Discussion on the ruling of some people saying: "Looking at the faces of the righteous is worship," and whether it is an authentic hadith?

The questioner : ... .

The Shaykh: It means being influenced by the fabricated hadith: "Looking at 'Ali is worship"!

The questioner: No, Shaykh, this is from the reports of the righteous, meaning...

The Shaykh: May Allah guide you, once again, where are these righteous people?

The questioner: Yes.

The Shaykh: Where are the righteous people?

The questioner: ... meaning they were.

The Shaykh: Yes, I made a mistake, let's just see what comes out of it.

The questioner : I mean.

The Shaykh: The righteous people of the past.

The questioner: It means it was said that if a man looks at a man from the people of the Sunnah, he remembers the actions of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) and the adherence to the Sunnah. So when he sees a man from the people of the Sunnah who, meaning, applies the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) in his life, he considers that this man, when he sees him, reminds him of the action of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) and the adherence to what the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) brought, based on the saying of Allah: , so from this perspective it is said that looking at a man from the people of the Sunnah is worship?

The Shaykh: Okay; your interpretation, if I use the Syrian expression, is a "nice patching up"! Do you see? But what is your opinion on "Looking at 'Ali is worship"? Regardless of the fact that this hadith is not authentic in narration from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family), is it permissible for us to say: This hadith is weak or fabricated in narration, but correct in understanding? Do you understand my point or should I repeat it?

The questioner: Repeat it.

The questioner : Ah, good.

Another questioner: Repeat it and elaborate.

The Shaykh: I say: Some hadiths, in terms of narration, are not established, but in terms of meaning, they are wisdom; meaning, like any legal ruling derived by derivation without evidence from the Book and the Sunnah; meaning, as we said once to some people, my brother, it doesn't need all this effort to say this hadith is authentic and this one is not authentic, and so on. We look at the meaning, and according to the meaning we validate and invalidate. We said to him: What is your opinion of the hadith: "Eating eggplant is lawful"? He laughed, as if he knew what was behind this question! I said to him: What is wrong with you? Say: Is the hadith authentic or not? He knew that his statement was wrong; because this hadith is one I invented just now, but there is a big difference between the fabricators, the liars of the past, and me where I use it as an example for whoever says: We can know the authentic hadith from the weak one from the side of the meaning. So what is your opinion of this hadith, is its meaning correct or not? He cannot say anything except that its meaning is correct. If he says: This hadith is authentic. I say to him: You are lying, because I am the one who said it, and the Messenger does not have knowledge of it. And in this way, every one of the hundreds of thousands of Muslims, each one can provide a hadith whose meaning is correct, but which the Messenger (peace be upon him) did not say and he does not have knowledge of it.
So some hadiths have a beautiful meaning, but their attribution to the Messenger (peace be upon him) is not correct; because he says: He did not speak of the philosophy of the correctness of the meaning and the incorrectness of the meaning , this is one aspect. And another aspect - which is more important - is: Who judges that the meaning of this hadith is correct? Meaning, if we really wanted to establish a new rule in this era; that if the meaning of a hadith is correct, then he (peace be upon him) said it, who judges that this meaning is correct and that meaning is not correct, every Muslim? The answer: No. Rather, every scholar? The answer: No. Because knowing the correct meaning that matches the Shari'ah or contradicts it requires scholars of a certain level of knowledge of the Book of Allah and the hadith of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him); so it is not permissible for us to say that this hadith is authentic, that its attribution to the Messenger (peace be upon him) is not correct, but the meaning is correct. Any person can say: I see, but it does not make it a hadith fabricated against the Messenger (peace be upon him) and spread among people on the pretext of what? That he sees its meaning is correct, and since the meaning is correct; then the Messenger (peace be upon him) said it; because this method is obviously proven false, as we gave the example earlier with the hadith of eggplant; so there is no standard or rule for this measure that a person can follow.
But there may be hadiths where it can be said that their meaning is correct, but I and you do not differ on a hadith that its meaning is correct, but this is not enough for us to say: The Messenger (peace be upon him) said it. So now, after this discussion which, of course, has no connection to what we were in earlier, but I wanted to clarify that there is no rule here, in terms of intellect agreeing with logic, that a hadith is authentic or not.
We return now, let us assume that this hadith: "Looking at 'Ali is worship," we said that it is not established with the hadith scholars. Okay; what is your opinion, can we say that its meaning is correct? On the previous interpretation or the previous patching up as we said earlier; I, in my belief - here is the point - cannot say this meaning is correct; because this includes a legal ruling for which I do not find what testifies to it in the Book and the Sunnah that I have looked into.
This is similar to many scholars who recommend for the Muslim, if he dies, to be buried next to the grave of a righteous person. They took this from two things; one is analogizing the dead to the living, and this, as you know, is an analogy with a difference; is the dead analogized to the living? No, just as the living is not analogized to the dead; because it is from the aspect of analogy, analogizing the opposite to its opposite. They took it from this aspect first, then they took it from the side of a hadith mentioned by Ibn al-Jawzi in "Al-Mawdu'at" (The Fabricated Hadiths), as I remember certainly, with the wording: . We cannot say: By Allah, this meaning is correct; because this is a matter of the unseen. Perhaps the dead neighbor, if buried next to a righteous person, is affected by it? Does he benefit from it, even if he, meaning, even if he smelled a good fragrance - for example - as came in the authentic hadith: ? We cannot say so. The world of the unseen, as they say today: the world beyond nature, beyond matter, is not measured by what we are in matter and in nature.
In conclusion: I do not see expanding the use of the philosophy of legal rulings...
...for this meaning, so we entrust the matter to Allah (Mighty and Majestic), then - my brother - a problem comes back to us here, and the problem is that the investigating scholars usually, in responding to some of the extremists of the Sufis, where one of them says: "A glance from the Shaykh turns the wretched one happy!" We take the answer of the people of knowledge to invalidate this Sufism, we take from it support to invalidate your non-Sufi glance; they said in response to this Sufi glance: By your life, how many and how many of the wretched, misguided, misguiding polytheists saw the Messenger and sat with him and did not turn happy? Are you, with Allah (Mighty and Majestic), in a station higher and nobler than the station of the Master of the Prophets (peace and blessings be upon him)? No doubt the answer is known, meaning, what do we benefit from this answer? How many and how many people had a connection with the righteous, and their glances fell on them, rather they accompanied them, and then they did not benefit from it at all; is this correct or not?

The questioner: Correct.

The Shaykh: So we do not exaggerate this exaggeration until we fall into such Sufisms.