Is love for the Holy Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) against Tawheed or is it not?
Love for the Holy
Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) is not against the Tawheed;
on the contrary it supports the Tawheed.
The more the believers show love for the Holy Prophet (pbuh) and all the
prophets before and after him, it is a sign of Tawheed. It sources from logic and is not imaginary.
There is a relationship between Tawheed and love for humans. If as a result of love for someone, your love for Allah increases, that is not Shirk; it is pure Tawheed. On the other hand, if as a result of this, Allah’s love begins to diminish in you, the image of Allah fades from your vision, if you begin to recede and the love for humans conquers your heart, then it is purely Shirk and it had no relationship with Tawheed. A great sign of love for the Holy Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) is that it increases love for Allah in the heart. Therefore, Tawheed has a great relationship with love for the Messenger of Allah.
On the other hand, if
the love for the Holy Prophet (pbuh) increases to such an extent that you begin
to leave Allah, if you think that Allah exists because of Hazrat Muhammad
(pbuh) and that Allah did not have any other choice than to love Muhammad
(pbuh), then if you think like this, even concerning the other scholars, then your
whole life will be filled with Shirk.
It is impossible that true love for the Holy Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) be founded
upon Shirk. Otherwise, this love is
not true love. It is possible that fanaticism has taken the place of love.
Sometimes a person loves someone or something so much that he becomes fanatic and
flatters that something or someone till he loses his mind. So sometimes there
are such kinds of people who flatter the Holy Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), not out
of love for him, but out of fanaticism. Affection for the Holy Prophet (pbuh) should
at a high level, but it should be borne in mind that love for Allah should
always remain superior and keep on increasing. We cannot think that Allah does
not exist without Hazrat Muhammad (pbuh), as if Allah simply existed to create
Hazrat Muhammad (pbuh) and then His divinity ended! It's a very sensitive
subject, but since it's about Tawheed,
we should be careful [when explaining this subject].
So, if instead of true deep and sincere love for the Holy Prophet (pbuh), people show fanaticism, then it is Shirk and it is such an abased practice which is equivalent to idolatry. All those who go to pray to the saints and invoke them for intercession, who go and pray on the latter’s tombs, who sacrifice their own lives for those dead people, as per their own lines of thoughts – according to them – the purpose of Allah was to create those people (saints) and they think that Allah fulfilled all His divinity in them.
So, now it is only
these idols which exist in the hearts of such people, whether it is the Khalifa
whom they have elected, or the Pirs (Saints) whom they take as superior
and they bypass Allah and fall on the tombs of those dead people. They accept to
spend a fortune to go to the graves of those dead people and lay down cloths
and give donations to maintain the Dargas [mausoleum of the dead].
Instead of giving this money to maintain the Mosques of Allah, they keep the prosperity
and honour of Dargas. So, these the dead saints are for them the only
concept of religion which they know and understand, and all this is purely Shirk. They take the name of those saints instead of the
name of Allah. Instead of praying to Allah directly, what do they do? They go
through intermediaries who don't even know what account they would have to give
Allah!
Such are those who
remain without Allah all through their lives – they are deprived of Allah when
they give humans, whether living or dead, more importance than Allah. The
saints came and worshipped Allah alone, but the people forsake Allah and pray
to the saints. They show the illustration of a Shirk which cannot be tolerated in Islam. If the love for a great saint
does not create ardent love in your heart for Allah, and does not bring you
closer to Allah, then that is a love which is qualified as Shirk. This Shirk has
ended up destroying several Ummat (communities).
Take a look at
Christianity! They fundamentally developed in them such a Shirk which led them to eternal destruction. Quran explains those
signs clearly. Had they been truly attached to the Tawheed, then, whenever the name of Allah is taken, love for Him
should have risen in their hearts, much like a lover who takes the name of his lover.
But those unfaithful people are not satisfied as long as they don’t take the
name of Isa (as) along with that of Allah! They don’t mind taking the name of
Isa (as) alone – not seeing it as a necessity to take the name of Allah. And
verily Isa (as) has taken the place of Allah in their hearts.
In every necessity,
every trouble and during every problem, the name of Isa (as) comes first in the
head, and God the Father (as they call Allah) is attached as a servant to this.
Otherwise, for them, it is Jesus himself who possesses divinity. This is the
sign of Shirk which is deeply rooted
in their hearts and which has ultimately destroyed an Ummah [i.e.
Christianity – the followers of Jesus]. Despite that they say on their tongue
that God [Allah] is One, that He has a son [God forbid], but the fact remains
that each heart which states this is an infidel. This is because they have more
love for Isa (as) than for Allah. They end up propagating this Shirk in a philosophical way that confuses
and misguides people, and the people could not understand the real message
[i.e. Tawheed]. Those who loved Jesus have obtained philosophical
support and their Shirk has grown. It
is a subject that Paul - who is regarded as a Saint in Christianity - describes
in a letter that “Jesus has come to us as the son of God. But until the Last
Day of Judgement, God has given all His power in the hand of Jesus. And with
that power, when he gathers us together, he will in fact gather us with God.”
So when he [Paul] was asked: Is this [situation] going to stay like this?
Then at the end of his
letter he says: “On the Day of Judgement, when all people will be gathered
before God, Jesus will come and say: ‘Oh God, I surrender to You, Your divinity
and Your power. I have already done all that I had to do.’ Then there will be
only one God.” It is a shame that with banal philosophies like this, they,
i.e. people like Paul who was not even a disciple of Jesus, ended up destroying
several communities. And this kind of profound ignorance exists everywhere and
in all levels and stages.
People who love Hazrat
Ali (ra) sometimes go a little too deep in their love for him. They exaggerate
and give him a rank equal to that of the Holy Prophet (pbuh) and they state
that according to fundamental principles, Hazrat Ali is the heir [of the
Prophet (pbuh), of Imaamat (leadership) and of all good things in
spirituality]. In fact it is Shirk in
Khilafat. Remember that one Shirk
gives birth [gives way] to another Shirk.
Just as hate gives birth to hate, so Shirk
gives birth to Shirk itself. They
first compare him with Hazrat Abu Bakr, then with Hazrat Umar and then with Hazrat
Usman, and finally put him [Hazrat Ali] in a higher rank. When they reach the
Holy Prophet (pbuh), they say that it is Hazrat Ali (ra) who is his heir and he
must inherit all the qualities of the Holy Prophet (pbuh) and they then make a
will in favour of Hazrat Ali (ra).
Afterwards, they [that
is, the Shia] have dealt with this subject in such a way that, they accept that
Hazrat Muhammad (pbuh) is Amin (Worthy of Trust); but like the concept
of Paul and the disciples of Paul that on the Day of Judgement Jesus will return
to Allah His divinity, they made a testament to the effect that it appears – as
per their belief - that Hazrat Muhammad (pbuh) has given back the [spiritual] inheritance
to the one to whom it [truly] belonged. That is to say – as per the Shias – it
was Hazrat Ali (ra) who should have become Prophet and not Muhammad (pbuh). I
give you some example of how they exaggerate. In times of difficulty and
suffering they say: Ya Ali!
Here, when we look at
this, and when we hear this – and Allah alone knows best if the person [whether
a Shia or another person] crying out “Ya Ali!” was in fact calling Hazrat
Ali or they are calling Allah with His attribute “Ya Aliyy!” - The one
who says this is in the best position to say whether or not he is saying this
out of love for Ali or he is doing Shirk,
or he is simply calling Allah by His attribute!
There are other Muslims
who cry out for [the intercession of] the reformers and saints of Islam, like
Hazrat Abdul Qadir Jilani and the other Mujaddids and Saints, and they take
their names. Given the fact that we are not Allah, when we look at this – the
outer part (not the inner part, i.e. the heart), we cannot say with certainty, if
that is Shirk or not. But as much as
I have done research on their habit and practices, it is indeed a form of Shirk. If at the time of suffering,
instead of thinking of Allah, you think of something else, it is Shirk. It is not only Shirk, but it is also ignorance, imbecility
and distancing oneself from Allah. But in certain cases, it is clearly Shirk - where there is no doubt that this
is Shirk.
Allah does not grant
the power of intercession either to the living or to the dead on earth. When a
prophet is alive, he makes duah, yes, for a person, for his Ummah,
but he does not have the power to change the situation. Only Allah has the
power to do so. When someone comes to see the prophet or the Messiah or even this
humble servant of this era, he seeks duah, asking the prophet and
Khalifatullah to pray for him, but that person also needs to make duah also and
address Allah directly. When someone comes to ask the prophet to pray for him,
this does not mean that the person comes to the prophet and ask him to pray for
him, and personally he does not make any duah of his own and continues with his
daily routine without invoking Allah. He forgets Allah, and he believes that he
has already fulfilled his duty to the Prophet or the Khalifatullah by asking
him to pray for him, and thus, the person remains idle and peaceful just
because of this. No! This is also a form of Shirk.
It is true that during his lifetime, a Messenger of Allah receives the divine
revelation, but his mission is to direct, to guide people to worship Allah, to
ask Allah directly, to make them understand that Allah hears their call when
they appeal to Him. So, a Prophet, a Khalifatullah, a Messiah’s mission is to
connect people with Allah, to teach them to pray to Allah directly. It is not
forbidden that the prophet does pray Allah in favour of a person, but the
latter should also pray to Allah and trust in the duah he is asking Allah, and
he should trust also in the duah of Allah’s Messenger, because it is through
the divine revelation that he will receive the answer, or it may be that Allah
shows the person himself a dream whether his invocation will be accepted or
not.
So, if you say you are
a Muslim, you need to strengthen your bond with Allah, and if you have the
chance to live in the lifetime of a Messenger of Allah, you strengthen your
bond with the Messenger of Allah as well, but without committing Shirk where you must not give the
Messenger of Allah more importance than to Allah. In the field of Islam and
revelation, Allah manifests Himself through His Ruh'il Quddus (the Holy
Spirit) on His Messengers, but concerning the Pirs who are not
messengers of Allah and who do not have this special connection that a
Messenger of Allah enjoys with Allah, so it is purely Shirk if you neglect or abandon Allah and you hold fast to the dead
Saints or to other people that you are not even sure if they are pious or not,
and you grip the cover of their tombs!
When Hazrat Isa (as) came
to make his lost sheep from the house of Israel attach to Allah, what happened?
Those people [his followers] as well as others [who later believed in him] took
him as God! But Jesus or his mother never told people: “Worship Us!” -
Never! This practice and thought come from their own imagination. So, if for a
prophet like Hazrat Isa (as), and for other prophets like Ram and Krishna, the people
have not hesitated to make them become gods in their hearts and carved their
statues, then imagine how grievous is it for a Muslim to frequent a Darga
and to take dead people as more superior to Allah! Or they take a Khalifa whom
they have elected and who does not receive any divine guidance and take his
words as if it is Allah talking (God forbid). May Allah protect this world from
ignorance and Shirk! Insha-Allah,
Ameen.
Insha-Allah, I will continue on the same topic next Friday,
because it is a very, very important topic! May Allah save the entire Ummah Muhammadiyya
and the world from Shirk and may the
light of Tawheed enlighten the world.
Insha-Allah, Ameen.
---Friday Sermon of 08 December 2023 ~24 Jamadi’ul Awwal 1445 AH delivered by Imam- Jamaat Ul Sahih Al Islam International Hazrat Muhyiuddin Al Khalifatullah Munir Ahmad Azim (aba) of Mauritius.