Question 3021:
Peace be upon you.
Dear teacher, could you please explain this verse? 👇
In this verse, God says: “And those who took protectors besides God … their justification was: ‘We worship them only so that they may bring us closer to God.’”
Does this mean that we should not take the Infallible Imams (peace be upon them) as our protectors?
أَلَا لِلَّهِ الدِّينُ الْخَالِصُ ۚ وَالَّذِينَ اتَّخَذُوا مِنْ دُونِهِ أَوْلِيَاءَ مَا نَعْبُدُهُمْ إِلَّا لِيُقَرِّبُونَا إِلَى اللَّهِ زُلْفَىٰ إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَحْكُمُ بَيْنَهُمْ فِي مَا هُمْ فِيهِ يَخْتَلِفُونَ ۗ إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَا يَهْدِي مَنْ هُوَ كَاذِبٌ كَفَّارٌ
Behold, sincere devotion is due to God alone. As for those who take protectors besides Him, saying, “We worship them only so that they may bring us closer to God,” God will judge between them on the Day of Resurrection concerning that over which they differ. God does not guide one who is a liar and ungrateful. (al-Zumar, 3)
🌷🌸بسم الله الرحمن الرحیم🌸🌷
#Answer3021
🌹And peace be upon you.
🌼🌿The meaning of the verses cannot be grasped through superficial reading and hasty conclusions.
The verses of the Qur’an explain one another. Alongside verse 3 of Surat al-Zumar, we should consider the blessed verse 55 of Surat al-Ma’idah, which establishes the authority of the Fourteen Infallibles (peace be upon them). Their authority is by the permission and leave of the Almighty Lord; in other words, their authority derives from God’s authority. For example, “مَنْ يُطِعِ الرَّسُولَ فَقَدْ أَطاعَ اللَّهَ”
🌻🌿al-Ma’idah: 55 إِنَّما وَلِيُّكُمُ اللَّهُ وَ رَسُولُهُ وَ الَّذينَ آمَنُوا الَّذينَ يُقيمُونَ الصَّلاةَ وَ يُؤْتُونَ الزَّكاةَ وَ هُمْ راكِعُونَ
🌸🌿Your guardian is only God, His Messenger, and those who believe: those who maintain the prayer and give alms while bowing.
🌼🌿There is no doubt that the authority of the Infallibles (peace be upon them) derives from God’s authority and is not independent. It is therefore not what is meant by verse 3 of Surat al-Zumar. Consider carefully the following verses:
🌻🌿Al ‘Imran: 28 لا يَتَّخِذِ الْمُؤْمِنُونَ الْكافِرينَ أَوْلِياءَ مِنْ دُونِ الْمُؤْمِنينَ وَ مَنْ يَفْعَلْ ذلِكَ فَلَيْسَ مِنَ اللَّهِ في شَيْءٍ إِلاَّ أَنْ تَتَّقُوا مِنْهُمْ تُقاةً وَ يُحَذِّرُكُمُ اللَّهُ نَفْسَهُ وَ إِلَى اللَّهِ الْمَصيرُ
🌸🌿Believers should not take unbelievers rather than believers as friends and guardians. Whoever does so has no connection with God—his bond with God is severed entirely—unless you guard yourselves against them [out of fear], taking precaution for some greater purpose. God warns you to beware of disobeying Him, and to God is the return.
🌻🌿Al-Anfal: 72 إِنَّ الَّذينَ آمَنُوا وَ هاجَرُوا وَ جاهَدُوا بِأَمْوالِهِمْ وَ أَنْفُسِهِمْ في سَبيلِ اللَّهِ وَ الَّذينَ آوَوْا وَ نَصَرُوا أُولئِكَ بَعْضُهُمْ أَوْلِياءُ بَعْضٍ ...
🌸🌿Those who believed, emigrated, and strove in God’s way with their wealth and their lives, and those who gave them shelter and support, are allies of one another …
🌻🌿Al-Tawbah: 71 وَ الْمُؤْمِنُونَ وَ الْمُؤْمِناتُ بَعْضُهُمْ أَوْلِياءُ بَعْضٍ يَأْمُرُونَ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ وَ يَنْهَوْنَ عَنِ الْمُنْكَرِ وَ يُقيمُونَ الصَّلاةَ وَ يُؤْتُونَ الزَّكاةَ وَ يُطيعُونَ اللَّهَ وَ رَسُولَهُ أُولئِكَ سَيَرْحَمُهُمُ اللَّهُ إِنَّ اللَّهَ عَزيزٌ حَكيمٌ
🌸🌿The believing men and women are guardians of one another. They enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong, maintain the prayer, pay alms, and obey God and His Messenger. God will soon show them mercy. God is Mighty, Wise.
🌸🔆🔆🌸
On the other hand, verse 3 of Surat al-Zumar clearly states that the unbelievers worshipped their idols and believed that worshipping them would bring them closer to God. In the practice of tawassul, however, the one through whom supplication is made is not worshipped!
See previous answers:
#Answer2488
🍀🔅🌱 #Question2488
Peace be upon you.
Dear teacher, Mr. ????? has presented a study on the reasons scholars permit people to ask the Imams for their needs, which I am sending to you. We would appreciate your thoughts if you have any criticisms of these points.
⚡️⚡️🍀⚡️⚡️
Reasons scholars permit asking the Imams for one’s needs:
1. The first reason is partisanship: they feel that distancing themselves from this practice, which they see as deviant, would be regarded as a retreat from Shi‘i principles in the face of Wahhabism.
2. Another reason is that, in the discussions of Wahhabi and our own scholars, asking someone other than God for one’s needs has been divided into two categories: idolatrous and permissible. Any act that is not idolatry has therefore been deemed permissible. For this reason, Shi‘i scholars have sought to prove that tawassul is not idolatrous, believing this to establish its permissibility. Yet there is another category: an act may not be idolatrous but may still be forbidden, such as lying.
Therefore, showing that an instance of tawassul is not idolatrous does not establish that it is permissible. Its prohibition must also be ruled out, which would require proving that the Lawgiver has authorized that form of tawassul—asking someone other than God for one’s needs. No such authorization has been established; rather, it has been prohibited.
3. Another reason is that our scholars have assumed that shirk necessarily entails intending someone to act independently of God. They have therefore concluded that no shirk occurs when a person seeks help from someone other than God without such an intention. Yet, first, verse 3 of Sūrat al-Zumar makes clear that the idolaters of the Ḥijāz did not regard their idols as independent in their worship of them; nevertheless, the Qur’an condemns their practice. If intending independence were what made an act shirk, the Qur’an could have told the idolaters, “You may call upon God’s friends to bring you closer to Him,” rather than prohibiting, without qualification, calling upon anyone other than God.
Second, in some verses and narrations, the outward act itself is described as shirk, with no reference to an intention to act independently. For example, in Sūrat al-Anʿām, sacrificing in the name of idols and at their altars is called shirk, without any discussion of the intention behind it.
4. Another reason is that our scholars have not regarded asking others besides God to meet one’s needs as duʿāʾ—and therefore as worship. This stems from their definition of duʿāʾ: they have defined it as “asking God.” Yet God’s being the one invoked is a condition for a duʿāʾ to be valid in Islam; it does not mean that Islam has narrowed the meaning of duʿāʾ. This brings us to the question of *ḥaqīqa sharʿiyya*: did duʿāʾ acquire a new meaning in Islam, or did it retain its conventional meaning—the meaning it has in religious usage, namely supplication—with the restriction that, for it to be valid and licit, God must be the one invoked?
Setting aside the many Quranic and transmitted proofs that duʿāʾ retained its conventional meaning in Islam too—such as the Quranic expression “the supplication of the disbelievers,” and the fact that the Qur’an calls the Meccan polytheists’ invocation of idols duʿāʾ—establishing that duʿāʾ has a *ḥaqīqa sharʿiyya* requires evidence; denying it does not.
Therefore, if “asking others to meet one’s needs” is considered duʿāʾ and worship, the default ruling would be prohibition and impermissibility, and its permissibility would require a legal proof. But since our scholars have generally not classified such appeals as duʿāʾ, they have taken permissibility as the default and have not felt a need for legal authorization.
5. Another reason is that our scholars have treated *tawassul* as a single, undifferentiated practice, without dividing it into valid and invalid, or permissible and impermissible forms. Yet the general question of *tawassul* is one matter, and the question of which forms are permissible is another—one our scholars have not addressed. This was because the phrase from the noble verse, «وَابْتَغُوا إِلَيْهِ الْوَسِيلَةَ», served as their stock proof for permitting every form of *tawassul*, without their realizing that *tawassul* is permissible only within the bounds of monotheism, not beyond them…
🌸🔆🌷بسم الله الرحمن الرحیم🌷🔆🌸
# Answer 2488
🍀🔅🌷Peace be upon you too🌷🔅🍀
🌷🔅🌱Just as someone who falls into worshipping God’s creation becomes a polytheist, so too, if a worshipper—even one who worships only his Creator—worships at no higher level than the humility shown toward created beings, his worship is scarcely distinguishable from polytheism. For he has lowered his Creator to the level of created beings.
🌷🔅🌱Worship can be attained only through knowledge. Worship without knowledge is not worship at all; indeed, it is worse, for worship without knowledge is nothing but insult, irreverence and degradation.
🌷🔅🌱The secret of the supplication of our time is that it unravels the mystery of monotheism and polytheism.
🌸🔅🌱 اللَّهُمَّ عَرِّفْنِي نَفْسَكَ
☘️O God, make Yourself known to me.
🌷🔅🌱Whoever does not know his God will see no difference between worshipping the One and Incomparable God and worshipping stone and wood … for his understanding extends no further than stone and wood.
🌷🔅🌱فإِنَّكَ إِنْ لَمْ تُعَرِّفْنِي نَفْسَكَ لَمْ أَعْرِفْ نَبِيَّك
🌹For if You do not make Yourself known to me, I will not know Your Prophet.
🌷🔅🌱This passage of the supplication reminds us of a very subtle point: God is the most manifest of all that is manifest.
🌸🔅🌱 اللَّهُمَّ عَرِّفْنِي رَسُولَكَ فَإِنَّكَ إِنْ لَمْ تُعَرِّفْنِي رَسُولَكَ لَمْ أَعْرِفْ حُجَّتَكَ اللَّهُمَّ عَرِّفْنِي حُجَّتَكَ فَإِنَّكَ إِنْ لَمْ تُعَرِّفْنِي حُجَّتَكَ ضَلَلْتُ عَنْ دِينِي
🌹
🌷🔅🌱In the continuation of the supplication, we ask God to grant us knowledge of His Messenger and His *walī*. If we do not attain full knowledge of the Messenger and those close to God, we will mistake the means for God. All errors in seeking help to meet our needs stem from failing to know God rightly and from failing to know His Messenger and the *awliyāʾ* as they ought to be known—as signs of God.
🌷🔅🌱So, in any kind of relationship with created beings to meet our needs, however we may approach them, if we fail to bear in mind that they are servants, created, subject to God’s dominion and sustained by Him, we will fall into polytheism.
🌷🔅🌱Understanding the means will guide us to use it properly. The Creator made the means known to us so that through it we may worship and serve Him as we ought.
🌷🔅🌱If the Creator has ordained *tawassul*, then practising it correctly is a form of worship and servitude.
🌷🔅🌱Though the idol-worshippers of Mecca did not believe that their idols acted independently, in practice they assigned them a share in divinity and worshipped them. The Meccan polytheists insisted on worshipping idols, as the noble verse makes unmistakably clear; but someone practising *tawassul* has no intention whatsoever of worshipping the means.
🌻🔅🌱al-Zumar: 3 أَلا لِلَّهِ الدِّينُ الْخالِصُ وَ الَّذينَ اتَّخَذُوا مِنْ دُونِهِ أَوْلِياءَ ما نَعْبُدُهُمْ إِلاَّ لِيُقَرِّبُونا إِلَى اللَّهِ زُلْفى إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَحْكُمُ بَيْنَهُمْ في ما هُمْ فيهِ يَخْتَلِفُونَ إِنَّ اللَّهَ لا يَهْدي مَنْ هُوَ كاذِبٌ كَفَّارٌ
🌹Know that sincere religion belongs to God alone. As for those who take protectors besides Him, saying, “We worship them only so that they may bring us nearer to God,” God will judge between them on the Day of Resurrection concerning that over which they differed. God does not guide anyone who is a liar and ungrateful.