Is it permissible to swear by other than Allah?

What is your opinion of a person to whom someone comes demanding a right that is due to him, and the person knows in his heart that he does not deny it, but he wants to consume it? The owner of the right says to him: "Swear by Allah that I have no right over you." He swears by Allah while lying. In our region of Sham, they say to one another: "Come, swear by al-Sulujy." He does not swear. What does this indicate to us? It indicates that this person is not a believer in the oneness of the attributes. Our Lord said: Therefore, the One who should be feared and dreaded is Allah alone, with no partner. So what can you say about this debtor who denies the right due to him, yet swears by Allah while lying and does not fear Him? But when asked to swear by al-Sulujy, who is described among us as the one who crushes camels, who has authority and acts in the universe, who crushes strong camels, he does not swear; because he fears that he will come at night and crush him in his bed. This means he has not made Allah unique in the fear of Allah. Only Allah is to be feared. There are many examples of this. So let us now bring a real example.

The questioner : ... We have the Prophet Shu'ayb ... they do not accept to swear by the Prophet Shu'ayb. They might swear, as you mentioned, by the Qur'an ... or perform the oath at Shu'ayb's place ... .

The Shaykh : ... The status is very high. All of this is to instill fear in the hearts of people.

The questioner : Is this from shirk (associating partners with Allah)?

The Shaykh : This is from shirk (associating partners with Allah) without a doubt. But what type is it, may Allah reward you? This is not shirk in lordship, nor is it shirk in worship, but it is shirk in the attributes. We need to bring you an example where the misguidance is double. First: shirk in the attributes, and another calamity: seeking blessing (tabarruk) through this shirk. I think you all have heard of Imam al-Busiri, who has a poem in praise of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), "The Burdah." Yes, among what came in his poetry in praise of his Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) is his saying:
"For from your generosity is the world and its harm, *** And from your knowledge is the knowledge of the Tablet and the Pen."
You have heard this, without a doubt, not for the first time. Therefore, after we know the three types of tawhid (the oneness of Allah) and the three types of shirk (associating partners with Allah) that correspond to them, we then know that this speech is shirk in the attributes. Why? Because our Lord, Mighty and Majestic, describes Himself in more than one verse as being unique in knowledge of the unseen. He says: And He says: A negation followed by an affirmation with what? With restriction. What does this imply? Restriction. How is this? He says: "From Your generosity is the world and its counterpart, and from Your knowledge is the knowledge of the Tablet and the Pen." (We will address this later.) And in the authentic hadith: If the Messenger knew what would happen until the Day of Resurrection, he would be a partner with Allah in His knowledge of the unseen. And we are reading in the Qur'an: But our man al-Busiri did not stop at this; rather, he said: "This is some of his knowledge, peace be upon him," because this is a partitive expression in the eyes of grammarians. "For indeed, from Your generosity is the world..." He did not say: "For Your generosity is the world and its counterpart, and Your knowledge is the knowledge of the Tablet." He said: "For indeed, from Your generosity is the world and its counterpart, and from Your knowledge is the knowledge of the Tablet and the Pen." This is shirk in the attributes and elevating the Messenger, peace be upon him, to the station of divinity in the attribute, in knowledge of the unseen. And this is disbelief by the Qur'an. So what is the matter with us when we put water on the balcony and recite this Burdah over it, which contains such shirk, in order to cure our illnesses? This increases the illness of the sick; it does not cure it. Because this shirk and misguidance has been cast upon them, if only they knew. And in truth, the explanation of tawhid revolves entirely around the good word. Therefore, he, peace be upon him, said: So when this word is understood correctly with these three meanings, which correspond to three other meanings, this is what the hadiths of glad tidings and encouragement regarding the good word encompass, such as his saying, peace be upon him: He said: "La ilaha illa Allah" meaning "There is no Lord but Allah" entered the Fire, not Paradise. He said: "La ilaha illa Allah" with the correct concept of worship, divinity, and lordship, along with its opposition to and distance from shirk and idolatry. And let us now enter another reality—though less severe than the first. The first was explicit shirk. What do you think of our Islamic world today? The old and the young swear by other than Allah, Mighty and Majestic, even though the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, used to say: How many people swear by their heads, and this one swears by his beard—perhaps he has no beard—and so on. All of these are types of shirk, and they do not care about them at all. Why? There is no reminder. People are in heedlessness, which is better than the heedlessness of the People of the Cave for three hundred years and they increased by nine. Why? There is no reminder, no teacher, especially regarding what concerns tawhid. So, like swearing by other than Allah, it is obligatory for Muslims to cease from it. They should not swear except by Allah, because the matter is as 'Abdullah ibn Mas'ud (may Allah be pleased with him) said—look at how the Salaf understood it. He said: "For me to swear by Allah while lying is more beloved to me than to swear by other than Allah while being truthful." Do you see what this statement means? Lying is one of the major sins, lying in general. But he swears by Allah while lying, and this is greater and greater. Yet he says: "For me to swear by Allah while lying is more beloved to me than to swear by other than Allah while being truthful." The one who understands tawhid with the correct meaning explained previously finds it easy to understand this Salafi word that came from 'Abdullah ibn Mas'ud (may Allah be pleased with him). Because swearing by other than Allah while being truthful is shirk, whereas swearing by Allah while lying is a major sin, meaning a disobedience. So the matter turned for him between swearing by Allah while lying and swearing by other than Allah while being truthful. I am not saying that swearing by Allah while lying is lighter for him than swearing by other than Allah while being truthful; rather, it is because it is shirk, and he, peace be upon him, said: There are many things of this type as well—but I do not know if it is used among you? Perhaps because the countries are close to one another. And I have not yet gotten used to the Jordanian dialect here. In our country, one says after he tasks someone with a job and... one of them says to the other: "Look, I have no one but Allah and you." Do you have an expression like "I have no one but Allah and you" among you?
The student : "I rely on Allah and on you" ...

The Shaykh : Ah, this is also present among us. Yes, all of this is a type of shirk (associating partners with Allah). It came in the authentic hadith that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) delivered a sermon to the Companions one day, and a man from the Companions stood up and said: "What Allah wills and what you will, O Messenger of Allah." He said: Who among the general public distinguishes between "What Allah wills and so-and-so" and "What Allah wills, then so-and-so"? The word "then" indicates a second rank, whereas the conjunction "and" is for absolute combination. Therefore, the Messenger (peace be upon him) rebuked that man when he said to him: "O Messenger of Allah, what Allah wills and what you will." He said: In the other narration: In another strange hadith, a man from the Companions came to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and said: "O Messenger of Allah! I saw in a dream last night that while I was walking on one of the roads of Madinah, I met a man from the Jews. I said to him: 'O so-and-so, you are a good people, you Jews, except that you associate partners with Allah and say: 'Azir is the son of Allah.' The Companion said: 'So he said to me in the dream: And you are a good people, you Muslims, except that you associate partners with Allah and say: What Allah wills and what Muhammad wills.' Then he continued on his way and met a man from the Christians, and he said to him: 'You are a good people, you Christians, except that you associate partners with Allah and say: Isa is the son of Allah.' The Christian said to him: 'And you are a good people, you Muslims, except that you associate partners with Allah and say: What Allah wills and what Muhammad wills.' This was a vision. He asked him: 'Did you tell anyone about it?' He said: 'No.' So the Messenger (peace be upon him) ascended the pulpit and gathered the Companions, and said: All these things, my brothers, fall under neither shirk in lordship nor shirk in worship, but rather it is shirk in attributes. Why? Usually, a person of natural disposition swears by something trivial or by something great? Without doubt, by something great. It is supposed that the most exalted and greatest thing for the Muslim is Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He). So when he turns away from swearing by Him and seeking His aid to swearing by a servant of Allah, be it his father, his grandfather, his shaykh, his teacher, and so on, it means he has exalted this created being over the Creator, so he has associated in the attribute. This is one of the subtleties related to the knowledge of tawhid (the oneness of Allah), and most people are heedless of it. Therefore, the scholars of the Muslims, all of them, agree that the prophets and messengers, the first thing they were sent with was This is a verse in the Qur'an that you all know: It is very, very rare for our Lord (Mighty and Majestic) to address the topic of affirming the Lord as the Creator; because people, by their fitrah (innate natural disposition), believe in it. And therefore, you do not find all the people of the earth like the polytheists, who believe in a Creator but then associate in some of the types of shirk we mentioned earlier. And therefore, the Qur'an very rarely addressed the topic of affirming His existence and His being the Creator, but it addressed the aspect of tawhid al-uluhiyyah (oneness of worship) very, very often, such as the previous verse: And I think we should suffice for now; because I feel that drowsiness has begun to tease some of the eyelids, and so, we need to pray.