It was asked of Abdul-Rahim al-Tahan: Is the Prophet’s (peace and blessings be upon him) seeking forgiveness for his Ummah while he was alive the same as his seeking forgiveness for them after his death? The basis for this is the hadith that Shaykh Al-Albani graded as authentic and weak, and what is the meaning of barakah?

Abu Malik: So I am asking you first: Is his seeking forgiveness (peace and blessings be upon him) for his Ummah after his death the same as his seeking forgiveness for them before his death? That is the first point. As for the second, if it is the same, is anyone from the Ummah or any group from its groups excluded from this seeking forgiveness, or is no individual from the Ummah and no group from its groups excluded? If the answer to the first question is that his seeking forgiveness (peace and blessings be upon him) for the Ummah after his death is not like his seeking forgiveness for them during his life, then you are mistaken, at the very least, in your claim that his excellence (peace and blessings be upon him) extends to the Ummah after his death, or we have entered the realm of ta'wil (figurative interpretation) so as not to deny the validity of the hadith’s chain. In that case, either we must mistake you in your judgment of the hadith as authentic, or we must hold the confusing suspicion regarding a statement of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). There is no doubt, and you are with us in this, that the statement that you are mistaken is more likely, and more likely, and more likely. And if we say that his seeking forgiveness (peace and blessings be upon him) for the Ummah after his death is like his seeking forgiveness for them before his death, it necessitates that the entire Ummah will be saved from the Fire, and that punishment will not touch their skins except as the fulfillment of an oath, as came in the authentic hadith. That is because his seeking forgiveness (peace and blessings be upon him) is a supplication, and his supplication (peace and blessings be upon him) is not rejected. And the benefit of this supplication will reach the sinners, the open sinners, and the oppressors, those from whom he seeks forgiveness and those from whom he does not, those who repent and those who do not repent. Because, just as he did not exclude anyone, he did not make it a condition for one from his Ummah after his death to receive the benefit of his supplication that they be among those who seek forgiveness. As he said in the hadith: And there is no doubt that those who did not seek forgiveness and did not repent from their sins are among those whose deeds are presented to him (may Allah’s prayers and peace be upon him), and they are from a part of his Ummah. There is no exclusion that removes them, and no condition that necessitates their distance. So, by encompassing all individuals of the Ummah, they are a part of it. And there is no doubt that the hadith will include them all, and thus every one of them will be forgiven certainly, by the explicit text of this hadith. I think, O Shaykh Abdul-Rahim, that you are with us in this fair understanding of this hadith which you affirmed as authentic and necessitated by its weakening the prohibition ofThe Shaykh : Nasser, may Allah raise his status in the two abodes. Is it just to equate the sinners and open sinners of this Ummah who never did any good with the obedient and humble in the forgiveness of their sins which they commit, through the supplication of their Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) after his death? And if you went to this equation, it would be injustice itself, and Allah is not unjust to His servants, and He is averse to being unjust, and He has denied it of Himself. And if we went to this equation, it would be from us a kind of denial and overthrow of a large number of hadiths whose authenticity is certain, from the hadiths of intercession. It is known that intercession from him (peace and blessings be upon him) reaches a great multitude of the sinners of the Ummah after they become scorching heat in the Fire of Hell, refuge in Allah the Exalted. So how can you reconcile, O Shaykh Abdul-Rahim, between the hadiths of intercession which will reach the Ummah or much of the Ummah after they enter the Fire, and this hadith which led you to your bad statement regardingThe Shaykh : and your ugly judgment of it, which is: How evil is your judgment and how evil is what you said.
We return to the prohibited matter which we hinted at before and warned that it will not benefit if it creeps into the Ummah and they settle for it and their hearts find peace with it, applying the rules of the Shari'ah to it to prevent the Ummah from the serious consequences resulting from it. And that is that visiting the grave of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and revering it, meaning revering the grave itself, becomes a prescribed matter in itself. And the hadiths that were publicized regarding the virtue of the visit, which are said to fluctuate between fabrication and weakness, become established with sound chains, or it is said of them that they are authentic in meaning, or that they are suitable for citation and support, and so on from the expressions and terms of hadith. Then people will not hesitate to commit every wrong among them that arises or will arise from the habit of the visit and taking it as a sunnah (recommended practice) among their particular and general groups. And this is what the generations inherited from those whom Allah caused to fail in being on other than guidance in their understanding and following of their Prophet. And perhapsThe Shaykh : Abdul-Rahim does not approve of what people have become accustomed to over the years and the succession of days and months, of the bid'ah (religious innovation) and the wrongs of customs which have become in recent years to fill the plains and the rough terrain, and to knock on the doors of villages and cities, and to spread in the desert and the towns. Until we witness these days the return of superstition, loud shirk (associating partners with Allah)... bid'ah walks without shame and without fear of Allah and without awe of a power above the earth which carried the camels of conquest and filled it for a time with the word of tawhid (the oneness of Allah), and spread in its horizons the wings of light, knowledge, and guidance. And we hoped that the call of tawhid would remain, its rope connected to the first generations, its fruit yielding, its branches tall, watered by pens and minds upon which Allah bestowed the blessing of knowledge and the wisdom of da'wah (calling others to Islam), not sparing effort and not being stingy with themselves or with the Ummah which Allah honored by their affiliation to it. But many of these minds and pens distanced themselves from the straightest path, while wearing the garment of maslahah (public benefit) and concern for uniting the word of the Ummah and reconciling its ranks, while they know with certainty that they are walking toward a mirage in a valley, and that all the efforts they expend for what they imagine is possible are efforts that will be lost. And it would have been better for them and more beneficial to them if they had remained proceeding on the path which was established for them from the very beginning. And the lesson is not in the length of the path, but in the steadfastness of the hearts, the correctness of the steps, and the soundness of the methodology. And I hope that the denial ofThe Shaykh : Abdul-Rahim against those who went to weakening the hadith is a denial free from desire and the pursuit of the benefit of victory and reputation and the victory of the self. And upon that, I hope that you will reconsider once again the words ofThe Shaykh : Nasser in this hadith which you have been fussing over . As long as he has high addenda by which the knowledge of the predecessors was affected, and perhaps he surpassed some of them. And I am with the same certainty that you will find something that escaped you and was hidden from your sight and from your hearing. Perhaps if you had heard his words which he recorded on this tape, and I do not think that your good opinion of him will be baffled by it, if Allah wills, you will be among those who implemented the saying of Allah the Sublime: And the occasion here does not allow for more. A summary which we return to, perhaps it will be convincing for you if you want the truth and following it. So I say, the summary of the word in this hadith is that the path of Ibn Mas'ud, that the path of Ibn Mas'ud is munkar (denounced), and in it is 'Abd al-Majid, and that the path of Anas is mawdu' (fabricated) in its chain, and that the hadith of Bakr ibn 'Abd Allah al-Muzani is mursal (a report missing the Companion link). So if the munkar and the mawdu' fall, is the mursal suitable to stand as evidence that is strong enough to establish a ruling or invalidate it?
My advice to Abdul-Rahim is to stop the criticism of those likeThe Shaykh : them, for one like you and a thousand like you will not stand as a barrier betweenThe Shaykh : And between the people’s acceptance of them, and by Allah, if you had spent some of the effort you spend in disparaging them and their like in praising them, and in praising their knowledge and their excellence and their firm standing in the call, it would have been better for you and would have returned benefit to you. If you refuse, then by Allah, you have not criticized or blamed anyone but yourself. I also say, and I hope you will listen well to what I am saying, that by Allah, we do not wish evil for you. And He who raised the heavens without pillars and spread the earth and made it level, we wish nothing for you but good. But you, by Allah, have wished nothing for yourself but evil. And a believer is not a believer unless he loves for his brother what he loves for himself. And we, by Allah, love for you to be upon guidance. And there is nothing easier for the Muslim than to make for himself a clear path in which truth is not confused with falsehood, nor evil with good, nor correctness with error, nor error with correctness, so that he does not stray except upon the green pasture of the pure. And this path is not guided to, nor are people called to walk upon it, except by one who has knowledge of it beforehand and its beacons have become clear to him. And perhaps he did not reach it except after long suffering and toil, so he is thereby extremely careful not to deviate from it. And the most deserving of it are the bearers of the call upon the methodology of the first three generations. They are its awliya (close friends of Allah) in every century. They are not separated from it, nor is it separated from them. They recite its rulings and adorn themselves with its etiquettes, and they find no comfort in life except in its shade. And it is as if they were not created except to be they alone, without the people, the guides to it, explaining what Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He) sent down for the people, so that they remain holding fast to the trustworthy rope to it. And whoever knowsThe Shaykh : 'Abd al-Rahim al-Tahan, what did he think? That a day would come upon him in which he would shoot from a bow one who does not see himself as qualified for such a noble, exalted matter, for which the prophets and messengers stood in guardianship, and which became clear upon its horizon by the light by which Allah honored them with revelation to them, and which He encouraged those after them who were upon the like of what they were upon, in oneness of worship and oneness of lordship, and in uprightness in accordance with their requirements, the truth. And perhapsThe Shaykh : 'Abd al-Rahim sees in it other than what we see. And we, by Allah, are not his hunters, nor his pursuers, nor his accusers of anything he truly sees for himself. But we remind him, and we do not teach him, and we clarify to him, affirming but not obliging and not imposing, that it is the right of the call upon you that you do not let pass anything between your two cheeks that becomes an argument against you by a bad interpretation that diverts from the truth, not for you, or by an error that shows you the face of correctness in other than it, and then you do not return from it, or by forgetfulness, if you are reminded of the truth after it, and then you do not stop at it to prioritize it over what else, and the matter flies off in a way that is not its proper form, turning back upon its owner... striking from its harms what he has no capacity to repel from him, except that he turns away from that matter, repenting from his sin, returning to his Lord, hoping for His pardon, and setting before his eyes that behind him are people who listen to him and hear what he says, and they respond to him. Among them is the weak, ignorant person, and among them is the student of knowledge who is a beginner. So look at who you are and who you will be, O Shaykh 'Abd al-Rahim. And that you say that the blessing is the deed, so that you make it a means in the faces of the prophets and the righteous, looking and kissing, not just the hand and the face, but also the tongue, and you call people to seek it in the righteous and the scholars in the manner you seek it in the prophets, according to what you hold of its meaning. That is, you believe that the blessing is a deed that is acquired. And there is no wonder that the Muslim seeks to obtain it from one he believes it is in, a righteous, pious person or a knowledgeable, sincere scholar, let alone a prophet. That it is a deed of his, meaning a deed of seeking it. And before we begin to clarify this issue, which is the second of the issues around which you centered one of your sermons, and before we begin to unveil the truth of it, I would like to mention two matters, which are two rules, or near-rules. The first matter is what is known as the rule of sadd al-dhara'i' (blocking the means to harm), which is that a thing becomes a cause or origin of a matter whose doing and committing is prohibited, whether this cause is permissible in itself or prohibited, the taking of the cause is prohibited for fear of falling into the resulting matter. And its examples are too many to count. And perhaps the originating cause is prohibited in itself, and what originates from it may be permissible in itself, so it is even more deserving of prohibition. And the second matter is that the prescribed, recommended thing, if it is feared that continuing with it will lead to the belief that it is obligatory, it is prescribed to leave it off sometimes to prevent the suspicion that it is obligatory. As the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) did when he did not go out for the standing prayer in Ramadan in congregation after three nights of his praying in congregation. And I think everyone who has knowledge of these two matters is as certain that the many violations and numerous religious innovations that have spread in the ummah, and especially at the hands of the people of superstition and vulgar Sufism and the like of the common people who are called to knowledge, would hardly have been, had there been understanding and knowledge and sound insight far away in the light of these two great rules. And what aided this corruption was the silence of the elite regarding what the hands of the common people reap in violations and innovations in the absence of correct knowledge and the scarcity of people of knowledge... their hearts and minds with taqwa (mindfulness of Allah) and courage and patience with the consequences of the true methodology, the methodology of the Book and the Sunnah. And I do not know if the resolve of this few has been afflicted with weakness in some of them, or is on the verge of departing from some of them out of fear of missing a worldly life, the love of which has mixed with the hearts of the vast majority of the ummah. So the resolve of those who will remain firm upon the methodology of truth and the rope of its consequences and distance, is it permissible for me to askThe Shaykh : 'Abd al-Rahim about the meaning of the blessing in the language of the Qur'an, by which Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He) addressed the ummah and charged them with His rulings and legislations in accordance with its jurisprudence. And it is not bad that we dip our small bucket in answering this question approximately and to facilitate and clarify. The author of al-Hadi, meaning the dictionary al-Hadi, says that the blessing is growth and increase, whether tangible or conceptual. And the blessing of Allah is His pleasure. And it is said of food that it has blessing, meaning sufficiency. And the author of al-Muhit says that the blessing is growth and increase and happiness. And tabaruk is supplicating with it, and tabarruk (seeking blessing from a thing or person) with it is seeking good fortune. And in light of what we have gleaned from the dictionaries of language, it becomes clear to us that the blessing is either intrinsic or acquired. If it is intrinsic, it is something bestowed upon what it is in, and it does not extend to its owner to whom it is bestowed. And if it is acquired, it is then in the meaning of increase in righteous deeds, and it is realized by being careful with them and doing them and drawing near to Allah with them. So if it is intrinsic, it does not extend to its owner, and one does not attain it or obtain anything of it except by taking the path that achieves it, which is the path upon which its previous owner walked and in which he was accustomed, and it is known by the radiance of the face and the dignity and the tranquility and the atmosphere of righteousness and other meanings that are not perceived, which the discerning and the hearing and the blind and the deaf know in its people. And it may appear in the speech of their tongues and the manner of their composition and the style of their conversation. And all of these, as we have mentioned, are intrinsic things that Allah bestows upon whom He wills of His servants, and there is no way to glean them by looking at them or listening to them or prolonging contemplation of the face of their owner, because they are not from the deeds of the one looking or the one listening or the one contemplating. And they resemble to a great extent what came in the meaning of his (peace and blessings be upon him) saying in the hadith qudsi to the end of the hadith. Indeed, this blessing that...