The Albaani Site

Questioner: O Shaikh! I don’t know … the first question which I asked you, is it a mistake in aqidah? [He’s referring to the question he asked the Shaikh which is mentioned in this post.]

Al-Albaani: Which one?

Questioner: Their saying, ‘If the Prophets and the righteous people waged war against shirk which contradicts Laa ilaaha illallaah up until the Day of Resurrection …’

Al-Albaani: [This saying that the Prophets didn’t wage war against shirk in al-Uluhiyyah but only shirk in al-Haakimiyyah] is the greatest misguidance. And I already answered you about Noah عليه السلام.

Questioner: He also said that.

Al-Albaani: Who?

Questioner: Shaikh Salmaan [al-Awdah].

Al-Albaani: Where?

Questioner: In this book.

Al-Albaani: Show me the book.

Questioner: Page one hundred and seventy.

Al-Albaani [reading from the book]: He says, ‘And that they, i.e., the callers, know that if the Prophets and the righteous people up until the Day of Resurrection, fought against the types of shirk which go against Laa ilaaha illallaah which were only connected to social customs no one except a few would have confronted them or stood in their faces.’

Here the word ‘sha’biyyah’, does it have [a meaning] that is understood in the Arabic language or not?

Questioner: O Shaikh! What I understand, and Allaah knows best, and I could be mistaken in that …

Al-Albaani: We all could be.

Questioner: Social customs are these [things] present among the people, for example like sitting at the graves, performing tawaaf around the graves, taking oaths … amulets … and so on, and Allaah knows best.

Al-Albaani: Yes, yes. But is the call to tawheed limited to this?

Questioner: Is the call to tawheed what?

Al-Albaani: Limited to this only, namely fighting against shirk associated with customs?

Questioner: No, rather shirk in its totality.

Al-Albaani: Okay, so [in the book] he is referring to specific people, he understands, whether rightly or mistakenly, that they are pleased with the rulers and the things they do in opposition to the Sharee’ah, and that they only pay attention to curing the hearts of the public and individuals.

Maybe I have been able to clarify to you what the man meant? Namely, that the call to the truth is not only restricted to rectifying the public and not the rulers, and being happy with what the rulers do and leaving them to do those things which oppose the sharee’ah.

Questioner: O Shaikh! Is the last sentence correct?

Al-Albaani: Let us listen to what the people of Makkah say.

The Meccan Man: I say: the reality is that in many issues the people either go to extremes or fall short. So you’ll either have some people who do not understand the call to tawheed to be anything except Tawheed al-Haakimiyyah alone whilst leaving the people in their major shirk, and as they call it shirk associated with the graves.

Or [on the other hand] you have people who do not like or, who, from the moment a person says, ‘Haa …’ [i.e., as soon as they open their mouth to say, ‘Haakimyyah’] [from the moment a person says], ‘Tawheed includes Haakimiyaah for Allaah the Mighty and Majestic,’ they are sensitive to this issue and will not look at it either closely or from afar, rather they are at war with what is called grave-worship.

And if we are just in this issue the truth will be known, that the call to tawheed, the call to Tawheed al-Haakimiyyah is that judgement be for Allaah alone, and from our reading [we see that] many of the writers, and the truth will be said, by Haakimiyyah sometimes mean total Haakmiyyah, that all of it is for Allaah the Mighty and Majestic, and sometimes by it they mean the politics which they run behind.

So it is from justice and fairness that we say: Tawheed includes both aspects. So if these statements, O my brother, are understood to mean that if the Prophets had just prevented the people from the graves no-one would have opposed them … this is the meaning of the statements, but there is a second point, my brother.

With the permission of our beloved Shaikh: the statements are not taken to mean what the reader has understood, for if that is the case then many people will not understand [the statements correctly], rather the statements are to be understood in light of other statements made by the man, either in other places [in his works] or from his actual stance.

So if the man is well known for [his] complete tawheed and is a caller to it, or [it is well known] that he is a monotheist [muwahhid] and then he says a word or two–they are not to be understood in the worst possible manner, because if it were taken to mean that then he would be an heretic in every meaning of the word, and he would have left the fold of Islaam, and we see that his actual state of affairs is not like that.

So this is a matter worthy [of being mentioned]. And on this occasion [it is fitting that we mention that] taking statements to mean the worst possible meaning is not a principle from those of Ahlus-Sunnah wal-Jamaa’ah.

I remember, O Shaikh, that …