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﴿ فَاسْأَلُوا أَهْلَ الذِّكْرِ إِن كُنتُمْ لَا تَعْلَمُونَ ﴾

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Does one who says that the meaning of "the Seal of the Prophets" is "the adornment of the prophets" become a disbeliever?

Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The Shaykh :"He made clear to them" "He made clear to them, and through what was revealed to Him of the Book and wisdom, everything that brings well-being to the servants and rectifies their conditions in their religion and their worldly affairs" He made clear
The student: Allah

The Shaykh : Allah, Mighty and Majestic. This is a necessary consequence of the fact that the Exalted is the One who makes things clear: that He made clear, through the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) and through what was revealed to him of the Book, which is the Qur'an, and wisdom, which is the Sunnah, everything that brings well-being to the servants and rectifies their conditions in their religion and their worldly affairs, and so on. This is a matter known by anyone who follows the message of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him): that all that people need for the well-being of their religion and their worldly affairs has been made clear by the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him). Abu Dharr said, "Listen to this phrase:
The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) has passed away, and there is no bird that flaps its wings in the sky except that knowledge of it was mentioned to us. لقد توفي رسول الله صلى الله عليه وآله وسلم وما طائر يقلب جناحيه في السماء إلا ذكر لنا منه علما
" So his saying
And there is no bird flying in the sky with its two wings وما طائر يطير بجناحيه في السماء
Sahih Ibn Hibban 3:5
means that he made clear every thing.
And a man from among the disbelievers said to Salman al-Farisi (may Allah be pleased with him): "Your Messenger has made things clear to you, even down to relieving oneself." He said: "Yes, he taught us everything." وقال رجل من المشركين لسلمان الفارسي رضي الله عنه لقد بين لكم رسولكم حتى الخراءة قال نعم كل شي علمنا
Then Salman (may Allah be pleased with him) recited to this polytheist man:
forbade us to face the Qiblah when defecating or urinating, or to clean ourselves using the right hand, or to clean ourselves with less than three stones, or to clean ourselves with dung or a bone لقد نهانا أن نستقبل القبلة بغائط أو بول أو أن نستنجي باليمين أو أن نستنجي برجيع أو عظم
Bulugh al-Maram 97
"And the Messenger taught us how to put on our clothes, how to take them off, how to stand, how to sit, and how to sleep? There is nothing we need that he did not make clear." Then, when the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) mentioned something and it became clear that the benefit lay in the opposite, he would return from it.
He arrived in al-Madinah and found the people pollinating the date palms. قدم المدينة ووجد الناس يلقحون النخل
A man would climb up to the male date palm, which is the male tree, and bring from it the date flowers, which he would place in the date flowers of the female palm, and then they would be pollinated and become good dates.
When the Prophet (ﷺ) came to Al-Madinah لما قدم النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم المدينة
Sunan an-Nasa'i 4590Sahih (Darussalam)
And he found that they were exerting themselves by climbing up and down twice: once for the male and once for the female. He said:
If you had left this لو أنكم تركتم هذا
"His intention with this was to be kind and make things easy for them."
If you left this off, they thought it was a revelation from Allah, so they left it off. When they left it off, the fruit became dry, meaning it spoiled. When this happened, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: "You know best the affairs of your worldly life." لو تركتم هذا فظنوا أن هذا وحي من الله تركوه فلما تركوه صار الثمر شيصا يعني فسد فلما حصل هذا قال النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم أنتم أعلم بأمور دنياكم
And he permitted them to pollinate the dates. Did he return from what he said, or did he not return from what he said? He did not return, because he only makes clear to people what they need and what benefits them. Whatever people need, he informed them of it. And Allah the Exalted said in His Book:
And We have sent down to you the Book as clarification for all things ونزلنا عليك الكتاب تبيانا لكل شيء
[An-Nahl 16:89]
Everything is made clear in the Qur'an.
It was mentioned to me, or I read long ago, a translation of the famous Egyptian Shaykh Muhammad 'Abdu. He was in Paris, and there was a restaurant that included both Muslims and Christians, and everyone, because it is a land of disbelief. A man from the Christians came to him and said, "O Shaykh, your Book contains this verse:
And We have sent down to you the Book as clarification for all things ونزلنا عليك الكتاب تبيانا لكل شيء
[An-Nahl 16:89]
If you believe in that, tell me how this food is made. It is a sandwich, rice, meat, and other things. Where is this found in the Qur'an? Is this present?" He said, "Yes, this is present in the Qur'an." This Christian wanted to say that the Qur'an is a cookbook that teaches people how to cook. He said, "It is present in the Qur'an." He said, "Where is it?" So he called the owner of the restaurant and said, "Come, how did you make this food?" He said, "I made it thus and thus," and he described the preparation of the ingredients, how to cook them, and how to fix them. He said, "This is in the Qur'an." Muhammad 'Abdu said, "This is in the Qur'an." So the Christian was astonished. He said, "Allah says:
So ask the people of the message if you do not know. فاسألوا أهل الذكر إن كنتم لا تعلمون
[An-Nahl 16:43]
And this is a rule for everything. It is specific to religious knowledge. Whatever we do not know, we ask those who are specialists in it. So this is a direction: we directed the Qur'an to mean that if we do not know something, we ask the people of specialization in it. So we asked this man, and he informed us. The one who denied it was baffled; he could not say anything.
So our Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) taught people everything. Did he teach them what they believe regarding Allah (Mighty and Majestic), His names, attributes, and actions? The answer is yes. Without a doubt, this is the most important thing he taught them and the most obligatory. How could he teach them that a man should sit in a specific way to relieve himself, yet not teach them what the attributes of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) are? For this reason, the Shaykh al-Islam (may Allah have mercy on him) said regarding the statement of the people of tafwid (delegation): the people of tafwid say "When a verse or hadith regarding the attributes of Allah comes to you, delegate it; do not speak about it ever, and be with it like an unlettered person." He said (may Allah have mercy on him) "The statement of these people is among the worst statements of the people of religious innovation and atheism." He even said that the philosophers did not gain control over the Muslims except through such a statement. When these people said, "We are unlettered regarding the meanings of the verses of attributes and their hadiths," they said, "Come on, you are unlettered." The meaning of unlettered is ignorant. They said, "We know more than you. So we will interpret the verses and hadiths as we wish, because we say we know. We know this meaning; we know that this is its meaning." It is distorted, without a doubt. But the one who says, "I know the meaning," is better than the one who says, "I do not know," because the one who says, "I do not know," has declared himself ignorant, while this one claims to be a scholar. So he says, "Therefore, knowledge is with me, since you are ignorant of the meanings of these texts. So knowledge is with me, and you cannot refute me, because the most you have is to say, 'I do not know.' And the one who does not know has no weapon. So if you do not know, then I know that the intended meaning is such and such." Do you understand, people? Yet, in the books of those who do not know the methodology of the Salaf in its true sense, it is found that the Salaf are the people of tafwid. So in their speech, they say the people of the Sunnah are of two types: people of tafwid and people of ta'wil (interpretation). By people of ta'wil, they mean the people of tahrif (distortion), who say
He settled upon the Throne استوى على العرش
"Who has seized"
Rather, both His hands are extended بل يداه مبسوطتان
[Al-Ma'idah 5:64]
"No, rather, it is a blessing"
And the Face of your Lord will remain ويبقى وجه ربك
"The reward of your Lord," and the like. They say the people of the Sunnah are of two types: people of tafwid and people of ta'wil. This is a lie. The people of the Sunnah are not people of tafwid, but people of knowledge and understanding. However, they delegate what they cannot reach knowledge of, which is the modality (how). They say, for example, "He established Himself over the Throne." We know that the meaning of "established" is "rose above" the Throne, but how that was, we do not know. And this is the limit of proper conduct with Allah (Mighty and Majestic): what Allah does not inform you of regarding the matters of the unseen, you must delegate its knowledge to Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He). So the result is that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) taught his Ummah everything they need in matters of their religion and worldly affairs. Even if he spoke a word that he thought was appropriate, and then it became clear that it was not, he would retract it, as in the story of what? Ta'bir (pollination). But in this context, some scholars, especially the later contemporary ones, took from his statement
You know best the affairs of your worldly life. أنتم أعلم بأمور دنياكم
what the text does not support. They said that this includes dealing with things and includes judgment, meaning that we know how to make a door, how to build a building, how to construct the... yes, the... what we construct of palaces and the like. We know this, and we also know the ruling on these things. So they said, if riba (usury or interest) is the cause of raising the economy of the country, then it is permissible, falling under his statement
You know best the affairs of your worldly life. أنتم أعلم بأمور دنياكم
This is a mistake, because the rulings refer to whom? To Allah and His Messenger.
And in anything over which you disagree - its ruling is [to be referred] to Allah. وما اختلفتم في شيء فحكمه إلى الله
[Ash-Shuraa 42:10]
But crafts, and how to make this, and how to transform it from one form to another, yes, we know that better. That is why you find a person who does not know the saying or the religious knowledge, but knows how to make this loudspeaker, and a person who is a scholar, one of the most prominent scholars in the East, who does not know how to turn on this sound, this device. Is that not so? Good. The first is more knowledgeable about worldly affairs than the scholar, and the scholar is more knowledgeable about the Shari'ah than that. So the result is that some people expand the meanings of words until they attribute to a word what it does not support, either out of ignorance or out of desire. And Allah is the helper. Yes.

The questioner : ... We said that the Seal of the Prophets: whoever says that there is a prophet after the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) has become a disbeliever.

The Shaykh : Yes

The questioner : If he said that by way of ta'wil (interpretation), meaning that the Seal of the Prophets means the adornment of the prophets, does he become a disbeliever for that?

The Shaykh : Yes, indeed

The questioner : Even if it is ta'wil, O Shaykh?

The Shaykh : Even if it is ta'wil, but he knows that this ta'wil is wrong. He knows that this is wrong. And the Sunnah has come in the utmost clarity that there is no prophet after Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him). He said:
I am the seal of the prophets ختم بي النبيون
And he said to 'Ali ibn Abi Talib when he left him in Tabuk with his family:
You are to me in the position that Harun was to Musa, except that there is no Prophet after me. أنت مني بمنزلة هارون من موسى إلا أنه لا نبي بعدي
Jami` at-Tirmidhi 3730Sahih (Darussalam)
And this is a matter known by necessity in the religion; there is no doubt. Yes.
Source alathar.net

The Arabic text is copied verbatim from the original source, without any edits.

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