What is your opinion regarding the words of Abu Hanifah in his book (Al-Fiqh al-Akbar)?

The questioner : This is a statement on a matter in the creed.

The Shaykh : Creed.

The questioner : Yes, what is your opinion regarding the statement of Imam Abu Hanifah in the text of the commentary on Al-Fiqh al-Akbar by Ali al-Qari, page 51: "That Allah the Exalted speaks without an instrument or letters, and the letters are created, and the speech of Allah the Exalted is not created"? We know that if this statement is established from Abu Hanifah, it agrees with the creed of the Asha'irah on this matter, and that Abu Hanifah is from the Salaf...

The Shaykh : Is your question opening a new door of knowledge for me? I must remind you of it and draw your attention to it. Islam, as you know, stated in the Noble Qur'an, and this is one of its distinctive features, that it warned the Muslims against falling into what the former people, the Jews and the Christians, fell into. So it said regarding these people: When this verse was revealed, there was a man in the gathering, an Arab from the rare Arabs who, in modern terms, was an intellectual, not illiterate at that time. The Arabs were illiterate except for the rare ones among them. This man was one of those rare ones; he was an intellectual, he was educated, and he had read the book known as the Holy Book, which contains the Torah and the Gospel. He found the Torah and the Gospel to be better than what he found his people worshipping, namely statues and idols. He found there some morals and some legislation, whereas he found absolutely nothing of that in the pre-Islamic age of ignorance. So he became a Christian. When he came to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) while he was still a Christian, he came with a cross hanging on his chest. The Messenger (peace be upon him) denied that for him, then Allah the Mighty and Majestic guided him, and he embraced Islam, and his Islam was good. So he began to study jurisprudence and sit in the gatherings of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him). When this verse was revealed: He said: He said: "As for this, it was indeed the case." He said: The point is that Muslims, to this day, and praise be to Allah, there are still among them those who preserve tawhid (the oneness of Allah) in its entirety, because the tawhid derived from the Book of Allah and the hadith of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) is completely different from the tawhid found among the Christians and the Jews.

The questioner : Yes.

The Shaykh : Indeed, indeed, and I hope this does not weigh heavily on your ears, and even some Muslims do not know the tawhid that came in the Qur'an and the Sunnah, let alone the people of other religions. That is because the tawhid to which all the messengers called, without exception, is the tawhid of the Self of Allah the Mighty and Majestic, meaning He has no peer, no creator with Him, and no provider with Him. And in this matter, even the polytheists participated. The polytheists to whom the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) was sent believed that the Creator is One, with no peer in His creation. But despite that, they were described in many verses as polytheists, and Allah said to them: So what are the peers that they made for Allah the Mighty and Majestic, which Allah denied for them, even though they were saying, in the clear text of the Noble Qur'an, as Allah the Mighty and Majestic said: So, regarding the creation of the heavens and the earth, they believed that He is One, with no partner. So where is their shirk (associating partners with Allah), as long as they affirm the oneness of Allah in His Self? Here lies the ignorance of all the religions we mentioned earlier, and some of the ignorant among the Muslims, who understand the meaning of "La ilaha illa Allah" (There is no god but Allah) until I saw some letters from some shaykhs interpreting "La ilaha illa Allah" to mean "There is no Lord but Allah." And this is a very, very wrong interpretation, such that a polytheist, whether Jewish or Christian, who says "There is no Lord but Allah" does not enter Islam, because there is no Lord but Allah. The polytheists, as you heard earlier from the Qur'an, were saying that the Creator is One, and the Lord of the worlds is One. So why did the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) send them to call these polytheists to believe that the Creator of the heavens and the earth is Allah alone, with no partner? No, that is called "tahsil hasil" (achieving what is already achieved). Do you understand "tahsil hasil"?

The questioner : ...

The Shaykh : Yes, you have spoken well. It was something that existed in the depths of the hearts of these polytheists. But he called them to something they were in greater need of, like thirsty land is in need of the water of the sky. Allah the Mighty and Majestic said in the Noble Qur'an, this verse is the answer to my previous question: Why did Allah send Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) to these polytheists, as long as they were acknowledging that the Creator is One, with no partner? He said, Exalted is He: Here is something.