allah?  If you have anything to argue against Muslims, please, show them authoritative proofs.  It is more correct to call you, a single person, an unbeliever, than to call millions of Muslims unbelievers.  Allah says, 'If anyone contends with the Messenger after guidance has been plainly conveyed to him, and follows a path other than the one followed by Believers, we shall leave him in the path he has chosen, and land him in Hell, quite an evil refuge!' [Qur'an, Sura 4:114].  This verse points to the results of departing from Ahl as-Sunnah wa al-Jama'ah".

When the order from the emir of Mecca reached the Sultan in Istanbul, he ordered Muhammad 'Ali Pashah, governor of Egypt, to move to Najd and to stop the Wahhabi sedition.  Among the Sunni scholars who refuted Wahhabism one can also mention Sayyid Dawud Ibn Sulayman, Mawlana Khalid al-Baghdadi, Sun'Allah al-Halabi al-Makki al-Hanafi, Muhammad Ma'sum as-Sarhindi and Muhammad Ibn Sulayman al-Madani ash-Shafi'i.

The latter was the Shafi'i Mufti of Medina, who was asked to write a fatwa against Muhammad Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab.  This fatwa is quoted in the book "Ashadd al-Jihad" (The stronger jihad) and declares:

"This man is leading the ignoramuses of the present age to a heretical path.  He is trying to extinguish Allah's light, but Allah will not permit His light to be extinguished, in spite of the opposition of polytheists, and will illuminate every place with the light of Ahl as-Sunnah".

Although thousands of Muslims were murdered by Wahhabis, the scholars of Ahl as-Sunnah continued to refute them in their books.  An example is what the Mufti of Mecca, Ahmad Zayni ad-Dahlan al-Makki ash-Shafi'i wrote in a work entitled "Fitnah al-Wahhabiyyah" (The Wahhabi Sedition) stating:

"In 1802 C.E. they [the Wahhabis] marched with large armies to the area of at-Tayf.  In Dhu al-Qa'dah of the same year, they laid siege to the area occupied by Muslims, defeated them, and murdered all the people, including men, women, and children.  They also looted the Muslims' belongings and possessions.  Only a few people escaped their barbarism".

"They even stole gifts from the Noble Grave of the Prophet, took all that was there, and engaged in similar acts of profanation".

"In 1786 C.E. they laid siege to Mecca the Blessed and then surrounded it from all directions to tighten their siege.  They blocked the routes to the City and prevented supplies from reaching there.  This caused great hardship to the people of Mecca.  Food became very expensive and then unavailable.  The people resorted to eating dogs".

These events which we have briefly described disfigured the face of the Islamic world.  Mecca and Medina, the two Sanctuaries from which Islam spread to the rest of the world, were no longer centers for the transmission of the Sunni heritage of Islamic teachings.  They became places where certain aspects of worship according the four schools of Islamic jurisprudence were suppressed and replaced by a primitive and literalist cult that was propagated through violence and coercion.

But the drama did not stop there.  Like all other forms of totalitarian ideology, Wahhabism is expansionist by its own nature, and its goal was firstly to take possession of the whole Islamic world, and then to expand its influence beyond those limits.

The establishment of a world center for Wahhabi propaganda (the so-

called World Islamic League) in Mecca was the final result of a plan whose goal was to replace orthodox Islam with a puritanical so-called "Salafi school".  Dogmatic uniformity began to suffocate the humane and enlightened Islamic tradition.  The distortion of notions like jihad and martyrdom had a central role in their expansionist ideology.

From the second half of the nineteenth century C.E. and onward, Salafis (as Wahhabis define themselves) targeted as their main opponents to be silenced the University of al-Azhar al-Sharif in Egypt and other traditional centers of Sunni teachings.  Sunnis have always been alert to sectarian trends in theological interpretation.

The main instrument for the "Wahhabisation" of Arab society was an organization called Ikhwan al-Muslimun (the Muslim Brotherhood).  The Brotherhood's founder was Hasan al-Bannah, an elementary school teacher from Ismailiyyah who became one of the leaders of pro-British Masonry (United Lodge of England, Mother of the World) in Egypt.

From a religious point of view, al-Bannah was a "reformer" (but not so advanced in his knowledge of Islamic tradition).  From a political point of view, he was radically anti-Ottoman.  By creating his own sect, his goal was to develop a new ruling class whose ideology would be a form of "modernized" and "westernized" Islam.  Obviously, in the Wahhabi tradition, he used to describe the fight of his followers against their Muslim opponents as jihad.

Since then, leadership within the movement is hereditary.  Only members of certain families can hope to get important positions.  After World War II, Nasser attempted to outlaw the sect, but this drove the Muslim Brotherhood underground.

The Syrian dictator Assad bombed Hama, a Syrian city that was a center of the Brotherhood.  Members of the Brotherhood became more secretive than ever.  They learned to deny any connection to the organization, and even refuse to acknowledge that the Brotherhood exists at all.

From this point of view, there are similarities between their internal power struggles and those of organized crime.  Their leaders are extremely arrogant in imposing their will on legitimate Muslim organizations and communities.

In most cases, these so called militant Islamic fundamentalists are  from a religious point of view lay persons with little background in Islamic studies.  They are appointed as "imams" of important mosques, especially in democratic countries, were there is no "Ministry of Religious Affairs" to check their orientation and where imams having a regular permission to teach (ijazah shar'i) are the exception.

In most Western countries, members of this sect immigrated as University students and began to set up legitimate front organizations in different sectors of society.

The Palestinian Hamas is one of the important Ikhwan-controlled organizations in the Middle East.  Their leaders are not among the original families of founders.  On a worldwide level the leadership is  as before in the hands of Syrian and Egyptian elements.

For a radical militant who is poor, ignorant and fanatic, his life dream is to throw stones, commit acts of terrorism or kill himself and many innocent people as a suicide bomber.

For a militant with a bit more brains, his life dream is to travel abroad as a student and became a full time professional agitator and propagandist.  He will spent his life visiting mosques in the United States, England, France, Germany, Italy, etc., and speak (and it is nothing more than talk) about "jihad for Palestine", "fighting against the Zionist enemy" and other such slogans.

In so doing, the brainier radical will receive a generous, regular salary and money to finance his activities.  He will probably also learn how to collect donations, not only from major donors but also from local followers.

Their doctrine is that "people doing social work can keep the money they collect".  They start collecting money for poor children in Palestine, for refugees in Kosovo, for Bosnia, and after a week their leaders have new luxury items, which obviously are not declared as a private property.

The Egyptian branch controls a charitable institution called "Islamic Relief".  The Palestinian branch is supported by the United Arab Emirates through Human Appeal International.

Ikhwani beliefs were theologically refuted by Sunni scholars of the

Ottoman period.  After World War II, King Faysal of Saudi Arabia was in need of allies against secular Nasserianism.  The Egyptian leader of the Brotherhood, Sayyed Qutb, therefore received unexpected financial support from Faysal for their worldwide activities.

From then on, the vast majority of Ikhwans adopted Wahhabi doctrines.   Only an insignificant minority of them are Sunni.  Qutb's heir is today Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian professor who controls the Ministry of Religious Affairs in Qatar.

The fundraising game exploits conflicts between the Egyptian, Syrian and Palestinian branches of the Brotherhood.  As soon as, for example, Saudi Arabia starts increasing its support for one branch, Kuwait and the Emirates finance their internal opponents.  Real local leaders never have official positions inside the dependent organizations.  Their legal representatives are usually employed as figureheads only.

The Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is a Muslim Brotherhood front organization.  It works in the United States as a lobby against radio, television and print media journalists who dare to produce anything about Islam that is at variance with their fundamentalist agenda.  CAIR opposes diversity in Islam:  they are aggressive and closeminded.  Notwithstanding their evident connection to Hamas, they are regarded by the US administration as legitimate representatives of the Muslim American Community.

Another branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, the American Muslim Council (AMC), has the monopoly for the appointment and training of Muslim chaplains in the U.S. Army.  While non-fundamentalist Islamic organizations are more or less ignored by the US administration, Muslim American soldiers receive "spiritual assistance" from fundamentalist chaplains.

These are only some of the consequences of the influence of Saudi-American relations.

The leader of the Nazimi-Kabbani cult, the American-Lebanese Hisham Kabbani, recently declared in an open forum with the US State Department:

"We would like to advise our Government, our congressmen that there is

something big going on and people do not understand it.  You have many mosques around the United States.  It's not an organized government policy to supervise mosques as it is in Muslim countries".

"In Muslim countries, you cannot open a mosque by yourself.  That's why you see that in Muslim countries you cannot find extremist ideology.  As soon as you find extremist ideology, they kick the extremists out and bring in the traditional Islamic scholars".

"So the most dangerous things are going on in these mosques that have self-appointed leaders throughout the United States.  The extremist ideology makes them very active.  It was by election that these leaders took over the mosques".

"We can say that they took over eighty percent of the mosques in the United States.  There are more than 3,000 mosques in the United States. This means that the ideology of extremism has been spread to eighty percent of the Muslim population, mostly the youth and the new generation".

I cannot acknowledge Mr. Kabbani as an authoritative Muslim scholar.  I share the point of view of those who consider him the founder of a new American syncretistic cult.  Nevertheless, I admit that he is trying to show Westerners the reality behind the deceptive facade.  That over eighty percent of all mosques in the democratic countries are controlled by extremists is a matter of fact, not only in North America, but in most of Western Europe as well.

Local Ikhwani organizations are linked through a single secret world body, and membership in the organization requires an oath of strict secrecy.

Therefore, until recently it was impossible to find anything in writing about the organization's international structure or even its existence.

Since 1928 and throughout seventy years of Ikhwani activity, not a single piece of paper was ever signed or published in the name of "The Muslim Brotherhood".  Since March 13, 1998, the Californian branch has its own web site explaining the nature of the sect as follows:

"Al-Ikhwan has branches in over 70 countries all over the world.  The

movement is flexible enough to allow working under the 'Ikhwan' name, under other names, or working according to every country's circumstances".

"However, all Ikhwan groups, in all countries are characterized by the following with respect to their method:

Political Activism:  By putting political programs for 'Islamisizing' government in different countries (after realistic studies), and establishing these programs through the convenient ways which do not conflict with Islam.

Stressing Physical Health:  By forming sports clubs and committing members to regular exercises...

Establishing a Sound Economic Infrastructure:  By supporting and/or sponsoring any Islamic project and facing its "fiqh" problems.   By the way, the only accepted source of money to the Ikhwan is its members' own money".

In the contemporary world, opening a web site and calling its index the "home page of..." is one of the most evident forms of giving publicity to a certain activity.  Even so, the tradition of secrecy and the tendency to deny being a member is so deeply rooted that the Home Page of the Muslim Brotherhood ends with the following:

"Important Disclaimer:  The maintainer of this page is not a member of the Al-Ikhwan party and does not approve or agree with everything they say.  This page is for the soul purpose of answering the questions you always had and never knew who to ask.  This page has no political purpose of any kind and no connection whatsoever to any organization or institution".

In Italy, my country, there are two Ikhwan-controlled organizations:  the Union of Islamic Communities and Organizations in Italy (UCOII) and the Union of Muslim Students in Italy (USMI).

Although their membership does not exceed one hundred persons, due to a steady flow of foreign funds they are able to control a certain number of mosques in Italy.  In the past few years two of their leaders, 'Omar Tariq and Abu Ja'far, were expelled by a decree of the Minister of the Interior at

that time, Nicola Mancino.  Their presence in Italy was considered to be "dangerous for national security and public order".

As a matter of fact, the religious freedom that is granted by the Western system is causing a terrible consequence.  Radical movements, local branches of those same structures which promote terrorism in Middle East, are taking roots in the countries of immigration.  Although they do not represent there more that 10% of the total Muslim population, they are able to control most of mosques in Europe, in the United States and in Canada.

This situation has many causes; first of all, traditional Muslims do not identify the religious identity with the membership in an organized group.  Radicals, on the contrary, are not a spontaneous movement, but a worldwide organized Network; they use thousands different denominations, but the secret Muslim Brotherhood is always the inner circle behind the stage.

From this point of view, the distinction between "moderate" and "extremist" regimes of the Muslim world reveals its inner weakness.

Countries like Sudan, Iran and Afghanistan are easily identified as radical, totalitarian and enemies of the Western world, but their contribution to the international network of pseudo-Islamic fundamentalism is insignificant.

On the contrary, the powerful structure of the Muslim Brotherhood is mainly supported by those countries which are regarded as moderate and "friends of the West", Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the Arab Emirates.

Wahhabi fundamentalism is used as a tool for the preservation of the present equilibrium of the Arab world.  The rich Arab countries fear peace between Israel and Egypt, between Israel and Jordan, between Israel and the Palestinian Authority very much.  A pacified Middle East can create serious problems for the autocratic and feudal systems of those regimes.  They know for sure that the diffusion of notions like human and civil rights, democracy and parity of rights between men and women can represent the end of their unlimited power, and this is the reason why they support radicalism as an instrument of de-education and de-culturization.

The more advanced among the Arab countries are aware of this project

for the preservation of backwardness.  The governments of Tunisia, Morocco, and Jordan are taking measures to limit and to put the activities of the fundamentalist network under control.

Unfortunately, the real risk is that those same groups which are illegal in those countries are going to become the official representatives of Muslims immigrants to the Western governments.  As Hisham Kabbani and Khalid Duran are doing in the United States, our Institute is trying to inform the European governments about the risks they are facing.  While we are risking very much in doing so, it seem that until now our cry of alarm is only the voice of he who cries in the desert.

According to my point of view, the best means to limit the influence of those factions which promote suicide terrorism "in the name of Islam" is countering their influence by supporting the diffusion of the teachings of the exponents of traditional, moderate Islam.  In the same way, non-Muslims must avoid becoming victim of the same confusion by believing that real Islam is the one propagandized by the Wahhabis and by their fundamentalist network.

Dr. Asher Eder, Jewish Co-chairman of the Islam-Israel Fellowship of the Root & Branch Association, has recently written an interesting paper entitled, "Peace Is Possible between Ishmael and Israel according to the Qur'an".  I really think this paper is of the maximum importance, and felt honored in writing its Preface.  It helps non-Muslims to understand that the teaching of the Qur'an is something radically different from what is claimed by fundamentalists, and helps Muslims to understand that hate against Israel and against Jews is by no means a part of their religion.

Dr. Eder's paper can be considered a small seed, but we are now realizing how it is giving fruits with the passing of time.

The President of Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov, has recently founded a new Islamic International University in Tashkent.  Among the main goals of this University there is the formation of moderate imams and Muslim religious leaders, especially trained in refuting fundamentalism and in promoting dialogue between Jews, Christian and Muslims. His example was also followed by the Mufti of Russia, Shaykh Gainutdin, who opened the first Islamic University of Russia in Kazan.

This could mean that, for the first time, an anti-fundamentalist Muslim

network can at last be created.  If compared to the worldwide influence of the Muslim Brotherhood, its role can be compared to that of David in front of Goliath.  But this cannot lead us to loose all hopes, since, as the Qur'an says, "How oft, by Allah's will, hath a small force vanquished a big one?  Verily, Allah is with those who steadfastly persevere" [Qur'an, Sura 2:249].

Conclusion

Risalah on the Prophetic Dream

by al-Hajj Abu Junayd Muhammad Abdus Salaam

Assalaamu 'alaykum,

In the Riyad us-Saliheen, 1998 Edition published by Darussalam, you will find the following on pages 696-700 in the commentary. Briefly, let me quote the commentators statement regarding the Hadith no. 840.

"Yet, Satan may also appear in a believer's dream under a saintly guise and put him into delusion that he had seen Allah's Messenger (SAW)." and Hadith 844: (This is false) "There are always some so-called 'Ulama,' ambitious of social distinction and fame, who have made tall claims on the basis of their dreams. They are audacious enough to claim that they unceremoniously see the Prophet (SAW) and receive instructions from him." The Prophet (SAW) said: He who lies concerning me will find his seat in Hell.

These are very misleading comments which upon examination show the true intentions of the Wahhabi doctrines. The denial of seeing the Prophet (either in a dream or awake) is also a denial of the established statements made by many well known Sahabah (RA), Tabi'iyn (RA), Taba Tabi'iyn, Awliya (RA) Shuyukh and Salihiyn.

Further as an example, in the Shamaa'il of Imam Tirmidhi (RA), pages 448-458in both Arabic and English, it states quite clearly:

In a Hadith from Abu-Dawud (RA) that dreams are of three (3) types: 1. angelic, 2. satanic 3. nafsani.

In the first Hadith no. 389 related by 'Abdullah b. Masud (RA), he reports that Allah's Apostle said: "The one that has seen me in one's dream, has really seen me, as the shaytaan cannot imitate my person. The Arabic for the last part of the statement is very important:

"shaytaan cannot imitate my person:" fa-inna alshaytaan laa yatmathal-biy.

In the next Hadith no. 390, Abu Hurayrah (RA) narrates a similar Hadith with the difference of the statement 

"shaytaan cannot impersonate me." The Arabic says: "Laa yatshabbaha-biy."

In Hadith 394 narrated by Abu Qatadah it says: The Apostle of Allah (SAW) said:

"Whomsoever sees me , that is, in a dream, has seen that which is a fact."In the Arabic the words used are: "Man ra'niy ya'niy fiy alnawm faqad ra'ay al-haqq."

These three Aahadith contain the words:1. yatmthl (mithal) similitude2. yatshabbah (shabbah) likeness3. al-haqq (the truth) fact.

There are many more Traditions which by the way are supported by Quranic passages with tafsiyr dealing with the words "mubashshirat."

The statements of Shaykh Palazzi regarding the Najdis are clear and forthright. Muslims seeking guidance must seek out the proper authorities from among the Ahl as-Sunnah wal-Jama'ah scholars since the world leaders of Islam have come under the sway of these renegades.

Please note, this is a very exhaustive subject with a lot of material and proof.

The 'Aqidah al-Murshidah by Imam Ibn 'Asakir

Shaykh Fakhru-d-Din Ibn 'Asakir, may Allah have mercy upon him, said:

Know, may Allah guide us and you, that it is obligatory upon every accountable person to know

that Allah is the only God in His dominion.

He created the entire world, the upper and lower, the 'Arsh and the Kursi, the heavens and earth, and what

is in them and in between them.

All the creation is subjugated by His Power. No speck moves except by His will.

He has no manager for the creation with Him, and has no partner in Dominion.

He is Living and Self-Subsistent. He is not seized by somnolence or sleep.

He is the One Who knows about the unforeseen and what is evidenced by His creation. Nothing on earth

or in heaven is hidden from Him. He knows what is on land and in sea. Not a leaf does fall but He knows

about it. There is no grain in the darkness of earth, nor anything which is moist or dry but is inscribed in

a clear Book. His Knowledge encompasses everything. He knows the count of all things.

He does whatever He wills. He has the power to do whatever He wills.

To Him belong the kingdom and He needs none; To Him belong the glory and Everlastingness. To Him are

the ruling and the decree. He has the names of perfection. No one hinders what He decreed. No one

prevents what He gives. He does in His kingdom whatever He wills. He rules His creation with

whatever He wills.He does not hope for reward and does not fear

punishment.

There is no right on Him that is binding, and no one exercises rule over Him.

Every endowment from Him is due to His Generosity and every punishment from Him is just. He is not

questioned about what He does, but they are questioned.

He existed before the creation. He does not have a before or an after. He does not have an above or a below, a right or a left, an in front of or a behind, a

whole or a part.

It must not be said: When was He? Or where was He? Or how is He? He existed without a place. He created the universe and willed for the existence of time. He

is not bound to time and is not designated with place.

His management of one matter does not distract Him from another. Delusions do not apply to Him, and He

is not encompassed by the mind. He is not conceivable in the mind. He is not imagined in the self

nor pictured in delusions. He is not grasped with delusions or thoughts. Nopthing is similar to Him, and

he is the All-hearing and all-seeing.

Know, may Allah be merciful to you by guiding you to the acceptable deeds, that our Master Muhammad, the son of 'Abdullah, the son of 'Abdul Muttalib, the son of Hashim, the son of 'Abdu Manaf, the son of

Qusayy, the son of Kilab, the son of Murrah, the son of Ka'b, the son of Lu'ayy, the son of Ghalib, the son of Fihr, the son of Malik, the son of an-Nadr, the son

of Kinanah, the son of Khuzaymah, the son of Mudrikah, the son of Ilyas, the son of Mudar, the son of Nizar, the son of Ma'add, the son of 'Adnan, is the slave of Allah, His Messenger, His Prophet, and His

Beloved

He is the best of the entire creation, and the leader of his followers who will have shining faces and

illuminating upper arms and lower legs on the Day of Judgment. His Lord sent him to the humans and jinn

as a luminous lantern, giving good tidings and warnings, and calling to worship Allah by His Will.

He got the Revelation through the entrusted Jibril who is the head of the honored angels. Allah created them from light. Obedience is inherent in them, and Allah gave them the strength to obey. They do not sleep and they do not get tired. They do not eat or

drink. They do not disobey Allah, but rather they perform all that which they are ordered to do.

His Book is the wise Dhikr. His laws are straight, truthful, and easy. His Ummah is the best of the

communities. No human has a higher status than his, and no creature can attain his status.

He is the last of the Prophets and their leader, the most knowledgeable among them and the highest in

status, the most articulate and the strongest, the most beautiful, brave, courageous, and generous. He

had the most signs among them and the most outstanding miracles.

All the prophets were people of merit and patience, belief and certainty, truthfulness and religiousness,

chastity and impeccability, intelligence and brilliance, trustworthiness; and conveyance of the message. The prophets were numerous, the first of them was Adam, peace be upon him, who was created from clay as an

unimpaired human in the best of forms. After him among his offspring are: Shith, Idris, Nuh, Hud, Salih, Shu'ayb, Ibrahim, Lut, Isma'il, Ishaq, Ya'qub, Yusuf,

Musa, Harun, Yeshu'a, Yunus, Ayyub, Dhu-l-Kifl, Ilyas, Alyasa', Dawud, Sulayman, Zakariyya, Yahya, 'Isa, al-

Khadir, and many others.

Their religion is one: Islam, submission to Allah's will. They are the best of Allah's creations. They are alive,

praying in their graves. They are mediators who intercede on the Day of Judgment, and the intercession of our prophet is the greatest.

The summation of all what was mentioned in the 'Aqidah named Al-Murshidah and in this supplement is included in the hadith of the Messenger of Allah, sall-Allahu 'alayhi wa sallam: "Iman is to believe in

Allah, His angels, His books, His messengers, the Day

of Judgment, and Destiny, in what is good and what is evil. This hadith is sahih, and is related by Muslim.

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