Answer To An Enemy Of Islam part 01

This book answers the lies and slanders written by a lâ- madhhabî Egyptian, Rashîd Ridâ, who disguised himself as a religious man, against the ’ulamâ’ ( scholars of Islam ) in his book titled Muhâwarât, in which he defends the unification ( talfîq ) of the four madhhabs.

1– “During the ’Asr as-Sa’âda, there was no difference of opinion either on îmân or on the rules pertaining to practices (a’mâl).” And a few lines further below, he says,  “When there was no nass, as-Sahâba reached a decision with their own ijtihâd,” Thus, refuting his own above-quoted words. He writes the truth in the second quotation. On matters about which there was no nass, as-Sahâbat al-kirâm (radiy-Allâhu ’anhum) made decisions with their own ijtihâd, and there were differences on such matters.

2– “In the first and second centuries [of Islam] people did not follow a certain madhhab; they did not affiliate with the madhhab of a certain imâm. When they had a new problem, they would solve it by asking any muftî they would come across, without looking for this or that madhhab. Ibn Humâm wrote so in his Tahrîr.” These words do not agree with what the ’ulamâ’ wrote. Dâwûd ibn Sulaimân quotes Ibn Amîr Hâj as saying: “My master Ibn Humâm said it was necessary for a non-mujtahid to follow one of the four madhhabs.” Ibn Nujaim al-Misrî wrote: “As explained clearly in Tahrîr by Ibn Humâm, it is unanimous among the ’ulamâ’ that anything that does not agree with any of the four madhhabs is wrong.” ’Abd al-Ghanî an-Nabulusî quotes Ibn Humâm on this subject and adds: “Hence, it is understood that it is not permissible to follow any madhhab other than the four madhhabs. 

Today, following Hadrat Muhammad’s (’alaihi ’s-salâm) religion is possible only by following one of the four madhhabs. ‘Taqlîd’ means to accept somebody’s word without searching for his proof (dalîl). And this is done by intending with the heart. Anything done without an intention becomes wrong (bâtil). It is a mujtahid’s duty to understand the proof. A muqallid has to follow one of the four madhhabs in everything he does. According to the majority of the ’ulamâ’, it is permissible for him to follow different madhhabs in different affairs. So did the book Tahrîr write. But it has been reported unanimously that something which he began doing in accord with a madhhab has to be finished as required in the same madhhab, without uniting the other madhhabs. 

There have been also those scholars who have said that when a person begins following one madhhab, he should not follow another madhhab in any other thing he does unless there is a strong necessity.” The a’immat al-madhâhib’s doing ’ibâda according to one another’s madhhab, contrary to what the reformers think, was not with the intention of following one another’s madhhab. They did so by following their own ijtihâd on that matter at that moment. It is not right to say that everybody did so by putting forward the fact that the mujtahids did so. It is not worthy of a man of a religious post to say this word without giving a true example.

3– “The political controversies which appeared later and which were claimed to be for the benefit of the religion caused the real purpose of the madhhabs to be forgotten.” This statement is a very loathsome error which can never be forgiven. He imputes to the ’ulamâ’ of fiqh the guilt of those who, like himself, went out of the madhhabs and attempted to defile the madhhabs. Very old and recently printed books of the scholars belonging to the four madhhabs are obvious; none of them contains any statement or fatwâ that will change the ijtihâd of the a’immat al-madhâhib. The lâ-madhhabî people such as ’Abduh and his followers are certainly outside the circle of those scholars. They are the people who want to undermine the madhhabs. However, none of the words of these lâ-madhhabî people exists in current fiqh books. “Fiqh books” are written by fiqh scholars. Books written by the ignorant, the lâ-madhhâbî or those who mix Islam with politics are not called “fiqh books.” Their corrupt writings cannot be grounds for blemishing the scholars of fiqh.

4– It is astonishing that he tells an unforgivable lie: “All the a’immat al-madhâhib say, ‘Do not immitate us. Make use of our documents, instead. Those who do not know the basis of our words are not allowed to follow our words.’ ” Not the a’immat al-madhâhib but the lâ-madhhabî say these words. The a’immat al-madhâhib say, “The follower (muqallid) does not have to know the documents of the mujtahid. The words of the imâm al-madhhab are documents for him.”

5– “As humanity evolved, men’s intellects changed in the process of time.” This statement is an expression of his belief in evolution, which is held by masons. Early people had little intellects, and today’s disbelievers are very intelligent, he means. He implies that early prophets (’alaihimu ’s-salâm) and their companions were unintelligent. He who believes so becomes a kâfir. Adam, Shit, Idrîs, Nûh (Noah) and many other prophets (’alaihimu ’s- salâm) were among the early people. All of them were more intelligent than all of today’s human beings. A hadîth sherîf says that each century will be worse than the one preceding it. Rashîd Ridâ contradicts this hadîth sherîf.

6– “Open the history books and read about the fights that took place between Ahl as-Sunna and the Shî’a [Shî’ites] and Khârijîs, and even among those who were in the Ahl as-Sunna madhhabs! Enmity between the Shâfi’îs and the Hanafîs caused the Mongols to assault the Muslims.” The lâ-madhhabî people like Rashîd Ridâ, in order to attack the four madhhabs of Ahl as-Sunna, choose a tricky way. For doing this, first they write about the assaults of the seventy-two groups [for whom the Hadîth says will go to Hell] against the Ahl as-Sunna, and about the bloody events which they caused, and then they basely lie by adding that the four madhhabs of Ahl as-Sunna fought one another.

The fact, however, is that not a single fight has ever taken place between the Shâfi’îs and the Hanafîs at any place at any time. How could they ever fight despite the fact that both belong to the Ahl as-Sunna! They hold the same belief. They have always loved one another and lived brotherly. Let us see if the lâ-madhhabî people, who say that those people fought, can give us an example after all! They cannot. They write, as examples, the jihâds which the four madhhabs of Ahl as-Sunna co-operatively made against the lâ- madhhabî. They try to deceive Muslims with such lies. Because the name “Shâfi’î” of the Ahl as-Sunna and the word “Shî’a” sound alike, they narrate the combats between the Hanafîs and the lâ-madhhabî as if they had taken place between the Hanafîs and the Shâfi’îs. In order to blemish the Muslims who follow the madhhabs, those who reject the four madhhabs slander them by misinterpreting some special terms.

For example, referring to the dictionary Al-munjid written by Christian priests, they define the word ‘ta’assub’ as ‘holding a view under the influence of non-scientific, non-religious and irrational reasons’, in order to give the impression that the teachings of madhhabs as ta’assub, and say that ta’assub, has caused conflicts between madhhabs. However, according to the scholars of Islam, ‘ta’assub’ means ‘enmity that cannot be justified.’ Then, attaching oneself to a madhhab or defending that this madhhab is based on the Sunna and on the sunnas of al-Khulafâ’ ar- râshidîn (radiy-Allâhu ’anhum) is never ta’assub. Speaking ill of another madhhab is ta’assub, and the followers of the four madhhabs have never done such ta’assub. There has been no ta’assub amongst the madhhabs throughout Islamic history.

The lâ-madhhabî, who are the followers of one of the seventy-two heretical groups, endeavoured much to sidetrack the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphs from the Ahl as-Sunna. Those who achieved it caused bloody events. It is a base slander against the scholars of Islam to accuse them of ta’assub because they, to prevent the harm of the lâ-madhhabî, counselled these caliphs and invited them to follow one of the four madhhabs of Ahl as-Sunna.

A newly developed method for attacking the four madhhabs is: first pick up a smattering of Arabic, then scan a few history books in a haphazard manner and with a narrow-minded personal sentiment, then evaluate the various past events fortuitously encountered, and finally piece them together as the evidences for the harms of ta’assub, which you somehow attribute to the Sunni Muslims. To find justification, some of those who are against the madhhabs say that they are against not the madhhabs but the ta’assub in madhhabs. However, by misinterpreting ‘ta’assub,’ they attack the fiqh scholars defending their madhhabs and claim that these scholars caused the bloody events in the Islamic history. Thereby they try to alienate the younger generations from the madhhabs.

As it is written in Qâmûs al-a’lâm, Amîd al-Mulk Muhammad al-Kundurî, the vizier of Seljuqî Sultan Tughrul Beg, issued a rescript stating that the lâ-madhhabî should be cursed at minbars and, therefore, most of the ’ulamâ’ in Khurasan emigrated to other places during the time of Alb Arslân. Lâ- madhhabî people like Ibn Taimiyya distorted this event as “The Hanafîs, and the Shâfi’îs fought each other, and the Ash’arîs were cursed at minbars.” They spread these lies and their own false translations from as-Suyûtî’s books among young people to deceive them and to destroy the four Ahl as-Sunna madhhabs and to replace it with lâ-madhhabism.

The following story is one of those related to ta’assub as it is unjustly attributed to the madhhabs and is claimed to have caused fights between brothers in Muslim history: Yâqût al- Hamawî visited Rayy in 617 A.H. and, seeing that the city was in ruins, asked the people whom he met how it happened; he was told that there had arisen ta’assub between the Hanafîs and the Shâfi’îs, that they had fought, and that the Shâfi’îs had won and the city had been ruined. This story is referred to in Yâqût’s book Mu’jam al-Buldan. However, Yâqût was not a historian. As he was a Byzantine boy, he was captured and sold to a merchant in Baghdad. He travelled through many cities to do the business of his boss, after whose death he began selling books.

Mu’jam al-Buldan is his geographical dictionary in which he wrote what he had seen and heard wherever he had been. He profited much from this book. Rayy is 5 km south of Tehran and is in ruins now. This city was conquered by Urwat ibn Zaid at-Tâ’î with the command of Hadrat ’Umar (radiy-Allâhu ’anh) in 20 A.H. It was improved during the time of Abû Ja’far Mansûr, and it became a home of great scholars and a centre of civilization. In 616 A.H., the non-Muslim Mongol ruler Jenghiz, too, destroyed this Muslim city and martyred its male inhabitants and captured the women and children. The ruins seen by Yâqût had been caused by the Mongol army a year before.

The lâ-madhhabî asked by Yâqût imputed this destruction to the Sunnîs, and Yâqût believed them. This shows that he was not a historian but an ignorant tourist. The lâ- madhhabî, when they cannot find a rational or historical support to blemish the followers of madhhabs and the honourable fiqh scholars, make their attacks with the writings and words based on Persian tales. Such tales do not harm the superiority and excellence of the scholars of Ahl as-sunna; on the contrary, they display the lâ-madhhabî men of religious post are not authorities of Islam but ignorant heretics who are enemies of Islam. It is understood that they have been endeavouring to deceive Muslims and thus to demolish the four madhhabs from the inside by pretending to be men of religious post.

To demolish the four madhhabs means to demolish Ahl as-Sunna, for Ahl as-Sunna is composed of the four madhhabs with regard to practices (a’mâl, fiqh). There is no Ahl as-Sunna outside these four madhhabs. And to demolish Ahl as-Sunna means to demolish the right religion, Islam, which Hadrat Muhammad (’alaihi ’s-salâm) brought from Allâhu ta’âlâ, for, the Ahl as- Sunna are those Muslims who walk on the path of as-Sahâbat al-kirâm (radiy-Allâhu ’anhum). The path of as-Sahâbat al-kirâm is the path of Hadrat Muhammad (’alaihi ’s-salâm), who, in the hadîth, “My Companions are like the stars in the sky. If you follow any one of them you will find the right way,” orders us to follow as-Sahâbat al-kirâm.

Taqlîd (following, adapting oneself to) is done in two respects. First is the following in respect of belief (’itiqâd, îmân). Second is the following in respect of actions to be done (a’mâl). To follow as-Sahâbat al-kirâm means to follow them in respect of the facts to be believed. In other words, it is to believe as they did. Those Muslims who believe as as-Sahâbat al-kirâm did are called Ahl as-Sunna. In respect of practices, that is, in each of those actions that are to be done or avoided, it is not necessary to follow all as-Sahâbat al-kirâm since it is impossible.

It cannot be known how as-Sahâbat al-kirâm did every action. Moreover, many matters did not exist in their time and appeared afterwards. The father of Ahl as-Sunna was Hadrat al-Imâm al-a’zam Abû Hanîfa (rahmatullâhi ’alaih). All the four madhhabs have believed what he had explained and what he had learned from as-Sahâbat al-kirâm. Al-Imâm al- a’zam was a contemporary of some Sahâbîs. He learned much from them. And he learned further through his other teachers. That al-Imâm ash-Shâfi’î and Imâm Mâlik had different comments on a few matters concerning belief does not mean that they disagreed with al-Imâm al-a’zam. It was because each of them expressed what they themselves understood from al- Imâm al-a’zam’s word. The essence of their words is the same. Their ways of explaning are different. We believe and love all the four a’immat al-madhâhib.

A snide trick which the lâ-madhhabî people often have resort to is to write about the badness of the difference in those subjects concerning belief and try to smear this badness on to the difference among the four madhhabs. It is very bad to be broken into groups concerning îmân. He who dissents from Ahl as-Sunna in îmân becomes either a kâfir (disbeliever) or a heretic (a man of bid’a in belief). It is stated in the hadîths of the Prophet (’alaihi ’s-salâm) that both kinds of people will go to Hell. A kâfir will remain in Hell eternally while a heretic will later go to Paradise.

Some of those who have dissented from the Ahl as-Sunna have become disbelievers, but they pass themselves off as Muslims. They are of two kinds. Those of the first kind have depended upon their mind and points of view in interpreting the Qur’ân al-kerîm and the Hadîth ash-sherîf so much so that their errors have driven them to kufr (disbelief). They think of themselves as followers of the right path and believe that they are true Muslims. They cannot understand that their îmân has gone away. They are called “mulhids.” Those of the second kind have already disbelieved Islam and are hostile to Islam. In order to demolish Islam from within by deceiving Muslims, they pretend to be Muslims. In order to mix their lies and slanders with the religion, they give wrong, corrupt meanings to âyats, hadîths and scientific teachings. These insidious unbelievers are called “zindîqs.” The freemasons occupying religious posts in Egypt and the so-called Socialist Muslims, who have appeared recently, are zindîqs. They are also called “bigots of science” or “religion reformers.”

The Qur’ân al-kerîm and the Hadîth ash-sherîf declare that it is bad to be broken into groups in respect of îmân and prohibit this faction strictly. They command Muslims to be united in one single îmân. The faction prohibited in the Qur’ân al-kerîm and the Hadîth ash-sherîf is the faction in respect of îmân. As a matter of fact, all prophets (’alaihimu ’s-salâm) taught the same îmân. From Âdam (’alaihi ’s-salâm), the first prophet, to the last man, the îmân of all Believers is the same. Zindîqs and mulhids say that those âyats and hadîths which condemn and prohibit breaking in îmân refer to the four madhhabs of Ahl as-Sunna. However, the Qur’ân al-kerîm commands the differentiation of the four madhhabs. The Hadîth ash-sherîf states that this difference is Allâhu ta’âlâ’s compassion upon Muslims.

It is an utterly loathsome, very base lie and slander to twist the Mongolian invasion of the Muslim countries and the destruction of and bloodshed in Baghdad into the “Hanafî- Shâfi’î disputes,” which never took place in the past and which will never take place in future. These two madhhabs have the same îmân and love each other. They believe that they are brothers and know the insignificant difference between them concerning a’mâl (acts) or ’ibâdât (practices) is Allâhu ta’âlâ’s compassion. They believe that this difference is a facility. If a Muslim belonging to a madhhab encounters a difficulty in doing an act in his madhhab, he does it in accordance with one of the other three madhhabs and thus avoids the quandary.

Books of the four madhhabs unanimously recommend this facility and note some occasions. Scholars of the four madhhabs explained and wrote the evidences and documents of their own madhhabs not in order to attack or –Allah forfend– to slander one another, but with a view to defending the Ahl as-Sunna against the lâ-madhhabî people and preserve the confidence of their followers. They wrote so and said that one could follow another madhhab when in difficulty. The lâ-madhhabî, that is, the mulhids and zindîqs, finding no other grounds for attacking the Ahl as-Sunna, have been meddling with and misinterpreting these writngs which are right and correct.

As for the Tatars’ and Mongols’ invading Muslim countries, history books write its causes clearly. For example, Ahmad Jawdad Pasha wrote:

“Musta’sim, the last ’Abbâsid Caliph, was a very pious Sunnî. But his vizier, Ibn Alqamî was lâ-madhhabî and disloyal to him. The administration of the State was in his hands. His sheer ideal was to overthrow the ’Abbâsid state and establish another state. He wished for Baghdad to be captured by the Mongol ruler Hulago, and he himself become his vizier. He provoked him into coming to Iraq. Writing a harsh reply to a letter from Hulago, he incited him. Nasîr ad-dîn Tusî, another lâ- madhhabî heretic, was Hulago’s counsellor. He, too, incited him to capture Baghdad.

The intrigues were played in the hands of these two heretics. Hulago was made to advance towards Baghdad. The Caliph’s army of about twenty thousand could not stand against the arrows of two hundred thousand Tatars. Hulago assaulted Baghdad with naphtha fires and catapult stones. After a fifty-day siege, Ibn Alqamî, under the pretext of making peace, went to Hulago and made an agreement with him. Then, coming back to the Caliph he said that if they surrendered they would be set free. The Caliph believed him and surrendered to Hulago on the twentieth of Muharram in 656 A.H. (1258).

He was executed together with those who were with him. More than four hundred thousand Muslims were put to the sword. Millions of Islamic books were thrown into the Tigris. The lovely city turned into a ruin. The Khirkat as-Sa’âda (the mantle of the Prophet) and the ’Asâ an-Nabawî (the short stick the Prophet usually had with him) were burned and the ashes were thrown into the Tigris. The five-hundred-and-twenty- four-year-old ’Abbâsid State was annihilated. Ibn Alqamî was not given any position and died in abasement the same year.

That year, ’Uthmân Ghâzî, founder of the Ottoman Empire, was born in the town of Söghüt.” As it is seen, the Mongols’ ruining the Muslim countries was caused by a lâ-madhhabî’s treachery against Ahl as-Sunna. There has been no dispute between the Hanafîs and the Shâfi’îs; Muslims belonging to the four madhhabs have loved one another as brothers. This base slander, which was made against Ahl as-Sunna by Rashîd Ridâ, was repeated by the reformer named Sayyid Qutb, too, yet he is given the necessary answer with perfect documentary evidences in the book The Religion Reformers in Islam.

Continued ...

Hakikat Kitabevi, Waqf Ikhlas Publications No: 10, Answer to an Enemy of Islam, Muhâwarât, Fourteenth Edition, Fatih-Istanbul (Turkey), p. 7-15, (2000), or http://hakikatkitabevi.com