The Ruling on Relying on Causes and Placing Trust in Allah
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner:
Abu 'Abdullah al-Dawsari from Riyadh says: What is the ruling on relying on causes? And is it a deficiency in the Muslim's religion?
The Shaykh:
Yes, relying on causes and leaving off reliance upon Allah is undoubtedly harmful to the Muslim's religion; he may not even be a Muslim. This is shirk (associating partners with Allah). Relying on causes is shirk, and abandoning causes is a defect in the Shari'ah, a deficiency in the religion. Therefore, one must combine reliance upon Allah with working the causes: he relies on Allah and works the causes. As for limiting oneself to reliance on Allah alone and abandoning the causes, or the opposite—relying on the causes and abandoning reliance on Allah—all of this is not permissible. Yes.
The questioner:
Someone might say that this is written in the Preserved Tablet.
The Shaykh:
Allah has commanded you to work. The Preserved Tablet is with Allah. It is upon you to work. Do you have the ability or not? Do you have will or not? All of this is present with you, facilitated for you, and no one prevents you. Do you not have an excuse for abandoning the work? Yes.
Abu 'Abdullah al-Dawsari from Riyadh says: What is the ruling on relying on causes? And is it a deficiency in the Muslim's religion?
The Shaykh:
Yes, relying on causes and leaving off reliance upon Allah is undoubtedly harmful to the Muslim's religion; he may not even be a Muslim. This is shirk (associating partners with Allah). Relying on causes is shirk, and abandoning causes is a defect in the Shari'ah, a deficiency in the religion. Therefore, one must combine reliance upon Allah with working the causes: he relies on Allah and works the causes. As for limiting oneself to reliance on Allah alone and abandoning the causes, or the opposite—relying on the causes and abandoning reliance on Allah—all of this is not permissible. Yes.
The questioner:
Someone might say that this is written in the Preserved Tablet.
The Shaykh:
Allah has commanded you to work. The Preserved Tablet is with Allah. It is upon you to work. Do you have the ability or not? Do you have will or not? All of this is present with you, facilitated for you, and no one prevents you. Do you not have an excuse for abandoning the work? Yes.
Source
نور على الدرب - الفوزان - 02/263 — archive.org (6:34)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.