In short, Din (religion)
means the system of rules revealed by Allāhu
taālā to Prophets
in order to teach the beliefs, behaviour, words and attitudes liked by Allāhu taālā, worships to be performed, and
ways of attaining happiness in this world and in the Hereafter. Illusions and
imaginary stories fabricated by the imperfect human mind are not called Din.
Mind is useful in learning and obeying the religious commandments and
prohibitions. Yet it cannot grasp the mysteries, the ultimate divine causes in
the commandments and prohibitions. Nor can it reason on them. Such occult facts
can be learned if Allāhu taālā intimates
them to Prophets or inspires and
reveals them to the hearts of Awliyā. And this, in its turn, is a blessing that
can be bestowed only by Allāhu taālā.
Now, attaining happiness in this world and the
next and deserving love of Allāhu taālā requires
being a Muslim. A non-Muslim is called kāfir (disbeliever, unbeliever). And being a Muslim, in its turn, requires having īmān and worshipping. Worshipping means adapting oneself
completely to the Sharīat of Muhammad alaihis-salām, both in words and in
actions. The prescribed worships must be performed only because they are the
commandments of Allāhu taālā and
without expecting any worldly advantages from doing them. The Sharīat means
the canon [commandments
and prohibitions] taught in Qurān al-kerīm
and explained through hadīth-i-sherīfs,
and can be learned from what we term books of fiqh, or ilmihāl. It is Fard-i-ayn for everyone, men and women
alike, to learn the Sharīat, that is, the religious principles incumbent (to
do or not to do) for every individual Muslim. These principles are remedies
protecting men against spiritual and physical diseases. Learning medicine, arts,
trade or law would take a person years in a high school and then years in a
university. By the same token, learning the books of
ilmihāl and the Arabic language requires studying
for a number of years. People who do not learn these things will easily fall
for the lies and slanders fabricated by British spies and by mercenary,
hypocritical, and so-called religious men and treacherous statesmen misled by
British spies, and will consequently end up in a disastrous and afflictive
destination in this world and in the Hereafter.
Expressing the
Kalima-i-shahādat and believing in its meaning is called īmān. A person who expresses the
Kalima-i-shahādat and believes the facts purported by this word is called a Mumin (Believer). The Kalima-i-shahādat is Ashhadu an lā ilāha
ill-Allah wa ash-hadu anna Muhammadan abduhu wa rasūluh. It means: There is
no ilāh (being to be worshipped) except Allah; and Muhammad alaihis-salām is
His born slave and His Messenger whom He has sent to (guide) all humanity. No Prophet shall come after him. It is stated as
follows in the Tahtāwī footnotes, at the end of the subject dealing with how to
perform the daily prayers of namāz one has somehow missed or omitted, in the
book Merāq-il-felāh, Islam
is not only believing that Allāhu taālā exists.
Those disbelievers who attribute partners to Him believe in His existence, too.
For being a Mumin (Believer) it is necessary to believe that He exists, that
He has attributes of perfection such as being One, being Alive, Omnipotence,
Omniscience, and Will, that He sees and hears all, and that there is no creator
except Him. To believe that Muhammad alaihis-salām is the (Messenger=Prophet) means to believe that all his teachings
were dictated to him by Allāhu taālā. Allāhu taālā
revealed Islam, that
is, īmān and the teachings of the Sharīat to him through Qurān al-kerīm. The commandments to be
observed are called Fard. Prohibitions
are called Harām. Altogether
they are called Sharīat. As
soon as a person becomes a Muslim, it becomes fard for him to perform namāz
(five times daily) and to learn the Islamic teachings commonly known among the
people. If he slights learning them, e.g., if he says that it is unnecessary to
learn them, he loses his īmān and becomes a kāfir (disbeliever).
It is written in the 266th letter in our book Müjdeci
Mektuplar that those who died as kāfirs will not be forgiven
and will be subjected to an eternal fire in Hell. A person who loses his īmān
is called a murtad (renegade).
People who hold correct belief concerning the facts taught in Qurān al-kerīm and hadīth-i-sherīfs are called Ahl as-sunna (Sunnite Muslims). Allāhu taālā, being very compassionate, did
not declare everything overtly. He
expressed some facts in a covert language. People
who believe in Qurān al-kerīm
and hadīth-i-sherīfs
but do not agree with the scholars of Ahl as-sunna in interpreting some of
their parts, are called people without a Madh-hab. Of
the people without a madh-hab, those who misinterpret only the teachings of īmān
expressed covertly are called people of bidat or
deviated Muslims. Those who misinterpret the openly declared ones are called Mulhids. A mulhid is a disbeliever,
although he may consider himself a Muslim. A person of bidat, however, is not
a disbeliever. Yet he will certainly be subjected to very bitter torment in
Hell. Among the books which inform that Ahl as-Sunnat ulamā are on the right
path and are superior, the book Mahzan ul-fiqh
il-kubrā of Muhammad Suleiman Efendi, a virtuous Sudanese,
is very valuable. On the other hand, kāfirs who pretend to be Muslims though
they are not and interpret the overt teachings of Qurān al-kerīm in accordance with their own
personal mental capacities and scientific information, and mislead Muslims, are
called zindiqs.
Different scholars of Ahl as-sunnat drew different
conclusions and meanings from the covertly expressed parts of the Sharīat.
Thus four different madh-habs appeared in matters pertaining to religious
practices, that is, in adapting oneself to the Sharīat. These madh-habs are
named Hanafī, Mālikī, Shāfiī and
Hanbalī. These
four madh-habs agree in matters pertaining to īmān (belief). They differ
slightly only in ways of worship. People who belong to these four madh-habs
consider one another brothers in Islam. Every Muslim is free to choose and to
imitate any of the four madh-habs and to perform all his deeds in accordance
with that madh-hab. Muslims parting into four madh-habs is the result of the
mercy, the great compassion Allāhu taālā has
over Muslims. If a Muslim has trouble performing a worship compatibly with his
own madh-hab, he can imitate another madh-hab and thus do his worship easily.
Conditions to be fulfilled for imitating another madh-hab are written in the
(Turkish) book Seādet-i Ebediyye (Endless
Bliss).
The most important worship is the namāz. If a
person performs namāz it will be understood that he is a Muslim. If a person
does not perform namāz it will be doubtful whether he is a Muslim. If a person
values namāz and yet neglects it because of indolence though he does not have a
good excuse for not doing so, the law courts of Mālikī, Shāfiī and Hanbalī
madh-habs will give him death penalty, (if he is in one of these madh-habs). If
he
is in the Hanafī Madh-hab, he will be kept
prisoner until he begins performing namāz regularly and will be commanded to
perform all the prayers of namāz he has omitted. It is stated as follows in the
books Durr-ul-muntaqa and
Ibni Ābidīn, and
in Kitāb-us-salāt, published
by Hakīkat Kitābevi in Turkey: Omitting the five daily prayers of namāz, i.e.
not performing them in their prescribed times without any good excuse for not
doing so, is a grave sin. Forgiveness for this sin requires making a hajj or
tawba. And the tawba made for it, in its turn, will not be acceptable unless
one performs the prayer, or the prayers, of namāz one has omitted. One must
free oneself from this state of harām by performing the omitted prayers of fard
namāz instead of the daily prayers of sunnat namāz called Rawātib. It is
written in authentic religious books that if a person has debts of fard prayers
of namāz none of his sunnat or supererogatory prayers of namāz will be accepted
even if they are sahīh. That is, he will not attain the thawābs (rewards), the
benefits which Allāhu taālā promises
(for performing supererogatory prayers). Their writings are quoted in our
(Turkish) book Seādet-i Ebediyye. It
is not sinful to miss a namāz for good reasons (prescribed by Islam). Yet all
the four madh-habs agree that one has to perform as soon as possible any
prayers of namāz one has missed or omitted be it with good excuses or not. In
Hanafī Madhhab only, it would be permissible to postpone them as long as the
time necessary for working for ones living or for performing the prayers of
sunnat namāz called Rawātib or the supererogatory prayers of namāz advised
through hadīth-i-sherīfs.
That is, it will be good to postpone the qadā namāzes with these reasons.
According to the other three Madh-habs, however, it is not permissible for a
person who has debts of namāz omitted for good reasons to perform the so-called
prayers of sunnat namāz or any sort of supererogatory namāz; it is harām. The
fact that the prayers of namāz omitted for good reasons are not the same with
those neglected without good reasons is written clearly in Durr ul-Mukhtār, Ibni Ābidīn, Durr ul-Muntaqā, Tahtāwī explanation of Merāk il-felāh and Jawhara.
Kaduna
Nigeria
Bismillahir-Rahmanir-Raheem
Assalamu alaikum Warahmatullahi taala
Wabarakatuhu
Dear brother(s),
I am writing to request for Islamic literature for
my family and myself from your organisation.
My problem is that I do not have a deep
understanding of Islam especially as regards its history, philosophy and
general principles. This has been a source of great worry for me because,
having acquired quite a considerable amount of western knowledge that has been
completely devoid of any Islamic touch, the system has unconsciously built into
my frame of mind certain biases that always tend to do serious damage to my
faith. I seem to be in a perpetual struggle with these biases a struggle that
often manifests in my tendency to rationalise certain serious issues contained
in our Holy Book the Quran also, many of my nonmoslem colleagues and
friends, particularly Christians have always sought to know about Islam, the
Holy Quran and certain contemporary issues that concern muslims or border up
on Islam generally from me. I, most often, find myself severely handicapped to
respond adequately and effectively to their enquiries because I do not myself
have a sound base in Islamic literature. Moreover, I do not understand the
arabic language, though I am making a lot of effort in that regard because of
my profound interest and determination to know all that I am supposed to know
in Islam.
I, therefore, need your assistance very badly, I
sincerely believe that, in-Sha-Allah, you can help me and my family a lot to
strengthen our faith based on sound knowledge. This would also adequately equip
us, in-Sha-Allah, to effectively spread the light of Islam within our
environment and even beyond. I will be particularly grateful if your kind
response to my request will include publications on Islamic Regious knowledge
generally as well as any other which you consider appropriate and useful for
our own spiritual growth.
Anxiously awaiting your anticipated favourable
response.
Wassalaam.
Your brother in
Islam
ISMAIL ALHASSAN
SATI
1 - Our Prophet 'sall-Allāhu 'alaihi wa sallam' stated: "A person whom Allāhu ta'ālā loves very much is one who learns his religion and teaches it to others. Learn your religion from the mouths of Islamic scholars!"
A person who cannot find a true scholar must learn by reading books written by the scholars of Ahl as-sunna, and try hard to spread these books. A Müslim who has 'ilm (knowledge), 'amal (practising what one knows; obeying Islam's commandments and prohibitions), and ikhlās (doing everything only to please Allāhu ta'ālā) is called an Islamic scholar. A person who represents himself as an Islamic scholar though he lacks any one of these qualifications is called an 'evil religious scholar', or an 'impostor'. The Islamic scholar will guide you to causes which in turn will open the gates to happiness; he is the protector of faith. The impostor will mislead you into such causes as will make you end up in perdition; he is the Satan's accomplice.[1] (There is a certain) prayer (called) Istighfār (which), whenever you say, (recite or read) it, will make you attain causes which will shield you against afflictions and troubles.
2 - The Nejāt-ul-musallī was written in Turkish in the year 1217 (A.H.) by Ahmed Ževki Efendi, and was printed in Żstanbul in 1305. Żt consists of a hundred and ninety-seven (197) pages. Żt is stated as follows on its final page: Ibni Jezerī, (751 [1350 A.D.], Damascus - 833 [1429], Shīrāz,) states as follows in his book Hisn ul-hasīn: A hadīth-i-sherīf reads as follows: "If an invalid person says Lā ilāha illā anta subhānaka innī kuntu min-az-zālimīn,' forty times, he will die as a martyr (if his predetermined life-span is over). If he recovers, all his sins will be pardoned." This prayer is the eighty-seventh āyat-i- kerīma of Anbiyā sūra. Please see the final parts of the thirteenth and the fifteenth chapters of the current book!
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[1] Knowledge that is acquired not for the purpose of practising it with ikhlās, will not be beneficial. Please see the 366th and 367th pages of the first volume of Hadīqa, and also the 36th and the 40th and the 59 th letters in the first volume of Maktūbāt. (The English versions of these letters exist in the 16th and the 25th and the 28th chapters, respectively, of the second fascicle of Endless Bliss).