The Reality of Tawassul and the First Person to Deny Tawassul Through the Dead

The questioner:
Honorable Shaykh, we received questions before the program started. This questioner, Abu Muhammad, says: What is the reality of tawassul (seeking nearness to Allah through a means)? And is the first person to say that tawassul through righteous dead people is prohibited Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah (may Allah have mercy on him)?

The Shaykh:
Tawassul means drawing near to Allah (Exalted and Majestic is He). The wasilah (means) is the nearness and obedience to Allah (Mighty and Majestic). Allah the Exalted said: meaning drawing near to Him (Glorified and Exalted is He) by obeying Him, complying with His commands, and avoiding His prohibitions. This is the wasilah in the Book of Allah (Mighty and Majestic). As for using the term wasilah for an intermediary between Allah and His creation, as the innovators, polytheists, and others do, this is an incorrect wasilah. Allah has not made intermediaries between Himself and His servants through whom He accepts from them or forgives them. Rather, He (the Exalted) is All-Hearing and Responsive; He hears the supplication, is able to respond, and desires good for His servants. So there is no need to make intermediaries between the servant and his Lord. This is an innovation with no basis. The wasilah is obedience and drawing near to Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He).
This is the correct, legislated wasilah. The wasilah is not making an intermediary between you and Allah who raises your needs to Him and intercedes for you with Him, for Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He) is Near and Responsive; He hears our supplication and fulfills our needs without us making anyone an intermediary between us and Him. Yes.

The questioner:
He says to me, paragraph, Shaykh: Is the first person to say that tawassul through righteous dead people is prohibited Shaykh al-Islam?

The Shaykh:
He is not the first to say that. But he (may Allah have mercy on him), when he found that people had become immersed in this bid'ah (religious innovation) and this newly invented matter, which is taking intermediaries from the awliya (close friends of Allah), the righteous, and the dead between them and Allah, he denied it and clarified the meaning of the wasilah that leads to Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He): that it is obedience and worship, not the intermediaries of created beings between them and Allah. So he merely clarified that for them from the Book of Allah, from the Sunnah of His Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), and from what the righteous Salaf (the earliest generations) were upon. Yes.