How do we respond to those who cite the Companions’ travels to call people to Allah in many lands as an argument for permitting the Tablighi group’s travels for da'wah?
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The questioner : We always hear them saying, meaning they argue for the travels and say, "Look at the Companions from Makkah and Madinah... Bukhara and Samarkand. These people went out for da'wah. So what is your response, Your Eminence?"
The Shaykh : I wish we could go out as those people went out. They went out as mujahideen, as warriors in the path of Allah. They did not go out in this manner, which, unfortunately, is not accompanied by them or by other Muslims, because the conditions, as you know, do not help Muslims, unfortunately, to fulfill the obligation of jihad in the path of Allah, where this jihad has become an individual obligation (fard 'ayn) for all Muslims. I wish these people’s going out was so that we could go out with them to fight in the path of Allah, as those first Companions after them fought in the path of Allah to the farthest corners of the world. This is what is called, in the expression of the jurists, an analogy with a difference (qiyas ma'a al-farq). Those people went out as warriors fighting in the path of Allah, whereas these people do not go out, and we, unfortunately, do not go out with them. We do not exonerate ourselves entirely; we do not go out for jihad in the path of Allah, which is an individual obligation. We have fought in our own homeland, as you know. But it is the truth that we must recognize the error and acknowledge it, because our acknowledgment of it compels us to treat it with the means available to us. If we deny the truth and invert reality, we will remain far from the truth, as far as the sky is from the earth. So if they want to go out as those who are criticized for it, we ask that people who admit they have no knowledge go out. Why? To convey Islam. So there is a vast difference between the analogy and the thing being compared. May Allah reward you. Do not take a sentence from my words and dwell on it. First, what does the Tablighi group convey? The Torah? The Gospel? Islam? They convey Islam. They admit that they are not jurists in Islam. So, "He who lacks a thing cannot give it". We do not deny enjoining good and forbidding evil, and mutual advice and consultation; no Muslim denies this. But we deny this organization titled "Tabligh," conveying what? Conveying Islam. We did not want to delve into the details. They do not engage in deep study of the Book and the Sunnah because they say this causes division. We see that calling to the Book and the Sunnah is the obligation. Perhaps I am not presenting something unknown to you, though I believe that... among many people, one of the names of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) that many Muslims have overlooked, due to directions that may have come from us or from others, meaning it may have come from us, we Muslims, or it may have been inspired to us by others, is "Al-Mufarriq" (The Divider). Do you know this? One of his names (peace and blessings be upon him) is Al-Mufarriq. What does Al-Mufarriq mean? It is very clear: He divides between truth and falsehood, between the believer and the mushrik, between the one who affirms the oneness of Allah (tawhid) and the disbeliever, and so on. So when we want to call to Islam, we must say, "Allah said," "The Messenger of Allah said," and we do not say, "We do not investigate these issues." There is no issue agreed upon except what is few and rare. Even in tawhid, there is disagreement. One of the members of the Tablighi group wrote a treatise that I read in Damascus more than ten years ago. When he came to explain the phrase "La ilaha illa Allah," he interpreted it by saying, "There is no worshipped entity except Allah!" How can it be "There is no worshipped entity except Allah" when the objects of worship in reality are many and very many? But the scholars of knowledge say in interpreting this noble phrase, "There is no worshipped entity with truth except Allah." Otherwise, the Lat and al-Uzza were worshipped, and now the cow worshippers do what they do to Muslims, and they live with them, right next to them. Yet he interprets this noble phrase in a way that leads to shirk (associating partners with Allah) rather than pure tawhid, by saying, "There is no worshipped entity except Allah." This is the one who knew the doctrine of the Unity of Existence (Wahdat al-Wujud), which the extreme Sufis believe in, led by the one called by a name other than his own, Muhyi al-Din ibn Arabi, who is buried in our Syria. He who knows the doctrine of this man who says, "Everything you see with your eye is Allah!" And who says, "When the Majus worshipped fire, they did not worship except the One, the Subduer!" So everything worshipped in the universe is a god. This incorrect and deficient interpretation leads to supporting the Unity of Existence, which the extreme Sufis claim, and the scholars of Muslims, from the people of hadith, the Maturidiyyah, the Asha'irah, and the Mu'tazilah, have agreed that the claim of the Unity of Existence is worse than the claim of the Jews and the Christians. Especially since this Ibn Arabi says in his book *Fusus al-Hikam* (The Bezels of Wisdom), "The Jews and Christians disbelieved because they restricted Allah. The Jews restricted Allah to 'Uzair, and the Christians restricted Allah to the Father, in their belief, and the Son and the Holy Spirit. He said, 'As for us, we have unified Allah in everything. Everything you see with your eye is Allah.'" This deficient interpretation arose from their lack of interest in beneficial knowledge. So he interpreted the phrase of tawhid, which is the divider between the believer and the disbeliever, with a phrase equal to the Unity of Existence: "There is no worshipped entity except Allah." The truth is that the meaning of this noble phrase is "There is no worshipped entity with truth in existence except Allah." In it is the affirmation of the divinity of Allah alone and the negation of the other false objects of worship. I was compelled to speak about this to draw the questioner's attention to the fact that the issue is not a da'wah whose features are understood, nor whose goals and implications are clear. Rather, we are going out for da'wah! What is this da'wah? If you asked them about tawhid and its categories: tawhid al-rububiyyah (oneness of lordship), tawhid al-uluhiyyah (oneness of worship), tawhid al-asma' wa al-sifat (oneness of the names and attributes), if you asked them, they would not give you an answer. And even if some of them know it because of their association with some groups of tawhid and the callers to the Salaf al-Salih, they know it, but they do not spread it among themselves because this causes division. The Messenger of Allah, one of whose names is Al-Mufarriq, divides between truth and falsehood. So we must not be shy of the truth, and not say, "We do not clarify the truth because this causes division..." If we Muslims are united in following the Book and the Sunnah, and you see a person who has erred and you clarify his error to him, or he sees me erring and clarifies my error to me, where is the division? This is among the meanings of the saying of Allah the Exalted:[Al-'Asr 103:1-3]
The Shaykh : I wish we could go out as those people went out. They went out as mujahideen, as warriors in the path of Allah. They did not go out in this manner, which, unfortunately, is not accompanied by them or by other Muslims, because the conditions, as you know, do not help Muslims, unfortunately, to fulfill the obligation of jihad in the path of Allah, where this jihad has become an individual obligation (fard 'ayn) for all Muslims. I wish these people’s going out was so that we could go out with them to fight in the path of Allah, as those first Companions after them fought in the path of Allah to the farthest corners of the world. This is what is called, in the expression of the jurists, an analogy with a difference (qiyas ma'a al-farq). Those people went out as warriors fighting in the path of Allah, whereas these people do not go out, and we, unfortunately, do not go out with them. We do not exonerate ourselves entirely; we do not go out for jihad in the path of Allah, which is an individual obligation. We have fought in our own homeland, as you know. But it is the truth that we must recognize the error and acknowledge it, because our acknowledgment of it compels us to treat it with the means available to us. If we deny the truth and invert reality, we will remain far from the truth, as far as the sky is from the earth. So if they want to go out as those who are criticized for it, we ask that people who admit they have no knowledge go out. Why? To convey Islam. So there is a vast difference between the analogy and the thing being compared. May Allah reward you. Do not take a sentence from my words and dwell on it. First, what does the Tablighi group convey? The Torah? The Gospel? Islam? They convey Islam. They admit that they are not jurists in Islam. So, "He who lacks a thing cannot give it". We do not deny enjoining good and forbidding evil, and mutual advice and consultation; no Muslim denies this. But we deny this organization titled "Tabligh," conveying what? Conveying Islam. We did not want to delve into the details. They do not engage in deep study of the Book and the Sunnah because they say this causes division. We see that calling to the Book and the Sunnah is the obligation. Perhaps I am not presenting something unknown to you, though I believe that... among many people, one of the names of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) that many Muslims have overlooked, due to directions that may have come from us or from others, meaning it may have come from us, we Muslims, or it may have been inspired to us by others, is "Al-Mufarriq" (The Divider). Do you know this? One of his names (peace and blessings be upon him) is Al-Mufarriq. What does Al-Mufarriq mean? It is very clear: He divides between truth and falsehood, between the believer and the mushrik, between the one who affirms the oneness of Allah (tawhid) and the disbeliever, and so on. So when we want to call to Islam, we must say, "Allah said," "The Messenger of Allah said," and we do not say, "We do not investigate these issues." There is no issue agreed upon except what is few and rare. Even in tawhid, there is disagreement. One of the members of the Tablighi group wrote a treatise that I read in Damascus more than ten years ago. When he came to explain the phrase "La ilaha illa Allah," he interpreted it by saying, "There is no worshipped entity except Allah!" How can it be "There is no worshipped entity except Allah" when the objects of worship in reality are many and very many? But the scholars of knowledge say in interpreting this noble phrase, "There is no worshipped entity with truth except Allah." Otherwise, the Lat and al-Uzza were worshipped, and now the cow worshippers do what they do to Muslims, and they live with them, right next to them. Yet he interprets this noble phrase in a way that leads to shirk (associating partners with Allah) rather than pure tawhid, by saying, "There is no worshipped entity except Allah." This is the one who knew the doctrine of the Unity of Existence (Wahdat al-Wujud), which the extreme Sufis believe in, led by the one called by a name other than his own, Muhyi al-Din ibn Arabi, who is buried in our Syria. He who knows the doctrine of this man who says, "Everything you see with your eye is Allah!" And who says, "When the Majus worshipped fire, they did not worship except the One, the Subduer!" So everything worshipped in the universe is a god. This incorrect and deficient interpretation leads to supporting the Unity of Existence, which the extreme Sufis claim, and the scholars of Muslims, from the people of hadith, the Maturidiyyah, the Asha'irah, and the Mu'tazilah, have agreed that the claim of the Unity of Existence is worse than the claim of the Jews and the Christians. Especially since this Ibn Arabi says in his book *Fusus al-Hikam* (The Bezels of Wisdom), "The Jews and Christians disbelieved because they restricted Allah. The Jews restricted Allah to 'Uzair, and the Christians restricted Allah to the Father, in their belief, and the Son and the Holy Spirit. He said, 'As for us, we have unified Allah in everything. Everything you see with your eye is Allah.'" This deficient interpretation arose from their lack of interest in beneficial knowledge. So he interpreted the phrase of tawhid, which is the divider between the believer and the disbeliever, with a phrase equal to the Unity of Existence: "There is no worshipped entity except Allah." The truth is that the meaning of this noble phrase is "There is no worshipped entity with truth in existence except Allah." In it is the affirmation of the divinity of Allah alone and the negation of the other false objects of worship. I was compelled to speak about this to draw the questioner's attention to the fact that the issue is not a da'wah whose features are understood, nor whose goals and implications are clear. Rather, we are going out for da'wah! What is this da'wah? If you asked them about tawhid and its categories: tawhid al-rububiyyah (oneness of lordship), tawhid al-uluhiyyah (oneness of worship), tawhid al-asma' wa al-sifat (oneness of the names and attributes), if you asked them, they would not give you an answer. And even if some of them know it because of their association with some groups of tawhid and the callers to the Salaf al-Salih, they know it, but they do not spread it among themselves because this causes division. The Messenger of Allah, one of whose names is Al-Mufarriq, divides between truth and falsehood. So we must not be shy of the truth, and not say, "We do not clarify the truth because this causes division..." If we Muslims are united in following the Book and the Sunnah, and you see a person who has erred and you clarify his error to him, or he sees me erring and clarifies my error to me, where is the division? This is among the meanings of the saying of Allah the Exalted: