The Three Fundamental Principles - Part One

Bismillah

The Three Fundamental Principles - taught by Abu Abdisalam

Abu Abdisalam started the talk of by saying that Abdul Wahhab wrote this book because there was a lot of shirk going on at the time in Najd. This book concerns the three questions asked in the grave

        1.       Who is your Lord

        2.       What is your Deen

        3.       Who is your Messenger?

Know, may Allah have mercy upon you, that it is obligatory upon you to have knowledge in four matters:

Here the Shaykh makes dua that ‘may Allah have mercy upon you’. This shows that knowledge is closely tied with the Mercy of Allah.

Paraphrasing: ‘The one who show Mercy, Allah shows Mercy to them’

Ø  Knowledge (al ilm), which is knowledge and awareness of Allah, and knowledge of His Prophet, and knowledge of the religion of Islam with proofs

Ø  Action upon that

Ø  Calling to that

Ø  Patiently persevering and bearing any harm encountered upon that way

Abu Abdisalam went on to explain the word ‘knowledge’ and he said that this obligation is of two types:

Ø  Wujoob al ayniyyah (obligation upon everyone)

Ø  Wujoob al Khifhayi (obligatory upon some of the ummah)

The knowledge that we are about to seek is fardh ul ayn or Wujoob al ayniyyah. There is no benefit if we make taqleed in this matter. By this we mean if we hear someone say something, we just take from them. Taqleed does not benefit us in this type of knowledge.

Ahlus Sunnah follow this way of thinking, that taqleed does not benefit in Aqeedah but so do some innovators

ASWJ look for evidences of from ayat of the Qur’an and Sunnah whereas you people like the Ash’ariyyah that say, ‘we have to contemplate about Allah as if we were a disbeliever, to start with. To rationally come to proof of Our Lord’

Knowledge (al ilm), which is knowledge and awareness of Allah, and knowledge of His Prophet, and knowledge of the religion of Islam with proofs

Abu Abdisalam mentioned the first point and said that we need knowledge of Allah because he is worshipped by right and he said that the author mentioned these four points first because it is the first part of the risala. The second part brings in three more matters and the third part, the main text of the book, explains the first issue. This whole book will be the explanation of this first point.

Action upon that

One has to have action upon the knowledge that he has sought. Not acting upon it can be disbelief, sin, disliked or mubah.

Calling to that

A person who has sought knowledge, acted upon it, now has to give dawah. Dawah is of many types

Ø  Tongue (speech)

Ø  By actions (fasting, praying)

Ø  Giving lectures, advice

Patiently persevering and bearing any harm encountered upon that way

Having sabr – people will speak ill of you and there will be jealousy during the dawah process. We just need to look at the example of the Messenger to understand this. When the Messenger went to Taif and had stones thrown at him, he was patient.

The author then goes on to saying ‘The proof is the saying of Allah, the Most High: By time, Mankind is in loss, Except for those who have believed and done righteous deeds and advised each other to truth and advised each other to patience. (Asr: 103)

Abu Abdisalam does a mini tafsir of the surah to explain it a bit more to the audience.

Allah swears by Al Asr. There are different interpretations as to what is meant by ‘Al Asr’.

Some scholars have said that Al Asr is from the beginning of time till the Day of Judgement (DoJ)

Some scholars have said that it is the time of the Prophet hood (23 years)

Some scholars say that it is the time of a person’s life span because that is the time given to worship Allah

Some scholars say it is Salatul Asr because this is a very important prayer. Paraphrasing ‘delaying of this prayer is like losing one’s whole family and wealth’

As Muslims, one can only swear by Allah but Allah can swear by anything!

We find that there are more points of emphasis that Allah uses. This ‘inna’ (Verily) is meant for emphasis. The ‘laam’ is also a form of emphasis. Allah has emphasised the loss in three ways. As in there are different forms of loss

Ø  By time

Ø  Inna

Ø  La Fee

Why did He emphasise it three times?

There is usually emphasis if someone doubts what is being said and also this is aimed at mushrikeen.

Those who do righteous actions will not be in loss. Let’s have a look at the word Imaan here.

Imaan consists of statement and actions. The statement falls under two categories – the statement of the heart and statement of the tongue. The actions fall under three categories – the action of the heart (love/hope/fear), the action of the tongue (dawah, istighfar) and actions of the limbs (salah, jihad)

If Imaan is statement and action, does the action of the heart stay the same every day?

Imaan increases and decreases.

“Faith is composed of  70 odd branches; of which the highest is belief in ‘La Ilaha Illallah’ [There is no God but Allaah] & the lowest is the removal of a hindrance from the road, & the sense of modesty is an important branch of Faith.” [Bukhari, Iman (Faith), 3; Muslim, Iman (Faith), 57-58]

Imaan consists of the tongue and the heart. Actions are a part of Imaan. This is the refutation of the Murji’ah who say actions are separate from statements.

In our time we have many different groups of sects and it is upon us to look towards the revelation for guidance. We bring evidence from the Qur’an and Sunnah and have to understand Islam like the sahabas understood Islam. We need to know how they understood the Qur’an.

Imam Ahmad: 90 men from among the taabi’een and the scholars of the Muslim are in consensus (ijma) that in the Sunnah, Imaan consists of statements & actions and it increases & decreases.

How is Imaan linked to Aqeedah?

Statement of the heart is Aqeedah. For example Muslims have in their Aqeedah, belief of the Hellfire (that it exists). This affects our actions of the heart (we start to fear Allah and the Hell-Fire). This fear makes us seek istighfar and perform two rakaat of Salatul tawbah. One statement of the heart leads to all these actions.

In this ayah, imaan is mentioned first for people that are not in loss. Some of the scholars say that imaan doesn’t include actions because they use the hadith where Allah will take people out of the Hell-fire and put them in Paradise but we reconcile this by saying the very fact that these people are being taken out MUST have imaan because part of imaan is to say ‘La illaha illalah’

The next part of the ayah mentions righteous actions. This is the second characteristic of people who are saved from loss.

Why has Allah separated Imaan from actions?

ASWJ explain this by looking at the next part of the ayah where ‘they call each other to the truth and have sabr’. Allah has emphasised these points. He mentions the specific after he mentions the general thing.

Another example of this is in Surah al Baqarah, where Allah says,

Whoever is an enemy to Allah and His angels and His messengers and Gabriel and Michael - then indeed, Allah is an enemy to the disbelievers. (2:98)

First Allah mentions the enemy of Allah, then His Angels, then His Messengers and then specifically mentions two Angels in particular. This is done for emphasis.

The conditions of righteous actions are:

Ø  Has to be Muslim

Ø  Correct intention

Ø  According to the Sunnah

The next part of the ayah speaks about calling people to the truth of Islam. They have to give dawah.

The conditions of dawah are:

Ø  Knowledge of what is he calling to

Ø  Wisdom/Hikmah

Ø  Patience

‘And they call to having patience’. This means:

Ø  Patiently persevering upon the obedience of Allah

Ø  Patiently persevering against the disobedience of Allah

Ø  Patience with respect to the Qadr of Allah.

The author has now ended on this tafsir of Surah al Asr and mentions a statement from Imam Ash Shafi’i

If Allah had sent down His creation no other proof besides this surah, it would have been sufficient for them

Why Surah al Asr?

This surah is enough, but not for the whole deen. What he means is that is enough for mankind for if he hears this surah, he will go seek knowledge. It is enough to guide mankind to the truth. This surah contains everything an individual needs in order to be successful in this life and the next life and also salvation from the eternal punishment.

The author then says,

Al Bukhari, may Allah have mercy upon him, said: ‘Chapter: Knowledge precedes speech and action’ and proof is the saying of Allah, ‘Know that none has the right to be worshipped except Allah, and ask forgiveness of your Lord for your sins’ (Surah Muhammad: 19). So He began mentioning knowledge before speech of action’

Why mention the statement of al Bukhari?

Knowledge precedes speech and action and this shows the importance of knowledge and how it must precede any dawah because a person cannot act upon this religion without knowledge. The whole treaty is about knowledge to start with. This book is going to explain all knowledge in the main text. With this, he ends the first part of the book. He is pointing out to the student of knowledge that ilm is very important in our purpose of life. So much so that it comes before istighfar.