How do we respond to those who cite the phrase (May he succeed and his father, if he is truthful) as evidence for the permissibility of swearing oaths by other than Allah?

The questioner : Regarding this, our Shaykh, in some parts of this country, the Mu'tazilah have emerged. They claim that the Qur'an was created and they argue that it is permissible to swear by created things. They cite the hadith and they say, "So refute what they say with the knowledge that Allah has given you."

The Shaykh : Allah is sufficient for me, and He is the best Disposer of affairs.

The questioner : I met one of them last week, and this was his speech. I spoke with him based on the knowledge I have, and if Allah wills, we will give him the tape.

The Shaykh : There is blessing in you, if Allah wills. This is a new example of what we were discussing. There is no doubt that this person has no knowledge, so the statement of Allah the Exalted applies to him: He has abandoned the explicit hadiths that are like pillars in their strength of evidence for the prohibition of swearing oaths by other than Allah, Blessed and Exalted is He. For example, his saying (peace and blessings be upon him): They also turned away from his saying (peace and blessings be upon him): In another narration: In the first hadith, which al-Bukhari narrates from 'Umar ibn al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him), he said that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) heard him swearing by his father, so he said to him: 'Umar said, and here is the point, "So I did not swear by other than Allah after that, neither mentioning it nor intending it." Even though the scholars say that one who transmits disbelief is not a disbeliever, he was scrupulous and did not transmit the swearing by other than Allah from others, let alone commit it himself. These are hadiths on which the scholars have agreed to act, and they are clear and acted upon. Then, as is their method when they find a hadith whose apparent meaning contradicts these explicit hadiths prohibiting swearing by other than Allah, Blessed and Exalted is He, they resort to a scientific rule, which is the obligation to reconcile hadiths that appear to contradict each other. They came to this hadith: They answered with many responses, one of which is that this hadith was before the prohibition, based on the original state, according to the custom followed among them before the revelation of the legal rulings. As you all know, the rulings were not revealed all at once, but rather in succession, sequence, and gradual stages. When Islam first came, the first thing it brought was that they should worship Allah and avoid the tagut. On the day this ruling was revealed, which is the command to worship Allah alone with no partner, there was no such thing as riba (usury or interest), and there was no such thing as zina (unlawful sexual intercourse). Rather, these rulings came later. It is even more likely that rulings which are prohibited because they lead to that which is prohibited in itself would come later. This is a very great chapter in fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence), namely that prohibited things are divided into two categories: something prohibited in itself, and something prohibited because it may lead to that which is prohibited in itself. For example, he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: So the look, the hearing, the shaking of hands with non-mahram women, and so on, all of this is prohibited out of fear that it will lead to that which is prohibited in itself, which is zina. Therefore, these preliminaries are considered minor sins, while the major sin is the lewd act. Our Lord, Mighty and Majestic, by His perfect wisdom, made prohibited things into two categories: a category prohibited in itself, and a category prohibited out of fear that it will lead to that which is prohibited in itself. An example is the preliminaries of zina and zina itself. So when Allah prohibited zina, He did not prohibit the preliminaries with it, but rather afterwards, and thus the Shari'ah is complete in its legislation. The point is that people before used to commit zina, engage in riba, drink khamr (intoxicants), wear silk, and so on. When Islam came: The Wise Lawgiver was silent about these other prohibited things, so the people remained while they testified that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and they were committing some of these prohibited things. Why? Because they had not been prohibited yet. Perhaps you all know how the Wise Islam gradually prohibited khamr. One of the strange things that confirms for you the gradual prohibition in Islam is that 'Ali (may Allah be pleased with him), when he proposed to Fatimah, the daughter of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), and prepared to consummate the marriage, he agreed with a goldsmith to bring him firewood on his camel. He came and the camel stopped in front of a house of the Ansar, and they were drinking khamr before its prohibition. There was a female singer, a qaynah, as mentioned in the hadith, singing for them and encouraging them with bravery and heroism. Among the group was Hamzah, the uncle of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him). She recited a verse of poetry, and I do not remember it anymore. Do you remember anything? In any case, Hamzah, who was drunk, got excited and went out to the road. He saw the camel in front of the house and slit its belly open. When 'Ali came and saw what had happened to his camel, he was shocked because it was his means of livelihood. He followed him and went to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and complained to him about what his uncle Hamzah had done to his camel or his she-camel. The Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) came out quickly and entered the group. He spoke with his uncle Hamzah, asking why he had done this? He was still drunk, so he said a word that, if he had said it while sober, would have made him an apostate. He said to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), "Are you not but slaves to our fathers?" He was boasting of the pre-Islamic age of ignorance, saying to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), "Are you not but slaves to our fathers?" When the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) saw him in this state, he left him. This happened while they were Muslims and worshipping Allah alone with no partner. The point is that the prohibition of swearing by other than Allah was not in the beginning of Islam, just as many of the etiquettes that the majority of Muslims today violate were not, for example, swearing by other than Allah. Muslims today still swear by their fathers, by their honor, by their father's head, by their grandfather's head! I do not know about these oaths for which Allah has not sent down any authority! They also say words that are shirk (associating partners with Allah) in itself, but it is verbal shirk. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) disciplined his Ummah (the Muslim community) in the best way, even prohibiting them from speaking words whose apparent meaning indicates the opposite of the faith in Allah and His Messenger in their hearts. Perhaps you have heard the hadith of Ibn 'Abbas (may Allah be pleased with him) that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) was delivering a sermon to his Companions one day, and a man from the seated Companions, who was listening intently to his sermon (peace and blessings be upon him), said, "What Allah wills and what you will, O Messenger of Allah." He meant to refer to the saying of Allah the Exalted: "What Allah wills and what you will." But the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) disapproved of him strongly, and he interrupted his sermon (peace and blessings be upon him) and said to him: How much we hear today of words of reliance on Allah and on you! I have no one but Allah, and you! Your hand and Allah's hand! These are from the major sins of disbelief.

The questioner : 'Ali is divorced, like that.

The Shaykh : The important point is that this is all an oath. This is like an oath, a type of shirk (associating partners with Allah), but it is verbal shirk. There is a wonderful and beautiful hadith on this occasion. A man from the Companions of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) saw in a dream that he was walking on one of the roads of Madinah. He met a man from the Jews, or first he met a man from the Jews, who said to him, "You are a good people, O you Jews, if only you did not associate partners with Allah by saying, 'Aziz is the son of Allah.'" The Jew said to the Muslim Companion, of course in the dream, "And you are a good people, O you Muslims, if only you did not associate partners with Allah by saying, 'What Allah willed and what Muhammad willed.'" He continued walking on the road until he met a man from the Christians. He said to him, "You are a good people, O you Christians, if only you did not associate partners with Allah by saying, 'Jesus is the son of Allah.'" The Christian said to the Muslim Companion, "And you are a good people, O you Muslims, if only you did not associate partners with Allah by saying, 'What Allah willed and what Muhammad willed.'" When the man woke up in the morning, he went to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and related the dream to him. He (peace and blessings be upon him) said to him: He said, "No." Then he (peace and blessings be upon him) stood up to preach to the Companions and said to them, meaning: These are the words the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) forbade. Before that, he established tawhid (the oneness of Allah) and forbade the basic things that are forbidden in themselves, such as swearing by other than Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He). He forbade it later because it leads to compromising tawhid. When people in the first age of ignorance and the age of ignorance of the twentieth century swear by something they hold in high regard, they do not swear by something trivial to them, but by something great. So when one of them swears by something great, where is the status of the Lord of the Worlds in the heart of this person? This means that when he swears by other than Allah, he has forgotten the Creator of that other thing and the Creator of all people. Therefore, swearing by other than Allah is sometimes considered minor shirk, verbal shirk, and sometimes considered major shirk, shirk of the heart. The first type, verbal shirk, is what is prevalent among people now, meaning without care or attention. The word slips out of the mouth of the Muslim who prays and fasts in the best manner; he says, "By the life of my father," "By my honor," and so on. This is minor shirk because it is verbal. If he mentions it, he says, "May Allah forgive us," and "By Allah, this is how the custom is," and so on. But there is major shirk if one swears by an object other than Allah, exalting that object other than Allah (Mighty and Majestic). This exists in some countries. I know this in Syria, and perhaps our Egyptian brothers know something like this or more. In our Syria, there is...

The questioner : Peace be upon you.

The Shaykh : And upon you be peace and the mercy of Allah. There is a person who is thought to have been a wali (close friend of Allah) from the righteous, buried in an area outside Damascus, named al-Suruj. How?

The questioner : With a jīm or with a rā?

The Shaykh : Al-Suruj, from al-sarj (saddle). He has a maqam (shrine) there. They intend to worship him besides Allah. They make vows to him besides Allah. They swear by him besides Allah. If a person here has a right against another who denies it, he says to him, "Swear by Allah that I have nothing with you." He swears by Allah falsely. If he is told, "Swear by al-Suruj," he does not swear! He fears that he will take revenge on him if he swears by al-Suruj falsely. Why? Because it is common among us there in Damascus: "Al-Suruj topples the camel!" Not the person, the camel. And so they swear by other than Allah falsely and fear that they will swear by al-Suruj falsely. This is major shirk. The point is that this oath is among the phrases of shirk from which the Muslim should elevate himself, but he is not judged as misguided until we know whether it is of the light type, light shirk, or the great shirk, as we gave you the example of al-Suruj who topples the camel. This person you referred to earlier left the clear evidence that forbids swearing by other than Allah and took a hadith to which the scholars responded with several answers, including, as I mentioned earlier, that this was before the legislation of the prohibition of swearing by other than Allah (Mighty and Majestic). This is one answer. A second answer is that this is a special privilege of the Messenger that it is not permissible for a Muslim to share in. Here is a subtle point, because we mentioned earlier that swearing by other than Allah (Mighty and Majestic) is from the category of sadd al-dhara'i' (blocking the means to harm). The Messenger is not feared to fall into major shirk if he commits any of these matters, and therefore what is not permissible for others is permissible for him in this regard. It is not permissible to combine the single pronoun referring to Allah and the Messenger in some authentic hadiths. Here it is combined: "And whoever disobeys them." While the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) forbade this in the hadith narrated by Imam Muslim in his Sahih, where a man stood to preach and said in his sermon, "And whoever disobeys them has gone astray." The same phrase that appeared in some hadiths was uttered by this preacher, and he (peace and blessings be upon him) said to him: So the second answer is that this is a special privilege of the Messenger that the general Muslims should not share in. As for my answer, this addition is a shadhdh (anomalous) narration, and the hadith is not in its preserved narrations with "and his father." As for the addition of "and his father," it is an anomalous addition, and therefore I excluded this hadith for the sake of this addition in al-Silsilah al-Da'ifah (The Weak Chains).
Al-Halabi : ... .

The Shaykh : Its time has not yet come, and perhaps it will come soon. I want to return to this man. He followed what is ambiguous (mutashabih). He is told, "Why did you leave the hadiths that forbid it and take this hadith which has multiple possibilities?" His answer will be that he will stumble without guidance or a clear book. You said he answered you with this to support the claim that the Qur'an is created. The response to him comes directly from the words of the Imam of the Sunnah, Imam Ahmad (may Allah have mercy on him), who argued that the Qur'an, which is the speech of Allah, is not created by the consensus of the Ummah. He argued with his saying (peace and blessings be upon him) that he used to say: And it is known that it is not permissible to seek refuge in a created thing. So when the Messenger sought refuge in the perfect words of Allah, it indicates that the speech of Allah is not created. These people, out of their ignorance of the Shari'ah and the Sunnah, say and return to the old Mu'tazilah. Perhaps you mentioned something else from which we can benefit.

The questioner : I burned his blood. I said to him, he says to me, "I am a reformer, and in a little while I am a Mu'tazili, and I invite you to the Mu'tazilah." I said to him, "In my life, this is the first time I have seen a lying Muslim. Now you say you are a reformer, and now you say you are a Mu'tazili." And I said, "I am thirty-eight years old, and this is the first time I have seen a Mu'tazili on the face of the earth. In the time of Ibn Taymiyyah, he dealt with them... from the misguided sects, and we did not find anyone for them." Of course, he is a hypocrite. He calls to a group, and I say it is the first time I have seen him. So he started to curse. When he descended, I met him at the Jundis library. A man who knows him...The Shaykh : Abu Malik, his name is Abu Yasser. He says to me, "Come to the mosque of Ibrahim al-Hajj Hasan, and I will invite you to..." I said, "You declare your repentance in public, then come to the mosque, and I will receive you."
Al-Halabi : Shaykh, this same person told me. He calls me on the phone often. Among the things he told me, he said, "When I came up with the idea of the Mu'tazilah, I did not come out for something called the Mu'tazilah, but to make people look at past things, how they were, whether they were called true or false, to look with their minds, to think, and so on. Otherwise, I myself believe that the Mu'tazilah have some wrong things, and so on." His words reminded me, Shaykh, of his companion in misguidance and deviation, the one who declares Ibn Taymiyyah (may Allah have mercy on him) a disbeliever, where he told some people, "I did not declare Ibn Taymiyyah a disbeliever because I was convinced of his disbelief, but to make known and to spread my call to people." So we seek refuge in Allah from clear misguidance.

The Shaykh : This is based on the disbelieving principle, "The end justifies the means." Allahu Akbar.