Part 25: VISITING THE GRAVES IS THE SUNNAH OF PROPHET [sal Allahu alayhi wasallam] AND NOT GRAVE WORSHIP!

From the Layman’s Desk-14.

Part 25: Continued – Visiting Grave is not Grave Worship: 

It is a blatant and shameless lie that the Sunnis visit the grave for worship.  The deviant sects  just throw these words at Sunni Muslims to keep their own herd happy  and satisfied with self-righteousness.   The Wahhabis applied to the Muslim monotheists the Qur'anic verses that were revealed concerning the idolaters, holding on to these  for declaring Muslims disbeliever. The  Quranic verses  may be listed as follows:

"Nor call on any other than Allah such as can neither profit thee nor hurt thee: if thou dost, behold! thou shalt certainly be of those who do wrong" (10:106);

"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).

"So call not on any other god with Allah, or thou will be among those who will be punished" (26: 213);

"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);

"And who is more astray than one who invokes besides Allah 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);

"Do not call on anyone along with Allah" (72:18);

The above ayahs have been revealed regarding the Arab idolaters.  But ibn Wahhab conveniently thinks differently.  He says that if someone seeks help by the Prophet, implores or calls upon Allah by means of the Prophet or someone  else among prophets, awliya or pious is considered an idolater in the light of the above verses.  According to him even if someone visits the grave of Prophet’s (sal Allahu alayhi wasallam) and asks for his (s) intercession is also an idolator within the meaning of the verses.   He thought he was a Hanbali.  Now see what the Imam Ahmad of Hanbali Madhhab used to do: 

Imam Ahmad made tawassul through the Prophet [sal Allahu alayhi wasallam] as a part of every Dua. This is reported by`Ala' al-Din al-Mardawi  in his book al-Insaf fi ma`rifat al-rajih min al-khilaf `ala madhhab al-Imam al-mubajjal Ahmad ibn Hanbal (3:456). The correct position of Hanbali School of Thought is that  it is permissible in one's supplication (du`a) to use as means a pious person (dead or alive), and it is desirable. 

It is also interesting to see the answer of Shaykh Abu Adam Naruiji, “The problem that Wahabis have with merely calling the name of a dead person comes from their belief that Allah is a kind of creature.  This makes it difficult for them to come up with a way of thinking of themselves as monotheists. After all, since what they worship and call Allah (but isn’t actually Allah), is simply another physical thing, all physical things become potential rivals. This leads to paranoid delusions, such as thinking that calling the name of a dead person is shirk.  For a Muslim, however, the basis for monotheism is clear. It is the belief that Allah does not have a partner, parts or a likeness to creation. As long as one believes this, one has not committed shirk by calling a dead person, because one does not believe that the dead person has any power to create at all, but is merely a creation, whose calling may or may not correlate with a desired effect created by Allah.”

Imam Shawkani is a major authority for the "salafis" due to his stance on Taqlid.  He  says in al-Durr al-nadid fi ikhlas kalimat al-tawhid:
There is no harm in tawassul through any one of the Prophets or Friends of Allah or scholars of knowledge... One who comes to the grave as a visitor (za'iran) and invokes Allah alone, using as his means the dead person in the grave, is as one who says: "O Allah, I am asking that you cure me from such-and-such, and I use as a means to You whatever this righteous servant of Yours possesses for worshipping You and striving for Your sake and learning and teaching purely and sincerely for You." Such as this, there is no hesitation in declaring that it is permitted...

He also says in al-Durr al-nadid: Regarding what those who forbid tawassul to Allah through the Prophets and the saints cite to support their position, such as Allah's sayings:
· "We only worship them in order that they may bring us nearer" (39:3)
· "Do not call on any other god with Allah, or you will be among those who will be punished" (26:213)
· "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 verses are irrelevant.  Rather: they support exactly the reverse of what the objectors to tawassul claim, since the verses are related to another issue. To wit: the verse "We only worship them in order that they may bring us nearer" explicitly states that they worship them for that purpose, whereas the one who makes tawassul through a scholar, for example, never worships him, but knows that he has a special distinction (maziyya) before Allah for being a carrier of knowledge; and that is why he uses him as a means.  Similarly irrelevant to the issue is Allah's saying: "Do not call on any other god with Allah." This verse forbids that one should call upon another together with Allah, as if saying: "O Allah and O So-and-so." However, the one who makes tawassul through a scholar, for example, never calls upon other than Allah. He only seeks a means to Him through the excellent works that one of His servants achieved, just as the three men in the cave who were blocked by the rock used their good works as a means to have their petition answered.  Similarly irrelevant to the issue is Allah's saying: "Those unto whom they cry..." for it refers to people who call upon those who cannot fulfill their request, at the same time not calling upon Allah Who can; whereas one who makes tawassul through a scholar, for example, never called except upon Allah, and none other besides Him. 

The above shows the reader that these objectors to tawassul are bringing forth evidence that is irrelevant to the issue at hand.

Even more irrelevant is their citing of the verse:  "The Day when no soul shall have power to do anything for another: for the Command, that Day, will be all with Allah." (82:19)

for that noble verse contains nothing more than the fact that Allah alone decides everything on the Day of Judgment, and that none other will have any say at that time. However, the maker of tawassul through one of the Prophets or one of the scholars, never believes that the one through whom he makes tawassul is in partnership with Allah on the Day of Judgment! Whoever believes such a thing in relation to a Prophet or non-Prophet is in manifest error.

Equally irrelevant is their objection to tawassul by citing the verses: · "Not for you is the decision in the least" (3:128)
· "Say: I have no power over  good or harm to myself except as Allah wills" (7:188)  for these two verses are explicit in that the Prophet has no say in Allah's decision and that he has no power to benefit or harm himself in the least, let alone someone else: but there is nothing in those two verses to prevent tawassul through him or any other of the Prophets or Friends of Allah or scholars.

Allah has given His Prophet the Exalted Station (al-maqam al-mahmud) -- the station of the Great Intercession (al-shafa`a al-`uzma), and He has instructed creation to ask for that station for him and to request his intercession, and He said to him: "Ask and you shall be granted what you asked! Intercede and you shall be granted what you interceded for!" And in His Book He has made this dependence on the fact that there is no intercession except by His leave, and that none shall possess it except those whom He pleases...

Equally irrelevant is their adducing as proof against tawassul:
 "And admonish your nearest kinsmen" (26:214)
whereupon the Prophet said: "O So-and-so son of So-and-so, I do not have any guarantee on your behalf from Allah; and O So-and-so daughter of So-and-so, I do not have any guarantee on your behalf from Allah." For in the preceding there is nothing other than the plain declaration that he cannot benefit anyone for whom Allah has decreed harm, nor harm anyone for whom Allah has decreed benefit, and that he does not have any guarantee from Allah from any of his close relatives, let alone others. This is known to every Muslim.  There is nothing in it, however, that prohibits making tawassul to Allah through the Prophet, for tawassul is a request from the One Who holds power to grant and deny all requests. The petitioner who makes tawassul only desires to place, at the front of his petition, what may be a cause for the granting of his petition by the One Who alone gives and withholds, the Owner of the Day of Judgment.

So the views of Imam Shawkani are in favour of Tawassul and visiting the graves of prophets and awliya-Allah and the pious.  In other words, time and again it has been proven that the Wahhabis have no real evidence but by showing those aforesaid Quranic verses to the Muslim laity they try to fool the Muslims into believing that the aforesaid verses are against Tawassul and visiting of the graves – the claim that has been made hollow by the Imam whom they hold dear.  Even the arch innovator and Salafi scholar Al-Albani could not wriggle out on the validity of Tawassul.  He states in his in ‘Al-Tawassul’: “Even though some of them have been allowed by some of the Imams, so for instance Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal allowed tawassul through the Prophet alone, and others such as Imam Al-Shawkani allowed tawassul through his [pbuh] and through others from the Prophets and the righteous.”

Let us now check out some other Quranic verses that are cited by those who are against Tawassul/Istigatha:

And that man hath only that for which he maketh effort, (An-Najm 53:39)

“…Each soul earneth only on its own account, nor doth any laden bear another’s load…..” (Al-Anam, 6:164)

Allah tasketh not a soul beyond its scope. For it (is only) that which it hath earned, and against it (only) that which it hath deserved….(al-Baqra, 2:286)

Plainly and tersely,  the above verses are related to the deeds of a person concerned and their consequences – whether good or bad – and the burden of sin that each one of us have to bear individually and give accounts for our sins of commissions and omissions.  There is no reference there about intermediation.     As is known, involving someone else, i.e. a  beloved person or beloved object forms the subject-matter of Tawassul.   Hence, to borrow the word from Imam Shawkani, they are “irrelevant” for the purpose of disproving intermediation because they are not even remotely connected with Tawassul about which they object.  Once again, it is seen that quoting Quranic verses out of context is also the usual pastime of the opponents of Tawassul. 

To continue Insha Allah…

NASIR