What is the ruling on seeking nearness to Allah through one of His creations? And is this a jurisprudential issue rather than a matter of creed?

Eid Abbasi : ... is one of the issues of creed.

The Shaykh : This is also explained in my treatise "Tawassul: Its Types and Rulings," and here is a brief word as an answer to this question: Seeking nearness to Allah through...

Eid Abbasi : ...His creations.

The Shaykh : ...through one of His creations, such as a Prophet, a Messenger, or a righteous person, is not merely a jurisprudential issue; it has an impact on creed, and reality confirms this. For when we argue with many people on this issue, they fall into likening the Lord of the Worlds to unjust, tyrannical rulers. They say, as a matter of course and without any thought, "My brother, if you have a need with an emir or a king, do you approach him directly, or do you use an intermediary?" We are forced to say to this poor man, "No, we use an intermediary." So he thinks he has defeated us with his argument, but he does not know that he has fallen into explicit disbelief, which is what we explain to him afterwards. We say to him, "My brother, if you have an emir you speak to without an intermediary, like 'Umar ibn al-Khattab, and an emir you need an intermediary for, and more than one intermediary, which is better?" He then wakes up to his own state and says, "No, the one who does not need an intermediary is better than the one who needs an intermediary."
Now, do you know what you have done? You were not content to liken your Lord to just kings, and if you had done so, you would have committed disbelief. To what extent? To the extent that you likened Him to unjust kings. 'Umar ibn al-Khattab, for example, following his Prophet (peace be upon him), was the opener of doors; that is, a person would come from the desert and say, "O 'Umar, my need is such and such," and he would listen to him. If it was a right, he would grant it to him; otherwise, he would turn him away. So 'Umar is better than al-Hajjaj, for example, the destructive tyrant. If a person says that the Lord of the Worlds hears from His servant without an intermediary, like 'Umar, that is disbelief. For Allah says: . How is it that these people are unable to liken their Lord except to unjust kings? This is not a minor jurisprudential issue as some preachers today imagine; it is related to the core of creed. Yes, in a purely formal sense, the issue might be as reported from that writer, such as al-Shawkani, for example. Imam al-Shawkani is one of the great imams of the Sunnah, whose origin is from the "Zaydiyyah," but he found guidance to the Sunnah and left following the Zaydi school. This man, despite his virtue, retained remnants of his old school, it seems, and Allah knows best. Among them is that he holds the permissibility of seeking nearness through the awliya (close friends of Allah) and the righteous. But what is not observed in this is what was mentioned earlier regarding what the majority of people today are upon. He tells you, "The hadith came regarding this," meaning the hadith of the blind man. He understood it incorrectly, and this is a legal ruling, so we worship Allah by it. For this scholar, it can be said that his seeking nearness is from the perspective of disagreement in branches, so the matter is easy. But the seeking nearness of the majority of Muslims today is never of this kind. And the explanation of this, as we said, is in the aforementioned treatise. And praise be to Allah, the Lord of the Worlds.

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