Islam history and Culture

JIHAD AND SHAHADAT

2008-07-27T05:01:00.000-07:00

The term "martyr," derived from the (Latin) root "mort, "implies "death and dying," "Martyr" is a noun meaning "the one who dies for God and faith." Thus a martyr is, in any case, the one who dies. The only difference between his death and that of others is to be seen in the "cause." He dies for the cause of God, whereas the cause of the death of another may be cancer. Otherwise, the essence of the phenomenon in both cases, that is to say, death, is one and the same. As far as death is concerned it makes no difference whether the person is killed for God, for passion, or in an accident. In this sense, Christ and those killed for Christianity are "martyrs." In other words, they were "mortals," because, in Christendom's the term "martyr" refers to the person who has died [as such].
But a shahid is always alive and present. He is not absent. Thus the two terms, "shahid "and "martyr." are antonyms of each other. As it was said, the meaning of shahid (pl. shuhada), whether national or religious, in Eastern religions or otherwise, embodies the connotation of sacredness. This is right. There is no doubt that in every religion, school of thought, and national or religious attitude, a shahid is sacred. [This is true], even though the school of thought in question may not be religious, but materialistic. The attitude and feeling toward the shahid embodies a metaphysical sacredness. In my opinion, the question from whence the sacredness of a shahid comes needs hair-splitting scientific analysis. Even in religions and schools of thought in which there is no belief in sacredness and the sacred, there is however belief concerning the sanctity of a shahid. This status originates in the particular relation of a shahid to his school. In other words he develops a spring of value and sanctity. It is because, at any rate, the relationship of an individual with his belief is a sacred relationship. The same relation develops between a shahid and his faith. In the same way, yet indirectly, the same relationship develops between an adherent to a belief and its shuhada. Thus the origin of the sanctity of a shahid is the feeling of sacredness that all people have toward their school of thought, nationality, and religion. In existentialism, there are discussions which are very similar, in some parts, to our discussions concerning wilayat and its effects. Man has a primary "essential" character and a secondary "shaping character." In respect to the former, every person is the same. Anyone who wears clothes exists! But in the true sense of the term, what makes one's character, that is to say, makes him distinct from other beings, are the spiritual attributes and dimensions, feelings, instincts, and particular qualities-the things that, once a person considers them, he senses (himself) as a particular "I"." He realizes himself, saying, "Sum" (I am).
From whence do the particular characteristics of "I" come? "I," as a human being, after being born, developed characteristics, attributes, and positive and negative values. Gradually I developed a knowledge of myself. Where does this come from. Heidegger says, "The sum of man's knowledge about his life's environment makes his character, that knowledge being the conscious relation of the existence of 'I' with an external 'thing', 'person', or 'thought."' When I establish a mental and existential relationship with individuals, movements, phenomena, things, thoughts, etc., this relationship finds a reflection in me. This reflection becomes a part of my essence and shapes my character. Thus man's character is the sum of all his relations with other characters. Consequently my virtue and vice is relative to the virtues and vices of the sum of the individuals, characters, ideas ... which surround me and with which I have a relation.
This relation can be with a historical entity (if, for example, I read history). We have not had a [direct] relationship with Imam Hussein. But when we intellectually meet him through a book or words, he becomes a part of our knowledge, and then a part of our personal characteristics. In this sense, everyone exists relative to his knowledge and ideals.
Likewise, when we give a part of our existence for a cause, that part becomes a part of that cause. For example, in our mind, justice has sacredness. It is one of those values which has become a part of us thanks to our relationship and contact with it. If I donate a thousand dollars of my own money for the establishment of justice, that thousand dollars absorbs the sacredness of justice. As long as it was in my pocket, it was merely one thousand dollars. When I negate it in the way of justice, it is affirmed in another form, because it transforms into the essence of justice. Or for example, we have some money and we feed a group of poor people. If feeding the poor has the attribute of sacredness, the amount of money which has come out of our pocket for the feeding develops a particular value. In other words, it develops a non-monetary value and adopts a spiritual value. If we had spent the same amount of money for promulgation of spiritual food, [for example, for] the writing, translating, of publishing of a book, the money finds a new value depending on how sacred the act in question is. In other words, the money negates its existence in a sense, but obtains a new existence and value. In fact, money is an external measure of energy and power. If it is spent on "partying," the energy develops a profane value or, as some may think, a sacred value! Money is like kerosene or gasoline, which can be used to move a machine or to light a lamp. Once it is spent and once it is burned, it turns into a spiritual energy, depending upon the purpose for which it has vanished. What is spent does not have an independent value. The value belongs to me who has spent it. That amount of money was a part of me. Thus the sanctity of the cause for which the money is spent reflects on me. Its value comes back to me. I earn it; because that amount of money was a portion of my existence. The hundred dollars that I have paid for the cause of justice transforms itself into "the sanctity of justice." The sanctity of justice is transformed into "the money," that is to say, something absolutely materialistic and economic. Likewise, if it is spent for feeding the poor, the value of such feeding transports its value to the money spent. But the same amount of money, once spent for filthy partying, does not adopt a value. It rather becomes less than its materialistic value. At this point, we reach a principle: "everything obtains a similar value to that for which it has been spent." As it is negated, it is affirmed. In other words, as its existence is negated, its value is affirmed. In self-annihilation, it reaches the permanence of the purpose, provided that the purpose is something permanent, such as an ideal, a value, freedom, justice, charity, thought, or knowledge. Money, once spent for the sake of knowledge, goes out of one's pocket and becomes zero; but at the same time it changes into the values of knowledge for which it is spent.
Just as money is a part of my existence, so my existence, my animal life, my instinct, and my time are parts of me. Suppose I spent an hour of my time to earn money. Because the earning of money has no value, the one hour cannot obtain any value, because I have sacrificed that hour for the sake of what does not have value or sanctity. But if I spent the same hour teaching someone something or guiding him without charging him anything, I have sacrificed that hour for a value. That hour takes on the value of the cause for which that hour was spent.
A Shahid is the one who negates his whole existence for the sacred ideal in which we all believe. It is natural then that all the sacredness of that ideal and goal transports itself to his existence. True, that his existence has suddenly become non-existent, but he has absorbed the whole value of the idea for which he has negated himself. No wonder then, that he, in the mind of the people, becomes sacredness itself. In this way, man becomes absolute man, because he is no longer a person, an individual. He is "thought." He had been an individual who sacrificed himself for "thought" Now he is "thought" itself. For this reason, we do not recognize Hussein as a particular person who is the son of Ali. Hussein is a name for Islam, justice, imamat, and divine unity. We do not praise him as an individual in order to evaluate him and rank him among shuhada. This issue is not relevant. When we speak of Hussein, we do not mean Hussein as a person. Hussein was that individual who negated himself with abso- lute sincerity, with the utmost magnificence within human power, for an absolute and sacred value. From him remains nothing but a name. His content is no longer an individual, but is a thought. He has trans- formed himself into the very school [for which he has negated him- self].
An individual who becomes a shahid for the sake of a nation, and thus obtains sacredness, earns this status. In the opinion of the ones who do not recognize a nation as the sum of individuals, but recognize it as a collective spirit above the individuals, a shahid is a spiritual crystallization of that collective spirit which they call "nation." Likewise, when an individual sacrifices himself for the sake of knowledge, he is no longer an individual. He becomes knowledge itself. He becomes the shahid of knowledge. We praise liberty through an individual who has given himself to liberty; we do not praise "him" because he was a good person. This is not of course in contradiction with the fact that, from God's perspective, he is still an individual, and in the hereafter, he will have a separate destiny and account. But in the society, and by the criterion of our school, we do not praise him as an individual; we praise the thought, the sacred. At this point, the meaning of the word "shahid" is all the more clear. When the belief in a sacred school of thought is gradually eroding, is about to vanish or be forgotten in a new generation due to a conspiracy, suddenly an individual, by negating himself, re- establishes it. In other words, he calls it back again to the scene of the world. By sacrificing his existence, he affirms the thitherto] vanishing existence of that ideal. For this reason, he is shahid (witness, present) and mashhud (visible). He is always in front of us. The thought also obtains presence and permanence through him. It becomes revived and obtains a soul again.
We have two kinds of shahid, one symbolized by Hamzah, the master of martyrs, and the other symbolized by Hussein. There is much difference between Hamzah and Hussein. Hamzah is a mujahid and a hero who goes (into battle) to achieve victory and defeat the enemy. Instead, he is defeated, is killed, and thus becomes a shahid. But this represents an individual shahadat. His name is registered at the top of the list of those who died for the cause of their belief.
Hussein, on the other hand, is a different type. He does not go (into battle with the intention of) succeeding in killing the enemy and winning victory. Neither is he accidentally killed by a terroristic act of someone such as Wahshi. This is not the case. Hussein, while he could stay at home and continue to live, rebels and consciously welcomes death. Precisely at this moment. he chooses self-negation. He takes this dangerous route, placing himself in the battlefield, in front of the contemplators of the world and in front of time, so that [the consequence of] his act might be widely spread and the cause for which he gives his life might be realized sooner. Hussein chooses shahadat as an end or as a means for the affirmation of what is being negated and mutilated by the political apparatus.
Conversely, shahadat chooses Hamzah and the other mujahidin who go for victory. In the shahadat of Hussein, the goal is self- negation for the sanctity [of that ideal] which is being negated and gradually is vanishing. At this point, jihad and shahadat are completely separate from each other. Ali speaks of the two concepts in two different contexts with two [different] philosophies. Al- Jihad 'izzun lil Islam ("Jihad is glory for Islam.") Jihad is an act, the philosophy of which is different from that of shahadat. Of course in jihad, there is shahadat, but the kind which Hamzah symbolizes, not the one Hussein symbolizes.
Al-Shahadat istizharan 'alal-mujahadat ("Shahadat is exposing what is being covered up.") Yes, such is the goal of shahadat, and thus it is always different from jihad. It is discussed in a different chapter. Jihad is glory for Islam. But shahadat is exposing what is being covered up. This is how I understand the matter. Once upon a time a truth was an appealing precept. Everyone followed it and it was sacred. All powers surrounded it. But gradually in time, because that truth did not serve the interests of a minority and was dangerous for a group, it was conspired against in order to erase it from the minds and lives of the people. In order to fill its empty place, some other issue was supplanted. Gradually the original issue was completely lost and in its place other issues were discussed. In this situation, the shahid, in order to revive the original issue, sacrifices his own life, and thus brings the demode precept back into attention by repulsion of its sham substitute. This is the very goal. At the time of Hussein, the main issue after the Prophet was that of leadership. The other issues were marginal. The main issue was: "Anyway, who is to rule and supervise the destiny of the Muslim nation?" As we know, during the entire reign of the Umayyads, this remained the issue. Uprisings, and thus the major crises of the Umayyads, all boiled down to this very issue. People would pour into the mosques at every event and would grab the neck of the caliph, asking him, "On the basis of which ayah or by what reason do you hold your position? Do you have the right or not?" Well, in the midst of such a situation, one cannot rule. No wonder then that the period of the Umayyads was no longer than a century.
During their reign, the Abbasids, who were more experienced (than the Umayyads), de-politicized the people; that is to say, they made the people less sensitive to the issue of imamat (leadership) and the destiny of the society. By what means?! By clinging to the most sacred issues: worship, exegesis of the Qur'an, kalam (theology), philosophy, translation of foreign books, promulgation of knowledge, cultivation, expansion of civilization-so that Baghdad could be an heir to all great cities and civilizations of the world and so that Muslims could become the most advanced of peoples. [But to what real end.] So that one issue should become negated and no one talk about it.
For the purpose of reviving the very issue, the shahid arises. Having nothing else to sacrifice, he sacrifices his own life. Because he sacrifices his life for that purpose, he transmits the sacredness of that cause to himself.
To God belong both the East and the West. He guides whom He will to a straight path. Thus we have made you an ummatan wasatan (middle community) so that you may be shuhada (witnesses) over mankind, and the Apostle may be a shahid (witness) over you. (2:142-143).
In this ayah, shahadat does not mean "to be killed." It implies that something has been covered and is about to leave the realm of memory, being gradually forgotten by people. The shahid witnesses for this innocent, silent, and oppressed victim. We know that shahid is a term of a different kind from others. The Apostle is a shahid without being killed. without being killed, the Islamic community established by the Qur'an has the status and responsibility of a shahid. God says, " ... so that you may be shuhada over mankind ...", just as the Apostle is shahid over you. Thus the role of shahadat is more general and more important than that of being murdered. Nevertheless the one who gives his life has performed the most sublime shahadat. Every Muslim should make a shahid community for others, just as the Apostle is an 'uswah (pattern) on the basis of which we make ourselves. He is our shahid and we are the shuhada of humanity.
We have determined that shahid connotes a "pattern, prototype, or example" on the basis of whom one rebuilds oneself. It means we should situate our Prophet in the midrealm of culture, faith, knowledge, thought, and society, and make all these to accord with him. Once you have done so, and thus have situated yourself in the midst of time and earth, all other nations and masses should rebuild themselves to accord with you. In this way you [as a nation] become their shahid. In other words, the same role that the Apostle has played for you, you will play for others. You will play the role of the Prophet as a human and as a nation for them. It is in this sense that the locution "'ummatan wasatan" (a community justly balanced) appears quite relevant to the word shahid. We usually think that 'ummatan wasatan refers to a moderate society, that is to say, a society in which there is not extravagance or pettiness, which has not drowned itself in materialism at the expense of sacrificing its spirituality. It is a society in which there is both spirit and matter. It is "moderate"; whereas, considering the issue of the mission of this 'ummat, this is not essentially the meaning of wasatan in this locution. Its meaning is far superior. It means that we, as an 'ummat, we must be the axis of time; that is to say, we must not be a group cowering in a corner of the Middle East or turning around ourselves, rather than becoming involved in crucial and vital issues, which form everything and make the present day of humanity and tomorrow's history. We should not neglect this responsibility by engaging in self- indulgent repetition. We must be in the middle of the field. We should not be a society which is ghaib ' (absent. the opposite of shahid), isolated, and pseudo-Mutazilite, but we should be an 'ummat in the middle of the East and the West, between Right and Left, between the two poles, and in short, in the middle of the field. The shahid is such a person. He is present in all fields. An ummatan wasatan is a community that is in the midst of battles; it has a universal mission. It is not a self-isolated. closed, and distant community. It is a shahid community.
The opinion I expressed last year concerning shahadat meant that, fundamentally in Islam, shahadat is an independent issue, as are prayer, fasting, and jihad. Whereas, in the common opinion, shahadat for a mujahid of a religion is a state or destiny in which he is murdered by the enemy in jihad. Such is also correct. But what I have expressed as a principle adjacent to jihad-not as an extension of jihad and not as a degree that the mujahid obtains in God's view or in relation to his destiny in the Hereafter-relates to a particular shahadat, symbolized by Hussein. We in Islam have great shuhada, such as our Imams, the first and foremost of whom is Ali, who is the greatest Imam and the greatest man made by Islam. Even though Ali is a shahid, we take Hamzah and Hussein as ideal manifestations of shahadat.
Hamzah is the greatest hero of Islam in the most crucial battle, Uhud (in 627). The Prophet of Islam never expressed so much sadness as he did for Hamzah, even when his own son, Abraham, died, or when some of his greatest companions were martyred. In the battle of Uhud, Hamzah became a shahid due to an inhuman conspiracy contrived by Hind (Abu Sufyan's wife and Muawiyah's mother) and carried out by her slave, Wahshi. The reaction of the Apostle was severe. The people of Medina praise Hamzah so much as a hero that the Saudis have accused them of worshipping him. It shows how much he is glorified, even though he was not from Medina. It was with his acceptance of Islam that Muslims straightened their stature. At the beginning of bi'that, Hamzah was recognized among the Quraysh as a heroic and epic personality. He was the youngest son of Abd al-M uttalib, a great hunter and warrior. After the episode in which the Quraysh insulted the Apostle and he defended the Apostle, Hamzah became inclined toward Islam. As he became Muslim, Muslims no longer remained a weak and persecuted group. Indeed, they manifested themselves as a group ready for a showdown. Afterwards, as long as there was the sword and personality of Hamzah, other personalities were eclipsed. Even the most sparkling epochal personality of Islam, that is to say, Ali, was under his influence. It is quite obvious that in the battle of Uhud, the spearhead was Hamzah, followed by Ali.
You know that when Hamzah was killed due to that filthy and womanly conspiracy, the Apostle became very angry and sad. When he attended the body of Hamzah, the ears, eyes, and nose of the latter had already been cut off. Hind had made frightening ornaments of these for herself A man who had taken an oath to drink the blood of Hamzah fulfilled his vow in Uhud. Muhammad, near the corpse of this great hero, this young and beloved son of Abdul Muttalib, and his own young uncle, spoke so angrily and vengefully that he immediately felt sorry and God warned him. Muhammad vowed that at the first chance he would burn thirty of the enemy as a blood reprisal for Hamzah. But the heavens immediately shouted at him that no one except God, Who is the Lord of fire, has the right to burn a human being for a crime. Thus the Apostle broke his vow. Since God took this sense of vengeance from him, he tried to console himself by reciting a eulogy for Hamzah.
On his return to Medina, the families were mourning their beloved ones; but no one was crying for Hamzah, because he had no relatives or home in Medina. He was a lonely immigrant. The Apostle, with such tender feelings, unexpected from a heroic man like him, waged a wailing complaint as to why no one cried for Hamzah, the son of Abdul Muttalib, "the hero of our family." And behold this tender feeling, that a Medinan family came to the Apostle and gave him condolences, saying, "We will cry for Hamzah's death and the Apostle will eulogize ours." And he thanked them.
At any rate, in the history of Islam, for the first time, Hamzah was given the title Sayyidal-Shuhada (the Master of Shuhada). The same title was later primarily applied to Hussein. Both are Sayyid al- Shuhada, but there is a fundamental difference between their shahadat. They are of two different kinds which can hardly be compared. Hamzah is a mujahid who is killed in the midst of jihad but Hussein is a shahid who attains shahadat before he is killed. He is a shahid, not only at the place of his shahadat, but also in his own house. From the moment that Walid, the governor of Medina, asks him to swear allegiance [to Yazid] and he says, "NO !"-the negation by which he accepts his own death-Hussein is a shahid, because shahid in this sense is not necessarily the title of the one killed as such, but it is precisely the very witnessing aimed at negating an [innovative] affair. A shahid is a person who, from the beginning of his decision, chooses his own shahadat, even though, between his decision-making and his death, months or even years may pass. If we want to explain the fundamental difference between the two kinds of shahadat, we must say that, in Hamzah's case, it is the death which chooses him. In other words, it is a kind of shahadat that chooses the shahid. In Hussein's case, it is quite the contrary. The shahid chooses his own shahadat. Hussein has chosen shahadat, but Hamzah has been chosen by shahadat.
The philosophy of the rise of the mujahid is not the same as that of the shahid. The mujahid is a sincere warrior who, for the sake of defending his belief and community or spreading and glorifying his faith and community, rises so that he may break, devastate, and conquer the enemy who blocks or endangers his path; thus the difference between attack and defense is jihad. He may be killed in this way. Since he dies in this way, we entitle him "shahid. "The kind of shahadat symbolized by Hamzah is a tragedy suffered by a mujahid in his attempt to conquer and kill the enemy. Thus the type of shahid symbolized by Hamzah refers to the one who gets killed as a man who had decided to kill the enemy. He is a mujahid. The type of shahid symbolized by Hussein is a man who arises for his own death. In the first case, shahadat is a negative incident. In the latter case, it is a decisive goal, chosen consciously. In the former, shahadat is an accident along the way; in the latter, it is the destination. There death is a tragedy; here death is an ideal. It is an ideology. There the mujahid, who had decided to kill the enemy, gets killed. He is to wailed and eulogized. Here there is no grief, for shahadat is a sublime degree, a final stage of human evolution. It is reaching the absolute by one's own death. Death, in this case, is not a sinister event. It is a weapon in the hands of the friend who with it hits the head of the enemy. In the event that Hussein is completely powerless in defending the truth, he hits the head of the attacking enemy with his own death.
Shahadat has such a unique radiance; it creates light and heat in the world and in the cold and dark hearts. In the paralyzed wills and thought, immersed in stagnation and darkness, and in the memories which have forgotten all the truths and reminiscences, it creates movement, vision, and hope and provides will, mission, and commitment. The thought, "Nothing can be done," changes into, "Something can be done," or even, "Something must be done." Such death brings about the death of the enemy at the hands of the ones who are educated by the blood of a shahid. By shedding his own blood, the shahid is not in the position to cause the fall of the enemy, [for he can't do so]. He wants to humiliate the enemy, and he does so. By his death, he does not choose to flee the hard and uncomfortable environment. He does not choose shame. Instead of a negative flight, he commits a positive attack. By his death, he condemns the oppressor and provides commitment for the oppressed. He exposes aggression and revives what has hitherto been negated. He reminds the people of what has already been forgotten. In the icy hearts of a people, he bestows the blood of life, resurrection, and movement. For those who have become accustomed to captivity and thus think of captivity as a permanent state, the blood of a shahid is a rescue vessel. For the eyes which can no longer read the truth and cannot see the face of the truth in the darkness of despotism and istihmar (stupification), all they see being nothing but pollution, the blood of the shahid is a candle light which gives vision and [serves as] the radiant light of guidance for the misguided who wander amidst the homeless caravan, on mountains, in deserts, along by-ways, and in ditches.

The Necessity of Observing JusticeImam Ibn KathirTafsir Ibn Kathir (Abridged), Volume 3

2008-07-27T04:49:00.000-07:00

(122) A guide and a mercy for the Muhsinoon (gooddoers) ( سورة لقمان , Luqman, Chapter #31, Verse #3)
The Necessity of Observing JusticeImam Ibn KathirTafsir Ibn Kathir (Abridged), Volume 3 Abridged by a group of scholars under the supervision of Shaykh Safiur-Rahman al-Mubarakpuri © 2000 Darussalam
"O you who believe! Stand out firmly for Allah as just witnesses; and let not the enmity and hatred of others make you avoid justice. Be just, that is nearer to Taqwa; and have Taqwa of Allah. Verily, Allah is Well-Acquainted with what you do." [Soorah al-Maa'idah (5):8]
Allah said,
"O you who believe! Stand out firmly for Allah…"
meaning, in truth for the sake of Allah, not for the sake of people or for fame,
"as just witnesses" observing justice and not transgression. It is recorded in the Two Sahihs that An-Nu`man bin Bashir said, "My father gave me a gift, but `Amrah bint Rawahah, my mother, said that she would not agree to it unless he made Allah's Messenger, sallallahu `alaihi wa sallam, as a witness to it. So, my father went to Allah's Messenger, sallallahu `alaihi wa sallam, to ask him to be a witness to his giving me the gift. Allah's Messenger, sallallahu `alaihi wa sallam, asked,
'Have you given the like of it to everyone of your offspring?'
He replied in the negative. Allah's Messenger, sallallahu `alaihi wa sallam, said,
'Have Taqwa of Allah and treat your children equally.'
And said:
'I shall not be witness to injustice.'
My father then returned and took back his gift."
Allah said:
"and let not the enmity and hatred of others make you avoid justice."
The Ayah commands: Do not be carried away by your hatred for some people to avoid observing justice with them. Rather, be just with every one, whether a friend or an enemy. This is why Allah said,
"Be just: that is nearer to Taqwa" this is better than if you abandon justice in this case.
Although Allah said that observing justice is 'nearer to Taqwa', there is not any other course of action to take, therefore 'nearer' here means 'is'. Allah said in another Ayah,
"The dwellers of Paradise will, on that Day, have the best abode, and have the fairer of places for repose."
Some of the female Companions said to `Umar, "You are more rough and crude than the Messenger of Allah, sallallahu `alaihi wa sallam.", meaning you are rough, not that the Prophet, sallallahu `alaihi wa sallam is rough at all.
Allah said next,
"and have Taqwa of Allah. Verily, Allah is Well-Acquainted with what you do."
And consequently, He will reward or punish you according to your actoins, whether good or evil. Hence Allah's statements afterwards,
"Allah has promised those who believe and do deeds of righteousness, that for them there is forgiveness"
for their sins,
"and a great reward." which is Paradise, that is part of Allah's mercy for His servants. They will not earn Paradise on account of their good actions, but rather on account of His mercy and favor, even though they will qualify to earn this mercy on account of their good actions. Allah has made these actions the cause and path that lead to His mercy, favor, pardon and acceptance. Therefore, all this is from Allah Alone and all thanks are due to Him.
Allah said next,
"And they who disbelieve and deny our Ayat are those who will be the dwellers of the Hell-fire."
This only demonstrates Allah's perfect justice, wisdom and judgment, He is never wrong, for He is the Most Wise, Most Just and Most Able.

France rejects veiled Muslim wife

2008-07-27T04:41:00.000-07:00

France rejects veiled Muslim wife

Faiza M was described to be
living "virtually as a recluse"

A French court has denied citizenship to a Muslim woman from Morocco, ruling that her practice of "radical" Islam is not compatible with French values.

The 32-year-old woman, known as Faiza M, has lived in France since 2000 with her husband - a French national - and their three French-born children.

Social services reports said the burqa-wearing Faiza M lived in "total submission to her male relatives".

Faiza M said she has never challenged the fundamental values of France.

Her initial application for French citizenship was rejected in 2005 on the grounds of "insufficient assimilation" into France.

She appealed, and late last month the Conseil d'Etat, France's highest administrative body which also acts as a high court, upheld the decision to deny her citizenship.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/europe/7503757.stm

Published: 2008/07/12 19:34:01 GMT

ï¿½ BBC MMVIII

Veiled Muslim brides wait for the
start of their mass wedding.
Photograph: Ali Jarkekji/Reuters

Muslim woman deemed too submissive to be French

Muslim French ï¿½Haute Couture

PARIS (Reuters) - France has denied citizenship to a veiled Moroccan woman on the grounds that her ï¿½radicalï¿½ practice of Islam is incompatible with basic French values such as equality of the sexes, a legal ruling showed on Friday.

The case will reignite debate about how to reconcile freedom of religion, which is guaranteed by the French constitution, and other fundamental rights, which many in France feel are being challenged by the way of life of some Muslims.

Le Monde newspaper said it was the first time a Muslim applicant had been rejected for reasons to do with personal religious practice.

ï¿½She has adopted a radical practice of her religion, incompatible with essential values of the French community, particularly the principle of equality of the sexes,ï¿½ said a ruling by the Council of State handed down last month and sent to Reuters on Friday to confirm a report in Le Monde.

The Council of State is a judicial body which has final say on disputes between individuals and the public administration.

Married to a French national, the woman arrived in France in 2000, speaks good French and has three children born in France.

She wears a black burqa that covers all her body except her eyes, which are visible through a narrow slit, and lives in ï¿½total submissionï¿½ to her husband and male relatives, according to reports by social services. Le Monde said the woman is 32.

The womanï¿½s application for French nationality was rejected in 2005 on grounds of ï¿½insufficient assimilationï¿½. She appealed to the Council of State, which last month approved the rejection.

In the past, nationality was denied to Muslims who were known to have links with extremist circles or who had publicly advocated radicalism, which is not the case here.

VIRGINITY ROW

The ruling comes weeks after a heated debate over whether traditional Muslim views were creeping into French law, prompted by a court annulment of the marriage of two Muslims because the husband said the wife was not a virgin as she had claimed to be.

In the case of the Moroccan woman, Le Monde suggested the Council of State had gone to the opposite extreme by rejecting the womanï¿½s beliefs and way of life rather than accommodating them.

ï¿½Is a burqa incompatible with French nationality?ï¿½ the newspaper asked.

The legal expert who provided a formal report on the case to the Council of State wrote that the womanï¿½s interviews with social services revealed that ï¿½she lives almost as a recluse, isolated from French society,ï¿½ Le Monde reported.

ï¿½She has no idea about the secular state or the right to vote. She lives in total submission to her male relatives. She seems to find this normal and the idea of challenging it has never crossed her mind,ï¿½ Emmanuelle Prada-Bordenave wrote.

Le Monde quoted Daniele Lochak, a law professor not involved in the case, as saying it was bizarre to consider that excessive submission to men was a reason not to grant citizenship.

ï¿½If you follow that to its logical conclusion, it means that women whose partners beat them are also not worthy of being French,ï¿½ Lochak said.

Posted in France, Sharia Compliant, Shariah Finance, Women's Rights Under Shariah Law http://shariahfinancewatch.wordpress.com/category/france/

Abd al-Malik ('Abdu l-Malik bni Marwān)

2008-07-27T04:20:00.000-07:00

(646-705) Caliph of Sunni Islam 685-705, as part of the Umayyad Dynasty.
Under Abd al-Malik the Muslim world was largely united. This was the result of well-conducted military campaign against rebels, but also as Abd al-Malik was a devout and pious Muslim, many of those opposing the Umayyads, closed ranks with his regime.Abd al-Malik was a strong and forceful ruler, a great judge of character and with a balanced mind. He ruled the empire according to his own will, and did not consult a shura, council, as earlier caliphs had done.Abd al-Malik introduced Arabic as the administrative language for all of the empire. He also introduced a common currency. He also repaired the Ka'ba of Mecca. It is also under Abd al-Malik that the construction of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem was started.
During his regime, the religion of Islam was promoted to non-Muslims living in the empire, and many converted. But the privileges the original Arab Muslims.

Biography646: Born as son of Marwan 1, future caliph.— Works for his father, who had been appointed governor of Madina.685: His father dies, and as arranged in advance, Abd al-Malik becomes new caliph. he immediately embarked on conquering Muslim territory under the rebel caliphate of Abdullah bni Zubayr.688 or 689: Launches a campaign to conquer more territory in North Africa.691: Takes control over northern Syria and Mesopotamia, where northern Arab tribes and their leader Zufar since long had challenged the Umayyad caliphs.692: Defeats and has rebel caliph Abullah bni Zubayr killed, thereby taking control over the heartlands of the Muslim world.697: Final defeat of the Kharijis of Persia by the leadership of Governor al-Hajjaj, which had been one of the main challengers to the caliphate.— Conquers Carthage, the Byzantine stronghold and administrative centre. Tunis is established as the new capital of the region.705 May: Abdulaziz, the brother of Abd al-Malik and heir to the caliphate, dies. Abd al-Malik appoints 3 of his children as successors.— October: Dies, and is succeeded by his son al-Walid 1. *********************************************************************************
Abd al-Malik
I just read an interesting biography of the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik by Chase Robinson, one of dozens of titles in a great new series from Oneworld Publications called Makers of the Muslim World. Abd al-Malik inherited a claim to the caliphate from his father Marwan, who had been elected at a gathering of Syrian tribal notables in 684 to succeed his second cousin twice removed Mu'awiya b. Yazid as heir to the Umayyad dynasty, which his second cousin Mu'awiya b. Abi Sufyan had founded 23 years earlier. Marwan died after only a few months, however, and so Abd al-Malik was the one who had to win control of the Muslim domains against other factions such as al-Mukhtar's proto-Shi'ite movement, the Azraqi Kharijites, and the widely recognized Abdullah Ibn Zubayr, based in Medina.In 692, Abd al-Malik had finally emerged as the last man standing, thanks mainly to his general al-Hajjaj b. Yusuf, who subsequently became his governor in Iraq. During the remaining 13 years, Abd al-Malik remade what had been an empire governed mainly indirectly through ad hoc arrangements with notables in various regions to a centrally administered Arab and Muslim state. Under Abd al-Malik, the jizya tax was imposed on almost all non-Muslims, Arabic became the language of administration, and the first distinctively Islamic coinage was issued, except for some Zubayrid coins from the late 680's.Abd al-Malik has come to play an important role in many revisionist theories of Islamic origins. It was he, for example, who built the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, and made significant renovations to the Ka'aba in Mecca. He clearly claimed religious as well as secular authority: The Arabic khalifa means both deputy and successor, and Abd al-Malik and the Marwanids styled themselves not "caliph of God's messenger," but "caliph of God," putting their claims closer to the Catholic papacy than the caliphate as traditionally understood. (Patricia Crone and Martin Hinds, in a book called God's Caliph, argued that Shi'ite beliefs about the imams are closer to the original understanding of the caliphate than Sunni attitudes.) Robinson suggests that the production of a standard version of the Qur'an was a project of Abd al-Malik only later projected back to Uthman. Some say he used this authority to elevate Muhammad's position and regularize many Islamic practices, perhaps even being the first to make is a religion separate from the other monotheistic faiths; my own belief is that he was simply the first to make it the ideology of a centralized government.Regardless of how much he contributed to the Islamic faith, Abd al-Malik remains the one who put Muslim political power on solid institutional foundations. Robinson takes it as a testimony of his importance that he was succeeded by four of his sons, the last of whom died in 743, just seven years before the Umayyads would be swept to Spain by the Abbasid Revolution. Hopefully this highly accessible book will lead to more people learning about his fascinating role in history.

Montaigne and the Ottomans

2008-07-27T02:51:00.000-07:00

Essays are like flexible rhapsodies.”1 They are freer, arbitrary, and subjective as compared to a more rigid, systematic, and organized plain text. Free and always open to new perspectives. This must be the aspect that differentiates Montaigne from his contemporaries.
Montaigne says that the main motivation for writing his famous Essays was to end his great solitude. Why was he lonely? Why did he feel alone and prefer conversing with his readers in an attempt to reduce his isolation? The answer to this question again can be found in his writings. He came from a wilder region of France, from behind the Alps that divided Western Europe. Thus, he was protected from the ills that the Italian Renaissance had imposed on European mentalities. What made him feel lonely was the meeting of his country with these new ideas and sects, the murder of thousands of people in the war of Saint Bartholomew (1572) on religious pretexts, and the arrival of this “European” attitude to his hometown.2
This isolation preserved Montaigne from the mental crisis that his contemporaries were experiencing. He looks at both the past and the present and future within the possibilities that exist in the “thought from the wilderness.” It is for this reason that he has no prejudices. He is a free man of the world. This fact is demonstrated in his attitude toward the Orient and in particular to the Ottomans, whose images had been so distorted because of established prejudices.
Islam in European Culture
The thesis that supports the idea that there were vital differences between European and Ottoman societies and cultures and the politics of positioning them as opposites who were not willing to come to an agreement should give way to the thesis that there are more complicated and closer relationships between them. A deeper investigation will even allow us to trace signs of a “modern” mentality in the Ottoman culture that reaches all the way back to the beginning of the sixteenth century.3 The Ottomans were interested in European affairs. Many historical readings bring us to a point that the survival of Protestantism owes itself to Ottoman support. It is not too difficult to find other examples.
It is known that Postel and Jean Bodin admired the Ottoman state and its administration in the sixteenth century and they were desirous to transmit these thoughts to their political theory. Likewise, Alan Grossrichard had already demonstrated that the image of the East, which was the “tour de force” of Montesquieu in his Persian Letters, was the representative of a popular ghost—that of despotism—in Europe during the seventeenth century. There are many researchers, from Bryan S. Turner to John M. Hobson, who have stated that both the negative side of European thought, like Hegel, Engels, and Marx, and the positive side, like Max Weber, shared the viewpoint of Orientalism that was against the East and Islam, particularly against the Ottomans. Even now it is questioned whether there is implicit Orientalism in the writings of European travelers—including Lady Montague, who was a most objective person. This list can be easily extended: despite his play Mahomet, which took a very negative view of the East, Voltaire was an admirer of the morality and discipline of the Muslims and the Ottomans. Lord Byron was a lover of Ottoman and Istanbul civilization, despite his political animosity that derived from his love of Hellenism. The “poet of the lakes,” Lamertine was awarded with a farm house by Sultan Abdulmecid, as a sign of appreciation for his book A History of the Turks. The father of Jean Jacque Rousseau was a repairer of clocks in Topkapi Palace in Istanbul. Goethe learned to read the Qur’an and pray from the Bashkird Turks, who were among the Russians who invaded Germany. Campanella said in his La Citta del Sole (The City of the Sun) that the utopia he had fictionalized had been realized in this world by the Ottomans. The writer of Don Quixote, Cervantes, lost one of his arms in the war of Lepanto, which he fought against the Ottomans; he wrote his novels during his imprisonment after this war inspired by Algerian scholars. The philosopher Leibniz presented a treatise of conquest to the French King in which he discussed how to destroy the Ottomans.
Montaigne
We have to add a new name to this list: Michel de Montaigne. In spite of having a few prejudices, Montaigne was one of the few modern writers who did not let prejudices dominate his view. In the first sentence of his Essays he promised that this book was going to be an honest one. Indeed, he continuously revised and edited his books before each new edition was published, including his essays on the Ottomans. He questioned his thoughts with reference to new sources he read and added new essays.4
In the revised and extended 1595 edition of his book, which was published after his death, he advised French soldiers, whose laxity he had observed during the civil war in Perigord, to take Turkish soldiers for their model. He said that all young French soldiers should learn discipline from the Turkish armies:
Their discipline is very different from and superior to ours. At times of war, our soldiers are more irresponsible and disorderly than at times of peace; on the other hand, Turkish soldiers are moderate and reluctant to behave so, because stealing from the poor is punished with a few lashes in peace time, but very severely at war. Taking away an egg by force without paying money for it is punished with 50 lashes. Moreover, those who steal the most insignificant thing that does not even satisfy hunger nor have any value whatsoever are sentenced to death. I am surprised to read about Selim that when he conquered Damascus on his campaign to Egypt none of his soldiers took anything from the peerless gardens of this city, even though they were unprotected.5
Montaigne, then, was not aware of “Eastern despotism,” a thesis that had been influential since the seventeenth century. Distanced from the influence of this thesis, he mentions how the philanthropic activities of the Turks extended to include fauna and flora, stating that the Turks had charities and hospitals even for animals.
Montaigne was influenced by the unfavorable winds that blew against the Ottomans through France, but he desired to use the Ottomans against his own despots as a mirror. In other words, he used a method that was similar to that of most other French intellectuals, like Montesquieu, after him.
He was aware of the power of habits and how they can capture people and he emphasized how wrong it was to label everything that is opposed to local habit as barbarism. To quote Dr Zeynep Sayin of Istanbul University:
The universal certainty that Descartes tried to find seems impossible for Montaigne because he is not in favor of certainty that is independent from conditions. On the contrary he analyses humans and societies in their differences. “I am not mislead to think that everybody should be like me…It seems reasonable to me to think that there are thousands of different lives.”6
Finally, Montaigne was aware of the fact that judgments do not carry the claim of universality; they are limited to the conditions in which they emerge. He was not bounded by Eurocentrism and was aware that there are different worlds and different life-styles. He did not try to regulate world according to himself, but rather realized that it is essential to recognize differences. It is probably because of this attitude that Montaigne stands in an exceptional place in Western thinking and why he does not find a place in books of “history of Western philosophy.”
Montaigne and the Ottomans
It is thanks to the magnificent study of Clarence Dana Rouillard7 that we learn that in the great world of Montaigne the Orient was identical with the “Turk,” i.e. the Ottomans. We are able to see that the Ottoman grew like a flower in Montaigne’s works and that he revised his thoughts and prejudices with new contributions and information with every new edition.
According to Rouillard, Montaigne—like P. Villey who prepared Essays for publication—believed in the necessity of knowing something well before judging it. More importantly, the Orient he identified with the Ottomans played a significant role in terms of widening his vision as it broadened the horizons of his era. According to Rouillard, Montaigne owes the wide vision and pluralism in his essays to the Ottomans to a great extent.
Rouillard, who surprised us with this striking information, firstly analyses Montaigne’s acquaintance with the Ottomans. According to him it is very interesting to observe the development of Montaigne’s knowledge about the Ottomans. Prior to the first publication of Essays in 1580, the only information that we get about Montaigne’s readings is that he got his information on Turks from the Italian history of Guichardin, not from the classics or chronicle writers and historians like Joinville or Froissart. The only reference to the Turks in the 1580 edition was that they partook of food by reclining on comfortable sofas and their belief that Paradise was a sensual abode. However, Montaigne’s curiosity was not confined to the borders of Western Europe and was open to all human activities experienced in modern history.
It seems that Paul Villey, a Montaigne specialist, did not study the 1582 edition of Essays attentively enough. Though rare and insignificantly small, there are some new additions to this edition. We are able to conclude from some points in this new edition that Montaigne read a new study that had been written directly about the Ottomans. Thus we got a clue that Montaigne’s interest about the Ottomans had increased.
As a matter of fact, the number of these clues increases in following editions. For the first time Montaigne encounters direct material concerning the Ottoman world in a Polish history book that he studied and used in the third edition. In this book was an engraving that displayed the celebration held on the occasion of the circumcision of Murad III’s sons. This engraving made Montaigne to think of the Ottoman world, their costumes, and context in a different way. In the last edition to be prepared before Montaigne passed away, his interest in foreign places was at its peak. In this last edition, Montaigne found, read, and analyzed books in Latin that had been written, directly or indirectly about Ottoman history, including the book of Halkokondil on the foundation and rise of the Ottomans and Postel’s De la Republique des Turcs. (He knew Postel—one of the significant intellectual of his time—personally.) There were nearly 50 references to the Ottomans in the last edition of Essays.
“The Turk the warrior!”
It seems clear that Montaigne did not believe in theological explanations concerning the defeat or victory of the Christians against Muslims. For example, he commented very dryly—which is not what one would expect from a European—on the war of Lepanto in 1571 in which the Christians won and which was followed by days of festivities:
A maritime war was won against Turks in the preceding months under the commandership of Don Juan d’Austria; but God was pleased when we saw the reverse many times in the past.
Montaigne desired that his fellow countrymen not put so much importance on this victory because the Turkish army was still standing. He recognized explicitly that the Turks had developed a considerable military force that could only be explained on the basis of material and human power. He related the Turkish ability to establish such a great army to their discipline. According to him, the Turks knew how to use their minds as much as they knew how to fight and this is what made them different from an army of barbarians.
Montaigne thought the acts of the Turks were not restrained merely because of the heavy punishments that were imposed. They were also accustomed to rigid physical discipline and sobriety. This quality made them superior to Western soldiers. He expressed his thoughts as follows:
In order to verify to what extent Turkish armies are more intelligent and behave more reasonably than ours it is enough to say that besides their other virtues they drink only water and eat rice and salty meat. Thus, each of them can carry one month’s provisions with them.
Montaigne explained another influential factor in the success of the Turks which was the Sultan being in command of their armies. Selim I thought that victories that had been won without the sultans leading the armies were not complete and thought it was shameful to be proud of such a victory. However, Montaigne did not treat all sultans identically; he did not have a holistic perspective. He was well aware of the fact that all sultans had different tendencies. According to him, surprisingly, Beyaz›d II and his contemporary Murad III’s excessive fondness for natural sciences (s’amusants aus sciences) caused harm to their countries; they not only failed to lead their country, but also caused harm.
Montaigne was closely interested in the opinion that espoused that warriors should abstain from the fine arts. He returns to this subject again in his essay “On Pedantry” in which did not only criticize the mistakes and uselessness of a few scientists, but also went further to argue that all kinds of education are useless, if not fatal, especially if education goes beyond the scope of a very few aristocratic minds to reach the general public:
Examples show us that learning the sciences does not make hearts rigid or inclined to fight, but rather more effeminate. The most powerful state nowadays seems to be that of the Turks, and they value weapons and humiliate the arts and sciences.
Montaigne can be excused for this mistaken final sentence, as he was then too distant from the time when samples of Ottoman-Divan literature were to be made available to the European public.
While his contemporaries were calling this so-called aspect of the Turks barbarism—we will not discuss whether this argument was valid or not—Montaigne looked at the issue from a very different perspective, which he claimed was essential for a people to survive. This is an example of Montaigne’s contradictory opinions.
In his essay “On Virtue” Montaigne wrote about the story of a young Turk who dared to challenge the Hungarian King Hunyadi Janos at war, despite lacking experience. This youth, when questioned by Sultan Murad, answered that he learned to be courageous from a rabbit. Fate protected the rabbit from 40 arrows he had shot and allowed it to escape the hunting dogs. The young man believed that the arrow and sword could only function if this was written in fate, and thus fought fearlessly in wars from that day on. A belief in fate was widespread among the Turks. Turkish historians wrote that soldiers felt secure against danger because they believed that the days which they would live were immutable and had already been established.
What Montaigne did was not to accumulate systematic information on a certain topic, but rather he involved in mental exercises. He lists these as the basis of the Turk’s successes in the sixteenth century.
Moral aspects of the Ottomans and Islam
Montaigne preserved his objective standing toward the Ottomans at different times. Although he was critical of many aspects of Turkish society and character, he still did not adhere to extreme definitions or popular descriptions, like the “Barbarous Turk,” or the “Lover Turk.” He even tried to alter the image of the cruel Turk in his other essays. He emphasized, for instance, that the Turks had established charities and hospitals for animals.
The only reference to Islam in the first edition of the book is concerned with worldly heaven. Montaigne was an intellectual whose eyes had not been blinded by religious prejudices and he did not refrain from calling some of their religious bigotry “stupidities.” Even when he wrote about the superstitions of the Turks he did not explain the issue in defense of Christianity, but saw such things as errors that could be found on both sides. Thus he was able to preserve the balance that he wanted to establish in his book.
Montaigne was a devout Catholic. He not only dealt with Islam, but also Calvinism and Protestantism, which came to his country from behind the Alps and he criticized the translation of the Bible into local languages, praising the Turks for their respect of the original language of their sacred revealed text. In the end, in one of the best examples of tolerance in Essays, he reminds his countrymen that the Ottomans outstripped them in terms of some Christian values.
Do you want to see it with your own eyes? Compare our traditions and customs with those of a pagan or a Muslim. [You will see that ours is beneath theirs] Although his doctrine is superior, a Christian has to accept the fact that a Muslim we underestimate can teach him many things in terms of justice, affection, and virtues.
The references to Turks increase in later editions of Essays. An interesting letter sent to Mehmed the Conqueror by Pope Pius II and the response sultan gave him is contained in one of them. Another example is Bayezid I’s and Timur’s rejection of mutual gifts. As an example Montaigne shows the pride of Turks in the leader of the Janissaries Hasan Agha, who preferred to die after he had been severely reproved by Sultan Mehmed.
The virtue of the “eye of the wilderness”
What are the results that we may extract from Essays?
First of all, Montaigne was not looking at the problems within a fixed framework. He examined the Turks, arriving at rich observations and interpretations. He was basically interested in human nature, not religious doctrines. Was he not a believer then? Since it is impossible to call anyone who fought for the Catholic cause an unbeliever, we should rather say that Montaigne did not look at Islam and the Ottomans from the perspective of the prejudices of popular theology and religion. Though there are some fictive and incorrect statements in his essays, his perspective about the Turks and Ottomans is not derived from a single source. He was not bound with a systematic connection to a doctrine and he did not have an idée fixes. He came with a new perspective and a new interpretation every time. He learned long before Nietzsche not to look at information as natural facts. According to him there are only interpretations and the interpretations of these. He approached his subject knowing that most of the information he took in his book concerning Islam was not facts, but rather interpretations.
This is the privileged standing that differentiates Montaigne from others. Maybe this was the point that made him so alone—he had no one except his friend La Boetie. We owe Montaigne’s Essays to this solitude. Though he thought that his loneliness derived from his melancholic psychology, his seclusion could have been caused by his differences in his mode of thought and perception. He refrained from lies, i.e., the knowledge of his contemporaries, which he said were interpretations of interpretations, he focused on the knowledge of objects and directed his attention to the truth. He said that “we are making interpretations of the interpretations of objects.” He transmitted the information written in the books on the Ottomans, their histories, cultures, and moral qualities, but he did not adopt them, calling them rather “our stupidities.” He tried to pass beyond this wall of information that he felt had been built around him and to hear the voices of objects. This should be one of the virtues of the eye from the wilderness that he possessed.
Notes
Tugrul Inal, “Denemelere bir giri¾ denemesi” (An Introductory Effort to Essays), Frankafoni, n. 5, 1993, p. 12.
Semiramis Kantel, “Montaigne ve dil” (Montaigne and Language), Frankafoni, n.5, 1993, p. 33.
Cemal Kafadar, “The Ottomans and Europe” in Handbook of European History, 1400-1600, v.1, ed. H. Oberman and others. (Leiden: Brill, 1994), p. 622.
Montaigne published his Essays four times with different and extended versions each time. Corrections and editions in the fifth edition (1595) were made by his adopted daughter after his death in 1592. Thus, the book extended to 3 volumes. See J.M. Cohen, “Introduction” in Montaigne, Essays, (London: Penguin books, 1966), p. 20.
Ali Özçelebi, “Montaigne’de Türkler” (Turks in Montaigne), Frankafoni, n. 5, 1993, p. 26-27. This article uses Rouillard, whom we will touch upon in depth in the following pages. Unfortunately, this study cannot go beyond a mere translation to become an original study.
Zeynep B. Say›n, “Yeniça€: Descartes ve Montaigne,” Cogito, n. 10, 1997, p. 158.
Clarance Dana Rouillard, The Turk in French history, thought and literature (1520-1660), Ancienne Libraire Furne, Paris: 1938.
Mustafa Armağan, Fountain Magazine

Shirk

2008-07-27T02:29:00.000-07:00

“He has created the heavens and the earth with truth. High be He Exalted above all they
associate as partners with Him.” [16:3]

Abu Moosaa said, "One day Allaah (swt)'s messenger delivered a sermon saying 'O people, fear Shirk for it is more hidden than the creeping of an ant.' Those whom Allaah (swt) wished asked, 'And how do we avoid it when it is more hidden than the creeping of an ant, O Messenger of Allaah ?' He replied, 'Say: Allaahumma Innaa na'oodhu bika an nushrika bika shay'an na'lamuh, wa nastaghfiruka limaa laa na'lamuh (O Allaah (swt), we seek refuge in you from knowingly committing shirk with you and we ask your forgiveness for what we do not know about).'" [Ahmad, at-Tabaraanee]

Why Study Such a Topic?

Shaykh Saalih Ibn Sa’d as-Suhaymee says: ‘‘Shirk (associating others with Allaah (swt)) is the greatest sin by which Allaah (swt) the Mighty and Majestic is disobeyed, and its danger is severe, and it is more hidden than the crawling of an ant. So due to that, it becomes stipulated upon every Muslim to have knowledge of Shirk until he becomes safe from it, and to be upon a clear path concerning its affair, and to fortify himself from falling into it. So there are many reasons for us to study such a topic, we shall summarize them as follows:
1. The Messenger (sallAllaahu ’alayhi wa sallam), who did not speak from his own desires, informed that Shirk shall be found in this Ummah, and that the worshipping of idols and the following of the ways (sunan) of the early polytheists (mushrikeen) will be found in it. Indeed many ahaadeeth have come concerning that, we mention from them his (sallAllaahu ’alayhi wa sallam) statement: ‘‘A day and a night will not come, except that al-Laat and al-’Uzzaa [1] will be worshipped.’’ [Bukhari, Muslim] And the Prophet (sallAllaahu ’alayhi wa sallam) said: ‘‘The Hour will not be established until tribes from my Ummah attach themselves to the polytheists, and until tribes from my Ummah worship idols.’’ [Abu Dawud] And he (sallAllaahu ’alayhi wa sallam) said: ‘‘You will surely follow the ways (sunan) of those who came before you, hand span by hand span, arm span by arm span, to the extent that if they were to enter a lizard’s hole, you would enter it with them.’’ [Bukhari, Muslim] Indeed what the Messenger of Allaah (sallAllaahu ’alayhi wa sallam) spoke about comes true as we see in this age of ours the deviation of some of the Muslims from their true Religion, and their accompaniment of the people of the graves and tombs, and their clinging to them and sacrificing to them in exclusion to Allaah (swt).

2. Verily the Muslim must seek to know the evil so as to be warned from it and to stay far from it, because if he does not know it, he might fall into it unknowingly. This is proven in the statement of Hudhayfah (radiyAllaahu ’anhu): ‘‘The people used to ask the Messenger of Allaah (sallAllaahu ’alayhi wa sallam) about the good, and I used to ask the Messenger of Allaah (swt) about the evil out of fear that I might fall into it.’’ [Bukhari, Muslim]

3. The present state and condition which has reached many of the Muslims today has come to a point where you will not find a country from the Islaamic countries, except that in it there is a large audience, and sanctified graves, and oaths are taken by them, and sacrifices are made for them, and aid is sought from the people in them. And candles are lighted and festivals are celebrated, and the people in the graves are asked to fulfill needs, and to extreme distress and calamities, and it is thought that such servile flattery will bring them closer to Allaah (swt) . So here, every intelligent person must ask: What is the difference between the one who seeks aid from the statues and idols and calls upon them besides Allaah (swt) and says ‘We do not worship them, except that they should bring us closer to Allaah (swt).’; and the one who seeks aid from the dead person in his grave, and calls upon him and hopes in him to bring about good and remove harm? The answer is that both of these things are created, so it is not permissible to join them with Allaah (swt), and they do not even have control over their own selves. So they cannot have control over others, and what is more correct than the statement ‘The one who does not possess something, cannot give it.’ So due to these reasons and others, we must have knowledge of Shirk, and unveil its realities, and clarify its danger.’’ [Mudhkiratun-fil-’Aqeedah (p. 22-23) of Shaykh Saalih Ibn Sa’d as-Suhaymee]

Admonition from the Salaf

This flyer contains some of Allah’s names. Please do not throw in the trash. Either keep, circulate, or recycle.
Shirk continued…
A Comprehensive Definition: Shaykh Saalih Ibn Fawzaan al-Fawzaan says: ‘‘Shirk is to designate an associate/partner (shareek) with Allaah (swt) in His Ruboobiyyah (Lordship), or His Uloohiyyah (Divinity). In most cases, the association (ishraak) is in the uloohiyyah, by calling upon someone along with Allaah (swt), or designating for other than Allaah (swt) something from the various types of worship such as: sacrifice, taking oaths, and fear, and hope, and love. Shirk is the greatest of sins and that is due to the following matters:

1. It is resembling the creation with the Creator in characteristics of uloohiyyah. So whoever associates someone with Allaah (swt), then he indeed resembles him to Him, and this is the greatest injustice, as Allaah (swt) the Exalted said: ‘‘Verily Shirk is a great injustice.’’ [Soorah Luqmaan 31:13] And injustice (dhulm) is to put something out of its proper place. So whoever worships other than Allaah (swt), then indeed he puts worship out of its proper place, and he directs it to one who does not deserve it, and that is the greatest injustice.

2. Allaah (swt) informed that He does not forgive the one who does not repent from Shirk. ‘‘Verily Allaah (swt) does not forgive that Shirk be made with Him, but He forgives whatever is below that to whomever He wishes.’’ [Sooratun-Nisaa 4:48]

3. Allaah (swt) has informed that He has made Paradise unlawful upon the one who commits Shirk and that his dwelling place will be in the fire of Hell, Allaah (swt) the Exalted said: ‘‘Verily whosoever associates partners with Allaah (swt), then indeed Allaah (swt) has made Paradise unlawful for him, and his station is the Fire. And the transgressors will not have any helpers.’’ [Sooratul-Maa‘idah 5:72]

4. Shirk nullifies all good deeds, as Allaah (swt) the Exalted said: ‘‘And if they associate others with Allaah (swt), whatever they have done is nullified.’’ [Sooratul-An’aam 6:88] And Allaah (swt) the Exalted said: ‘‘And it was already revealed to you and to those before you, that if you should associate anything with Allaah (swt), your work would surely become worthless, and you would surely be amongst the losers.’’ [Sooratuz-Zumar 39:65]

5. The blood and wealth of the mushrik (one who commits Shirk) is lawful, as Allaah (swt) the Exalted says: ‘‘So kill the polytheists wherever you find them and capture them and besiege them and sit and wait for them at every place of ambush.’’ [Sooratut-Tawbah 9:5] And the Prophet (sallAllaahu ’alayhi wa sallam) said: ‘‘I have been ordered to fight the people until they say: ‘There is none worthy of worship besides Allaah (swt).’ So if they say it, their blood and wealth is protected from me, except with due right.’’ [Muslim]

6. Shirk is a deficiency and a problem that Allaah (swt) has negated from Himself. So whoever associated others with Allaah (swt), then indeed he has affirmed for Allaah (swt) what He negated from Himself. And this is the goal of muhaadah (turning away) from Allaah (swt) the Exalted, and the goal of mu’aanidah (denial) and mushaaqah (deviation) with Allaah (swt).’’ [Kitaabut-Tawheed (p. 8-10) of Shaykh Saalih Ibn Fawzaan al-Fawzaan, slightly adapted]

Footnote:

[1] Translators Note: As for al-Laat, then Ibn Jareer at-Tabaree related in his Tafseer (27/58-59): “They extracted its name from the name of Allaah (swt), so they said, ‘al-Laat’, seeking to make it feminine, and Allaah (swt) is High and far removed from their statement.”

Imaam al-Bukhaaree related in his Saheeh (6/361): From Muslim Ibn Ibraaheem who narrated to us, that Abul-Ashab narrated to us, that Abul-Jawzaa narrated to us from Ibn ’Abbaas (radiyAllaahu ’anhumaa), with regard to the statement of Allaah (swt): “Have you considered al-Laat and al-’Uzzaa?” [Sooratun-Najm 53:19]: “Al-Laat was a man who used to mix broth for the pilgrims.” As for al-’Uzzaa, then an-Nisaa‘ee reports in his Sunan (2/357), that when the Messenger of Allaah (swt) (sallAllaahu ’alayhi wa sallam) conquered Makkah, he sent Khaalid Ibnul-Waleed (radiyAllaahu ’anhu) to it (al-’Uzzaa). He found that it was built around three trees, so he cut them down and destroyed the building. So he went to the Prophet (sallAllaahu ’alayhi wa sallam) and informed him, but he said: “Return, for you have done nothing.” So he returned and found the keepers of the idol fleeing, saying: “O ’Uzzaa!” So Khaalid came and found a woman with disheveled hair, throwing dust upon her head. So he struck her with his sword and killed her, then he returned to the Prophet (sallAllaahu ’alayhi wa sallam) and informed him. So he said: “That was al-’Uzzaa.”
"He who enters the grave without provisions (good deeds), has, as if, he started swimming across the ocean without a vessel." [Abu Bakr - radhiAllaahu 'anhu]
"Absorption in worldly affairs breeds darkness in the heart, and absorption in the affairs of the next world enkindles light in the heart." ['Uthmaan - radhiAllaahu 'anhu]
"He who seeks knowledge of religion (Islaam), Paradise seeks him, and he who seeks deeds of vice, Hell seeks him." ['Ali - radhiAllaahu 'anhu]