There are various narrations which give the meaning that the majority of Ummah shall not be misguided. The clearest of which is:
Abū Umāmah (rd) said that I heard Rasūlullāh(sa) saying: ”The people of Israel splitted into 71 sects, Christians splitted into 72 sects, my Ummah will outnumber them in divisions, all of them are in fire except the largest group(Al-Sawād ul-Aʿzam).
Ibrāhīm al-Kūrānī (rh) graded it is Ḥasan li-ẓātihī and Ṣaḥīḥ li-ghayrihī. Similar meaning can also be derived as an implication of other narrations such as:
1- A group of Ummah will remain ẓāhirīn the enemies. The word ẓāhirīn can entertain two meanings: (i) this group shall be victorious in military sense or in the sense of prevailing over them with arguments, and (ii) this group shall be visible as the representative of Islām, i.e., for a Christian or a Hindū, Sunnī Islām has always been the mainstream Islām. That spot cannot be taken by a heretical group. Likewise, most of the jihād in the Ummah is carried out by Sunnīs.
2- Allāh(swt) will send reviver at the turn of every century. The implication of this is again that a reviver is supposed to cleanse the Dīn of its major misguidances.
These prophecies go squarely against any group which claims to be on a narrative that majority of Ummah’s scholars, it Mujāhidīn, etc., are part of the 72 deviant sects. In our times, these prophecies go against a type of Salafīs who expel non-Salafīs from the fold of Sunnism. This is because the dominant achievements in Jihād, Conquests, islamic sciences, etc., have been carried out by those whom they consider outside Sunnism. Muʿtazilah also faced this issue before them.
When it comes to argument using the prophecy of Al-Sawād ul-Aʿzam, the Salafis feel compelled to raise objections against it, either via criticizing the authenticity of the narration or changing the meaning of jamāʿah. Al-Sawād ul- Aʿzam used to be one of the arguments of AhluSunnah against the Muʿtazilah.
We have to ask ourselves, do we wish to understand the words of Rasūlullāh(sa) , or do we want to set these very important words aside because they go against us? A couple of observations about this narration:
1- It does not say that the majority of humans will be guided. So majority of humans can be Kuffar, but that is not the subject of the narration.
2- It does not say that most Ummah of Muhammad(sa) have to follow the correct position in every matter. That is, again, not the subject of this narration.
3- It does not say that the majority of Ummah cannot be weak in acts or be sinful. That is, again, not the subject of this narration.
4- It does not say that the majority of Ummah cannot hold an incorrect secondary theological view.
The narration says something very specific that the group, which Rasūlullāh(sa) called the saved group in the Ummah out of other deviated sects, will have this characteristic that this group shall dominate the Ummah. This argument has been used by AhluSunnah in every other work: from a treatise named Al-Sawād ul-Aʿzam among Māturīdīs to how Abū Manṣūr ʿAbdul Qāhir al-Baghdādī (rh) argues in his works. The AhlulHadith cited this against the Muʿtazillah, prompting, Qāḍī ʿAbdul Jabbār to write a refutation. The Salafī defense mirrors that of Qāḍī ʿAbdul Jabbār. I will mention these points and how they do not contradict the apparent of what is reported from Rasūlullāh(sa).
Know the truth, you will know its people
This statement is attributed to ʿAlī (rd), but the essence of this argument is repeated via different statements. A similar statement is that truth is truth, regardless of how many people follow it. This argument does not attack the essential concept in the narration. In the narration, Rasūlullāh(sa) described the essential characteristic of AhluSunnah, which is following the way of companions and a characteristic that Rasūlullāh(sa) prophecized for ease of identification.
So we have to differentiate between (a) the essence of truth or falsehood and (b) characteristics that are prophecised to make it easier to identify.
This is analogous to how Rasūlullāh(sa) described khawārij with an essential characteristic that the Qurān will not pass down their throats and a bunch of characteristics for ease of recognition, such as their physical features and how they will kill the believers leaving the disbelievers. The essential characteristic is their mindset, not their shaving of heads or even their killings. An non-kharijite oppressor could also kill many Muslims. Rasūlullāh(sa) tells these characteristics to make things easier. The essential misguidance of khawarij lies in their mindset, due to which they cannot understand the texts.
The concept of Al-Sawād ul-Aʿzam does not say that truth is truth just because the majority of Muslims follow it; it says that the people following way of companions will be upon the truth, and a way to recognize it is that the majority of Ummah will do that (as a prophecy).
Moreover, we are not arguing that one should not follow the Dalīl. If someone completely disregards the precedence and follows the argument, then he still arrives at the correct conclusion, that is the best. The concept of Al-Sawād ul-Aʿzam is to aid in thought process, since people are many times influences by emotions, blind-following, etc.
Also, so that one does not fool you by making up a false claim of majority or precedence. Some people claim to be Ashʿarīs but are not Ashʿarīs, some people. claim to be Atharīs but are not Atharīs, some people claim to be Māturīdīs but are not Māturīdīs. They all claim precedence, majority, and tradition. So one still has to do homework to sort out the fake claims, but the prophecy of Rasūlullāh(sa) at least helps eliminate the clear cases and serve a clear purpose of making things easier.
Unfortunately for Salafis who claim that majority of Sunni scholars belong to the 72 deviant sects (and Muʿtazilah before them) are clear cases as they are a straight- forward elimination since they do not even lay claim to precedence. In fact, prominent Salafi authors write and boast about how centuries before Ibn Taymiyyah (rh), people lived in times like Fatrah between prophets.
Jamaʿah could be one man as narrated from some Salaf, plus why do we need consensus if the majority is right.
This again does not explain the narration since it is about something else. We agree that only few people in the Ummah can be correct in Furūʿ. The question is: can majority of Ummah for centuries remain misguided as in leave the way of companions?
To help better understand, I give the following example:
We can agree that one or two companions out of the whole group of companions could be correct on a Farʿī matter, and most companions could be wrong. Some Salafīs take the sole position of ʿĀyesha(rd) that if an adult suckles a woman’s milk, the relationship is established, so they consider the majority of companions on this Farʿī issue wrong except one.
Can we say that the majority of companions became misguided? No. Because the scripture guarantees their guidance as the protection mechanism of Dīn it- self relies upon this guarantee. Similarly, Rasūlullāh(sa) has given this guarantee to the Ummah. Only difference is that when it comes to companions, even their minority cannot be misguided in theology, but for Ummah, the guarantee is for Al-Sawād ul-Aʿzam.
The statement of Ibn Masʿūd(rd) .
It is narrated from Ibn Masʿūd(rd) that he said group on truth can be one person. Again, this can either mean within humanity, one person can be on the truth like Ibrāhīm (as) or it could mean that one person within the Ummah could hold a correct view in Furūʿ. We do not have to take this narration to cancel the clear words of Rasūlullāh(sa) . If we understand this statement like Salafis then it is possible that a Muslim on the island of indonesia is the saved-sect and everyone else is from the 72 deviant sects. This also leads to possibility of belief of Rawāfiḍ.
My Ummah will follow the footsteps of the people of book
From the basics of Arabic, the comparison does not imply comparison from all aspects. There is a fundamental difference between Ummah of Rasūlullāh(sa) and that of other prophets: Rasūlullāh(sa) was the last of prophets. This means that if our religion got hijacked in a manner compared to what happened with Christianity, then either a new prophet has to come, or the revelation is lost without any hope of recovery. Both are impossible in our case. So the following footsteps of the people of Book is valid for sects who will not be Al-Sawād ul-Aʿzam. Hence, Islām had its Saint Pauls in the form of Ibn Saba, Muqātil Bin Sulayman (the Mujassim whose views still echo in some Salafi works), Jahm Bin Safwan, etc. Yet, most of the Muslim tradition, its scholars, Mujahedin, etc., did not fall for them.
Prophets were minority and Idolatory will return to Arabia
This, once again, ignores what the narration is about. Narration claims that a major group of Muslims will be upon truth, not that the majority of humans will be Muslims. The Arabs who will worship Idols near the day of judgment will be disbelievers. The narration does not negate that Muslims will be or can be in the minority, it simply states that among Muslims, the majority will be upon the way of companions.
But Different schools dominated in various times due to political reasons
We say that heretical sects can dominate a certain geography and a certain time, but their dominance cannot be for many centuries and from East to the West. There is a clear difference between these two types.
But Ashʿarīs also discarded majority?
Ibn ʿAsākir argues that what matters is the majority of scholars. He makes an effort to cite scholars so he does not disregard majority. This is because no consensus can be carried out for the lay people, an Ashʿarī can claim that lay people are on their way by default, a Salafī can claim the same, a Muʿtazilite can claim the same. Therefore, the calculation of Al-Sawād ul-Aʿzam is done by factors such as: Where do most scholars of Islām belong to? Those who preserved the Qurān (Qurān), the ḥadīth, and those who developed fiqh that most Muslims follow. Those who carried out Jihād in the way of Allāh(swt) . The majority of Muslims are bracketed where the majority, as mentioned above, lies.
However, assuming that some Ashʿarīs scholars did write it so. We would say that they are wrong because the words of Rasūlullāh(sa) cannot be cancelled due to this scholar or that scholar. Furthermore, the Ashʿarīs of a certain era can be wrong in tabdīʿof their opponents. Rasūlullāh(sa) did not specify that this majority group cannot have internal issues due to various reasons. In fact, every strand has a history of internal tabdīʿ. Ashʿarīs and Māturīdīs had internal issues before reaching general understanding. Atharīs had internal issues on the issue of Lafz, Ḥarf, etc.
Even now, Salafīs lay false claim to scholars like Ibn Qudāmah (rh), Ḥanbalī scholars, many IndoPak AhleHadith, Shawkānī, etc., who should be in their blacklist. ʿUmar (rd) falsely understood Ḥāṭib(rd) of being a hypocrite but he was not. So if a believer can misjudge another believer of Kufr then what prevents a Sunni from misjudging another Sunni?
People falsely claim that they are Al-Sawād ul-Aʿzam
So what? People can falsely claim to be anything. Qadianis claim to be Muslims. As we said earlier, one should follow the evidence to prevent from falling for wrong claims. But the Al-Sawād ul-Aʿzam servest to guide and aid his process of following the evidence.
Importance of the concept of Al-Sawād ul-Aʿzam
Keeping heretics of all stripes biting their teeths
The utility of Al-Sawād ul-Aʿzam is obviously not limited to Salafis. It has a strong use against modernists. For example: Ghamidi claims that all variant readings are invalid except one. Feminist-minded people claim that women enjoyed great freedom in time of Rasūlullāh(sa) until the cultural aspects started to dominate. The rejectors of Hadith claim that Ummayyads and some leading Muhadithin close to them conspired to doctor the religion. Orientalists make similar claims. Shi’as claim that companions hijacked Islam. All of these people have a strong issue with the concept of Al-Sawād ul-Aʿzam.
Classification of theological differences
Al-Sawād ul-Aʿzam also has an important purpose of calibrating the differences within Sunnism. This is because the theological differences are of many types:
Semantical differences.
Real differences which do not necessitate expulsion from Sunnism.
Real differences which do necessitate expulsion from Sunnism.
The concept of Al-Sawād ul-Aʿzam helps protect against false alarms, i.e., the false expulsions arising from (1) and (2). A typical example of (1) will be the dispute between Hanafis and AhlulHadith on Iman-’Amal distinction. Since the Salafis do not adhere to the Al-Sawād ul-Aʿzam concept, it is easy for them to expel the entirety of Hanafi tradition from AhluSunnah. Some of the Sunni scholars could also fall for mistaken internal tabdīʿ but that does not make them right. Likewise, the lack of adherence to Al-Sawād ul-Aʿzam makes them fall for tabdīʿ on issues which are not very objective and there is a high degree of subjectivity. Likewise, they have their own problematic theological beliefs which could be corrected if they only gave words of Rasūlullāh(sa) the importance they deserve.
Conclusion
The conclusion is that the clear-cut implications of prophecies cannot be disregarded and set aside due to these arguments.
The issue of the condition of a Qurayshi for leadership can be divided into three views:
1- It is a condition for Khalifah just like it is a condition to be a Muslim male.
2- A Khalifah should be Qurayshi so long as no Mutaghalib non-Qurayshi claims power by force.
3- Being Qurayshi by lineage is not a condition; rather, it was due to other reasons like the Quraysh’s prowess in Siyasah and the geopolitical environment of Arabia or the lack of certainty on the matter. This is the view of Juwayni al-Shafi’i, Ibn Khaldun, Munawi, few Hanafis, and I also found it argued rigorously by Mufti Abdul Sattar Dehlawi among AhleHadith of IndoPak in his Fatawa Sattariyyah and Mawlana Hussain Ahmad Madani and Mufti Sa’id Ahmad Palanpuri among Deobandies.
The arguments for (1) are well-known, (2) are also found in various sources but the arguments for (3) are also interesting. The strongest argument is two narrations from ‘Umar(ra) and ‘Ayesha(ra) and a deeper look into the narrations used for Qurayshi lineage as a condition. It is narrated from ‘Umar(ra) that he said about Salim Abi Hudhayfah or Mu’adh Ibn Jabal that he would have made a Khalifah[1، 2]. ‘Ayesha(ra) narrated same about Zaid Bin Haritha that if he was alive he would have succeeded Rasulullah(sa)[3]. The chains of both statements are sound.
Hafiz Ibn Hajar has to concede that the claim of Ijma’ requires a ta’wil of what is narrated from ‘Umar which proves that the narration holds considerable weight in weakening the Ijma'[2]. A similar statement also narrated from ‘Ayesha which Hafiz Ibn Hajar did not deal with, so essentially we need Ta’wil of two authentically narrated statements from two major companions. So what can be the Ta’wil?
The comments of ‘Umar (and by extension ‘Ayesha) are regarding leadership positions lesser than Khilafah; this goes against the clear apparent meaning of the narrations from ‘Umar and ‘Ayesha.
‘Umar changed his view. Hafiz Ibn Hajar counts it as a possibility. This is also strange since the narration of ‘Umar appears to be from his death bed. So this is also not possible.
Ijma’ occurred after ‘Umar and ‘Ayesha despite their dissenting views. This is the only possible viable interpretation and the one also given by Hafiz Ibn Hajar; however, this concedes that two major companions did not agree with this Ijma’ from the start. What compounds the problem is the principle that if a companion narrates a narration and acts or expresses another contrary view, he must have a ta’wil of narration. So even if Ijma’ is accepted to have occurred later, its strength is affected by views of ‘Umar(ra) and ‘Ayesha(ra). Instead, it appears that the narrations used for Qurayshi lineage being Shart could have been understood differently by ‘Umar himself.
The narrations people often bring for Qurayshi lineage, being Shart have other possibly better explanations. First is which is in Bukhari:
إن هذا الأمر في قريش، لا يعاديهم أحد إلا كبه الله على وجه، ما أقاموا الدين
There is firstly a debate if it’s Amr or a Khabr. If it is Khabr, then it is qualified by “ما أقاموا الدين”. Many scholars understood it as a prophecy and justified it until their times when Mamluks had a puppet Khalifah in Egypt. Its discussed in Fath-ul-Bari:
However, from our vantage point, the prophecy can no longer be accepted except with the meaning: “Khilafah will remain with the Quraysh and no one will be able to wrestle it from them so long as they establish Din”. By contrast, when they no longer establish the Din or are ineffective puppets, someone can take the matter from them as the Turks did. This narration does not indicate Shart. It may indicate the opposite that if they do not establish Din, Allah(swt) may take it away from them and give it to someone else who will establish it.
Another narration which is used for arguing that Qurayshi lineage is Shart also weakens that view. It is the one in Tirimdhi:
This weakens the Shart view because the phrase (leadership is in Quraysh) is followed by Judgement is in Ansar, Adhan in Habashah and Amanah in Azd. As Ummah did not understand the rest of the three in the manner of حصر, the first phrase (الملك في قريش) must also not be understood as حصر. As Mufti ‘Abdul Sattar al-Dehlawi points out, this Hadith is used to say that leadership skills are found in Quraysh, judicial skills are found among Ansar, and so on.
The same goes for other narrations, which simply describe the political reality of that time that people follow Quraysh. In the end, my personal view is that of Anwar Shah Kashmiri that this issue is originally a Furu’i fiqh issue that has nothing to do with Aqidah. Ultimately, it is better to have a Khilafah who is Qurayshi in lineage as it potentially solves the tensions that may occur within ethnic groups of Ummah. However, the claim of Ijma’ and certainty on this issue are not well founded given the narrations from ‘Umar, ‘Ayesha, and how the narrations themselves can be interpreted. What is especially important to understand is that the side which does not consider Qurayshi lineage as a condition can explain away all the narrations while the other side faces difficulty in explaining the narrations from ‘Umar(ra) and ‘Ayesha(ra).
[1]
قال ابن أبي شيبة حدثنا محمَّد بن عبيد عن وائل بن داود قال سمعت البهي يحدث أن عائشة كانت تقول: مابعثرسولاللهزيدبنحارثة في جيش قط إلا أمره عليهم، ولو كن حيا بعده لاستخلفه.
حدثنا عفان حدثنا حمّاد بن سَلَمة عن علي بن زيد عن أبي رافع: أن عمر بن الخطاب كان مستندًا إلى العباس وعنده ابن عمر وسعيد بن زيد، فقال: اعلموا أني لم أقُل في الكلالة شيئًا، ولم أستخلف من بعدي أحدًا، وأنه من أدرك وفاتي من سبي العرب فهو حر من مال الله ﷿، فقال سعيد بن زيد: أما إنك لو أشرت برجل من المسلمين لائْتَمنَك الناس، وقد فعل ذلك أبو بكر وائتمنه الناس، فقال عمر: قد رأيت من أصحابي حرصًا سيئًا. وإني جاعل هذاالأمر إلى هؤلاء النفر الستة الذين مات رسول الله – ﷺ – وهو عنهم راضٍ، ثم قال عمر: لو أدركني أحد رجلين ثمجعلتهذاالأمرإليهلوَثقتبه: سالمٌ مولى أبي حذيفة، وأبو عبيدة بن الجراح
[ إسناده صحيح. على بن زيد: هو ابن جدعان. أبو رافع: هو نفيع بن رافع الصائغ، تابعي كبير أدرك الجاهلية]
In this article, I will analyze the umayrist representing the salafī side vs awnist exchange on the issue of defining Ibādāh (عبادة; worship). The point of sunnī kalāmī schools and especialy that of deobandī tradition becomes relevant.
This is because Sultan al-Umayri does not limit the argument in his work to Salafi-Najdi tradition, rather he presents an anti-Awnist argument from various angles, whereas the students of Shaykh Hatim al-Awni argued their case in English language with the inclusion of an individual who has completed his education from Deobandī institute.
2 Abstract
The following conclusions will be shown from the Ḥanafī Deobandī side (and by extension that of AhluSunnah). Acts of worship can be divided into two types:
1: Acts contingent upon beliefs One where the person ascribes divine qualities to the object being worshiped and performs acts for the sake of that being. All three sides (Awnist, Salafist, ours) agree that such acts constitute worship. They disagree on what constitutes divinequalities. We disagree with Awnists and Najdi-Salafis on the nature of those divinequalities. The Awnists may not consider encompassing knowledge, hearing every creation everywhere, being able to grant everyone every need as a divinequality unless it is considered independent (as per their definition) of God. We will consider this as coming within the definition of divinequalities, likewise we will consider the necessary intercessor with the belief in an un-reachable God due to spatial distance, simplicity, or too sublime God, or a perfect intercessor, as ascribing a divine quality even if that is not Shirk in Rubūbiyyah. On the other hand, the Najdi Da’wah would consider Tawassul from near the grave, any generic mistaken ascribing of power beyond normal means and calling upon as Shirk, which we will not.
2: Acts without belief in divine qualities – Acts which a person does without ascribing the above-mentiond qualities. These acts are classified as indicating worship with certainty or with uncertainty. The ruling of Shirk can only be applied if the act indicates a belief with certainty. The certainty depends upon looking at Sharīah (شريعة; Way of Islamic law) and custom. When such acts are performed by a person, this can further be split into types:
One in which the person knows that he is doing worship or realizes that he is dedicating an act specific to worship of a divinity to other than Allāh(swt) This will fall into Shirk via Taqlīd in our understanding even if he does not have specific set of beliefs mentioned above, this is similar to what is formulated by alSanusi (rh) (d. 1485AD/890AH).
Other in which the person does not understand that he is doing worship or pleads ignorance or claims that he prostrated in the direction of an object, not to the object. Such a person may be considered a kāfir legally if his act demands so, but if there is no belief that can be attributed to him which contains Shirk and even the act he denies doing, then it would not be Shirk, such as if he claims to prostrate in the direction of moon or star. However, he may still be considered a kāfir for taking something as a Qiblah that he cannot. In this area, we agree with Awnists and disagree with Najdis.
Noting that in beliefs this excuse does not work, in beliefs, even if a person thinks he is a monotheist or he has not deified something, he can still be doing it infact and will subsequently be judged as such. As it is narrated from Rasūlullāh(sa) about Adī bin Ḥātim where they did not think that they had deified their priests but they had infact. Abū Ḥanīfah (rh) (d. 150 AH) also has a view narrated from him about people who commit Shirk without realizing.
Even though, the topic of worship cannot be addressed without dealing with the central contention of what constitutes a divine quality, we may still deal with the topic of acts of worship separately in a limited manner. As Shāh Ismāīl (rh) (d. 1728AD/1140AH) and others formulated, worship arises due to the belief in an entity having complete encompassing power to benefit or harm you, which necessitates utmost veneration for that entity with utmost humiliation. Mutakalimūn formulated various such qualities that cannot be attributed to any creation. These beliefs gives rise to acts that indicate worship in a manner that the acts become customarily inseparable from these beliefs, such acts are acts of worship.
3 What is the beef ?
At the center of Awnist argument is that the two definitions of Ibādāh have to be differentiated: the linguistic definition and the legal definition. Their argument is that the lingusitic definition that is typically considered is:
“Peak of submission, veneration, love towards the object and humility in one’s self is worship”. This they argue is insufficient and vague to be a legal definition, since a person may stand for his teacher and that is not worship, but standing up for a deity becomes worship.
From using this as the starting point of their contention, the Awnists present their case by saying that the worship is only defined if one attributes divine qualities to the object. Thereafter, Awni also formulates what are those divine qualities which allow the definition of worship to arise.
Hatim al-Awni says:
This why these two types of sharing partners:
… Whoever thinks that the shirk of the Arabs is outside the two portraits ofshirk, then he has majorly erred! He has brought something that any saneindividual would reject!
ولذلكجاءذكرهذينالنوعينمنالإشراك:شركتعددالخالقينوالمالكينوالمدبرين،وشركالأولياءمنالذل….فمنظنأنشركالعربكانخارجاعنإحدىهاتينالصورتينفقدأخطأخطأعظيما،وأتىبشيءلايمكنأنتقبلهالعقول(العبادة: بوابة التوحيد و بوابة التكفير)
We have refuted this concept using precedence of sunnī islamic scholarship without any doubt here.
Now we will focus on the issue with acts of worship. When does an act become Shirk or does an act never become Shirk unless accompanied by belief in divine attributes for the object ?
4 Example problem
An example problem that is constructed is: a person goes and offers a complete ṣalāh to an idol. Is he considered a mushrik or just a kāfir ? Ofcourse, if he is considered a mushrik then he is also a kāfir since we are discussing major shirk. Thus, the options to be precise are:1.
is he considered a mushrik-kāfir ?2.
is he considered a non-mushrik-kāfir ?
5 View of the Sunnī Kalām schools
5.1 Difference between legal judgement and creedal judgement
Asharī (أشعري) and Māturīdī (ماتريدي) scholars differentiate between legal judgement and internal/creedal judgement.
Abū Ḥanīfah (rh) is quoted by Abū Shakūr al-Sālimī (rh) on the difference between legal ruling and reality infront of Allāh(swt)
“ People are of three types with regards to havingīmān: first is abeliever in the sight of Allāh(swt) , but disbeliver in the sight of people,he knows Allāh(swt) as He should be known and believes in Tawḥīdand disassociates from disbelief, but his testimony is not known possiblydue to taqiyyah (hiding), so he is believer infront of Allāh(swt) ,but disbeliever infront of people. The second is a disbeliever infrontof Allāh(swt) and believer infront of people, and he is the one whotestifies with his tongue, but does not believe in his heart, he is judgedlegally as a muslim, but infront of Allāh(swt) , he is a disbeliever. Thethird is the believer who testifies with his tongue and believes with hisheart, such a person is believer infront of Allāh(swt) , the angels, andall the people. [Noting, that the obvious case of disbeliever in the sightof Allāh(swt) and in the sight of people is not mentioned by the imāmas he was not discussing them.]”
الناسفيالإيمانعلىثلاثمراتب:أحدهممؤمنعنداللهوكافرعندالناس،وهويعرفاللهحقالمعرفةويعتقدالتوحيدوالدينويتبرأعنالكفر،ولكنلميظهرالإقرارمنهأولميعلمكيفيةالإقرارأويُظهركفرتقيةً،فهومؤمنعنداللهوكافرعندالناس.والثانيكافرعنداللهومؤمنعندالناس،وهوأنهأقرَّبلسانهولميعتقدبقلبه،فإنهيُحكمبإسلامه /ظاهراًويكوننكافراًعندالله.ومنأقرَّبلسانهواعتقدبقلبهفهومؤمنعنداللهوعندالملائكةوالناسأجمعين(التمهيد في بيان التوحيد: أبو شكور السالمي)
5.2 The link between actions and intentions
Principle: Abū Shakūr al-Sālimī (rh) says
All acts that point to a belief (without doubt/necessarily) then they aretreated as that belief, and all acts that carry doubt (as in pointing toa specific belief), then it does not point to that belief.كلعمليدلعلىالاعتقادفإنهيعملعملالاعتقاد،وكلعمليحتملالشبهةفإنهلايدلعلىالاعتقاد(التمهيد في بيان التوحيد: أبو شكور السالمي)
5.3 Defining kufr and īmān
Īmān (or the essence of it) is affirming what Rasūlullāh(sa) came with and testifying to it, while kufr is rejection of it. That does not mean that the actions cannot be taken to indicate or apply judgement of kufr. Likewise, it does not mean that major sins are not punishable or good deeds are not rewarded.
6 Verdict
6.1 The legal judgement of mushrik has to be applied on our test-case
A person starts to offer ṣalah to an idol or starts wearing the dress that is only worn by mushrikīn, has to be considered mushrik and there seems to be no way around it. If legally there is a difference in a certain matter in the treatment of a non-mushrik-kāfir and a mushrik-kāfir then surely this person will be categorized as the later. I cite Rashīd Aḥmad Gangohī (d. 1323 AH/1905 CE) especially for the deo-awni mawlānā in the STZ authors list. It seems quite astonishing that they will not spell this out or formulate it, since in the legal judgement the intention of the person may not be necessarily considered, otherwise someone can claim to be a muslim and worship idols and it would not be possible to judge him as a mushrik.
Rashīd Aḥmad Gangohī says
“ Some acts of Shirk are such that they are just Shirk and othersare such that they are done by Mushrikeen but they can be interpreteddifferently. As for the first type of act like wearing zunnār orprostrating to an Idol, a person becomes mushrik and he is to be treatedas a mushrik in every sense, as for the second type of acts, they aremajor sins, but do not expel from islām (goes on to mention oath byother than Allāh(swt) as an example)
One may ask that Rashīd Aḥmad Gangohī has so far only declared the legal judgement of Shirk but he is not explicit about the internal judgement that will such a person become mushrik infront of Allāh(swt) ? He also answers that question in his Fatāwā.
6.2 The creedal judgement of mushrik has to be applied as well on our test-case
Then comes the question of creedal judgement. Anwar Shāh Kashmīrī (rh) (d. 1933AD/1352AH) elaborates this issue that certain acts are considered to necessarily indicate rejection, such as throwing the mushaf into filth intentionally (not that it falls as an accident from the pocket). If a person does such an act then whether he thinks or believes that he is upon islām or he has rejected islām, that is irrelevant, since such an act only and necessarily indicates rejection.
Anwar Shāh Kashmīrī (rh) says:
And here and objection is thrown at fuqahāand mutakalimūn, thatis some acts of kufr can occur (or be conceived) from the one whoaffirms (Islām) such as prostration to the idol or denigrating theMushaf, if we say: he is a kāfir, we contradict our statement thatĪmān is affirmation, and it is known that with these acts, he doesnot negate tasdīq (explicitly), so how is he judged with kufr ? If wesay that he is a muslim that this negates the consensus. KastalīandJurjān=ıanswered that he is kāfir legally but muslim internally, andthis reply is bātil (completely false) and it should be ignored, such aperson is a disbeliever legally and creedally/internally, the tue answeris what Ibn Humām gave, the gist of it is that some acts take the statusof denial (juh]ūd˙), just like manifestations specific to disbeliever, andit is obliged fromĪmān that one stays away from such acts as welljust like one stays away from the actual kufr.وههناإشكالٌيردُعلىالفقهاءِوالمتكلمينوهوأنبعضَأفعالالكفرقدتوجدمنالمُصدِّق،كالسجودللصنموالاستخفافبالمصحف،فإنقلنا:إنهكافر،ناقضقولنا:إنالإيمانهوالتصديق.ومعلومٌأنهبهذهالأفعاللمينسلخعنالتصديق،فكيفيُحْكمعليهبالكفر؟وإنقلنا:إنهمسلم،فذلكخلافُالإجماع.وأجابعنهالكَسْتلِّيتبعًاللجُرْجاني:أنهكافرقضاءً،ومسلمدِيانَة.وهذاالجوابباطلٌممالايُصْغىإليه،فإنهكافردِيانةوقضاءًقطعًا،فالحقفيالجوابماذكرهابنالهمام﵀تعالى،وحاصله:أنبعضالأفعالتقوممَقامالجحود،نحوالعلائمالمختصةبالكفر،وإنمايجبفيالإيمانالتبرؤعنمثلهاأيضًا،كمايجبالتبرؤعننفسالكفر(فيض الباري على صحيح البخاري)
Likewise Rashīd Aḥmad Gangohī was asked the very same question and he replied: If despite affirmation of heart, he commits Shirk then he will also become a kāfir infront of Allāh(swt) .
Thus, we have four situtations.1.
The one who commits an act of major kufr is judged legally as such. STZ agree to this.2.
The one who commits an act of major kufr can be internally a kāfir even if he thinks that he affirms the testimony. I think STZ agree to this.3.
The one who commits an act of major shirk is to be judged as a mushrik even if he does not believe in the idol to be having divine powers, STZ disagree on it and explicit citations of scholars prove them wrong.4.
The one who commits and act of major shirk, even if he does not believe the object to have divine powers, has also committed Shirk internally. This is implied from Gangohi’s citation and consistency, but further elaboration is needed.
If we allow judgement upon internal state using an action when it comes to kufr then consistency demands that we allow judgement on internal state when it comes to shirk ! Both are in their essence contingent upon beliefs, but some acts get tied to them. We have explained the issue using the quotes of scholars who should matter to the deobandī member of the STZ team, however we still need to explain the verdict on rational and textual grounds.
7 Explaning the verdict
7.1 Sharīah at times makes equivocation between action and its Illāh
Acts of worship become so due to two reasons: Law Giver specifying some act and linking with some belief or custom linking an act with some belief. STZ raised the issue about what happens if we go to the amazon jungle where people do not really know our Sharīah. We say that if there exists such a tribe, where the movements of ṣalāh are unidentifiable as worship, while sitting in a certain formation and blowing whistles and clapping is recognized as a way to worship a divinity such that it is not possilbe in that custom to do that for any other reason, then in that custom that would take the meaning of worship, while if prostration in the same custom is a form of greeting then it would be so.
Having said that, we raise another question: how practical is it to find such a custom where universally recognized acts of worship like sacrifice are not recognized as such ? As we all ultimately go back to our father Ādam (as), and the act of offering was also revealed for his children. Likewise, Shāh Abdul Qādir (rh) (d. 1820AD/1230AH) notices this point in his translation with footnotes in the verse 34 in Surah Al-Ḥajj.
وَلِكُلِّ أُمَّةٍ جَعَلْنَا مَنْسَكًا لِيَذْكُرُوا اسْمَ اللَّهِ عَلَى مَا رَزَقَهُمْ مِنْ بَهِيمَةِ الأنْعَامِ فَإِلَهُكُمْ إِلَهٌ وَاحِدٌ فَلَهُ أَسْلِمُوا وَبَشِّرِ الْمُخْبِتِينَ And for all nations We have appointed a rite [of sacrifice] that they may mention the name of Allah over what He has provided for them of [sacrificial] animals. For your god is one God, so to Him submit. And, [O Muhammad], give good tidings to the humble [before their Lord]
Shāh Abdul Qādir (rh) says:
To sacrifice animals is considered worship in every religion, to sacrificeit for other than Allāh(swt) becomes worship so it is Shirk.(Mozih ul Qur’ān)
Now granted that some scholars did differ on the ruling on sacrifice, some considering it prohibited, while some considering it Shirk. Our contention is simply that some common acts were revealed by Allāh(swt) to every nation and they are universally recognized, however, this has little practical significance to our situation and will become a question of anthropology.
Shāh Walīullāh (rh) (d. 1762AD/1176AH) discusses this matter in his work Ḥujjatullahil-bālighah, that the divine law equivocates shirk with some actions that customarily become inseparable from it. Then he draws its analogy to other cases in Sharīah which refer to for example: if a person sleeps then the law makes it equal to him passing the wind or if a person travels, the law considers him in difficulty.
Shāh Walīullāh (rh) says:
And this Shirk (conceptual Shirk described before) is a conceptualmatter, which has its embodiments and forms, and the divine lawdiscusses these embodiments and forms of it, which people practice withthe intention of Shirk, so that they become anticipated source of Shirkand are customarily inseparable from it. This is similar to the practiceof the divine law in establishing the causes that entail good or evilactions as being tantamount to those acts themselves. We want to alertto those things which Allāh(swt) had made anticipated sources of Shirkin the divine law brought by Rasūlullāh(sa) , so that He forbade them.(Hujjatullāh-il-bālighah)
7.2 The example of prostration
Acts are considered to indicate meaning either because Allāh(swt) specified them as such or the custom tie an act with a meaning. Looking at the example of prostration to Yūsuf (as), one could argue that the custom at that time allowed the same act to be done for greeting, welcoming, and respect that is other than worship. In our Sharīah, any type of prostration is forbidden, so that is the least ruling that is given. Whether it will also be considered worship depends upon the custom. For example, we know that one meaning of prostrating is worship. Is there a reasonable reason to think that if you see someone prostrating to ruler for example and it would not be worship ? If that is the case then the act begans to entertain two meanings behind it, due to which the ruling of Kufr cannot be given. If however, the custom or the context rules out the non-Shirk meaning behind the act, then the ruling of Kufr can be given, as Badr al-Din al-Ayni (d. 855 AH/1453 CE) writes:
Badr al-Din al-Ayni says:
(Discussing about those who prostrate to ruler): In this time, (people)do not prostrate to the ruler except as veneration and reverance,therefore, there is no doubt in their Kufr.وفي«الواقعات»:إذاقيلللمسلم:اسجدللملكوإلاقتلناك،فالأفضلأنلايسجد،لأنهكفر،والأفضلأنلايأتيبماهوكفرصورة.وإذاكانفيحالةالإكراه،وإنكانالسجودسجودالتحية،فالأفضلأنيسجد،لأنهليسبكفر،وهذادليلعلىأنالسجودإذاكانتسنةالتحية،إذاكانخائفالايكونكفرا،فعلىهذاالقياسلايصيرمنسجدعندالسلطانعلىوجهالتحيةكافرا،انتهىألفاظ«الواقعات».قلت:فيهذاالزمانلايسجدونلسلطانإلاتعظيماوإجلالافلايشكفيكفرهم.(كتاب البناية شرح الهداية)
8 Critique of the Salafi camp
The critique of the Umayrist camp was mounted by Tahir on one issue which gives away a flaw in the Umayrist understanding. The issue is related to how Umayri considered the companion requesting a tree to be venerated, that was venerated in jāhiliyyah, this request itself is considered a request of Shirk by Umayri.
I will quote Tahir Muhammad’s critique via his facebook post verbatim:
Tahir Muhammad’s quotation Abu Waqid Al-Laithi narrated that (after the conquest of Makkah) when the Messenger of Allah (s.a.w) went out to Hunain he passed a tree that the idolaters called Dhat Anwat upon which they hung their weapons, and around which they stayed. They (the Companions) said: “O Messenger of Allah! Make a Dhat Anwat for us as they have a Dhat Anwat.’ The Prophet (s.a.w) said: “Subhan Allah! This is like what Musa’s people said: Make for us a god like their gods. By the One in Whose is my soul! You shall follow the way of those who were before you.” After having quoted this hadith, ‘Umayri said on p. 70 of his book:
ان اولئك النفر من الصحابة طلبوا من النبي صلي الله عليه وسلم ما هو شرك اكبر مخرج من الملة ‘What that group from the Companions (ra) asked from the Prophet (saw) is shirk akbar, which excludes one from the (muslim) community’.
And his reference for this reading of the hadith is Muhammad Hamid al Fiqqi (another 20th century salafi scholar).
هو من الشرك الاكبر , كما ان ما طلبه بنو اسرائيل من الاكبر ‘It is shirk akbar, just like what banu Israil asked for was shirk akbar’ (p. 71).
However, none of the scholars who commented on this hadith before him labelled the request as such:
فإن اتخاذ ذات أنواط يشبه اتخاذ الآلهة من دون الله، لا أنه هو بنفسه فلذلك لا يلزم الاعتبار بالمنصوص عليه ما لم ينص عليه مثله من كل وجه (الاعْتِصَام للشاطبي ج 3 ص 189)
Commenting on the same hadith, Shatibi (d. 790H) said: ‘Having such a tree RESEMBLES having gods other than Allah (swt), not that it is exactly that (i.e. taking another god), which is why what has been clearly stipulated (for a situation) cannot be assumed in another situation for which it has not been clearly stipulated.’
Ali al-Qari (d. 1014) said: [Make a Dhat Anwat for us as they have a Dhat Anwat]: meaning a tree on which we could also hang our weapons (for good luck), as if they meant it in the sense of rivalry and known forms competition. And in doing so, they forgot the religious principle. [The Prophet (s.a.w) said: “Subhan Allah!’’]: amused and surprised. [This is like what Musa’s people said: Make for us a god like their gods]: but the difference between them is evident, since what is being compared TO is much worse.
ولم يقصد أبو واقد بمقالته فسادا، وقال بعض الناس كان ذلك من بني إسرائيل كفرا ولفظة الإله تقتضي ذلك، وهذا محتمل، وما ذكرته أولا أصح عندي (المحرر الوجيز لابن عطية ج 2 ص 448)
Ibn Atiyyah (rh) (d. 1168AD/546AH) said: ‘And abu Waqid (narrator of the dhat anwat hadith) did not mean any wrongdoing [by that request]. And some people have said that it was kufr in the case of bani Israil, as the word ‘god’ does suggest, and it is conceivable. But what I said previously is more accurate in my opinion.’ What is surprising, is that even ibn Taymiyyah did not label such actions as shirk, but bid’ah (innovation, or just a cause of shirk. This is what he says, as an introduction to that hadith: وأما الأشجار والأحجار والعيون ونحوها مما ينذر لها بعض العامة أو يعلقون بها خرقا أو غير ذلك أو يأخذون ورقها يتبركون به أو يصلون عندها أو نحو ذلك: فهذا كله من البدع المنكرة وهو من عمل أهل الجاهلية ومن أسباب الشرك بالله (مجموع الفتاوى ج 27 ص 136/137)
‘And the trees, stones, and fountains that some people make vows to, hang their things on, take some their leaves for tabarruk, or pray around it: all of this is from the rejected innovations, acts of the people of jahiliyah, and a cause of shirk [he then goes on to quote that hadith).’ Actually, there are indeed instances of scholars before al Fiqqi labelling the request in this hadith as shirk: Muhammad bin abdul Wahab and his descendants.
أن الذين نهاهم النبي – صلى الله عليه وسلم – لو لم يطيعوه واتخذوا ذات أنواط بعد نهيه لكفروا (كشف الشبهات ص 44) أن النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم صرح أن من اعتقد في شجرة أو تبرك بها أنه متخذها إلها (الجواهر المضية ص 23) فوصف قول الصحابة في ذات أنواط بقول بني إسرائيل وسماه إلها. ففي هذا دليلٌ على أن مَن فعل مِن ذلك شيئا مما ذكرناه: فقد اتخذه إلها (الجواهر المضية ص 39)
Given the fact that ‘Umayri seems to have consciously avoided any reference to them in his book, as opposed to ibn Taymiyyah, one gets the impression that he is trying to distance himself from the ‘najdi’ / ‘wahabi’ thought, in order to be able to better defend the taymiyyan one. However, his treatment of the dhat anwat hadith appears to have betrayed his actual loyalty.
Our response to Tahir Muhammad’s critique Tahir’s critique is valid, however he uses it to turn towards his view that worship is only defined when one attributes divine qualities to the object, that we refuted earlier in this document, yet furthermore what Tahir Muhammad and other Awnists define as the “divine qualities” is even more problematic, which I have dealt with in a couple of articles via understanding of the Mutakallimūn.
However, we now focus on the bit where Tahir critiques the Salafist side where it is going against the classical scholarly precedence, a propagator of Umayrist-Salafist views accepts that his understanding may not have precedence except very isolated one, yet he demands an examplantion more than just the citation of precedence, saying:
Premise 1: The reverence shown for Dhat Anwat by the Mushrikun wasconsidered Shirk. Premise 2: To ask for permission to have a Dhat Anwat, isto ask for permission, whether knowingly or unknowingly, to commit Shirk.(Umayrist side)
We answer from our side that according to the principle that was formulated earlier: if an action can have multiple meanings behind it and one of it is not Kufr then the ruling of Kufr for muslims cannot be given.
Banī Isrāil’s request had two elements to it: one of it was that desire to have an object to venerate and worship due to thinking themselves too low to worship Allāh(swt) in the same way as Arabs did Shirk via taqarrub and other element was them asking Mūsā (as)to legislate it. أنهم استحسنوا ما رأوه من آلهة أولئك القوم فأرادوا أن يكون ذلك في شرع موسى وفي جملة ما يتقرب به إلى الله
When the companions requested it, it is not clear what is the intention and the nature of Rasūlullāh(sa) likening the request to Banī Isrāīl.
Even if we grant the Salafi side the possibility that the companion could have asked for the permission to take the object as an Ilāh, it is also possible that the companion asked for the object’s veneration to be considered a ritual legislated in our Sharīah as Ibn Atiyyah (rh) writes.
فأراد أبو واقد وغيره أن يشرع ذلك رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم في الإسلام، فرأى رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم أنها ذريعة إلى عبادة تلك السرحة
This would be blameworthy and means to major Shirk, but not a request to major Shirk. Thus, we can derive two meanings out of a statement or an act: one of it being a request to commit Shirk and other being not so which the Salafi side cannot deny, then due to multiple possibilities, it is not allowed to consider it a request for Shirk as muslims are to be judged on the lesser possibility.
The explanation of Tahir and Awnists for why the demand of companions was not Shirk would be that there is no element of considering the tree with divine qualities. This explanation would run into an issue when it is asked that what was the request of Banī Isrāīl ? Could they ask Mūsā (as)of creating an object with divine qualities while they did not believe Mūsā (as)himself was divine ? That is why, the explanations of exegetes like Al-Rāzī (rh) (d. 1210AD/606AH) and Al-Mātūrīdī (rh) (d. 853AD/238AH) become problematic for Awnists, while the explanation of Dhāt Anwāṭ becomes problematic for Salafis, our paradigm Alhamdulillah avoids the objections. We elaborate with an example.
8.1 The discussion of Sabians in Ḥanafī school
There is an analogous situation to this discussed among the Ḥanafis; the issue pertains to characterizing some Sabians whose creed was unclear for certain scholars. Abū Ḥanīfah (rh) categorized them as like ahlulkitāb as they apparently recited zabūr and believed in one God. Qāḍī Abū Yūsuf (rh) (d. 182AH) and Shaybānī (rh) (d. 189AH) were of the view that the same people worshiped stars so they are like idol-worshipers and it is not permitted to marry their women. In the view of Abū Ḥanīfah (rh) , these people did not worship the stars and instead they venerated it as a qiblah, just like we do to kabah. This issue has been commented on by Al-Kāsānī (rh) (d. AH), Al-Sarakhsī (rh) (d. AH), Badr al-Din al-Ayni, Fakhruddīn Al-Zaylaī (rh) (d. 743 AH) and AL-Bābirtī (rh) (d. 786 AH) among others. Only Al-Jaṣāṣ (rh) (d. 370 AH) seems to explain it away by claiming that the view of Abū Ḥanīfah (rh) was regarding another group while the view of Qāḍī Abū Yūsuf (rh) and Shaybānī (rh) was regarding another group. 1
Al-Sarakhsī (rh) understands the view of Ṣāhibayn as being related to caution due to the strong suspicion of them doing taqīyyah so they declared their slaughter ḥarām, whereas they might not have considered them idol-worshipers. 2
The correct view seems to be that if these Sabians turned to the star to do their prayer or slaughter in the same manner as qiblah then they are not like idol-worshippers.
How will the Salafis explain this ? In the Salafis paradigm, the whole debate surrounding the disagreement of Abū Ḥanīfah (rh) and his companions does not make any sense, likewise the whole issue of why the classical authorities did not consider the request of Abū Wāqid Al-Laythī to be a request of major Shirk. Readers may assume that this is a slight difference of opinion, but in the context of the Najdī Dāwah, you will find violation of same essential principles occur so many times that it accumulates to have an exponential effect, I will mention some of them.
9 Systematic Issues in Najdī Understanding
The people of innovation at times do something which may resemble the act of disbelievers but will give it an explanation that blocks the judgement of takfīr. Such as if a person takes an animal to the grave and sacrifices it there, when he is inquired that why did you do it ? He replies that he did it for Allāh(swt) and he came to the shrine to distribute its meat or send the reward to the saint. In this case, even if we have suspicion that this person is lying, we are forced to judge him by his apparent statement and not expel him from Islām, even while we recognize that if he is doing Shirk, Allāh(swt) will judge him accordingly. Likewise, the ruler can act with discretionary measures lesser than takfīr.
This issue did arise during the time of Muḥammad ibn Abdul-Wahhāb (d. 1792/1206AH) he takfired a whole group of Ḥanbalī scholars of the region, such as Muways (student of Saffarīnī), Sulaymān bin Suḥaym, Sulaymān bin Abdul Wahhāb (his brother), among others.
These scholars condemended innovative shirk resembling practices, even called some issues by major Shirk, nevertheless they stuck to the rules of jurisprudence in their dealing, for which Muḥammad ibn Abdul-Wahhāb takfired them and at times called one of them bigger kāfir than Firaun ! All the while, Muḥammad ibn Abdul-Wahhāb by all accounts hated fiqh and has weird statements against it.
Likewise Muḥammad ibn Abdul-Wahhāb declares that companions made takfīr of all the people who refused to pay Zakah merely due to the act itself, not mentioning that the vast majority of the fuqahā made distinction and did not consider those apostates who did not deny the obligation of Zakah.
Likewise is the issue with Najdī chain takfīr, the takfīr on not hating the tribes that he hated, we can go on and on. All of these issues arise out of neglecting the principle that action cannot judged as kufr unless there can only be one meaning behind it (kufr).
1 وإنما أجاب أبو حنيفة عن صنف من الصائبين ينتحلون دين المسيح، وهم فرقة من النصارى يقرون بالإنجيل في ناحية البطائح في عمل واسط، فهؤلاء حكمهم حكم النصارى وإن خالفوهم في أشياء من أمر دينهم. قال الله تعالى: ومن يتول منكم فإنه منهم ، فهذا قولهم جميعًا فيمن كان هذا وصفه أنه من أهل الكتاب. وأجاب أبو يوسف ومحمد عن قوم آخرين، يسمون أيضًا صابئين في ناحية حران، يعبدون الأوثان والكواكب، ولا ينتحلون دين المسيح، فهؤلاء لا تجوز مناكحتهم، ولا يحل أكل ذبائحهم. وإنما جواب أبي حنيفة عن مسألة لا خلاف بينهم فيها، وأجاب أبو يوسف ومحمد عن مسألة أخرى لا خلاف بينهم فيها أيضًا.
In this article, I will shed light on the view of Asʿharī (أشعري) school and its prominent scholars on their understanding of worship as well as its consequences on the question of Istighātha. Specifically, a number of neo-Asʿharīs have been postulating that Shirk in ʿIbādāh cannot be concieved without shirk in Rubūbiyyah. As well as these barelvī neo-Asʿharīs have turned making Istighātha great as one of their creedal issue—un unfortunate happening indeed. They do not recognize shirk via ʿIbādāh unless it is conditioned on shirk in Rubūbiyyah, and it is considered to be one of the major creedal points of Atharīs following Hatim al-Awni (alive).
To make it clear, the original claim of Hatim al-Awni can be found in his short treatise on ʿIbādāh, where he asserts that for it to be said that a person is worshiping anything besides Allāh(swt) , he must believe in either of two beliefs: (i) the object of worship is independent of Allāh(swt) and (ii) Allāh(swt) is unable to govern His kingdom, so He needs helpers. If you were to assert that a saint created heavens and the earth (dependent on God), has an encompassing knowledge/power over creations (dependent on God), that would not be Shirk, and neither would it be Shirk to dedicate all acts of ʿIbādāh such as sacrifice, Ṣalāh, etc, so long as one does not believe in the two clauses that Hatim al-Awni formulates. So let us have a look at major Ashʿarī scholars and their views: Al-Rāzī (rh) , alSanusi (rh) , and Abū Manṣūr Abdul Qāhir al-Baghdādī (rh) .
On the other hand, we also find Ibn Taymiyyah (rh) accusing the Ashʿarī school of having a deficient view of tawḥīd (توحيد; islamic monotheism)—as deficient as that of pagans essentially.
2 Principled view on Rubūbiyyah debate
In order to understand the issue honestly and properly, one must formulate some basic principles. Al-Shāshī (rh) (d. 956AD/344AH) writes in his textbook Uṣūl work that among the wrong arguments is to argue that just because one Ilah (underlying cause of a ruling) does not exist, the ruling does not exist, without negating other possible underlying causes. الِاسْتِدْلال بِعَدَمِ العلَّة على عدم الحكم
To make it simple: consider a person who urinates and then defacates after one hour. His wuḍū will be broken due to two reasons, therefore it will not be sufficient to say that if he did not urinate, his wuḍū did not break.
This is related to the Rubūbiyyah debate in the following manner: (i) proving that some pagans had shirk in Rubūbiyyah is one claim, (ii) proving that all pagans had shirk in Rubūbiyyah is another claim, and (iii) proving that all pagans only had shirk in Rubūbiyyah, while shirk in worship cannot be defined without shirk in Rubūbiyyah is another claim. In order to prove (iii), proving (i) or even (ii) is not sufficient. Generally speaking, a consistent flaw of awnists or pseudo-ashʿarīs is that they prove (iii) by proving (i).
Whereas we claim that if we prove even one route of major shirk that does not involve direct shirk in Rubūbiyyah, their whole claim is gone, and it is proven that major shirk can take place without direct shirk in Rubūbiyyah, and this is undeniably proven in the kalām works of both the Ashʿarīs and the Māturīdīs, especially with regards to the case of how the scholars of both schools explain the shirk of pagans who worshiped idols to draw closer to Allāh(swt) . I will suffice with citing Ashʿarī scholars in this document, whereas Māturīdī citations are even more numerous.
2.1 Views of alSanusi (rh)
He classifies 6 types of major Shirk:
1. Shirk-ul-Istiqlāl: This is belief in multiple independent deities, like Shirk of Majūs.
2. Shirk-u-tabīḍ: This is belief in God being composed of multiple entities like Shirk of Naṣārā.
3. Shirk-u-Taqrīb: This is to worship others besides Allah to get closer to Allah, like Shirk of Jahili Arabs.
4. Shirk of Taqlīd: This is to worship other than Allah following others, like Shirk of later pagans.
5. Believing in ta’thīr for Asbāb.
6. Doing acts for other than Allah.
He says that the categories (1-4) are major Shirk by default. In (5) he says that if someone believes in means that basically act independently, then this is by ijma’ kufr (and Shirk). (6) would be minor Shirk.
Focussing on the third bullet or even fourth bullet in the list of alSanusi (rh) , the question that we pose to the Barelvī Ashʿarīs or Awnist-Atharīs who deny that shirk in ʿIbādāh can take place without shirk in Rubūbiyyah, can anyone find where is shirk in Rubūbiyyah in what alSanusi (rh) describes as major Shirk ?.
Likewise, the Awnists would say that this was Shirk because these intercessors had tathīr or independence or ability to overturn the will of Allāh(swt) . However, we find that alSanusi (rh) simply links it to devoting acts of worship to other than Allāh(swt) based on the assumption that it is against Adab (respect) to worship the too sublime God directly. وأما الشرك التقرب الذي دان به متقدمو الجاهلية، فشبهتهم الحامِلةُ لَهُم على ذلك: تَسوِيل الشيطانُ اللَّعين لهم إذ وسوس لَهُم: إنَّ عِبادَتِكُم للمولى العظيم على ما أنتم عليه من غاية الضُّعفِ والدَّناءةِ والعجزِ والمهَانةِ، و تركِكُم التقرب إليه بعبادة من هو أعلى منكم عنده وأشرف وأقوى، كالملائكة والشَّمس والقمر والنُّجوم والنَّار ونحوها، سُوءُ أدَبٍ عظيم، ألا ترى في الشّاهِد أنَّ تخطَّي الأدنى الحَقير جِدا خدمة الحاكم والقائد والوزير ونحوهم مما هو شريف عند الملك إلى الملك إبتداء سوء أدب على الملك، لَما فيه مِن تجاسُرِ الحقير على القربِ منه وعدم مراعاة هيبته و عظمته بالتوسل إليه من بُعدٍ بِمَن يُمكِنهُ التوصُّلَ إلى خِدمته من أعوانه و خواص مماليكه
Then alSanusi (rh) calls this Shirk in Rubūbiyyah ? No ! He calls this Shirk in ʿIbādāh and Ulūhiyyah (ألوهية; Singling out Allāh(swt) for worship). Furthermore, he also differentiates it from the muslims doing intercession with Rasūlullāh(sa) , which does not include doing worship of Rasūlullāh(sa) . Lets say someone decides to offer five times prayers to Rasūlullāh(sa) , fast and sacrifice for him, with the belief that Allāh(swt) is too sublime to be offered these acts, that would be the same as Shirk of pagans, but muslims do not do that. However, we find a number of ‘’Abdul-Rasūl Majhul Ashʿarīs” parroting the claims of Awnists (including one Deo-Awni graduate) that even if someone literally prostrates to an idol directing the act to the idol, it would be kufr but not shirk. I will deal with their article separately. Coming to the question of intercession and taqarrub. What is and what is not the Shirk via intercession or taqarrub:
Belief that God cannot be worshiped due to being too sublime and humans being too impure, or due to God being too far spatially or due to a simple God who cannot be unknown except via Imāms.
Dedicating specific acts that are customarily recognized as manifestations of worship, to other than Allāh(swt) .
Belief in a perfect intercessor whom God never refuses or can never refuse.
What is not major Shirk:
Going to grave of a saint believing that he hears in the near vicinity and asking him to make duā to Allāh(swt) .
Asking Allāh(swt) to make angels, saints, or prophets, to pray for you.
Asking Allāh(swt) for the sake of one’s love for the prophet or his maqām.
2.1.1 Similarity of Shirk via Taqarrub in today’s claimants to Islām
It should also be said that the view AhluSunnah is unlike the view of Najdīs and other extremists, we do not hasten to do takfīr on someone doing tawassul or istighāthā with a ta’wīl that prevents takfīr.
But it is dishonest to say that the exact likeness of Shirk via Taqarrub of pagans is not found in some fringes of deviant sects, such as you can see a shīah (شيعة; shia sect) scholar claiming that you cannot make duā to Allāh(swt) due to Allāh(swt) being too sublime, you must necessarily go make duā to the AhlulBayt. Then we have a Russian (fake) “Sufi” who explicitly compares Allāh(swt) to Putin and just like you cannot approach Putin without approaching his ministers, you do not approach Allāh(swt) without approaching Awliyā. Such is blatant Shirk expelling from the fold of Islām for which the Shirk apologists keep offering their gymnastical apologies.
A text similar to this is found in the works of Ahmad Raza Khan (d. 1921AH), what is known as the infamous Ya Allah or Ya Junaid dilemna of a drowning man. In this story, the man was crossing the water saying Ya Junaid and Shayṭān whispered to him to say Ya Allah so he said Ya Allah and started drowning. The story ends with a footnote: “If you have not reached Junaid, how can you reach Allāh(swt) ”. This is no different than what alSanusi (rh) describes as the shirk of pagans who considered it against respect to approach Allāh(swt) .
However, to be fair to Ahmad Raza Khan, it is mentioned from Asrār Rashīd that Ahmad Raza Khan elsewhere called this story inauthentic. However, in essence it only doubts the authenticity but does not doubt that Ahmad Raza Khan cited the story in his works and also failed to understand why it is problematic.
2.2 Allegations of Ibn Taymiyyah (rh)
In a number of his works, Ibn Taymiyyah (rh) is seen accusing Ashʿarī school and the Mutakalimūn of the following:
You say that an ilāh means the one who can create.
Pagans believed that only Allāh(swt) is the creator.
In your view, pagans fulfilled there is no ilāh except Allāh(swt) , thus your conception of tawḥīd is as deficient as that of pagans.
Not to mention that Ibn Taymiyyah (rh) did not really engage with the Māturīdī (ماتريدي) school and in the Māturīdī school, the dominant view of translating the word ilāh is the same as that of Ibn Taymiyyah (rh) . Coming back to his attacks on Ashʿarīs, there are many references for his charges such as وليس المراد «بالإله» هو القادر على الاختراع، كما ظنّه من ظنّه من أئمة المتكلمين، حيث ظن أن الإلهية هي القدرة على الاختراع، وأن من أقر بأن الله هو القادر على الاختراع دون غيره فقد شهد أنه لا إله إلا هو، فإن المشركين كانوا يقرُّون بهذا وهم مشركون كما تقدم بيانه والإلهية تتضمن استحقاقه للعبادة والدعاء لا أنها بمعنى القدرة على الاختراع كما يذكر ذلك عن الأشعري فإن هذا هو الربوبية التي كان المشركون يقرون بها وأنَّ هَذا هُوَ مَعْنى قَوْلِنا لا إلَهَ إلّا اللَّهُ حَتّى قَدْ يَجْعَلُوا مَعْنى الإلَهِيَّةِ القُدْرَةَ عَلى الِاخْتِراعِ ومَعْلُومٌ أنَّ المُشْرِكِينَ مِن العَرَبِ الَّذِينَ بُعِثَ إلَيْهِمْ مُحَمَّدٌ ﷺ أوَّلًا: لَمْ يَكُونُوا يُخالِفُونَهُ فِي هَذا بَلْ كانُوا يُقِرُّونَ بِأنَّ اللَّهَ خالِقُ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ
The response to this charge is as follows:
Indeed, the Mutakalimūn of the Ashʿarī school did define an Ilāh with the definition of a creator but they did not restrict major shirk to considering someone an Ilāh (as per their definition). This reduces the attack of Ibn Taymiyyah (rh) to a strawman. This is clear in the works of major scholars of the school prior to Ibn Taymiyyah (rh) and one can just say that he should have been more charitable in his reading before accusing a huge body of scholars and Aimah of AhluSunnah with having the same tawḥīd as pagans. Moreover, in the view of the Ashʿarī school, the right of worship follows from other attributes.
One can cite Abū Manṣūr Abdul Qāhir al-Baghdādī (rh) and Al-Rāzī (rh) to prove the above.
2.3 Views of Abū Manṣūr Abdul Qāhir al-Baghdādī (rh)
Abū Manṣūr Abdul Qāhir al-Baghdādī (rh) is clearly an icon and an early authority in the Ashʿarī school. In his work titled: “Al-Asmā-wal-Sifāt”, he describes a category of Arab pagans in the following words:
The people who affirmed that beginning and resurrection is from the creator (Allāh(swt) ) and they denied the messengers and worshiped the idols: they believed that these (idols) would bring them closer to Allāh(swt) in proximity and did Hajj for them and did other rituals (of worship). قوم أقرّو بالابتداء والإعادة من الخالق سبحانه، وأنكروا الرسلَ، وعبدوا الأصنامَ؛ زعموا أنها تُقرِّبُهُم إلى اللهِ زلفى، وحجُّوا إليها، و نسَّكُوا لها النُّسُك. (Abū Manṣūr Abdul Qāhir al-Baghdādī (rh) )
What is the reason these people are mushrikīn in the eyes of Abū Manṣūr Abdul Qāhir al-Baghdādī (rh) ? Independence ? God not being able to govern His kingdom ? God being too unaware ? deities having ta’thīr ? Pagans lying about their beliefs ? Them being in doubt ?
None ! He simply links it to dedicating acts of ʿIbādāh for the sole reason of getting proximity to a God who could only be reached via conduits.
Not to forget that Abū Manṣūr Abdul Qāhir al-Baghdādī (rh) strongly defends the view that an ilāh is the creator, yet he does not take the charge of Ibn Taymiyyah (rh) . Furthermore, Abū Manṣūr Abdul Qāhir al-Baghdādī (rh) writes about a certain deity Al-Shi’ri that was worshiped by the pagans but not considered an Ilāh (by Ashʿarī definition).
Therefore, the maximun that Ashʿarīs could be charged with is a less precise definition, not having the deficient tawḥīd of pagans. And they would justify their definition by arguing that the meaning of Ma’būd is derived from other attributes of an Ilāh and it is lāzim for it, just like Al-Tabarī (rh) (d. 923AD/310AH) says that an Ilāh is the One who does what He wills and none can challenge it. This does not mean that as long as one does not attribute such ability to a creation, major Shirk cannot occur.
2.4 Views of Al-Rāzī (rh) on Rubūbiyyah and ʿIbādāh
As for Al-Rāzī (rh) , his quotes are litered all over his tafsīr. I will cite just a few of them. Similar to alSanusi (rh) , Al-Rāzī (rh) also interprets the shirk of pagans via the proximity route as being due to the reason that they considered God too sublime to be worshiped by lowly humans, that does not have any direct shirk in Rubūbiyyah. He writes:
Rather what is worthy for the humans is to worship the servants of Allāh(swt) who are higher in rank, like celestial objects, like heavenly souls, thereafter, these (higher ranked beings) perform the worship of the supreme God, this is the meaning of their statement: ‘’ we do not worship them except to draw near to Allāh(swt) in proximity”. The gist of the matter regarding the idol-worshipers is that they said that the supreme God is too sublime to be worshiped by the human. حاصِلُ الكَلامِ لِعُبّادِ الأصْنامِ أنْ قالُوا إنَّ الإلَهَ الأعْظَمَ أجَلُّ مِن أنْ يَعْبُدَهُ البَشَرُ لَكِنَّ اللّائِقَ بِالبَشَرِ أنْ يَشْتَغِلُوا بِعِبادَةِ الأكابِرِ مِن عِبادِ اللَّهِ مِثْلَ الكَواكِبِ ومِثْلَ الأرْواحِ السَّماوِيَّةِ، ثُمَّ إنَّها تَشْتَغِلُ بِعِبادَةِ الإلَهِ الأكْبَرِ، فَهَذا هُوَ المُرادُ مِن قَوْلِهِمْ: ما نَعْبُدُهُمْ إلّا لِيُقَرِّبُونا إلى اللَّهِ زُلْفى. (Al-Rāzī (rh) )
Likewise when commenting on the shirk of the banī isrāil by worship of the golden calf, Al-Rāzī (rh) comments that all the prophets agreed that worship of other than Allāh(swt) is kufr (here he means major shirk that is kufr as is clear from his statement above), regardless if that worship is done with the belief that the one being worshiped is the Ilāh or if one believes that worship of these intermediaries will draw near to Allāh(swt) , as worship is the peak of veneration and the peak of veneration is not suited for anyone else besides the one from whom the peak of reward comes.
We do not find detailed treatment of the issue from Abul-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī (rh) (d. 936AD/324AH) himself, however there is an interesting portion of text in his treatise addressed towards the mujāhidīn, where he writes basic creed. This work is called رسالة إلى أهل الثغر ( a message to the people on the frontlines). In it he says that it is agreed upon that a human cannot become free of his Rabb and that Allāh(swt) did not differentiate between ʿIbādāh and Istighātha.
وأجمعوا على أن الإنسان غير غني عن ربه عز وجل في سائر أوقاته، وعلى الرغبة إليه في المعونة على سائر ما أمر به ممتثلين لما أمرهم به في قوله عز وجل: إِيَّاكَ نَعْبُدُ وَإِيَّاكَ نَسْتَعِينُ 1 فلم يفرق بين العبادة وبين الاستعانة
I am fully aware of the common responses give that: but we also call the police ? Abul-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī (rh) is most likely not referring to the act of saying: “ya fulan help”, rather the very philosophy of ʿIbādāh which is synonymous with duā.
We ask to those who claim that Rasūlullāh(sa) was given an encompassing knowledge of all creations and an encompassing Qudrah to help all creations in any manner possible, that what then becomes the rationale of asking Allāh(swt) ? Since, if I see glass of water near my wife, I will normally not say: “Ya Allah give me glass”, rather I will ask my wife to fetch for me water while I believe that she is dependent upon God and God creates her action, but I won’t invoke God for that. If anyone believes that just like my wife can give me water, Allāh(swt) has given any creation an ecompassing knowledge over creations, power to listen everyone everywhere and dispense all their needs, then the necessity of invoking Allāh(swt) vanishes.
Let us clearly differentiate between what is contested and what is not:
Saying Ya Rasūl Salām Alayk, is not shirk.
Saying Labbaik Ya Rasūlullāh is not shirk.
Saying Oh Rasūlullāh(sa) , grab me by my hands to Jannah and other poetic expressions of seeking help is not shirk.
Going to the grave and making duā to Allāh(swt) thinking that the area around the grave has barakah, it is not shirk.
Going to the grave to ask the person there to make duā to Allāh(swt) is not shirk.
Invoking with the intention of Allāh(swt) blessing the taking of name is not shirk.
Thinking that some angels have been granted ability to help people find lost objects (but not encompassing knowledge and power).
Falsely assuming about someone that he may have a kirāmah or so without that generalizing to sufficing for all needs.
But what we are clearly contesting is the belief that Allāh(swt) has granted Rasūlullāh(sa) knowledge about all creations and qudrah over them, such that every person from anywhere can ask Rasūlullāh(sa) for any need, thinking that Rasūlullāh(sa) or any saint can fulfill the needs. It is dishonest to assume that there is no one who has this exact belief about imāms, saints, peers, or prophets.
This is further expanded upon by Burhānuddīn al-Biqāi (rh)
2.6 Burhānuddīn al-Biqāi (rh) on rubūbīyyah, worship and duā
Burhānuddīn al-Biqāi (rh) argues as follows in the explanation of the verse إلَهِ النّاسِ:
(Ilāh of humans), indicates that as Allāh(swt) is single in His Rubūbiyyah over them and His ownership over them, no one shares in that, likewise He is the only Ilāh to them, no one shares in his Ilāhiyyah, and this is always the way of qurān, it argues with them using their acknowledgement of tawḥīd in Rubūbiyyah and ownership, against what they denied from the tawḥīd of Ilāhiyyah and ʿIbādah. إشارة إلى أنه كما انفرد بربوبيتهم وملكهم لم يشركه في ذلك أحد، فكذلك هو وحده إلههم لا يشركه في إلهيته أحد، وهذه دائمًا طريقة القرآن يحتج عليهم بإقرارهم بتوحيدهم له في الربوبية والملك على ما أنكروه من توحيد الإلهية والعبادة، فمن كان ربهم وملكهم فهم جديرون بأن لا يتألهوا سواه ولا يستعيذوا بغيره كما أن أحدهم إذا دهمه أمر استعاذ بوليه من أبناء جنسه واستغاث به (Burhānuddīn al-Biqāi (rh) )
About duā, Burhānuddīn al-Biqāi (rh) says:
A slave does not make duā except that he finds himself in weakness, difficulty, and need, and finds in his Rabb, the knowledge, the power, and the deliverance, and this is what is the aim of all worship, that is why duā is ʿIbādāh. فإن العبد لا يدعو إلا وقد استحضر من نفسه الذل والصعب والحاجة، ومن ربه العلم والقدرة والكفاية، وهذا هو المقصود من جميع العبادات، فلهذا كان الدعاء مخ العبادة (Burhānuddīn al-Biqāi (rh) )
Pondering upon the statement of Burhānuddīn al-Biqāi (rh) , it is clear that the very essence of worship is duā. Every creation is bound by means and everyone knows weaknesses of each other, there would countless times in one’s life when he feels powerless, such as: a sickness that doctors can’t figure out, a baby being born, surrounded by enemies, etc. If he thinks that there is no need to call upon Allāh(swt) in any of these situations and he thinks that someone else has all the pre-requisites to fulfill all these needs, then logically he never has to turn to Allāh(swt) or make duā to Allāh(swt) !
This highlights the most fundamental issue between Deobandīs and Barelvīs:
2.7 Deobandies vs Barelvis on Ilmul-Ghayb and Mukhtar e kul
Many Barelvis claim that the most essential difference between attributes of creation and that of Allāh(swt) is that attribute of creation is (i) given by Allāh(swt) , (ii) it is limited, and (iii) it can perish. Thus they cite Ahmad Raza Khan saying that knowledge of Rasūlullāh(sa) is like a drop in the ocean of knowledge of Allāh(swt) and there is no comparison. They use this text to repel any charge of Shirk.
However, saying that the knowledge of Allāh(swt) is like a drop in ocean in comparison does not negate the following possibilities:
1. Allāh(swt) gave Rasūlullāh(sa) knowledge of all the possible things in all possible ways and Rasūlullāh(sa) only does not know what Allāh(swt) knows about Himself and knowledge of all things compared to what Allāh(swt) knows about Himself is like a drop in ocean.
2. Allāh(swt) gave Rasūlullāh(sa) an encompassing knowledge of all creations until plus eternity and qudrah over them, while that is a drop in ocean.
3. Allāh(swt) gave Rasūlullāh(sa) an encompassing knowledge of all creations until the day of judgement, while Rasūlullāh(sa) also knows the exact time of the hour, while that is a drop in the ocean.
All of these possibilities are Kufr and Shirk even while they may be understood as drop in the ocean in comparison to the knowledge of Allāh(swt) , all of them contradict mutawātir texts and make duā to Allāh(swt) completely redundant. Furthermore, we can provide:
1. Citatins of Al-Mātūrīdī (rh) (d. 853AD/238AH) where he considers that Im-ul-Ghayb is Ilm-ul-Rubūbiyyah علم الغَيْب علم الربوبية and also specifically cites case of knowledge of all things plus eternity إنما يعلم الغيب اللَّه. ثم قوله: (الغَيْبَ) يخرج على وجهين: أحدهما: ما يغيب بعضهم من بعض؛ يقول: ما يغيب بعضهم من بعض فهو يعلم ذلك. والثاني: لا يعلم الغيب إلا اللَّه، أي: ما كان وما يكون إلى أبد الآبدين لا يعلم ذلك إلا اللَّه وإن أعلموا وعلموا ذلك., which is finite, so finiteness does not prevent the matter from falling into Shirk.
2 .The real reason is that any type of knowledge-power pair that makes it possible, rational, and justifiable for creations to ask another creation for all needs they can imagine, this is Shirk. This makes asking Allāh(swt) completely redundant and meaningless exercise.
To summarize, the Deobandī side would argue that we have no issues in believing following about the knowledge of Rasūlullāh(sa) :
1. We call it the news of Ghayb that Allāh(swt) gave to Rasūlullāh(sa) , not that Rasūlullāh(sa) has a sifah by which he knows everything.
2. These news can be a lot, it could contain events that would happen in the world.
3. It could be specific knowledge of individuals like we know of Rasūlullāh(sa) coming in dreams of scholars and instructing them specific things.
4. It could be a lot of knowledge that is only secret between Allāh(swt) and Rasūlullāh(sa) .
5. It could be knowledge of the tablet ( not all happenings are written on the tablet).
But it cannot be affirmed in a manner justifying Istighātha and it cannot be affirmed to negate clear texts such as Allāh(swt) having exclusive knowledge of five things and the hour, and it cannot be affirmed as a sifah not requiring senses or news from Allāh(swt) .
2.8 Walīullah family on Istighātha
Coming to the family of Shāh Walīullāh (rh) (d. 1762AD/1176AH), everyone of them have negated the false justification of Istighātha to the point that it is no longer possible to argue using the weak evidence of endorsing nād-e-Ali or whatever weakly proven or interpretable stuff that people of bidah bring.
Shāh Walīullāh (rh) says:
Know that it is obligatory to negate attributes of Allāh(swt) (the necessary being) from them (prophets) like Ilm-ul-Ghayb and ability to create the universe, etc, and this is not a deficiency ثم ليعلم أنه يجب أن ينفي عنهم صفات الواجب جل مجده من العلم بالغيب والقدرة على خلق العالم إلى غير ذلك وليس ذلك بنقص (Shāh Walīullāh (rh) )
Shirk means to ascribe to others any of the qualities which are unique and exclusive to Allāh(swt) only. For example, to accomplish various feats in the universe by merely desiring it, as is refered to to in the verse, “Be and it is”, inherent knowledge, which cannot be acquired through the senses, inspiration or a dream, curing the sick, to deprive someone to the extent that his sustenance is made difficult, to be kind to someone such that his sustenance is made easy for him, he is granted good health and he becomes successful with this grace. والشرك أن يُثبِت لغير الله من الصفات المختصة، به تعالى كالتصرف في العالم بالإرادة- الذي يعبر عنه ب (كن فيكون)- أو العلم الذاتي- غير المكتسب بالحواس و دليل العقل والمنام والإلهام و نحو ذلك. أو الإيجاد لشفاء المريض- أو اللَّعنِ على شخص. والسخط عليه حتى يُقدَّر وليه الرزق أي يمرض أو يشقى بسبب ذلك السخط. أو الرحمة لشخص حتى يبسط له الرزق ويصح بدنه ويدعد بسبب هذه الرحمة (Shāh Walīullāh (rh) )
Shāh Abdul Azīz (rh) (d. 1823AD/1239AH) (son of Shāh Walīullāh (rh) ) says:
It is from the matters of Shirk that one deems the status of awliya and aimmah equal to that of anbiya and to believe for anbiya what necessitates divinity such as belief in Ilm-ul-ghayb, or being able to hear from every one and having power of everything.
یا رتبہ آئمہ و اولیا برابر رتبہ انبیاء و مرسلین گرداند و انبیاء و مرسلین را لوازم الوہیت از علم الغیب و شنیدن فریاد ہر کس و ہر جا وقدرت بر جمیع مقدرات ثابت کنند (Shāh Abdul Azīz (rh) )
As we notice again and again, the ability to hear everywhere, know all affairs and dispense all needs of all creations is considered to necessitate divinity. Another son of Shāh Walīullāh (rh) , Shāh Abdul Qādir (rh) (d. 1820AD/1230AH) says in his translation/footnotes of the qurān:
Shirk is to consider an attribute of Allāh(swt) in someone else, for example, to believe about someone that he can know anything and do anything, or our good or bad is in the hands of this person, and with this belief he directs to mthe veneration dedicated for Allāh(swt) to someone other than Allāh(swt) , such as prostrating to someone else and asking his help for needs. شرک یہ کہ اللہ کی صفت کسی اور میں جانے مثلا کسی کو سمجھے کہ اس کو ہر بات معلوم ہے اور وہ جو چاہے سو کر سکتا ہے، یا ہمارا بھلا یا برا اس کے اختیار میں ہے، اور یہ کہ کر اللہ کی تعظیم کسی اور پر خرچ کرے مثلا کسی اور چیز کو سجدہ کرے اور اس سے حاجت طلب کر (Shāh Abdul Qādir (rh) )
Another son of Shāh Walīullāh (rh) , Shāh Rafīuddīn (rh) (d. 1817AD/1233AH) says:
There are second type of rituats which some people practice when they fall sick with the belief that powers of Shaykh Siddu are other devils are invoked, animals are sacrificed in their names, knowledge of the unseen and tasarruf in the universe is sought from them to get increase in sustenance, offspring and cure of sickness, and to make souls obedient for such purposes. This is clear Shirk and there is no excuse in this. رسموں میں سے دوسری قسم ہو جو چیچک اور دوسرے امراض میں بجا لاتے ہیں اور اس نظریے سے کے شیخ سدو اور دوسرے شیاطین کی تاثیریں عمل میں لاتے ہیں ان کے نام پر ذبح کرتے ہیں اور ان سے علمِ غیب چاہتے ہیں اور تصرف کائنات جزئیہ میں مانند کشادہ کرنے رزق اور اولاد دینے اور امراض رفع کرنے اور ارواح کو تابعدار کرنے میں اور اس کی مثل کام میں لاتے ہیں، یہ خود شرکِ صریح ہے، اس مقام میں کوئی عذر نہیں. (Shāh Rafīuddīn (rh) )
2.9 Ashʿarism, “dependent” powers of creation and Ahmad Raza Khan
While Ahmad Raza Khan did not believe that Rasūlullāh(sa) was the creator of heavans and the earth, he nevertheless posited that if someone believes that God granted power to Rasūlullāh(sa) to create heavans and the earth, it won’t be Shirk. This seems to be the apparent meaning of his citation (atleast I could not think of any other meaning), where he says:
Muslims! Where is the justice? If a certain attribute is specific only for Allah then what would happen if we join someone’s name with Allah using the word “AND”? And what if we used the word “THEN”? How can one prevent Shirk? E.g. to create the heavens and the skies and to provide sustenance to all the people from the beginning till the end is the characteristic of Allah alone. Now, if someone says that Allah AND His Prophet are the creators of the heavens and Earth, Allah AND His Prophet provide sustenance through their innate powers then indeed it is Shirk. However, if we say that Allah THEN His Prophet are the creators of the heavens and the Earth and that Allah THEN His Prophet through their own (innate) powers are the provider of sustenance then this will not be Shirk?!
Now dear Muslims! To test them, say to them that Allah and THEN His Prophet are ‘Alim al-Ghayb (knower of the unseen) and that Allah and THEN His Prophet remove the calamities from us, then see whether or not they give the verdict of Shirk!
أيها المسلمون ! النصفة لله ! ما كان من أمر يختصُّ باللهِ ولا دخل لمخلوق فيه، فأيُّ فرق لو قال بالواو أو بِثُمَّ ؟ كيف تتحقَّقَ النجاة من الشرك، على سبيل المثلا كونه تعالى كالقا للسموات والأرض ورازقاً بالقدرة الذاتية للأوّلين والآخرين من شؤون الله خاصَّة. أفإنما يكون شركا لو قال أحد: اللهُ خالق السماوات والأرض و رسوله، والله رازق العالم و رسوله بالقدرة الذاتية، ولو قال: الله خالق السماوات والأرض ثمَّ الرسول، الله رازق الدنيا ثُمَّ الرسول بالقدرة الذاتية، أفلا يكون شركاً. أيها المسلمون ! قولوا بين يدي أهل الضلال امتحانا لهم: الله عالم الغيب ثم الرسول، حلَّ اللهُ مشاكلنا ثُمَّ الرسول، وانظروا يحكمون بالشرك أم لا ؟ (Ahmad Raza Khan)
This is a blatant violation of the understanding of the school. In the language of the Ashʿarī school, believing someone can create means it is God and believing that God allowed someone ability to create is believing that God made another God.
Yes, the majority of scholars did excuse the Mutazillah (معتزلة: rationalist school opposing the traditionalists), but only because the Mutazillah did not extend their belief to creation of bodies. Some of the scholars nevertheless did not accept this excuse from them and proceeded with takfīr. However, the majority view is that Mutazillah did not reach major shirk, but if they believed in creations creating bodies ex-nihilo then that would be major shirk, as Abdul Ḥakīm al-Sialakoti (rh) (d. 1657AD/1067) writes below:
إن المعتزلة لا يثبتون الشريك في وجوب الوجود و استحقاق العبادة؛ و يمنعون كون الخلق مطلقا مناطا لاستحقاق العبادة، بل مناطه خلق الجواهِر والخلق الذي يكون بلا آلات وأسباب، ويمنعونَ ورود الآية السابقة؛ أعني: قوله تعالى: (أفَمَن يَخْلُقُ كَمَن لَّا يَخْلُقُ) (Abdul Ḥakīm al-Sialakoti (rh) )
Furthermore as Abū Manṣūr Abdul Qāhir al-Baghdādī (rh) and Al-Mātūrīdī (rh) write in various places, that if there was another creator besides Allāh(swt) (even if dependent on God), the marifah of Allāh(swt) becomes impossible. The syllogism goes as follows:
1. Allāh(swt) can empower a creation to create the universe.
2. Allāh(swt) can also empower that creation to know everything in that universe and manage universe.
3. It becomes impossible to know if whom we know as God is the dependent contingent being and the necessary being is hidden behind or is it the necessary being himself.
The following quotes in arabic support this syllogism:
وجائز أن يكون اللَّه تعالى أقدر ملكا من ملائكته وقواه على خلق السماوات والأرض، وإذا كان كذلك لم يظهر بما ذكرنا: أن اللَّه تعالى هو الخالق لهما؛ فبطل أن يكون في خلق السماوات والأرضين وفي خلق سائر الأشياء – دلالة حكمته وقدرته ووحدانيته، وقد جعل اللَّه تعالى خلقهما دلالة لهذه الأوجه التي ذكرناها. (Al-Mātūrīdī (rh) )
ودليل آخر: وهو لو جاز أن يكون للعقلاء والجمادات وسائر الحوادث صانعانِ أو أكثر من صانع واحد.. لم يصلِ الواحِد من العقلاء إلى معرفة صانعه بعينه؛ ليعبده بعينه و يشكر على إنعامه عليه، ولم يكن صانعه قادرا على تعريف إياه (Abū Manṣūr Abdul Qāhir al-Baghdādī (rh) )
The arguments given by these scholars against a second creator remain valid even if that is dependent.
2.10 Conclusion
2.10.1 Understanding worship
Worship is showing peak veneration towards someone with peak humility in one’s self. Such can only arise if someone considers that an entity possesses all imaginable benefit and harm for one’s self. Thus, the mechanism of how someone believes in such benefit/harm for other than Allāh(swt) is irrelevant. If he believes that a being hears everywhere and this being is a perfect intercessor such that Allāh(swt) never rejects anything this being says, then from the perspective of that person, all of his benefit and harm is in the hands of that intermediary even while Allāh(swt) is deemed the real doer. Likewise, belief in an entity being able to hear from everyhwhere, know anything, do anything, this will necessarily bring worship. So belief is one way to judge whether someone is worshiping another being and another way is to look at custom. If a certain act is fixed in a custom as worship and dedicated to a divinity then doing that for other than Allāh(swt) is worship, provided that one does not have an overriding ta’wīl such as he thinks that star or object is his qiblah or concentration practice, so in these situtations, the paradigm with which a person directs acts starts to effect the ruling. However, detailed treatement of this issue will be done in another piece.
2.10.2 Major shirk can take place without shirk in rubūbiyyah
The most important corollary is that both the Ashʿarī and the Māturīdī school clearly affirm that major shirk can take place by worshiping other than Allāh(swt) and that worship does not require shirk in Rubūbiyyah. I have not detailed the writings of Māturīdī scholars as that is not the topic, but they are too many, one could only suffice with Al-Mātūrīdī (rh) , and Abū Muīn al-Nasafī (rh) (d. 1115AD/508AH).
Then His statement “Indeed, Allah does not forgive association with Him, but He forgives what is less than that for whom He wills.” can mean Shirk in belief which is to make other than Allah partner to in His Rububiyyah and His Uluhiyyah, and second is to make other than Allah partner in His worship, and all of this is Shirk with Allah, so there is no difference if someone associates other than Allah in His Rububiyyah and His Uluhiyyah and if someone associates other than Him in His worship. Do you not see that He says “your Ilaah (god) is one Ilaah (God).” then Allah says “and not associate in the worship of his Lord anyone.”, He made association in Rububiyyah, Uluhiyyah and association in worship same, all of it is Shirk with Allah.
ثم قوله: (لا يَغْفِرُ أنْ يُشْرَكَ بِهِ ويَغْفِرُ ما دُونَ ذَلِكَ لِمَن يَشاءُ) – يحتمل: الشرك في الاعتقاد، وهو أن يشرك غيره في ربوبيته وألوهيته، وبين أن يشرك غيره في عبادته؛ ألا ترى أنه قال: – ﷿ -: (أنَّما إلَهُكُمْ إلَهٌ واحِدٌ)، ثم قال اللَّه – تعالى – في آخره: (ولا يُشْرِكْ بِعِبادَةِ رَبِّهِ أحَدًا): جعل الإشراك في الألوهية والربوبية، والإشراكَ في العبادة واحدًا؛ كله شرك باللَّه، وباللَّه التوفيق. (Al-Mātūrīdī (rh) )
“Indeed, Allah does not forgive association with Him, but He forgives what is less than that for whom He wills.” It is possible (that it is) Shirk in Uluhiyyah and Rububiyyah, as there are amongst the polytheists who ascribe partners to Allah in creation like Majus and Christians. It is possible (that it is) Shirk in Ibaadah (worship) as there are among them (polytheists) who ascribed partners in worship like the polytheists among Arabs, like how Allah informs about them: “We do not worship them except in order to get closer to Allah in proximity”. And all of it is Kufr of Allah and Shirk in Uluhiyyah, because the Ilaah is the creator and it is the object of worship in reality. (لا يَغْفِرُ أنْ يُشْرَكَ بِهِ ويَغْفِرُ ما دُونَ ذَلِكَ لِمَن يَشاءُ) يحتمل الشرك في الألوهية و الربوبية فان من المشركين من يجعلون له شريكا في التخليق كالمجوس والنصارى ويحتمل الشرك في العبادة فان منهم من يجعلونه شريكا في العبادة كمشركي العرب كما أخبر الله تعالى عنهم: ما نعبدهم إلا ليقربونا إلى الله زلفى، وكل ذلك كفر بالله واشراك له في الألوهية فان الإله هو الخالق و هو المعبود على الحقيقة (Abū Muīn al-Nasafī (rh) )
2.10.3 Strawmanning of Ibn Taymiyyah (rh) should be avoided
Again, Ibn Taymiyyah (rh) was able to allege that Al-Rāzī (rh) was a pagan star-worshiper for citing text of magicians engaged in this stuff, while Al-Rāzī (rh) explicitly writes in the start of his book that he does not believe in anything contrary to Quran and Sunnah, and he is just documenting that. It is also documented that Ibn Taymiyyah (rh) engaged in childish refutations such as his refutation of Al-Rāzī (rh) on the statement of Al-Rāzī (rh) that he came from the east, citing that such is innovation and then going on a rant.
So it seems a recurrent issue with Ibn Taymiyyah (rh) that he does mubālagha against his opponents and is definitely not free from strawmanning them or possibly maligning them. In anycase, one can say that on this particular issue, Ibn Taymiyyah (rh) was nevertheless defending the truth, even while his accusations against Ashʿarīs were unfounded and strawmanning.
However, the Salafī followers of today do not have any excuse that he may have in the court of Allāh(swt) , if they repeat his accusations in our times when the texts of Ashʿarī scholars can be searched within minutes, then they may not have that excuse.
2.10.4 Psuedo-Ashʿarīs are not Ashʿarīs
As for the Barelvi pseudo-Ashʿarīs or Athari/Hanbali Awnists or whoever reinvents the meaning of worship or justifies making duā to Allāh(swt) meaningless/redundant, then they are doing a crime that is much worse than strawmanning by Salafīs. They are essentially distorting the religion of Allāh(swt) and to accuse the Ashʿarī school of such and lay their claim upon the school. These people do not represent the scholars of the two schools in anyway. Infact, what is understood from the writings of Ahmad Raza Khan is that he believed that as long as you believe that any ability is granted by Allāh(swt) to a saint, it cannot be shirk. He does not rule out ability to create heavans and the earth, ability to hear from everywhere, ability to know everything of creations, ability to distribute Jannah and Jahannam, and he exorts his followers to seek help from other than Allāh(swt) with this belief. While modern day barelvis often resort to justifying that with citations of scholars which have nothing to do with this belief, those scholars are either talking about going near the grave and asking the wali to make duā to Allāh(swt) or they are poetry or some other issue. This particular radical istiqlāli kind of thought is unprecedented in two schools. As for Atharī Awnists and others, they only deem such acts textually wrong, but their understanding of shirk is exactly the same as that of Ahmad Raza Khan.
Finally, I would understand that if Barelvis wish to interpret Ahmad Raza Khan differently, that would be granted to them so that they do not fall into the error what I think he fell into. Likewise, the problems with Najdi Da’wah should not be mixed with the issues in this area.
I will start this blogpost by quoting the following principle mentioned by Ruknuddin al-Samarqandi, which Dr. Jalajel also affirms is the Sunni principle:
Translated from:
Allah(swt) says:
(Recall) when We said to theangels, “Prostrate yourselves before ‘Adam.”So, they prostrated themselves, all of them but Iblis (Satan). He was of the Jinn, so herebelled against the command of your Lord.}
[18:50] Mufti Taqi Uthmani}
This is an example where one textual evidence forces departure from apparent of the other and vice-versa, and it is justified according to the principle above.
In this verse, the apparent meanings of the two parts of the verse are in conflict. The apparent of the first part is that satan was from the angels because he was included in the address to angels. The apparent of the second part of the verse is that satan was from the jinn. Al-Maturidi addresses this issue in his exegesis by quoting two groups of scholars. One group took the apparent of the second part—He was of the Jinn—and departed from the apparent of the first part. Their argument goes as follows:
P1: Quran says that satan was from the jinn.
P2: Quran also says that angels do not disobey Allah(swt).
C1: The apparent meaning is that Satan was never an angel.
C2: We can depart from apparent of the part where satan is addressed alongside angels by arguing that it is grammatically permissible.
This is a perfectly valid argument and scholars argued for this. But why is there the disagreement ? The disagreement is that other group of scholars took the apparent of the first part of the verse—we said to the angels—they then argue as follows:
P1: Quran addresses satan along with angels, so the apparent is that he was an angel.
C1 : We take the apparent meaning that he was an angel.
C2: We depart from the apparent of the first group of scholars and say that he *became* of the jinn or some other departure.
Obviously, looking at the two arguments, the first argument is more clear and second has more takalluf and that is why the first understanding is the majority view. However, the way Dr. Jalajel presents the same information is quite misleading. There are three things to note in his presentation to Paul Williams of Blogging Theology [linked under]:
The verse number he mentions is wrong, there is no such verse as Jinn:50, but that is a typo so no issues.
He presents the information as if Maturidi himself is sitting there and arguing, but Maturidi is simply quoting two sides. But even that is not the biggest issue.
The biggest issue is that Dr. Jalajel makes two different slides and presents two cases separately without mentioning the dependence between them, which gives the impression that even if Allah(swt) had not addressed Satan alongside angels and the verse simply said that: “He was from the Jinn”, we would still by justified in speculating that He might have been an Angel who turned into a Jinn. This is quite misleading, the very reason that scholars thought of this departure from zahir is that a competing zahir in the same verse exists and vice versa.
This is the first slide in Jalajel’s presentation, when he argues why the part of the verse—He was from the jinn—does not suggest that satan was never an Angel. He even embellishes his point by saying that people will say: “This is not just Zahir, it is Qat’i, what is your problem” [Except that it is Zahir, and the reason for departing from it is a conflicting Zahir of the other part of the verse, which you deceptively hid from your audience or ignorantly did not realize it]
He completely does not mention that this is the view of scholars who choose to take the Zahir of the first part of the verse, and they have to resort to departure from Zahir of the second part, as Maturidi indicates clearly in his treatment:
وقال آخرون: لم يكن من الملائِكة، وهو قول الحسن؛ والأصم: ذهبوا في ذلك إلى وجوه:
He does the same magic with the second slides, while missing out Maturidi’s qualifier: وذهب من قال: إنه من الملائِكة
For those who understand Arabic, the text of Maturidi is shown below along with link to Jalajel’s view, see for yourself, how misleading his presentation is: 1:27:00 onwards.
ثم اختلف في إبليس: قالَ بَعْضُهُمْ: هو من الملائِكة. وقال آخرون: لم يكن من الملائِكة، وهو قول الحسن؛ والأصم: ذهبوا في ذلك إلى وجوه: أحدها: ما ذكر ﷿ عن طاعة الملائِكة له بقوله: (لا يَعصُونَ اللَّهَ مَآ أمَرَهُم…)وقال: (لا يَسْبِقُونَهُ بِالقَوْلِ…) الآية. وقال: (لا يَسْتَكْبِرُونَ عَنْ عِبادَتِهِ ولا يَسْتَحْسِرُونَ…) الآية. وصف اللَّه تعالى طاعتهم له، وائْتِمارَهم إياه؛ فلو كان اللعين الرجيم منهم لأطاعَه كما أطاعوه. والثاني: قوله: (خَلَقْتَنِي مِن نارٍ وخَلَقْتَهُ مِن طِينٍ) والملائِكة إنما خلقوا من النور. والثالث: قوله تعالى: (كانَ مِنَ الجِنِّ)، ولم يقل من الملائِكة فَدَلَّت هذه الآياتُ أنه لم يكن من الملائكة. ثم قال في قوله: (فَسَجَدُوا إلّا إبْلِيسَ): إنه قد يجوز الاستثناء من غير نوع المستثنى منه؛ نحو ما يقال: دخل أهل الكوفة هذه الدارَ إلا رجلًا من أهل المدينة. وذلك جائِز في اللغة. ويستدل بالاستثناء أن الأمر كان عليهم جميعًا في الأصل، وكان الأمرُ بالسجود له وللملائِكة جميعًا؛ كقوله: (ثُمَّ أفِيضُوا مِن حَيْثُ أفاضَ النّاسُ)، دل أن كان هنالك أمر للناس بالإفاضة، فكذلك الأول، واللَّه أعلم. وذهب من قال: إنه من الملائِكة، أنه لما لم يذكر في قصةٍ من القصص -مع كثرة التكرار لها في القرآن، وغيره من الكتب السالفة- أنه ليس منهم، وليس فيما ذكر من الآيات ما يدل على أنه لم يكن منهم؛ لأن قوله: (لا يَعْصُونَ اللَّهَ ما أمَرَهُمْ ويَفْعَلُونَ ما يُؤْمَرُونَ)، لو لمْ يُتَوهم منهم العصيانُ والخلافُ لله تعالى لم يكن للمدح بالطاعة والخضوع له معنى. ألا ترى إلى قوله: (ومَن يَقُلْ مِنهُمْ إنِّي إلَهٌ مِن دُونِهِ فَذَلِكَ نَجْزِيهِ جَهَنَّمَ…) الآية مع ما ذكرنا: أنهم يُمتحنون بأنواع المحن، وكل مُمْتَحَن في شيء يجوز كون المعصية منه والخلاف لديه. وأما قوله: (كانَ مِنَ الجِنِّ)، أي صار من الجن. وقيل: الجنُ أراد به الملائِكة؛ سُمُّوا جنّا لاستتارهم عن الأبصار؛ كقوله: (وإذْ أنْتُمْ أجِنَّةٌ فِي بُطُونِ أُمَّهاتِكُمْ). وأما قوله خلق الملائِكة من النُور، وإبليسَ من النار – فهو واحد؛ لأنه أخ
Yes, it is true that later on Maturidi did say that the debate about this is not consequential, but my problem with the way Jalajel presents the information.
Why is this problematic ?
It is problematic, because it allows Jalajel to pretend that the zahir can be diluted simply by imagining creative possibilities. However, when we look at the principle formulated by Ruknuddin al-Samarqandi, it is clear that departure from zahir is justified in case of either a competing textual evidence or a rational case.
Let me give an example, when Maryam (as) is quoted in the Quran that:
She said, “My Lord, how will I have a child when no man has touched me?”
An opinion exists that Jesus(as) was created from fluid from Jibril(as) and fluid from Maryam(as), evidently such an opinion will bypass the verse and we would be valid in formulating the matter the way Jalajel formulates.
Interpretation: Jesus was created only from fluid of Maryam.
Assumption: Nowhere does it say that Jibril could not have teleported sperm of someone.
Verdict: Highly uncertain assumption.
Reason: the verse only says that Maryam(as) did not have physical relations with anyone.
Thus, when such a creative possibility has been imagined, one can appeal to tawaqquf on this possibility. This will be justified in his hermeneutics, not according the principle stated by Ruknuddin al-Samarqandi.
Why is he doing this ?
It is obvious that Mr. Jalajel’s hermeneutics are caught as going against what scholars of Islam have said regarding verse-4:1, that Allah(swt) created humans from a single nafs and if our lineage mixed with any non-Adamic being, then we will be coming from two nafs, not one, and whom the verse is addressing has no bearing on the interpretation. As it is clear from the tafsir of Ibn Kamal Pasha who also takes the same view of the verse is addressing:
Secondly Quran also says that Allah(swt) created us from a man and a woman, to argue against Jahiliyyah among Arabs as proven through narrations, Dr. Malik’s “Adamic Exceptionalism” makes Adam and Eve one among many ancestors and the whole Quranic argument is gone into thin air.
O mankind, indeed We have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another. Indeed, the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous of you. Indeed, Allah is Knowing and Acquainted.[49:13]
Such hermeneutics justify Shirk as one wording from the narration says: يا أيُّها النّاسُ، ألا إنَّ رَبَّكُمْ واحِدٌ، وإنَّ أباكُمْواحِدٌ، ألا لا فَضْلَ لِعَرَبِيٍّ عَلى عَجَمِيٍّ، ولا لِعَجَمِيٍّ عَلى عَرَبِيٍّ، ولا أحْمَرَ عَلى أسْوَدَ، ولا أسْوَدَ عَلى أحْمَرَ، إلّا بِالتَّقْوى أبَلَّغْتُ
Oh people your Rabb is one and your father is one.
In what sense do we have Adam as the only one ancestor ? How would Arabs understand the verse in Surah Hujurat as negating racism in lineage-mixing paradigm ?
The answer to this question won’t come from the AE camp, like the other questions that have been posed here along with the Fatwa condemning tawaqquf claim of Dr. Jalajel as misguidance. Secondly, coming to Maturidi himself, he bluntly says that there is no Bashar before Adam: (خَلَقَكُمْ مِن نَفْسٍ واحِدَةٍ) منذماخلقمافيالدنيا من البشر، فأضاف ذلك إليه and Maturidi’s views highlight that the question of human lineage goingpast Adam is a very consequential matter
I mean everyone utilizes tawaqquf, I believe in tawaqquf, every one understands and affirms tawaqquf, our problem is not with tawaqquf, it is Jalajel completely diluting the Sunni paradigm and then claiming it to be Sunni.
What are the implications of his Hermeneutics ?
Well, obviously the Jalajelian notion of Tawaqquf will be that tawaqquf on a number of creedal points of Sunnis vs Mu’tazillah will be justified. While Tawaqquf on where scripture does not address the matter is a valid Sunni principle, to dilute what scripture establishes with certainty is a known deviance route, it is a Bid’ah that our Salaf encountered and explicitly labeled it as such.
Some even considered it more evil than the open Bid’ah’, perhaps because this is less recognizable for the masses and appears more “neutral”, when the truth and falsehood are at odds.
In Al-Sawaad ul A’zam, a very early Aqidah work and the author (most likely Abu Hafs al-Sagheer) takes special care to condemn the “Tawaqquf doers” on creation of Qur’an issue, but also on the question of whether Nabi(as) ascended from Jerusalem to the heavens.
I say it clearly that those who give their alternative paradigms to circumvent Min Nafsin Waahidah and the Mutawatir narrations can only be compared with the one who claimed Tawaqquf on Prophet ascending or not. Take their paradigm of “what possibilities scripture entertains” and apply it on the classical Aqidah points, you will find that their paradigm isn’t Sunni.
Moreover, those who claimed Tawaqquf on Mi’raj need lesser gymnastics than these folks. For example:
– The Quran directly only mentions journey to Jerusalem, but the ascension to heavens is only explicit in Hadith, whereas Min Nafsin Waahidah is mentioned 4 times in Quran. If you can bypass the Quran plus Ahadith, then your paradigm can easily bypass narrations on ascension.
– They did Tawaqquf on a blessing for Rasulullah, you do Tawaqquf on him being a great great, …., great grand offspring of a Rodent like Mammal.
– Their Tawaqquf on Ascension did not uproot other foundational concepts of Islam, your Tawaqquf claim dilutes some essential concepts based on separation of human lineage.
The fatwa in question is issued by Yasalunak, operated under qualified Muftis. The website of the institute is: https://yasalunak.com/
The particular fatwa has not been published on the website as of yet due to processing delay, but I was provided the stamped pdf as I was the one who asked. Some background about authors of the Fatwa and me.
As for me, I am not a scholar/mufti, I did my ta’leem ul Islam with fiqh academy and later joined studies at Jamia Binoria. My role in the matter is of assistance and asking, the binding view is that of Ulama.
The text of the fatwa is as follows, Urdu fatwa is attached here
Question:
There is a querry regarding which the guidance of the people of knowledge is sought. The question is regarding someone who claims that Adam and Eve were created without parents, however afterwards, their progeny mixed with the pre-Adamic evolutionary “humans” and claims that Quran and Hadith are silent on the matter. Will this view be considered an error in Aqidah terms or are the Quran and Sunnah factually silent on this ? Apparently, this view raises the contradiction with the verse of the Quran “He created you from a single nafs”, because if the lineage of Adam mixes with non-Adamic lineage, then we will be not be from a single nafs, rather from two more more nafs, whereas the in the verse, it is mentioned that Allah created us from a single soul. Moreover, in the narrations related to the covenant of Alast, the narrations affirm that we are all from the loins of Adam, thus in the “He created you from a single nafs”, the connection (min) can either by physical or physical and metaphyiscal (for e.g.,temporal) , but the physical cannot be negated, otherwise the contradiction with mutawatir narrations will occur and the problem then falls into the domain of Aqidah. Clarification is needed on this matter.
Answer:
“Allah created Adam without mother and father with his hands/qudrah and then created Hawa from his left rib, thereafter the humanity progressed with the relation of man and woman that will go on until the day of judgement. This matter is proven from the text of Quran and Hadith, and misguided-deviant-kufri views of various kinds have emerged in the world, any thing that is built on other than Quran and Hadith is rejected.
In the question what is stated is correct with regards to the verse “He created you from a single soul”, that the min(من) is tab’eedhiah (necessitates physical connection) and that cannot be negated, because Hawa was created from the left rib of Adam, and it is also correct that in the verse, the min(من) denotes beginning. As Fakhruddin al-Raazi explains with regards to this verse:
Muslims are agreed upon that the nafsin waahidah in this verse means Adam…, Allah(swt) saying: خلقكم من نفس واحدة (He created you from a single soul), if Hawa was created separately from Adam then humans will be from two Nafs, not one, it is possible to answer this by saying that the min (من) can denote the start of an action, thus if the act of creating (humans) started from Adam, it will be valid to say that: “He created you from a single soul”, and also when it is established that Allah(swt) is able to to create Adam from clay, He can also create Hawa from clay, …., as for the word (من) in this verse, then it gives the meaning of start ofr Ibtida, that these things preceeded those things in temporal sense, not in terms of need, so it is rationally possible for Hawa to be created from clay.
What is clear from the above paragraph is that the beginning of humanity is from one single soul that is Adam, and there was no existence of humanity prior to it [1]. Therefore, for someone to claim that the progeny of Adam and Eve mixed with evolutionary creatures, then this is not correct. It is compulsory to protect one’s self and Ummah from such misguied views.“[End of Fatwa]
[1] We do not accept existence of humanity prior to Adam, yes creatures looking similar to Adam might have existed whom biologists call humans, just as even now we have apes looking more like us when compared to a cat.
Comments
Al-Raazi states the following in his passage:
Affirms that interpreting min (من) to indicate physical link with Adam raises contradiction with non-Adamic Hawa, and consequentially also with non-Adamic evolutionary creatures. By non-Adamic, we mean anything that is not from physical essence of Adam.
Affirms that if above mentioned contradiction has to be avoided then the alternative interpretation of min (من) i.e., a meaning not necessitating a physical connection is needed, such as the min (من) indicating temporal beginning. That will allow a non-Adamic Hawa/lineage mixing view to pass through the contradiction. [This route fails against narrations]
Lineage mixing or independent Hawa situation is rationally possible, but its textually not permitted.
What I say in the question is that (2) can only be taken in tandem with (1), i.e., (1) AND (2) both are binding—the creation of humanity started in temporal sense with Adam, as well as we are all physically linked with Adam, thus we cannot be from two independent beings in physical sense and a non-Adamic mixture cannot be added in our lineage, as well as that we cannot affirm presence of humanity (as defined in religious sense) to start from before Adam.
The root cause of the problem with Dr. Malik/Dr. Jalajel who espouse the Mu’tazallian view will be that they will assert (2) to be taken as an additional alternative in exclusion to (1), i.e., they affirm (1) OR (2) relationship, which makes the views non-binding allowing tawaqquf. That is arguable from the verse alone, but it is not arguable from the combination of Quran and Hadith, because Hadith binds us to affirm physical connection with Adam.
How worse is the tawaqquf claim ?
Even though the من (from) cannot be interpreted in a way that denies physical link with Adam, but the exegetes generally mentioned two additional possibilities:
من جنس نفس واحدة, i.e., you all trace back to the genus of one Nafs, but in the lineage-mixing claim, we go back to two beings with different type.
من نفس واحدة؛ من لابتداء الغاية, i.e., the creation of all of you started in temporal sense with Adam, but in the lineage-mixing claim, it starts with the common ancestor. Noting here than this is talking about physical creation, not creation of “soul”, otherwise many say that soul of Rasulullah(sa) was created first.
The consequence is that the lineage-mixing cannot be justified in any way shape or form whatsoever from 4:1, as long as physical connection with Adam is affirmed, which is what is undeniable from mutawatir narrations. And that is due to the word Waahid.
Does the word Waahid exist in the verse ?
In any case, the metaphysical interpretation of 4:1 is not even an issue, because Jalajel in Malik’s work is on record claiming that muslims are bound by 4:1 to believe in physical link with Adam. In this case, he himself closed the door shown by Al-Raazi (that is closed later by Hadith), so he is a witness against himself. His current explanation basically fails to pass the verse alone, because his interpretation is same as if the word Waahid did not exist in the four verses of the Quran where من نفس واحدة occurs.
Jalajel being a witness against himself, as he claimed that this verse necessitates physical link, yet mysteriously, the word Waahid ha s nothing to do in his exegesis !
An analogy of difference between AND relationship between two views and an OR relationship
An example of the difference between AND relationship and OR relationship is found in the Sharh of Aqidah of Tahawiyyah by Qawnawi, where he discuss the views surrounding the covenant of Alast. He brings two views:
The view that is affirmed from narrations that Allah(swt) took out all progeny of Adam at once from the children of Adam, that from Adam, when He created Adam in the same sequence as our procreation now and he put all of us back into loins of Adam.
The metaphorical view the verse is a metaphor for how procreation takes place.
Both views (1) and (2) affirm physical link with Adam and do not give space to lineage-mixing, but the important matter from this case is that second view is the view of Mu’tazillah. Where Qawnawi comes in is that he says that:
if someone affirms first view, and then additionally affirms the second view, he is fine (AND relationship).
But if someone only affirms the second view and denies the first view supported by narrations, then he is a deviant for not affirming the mutawatir narrations that is binding.
Jalajel’s view would be analogous to someone claiming tawaqquf (OR relationship) which is still misguidance/deviance, because affirming the binding mutawatir narrations is rendered optional.
Clarification to Mawlana Usman Ali in my video.
In my video here:
I mentioned the name of Mawlana Usman to mention the speculative possibility of lineage-mixing, it needs to be noted that nowhere in the clip is he being charged with opposing the Fatwa, nor does the fatwa name him. It is understandable for scholars or students of knowledge to give opinions as a matter of discussion, but it is an entirely different matter to proclaim an opinion as valid and assert for its acceptance, i.e., claim on behalf of the scripture/God that such and such view is not problematic or Quran/Hadith does not address it.
But as for Mawlana Usman’s contention that some Mutakallimun held the essence of humanity to be soul, that is a separate discussion. For a number of them argued that man as two components; soul and body, where the material body gives rise to shahawaat (animalistic instincts) while the soul part gives rise to the transcendence of humans and desire to love and worship Allah(swt).
That has got nothing to do with the essential point in 4:1, that if we are physically connected with Adam, either by tab’eedh interpretation that we were all inside the loins of Adam as small particles or by that we came out from him via procreation, the consequences of the word Waahid will rule out any non-Adamic ancestor in our lineage, either from man’s side or woman’s side. This is pretty clear for example, from Ibn Kamal Pasha’s tafsir here:
Ibn Kamal Pasha and invalidity of Jalajel’s view
Ibn Kamal Pasha says
“The address Ya Ayyuha Al-Nas includes people present at that time and those coming after. ….(It appears) that they (humans addressed in the verse) are created from a man and a woman, not from a single man ? It is answered by saying that the woman is also created from him. (Thus justifying creation from single Nafs)”.
Tafsir of Ibn Kamal Pasha, 4:1
Therefore the blunderous mistake of Dr. Jalajel stands exposed that the explanation quoted in Dr. Malik’s book is incomplete, insufficient and simply wrong. The issue of who Ya Ayyuha Al-Naas addresses does not give a clean way out to tawaqquf on lineage-mixing. The central contention from lineage mixing stems from having to justify the statement of creation of humans from single soul/being. To the point that it is clearly understood from the text of Ibn Kamal that if the Eve was not created from the same physical essence as Adam then it would violate the verse, and so would it be violated with the proposition of non-Adamic lineage mixing.
However muslims have been told that view is creedally okay, based on false information.
Al-Raazi’s own view
Despite arguing for the linguistic possibility of the view of the lone mu’tazilite—Abu Muslim Al-Isfahani, Al-Raazi says:
There is no doubt that the Nafsin Waahidha is Adam and it is the single souls and Eve is created from his rib, thus all humans are from single Nafs which is Adam.
Tafsir of al-Raazi, Surah Al-An’am: 98
The Creed of Abu Mansur Abdul Qahir al-Baghdadi al-Ash’ari in support of the Fatwa
Abu Mansur Abdul Qahir is the Imam in herisiology and a major Ash’ari scholar, he brings this as an Aqidah issue.
What muslims and the people of the book are upon is that; humans trace back to Adam and Eve, and what is described that Adam was created from clay and Eve was created from rib of Adam, and the progeny sprouted forth after them.
Al-Asmaa wal-Sifaat, vol:3 pg 282
Interestingly he also attributes a view similar to common ancestry to the Majus.
The magnificent work of Abu Mansur Abdul Qahir published recently. [الاسماء والصفات]
Why the view is a misguidance ?
I have quoted the view of Muftis that this view is a misguidance, whether specific person like Dr. Malik or Dr. Jalajel is expelled from AhluSunnah is not my job, but I can say from the fatwa that both of them are guilty of spreading heretical misguided view among the Ummah and claiming on behalf of scripture, on which it is clear.
Following are the reasons that this view is heretical.
It may necessitate rejection of mutawatir narrations. I guess, the opponents are strategically not keen on being so blatant, so they would take a different route.
Keep appealing to “tawaqquf” by fundamentally altering the Sunni hermeneutical paradigm, meaning that as long as one can imagine and invent possibilities from the text, the binding aspects are rendered as non-binding. His view renders the clear text of Quran from the mutashabihat, and he has tried to use the ta’wil/tafwidh paradigm in his video with Paul, which is a completely different case.
He misrepresents scholars in his videos and text, more upon this will be expounded in future works.
This heretical paradigm creates what I call the Demarcation problem with Mu’tazillah. While, we accept Tawaqquf as a valid concept, the way Dr. Jalajel uses it will make many creedal positions of AhluSunnah against Mu’tazillah and other heretics untenable.
Rejection of consensus/precedence. The opponents accept that the consensus/precedence is on our side, but they deny its binding nature, because the scholars did not come across evolution and it is a new challenge. While this might be plausible in certain cases, in this particular case, the consensus is justified from text using various analogies and points that clearly apply against lineage mixing.
The lineage mixing is not an unimportant detail, like which fruit Adam ate. A number of core ideas of our religion rests on the default paradigm. More on this will be expounded in a work in pipeline.
From an Adab perspective, it means that we do tawaqquf on whether Rasulullah(sa) was a great great , …, great grand child of a rodent like mammal. Let it be known to muslims that Jalajel and Malik claim that if you were to believe that Allah(swt) choose Rasulullah(sa) to be from the best of lineages, yet you still believe this being is the ancestor of Rasulullah(sa), then you are perfectly fine from creedal perspective.
I did not decide to approach the Muftis before directly corresponding in detail with both of them (Dr. Malik and Dr. Jalajel). In anycase, since the correspondence has broken off and Dr. Malik claims that he will answer contentions in a new book, but who will hold him to account for the baseless explanation of his current view and what both of them have explained in the Yaqeen paper as well as the book.
This blogpost is just a short summary of some aspects of the ongoing work that is planned to be put across the Ulama. If you are interested in translating from English to Urdu, please connect with me. I can translate, but due to shortage of time, I need some assistance. The fact of the matter is that the scammish insufficient view was propagated prematurely simply because the qualified Ulama in the muslim lands are not fully aware with the anglo-sphere. InshaAllah, more scholars for more fatawa will be approached with detailed works that can be presented in a better way to the English speaking audience.
Nouman Ali Khan recently released a one hour lecture on his rendition of 4:34, his claim was that Nushuz in 4:34 refers to infidelity. Firstly a disclaimer, I respect Ustaz Nouman Ali Khan for his good work, and by no means, should this critique be considered a complete putting down of his work. But his take on this specific matter is ugly and baseless and I am referring to the video here.
He cited 4:128 alongside it, let me paste the verses with translation.
“Men are in charge of women by [right of] what Allah has given one over the other and what they spend [for maintenance] from their wealth. So righteous women are devoutly obedient, guarding in [the husband’s] absence what Allah would have them guard. But those [wives] from whom you fear arrogance – [first] advise them; [then if they persist], forsake them in bed; and [finally], strike them. But if they obey you [once more], seek no means against them. Indeed, Allah is ever Exalted and Grand.”
[4:34] Sahih International
“And if a woman fears from her husband contempt or evasion, there is no sin upon them if they make terms of settlement between them – and settlement is best. And present in [human] souls is stinginess. But if you do good and fear Allah – then indeed Allah is ever, with what you do, Acquainted.”
[4:128] Sahih International
Most people will be familiar with the objections related to 4:34 and continuous attempts of various kinds by various people to circumvent the issues that are generated by morality of 21st century. Generally speaking, modernists attempt two evasion routes to conform the verse to their morality: one is to re-interpret *strike* part as metaphorical for not talking. Other is to re-interpret what “Nushuz” (rebellion) implies in the verse. So lets spend some time on the latest attempt, which is by Nouman Ali Khan. He takes the Nushuz re-interpretation route.
Straw-manning of classical view
What is the classical view ? It must be said that when mufassirun disagree amongst themselves, the variant opinions would not constitute a very strong evidence, however, the part on which they agree upon, will carry much stronger weight. Due to the obvious reason, that its far less likely for people to understand Qur’an one way for 14 centuries, while they belonged to different cultures, times, and places, and yet, that view to be morally evil in and of itself. For any normally thinking muslim, this precedence should be sufficient. But I will not argue from “precedence” perspective, since the other camp does not hold precedence as binding.
The precedence on this issue is that scholars are agreed upon including in the definition of Nushuz, the act of a woman refusing consistently, arrogantly, without any excuse, physical intimacy with her husband and secondly, her showing vulgur, obscene language or treatment towards her husband. As for other issues like her misbehaving , scholars differ with regards to it. So we leave the part where they differed and establish the agreed upon part.
NAK firstly makes an ugly caricature of classical position by contrasting it like its either you interpret Nushuz as infidelity of wife or the only alternative is that Nushuz means act of wife putting more salt in food. While it is known that preparing food and doing general Khidmah (service) is not even Wajib in Shafi’i school and also for some of Malikis and Hanbalis. Hanafis hold it obligation only depending upon ‘Urf, and even they do not allow court to interfere.
TSo the question is that, how would it make sense to caricature classical position by saying that Nushuz of a woman == adding more salt.
This is getting so typical of people with modernist attitude that they naively or deliberately end up damaging Islam by presenting the worst possible caricature of the tradition, only so that they can get their view validated. Its almost like agreeing with Islamophobes in caricaturing traditionalists. Some other examples are attempts by Yasir Qadhi to take digs at some similar rulings among Shafi’is, or on supposed Ijma’ on coffee ban or the Ottoman printing press issue, only to poke fun at tradition! I won’t bother with references here.
Bigger epistemological concerns
The violation of consensus in a manner that one ends up opposing the meanings understood by every single scholar from the time of Rasulullah(sa) upto our time, begs the question that how is this possible ? Were the words of Allah(swt) related to Ahkaam so vague that only an enlightened individual after 13 centuries has the keys to access and derive correct meanings from them ? This leads to theology of Baatiniyyah and Ibaahiyyah, who thought that Qur’an is inaccessible, except to selected divinely appointed figures.
So then whats the guarantee that NAK too is giving a meaning that is morally evil, and someone will come 100 years later with the same claim that everyone prior did’nt understand the morally correct meaning !
Yes, where there is some doubt on meaning, the tradition itself will give away the clues and give dissenting voices. But to completely invent new meanings renders the revelation completely useless in doing moral judgement, if taken to its logical conclusion.
What does Nushuz and fear mean in language ?
NAK claims that Nushuz was used to refer to an infidel (in sexual sense) woman in Jahili era. NAK has not provided any evidence to prove his point, and what I have been able to gather is that Nushuz refers to a spiteful or arrogant woman, not a cheater in sexual sense. Lets check some classical sources: Al-Naashiz refers to a woman who is loaths and hates her husband, and this is how it is used in the poetry of Arabs[1]. Among the synonyms mentioned for al-Naashiz are al-Zaair and al’aarik, which both mean angry, hateful, or rebelling[2]. I would like to ask Mr. NAK to present an evidence that Arabs used Naashiz to refer to a sexually infidel woman
نشص: نشص السحاب، أي: ارتفع من قبل العين حين ينشأ والنشاص: اسم ذلك السحاب. والناشص: لغة في [1] الناشز، نشصت المرأة على زوجها ونشزت إن أبغضته وكرهته، قال الأعشى
[2]أبو زيدٍ امرأة ذائِرٌ، أي: ناشزٌ. الكسائيُّ: امرأة عارِك
The word is used in the Qur’an itself to denote the meaning of rising up.
O you who have believed, when you are told, “Space yourselves” in assemblies, then make space; Allah will make space for you. And when you are told, “Arise,” then arise; Allah will raise those who have believed among you and those who were given knowledge, by degrees. And Allah is Acquainted with what you do.
[58:11] Sahih International
The same word Nushuz is used in this verse in the imperative form (انشُزُوا فَانشُزُوا) (“Arise,” then arise).
A number of Fuqaha/Ulama used the term Naashizah and Faahishah differently and distinctively, except if Faahisha refers to obscenity of speech, like a woman cussing her husband, then its included in the definition of Nushuz. Otherwise, the term Naashizah and sexually promiscuous are two completely different words. This discussion comes up in 4:19
O you who have believed, it is not lawful for you to inherit women by compulsion. And do not make difficulties for them in order to take [back] part of what you gave them unless they commit a clear immorality. And live with them in kindness. For if you dislike them – perhaps you dislike a thing and Allah makes therein much good.
[4:19] Sahih International
In this verse, various fuqaha discuss the meaning of ‘immorality’ in this verse that makes it legal for Mahr to be taken back. The immorality in the verse is referred with al-Faahishah. So to summarize the matter, al-Faahishah can refer to two meanings: (1) obscenity of speech egregious treatment and (2) sexual promiscuity or infidelity. Only (1) is included in the meaning of al-Nushuz, (2) is not included in that meaning.
وقالَ قوم: الفاحشة البذاء بِاللِّسانِ وسُوءُ العِشْرَةِ قَوْلًا وفِعْلًا وهَذا فِي مَعْنى النُّشُوزِ Some (people of knowledge) said: Al-Faahishah is the obscenity of speech and egregious treatment with sayings and actions, and this is in the meaning of al-Nushuz
قالَ ابْنُ عَطِيَّةَ: والزِّنا أصْعَبُ عَلى الزَّوْجِ مِنَ النُّشُوزِ والأذى، وكُلُّ ذَلِكَ فاحِشَةٌ تُحِلُّ أخْذَ المالِ Ibn Atiyyah said: Zina (cheating) is harder for the husband than al-Nushuz and (other types of) pain, and all of it is a Faahishah which allows Mahr to be taken.
Likewise, its narrated from some that they did differentiated the ruling of a sexually promiscuous woman from a Naashiz, that if a woman is obscene in speech and is showing egregious manners—al-Naashiz, then her Mahr can be taken, but if he comes to know about al-Faahishah with the meaning of sexual infidelity/Zina, then he ought to either do Li’aan or divorce her.
The correct definition of Nushuz would be to rebel against the fundamental obligations of marriage, when directed by a woman to a man, this is weaponization of intimacy or showing egregious/abusive behavior, and when directed by man against the woman, it could be (i) not giving equal time between co-wives, (ii) not giving adequate physical intimacy, (iii) being egregious in treatment or (iv) not providing sustenance.
NAK’s novel interpretation compromises women
The most absurd part of NAK’s novel interpretation is that if its plugged in 4:128 where the man is doing Nushuz against his wife, it would mean that Allah(swt) is telling muslim women that if they know or they fear that their husbands are cheaters, then compromise/peace is better. So Mr. NAK while trying to fix one (imaginary) “problem” , ended up creating another bigger (actual) problem!
Secondly, a number of Mufassireen translated ‘fear’ as ‘knowing’. That if a man or a woman knows that husband or wife is doing Nushuz.
If we take the classical definition of Nushuz, it makes perfect sense in light of objectives of Sharia, that if there was an older woman who hit menopause for example, and her husband has another younger wife, and he is inclined towards younger wife, it is then Nushuz on part of the husband against his older wife, if he is unjust in distributing time. In this case, Shariah provides woman the right to take divorce, however, many cases can be imagined, where a compromise on such a case would be better than taking divorce. As that would protect the progeny, which is one of the objectives of Shariah. This is mentioned by most exegetes in 4:128.
On the other hand, if we take NAK’s novel interpretation, then its as if Allah is telling muslim woman that if you find your husband going to prostitutes and escorts, making compromise is still preferred by Allah. That makes no sense in light of objectives of Shariah, because that man is bringing STDs, he is being a complete Faasiq. It almost starts to look like an insult to muslim women.
Let me ask this question to any reader. You have one daughter, she makes some monetary demand from her husband, her husband refuses, she refuses intimacy to force him to give that money, he then interprets that as Nushuz and goes on the three-step action plan.
You have a second daughter, who is post-menopause and her husband has 4 kids with her, provides her money and shelter, but he has married another woman, with whom he spends more time.
You have a third daughter, whose husband is a cheater, has illegal affairs and does sex with prostitutes. Is it more conceivable to ask third daughter to stay in her marriage or the first and second ? It it more conceivable that Allah(swt) will recommend compromise/peace for first and second, but not recommend it for the third, or is it more conceivable that Allah(swt) will recommend third one to prefer peace ?
NAK’s novel interpretation can suit modern sensibilities in 4:34, but replacing Nushuz with cheating in 4:128 badly fails in terms of fitting with scripture, reason, and even modern sensibilities. It is an utter failure.
Indicators in the verses themselves
Another piece of evidence against NAK’s novel interpretation is that Allah in 4:34 tells the men to not pursue any further acts against the wives, if they “OBEY YOU”. The logical question is that cheating is disobedience to Allah(swt) directly and a sin anyways inside marriage or outside of it, so why did Allah(swt) make obedience to husbands as a stopping critieria of the three-part action plan ?
Yet, another indicator is that in 4:128, Allah(swt) mentions (And present in [human] souls is stinginess), whats stinginess got to what a husband being sexually infidel ? Whereas it has got everything to do with how classical scholars interpreted Nushuz, that in case of a man, it may refer to him unequally giving wealth, unequally giving time, and so on.
Does three-step action plan fit with NAK’s novel interpretation ?
Lets put NAK’s novel interpretation to practice.
A woman is suddenly not talking to her husband or behaving differently. Why should a normally thinking husband assume that his wife is cheating ? He should’nt actually assume that, since suspicion is a serious matter.
Or chat log of a woman is found with a non-Mahram or she is found on tinder or a dating site. The man ought to say according to NAK that wife should stop dating. If she still does’nt stop dating, he should separate beds, if she still does’nt delete her tinder account or dating account, he ought to take a miswak and strike her. Infact, this quickly falls into Dayouth territory !
As the opinion is cited earlier, that sexual infidelity warrants divorce or li’an in Shariah, with the only alternative that the woman does sincere repentance, otherwise Shariah does not recommend three step action plan for sexual infidelity, it recommends it for Nushuz. And this goes both ways, Shariah does not recommend women to keep up with their sexually infidel men, rather it prefers compromise/peace only with a rebellious man, where there is bigger Maslahah in staying with marriage.
It is astounding that NAK simply forgot to understand the obvious consequences of replacing Nushuz with sexual infidelity in 4:128, when it comes to this part (and settlement is best)
What exegetes say ?
Its rather disappointing how NAK can simply set aside so many Mufassirun so easily, ending up with an unprecedented, unsubstantiated, and illogical tafsir of the verse. I will only suffice with mentioning my favourite goto Muffassir and Imam—al-Maturidi(rh). Whereas, similar can be gathered from other exegetes.
What it means that Allah(swt) preferred men over women ?
The preference mentioned in the verse is in ***creation***, that Allah(swt) has made the gender of men able or more suitable to earn, do activities, and manage cities and lands, whereas women are less suitable for that. Noting that Allah(swt) has created everyone differently, not just men and women, even men are different, so creating creations differently does’nt make Allah(swt) “unjust”.
أخبر أنه فضل بعضهم على بعض، وذلك التفضيل تفضيل خلقة، وهو أن جعل الرجال من أهل المكاسب والتجارات، والقيام بأنواع الحرف، والتقلب في البلدان والمدائن، والنساء ليس كذلك؛ بل جعلهن ضعفاء عاجزات عن القيام بالمكاسب والحرف والتقلب في حاجاتهن؛ فالرجال هم القوامون عليهن. والُونَ أمورهن، وقاضون حوائجهن، قائمون على ذلك، ففرض على الرجال القيام بمصالحهن كما ذكرنا مع ما فرض ذلك على الرجال
‘Fearing’ Nushuz means knowing the matter with high probability or knowing it certainly that allows acting upon, as in Shar’iah
وأما الأصل في أنه سمي العلم خوفا؛ لغلبة شدة الخوف؛ فيعمل عمل العلم بالشيء على غير حقيقته؛ لأنه يعرف بالاجتهاد، وبأكثر الرأي والظن، وهكذا كل ما كان سبيل معرفته الاجتهاد – فإن غالب الظن وأكبر الرأي يعمل عمل اليقين في الحكم ديان لم يكن هنالك حقيقة؛ ألا ترى إلى قوله تعالى -: (فَإنْ عَلِمْتُمُوهُنَّ مُؤْمِناتٍ فَلا تَرْجِعُوهُنَّ إلى الكُفّارِ)، وألزمنا العمل بظاهر علمنا وإن لم نصل إلى حقيقة إيمانهن؛ فعلى ذلك إذا علم منها النشوز علم أكثر الظن وأغلبه يعمل عمل الذي ذكر في الآية من العظة وغيرها؛ لأن قوله – تعالى -: (تَخافُونَ نُشُوزَهُنَّ) ليس على وجود النشوز منها للحال حقيقة؛ ولكن على غالب الظن؛ لأنها إذا
كانت ناشزة كيف يعظها؛ وكيف يهجرها ويضربها
Action Plan
Allah(swt) had made the action plan as follows: (1) gentle advise, (2) separation of beds, (3) striking (with conditions later on), (4) raising matter to the court.
أمر اللَّه – سبحانه وتعالى – الأزواج أن تعامل النساء من العظة، ثم الهجران، ثم الضرب، ثم الرفع إلى الحكمين.
What means to strike
The strike is like striking with a shoelace that does not leave a trace, and does not dishonour.
ثم الضرب هو ما ذكرنا أنه يضربها ضربًا غير مبرح، وهو ما روي عن النبي – ﷺ – قال: «عَلِّقْ سَوْطَكَ – أوْ ضَعْ حَيثُ يَراهُ أهْلُكَ، ولا تَضْرِبْها بِهِ»، قيل: وبم نضرب؟ قال: بنعليك ضربًا غير مبرح، يعني: غير مؤثر ولا شائن.
What means Nushuz ?
The obedience in terms of intimacy without any admissible ‘Udhr is the agreed upon aspect, while it may contain other major aspects.
وروي عن رسول اللَّه – ﷺ – أنه قال: «حَق الزوجِ عَلى امْرَأتِهِ إنْ دَعاها وهِي عَلى قَتَبٍ أنْ تُطِيعَهُ»
Wisdom of permitting a man to discipline
The allowance is to not block the means of love and mercy between them, rather it is a last means before the matter is raised to court, since raising the matter to court has a more detrimental effect to the relationship, then the type of strike advocated for. And Shar’iah wants people to keep matter to themselves before external intervention.
فجعل التأديب من الوجه الذي فيه حفظ المجعول لنا – آية، ورعاية ما جعل بينهم من المودة والرحمة، والمنازعات والخصومات إلى الحكام يقطع تلك؛ فجعل لهم من ذلك قدر ما لا يقطع مثله من التأديب المعنى المجعول بينهم؛ ولذلك لم تأذن بالضرب المبرح، ولا أذن إلا عند انقطاع الحيل التي جعلت للألفة والمحبة
Warning of Allah(swt)
In the same verse Allah(swt) warns men that indeed Allah(swt) has the authority over everyone, and thus, the man should treat those under his authority as he expects Allah(swt) to treat him, i.e., not take extreme steps on the first occurrence.
(إنَّ اللَّهَ كانَ عَلِيًّا كَبِيرًا) هذا – واللَّه أعلم – تذكير من اللَّه عباده، وأمر منه إياهم: أنه مع علوه وسلطانه وعظمته وجلاله وقدرته، لا يؤاخذنا بأول عصيان نعصيه، ولا بأول عثرة نعثرها، مع قدرته على الأخذ على ذلك وإهلاكه إياهم، فأنتم لا تؤاخذوهن -أيضًا- بأول معصية يعصين فيكم، واللَّه أعلم.
Man doing Nushuz
Man doing Nushuz is that if he has two wives and one is ugly or old and other is young/beautiful, and his heart is clung to one, and the woman fears that the man will divorce her or not give her rights. Compromise may be better in some situations, not as NAK puts it, that Allah(swt) is asking muslim women to compromise with infidel men.
وقيل: (خافَتْ مِن بَعْلِها نُشُوزًا) أي: علمت، والعلم هو أن يكون للرجل امرأتان: إحداهما كبيرة أو دميمة، والأخرى شابة، يميل قلبه إلى الشابة منهما، ويكره صحبة الكبيرة منهما، ويستثقل المقام معها، وأراد فراقها؛ فتقول: لا تفارقني، واجعل أيامي لضرتي، أو يصالحها على أن يكون عند الشابة أكثر من عند الكبيرة، وهو ما روي عن عائشة – ﵂ – أنها قالت: هي المرأة تكون عند الرجل دميمة، ولا يحبها أزوجها؛ فتقول: لا تطلقني، وأنت في حِلٍّ من شأني.
دلت هذه الأحاديث التي ذكرنا على أن الرجل إذا كان له نسوة أن يسوي بينهن، فيقيم عند كل واحدة يومًا، إلا أن يصطلحا على غير ذلك، والصلح خير
Room for debate
Yet, there are fuqaha who argue that in some circumstances, if it is predicable that moving on to the step (3) will make the matters quite worse, then due to Maslahah, it is advisable to men to not take this option. That particular view does not mess up with tradition or the meanings of the Qur’an, it takes an opinion that can be argued from the classical paradigm. The main issue is with re-interpretation of the nature advocated by NAK.
MISC
Readers can refer to this post for the detailed fiqhi ruling in the Hanbali Madhab as an example.
Dr. Ramon Harvey’s book ‘Transcendent God, Rational World’ came out fairly recently. Dr. Harvey’s work is indeed impressive in the coverage of topics, sources, as well as his interesting takes on fusing aspects from Maturidian tradition with modern philosophy. May Allah reward Dr. Harvey for his efforts and accept from him whats good and allow him to correct/finetune some of the issues. It has started occurring more frequently among muslims in academia, that an impressive work contains a fundamentally problematic theological stance, embedded in few lines.
In case of Dr. Harvey’s work, he explains the Maturidian stance on the speech of Allah and then links it with Abu Hanifa’s opinion of fiqh, and then links it to Qira’at. For readers to understand the background of the issue, I will explain his take.
Kalam of Allah in Maturidian school:
It is uncontroversial in Maturidian school that there is eternal Kalam of Allah that does not consist of letters and sounds, while the letters/sounds are creations by Allah. These created letters/sounds describe the meanings intended by the eternal speech of Allah. Now if you are a Salafi, you will take an offense with this position. But my blog-post is not about proving why Maturidian stance is better than the Taymiyyan stance or the Hanbali stance. Ash’aris also have a stance that similar to Maturidis. My contention is with a specific point of Dr. Harvey, which goes as follows:
Dr. Harvey’s opinion
Dr. Harvey in his book connects these opinions in the following manner.
The words of the Qur’an are created and not identically same as the eternal speech of Allah. Rather, these words describe the eternal speech of Allah. (This is accepted in Maturidi school).
The real Mu’jizah (miracle) of the Qur’an is in its Ma’na (meanings) that is related with the eternal speech of Allah, not in the created Nazm (composition). (This is where Dr. Harvey misrepresented Maturidis)
The variant readings that are derived from Ahruf, could then simply have arisen due to Sahaba and later reciters reciting the revealed words in their equivalent synonymous words. Dr. Harvey provides a metaphysical basis for such a position using the earlier two premises. Thus, what is between the two covers (Qur’an) could very well contain text that Sahaba or later reciters inserted as synonyms out of their own ijtihad, while the original words revealed to Muhammad(sa) could have been different. One would ask then, how is the Qur’an still considered preserved ? I would assume that Dr. Harvey would answer by saying that its underlying meanings intended by the eternal speech of Allah is preserved in what we have between the two covers. (This is where Dr. Harvey’s assertion becomes hugely problematic).
The audience can now appreciate the enormous consequences of what Dr. Harvey treated in a single chapter of his book. Lets start with the second claim of Dr. Harvey. As he puts it, the earlier Maturidi/Hanafi figures agreed with the claim that the miracle of Qur’an is in meanings, not in composition. From earlier Maturidis, Dr. Harvey presents al-Maturidi himself, al-Kasani, al-Sarakhsi, and Ibn Yahya al-Bashaghiri (early Maturidi figure) alongside al-Rustughfani (student of al-Maturidi) to support his claims. According to Dr. Harvey, these were the mid to later Maturidis whose opinion changed (like al-Bazdawi, Abu Shakur Al-Salimi and thereafter) and it kept that way until our day.
My methodology of critique is simple, I will simply verify and cross-check if what Dr. Harvey attributes to these early Maturidi figures is indeed a correct representation of their position, or is it a misrepresentation or misunderstanding, and there is more to it.
Meanings being miraculous independently does not negate miraculous nature of composition
Perhaps, the most fundamental fallacy that Dr. Harvey fell into, is his non-sequitur that if Hanafi/Maturidi authorities argued that the meaning of Qur’an is a miracle independently, then they somehow negate the composition being miraculous. Whereas, what is very clear is that these authorities considered that the meanings of the Qur’an are independent miracle, while also affirming that the arabic composition used to represent those meanings is also miraculous as another layer.
So for example, if a non-Arab asks you: “What is miraculous about the Qur’an” ? One can easily give lots of examples like the perfection of attributes of Allah in the Qur’an, Tawhid, refutation of Polytheism and other types of Shirk, the Ahkaam, etc, which can be understood by anyone in any language. And most of the non-Arab non-muslims who convert to Islam generally do not have access to the miraculous composition of the Qur’an in Arabic, they follow the miraculous meanings conveyed by the composition. This is the part that Maturidis are keen on asserting, in which, I support their view.
This is also because, for Maturidis, the a key criteria of differentiating between a false claimant to prophethood who has some magical tricks and a true prophet with miracles, is rational argumentation about message, character of Prophet, etc. Also, Maturidis affirm that notions like Tawhid, accountability, etc, can be proven from Aql (intellect), thus, they can be used as prior criterion in some sense to distinguish a false claimant from a true Prophet.
However, all of this discussion, does not lead to the conclusion that the composition used by Allah to represent these meanings, is not miraculous. I will briefly analyze Dr. Harvey’s citations.
Al-Sarakhsi’s view
Let me present the case of Al-Sarakhsi, whom Dr. Harvey quotes in his work. Note, that I am pasting screenshots from a pdf version that I obtained, but I also bought the book personally, so I hope that there is no unethical copyright violation. Dr. Harvey writes:
Yes, al-Sarakhsi emphatically argues that the meaning is miraculous by itself and he does quote it as a possible justification for Abu Hanifa’s fiqhi opinion, but he also affirms miraculous nature of nazm (composition) unequivocally in another place
أن الوَحْي المتلو نظمه معجز والَّذِي هُوَ غير متلو نظمه لَيْسَ بمعجز That the recited revelation—its composition is miraculous, and what is not recited (Hadith) is not miraculous in composition. https://app.turath.io/book/6301?page=446
This second citation of al-Sarakhsi is so clear, that it categorically contradicts Dr. Harvey’s portrayal of al-Sarakhsi’s view that the I’jaz (miracle) of the Qur’an is solely in Ma’na (meaning), not in composition. Dr. Harvey even goes as further as pinning the alleged view of al-Sarakhsi on “early Samarqandi Hanafi” tradition, while even al-Sarakhsi himself is not on board with the miracle solely in meaning. So for example, he quotes the position of lot of Hanafi Mashaykh that the miracle is in meaning and composition both:
ثمَّ قالَ كثير من مَشايِخنا إن إعجاز القُرْآن فِي النّظم وفِي المَعْنى جَمِيعً
Yet, later on argues that all of them did not mean to say that meaning independently is not a miracle. والَّذِي يَتَّضِح لي أنه لَيْسَ مُرادهم من هَذا أن المَعْنى بِدُونِ النّظم غير معجز فالأدلة على كَون المَعْنى معجزا ظاهِرَة
In al-Sarakhsi’s view, all these scholars held the opinion that the composition of Qur’an is miraculous, while also believing meaning to constitute miracle independently. Basically, Dr. Harvey makes a conclusion from al-Sarakhsi’s opinion that is not necessitated. Someone holding the opinion that meanings of Qur’an independently constitute miracle does not imply that the miracle is “solely” in meaning, while composition is not miraculous. He can affirm miracle in composition on top of it, like al-Sarakhsi.
Kasani’s view
Dr. Harvey quotes al-Kasani’s possible justification of Abu Hanifa’s view. He also speculates that Abu Hanifa’s opinion might have been ‘suppressed’ and he might uncover that suppression. While quoting al-Kasani, what Dr. Harvey does not mention that in the same paragraph from where he quotes al-Kasani, he affirms the miraculous nature of the composition. Al-Kasani responds to the objection that if the Salah was permissible with recitation in Farsi, the recitation would not be miraculous in composition. He agrees with that, then says that reciting what is miraculous in composition is not a condition of Salah fiqh-wise. Meaning, that he agrees with miraculous composition in Arabic, while still deems it not problematic fiqh-wise to do Salah in Farsi, thus negating the link that Dr. Harvey keeps making.
إنّ الإعْجازَ مِن حَيْثُ اللَّفْظُ لا يَحْصُلُ بِالفارِسِيَّةِ – فَنَعَمْ لَكِنَّ قِراءَةَ ما هُوَ مُعْجِزُ النَّظْمِ عِنْدَهُ لَيْسَ بِشَرْطٍ https://app.turath.io/book/8183?page=112
Thus, al-Kasani’s view is reduced to a weird opinion fiqh-wise, that should not be linked with his view on whether the miracle of Qur’an is in composition or not, because he accepts that, and al-Kasani’s fiqh position is not connected with the Ahruf/Qira’at story that Dr. Harvey provides. This is a very important point as well, the opinion in fiqh that one could in need recite Qur’anic translation in Salah, is not linked with one’s view of miracle of Qur’anic preservation or the Ahruf/Qira’at issue, as al-Kasani’s case demonstrates. Abu Shakur al-Salimi also has similar comments that the recitation in persian is more to do with fiqh, then redefining that the Qur’an in Arabic is “identical” (ayn) of any translation.
Al-Rustughfani / Ibn Yahya’s view
Dr. Harvey also brings this text from Sharh of Al-Jumal Min UsulilDeen, written by Ibn Yahya al-Bashaghiri, of Abu Salamah’s text.
In this particular quote فلو جاز أن يكون مخلوقا لم يثبت الإعجاز لأنه يخلو عن لطف الربوبية فما يبقى إلا النظام بالعربية والخطباء والفصحاء لا يعجزون عن الإتيان بمثله فإذا عجزوا دل أن كلامه منه والوهية والله المسدد
Ibn Yahya is refuting Mu’tazillah and doing an ilzam against them, here again, it is not necessitated that according to Ibn Yahya, there is no miracle in Quranic composition. This particular part of text is a bit ambiguous, but in light of what Ibn Yahya has written in the same book, what could be said is that the miracle of composition stands like layer on top of the miracle of meaning, because if you have gibberish, no amount of awesome composition will elevate gibberish to a miracle. So this particular argument against Mu’tazillah goes like this: If Quran is not the eternal speech of Allah then it is not linked to Allah’s attributes, the meaning then cannot be miraculous, if the meaning cannot be miraculous, then the miracle of composition also collapses like the gibberish. Whether Ibn Yahya’s argument against Mu’tazilah is good enough, thats another matter, but lets move a few pages down in the same book to get more clear picture of his views.
What clarifies Ibn Yahya’s understanding and that of al-Rustughfani (direct student of al-Maturidi) is found in the exact same book. Where al-Rustughfani is quoted by Ibn Yahya saying that Quran is miraculous in three aspects; one of it is that it is specific to the eternal speech of Allah, the second is that the orators and litterateurs were unable to match it, and third is how remains infallible for the Ummah of Rasulullah(sa) in seven ways…., where he then mentions its protection as well.
هذا الفصل سمعته من الفقيه الإمام أبي الحسن يقول: ألا إنّ معجزة رسول الله يَة الأصلية كان هو القرآن كلام الله لثلاثة أوجه: أحدها: أن يكون مخصوصاً بمعجز غير مخلوق. والثاني: أنه أعجز الخطباء الفصحاء لأنهم كانوا هم الرؤساء حتى لا يحتاج إلى الاتباع باسكاتهم. والثالث: ليكون من بعده عصمة لأمّته من سبعة أوجه بايراد الإيمان بالقرآن وبتعلمه وبتلاوته وبعلمه بما فيه وبالعمل بما فيه ويحفظ حرمته بتعليمه لمن استعمله ولأن يصير سبباً للهدى والنجاة.
The inability of orators to match the Qur’an is separately described by al-Rustughfani in Ibn Yahya’s Sharh, which indicates that its both in meanings and composition on top of meaning. Likewise, al-Rustughfani also answers the question of why Qur’an is a miracle for non-Arabs in a manner that does not appeal to the miracle of meanings—which is testimony of Arabs for non-Arabs that they could not bring anything like it. So if the non-Arabs were in the time and place of Arabs, they too would be unable. Not only that Qur’an is miraculous in meaning that is understood by Arabs and non-Arabs alike, its miraculous composition is also a proof for the non-Arabs via testimony of Arabs.
سئل الفقيه وا الإمام أبو الحسن: أن القرآن معجز للعرب أو للعجم؟ فقال: إنه معجز لأهل اللسان أولاً وعجز العرب الذين هم أهل اللسان دلّ العجم على أنهم لو كانوا من أهل لسانهم يعجزوا أيضاً فإذا عجز أهل اللسان فنحن أعجز فصار معجزاً للكل 176
If as Dr. Harvey portrays the opinion of al-Rustughfani and earlier Maturidis, the miracle was solely in meaning, then meaning is accessible to Arabs and non-Arabs in somewhat of a comparable manner. However, if the miracle is also in composition, then that particular miracle is accessible to Arabs directly, but it is only accessible to non-Arabs via testimony of Arabs, as al-Rustughfani argues. Proving that earlier Maturidian figures affirmed the miraculous composition.
Upto now, Dr. Harvey’s citations of al-Kasani, al-Sarakhsi, Ibn Yahya and al-Rustughfani have been answered, there remains the Imam himself—al-Maturidi and his views on the matter.
Al-Maturidi’s viewon preservation of Qur’an
Dr. Harvey’s citations of al-Maturidi
There is no controversy about this part at all, al-Maturidi also argues from the verse
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ أُوتُوا الْكِتَابَ آمِنُوا بِمَا نَزَّلْنَا مُصَدِّقًا لِّمَا مَعَكُم O you who were given the Scripture, believe in what We have sent down [to Muhammad], confirming that which is with you[4:47]
That this conformation of Qur’an with earlier scripture is in meanings and rulings, not in the composition and language (obviously). And from here, he tried to argue in support of Abu Hanifa’s view of permissibility of reciting in Persian in Salah. However, I still fail to understand that how does this equivocate to Dr. Harvey’s statement that “what is essential to the Qur’an is not the outward lingusitic form”, as we have noted earlier that al-Kasani and al-Sarakhsi both argued for this opinion, yet affirmed the miraculous composition in Arabic. Moreover, when Dr. Harvey links this to Ahruf and replacement of synonymous words by ijtihad, it begs a bigger question; “Can meanings be originally transmitted while compromising composition ?” This is where I bring more citations from al-Maturidi to make his view clearer.
ثم قوله: (مُصَدِّقًا لِما مَعَكُمْ) أي: موافقًا لما معكم، وإنّما كان موافقًا لما معهم بالمعاني المدرجة فيه والأحكام، لا بالنظم واللسان؛ لأنه معلوم أن ما معهم من الكتاب مخالف للقرآن نظمًا ولسانًا، وكذلك سائر كتب اللَّه – تعالى – موافق بعضها بعضًا معاني وأحكامًا، وإن كانت مختلفة في النظم واللسان؛ دل أنها من عند اللَّه – تعالى – نزلت؛ إذ لو كانت من عند غير اللَّه كانت مختلفة؛ ألا ترى أنه قال: (ولَوْ كانَ مِن عِنْدِ غَيْرِ اللَّهِ لَوَجَدُوا فِيهِ اخْتِلافًا كَثِيرًا)، ففيه دليل لقول أبي حنيفة – حيث أجاز الصلاة بالقراءة الفارسية؛ لأن تغير النظم واختلاف اللسان لم يوجب تغير المعاني واختلاف الأحكام، حيث أخبر – أنه موافق لما معهم، وهو في اللسان والنظم مختلف، والمعنى موافق
Al-Maturidi’s argument against Baatiniyyah
Perhaps, the most explicit passage from al-Maturidi comes in the explanation of the verse
لَا تُحَرِّكْ بِهِ لِسَانَكَ لِتَعْجَلَ بِهِ Move not your tongue with it, [O Muhammad], to hasten with recitation of the Qur’an.[75:16]
Al-Maturidi clearly says that Qur’an refers to both the composition and letters, as well as the meanings conveyed by them, it becomes a proof via its composition and letters, and also by the meaning conveyed by the composition.
ثم القرآن قصد به الوجهان جميعا: ضبط حروفه ونظمه، وتعرف ما أودع فيه من المعاني؛ إذ صار حجة بنظمه ولفظه، وبالمعاني المودعة فيه
Moreover, what also al-Maturidi alludes further in the quote[1] is that the protection of meaning is compromised if the composition is not preserved. A logical question that emerges from the understanding of Dr. Harvey, is that if the later companions and later Qurraa had the leeway to describe the Qur’an into their own words and repalce some words with equivalent meanings, then this flexibility should have been allowed for Rasulullah(sa) himself ? He(sa) is more worthy of describing whats revealed to him(sa) in his words. While, there is some possibility of these later reciters doing mistakes, but not in case of Rasulullah(sa). Was that flexiblity afforded to Rasulullah(sa) ?
Here al-Maturidi argues that the moving of blessed lips of Rasulullah(sa) is a proof of him doing an effort to memorize the exact words, except that Allah(swt) took it upon Himself to do that for him(sa). And al-Maturidi argues this against Batiniyyah who took the position that Qur’an was not revealed to Rasulullah(sa) in composition, rather it was revealed as thought, which he later penned down, that others were unable to match. So if only the meaning is meant for preservation without precise composition of arabic words, then why delay or push forward the “ijithadi” element to Sahaba or reciters, why can’t one start this Ijtihad in choosing composition from the time of Rasulullah(sa) by Rasulullah(sa) himself ? But there is no evidence for it, instead, the evidence is against it, and the evidence is that Rasulullah(sa) exerted himself in memorizing the composition, meaning that it was meant to be preserved and transmitted, otherwise, makes no sense to worry about repeating words.
The moving of lips argument is a brilliant argument by al-Maturidi and truly establishes the importance of the composition and shatters this position of Baatiniyyah, as well as those denying the preservation of exact composition.
The second argument of al-Maturidi is again brilliant, he brings the verse pagans accused Rasulullah(sa) of obtaining the Qur’an from a non-Arab.
وَلَقَدْ نَعْلَمُ أَنَّهُمْ يَقُولُونَ إِنَّمَا يُعَلِّمُهُ بَشَرٌ ۗ لِّسَانُ الَّذِي يُلْحِدُونَ إِلَيْهِ أَعْجَمِيٌّ وَهَٰذَا لِسَانٌ عَرَبِيٌّ مُّبِينٌ And We certainly know that they say, “It is only a human being who teaches the Prophet.” The tongue of the one they refer to is foreign, and this Qur’an is [in] a clear Arabic language.[16:103]
If the matter was as the Baatiniyyah posited, that Rasulullah’s(sa) heart was given the thoughts of the Qur’an which he composed in Arabic, then he(sa) could have obtained from a non-Arab same things, and the argument of Qur’an itself won’t stand. This particular argument of Qur’an rests upon the uniqueness of Arabic Nazm.
Our central point of contention with the school of thought that Dr. Harvey supports is:
“Is preservation of composition and preservation of exact of words of Qur’an as revealed to Rasulullah(sa), a necessary requirement for preservation of Qur’an ?”
and there are few more voices somewhat similar to Dr. Harvey’s approach, like Dr. Akram Nadwi (with whom Dr. Harvey is associated) as well as presumably Dr. Qadhi.
We say, that if the composition was not included in the definition of preservation, then Baatiniyyah can also claim that Qur’an is preserved according to their understanding. And if the composition was not included in the definition, then Rasulullah(sa) would’nt try hard to move his lips to memorize and there would be no stringent effort to preserve the composition from the first day. Among many other evidences.
Al-Maturidi’s definition of Tahrif
While describing the Tahrif of the people of the book. Al-Maturidi mentions two possibilities: (1) them changing the interpretation and claiming the interpretation to be from Allah(swt) and (2) them changing the composition and whats recited, erasing it, and writing something else.
وقوله – ﷿ -: (يُحَرِّفُونَ الكَلِمَ عَنْ مَواضِعِهِ) يحتمل أن يكونوا يغيرون تأويله ويقولون: هذا من عند اللَّه. ويحتمل التحريف: تحريف النظم والمتلو، ومحوه، ويكتبون غيره.
How exactly is the view of Dr. Harvey different than what al-Maturidi condemns as Tahrif ? Now, Dr. Harvey can say that his definition of the Qur’an necessitates preservation of composition to the extent that meaning is not compromised. So he would negate that any complete Surah or Ayah has been lost and re-inserted by a scribe or a Qaari.
But he may affirm that these scribes or reciters or companions had the flexibility to insert synonyms in a way that does not distort the meanings in their respective viewpoints/ijtihad, but who exactly made sure that the synonyms were inserted in a perfect manner that did’nt distort the meanings intended by the eternal Kalam of Allah ?”
Was it some kind of Holy Ghost ? Because, some one can insert a synonym thinking it keeps the meaning same, but someone else comes around and claims that the meaning has been altered with the synonym ! This position does not stand, since, there can be Ahkaam and theological doctrines that are contingent upon a letter. The most recent example of such is “Shaykh”, aka. the charlatan—Imran Hossein claiming to know the meaning intended by Allah, which in his view was altered by the ijtihad of “Ajami” reciters, and he put it back into its place. I ask the readers:
Al-Maturidi’s discussion on miraculous aspects of Qur’an.
In his Book of Monotheism, al-Maturidi also counts the Nazm as one of the miraculous aspects of the Qur’an. (وُجُوه الحجَج بِالقُرْآنِ إذْ هِيَ من وُجُوه أحدها بنظمه).
Summary
It is clear from the preceeding discussion, that Hanafi-Maturidi figures like al-Kasani, al-Sarakhsi, al-Maturid himself, al-Rustughfani and Ibn Yahya did not deny the miracle of composition of Qur’an, and instead accepted it. Dr. Harvey’s speculation that the “early Samarqandi” view was suppressed is unfounded. And later scholars like al-Bazdawi correctly describe the miracle of Qur’an to be in meaning as well as in composition, and Dr. Harvey thinks that al-Bazdawi caved in to Ash’aris and became theologically inconsistent !!!!
Further Clarifications
It could be the case that Maturidian view would imply that the meanings intended by the eternal Kalam of Allah are necessarily miraculous, since they are unique only to Allah. However, as for the composition of created words/letters that Allah uses for His eternal speech, they are miraculous, if Allah chooses so, not by necessity. Abu Shakur al-Salimi argues that previous scripture like Injil and Torah were not miraculous like the Qur’an which is miraculous in meaning and composition both.
Another important point is that these questions:
Was composition miraculous ?
Is preservation of composition and exact words necessary for Kalam of Allah ?
The validity of reciting translation in Salah.
The nature of Ahruf and Qira’at.
These are separate questions with some linkage, but they do not follow each other’s conclusions. So someone could believe that composition of Quran was miraculous for 7th century Arabs, yet he may not hold preservation of exact words to be necessary for the definition of preservation of Qur’an. Because, he may hold the preservation of miracle of meaning sufficient and he may be fine with loosing miraculous composition. If someone holds this position, we will counter this by saying that if words are not preserved, the meaning is also compromised.
Someone could hold that the composition was not miraculous, yet hold that words have to be preserved in order for us to know the meanings intended by Allah. We will counter this by saying that if the words were preserved, then those same words establish the belief that composition in Arabic was also miraculous. Like various verses in the Qur’an.
Likewise someone could separately hold the position of validity of reciting in Farsi in Salah. This view can be criticized in Fiqh terms, and Abu Hanifa’s(rh) view was not accepted, and according to some, he also retracted to some extent. But, one could strongly oppose Kasani’s view on allowing recital in Farsi or even a previous scripture (like Injil or Torah) if its Sanad is established (which is impossible to establish), yet that would not necessitate that Kasani held the view that composition is not miraculous or that the words were not preserved.
Dr. Harvey establishes links between these questions, that are clearly not established, and his citations of Hanafi/Maturidi authorities on this very important issue are careless. Maturidi-Hanafis like Kasani, Sarakhsi, Rustughfani, Ibn Yahya, or Maturidi himself. Infact, the very sources that Dr. Harvey relies upon (the early figures in Maturidi school before the supposed capitulation to Ash’arism began), do not support Dr. Harvey’s very speculative conjecture.
Other evidences in support of the composition’s miraculous nature
The opinion of deeming composition not miraculous has been attributed to deviant sects، specifically to al-Nazzam, Abu Musa al-Mardar, that the miracle of Qur’an is in its news of unseen, etc, but not in its composition. This is referenced by Ash’ari Shafi’i Mutakallim Heresiologist and Mathematician—Abu Mansur Abdul Qahir al-Baghdadi in his work “Kitab UsululDeen”. He presents a verse as an evidence:
فَأْتُوا بِعَشْرِ سُوَرٍ مِثْلِهِ مُفْتَرَياتٍ “Then bring ten surahs like it that have been invented”[11:13]
Then argues that Allah(swt) is challenging the Arab Pagans to even bring 10 Surahs “Muftarayat”, that you generate from your own lies. Abu Mansur (Baghdadi) asserts that such a challenge can only be given in composition, and this is mentioned as one possible opinion by al-Maturidi in his tafsir, that Allah(swt) is saying to them; “If it is as you claim that Muhammad(sa) is lying, then you can also lie and bring something like the Qur’an, while your language and his language is the same”. Basically, Allah(swt) relaxed them the condition of bringing news of unseen and other aspects of I’jaz but asked them to produce even a lie of comparable composition, proving Qur’an’s I’jaz in Nazm as well.
إن لسانكم مثل لسان مُحَمَّد، فإن قدر هو على الافتراء افترى مثله من عنده، فتقدرون أنتم على افتراء مثله: فأتوا به، وادعوا أيضًا من لسانه مثل لسانكم حتى يعينوكم على ذلك، إن كنتم صادقين أنه افتراه، واللَّه أعلم.
The issue of Ahruf/Qira’at and Ibn Mas’ud
Dr. Harvey also brings in Ibn Mas’ud’s ‘alleged’ view on Ahruf and Qira’at, this post is not meant to refute that. What is presented is enough already. However, I would like to request Dr. Harvey to reconsider his approach and position. Specially, to think twice and thrice on out-of-the-norm issues. And to not engage in speculative sort of detective work on sensitive areas of belief.
As it is clear that Dr. Harvey did not present in this particular book (regardless of his personal prowess), any investigation into the various narrations about the Ahruf and the opinions of many Salaf who have explicit quotes that had one of them not received an oral transmission, he would have recited in so and so manner. Thus proving that these Salaf did not replace synonyms out of their ijtihad. There are many other facets to this discussion, such as tafsiri markers used by Sahaba, etc, and the whole issue with Ibn Mas’ud(ra). Likewise, the rukhsah of reciting by replacing with equivalent words with same meanings was allowed for Sahaba according to one scholarly position, but this permission was taken away within the lifetime of Rasulullah(sa).
[EDIT] However, I must here clarify that Dr. Harvey’s claims surrounding Ahruf/Qir’at are separate from the central contention of this post. Which is clearly shown is that Dr. Harvey misrepresented earlier Maturidi figures surrounding the question of I’jaz of Nazm. Its not as if he made X claim and I showed contradiction in Y. Let me rephrase:
“I claim that al-Sarakhsi, al-Kasani, al-Rustughfani, Ibn Yayha, al-Maturidi held the Nazm of Qur’an to be miraculous, whereas Dr. Harvey claims that these figures did not hold the Nazm of Qur’an to be miraculous”.
So this is a direct contradiction, either I am wrong, or he misrepresented these figures, or I misunderstood him (unlikely) and the way to check the claims are open for anyone who understands Arabic, since the sources are provided. As for, whether his thesis overall is right or wrong on Ahruf/Qira’at/Preservation, that is another matter to discuss.
Conclusion
According to Maturidis (earlier and later), the miracle of the Qur’an is in meanings as well as composition, and Dr. Harvey missed out on key citations.
Dr. Harvey’s citations of early Hanafi-Maturidi authorities on this matters are weak.
Saying that the composition has no miracle, this is a serious Aqidah issue.
Dr. Harvey’s treatment of Ahruf and Qira’at is insufficient, and the position of reciting with equivalent words, is not thought out.
The protection of meanings of Qur’an on our side requires protection of composition and words.
References
[1]
فإذا كان المراد يتوجه من الكلام إلى ما ذكرنا، – فقيل: لا تعجل بتحريك اللسان كما يفعل من يريد التقاء الكلام الذي يلقى إليه؛ فإنك وإن أحوجت إلى حفظ نظمه وحروفه، فقد كفيت حفظه بدون تحريك اللسان. وجائز أن يكون نُهي عن تحريك اللسان والمبادرة إلى حفظه قبل أن يُقضى إليه بالوحي؛ لما فيه من ترك التعظيم لمن يأتيه بالوحي، فأمر أن يصغي إليه سمعه، ويستمع إلى آخره؛ تعظيما للذي أتاه بالوحي، وتوقيرا له. ثم هذه الآية تنقض على الباطنية قولهم؛ لأن من قولهم: إن القرآن لم ينزل على رسول اللَّه – ﷺ – مؤلفا منظوما؛ بل أنزل على قلبه كالخيال، فصوره بقلبه، وألفه بلسانه؛ فأتى بتأليف، عجز الآخرون عن أن يؤلفوا مثله. ونحن نقول: بل أنزل هذا القرآن مؤلفا منظوما على رسول اللَّه – ﷺ -، ولم يكن التأليف من فعله؛ والذي يدل على صحة مقالتنا قوله تعالى: (لا تُحَرِّكْ بِهِ لِسانَكَ)؛ لأن التأليف لو كان من فعله – عليه السلام – لكان لا يوجد منه تحريك اللسان وقتما تزل عليه؛ لأنه إذا كان كالخيال فهو يحتاج إلى أن يصوره في قلبه، ثم يصل إلى التأليف بعد التصوير، وتتأتى له العبارة باللسان، وإنما يقع التحريك من مؤلَّف منظوم؛ ثبت أنه أُنزل هذا مؤلف منظوم. والثاني: أنه قال: (ولَقَدْ نَعْلَمُ أنَّهُمْ يَقُولُونَ إنَّما يُعَلِّمُهُ بَشَرٌ لِسانُ الَّذِي يُلْحِدُونَ إلَيْهِ أعْجَمِيٌّ وهَذا لِسانٌ عَرَبِيٌّ مُبِينٌ)، فهذه الآية نفت طعن أُولَئِكَ الكفرة الذين زعموا أن هذا ليس بقرآن، بل إنما علمه فلان، وكان لسان ذلك البشر أعجميا، وهذا القرآن عربي؛ فكيف يستقيم أن يعلمه ذلك البشر، ولسانه غير هذا اللسان، ولو كان هذا القرآن وقتما أنزل كالخيال، لكان ذلك الطعن قائما؛ لأنه كان يؤلفه، ويجمعه باللسان العربي، وإن علم بالأعجمية لما قدر أن يؤلفه، وينظمه بعد أن كان خيالا باللسان العربي.
[2]
وُجُوه الحجَج بِالقُرْآنِ إذْ هِيَ من وُجُوه أحدها بنظمه والثّانِي بَيان جَمِيع الأُمُور الَّتِي بها علم العلماء أهل الكتاب والثّالِث الإخْبار بِما يكون لَهُ من الفتُوح ودخُول الخلق فِي دينه أفْواجًا وإظْهار دينه على الأدْيان والرّابِع أن الله تَعالى جمع فِي القُرْآن أصُول جَمِيع النَّوازِل الَّتِي تكون إلى يَوْم القِيامَة دلّ أنه عالم الغَيْب حَتّى أعلمهُ أصُول ذَلِك وأيْضًا ما أظهر من مُوافقَة القُرْآن سائِر كتب الله وبَيان نعت مُحَمَّد ﷺ وأمته كَقَوْلِه والأصْل فِي هَذا أن رَسُول الله ﷺ بعث فِي عصر لم يعرف فِيهِ التَّوْحِيد بل كانَ عباد الأوْثان والأصنام والنيران فَجمع ما أنزل عَلَيْهِ من القُرْآن هُوَ من أنجح ما لَو اجْتمع موحدو العالم من مضى مِنهُم ومن يكون أبدا على إظْهار أدلته ما احتملت بُلُوغ عشرها فضلا عَن الإحاطَة فِي ذَلِك الزَّمان الَّذِي لا يقدر على موجد واحِد ولا قُوَّة إلّا بِاللَّه وأيْضًا أن القُرْآن أنزل فِي عشْرين سنة فَصاعِدا بالتفاريق ما خرج كُله على وزن واحِد من النّظم وعَلى مُوافقَة بعضه بَعْضًا مِمّا لَو احْتمل كَون مثله عَن الخلق لم يمْتَنع من الخلق من الإختلاف فِي شَيْء من ذَلِك
دلّ أنه أنزل من عِنْد علام الغيوب ولا قُوَّة إلّا بِاللَّه
For those readers who are not aware of this controversy, the claim has been circulating by Awnist group named after Hatim al-Awni to whom Dr. Qadhi also ascribes to. That the reality of Shirk is restricted o that someone considers some being independent of God in the sense of being outside power, knowledge and will of God. Shirk cannot be established outside this definition.
For example, anyone considered creator of heavens and the earth, knowledgeable of all matters of all creations and being able to fulfill all needs of all creations is not Shirk, if the believer of such a creed believes that this entity is dependent on Allah, just like me asking someone for water is not Shirk because the ability of someone to give me water is dependent on God. Awnist group does not itself justify such a belief as okay, but will defend it to death that this is not Shirk, their arguments happen to be exactly same as the people they defend.
This particular heretical belief has three claims to to make:
No Shirk can occur unless someone does Shirk in Rububiyyah.
No Shirk in Rububiyyah can occur unless someone is attributed independent powers.
Acts devoid of belief in (1) and (2) cannot be considered worship or cannot be taken to say that someone is a Mushrik, no matter if he is praying 5 times a day to a sun or moon.
In addition, this group has consistently tried to generate the emotional appeal surrounding their narrative by falsely claiming that basically every non-Salafi in Islamic history had the same position. Nothing could be further from truth from Ash’ari or Maturidi perspective as well. I have repeatedly stressed that the issues with Salafis and a more virulent from (Najdism) does not justify the Istiqlaali beliefs. The Awnists/Istiqlaalis have misunderstood the issues with Najdi Da’wah, which deserve a separate writeup.
This series of posts is intended to make three specific counter claims:
Shirk in Rububiyyah is not a condition for Shirk major Shirk to occur.
Independence is not a condition for Shirk in Rububiyyah.
Shirk in acts of Ibaadah in some cases and context without knowing belief can be taken to be a necessary indicator of belief and ruling of Shirk applied on, such as prostration to an idol or sun. Given ofcourse that the person is not under compulsion or something similar where he did’nt intend the act.
If one looks carefully, proving even one of these three points completely destroys Awnism/Istiqlaalism, let alone proving all the three points. In this post, I deal with the first part and in the next parts InshaAllah, rest of the points will be proven as well.
Scenario
A person believes that God is too exalted to be worshiped directly, instead other beings need to be worshiped who worship God on one’s behalf. This belief could arise due to Tajsim with the view that beings spatially near to God are appointed by God to receive worship of humans and these spatially near beings worship God, or this belief could arise due to likening God to nothing, so all attributes of God would be creations necessitating approaching these created being in order to reach God, or it could arise due to a perception that one is too impure to worship God and spiritually elevated beings like Angels need to be worshiped in order to worship God. This person hopes that his requests are forwarded by these conduits to God.
Does this person praying, sacrificing to beings other than God for this reason while not attributing any independent powers to idols qualify as a Mushrik ?
Did pagans of the past have this belief ?
The verdict of Sunni schools is unequivocally YES for both questions.
Defining Shirk in terms of Rububiyyah, Uluhiyyah and Ibaadah
I will demonstrate that the difference between Taymiyyan formulation and the formulation of Mutakalimun is mostly semantic. Maturidi preceded in categorizing Tawhid, he writes while defining Shirk
Then His statement “Indeed, Allah does not forgive association with Him, but He forgives what is less than that for whom He wills.” can mean Shirk in belief which is to make other than Allah partner to in His Rububiyyah and His Uluhiyyah, and second is to make other than Allah partner in His worship, and all of this is Shirk with Allah, so there is no difference if someone associates other than Allah in His Rububiyyah and His Uluhiyyah and if someone associates other than Him in His worship. Do you not see that He says “your Ilaah (god) is one Ilaah (God).” then Allah says “and not associate in the worship of his Lord anyone.”, He made association in Rububiyyah, Uluhiyyah and association in worship same, all of it is Shirk with Allah.
Ofcourse, the very natural reading of al-Maturidi gives following meanings: Shirk in Rububiyyah, Shirk in Uluhiyyah and Shirk in Ibaadah are different, but all of the are major Shirk and are interconnected with each other. Al-Maturidi’s understanding is consistently narrated by his students and other scholars.
Question to Istiqlaalis:Did al-Maturidi not understand Tawhid here ?
So for example, Abu Mu’in Al-Nasafi (5th century scholar) is a major figure in Maturidi tradition and could be considered analogous to Al-Ghazzali or Al-Raazi in Ash’ari tradition. He has a commentary on the commentary of al-Maturidi. Its manuscript is partially preserved. He writes the following under the same verse:
He writes:
“Indeed, Allah does not forgive association with Him, but He forgives what is less than that for whom He wills.” It is possible (that it is) Shirk in Uluhiyyah and Rububiyyah, as there are amongst the polytheists who ascribe partners to Allah in creation like Majus and Christians. It is possible (that it is) Shirk in Ibaadah (worship) as there are among them (polytheists) who ascribed partners in worship like the polytheists among Arabs, like how Allah informs about them: “We do not worship them except in order to get closer to Allah in proximity”. And all of it is Kufr of Allah and Shirk in Uluhiyyah, because the Ilaah is the creator and it is the object of worship in reality. Thus Shirk in creation and worship is Shirk in Rububiyyah.
Al-Maturidi clearly formulates Shirk in worship as Shirk of acts, the linkage of acts with intentions will be further explored in part:3 of this series. However, what is clearly readable is that Shirk in Rububiyyah has not been considered a necessary condition, rather Shrik in worship without Shirk in Rububiyyah can be considered major Shirk. Shirk in worship implies Shirk in Rububiyyah as a derivative consequence, but it is possible to formulate the same reality in a manner very similar to how Ibn Taymiyyah formulated that someone could single Allah in Rububiyyah, yet do major Shirk. This point is elaborated by Abu Mu’in Al-Nasafi in tafsir of Surah Fatiha. He says:
Tawhid that is related to Uluhiyyah is that Allah is one in his Dhaat (essence) and Siffaat (attributes), …, and Tawhid that is related to worship, it is that one worships Allah alone and does not make anyone a partner in worship, He singles out Allah as Allah says “and not associate in the worship of his Lord anyone.’“[18:110]And He(swt) says” And they were not commanded except to worship Allah, [being] sincere to Him in religion”[98:5]. And the Shirk of Arabian polytheists was in worship along with their singling out Allah in Uluhiyyah according to what Allah says “And if you asked them, “Who created the heavens and earth?” they would surely say, “Allah.” Say, “[All] praise is [due] to Allah “”[31:25]. And they associated their idols with Allah in worship, as Allah informs about them through their statement “We do not worship them except in order to get closer to Allah in proximity”[39:3]. And the Shirk of Majus and Wathaniyyah (as opposed to Arabs) was in the Rububiyyah itself, so they believed in two or more (Rabbs).
If we notice the statement of Abu Mu’in, it is clear in attributing the statement of polytheists mentioned by Allah in the Quran to their belief, unlike the belief of Istiqlaalis or like-minded folks who falsely claim that the statement of polytheists about attributing creation to Allah or worshiping to get closer in proximity was done under pressure and was not part of their actual belief, or that the pagans were lying about their beliefs.
Question to Istiqlaalis:Is Abu Mu’in al-Nasafi a Wahhabi ?
The difference of Maturidis with Ibn Taymiyyah would be mostly semantical. Ibn Taymiyyah has a two-part formulation: Rububiyyah and Uluhiyyah, whereas Maturidis have three part formulation: Rububiyyah, Uluhiyyah, and Ibaadah. What Ibn Taymiyyah categorizes as Shirk in Uluhiyyah may fall into what Maturidis categorize as Shirk in Ibaadah. I will refine further these three definitions from Maturidian perspective, but lets utilize the proximity route of Shirk scenario in order to elaborate further.
An Awnist may object to the Abu Mu’in’s statement by saying that Arabs did have Shirk in Rububiyyah as they ascribed daughters to Allah. I accept this point, only that Arab Pagans had different creeds of Shirk and the Shirk of ascribing daughters to Allah was not the Shirk of all Arabs.
Abu Shakur Al-Salimi (5th century scholar)—another major Maturidian theologian who wrote his book “Tamheed”, categorizes Shirk of pagans of Arabia into four types:
(Arabian) Polytheists are of four types: a type said that angels are daughters of Allah, and a type said that idols are daughters of Allah, and a type said that idols are partners of Allah, and a type said :neither angels or idols are daughters of Allah nor partners of Allah, rather they said that idols are like (heavenly) beings, and they are our intercessors with Allah, so if they are happy with us, the supreme God is also happy with us.
Question to Istiqlaalis:Is Abu Shakur al-Salimi a Wahhabi ?
Some definitions:
Ibaadah: Worship is defined by al-Maturidi to be an act with humility and veneration in hope of reward and fear of punishment. He makes this definition while commenting on why obedience of someone is possible under obedience of Allah, but worship is not.
He made (possibly) association in obedience with His statement (He who obeys the Apostle obeys God)[4:80] and condemned the one who associated with Allah in worship with His statement (and make others the equal of their Lord)[6:150]. Because worship demands humiliation and submission with hope and fear, and Allah is the One from whom one hopes and fears, as for obedience, it only entails acting upon command, nothing else; accordingly, when the disbelievers directed hope and mercy towards the idols with their statement (We worship them that they may bring us nearer to God.)[39:3] and their statement (These are our intercessors with God.)[10:18], they were called worshipers of idols, so anyone who does an act with fear and hope, this is from him worship.
اللَّه تعالى جعل الإشراك في الطاعة بقوله: (مَن يُطِعِ الرَّسُولَ فَقَدْ أطاعَ اللَّهَ)، وذم من يعدل باللَّه تعالى في العبادة بقوله تعالى: (وهُمْ بِرَبِّهِمْ يَعْدِلُونَ)، فالعبادة كأنها تقتضي الخضوع والتضرع على الرجاء والخوف، واللَّه تعالى هو الذي يرجى منه ويخاف من نقمته، فأما الطاعة فهي تقتضي فعلا على الأمر لا غير؛ وعلى ذلك لما صرفت الكفرة الرجاء والخوف إلى الأصنام بقولهم: (ما نَعْبُدُهُمْ إلّا لِيُقَرِّبُونا إلى اللَّهِ زُلْفى)، وقولهم: (هَؤُلاءِ شُفَعاؤُنا عِنْدَ اللَّهِ)، سموا: عباد الأصنام، فكل من يفعل الفعل على الخوف والرجاء فذلك منه عبادة له.
One may ask just like Istiqlaalis pose silly questions, that a person may hope for money from ruler and do some deeds for his sake without that being worship. Thus, “what is the difference between hope and fear unique for divine entity”. Then they say, the difference would be “independence”. We ask them the same question: Would there be difference in hope or fear from Allah and hope or fear from a being that is believed to be having encompassing knowledge and power over all creations, being able to reward or punish for eternity and even create the universe *dependently*. So theoretically Allah can switch the dependent being off and get rid of him anytime, just like it is narrated in history from talbiyah of some tribes that they said to Allah about their idols: “Oh Allah you can get rid of these idols, but you are forbearing, so you will keep them”[4], so it is also theoretically possible for Allah to never exercise His powers without proxy, and become like this unknowable ambiguous God who can give all dependent powers of running a universe to a super being. It is impossible for a being living as subject of such a super being to not fear him or have hope from him in exact same manner as a believer fears Allah or hopes from Him.
Moreover later scholars such as Shah Waliullah and his children have dealt with this issue. That the hope here means someone being able to do benefit and harm one without limitation of means. Shah Abdul Qadir says:
Shirk is that one believes that someone else has divine attributes for example, thinks that someone knows everything and can do anything, or our good and bad is in the hands of this being and spends the veneration for Allah on someone else, for example prostrates to someone and asks for his need from him considering him able to (fulfill it).
Mozeh ul Quran by Shah Abdul Qadir
Shah Waliullah says in Khair ul Katheer:
However, it needs to be understood that while acts only become worship qualifying for major Shirk if they are accompanied by beliefs as is the principle of Maturidis/Hanafis and Ash’aris regarding action-intention debate, it is also the case that Shariah made some acts in some context substitute indicators of a belief, so they are worship by default, only excusable if done under Ikrah, for example: Salah to someone or prostration to sun or idol (as opposed to a human which may have other possibilities). This will be dealt in part:3 of this series InshaAllah.
Maturidi refers to Salah as intrinsic Ibaadah: “Do not be from (those who) associate with others in Salah and worship”.
يحتمل: أي: لا تكونوا من المشركين غير اللَّه في الصلاة والعبادة، أي: لا تصلوا لغير اللَّه، ولا تعبدوا من دونه.
Ilaah: Many Maturidis have defined Ilaah in terms of Ma’bud [1] (an object of worship) or the one who deserves to be worshiped as well as the one to whom one turns for needs[2], as well true Ilaah being only the one who possesses attributes that Allah has. Thus, a Rabb has to be an Ilaah by virtue of Rububiyyah, but one may believe some being to be an Ilaah without believing in it as Rabb, as Maturidi clarifies in discussion around Bani Israel’s calf worship, coming later.
[1]ويسمى العرب كل معبود: إلهًا، كأنه يقول: لا إله ولا معبود يستحق العبادة إلا هو.[TawilatulQuran/AhluSunnah]
[2]بل في ذلك إحالة الألوهية من كل الوجوه الثلاثة، وهو الصمد بمعنى المصمود إليه في لحوائج، المالك لقضائها[TawilatulQuran/AhluSunnah]
Abu Mu’in al-Nasafi says what is correct according to us is that anyone who is worthy of worship is an Ilaah and this is closer to the meaning of the word, as the Arabs used to name anything they worshiped as Ilaah despite their affirmation that the originator and creator is Allah, thus it is proven that the prostration of angels to Adam was that of welcoming, not of worship.
For this right of worship to be established for someone other than Allah and for it to be considered an Ilaah, Shirk in Rububiyyah is not needed, for the Shirk via proximity route also establishes right of intermediaries to be worshiped, because God is deemed too exalted for approach or service, even while He may be deemed omniscient and omnipotent
Rabb/Rububiyyah: Rububiyyah ِis obvious, and it refers to creator, provider and manager. But we don’t accept Istiqlaali claim of conditioning Shirk in Rububiyyah on independence.
Explaining Proximity Route from al-Maturidi’s works
Al-Maturidi says that pagans of proximity route named their deities Ilaah metaphorically
فسموا؛ ظنا منهم أن بذلك التوسل والتقرب، لا أن يروا لشيء من ذلك حقيقة ذلك، بل قالوا: (ما نَعْبُدُهُمْ إلّا لِيُقَرِّبُونا إلى اللَّهِ زُلْفى)، وقالوا: (هَؤُلاءِ شُفَعاؤُنا عِنْدَ اللَّهِ)، وقالوا: (واللَّهُ أمَرَنا بِها) … : (إنَّ الَّذِينَ يُبايِعُونَكَ إنَّما يُبايِعُونَ اللَّهَ)، وصف مبايعة العبد ونصره أو نصر دينه نصرًا لله ومبايعته، بما يقرب ذلك إليه؛ فعلى ذلك تسميتهم ما عبدوها، لا أنهم رأوها آلهة في الحقيقة. (They named their deities gods due to) belief regarding them that using through them, the pagans get Tawassul (conduit) and Taqarrub (proximity), not that they saw any reality to it (naming their deities Ilaah), instead they said “We do not worship them except to get closer to Allah in proximity” and they said “these are our intercessors with Allah”, and they said ”Allah ordered us with it”, …., then Maturidi describes how Allah called ba’yah of His Rasul His bayah and by same logic, the pagans named their deities Ilaah (metaphorically), not that they saw them as Aalihah (divinities) in reality.
This quote obviously flies in the face of the simplistic assertion by Yasir Qadhi and others that “But but… Pagans named their idols as Ilaah (gods)”….
King’s analogies of al-Maturidi
type(a) king’s analogy
حدهما: لما لم يروا أنفسهم تصلح لعبادة الإله العظيم أو تقدر على القيام بخدمته، فعبدوا هذه الأشياء رجاء أن تقربهم عبادة هَؤُلاءِ إلى اللَّه زلفى، وأن هَؤُلاءِ شفعاؤهم عنده، وذلك لما رأوا في ملوك الدنيا أن كل أحد لا يجد السبيل إلى خدمة ملوكها، أو لا يقدر على القيام بين يديه والخدمة له، فيخدم من اتصل بالملك ومن عظم قدره ومنزلته عند الملك؛ ليقربه ذلك المخدوم له إلى الملك إذا بدت له الحاجة أو الشفاعة One of meaning is: When they did not see themselves worthy to worship the supreme God or able to serve him, they worshiped these things hoping that the worship of these deities would bring them closer to Allah and these are intercessors to Allah, and this is how they saw among the kings of the world that not everyone has a way to to serve the king, or cannot stand infront of the king and serve him, so one serves the one connected with the king—the servant with high rank infront of the king, so that this servant may bring him closer to the king in case of a need or request.
type(b) king’s analogy
أو كان سؤالهم ذلك لما لم يروا في الشاهد أحدًا يخدم إلا لحاجة تقع له إلى ذلك، فرأوا أن اللَّه يتعالى عن أن يعبد ويخدم للحاجة، وهم يخدمون القادة والرسل ويعبدونهم لما رأوا أنهم ينالون من النعم، وأنواع المنافع من الرؤساء والكبراء؛ لذلك كانوا يخدمونهم Or there request for it was because of what they saw in the observable world that no one is served except due to a need that he has for it, so they thought that Allah is worshiped and served due to a need, and they serve the leaders and messengers (of king) and worship them so as they can obtain benefits and types of favors from leaders and big guys, for this reason they serve them.
Is’nt it clear that in king’s analogy type(b), the reason for Shirk is the close-ups of God having abilities to benefit and harm due to a need that God has, whereas in king’s analogy type(a), the reason for Shirk is the inability/unworthiness of people to worship Allah. So the fact that Maturidi underlines two paths, where independence is arguable for one path, but not for the other, makes his understanding clear than in king’s analogy type(a)—the proximity route, the Shirk is occurring without any Shirk in Rububiyyah/Independence. We ask again Istiqlaalis to provide us with the answer:
Question to Istiqlaalis:Where is independence or direct Shirk in Rububiyyah in type(a) analogy ?
Maturidi describes calf worshipand makes difference between Ilaah and Rabb
One could ask, does Maturidi makes any difference between Ilaah and Rabb even though the two necessitate each other, are interlinked, one could affirm one and do Shirk in another.
كان في عقدهم أنه يجوز اتخاذ إله دون إلهرب العالمين والعبادة له؛ رجاء أن تقرب عبادتهم تلك الآلهة إلى اللَّه، وعلى هذا كانوا يعبدون الأصنام دون اللَّه؛ كقولهم: (ما نَعْبُدُهُمْ إلّا لِيُقَرِّبُونا إلى اللَّهِ زُلْفى)، و(هَؤُلاءِ شُفَعاؤُنا عِنْدَ اللَّهِ)، وكذلك قالوا: (يا مُوسى اجْعَلْ لَنا إلَهًا كَما لَهُمْ آلِهَةٌ)، وكذلك ما اتخذ لهم فرعون من آلهة عبدوها دونه، وإلا لم يحتمل أن يقع عندهم أن رب العالمين هو ذلك العجل In their belief (of calf-worshipers), it was permitted to take an Ilaah other than the Rabb of the universe and worship it; hoping that worship of these Aalihah would bring them closer to Allah, and likewise, they used to worship Idols other than Allah; like their statement (We do not worship them except to get closer to Allah) and (These are our intercessors with Allah), and likewise they said (Oh Musa, make for us an Ilah, just like they have an Ilah), and likewise Pharoah made for them Aalihah to be worshiped other than him, otherwise it is not possible that they thought that the Rabb of heavens (and the earth) is this calf.
The belief of calf-worshipers is also described by Abu Shakur Al-Salimi in Tamheed:
(Second type of jew) are Samirriyah, and they worshiped the calf, this is because the Saamiri made for them a calf which made a calf – an image having a lowing sound, and they said:Our souls are impure, they are not worthy to serve Allah and the calf is pure, so we worship the calf so that calf can intercede to Allah, thus they and the idol worshipers are similar.
Question to Istiqlaalis:What was Shirk of these calf-worshipers ?
Al-Raazi describes this route of Shirk as being related to Tajsim
If Maturidi’s descriptions were not enough, we have Al-Raazi who explicitly called the reason behind this conception of Shirk as “not considering one’s self worthy” to worship Allah, and this could perfectly arise without compromising omniscience or omnipotence of Allah. It needs the belief that Allah has a body and He has nominated beings spatially closer to Him to worship Him, while the lowly earthly folks should worship beings higher than them who would worship Allah. There are other reasons why this Shirk could occur, one of them is Shirk via divine simplicity that is done by Rawafidh that all names of Allah are actually AhlulBayt, thus reaching Allah directly becomes impossible.
Al-Raazi says:
Among the people are those who say that humans do not have ability to to worship the supreme God and due to extreme distance, humans indulge in worship of an angel among angels and the angels worship the supreme God. أن من النّاس من قالَ إن البشر لَيْسَ لَهُم أهْلِيَّة عبادَة الإلَه الأعْظَم وإنَّما الغايَة القصوى اشْتِغال البشر بِعبادة ملك من المَلائِكَة ثمَّ إن المَلائِكَة يعْبدُونَ الإلَه الأعْظَم
Tafsir of al-Raazi
Then Allah says: “So do not assert similarities to Allah”, and there are different aspects to it: …., I say that it is possible that it refers to that the idol worshipers used to says: The supreme God is too exalted to be worshiped by one of us, rather we worship stars or these idols, thereafter the Idols and the stars are worshipers of the supreme God and its evidence is the custom (of observable world) that lowly people serve those who serve the big guys close to the king, and these big guys serve the king, so is the case here.
Lets demand some honesty from Istiqlaalis/Awnists pinning their beliefs on Ash’ari/Maturidi view ! With what face are they telling us that this idol worship according to Al-Raazi was going on ONLY/NECSSARILY because the idols were thought to benefit and harm independently. Lets move on further towards another quote of Al-Raazi.
The polytheists in their Shirk used to say: We seek the pleasure of Allah as they said “We do not worship them except to get closer to Allah in proximity”. والمُشْرِكُونَ بِإشْراكِهِمْ كانُوا يَقُولُونَ: إنّا نَطْلُبُ رِضاءَ اللَّهِ. كَما قالُوا لِيُقَرِّبُونا إلى اللَّهِ زُلْفى
Tafsir of al-Raazi
Al-Raazi describes calf worship
All Prophets have agreed that worship to to other than Allah is Kufr, no matter if one does it with the belief that this other is God of the universe or if they believe from it that the worship brings them closer to Allah, because worship is peak of veneration and peak of veneration is not deserved except for the on from whom the peak of beneficence and benefit. جْمَعَ كُلُّ الأنْبِياءِ ﵈ عَلى أنَّ عِبادَةَ غَيْرِ اللَّهِ تَعالى كُفْرٌ سَواءٌ اعْتَقَدَ فِي ذَلِكَ الغَيْرِ كَوْنَهُ إلَهًا لِلْعالَمِ أوِ اعْتَقَدُوا فِيهِ أنَّ عِبادَتَهُ تُقَرِّبُهُمْ إلى اللَّهِ تَعالى لِأنَّ العِبادَةَ نِهايَةُ التَّعْظِيمِ ونِهايَةُ التَّعْظِيمِ لا تَلِيقُ إلّا بِمَن يَصْدُرُ عَنْهُ نِهايَةُ الإنْعامِ والإكْرامِ.
Tafsir of al-Raazi
Al-Raazi likens grave worship with Shirk of pagans
The made idols on the images of their prophets and elders, they thought that when they worship these representations, these saints will intercede for them infront of Allah, and an example of it in this time is engaging of many people in venerating graves of saints, with the belief that when they venerate their graves, they would be intercessors with Allah.
A more fair minded Barelvi Mufassir Ghulam Rasul Sa’eedi comments that al-Raazi could be referring to those who do Ghulu in these acts.
Infact, just like al-Maturidi, al-Raazi’s tafsir is so replete with quotes against the narrative of Istiqlaalis, that the space on this post would become insufficient.
Before people complain, why I am referring to the group as “Awnists”, there is simply no other convenient name. Whoever adheres to Awnist understanding on defining Shirk could kindly answer the following questions. There is no point in “running away from questions” by citing that my questions are “pointless”, don’t they want to “teach” the “real Tawhid” to a “misguided soul” like me and several others ? So let me publish a list of questions, which hopefully would be answered by their camp.
[Dependent Creator Scenario] If someone believes that Allah(swt) existed eternally and there was no creation and Allah(swt) first created one being. This first being was given the *dependent* powers to create all the rest of creation by Allah(swt) and that dependent being proceeded to create everything with these dependent powers. The questions are:
– Is it rationally possible according to Awnists ? – Will such a belief be considered misguidance, kufr or shirk ? – Which Nusus will Awnists invoke for their judgement ? – Is this considered Ibda’ on part of the first being unconditionally or will this not qualify to be Ibda’, if the first entity has dependent powers from Allah(swt) ?
[Same level of knowledge] If someone believes that the knowledge of Rasulullah(sa) is exactly same in level/capacity as that of Allah(swt), but it is dependent upon Allah(swt), what is the Hukm on such a belief ? Note that I am NOT asking about whether it is rationally possible in Awnist view or not. I am specifically asking that there are people who hold this view and their views are documented, is the person holding such a view, (a) a muslim, (b) a kaffir, or (c) a mushrik kaffir, given that we ignore the possiblities of excuse, compulsion, and other details ?
[Too Exalted God scenario] If someone believes that Allah(swt) is omnipotent, omniscient, completely in control, but he is too exalted that all the acts of worship that are imaginable must be done to another being and that being will worship Allah(swt). This person also happens to know that he is worshiping a middle man, but believes that it is Allah(swt) who has mandated that all worship must be done to this middle being, who will in turn worship God and all Du’as must not be done to Allah(swt), they must be done to the middle being, who will make Du’a to Allah(swt). Considering that such a person does not compromise on *independence* of Allah(swt), is this situation (a) completely unimaginable and Awnists will refuse to answer or (b) this person is a kaffir but not a mushrik or (c) this person is a mushrik kaffir or muslim ?
[Acts of worship without specific intention/independence] If someone makes 5 times Salah with same number of units and exact same sequence and directs that to sun, believing that sun has a soul which can rectify all of his affairs *dependently* of Allah(swt). He also claims that he is *not* worshiping the sun and he is not doing this act under duress. Is this person considered to be worshiping the sun or will he be considered not worshiping the sun ? Will he be doing Kufr because of worshiping other than Allah(swt) or will he be considered to be doing Kufr *only* for the sake of resembling disbelievers, or will he be considered a misguided muslim not doing Kufr?
[Defining Independence] What is the definition of independence ? I have not understood it from them, so let me clarify with the analogy of a two persons: first is a mu’tazilite who believes that man creates his own actions and affirms divine foreknowledge and second is a qadari/qadari-mu’tazilite who believes that man creates his own actions and denies divine foreknowledge, but also does not affirm foreknowledge for anyone else. Now if two of them ask their respect fellow sect members to make Du’a to Allah(swt). The question is
– Is the first one doing major shirk and not excused due to major Shirk ? – Is first one doing major Shirk and excused in specific ruling ? – Is second one doing major Shirk and not excused due to major Shirk ? – Is second one doing major Shirk and excused in ruling ?
Let me be very clear though, the independence that Awni himself defines, can only be defined in two manners that (a) someone is considered an independent mini-Rabb with an independent dominion or (b) someone is considered such that God needs him. So I do not really know how Awni’s definition is explained by the lower tier followers.
[Perfect Intercession] If someone has a concept of intercession that the one who is interceeding is so close to Allah(swt) that whatever he will say will 100% be accepted and if his Du’a is rejected, it will be because the conduit was not happy with the one making prayer. The one making prayer believes that God does not accept his prayers because he is too sinful
[Legislation] If someone claims that his Peer Sahab has been given dependent authority from Allah(swt) to formulate laws, he says Peer Sahab has legislated that eating pig is halal, Salah is not fard anymore, etc, and this Peer Sahab also says that he is not claiming to be a Prophet. Rather, he says that God has given him *dependent* rights to do this legislation. What is their position on this matter ? Does this necessitates ascribing independence/divinity by implication or not ?
[Divine Simplicity Route] If someone believes in divine simplicity that God does not have multiple distinct attributes and he only has one attribute/one act, while the attributes we know are actually names of AhlulBayt. So God has to be invoked with these names which are actually AhlulBayt. While he also believes that whatever AhlulBayt have and what they do is dependent upon Allah. Is this belief Shirk or Kufr or misguidance without being Shirk/Kufr ?
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