Isti'ana?

[waziri]

Asalamualaykum,

Brother Abu Zubair.you have helped many of us out by explaining about tawasul and how it is a fiqhi difference and that it has nothing to do with tawheed and shirk(If done in the correct manner prescribed, with the correct understanding and belief).

Can you please shed some light on the matter of isti'ana or istighatha,I understand why tawasul would not be considered as shirk as one is calling upon and making duah to Allah alone,but with isti'ana one is required to seek aid and call upon other than Allah,is this not shirk?

Those who advocate this practice(isti'ana or istighatha)use the following as evidence.

and Bazzar has extracted from from the Hadith of Ibn Abbas (ra) "The messenger (saw) said: 'verily Allah has angels in the earth to preserve all that happens even the droppong of a leaf off of a tree so when any of you is afflicted with something and is on a journey let him call (falyunaad i.e. from nidaa) ainooni ya ibaadullah (come to my aid o servants of Allah)'".

also this is what Imam shaukani has apparently said whilst commenting on the above narration


It is said in al Majma as-zawaid its men are all trustworthy (thiqah), and in this hadith there is dalil (evidence) for the permissibility of isti'ana (seeking the help) of the servants of Allah whom mankind can not see whether they be of the angels or even the good jinn and there is no problem in this as it is permitted to seek the help of children of Adam i.e humans if someone's beasts (riding i'm assuming) start to become uncontrollable"


I do not know if the above is authenticly attributed to Imam shaukani.

Please can you explain what the position of the ahlus sunna is with regards to this matter,weather the narration is authentic and if so how is it to be understood?Was Imam shaukani truly of the opinion that such a practice is permissible? and were any other ulema of the same view?

JazakAllah khair

wasalam

[Abuz Zubair]

very briefly:

What is Shirk is to actually call upon someone who cannot help, or someone who is not present.

The athar of Ibn 'Abbas, if authentic, is referring to calling upon angels to help, assuming that they must be present nearby to be able to hear and therefore, help.

It is like a person who gets trapped in some forest, calls out for help, assuming there may be someone passing by, who might hear his call for help and respond.

Shirk is to call upon other than Allah for help in things he cannot do, such as to call upon the absent, or dead, or stone, etc.

[Um Abdullah M.]

tawassul can be an aqeedah issue when it affects aqeedah, like tawassul by asking dead to make duaa (bid'ah that can lead to shirk) or making duaa directly to the dead for help. (clear major shirk)
this has to do with aqeedah, and many sects have deviated in this matter.

[waziri]

JazakAllah khair brother Abu Zubair for your response.

Yes Asmaa regarding calling upon the dead for assistance,then that is shirk and that is why I said "(If done in the correct manner prescribed, with the correct understanding and belief)."

That is why it is important to know what tawassul is and that any thing other than the correct way is haram or out right shirk.

wasalam

[Abuz Zubair]

tawassul can be an aqeedah issue when it affects aqeedah, like tawassul by asking dead to make duaa (bid'ah that can lead to shirk) or making duaa directly to the dead for help. (clear major shirk)
this has to do with aqeedah, and many sects have deviated in this matter.

JK for pointing this out.

Even though, primarily, it is only a fiqhi issue, as I have personally seen, it has lead people to Shirk.

It started off with:

1) Making tawassul to Allah by the Prophet, and then

2) Making istighatha by the Prophet...

Now, even though the scholars meant from this, asking Allah for istighatha by the right of the Prophet, the laymen easily understood from this to ask the Prophet directly for istighatha, so long as one believes that Allah is the only source of help.

and then it became full fledge Shirk:

3) praying to the Prophet, the righteous, the saints, etc.

And if one looks at the Sharia, one realises how Allah and His Mesenger blocked all the means to Shirk, no matter how big or small they were. In fact, the Prophet even forbade that which was permissible in and of itself, in fear for Shirk; for he forbade his companions for visiting the graves altogether earlier in Islam. It was only later, when tawheed was fixed in their hearts that he allowed the companions to visit the graves saying: "I used to prohibit you from visiting the graves. But now you should, for they remind you of the hereafter".

Similarly, the Prophet would scrutinise his companions' statements and forbid them from all traces of Shirk, be they major or minor; "If one of you were to swear an oath, then let him do so by Allah, or remain silent" - "Whoever swears an oath by other than Allah has committed Shirk" - "Say: Whatever Allah wills, and then what the Messenger wills" - "Do not over-praise me the way Christians over-praised Jesus" - "May Allah curse the Jews and the Christians who took the graves of their prophets as places of worship" and he therefore, forbade us from praying at, on or towards the graves. 'Ali b. Abi Talib also confirmed that the Prophet had ordered the companions to level all the graves the come across, and that was for no other purpose but to block all the means to Shirk.

So many companions were killed in various battles in various places, yet none of their graves were turned into shrines, rather, they were all kept levelled.

All of this reinforces the opinion of scholars who forbid the bida'i tawassul, especially if it has lead some people to Shirk in front of our very eyes!

And this clearly shows how it is also an 'aqida issue.

[Um Abdullah M.]

jazaka Allahu khayran akhi

that is what is called "sad adh-dharai'" سد الذرائع
right?

as for fiqh issues becoming part of aqeedah, there is another good example, which is "wiping over socks" or the "khuf".
because some sects deviated in this, denying it completely (like shia) and it is something that is of ijma', and proved by mutawatir hadith, it became an issue of aqeedah.
and u will find this specific issue mentioned in aqeedah books, saying that part of aqeedah of ahl assunnah is to wipe over socks.

[Um Abdullah M.]

also, regarding points u mentioned about things leading to shirk.
the issue of awliya' and using them as intermediators (tawassul through them after death), or doing ghulu on them was the origin of shirk in the world.

Shirk started after time of Prophet Nuh alayhi assalam, people used to sit with pious believers and when those saliheen died the people made satues of them and put it in their majalis (where they would gather to remember Allah), just to remind them of the saliheen and for no other reason, but generations who came after them, Iblees played with their minds and told them that their people used to worship those statues and it used to cause rain to come down, so they deviated and started to worship these statues, and they became idols for worship, and that continued until the time of the Prophet Muhammad sallalahu alayhi wa sallam.

so u will find the names of those famouse idols like "al-Lat" "yaghuth" "nasra" ..etc. were names of pious believers (saliheen), who have died, and people worshiped statues made of them, to get them closer to Allah and be as intermediators to Him in their prayers and for asking for rain ..etc.

[aburasheed]

And they have said: 'You shall not leave your gods, nor shall you leave Wadd, nor Suwa', nor Yaghuth, nor Ya'uq, nor Nasr (names of the idols); (Surah Nuh 23)

Ibn Abbas states that in regards of the origins of these 5 idols: “These are the names of 5 pious men that lived at the time of Nuh. When they died, Shaytan inspired their people to carve out images of them, which they placed in their places of gathering. They were not worshipped until that generation had died, and knowledge was lost. What that occurred, these structures were then worshipped (as god)”. (Bukhari).

[Umm Ahmed]

I read that when people die that this is one of the times that the bereaved are most vunrable to the shaytan, wailings , tearing of ones clothes ,biddah acts during burial , and the raising of the graves , building of tombs and statues.

[Abuz Zubair]

Yes, it is Sadd al-Dhara'i, which is an agreed upon principle in practise, even if the madhabs differed over it in theory (and we can say the same about maslaha mursala, istihsan, and dare I say qiyas)