The Shaykh’s remarks on causes and their types.

The Shaykh : As for your first question, it is that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) has made a cause for every caused thing. What every Muslim should know, on the occasion of a question like this, is that causes are divided into two categories: material causes, which the righteous believer and the wicked Muslim share in knowledge of, and indeed which even those who are not Muslim at all—that is, the disbelievers—share in knowledge of. This is with regard to the first category of causes, namely material causes. As for the other category, and here, as they say, is the crux of the matter: these are spiritual or legal causes that not every Muslim can know, let alone any disbeliever. This is because the path to knowing them is the revelation from the sky that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) sent down to the Seal of the Prophets, our Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). These causes are exactly like material causes in that they are causes for material matters. An example of this is this hadith: that is, Allah (Mighty and Majestic) made the disobedience of Hawwa (peace be upon him) to her husband a cause for her female descendants to disobey their husbands. Is this answer clear?

The questioner : Is that clear?

The Shaykh : I will bring it closer with a very well-known example on people’s tongues, which is authentic from the authentic Sunnah, unlike this hadith of yours that you asked about. That one is an authentic hadith, even though some of the contemporary Mu’tazilah have denied it today because they applied their minds to the texts of their Prophet. As for the hadith I wanted to remind you of, it is his saying (peace and blessings be upon him): This hadith is among many hadiths explaining that causes for material matters may be legal, spiritual causes, and not material, tangible ones. So he (peace and blessings be upon him) says: All people, all people, except those whom Allah has protected, or whom He has protected with beneficial knowledge, do not know that among the causes of abundance in provision is good character and maintaining family ties. They do not know this, whereas this hadith says: Likewise, and I conclude the answer with the following hadith, which is among the narrations of the Prophetic hadiths. He (peace and blessings be upon him) said: , I hope you will not strain yourself.