2) To call upon other than Allah for a need, such as rain, etc, while believing that only Allah will answer the call is Shirk, by agreement. For example: O Prophet! Send us rain!
Firstly, The Prophet – SallAllahu ‘alaihi wa-sallam – made takfeer of the pagans for merely calling upon other than Allah, even though they explicitly declared that Allah is the only Lord, the Creator, the Provider.
This is reflected in the following verse:
‘Say: Who provides for you from the heavens and the earth? Or who controls hearing and sight and who brings the living out of the dead and brings the dead out of the living and who arranges [every] matter? They will say: Allah. So say: Then will you not fear Him?’
As it is clear that although the pagans believed that Allah is the only provider, they still called upon their idols, claiming that they are merely their intercessors.
Similarly, Allah said of the pagans:
‘Most of them do not believe in Allah, except that they associate partners unto Him’
Al-Tabari says in his tafseer: Their belief in Allah is their saying: Allah is our Creator, our Provider, who gives us death and gives us life; while their Shirk is to attribute partners unto Allah in His worship and invocation.
Secondly, when the Hanbali scholars and others explicitly stated the apostasy of the one who calls upon other than Allah, they do not differentiate between one who does so believing the response would come from Allah, and one who does so believing the response would come from the creation.
To differentiate between the two only first appeared after the Da’wah of Sheikh Miuhammd b. ‘Abd al-Wahhab. The advocates of this idea were simply seeking justification for one to call upon others besides Allah. Hence, they argued that when one says: ‘O Sidi ‘Abd al-Qadir, help me!’ He is in reality addressing Allah, while mentioning ‘Abd al-Qadir only allegorically, because he believes in his heart that the response will only come from Allah.
In response, we say that the statement: ‘O so-and-so, help me!’ is Sarih al-Kufr – an explicit statement of Kufr, which does not accommodate Majaz. Just like the word Talaq, is an explicit statement of divorce, and if one says it to his wife even in jest, his wife is divorced. He cannot claim: I only intended it allegorically, whereas my intention was not to divorce her. Similarly, when one makes a statement of clear-cut apostasy, such as: O Sidi fulan, help me! He becomes an apostate, and his claim that he intended something else would be of no use to him.
Jazakumullahu khairan. Very nice article. I specially liked the last paragraph.
salam alaykum I am really confused in this matter it shooked my aqeedah in fact and no one until today could really help me out so please ikhwati pls clarify this issue for me as much as you can baarakallahu feekum!
my first question:
One might argue that the Idols AND saints, AND Prophets AND ANGELS that the pagan mushriks called upon were in fact ILAAHS according to the pagan quraish. I.e. the Qureish DO acknowledged Rububiya (as you pointed out) BUT they never believed that their “gods” are fully dependend on Allah i.e. they (pagans) believed that their idols share some of the rububia or so say the least, their idols could change the affairs independantly from the main source (Allah according to them). So a Rafidi/sufi would claim: THIS was the shirk of the quraish! But we (Rafidis/sufis) do not believe that our saints etc can do ANYTHIGN without the help of Allah so our tawassul (Ya Ali) is not shirk.
second question: they (sufis might argue) and say: Saying ya Abdulqadir madad is not shirk. When Abdulqadir was alive I could ask for madad, now [he got loads of ta2wilat and shubuhat] and now his soul is still alive and i can ask for madad. Allah made takfeer on the quraish cause they believed that the idols, prophets, angels have independant power and thus can intercede for them, we (sufis) believe that our saints are not independant from Allah at all, in fact it was Allah who GAVE them the ability to give you madad even after they have passed away.
How to answer this?
third question: I’m a bit confused about one issue, I figured out that some scholars, like bin otheimeen, al barraak and others believe that calling the prophet saws next to his grave is “shirk asghar”. Now why is it only shirk asghar? and what about if one asks the prophet saws from far away? is the khilaf included? ya3ni if one would ASK the prophet to MAKE dua to Allah, did some scholars only say it is shirk asghar next to the prophets saws grave, or did they say it is ALWAYS shirk asghar (no matter how far away from the grave) AS LONG as one ONLY asks the prophet saws to make dua TO ALLAH.