| Ahl as Sunnah vs the "Salafi" Movement - The Wahhabis' Rejection of Tawassul (Using a means) |  |  |  |
| Radd al Salafiyya - Refutations |
| Written by Al-Shaykh Jamil Effendi al-Siqdi al-Zahawi |
9: The Wahhabis' Rejection of Tawassul (Using a means)
In the preceding sections we have spoken about the way the Wahhabis declare any Muslim a disbeliever for contradicting their unwarranted innovations in our religion, and the way they ascribe to that person idolatry. The moment has now come to speak of how they take, as a pretext for their declaration of disbelief, the seeking of help from the prophets and awliya and their use of the latter as a means to God and the visiting of their graves. For the Wahhabis have rejected these practices and claimed they are forbidden (haram).
Their Hatred of Muslims Who Make Tawassul
The Wahhabis have made their rejection of those seeking aid (mustaghithin), those using persons as means of access to God (mutawassilin), and those visiting graves (za'irin), especially intense. They consider them actual idolaters and idol-worshippers. Indeed, they deem their status worse than the idolaters of old. The latter, they say, were idolaters only with respect to divinity. As for the Muslim idolaters -- they mean those who contradict them -- they have associated a partner both to divinity and to lordship. They also say that the unbelievers in the time of the Messenger of God did not always practice idolatry but they sometimes practiced polytheism and sometimes practiced monotheism, abandoning calling on prophets and men of righteousness. That is because when times were good they prayed to them and believed in them. But when disaster and difficulties struck, they abandoned them, worshipped God faithfully and sincerely, and recognized that the prophets and pious could do them neither good nor ill.
Their Assimilation of Muslims to Idol-Worshippers by quoting the Qur'an
The Wahhabis applied the Qur'anic verses revealed concerning the idolaters to the monotheists of the Community of Muhammad, peace be upon him, and grasped on to these verses as a basis for declaring Muslims disbeliever. They may be listed as follows:
"Do not call on anyone along with God" (72:18);
"And who is more astray than one who invokes besides God such as will not answer him to the day of judgment and when mankind are gathered they will become enemies for them, and deny having been worshipped" (46:5-6);
"Nor call on any other than God such as can neither profit thee nor hurt thee: if thou dost, behold! thou shalt certainly be of those who do wrong" (10:106);
"And those whom you invoke besides Him own not a straw. If ye invoke them, they will not listen to your call, and if they were to listen, they cannot answer your prayer. On the day of Judgment they will reject your partnership and none, O Man! can inform you like Him who is All-aware" (35:13-14);
"So call not on any other god with God, or thou will be among those who will be punished" (26: 213);
"To Him is due true prayer; any others that they call upon besides Him hear them no more than if they were to stretch forth their hands for water to reach their mouths but it reaches them not. For the prayer of those without faith is vain prayer" (13:14);
"Say: Call on those besides Him whom ye fancy; they have no power to remove your trouble from you or to change them. Those unto whom they cry seek for themselves the means of approach to their Lord, which of them shall be the nearest; they hope for His mercy and fear His wrath: for the wrath of thy Lord is something to take heed of" (17:57).
These and other verses have been revealed with respect to the idolaters among the Arabs. Ibn `Abd al-Wahhab, however, claims that whoever seeks help by the Prophet, implores or calls upon God by means of the Prophet of someone else among the prophets, awliya or pious, or asks for the Prophet's intercession or visits his grave is considered in the class of idolaters contained within the scope of the above verses. His specious argument concerning these verses is based on the idea that though they were revealed concerning the idolaters their admonition belongs to the general sense of the expression and not the specificity of the cause.
No comments:
Post a Comment