‫أصل دين ألإسلام وقاعدته‬

The Foundation of Islâm

and Its Principle
By
Imâm Muhammad Ibn ‘Abdil-Wahhâb
(may Allâh be Merciful to him)

Commentary by
Shaykh Haytham Âl Sayfaddîn
(may Allâh preserve him)

Transcripted by
Brother Radwan Dakkak
(may Allâh hasten his release)

Sunnah Studies

i
﷽

ii
 Table of Contents

Preface iv
Matn of Risalah Asl Dîn al-Islâm 01

Lecture 01 03
• Commanding the worshipping to Allâh Alone
15
without any partner
• Encouragement upon this 21

Lecture 02 26
• Making friendship for its sake 28
• And making Takfîr of whosoever leaves it 39

Lecture 03 50
• Abandoning shirk in ‘Ibâdah to Allâh and warning
50
from it
• Being severely harsh upon this 61
• Being hostile for its sake 65
• And making Takfîr of whosoever does it 67

End Notes 69

iii
 Preface

All praise belongs to Allâh. We praise Him, seek His aid and seek His
forgiveness. May Allâh send salâh and salâm upon the Imâm of Muwahidîn
Muhammad bin Abdullâh, his family, his companions, and all those who
sincerely follow him. As for what follows…

Following is the transcripted lecture on “Risalah Asl Dîn al-Islâm” by Imâm

Muhammad bin `Abdul Wahhâb (‫)رمحه هللا‬, and it's Sharh by Shaykh Haytham Âl
Sayfaddîn (‫)حفظه هللا‬. This was a series of 3 lectures which was transcripted in 3
pdfs each by Brother Radwan Dakkak (‫ )فك هللا أسره‬and we took his transcriptions
and compiled it into one book with some formatting, and proofread it to
remove any mistakes therein. We tried our best to not add up anything of our
own in the transcription except for a few things such as reference in footnotes
for ahadîth mentioned by the Shaykh without it's reference and a section at
the end as “End Note” was not a part of Shaykh Haytham’s lecture nor added
by Brother Radwan Dakkak.

Few changes that we made in the books are: replaced the translation of ayât
by the translation done by Dr. Muhsin Khan & Taqi-ud-Din Hilali, added
references for ahadîth where ever it was possible, added endnotes (i.e. notes
which have “i,ii,iii,iv...”), and added some texts which was missed by Radwan
Dakkak in his transcription. With this we completed this in a book form, by
the Permission of Allâh.

We ask Allâh to accept this from us and whoever has contributed in it, from
Shaykh Muhammad bin `Abdul Wahhâb, for writing down the Risalah, to
anyone, who spread this ahead. We ask Allâh to make this beneficial for us
and anyone who seeks to benefit from this.

If there are any mistakes, they are from us and our sins, and every goodness
is from Allâh, the Most High, alone.

ِّ ِّ ِّ ِّ ِّ ِّ ‫ك ر‬
‫ني‬
َ ‫ب ال َْعـلَم‬
ّ ‫ني َوا ْْلَ ْم ُد ََّّلل َر‬ ّ َ َ ِّّ‫ُسْب َح َـن َرب‬
َ ‫ب الْعَّزةِّ َع َّما يَص ُفو َن َو َسلَ ٌـم َعلَى ال ُْم ْر َسل‬

iv
 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

‫أصل دين اإلسالم وقاعدته‬

The Foundation of Islam and Its Principle
‫لإلمام حممد بن الوهاب رمحه هللا‬
By Imam Muhammad Ibn ‘Abdil-Wahhab, may Allah be Merciful to him

:‫”أصل دين اإلسالم وقاعدته أمران‬

“The foundation and principle of the Din of Islami is in
two mattersii:

‫ األمر بعبادة هللا وحده ال شريك له والتحريض على‬:‫األول‬

.‫ذلك واملواالة فيه وتكفري من تركه‬
Firstly: Commanding the worshipping (directing of
every type of ‘Ibadah) to Allah Alone without any partner,
encouragement upon this, making friendship for its sake, and
making Takfiriii of whosoever leaves itiv.

‫ اإلنذار عن الشرك يف عبادة هللا والتغليظ يف ذلك‬:‫الثاين‬

.‫واملعادة فيه وتكفري من فعله‬
Secondly: Abandoning shirk (joining partners) in
‘Ibadah to Allah and warning from it, being severely harsh upon
this, being hostile for its sake, and making Takfir of whosoever
does it.

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 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

‫ أنذروا قومهم‬:‫فال يتم مقام التوحيد إال هبذا وهو دين الرسل‬
:‫من الشرك كما قال تعاىل‬
So the sanctity Tawhid is not complete except with this,
and it is the religion of the Messengers who warned their peoples
about shirk, as He, the Most High, stated:

ْ‫اجتَنيبُوا‬ ‫ي‬ ٍ
ّ ْ‫﴿ولَ َق ْد بَ َعثْنَا ييف ُك ّل أ ُّمة ّر ُسوالً أَن ْاعبُ ُدوا‬
ْ ‫اّللَ َو‬ َ
“.٣٦:‫وت﴾ النحل‬ َ ُ‫الْطّاغ‬
And verily, We sent to every community a Messenger
﴾
(proclaiming): ‘Worship Allah (Alone) and avoid the
Taghut v’ ﴿ An-Nahl, 36.”

٢/٢٢ :»‫«الدرر السنية يف األجوبة النجدية‬

«Ad-Durar As-Saniyyah Fil-Ajwibah an-Najdiyyah»: 2/22.

2
 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

Lecture 01
‫إن احلمد هلل حنمده ونستعينه ونستغفره ونعوذ ابهلل من شرور انفسنا ومن سيئات أعمالنا‬
‫من يهده هللا فال مضل له ومن يضلل فال هادي له وأشهد أن ال إله اال هللا ال شريك له‬
،‫وأشهد أن حممداً عبده ورسوله‬
Insha’Allah this is the first lesson we’ll start with ‘Aqidah, we had the
Fiqh lesson for about a month, and you asked for something on
‘Aqidah. So, insha’Allah this will be a little bit different than the Fiqh,
Fiqh is very long and we’re not really rushing to get through
anything, and it’s one book, and we’ll stick with that book. For this
topic, it’d be better to pick different small books or mutun, to go
through one here and one here and to pick topics about different issues
and start our way up. So, we’ll start from the bottom and it’ll take be
very quick, and we’ll work our way up, and the more detail we get, the
longer we’ll spend on the topic, but I think this will work better for
the ‘Aqidah lessons.

When we’re studying ‘Aqidah, there’s many topics that we would have
to go through. Obviously, there’s the basic issues of Tawhid and Shirk,
and what is considered Tawhid and what if considered Shirk, and what
actually makes someone enter Islam, or what are the conditions for
someone to be Muslim.

As well as, how does someone leave Islam, because we need to know
that as well. Just as important, to first of all to stay away from it
ourselves, and also know who was actually considered Muslim, and
who isn’t considered Muslim, because this is also something that’s
from the Ahkam of our religion, so this is something that we’ll also go
into as well.

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 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

Included in that, is the or in the issues of ‘Aqidah is talking about the

pillars of Iman, which is belief in Allah, which would be related to the
shirk and the Tawhid, but also talking about what we believe about
the Angels, the Prophets and the Messengers, the Books of Allah that
He revealed and everything that’s included in that.

So, what are the rights of the Prophets, and what do we believe about
what their abilities, and what the rulings are related to them, and
likewise with the Angels, what are there powers, and what are their
Sifat, and what don’t we give them, because many people may go too
extreme with the Angels, and too extreme with the Rusul, so likewise
those issues go into ‘Aqidah. Also, going into the Akhirah, and what
we believe about the ‘Azab, and the Na’im and the Qabr, also the Day
of Judgement and Jannah wan-Naar, and the Sifat of these things and
what are the rulings of people who reject certain aspects of the Din, all
of these things come into the topic of ‘Aqidah.

Likewise, some issues related to seeking blessings from people and

objects, and these types of things, and seeking protection from these
things, all of these aspects are from ‘Aqidah, and insha’Allah we’ll work
out way through all of these topics, bi’ithnillah, if we’re given tawfiq
to do these things, but we need to start somewhere, so the first thing
that we’ll start is with the most important issue which is the Tawhid
and Shirk, and even that we’ll start with the most basic things.
Generally, what is Tawhid and what is shirk, and what are the rights
of Tawhid, and what are the rights, when it comes to dealing with
Shirk.

So, because of this, the Risalah that I printed in Arabi and in English,
it’s called “Aslu Din Al-Islam wa Qa’idatuhu”. As you can see, even
with the translation it’s only one page, but insha’Allah, it’s very
beneficial and it will give us the basis of everything we will talk about
after this with regards to the rights of Allah and the huquq of La ilaha
illa Allah and what this means. So insha’Allah we’ll start with this and

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 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

we’ll go through it and if there’s any questions, we’ll leave them to the
end, and we’ll leave the questions specifically to the stuff about this
lesson.

So, here we see that this Risalah is based upon what’s the ‘Asl of the
Din of the Islam, and we know that the ‘asl, it’s something that’s the
basis or it’s the root, it’s the thing that everything else is built upon.
Linguistically that’s what the ‘asl means, and it’s not too important to
go into all the details of that. So, here when the Imam talks about this,
he says “Aslu Din Al-Islam”, so the basis of the religion of the Islam.
So, everything in Islam comes from these points or branches out from
these points, and everything else is based upon or, having everything
else without these things is essentially, in the end is useless.

So, if someone says they believe in Allah, and they pray five times a
day, but they don’t have these matters that insha’Allah we’re going to
talk about, then we can’t consider them to be Muslimin, because if
someone has the branch of something but he doesn’t have the basis,
then everything else that comes after it, is considered invalid or void
and it’s pointless to really have because if you do something good, but
then you cancel it out with something that invalidates it, then it’s
considered void and it’s not acceptable to begin with. So, this is the
reason why like I said why we’re starting with this point, because
everything in our Din is contingent or dependent upon understanding
these points, insha’Allah that’ll become clear.

So, the first thing is that he says is the Foundation, so we talked about
what the Foundation or the ‘asl is, or what is meant by that. So, the
next thing is Islam. What is Islam? Islam is our religion, it’s the
religion that Allah sent the Prophet Muhammad ( ‫ )ﷺ‬with and when
Allah mentioned that Ibrahim surrendered to him,

Or when Allah (‫ )سبحانه وتعاىل‬said about Ibrahim, that he said:

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 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

‫ال أَسلَمت لير ي ي‬ ‫ال لَه ربُّه أ ي‬

﴾‫ي‬
َ ‫ب الْ َع لَم‬ ْ ُ َ ُ َ َ‫﴿إي ْذ ق‬
ّ َ ُ ْ ْ َ َ‫َسل ْم ق‬
“When his Lord said to him, ‘Submit (i.e. be a Muslim)!’ He said, "I
have submitted myself (as a Muslim) to the Lord of the `Alamin
(mankind, Jinn and all that exists).’” 1

So, this is where the phrase Islam comes from, it’s from surrendering.
And Allah said about Ibrahim,

﴾...‫ي يمن قَ ْبلُ َويِف َه َذا‬ ‫يي‬

َ ‫ ُه َو ََسَّ ُك ُم الْ ُم ْسلم‬...﴿
“...It is He (Allah) Who has named you Muslims both before and in this
(the Quran)...” 2

So, the phrase Islam, or the phrase Muslimin comes from when
Ibrahim (‫ )على آله الصالة والسالم‬called the ones who follow the true religion
to be Muslimin, and it’s the surrendering to Allah. Some of the
scholars have defined Islam as, “Surrendering to Allah with Tawhid,
and surrendering to Him or obeying Him with complete
obedience and being disavowed or having no ties with shirk or its
people.” So, this is how the scholars have defined Islam. So, we see
from this Islam has things that relate to the person himself and relate
to how he deals with other people.

So, it’s not sufficient for someone to say “I’m Muslim,” and then it’s
the end. Insha’Allah we’ll talk about this in a lot more detail when we
talk about Iman or the reality of Iman and kufr, but Islam is something
that’s outward and it’s inward. So, someone having belief in their heart

1 Al-Baqarah 2:131
2 Al-Hajj 22:78

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 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

isn’t sufficient, just like someone outwardly acting upon Islam isn’t
sufficient.

We need both things because if someone has it on the inside and not
on the outside, then he hasn’t actually followed the religion, he just
believes it in his heart. We know that this is the case with many of the
kuffar, and we know at the time of the Prophet (‫)ﷺ‬, we know that his
uncle Abu Talib believed in Islam that it’s the true religion, he knew
he was a Prophet and he even protected him, we don’t say he protected
him necessarily because he was a Prophet, but he did protect him and
he did know that this was the true religion.

Despite that, we know that the Prophet (‫ )ﷺ‬made shafa’a for him and
despite the Prophet (‫ )ﷺ‬shafa’a for him, he’s still in Jahannam and the
Prophet (‫ )ﷺ‬described his punishment, is that he’s given two slippers
that cause his brain to boil. We know that despite all the good that
came from his actions, in protecting the Prophet (‫ )ﷺ‬during his early
days of the da’wah.

So, he had belief in his heart that Islam was the true religion and that
the Prophet (‫ )ﷺ‬deserved to be protected, regardless of the reason why
he protected him, but he did have this belief, but we know it didn’t help
him. Likewise, if we know someone who acts upon it outwardly, if they
pray, give Zakat, and fast, and make Hajj and perform Jihad and give
Sadaqah and all these other things, but they don’t believe it in their
heart, we know that their munafiqin and we know that only are they
in the Fire, but they’re in the lowest level of the Fire.

Allah (‫ )سبحانه وتعاىل‬said,

7
 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

‫﴿إي َّن الْمنَ يف يقي يِف الدَّريك االٌّس َف يل يمن النَّا ير ولَن َيَت َد ََلم نَ ي‬
﴾ً‫صريا‬ ُْ َ َ ْ ْ َ ُ
“Verily, the hyprocrites will be in the lowest depth (grade) of the Fire;
no helper will you find for them.” 3

So, we see from these two examples and also the example of Fir’awn
and his people, Allah said,

﴾... ً‫استَ ْي َقنَ ْت َهآ أَن ُف ُس ُه ْم ظُلْماً َوعُلُّوا‬ ‫ي‬

ْ ‫﴿ َو َج َح ُدواْ هبَا َو‬
“And they belied them wrongfully and arrogantly” 4

So, we know that Fir’awn, and he’s from the Imams of kufr, inside he
knew that what Musa and Harun came with was the truth but you
know it didn’t benefit him. And Allah (‫ )سبحانه وتعاىل‬said they were certain
of it. They were certain 100% that what Musa and Harun came with
was correct and it was from Allah, but we know it didn’t help them.

So, this is why we see that Islam isn’t sufficient only on one of these
two things, and likewise we’ll come to see Tawhid and Shirk, or
Tawhid or kufr is related to the person himself and what he says and
does, and it also relates to how he deals with other people.

So, we’ll see insha’Allah that the Muslimin, or someone being Muslim,
gives them rights upon the other Muslimin, and someone being a
disbeliever or a kafir, has certain implications on how we deal with
them, and the rights that we give them as opposed to the Muslim. So,
we’ll see that all of these matters all come back to the issue of Tawhid
and shirk. So, we see here that this is the definition of Islam and we see

3 An-Nisa 4:145
4 An-Naml 27:14

8
 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

that how they defined it, it was related to staying away from shirk and
its people as well as submitting to Allah.

So, the evidence in this Risalah here, in this small paper that we have,
that was given was the statement of Allah (‫)سبحانه وتعاىل‬,

‫اّلل و ي‬ ‫ي‬ ٍ
ْ َ ََّ ْ‫﴿ َولََق ْد بَ َعثْنَا يِف ُك يّل أ َُّمة َّر ُسوالً أَن ْاعبُ ُدوا‬
َ ُ‫اجتَنبُواْ الْطَّاغ‬
﴾... ‫وت‬
“And We have indeed sent a Messenger to every Ummah (community,
nation) (saying): ‘Worship Allah (Alone), and avoid the Taghut (all
false deities).’...” 5

So, we see here, Allah mentioned that every Ummah or every group of
people whether it’s by time or by area, every group of people was sent
a Messenger, and this could either be that literally they received a
Messenger themselves or he was sent to an area that oversaw the other
areas and then Messengers were sent out to them from him, or that
they heard about it and they inherited the message was kept in those
people. So, regardless generally every group received a Messenger,
and the message that they were sent with was,

‫اّلل و ي‬
َ ُ‫اجتَنبُواْ الْطَّاغ‬
»‫وت‬ ْ َ ََّ ْ‫« ْاعبُ ُدوا‬
“Worship Allah and avoid the Taghut”.

These are two things, so we see when we say, “worship Allah and
avoid or stay away from the Taghut.” First, we have to understand a
few things from this verse and we’ll get into that. First of all, what is
‘Ibadah? So, when Allah commands us to worship him, we have to
understand what does worship even mean to begin with, and second

5 An-Nahl 16:36

9
 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

of all what is a taghut, so we can stay away from it. Allah didn’t just
say don’t worship the taghut, He said stay away from it, or avoid it.
So, any coming near it or anything should be avoided.

So, what is a taghut? If we’re going to understand the verse, we need

to understand what this word means. One of the best definitions for
explaining of what a Taghut is, was given by Ibn Qayyim (‫)رمحه هللا‬. He
said, “It is everything in which man exceeds his limits, whether it being
worshipped, followed, or obeyed. So the Taghut of every community is he from
whom judgment is sought, instead of what Allah and His Messenger have
ruled; or those whom they worship besides Allah; or whom they follow without
a proof from Allah; or whom they obey, while not knowing if it is in
accordance to the Judgment of Allah. So these are the Tawaghit of the world;
if you were to contemplate regarding them and see the conditions of the people
with them, you would see that most of them have turned away from
worshipping Allah Alone, to worshipping the Taghut; away from seeking
judgment from Allah and His Messenger, to seeking judgment from the
Taghut; turned away from obeying Him and following His Messenger, to
obeying and following the Taghut.” 6

We see from this definition that when Allah says that He sent in every
group of people, a Messenger, ordering to worship Allah and to stay
away from the Taghut, that He was ordering them to worship Allah
and stay away from worshipping anything else, following anything
else with complete obedience which we would give only to Allah and
then the Messenger (‫ )ﷺ‬because he was sent as a Prophet. Anything
of this nature was forbidden.

So, this is the defining characteristics of what Tawhid is; worshipping

Allah and giving Allah all of the rights that only belong to Him, so

6 Refer to I'lam Al-Muwaqqi'in (1/50)

10
 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

anything that is specified to the rights of Allah, then we give it to Him,

so the rights of any act of worship, such as Salat, giving Zakat,
performing Hajj and Umrah, or fasting, or slaughtering for other than
Allah or ruling with laws in which the right only belongs to Allah.

Anything that is specifically designated by Allah in the Qur’an or by

the Messenger (‫ )ﷺ‬in the Sunnah, giving any of these things to other
than Allah is an act of Shirk, and this is why it's important to
understand what is actually worship of Allah, and what is the rights of
Allah, and eventually insha’Allah we’ll get into all of those aspects.

So, we understand from now the basis of this whole discussion, is that
anything that belongs or is only the right of Allah can only be given
to Him, and if it’s given to anyone else, then it’s considered shirk and
this person would either be not Muslim to begin with or it’s considered
that he’s committed something that would take him out of Islam. So,
this is the first discussion.

We see in this verse as well, it’s very similar to when we say ‘La ilaha
illa Allah’. So, what does this mean, when we say La ilaha illa Allah,
we're doing two things:

1) Negating (Nothing is worthy of worship).

2) Affirming (Except Allah).

So, what does this mean? We’re negating any sort of worship, so we
say “La ilaha”, nothing is worthy of worship, except Allah. So, we have
to have two of these things present in order for the person to be upon
Tawhid. So, if we just say “we worship Allah”, that’s not sufficient
because Quraysh used to worship, and many of the people before used
to worship Allah but they used to worship something with Him.

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 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

So, just saying that isn’t enough. Just like the opposite, when we say
“There’s nothing worthy of worship”, and we stop there, this is also
completely false as well, because in order for someone to be Muslim,
first of all they have to say, “Nothing is worthy of worship except
Allah”. So, we have to have these two things.

In this verse, it's the same thing,

»َ‫اّلل‬
َّ ْ‫« ْاعبُ ُدوا‬
“Worship Allah (Alone)”
And

‫«و ي‬
َ ُ‫اجتَنبُواْ الْطَّاغ‬
»‫وت‬ ْ َ
“Avoid the Taghut”

whereby “worship Allah”, is very similar to “illa Allah” and “Avoid the
Taghut” is very similar to “La ilaha”, so the two things need to be
present.

Like Allah said,

‫ك يابلْعروةي‬ ‫ي ي‬ ‫ي‬ ‫ي‬

ْ ‫فَ َم ْن يَ ْك ُف ْر يابلطَّاغُوت َويُ ْؤمن ياب َّّلل فَ َقد‬...﴿
َ ْ ُ َ ‫استَ ْم َس‬
﴾...‫الْ ُوثْ َقى‬
“...Whoever disbelieves in Taghut and believes in Allah, then he has
grasped the most trustworthy handhold that will never break...” 7

7 Al-Baqarah 2:256

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 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

So, we see that these two things need to be present. We see here also
that Allah first mentioned, disbelieving in the Taghut, so rejecting
every single thing that's worshipped other than Allah, or that's given
any rights above what it deserves from the rights of Allah.

Commenting on this verse, many of the scholars have said that when
Allah mentioned this first, it shows that the heart has to be clear of
anything else before Tawhid can actually enter it, because the Muslim
can't have Shirk and Tawhid mixed in his heart and still be considered
a Muslim, so every aspect of Shirk has to be completely gone before
Tawhid can actually take place. So, this is one of the explanations that
the ‘Ulama give as to why Allah first mentioned, disbelieving in the
Taghut and believing in Him secondly.

So, these things the Imam mentioned in this Risalah, he mentioned

two points and each point has four aspects under it. So, we’ll see that
the two points that he mentioned was worshipping Allah and the
second one was staying away from Shirk.

So, for the first one, we can divide it into four parts:

1) Worshipping Allah:
a. Commanding the worship of Allah Alone without any
partners.
b. Encouragement upon this.
c. Allegiance based upon that.
d. Declaring those who leave the Tawhid to be non-Muslim.

So, we don’t accept people to worship other than Allah, in any aspect
and also say, “we’re also Muslims”, because this is something that can’t
be. It negates the whole point of why the Messengers were sent,
because we said many of the people before would worship Allah, but
they would worship other things with Allah. So, this is why we say,

13
 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

we don’t accept anyone to claim Islam and accept their Islam, while
they’re openly committing acts of shirk. It’s not sufficient to have one.

The second one can also be divided into four as well:

2) Staying away from Shirk:

a. Warning against worshipping other than Allah.
This would include ourselves; so us staying away from
it and warning others to stay away from it.
b. Being harsh upon it.
We don’t say “this is okay, as long as he doesn’t do it
lots”, or anything like this; any aspect of shirk is
rejected.
c. Openly showing it.
We don’t just keep it in our heart, if someone tells us
that they do shirk, then we tell them, we don’t accept
this, this is wrong, this is ridiculous. We don’t say that
we’re going to be nice with them and keep it in our
heart. This is something that’s obligatory upon us to
tell the people that we don’t accept it, to tell them they
need to stop it, to call to other than it, because just
keeping it in your heart isn’t from our religion, we’re
ordered to openly declare these aspects.

We can’t have the hatred or the dislike for things that

are wrong in our heart and we don’t openly show it.
Just like if we openly show but we don’t actually have
it in our heart, this is wrong as well, both things have
to be there because this is like we talked about before
a little bit, Islam is something that’s outward and
inward, so both of these things need to be present.
d. Declaring someone who worships besides Allah a Mushrik.
So, if someone comes and they worship other than
Allah, we say that this person can’t be Muslim,

14
 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

because obviously he has negated the most basic

aspect of Islam. So, the idea that as long as someone
says they’re Muslim, no matter what they do, or what
they say, or what they believe, then we say they’re
Muslim, this is something that’s completely false, and
insha’Allah we’ll get into that a little bit more.

So, when talking about this, these two rules that have four sub-sections
each. One of the Ulama’, Abdur-Rahman ibn Hasan, he said: “The
evidence for this from the Qur’an is more than can be counted,” because how
many verses in the Qur’an reject Shirk and, how many verses in the
Qur’an order Tawhid, or order the worship of Allah, or order to have
‘Wilayah’ or love for the Muslimin and hatred, or cutting off ties with
the ones who worship other than Allah. So, if you added all these
verses up, there’s so many that a person would have a very hard time
counting them.

So, insha’Allah now we’ll talk a little bit about each one of these four
aspects of the first rule that he mentions. So, he says the first one is:

1) Commanding the worshipping (directing of every type

of ‘Ibadah) to Allah Alone without any partner:

Allah said,

َّ َّ‫ب تَ َعالَ ْواْ إي َىل َكلي َم ٍة َس َو ٍآء بَْي نَ نَا َوبَْي نَ ُك ْم أَالَّ نَ ْعبُ َد إيال‬
َ‫اّلل‬ ‫﴿قُل أي َْهل الْ يكتَ ي‬
َ ْ
ْ‫اّللي فَيإن تَ َولَّْوا‬
َّ ‫ون‬ ‫ضا أَراباب يمن ُد ي‬
ّ ً َ ْ ً ‫ضنَا بَ ْع‬ ُ ‫َّخ َذ بَ ْع‬‫والَ نُ ْش يرَك بييه َشيئاً والَ ي ت ي‬
َ َ ْ َ
﴾‫فَ ُقولُواْ ا ْش َه ُدواْ يِب ََّّن ُم ْسلي ُمو َن‬

15
 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

“Say: ‘O people of the Scripture: Come to a word that is just between us

and you, that we worship none but Allah the same, and that we associate
no partners with Him, and that none of us shall take others as lords
besides Allah.’ Then, if they turn away, say: ‘Bear witness that we are
Muslims.’” 8

So, we see from this verse that, first of all, we are ordered to call the
people to this. It’s not something that we say “I believe and I’m not
going to push my beliefs on anyone else”, because if we believe this is
true, and we believe Allah has the right to be worshipped, and no one
has the right to be worshipped other than Allah, this is something we
have to openly declare.

Whether it’s to Muslimin who have problems with this, who fall into
acts that contradict this, we should correct them and inform them that
we don’t accept it. Likewise, taking part in other non-Muslim acts that
are worship of other than Allah, or that contain any of these aspects,
they should be openly declared because Allah ordered us here, “Qul ya
Ahl-Kitab”, so the first one is the Prophet (‫)ﷺ‬, and we’re ordered to
follow him in everything that’s not specific to him, and this is
obviously one of the things that isn’t specific to him.

We also see here, that Allah said to call them to this word, that we
don’t that we don't worship anybody except Allah, that we associate
no partners with Him and that none of us shall take others a Lords
besides Allah, so these three things. Then he said, if they turn away
from this, then say, “bear witness that we are Muslimin.” So, if
people don't accept these things, they're not Muslims.

This is clear from the Ayah because Allah wouldn’t tell us to tell them,
do this and if they don’t follow this, tell them, we’re Muslimin at least,

8 Aal `Imran 3:64

16
 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

this is the point of it. So, if someone says “what is your evidence that
someone worships Allah, and they also worship something with Him,
what is your evidence that they’re not Muslim?” We tell them this
verse. Allah told us to tell the people that this (worship of Allah Alone)
is what we're going to agree on, and if you don’t agree then we are the
Muslims, and you’re not Muslimin.

Also, another evidence for this rule is when Allah said,

﴾...ُ‫ك أَالَّ تَ ْعبُ ُدواْ إيالَّ إييَّه‬

َ ُّ‫ضى َرب‬
َ َ‫﴿ َوق‬
“And your Lord has Qada (decreed) that you worship none but Him
...” 9

So, Allah ordered us to worship none but Him, so we worship Him and
no one else.

Allah also said,

‫ين الَْقيّ ُم َولَ يك َّن‬ ‫إي ين ا ْحلكْم إيالَّ َّّللي أَمر أَالَّ تَعب ُدواْ إيالَّ إي ََّّيه ذلي َ ي‬...﴿
ُ ‫ك ال ّد‬ ُ ُْ ََ ُ ُ
﴾‫َّاس الَ يَ ْعلَ ُمو َن‬‫أَ ْكثَ َر الن ي‬
“...The judgement is for none but Allah. He has commanded that you
worship none but Him; that is the straight religion, but most men know
not.” 10

So, we see here that the Din itself is worshipping Allah, and not
worshipping anyone else; so this is the basis of the religion. People
might say the basis of the religion is being a good person, or not eating

9 Al-Isra 17:23
10 Yusuf 12:40

17
 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

pork, or staying away from wine, not performing zina or doing any of
these things. Yes, this is from our religion, but Allah said, “that is the
straight religion”, after He mentioned to worship Allah, and to not
worship anyone else. So, having all these other things is obviously
from the religion, but, if you don’t the thing that defines the religion
itself, then everything else after that is, it doesn’t benefit you in the
end.

Allah (‫ )سبحانه وتعاىل‬also said,

ْ‫ت يمن لَّ ُد ْن َح يكي ٍم َخبي ٍري ۞ أَالَّ تَ ْعبُ ُدوا‬ ‫ي‬
ّ ُ‫ت اٰيٰ تُهُ ُثَّ ف‬
ْ َ‫صل‬
‫﴿الر كيتَاب أ ي‬
ْ ‫ُحك َم‬
ْ
﴾‫اّللَ إين يَّن لَ ُك ْم يّمْنهُ نَ يذير َوبَ يشري‬
َّ َّ‫إيال‬
“Alif Lam Ra. (This is) a Book, the Ayat whereof are perfect (in every
sphere of knowledge), and then explained in detail from One (Allah),
Who is All-Wise Well-Acquainted (with all things). — (Saying)
worship none but Allah. Verily, I (Muhammad) am unto you from Him
a warner and a bringer of glad tidings.” 11

So, Allah (‫ )سبحانه وتعاىل‬is saying here, He’s obviously commanding us to

worship Him and not worship anyone with Him, and He is explaining
that the Prophet (‫ )ﷺ‬is a warner and a bringer of glad-tidings. So, a
warner against the people who worship other than Allah, or don't
worship Him, and giving glad-tidings to the ones who worship Allah
and don't have any partners with Him. We know that, this was also
the call of the all of the Messengers. So, all of the Messengers that
came, we know that Allah said earlier in the verse that we mentioned
that, “We have sent a Messenger in every people to worship Allah and to
avoid the Taghut.”

11 Hud 11:1-2

18
 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

We also know that in many, many verses when Allah would talk about
the da’wah of a specific Messenger, that in his interaction with his
people, he would say, “O my people, worship Allah, you have no other
god or no ilah other than Him.” So, we see here that this is the da’wah
of all of the messengers.

There’s also the hadith that the Prophet (‫ )ﷺ‬said, “The prophets are
children from co-wives.” 12 So, what they say this means is, when the
Prophet (‫ )ﷺ‬is saying this, he’s explaining that the ‘asl of us is all the
same, even though the branches of us, that we come with might be
different. So, we know that if a man has more than one wife, and he has
children from more than one wife, all of them are attributed to the
same father, even though they have different mothers.

There basis, or the thing that they go back to, or the thing that they
came from is all the same, even though some aspects from it differ. So,
even though they have different mothers, we can still say, “so and so,
is the son of so and so,” it’s the same man, and if he has a different
mother, you still say the same thing, they all go back to the same
person.

Likewise, we know that the Anbiya all came with the same message.
The basis of the message was the same, the Akham might have been
different. So, certain things may be obligatory on some people, and not
obligatory on others. We know certain things were obligatory in the
time of ‘Isa (‫ )على آله الصالة والسالم‬with regards to fasting, and with regards
to najasah, and then they were lifted off of us and certain things were
haram before, but made permissible for us like the ‘Ghana’im” or the
spoils of war, or the Prophet (‫ )ﷺ‬said that, “All of the earth was made a

12 Refer: Sahih al-Bukhari 3443 & Sahih Muslim 2365

19
 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

masjid for his Ummah,”13 while before there were only certain places that
the Muslimin could pray.

So, these types of things we see that there was a difference between
the Anbiya with what they came with in these aspects, but in general
they all called to worshipping Allah and staying away from the
Taghut. So, this is something that we need to understand.

Another very important point to understand from this is what many

people call to today in the world, and we even see it in our city,
probably on a monthly basis at least, this whole idea of 'interfaith'
dialogues or even worse than this when they say, ‘the coming together
of Abrahamic faiths.’ What they’re trying to say is that, we all say that
we came from Ibrahim (‫ )على آله الصالة والسالم‬so what's the big difference as
we all accept him as a Prophet, and the Prophets after him, we accept
most of old testaments, and we all accept that Allah sends Books or He
sent Books and he sends Messengers, so we might as well work
together on this and leave the other things we disagree on.

But we see here that what Ibrahim (‫ )على آله الصالة والسالم‬actually came with,
was the opposite of that. It was to worship of Allah and to reject
everything that is worshipped besides Allah, and to reject the people
who worship things besides Allah. So, for people, and it’s a shame for
Muslimin to then use the name of Ibrahim (‫ )على آله الصالة والسالم‬who are
Din is even titled after him, or he’s the one who called you the
Muslimin from before, and Allah (‫ )سبحانه وتعاىل‬said,

﴾...ً‫فَاتَّبيعُواْ يملَّةَ إيبْ َريه َيم َحنييفا‬...﴿

“...Follow the religion of Ibrahim the Hanif (monotheist)...” 14

13 Refer: Sahih Muslim 522

14 Aal `Imran 3:95

20
 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

So, meaning staying away from shirk, or He said when He was talking
about the Millah vi of Ibrahim, he called it the Millah of Ibrahim, this is
what He called our religion. So, for then people to say, these people
they’re Jewish but they accept Ibrahim. But they also reject ‘Isa, and
they also reject Muhammad (‫)ﷺ‬, and they also reject the Qur’an, and
they reject the Injeel. Or these people are Christian, they reject
Muhammad (‫)ﷺ‬, or they reject the Qur’an, and they worship ‘Isa as
Allah, or as Allah’s son, or whatever sect they come from. For then to
state that, this is some sort of tie that we have between other people,
in fact it should be the division we have with other people based upon
Ibrahim (‫)على آله الصالة والسالم‬. So, this is the first point, or the first of the
four points that is mentioned in this Risalah.

2) Encouragement upon this:

So, the second thing, he says the second is, Encouraging people upon
this.

We can see that there’s evidence from this from the Qur’an and from
the Sunnah as well. Allah said,

‫َسلَ َم َو ْج َههُ هلل َو ُه َو ُْحم يسن واتَّبَ َع يملَّةَ إيبْ َريه َيم‬ ‫ي ي‬
ْ ‫َح َس ُن ديناً ِم َّْن أ‬ ْ ‫﴿ َوَم ْن أ‬
﴾ً‫اّللُ إيبْ َريه َيم َخلييال‬
َّ ‫َحنييفاً َو َّاَّتَ َذ‬
“And who can be better in religion than one who submits his face
(himself) to Allah; and he is a Muhsin (a doer of good). And follows

21
 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

the religion of Ibrahim the Hanif (Monotheist). And Allah did take
Ibrahim as a Khalil (an intimate friend)!” 15

So, Allah loved Ibrahim with the highest level that love can be given
to a human being.

And Allah (‫ )سبحانه وتعاىل‬said,

‫يي‬ ‫ي ي‬ ٍ ‫ي ي‬ ‫﴿وع َد َّ ي ي‬
َ ‫ي َوالْ ُم ْؤمنَ ت َجنَّ ت ََْت يري من ََْتت َها األ َْْنَ ُر َخ لد‬
‫ين‬ َ ‫اّللُ الْ ُم ْؤمن‬ ََ
َ ‫اّللي أَ ْك َبُ ذَلي‬
‫ك ُه َو الَْف ْوُز‬ َّ ‫ض َون يّم َن‬ ‫فييها ومس يكن طَيبةً يِف جن ي‬
ْ ‫َّات َع ْد ٍن َوير‬ َ َّ َ َ َ َ َ
﴾‫يم‬ ‫ي‬
ُ ‫الْ َعظ‬
“Allah has promised the believers -- men and women, -- Gardens under
which rivers flow to dwell therein forever, and beautiful mansions in
gardens of `Adn (Eden; Paradise). But the greatest bliss is the good
pleasure of Allah. That is the supreme success.” 16

So, Allah being pleased with us is the greatest success.

And Allah (‫ )سبحانه وتعاىل‬said,

ْ‫احد َولييَ َّذ َّكَر أ ُْولُوا‬

‫َّاس وليين َذرواْ بييه وليي علَمواْ أَََّّنَا هو إيلَه و ي‬
َ َُ
‫ي‬
ُ ْ َ َ ُ ُ َ ‫﴿ َه َذا بَلَغ لّلن ي‬
‫األَلْب ا ي‬
﴾‫ب‬ َ
“This (Qur'an) is a Message for mankind (and a clear proof against
them), in order that they may be warned thereby, and that they may

15 An-Nisa 4:125
16 At-Tawbah 9:72

22
 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

know that He is the only One God and that men of understanding may
take heed.” 17

Allah gives many examples in which encouraging each other and

encouraging ourselves, to worship Allah Alone is something from our
religion. We know that the Prophet (‫ )ﷺ‬in many narrations that he
used to go to the market, and that he would stand up in front of all the
people, and first of all tell them this is something that they should be
doing, and then he would give them encouragement upon it.

So, we know that if success comes from La ilaha illa Allah, and saying
La ilaha illa Allah, and entering Islam and not worshipping anyone
with Allah, and we know that the opposite of success which is failure,
is falling into Shirk. So, this also gives us the way in which we should
judge what is success and what is failure. If someone has lots of money,
this isn’t necessarily a success, if they’re not giving it in the way of
Allah, and if they’re not using it for the betterment of the Muslimin in
order to assist the Muslimin.

Likewise, if they have properly, or if they’re good-looking, or if they

have a large family, or they have these types of things, this isn’t how
we judge success, because we know that saying “La ilaha illa Allah”,
isn’t going to bring these things. So, what does saying “La ilaha illa
Allah”, do which brings us success, it would save us from the Hell-
Fire, and bring us into Jannah. Like Allah said,

﴾...‫يح َع ين النَّا ير َوأ ُْد يخ َل ا ْْلَنَّةَ فَ َق ْد فَ َاز‬

َ ‫فَ َمن ُز ْحز‬...﴿
“...And whoever is moved away from the Fire and admitted to
Paradise, he indeed is successful...” 18

17 Ibrahim 14:52
18 Aal `Imran 3:185

23
 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

If we remember from the dars, from Shaykh Harith last week, when he
talked about the hadith in Sahih Muslim about the story of the boy and
the king, that in the end of that story, we know that all of the people
ended up being killed, all of them because they said “La ilaha illa
Allah”, and because they weren’t worshipping other than Allah. We
even know the story, in the hadith mentions in the end, that the woman
was scared, and her child actually spoke to her, and he was below the
age of speaking, and then Allah mentioned this in the Qur’an as being
a success. Allah said,

َ ‫ َذلي‬...﴿
﴾ُ‫ك الَْف ْوُز الْ َكبيري‬
“...That is the great attainment/supreme success.” 19

َ ‫﴿ذَلي‬. So,
And the only places in the Qur’an where Allah said, ﴾ُ‫ك الْ َف ْوُز الْ َكبيري‬
once in the Qur’an He said, and what did He say it for? He said it a
place where everybody was killed, a whole town that believed in La
ilaha illa Allah, a whole group in this town or in this city was killed,
but despite that, Allah called it a success, He called it ‘Al-Khabeer’, or
that is the biggest success, and this is the only time He actually used
this phrase in the Qur’an. It was for the example where no-one was
left, not one person was left, families, and children, and men, and
women, everyone was gone, but despite that it was a success. So, this
shows us, what’s a success, but it also shows us, what an absolute
failure falling into Shirk is.

Someone worship other than Allah, putting your face down for other
than Allah, what an absolute, disgusting failure that is. Using laws
other than Allah, following a religion then what other than what Allah

19 Al-Buruj 85:11

24
 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

ordered us to do. Seeking help, or making du’a to a person, and all

these things, this is an absolute failure, there’s nothing worse than it.

So this is what we can take, and this hadith, it’s narrated by Imam
Ahmad, the one about where the Prophet (‫ )ﷺ‬would go to the market
and say “O you people, say La ilaha illa Allah, you’ll be successful”, it’s
narrated by Imam Ahmad, and the Prophet (‫ )ﷺ‬saying that is
authentic.
There’s different stories that details what was going on in the market
at the time or different things like that, but in general, the Prophet (‫)ﷺ‬
going and saying this to the people and it being a thing that he used
to do, is an authentic thing. Ibn Hazm authenticated it, and Ibn
Mulakin, and from the mu’assirin or from the contemporary scholars
also accepted it.

Insha’Allah we’ll stop there, and next time we’ll start talking about
‘Wilayah’ based upon Tawhid, then we’ll go into the last one, which is
declaring people who leave Tawhid to be non-Muslim, and not
accepting the Islam of people who leave Tawhid.

And Allah knows best.

— End of Lecture 01 —

25
 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

Lecture 02
‫إن احلمد هلل حنمده ونستعينه ونستغفره ونعوذ ابهلل من شرور انفسنا ومن سيئات أعمالنا‬
‫من يهده هللا فال مضل له ومن يضلل فال هادي له وأشهد أن ال إله اال هللا ال شريك له‬
،‫وأشهد أن حممداً عبده ورسوله‬
Last week we talked about the issues of ‘Aqidah that are included in
that topic. So, when we say we’re going to study ‘Aqidah, or this is a
book about ‘Aqidah, what are the things that might be there and we
talked a little bit about all the things that would be included, and
what’s the most important and what’s the basis of those things and
why we’re starting with that.

So, we said the most basic part of ‘Aqidah is Tawhid, so following

Tawhid and staying away from Shirk and this is why we chose this
small Risalah, it’s very basic and it gives you the most basic aspects of
the ‘Aqidah of the Muslimin and these are aspects that don’t even fall,
if someone contradicts them, they don’t even fall into aspects of Bi’dah,
they actually fall out of the fold of Islam, because the most basic thing,
if someone doesn’t have Tawhid, or they have Shirk then they’re not
Muslim.

So, this isn’t a matter of, to say that this person is not from Ahlus-
Sunnah or this person is a Mubtada’, we’d say that this person has
actually left the fold of Islam and he’s not a Muslim, or he’s a Kafir or
however you want to phrase what this person is, but the fact of the
matter is that they’re not Muslim.

So, this is why we started with this and last week brother Jamal read
it for us, and we see that it’s two aspects, so the first is thing that
must be done by the Muslim, so that he must have Tawhid, act upon
Tawhid and he must encourage upon that, and he must have his

26
 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

Wilayah for it, or forming his allegiances are based upon Tawhid and
that the fourth is that he declares to be a disbeliever the people who
don’t have Tawhid.

The second aspect was the opposite of that, so staying away from
Shirk and encouraging or warning people against that, or having
Bara’ah and disavowment from the people who fall into shirk, and then
the fourth part is declaring the people who do it, to be non-Muslim,
and be kuffar. The Imam who wrote this, he mentioned the evidence
for all of these, when Allah said,

‫اّلل و ي‬ ‫ي‬ ٍ
ْ َ ََّ ْ‫﴿ َولََق ْد بَ َعثْنَا يِف ُك يّل أ َُّمة َّر ُسوالً أَن ْاعبُ ُدوا‬
َ ُ‫اجتَنبُواْ الْطَّاغ‬
﴾... ‫وت‬
“And We have indeed sent a Messenger to every Ummah (community,
nation) (saying): ‘Worship Allah (Alone), and avoid the Taghut (all
false deities).’...” 20

We talked last week about what is the Taghut, and the Taghut is
anything that’s worshipped other than Allah and is pleased with it, or
followed other than Allah, in a way that would only be befitting for
Allah to be followed or the commands of Allah to be followed or the
commands of the Messenger ( ‫ )ﷺ‬to be followed, or that they’re obeyed
in a way that’s at that level.

And we talked about that, and we talked about what is Islam, and that
Islam is something that’s inward and outward, and someone isn’t
Muslim if they only believe in their heart, and also they wouldn’t be
Muslim if they perform all their actions on the outward with their
body and their tongue, but they don’t believe in it in their heart, this
would be the Munafiqin.

20 An-Nahl 16:36

27
 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

We also talked about the people who believed in the inside and don’t
follow it on the outside, this is similar to Quraysh in the time of the
Prophet (‫)ﷺ‬, and also like Fir’awn and his people, and we talked about
some of the evidences for this as well.

So, insha’Allah this week we’ll go onto the third point from the first
half of the Risalah which is Wilayah, or making allegiance or it’s
translated here as having friendship based upon this, based upon
Tawhid, so this is what insha’Allah we’ll talk about today, and
depending on how much time we have, we’ll maybe get on the fourth
point, which is declaring to be a Kafir, someone who doesn’t follow
Tawhid.

3) Making friendship for its sake or Allegiance based upon

that:

So, the third point is making Wilayah for its sake or having allegiance
for the sake of Tawhid, and the evidence for this is when Allah said,

ٍ ‫ض ُه ْم أ َْولييَآءُ بَ ْع‬
﴾...‫ض‬ ‫﴿والْم ْؤيمنُو َن والْم ْؤيمنَ ي‬
ُ ‫ت بَ ْع‬ ُ َ ُ َ
“The believers, men and women, are supporters of one another; ...” 21

And Allah also said,

﴾‫اّللَ لَ َعلَّ ُك ْم تُ ْر َمحُو َن‬

َّ ْ‫َخ َويْ ُك ْم َواتَّ ُقوا‬ ‫﴿إيََّّنَا الْم ْؤيمنُو َن إيخوة فَأ ي‬
َ‫يأ‬َْ َ‫حواْ ب‬
ُ ‫َصل‬
ْ َْ ُ
“The believers are but a brotherhood. So make reconciliation between
your brothers, and have Taqwa of Allah that you may receive mercy.”22vii

21 At-Tawbah 9:71
22 Al-Hujurat 49:10

28
 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

So, here, Allah called the believers to be brothers, so He specified

specific people that they’re brothers, so He mentioned that it’s the
believers. So, this is a refutation, or rejection or declaration that
anything that is stated to be a brotherhood other than Iman, is
something that's false. So, people who state that brotherhood is based
upon humanity, or brotherhood is based upon nationality, race,
language or anything like this, we know that based upon this verse, all
these things are completely rejected.

If someone has this tie with you, regardless if they have no other ties
with you, then it doesn't really matter. If they have the tie of Iman
with you, then everything else is irrelevant at that point. We don’t
say that someone who is a believer is your brother because he’s a
believer, but the one’s who speak your language are a little bit more of
your brothers, or the one with the same skin colour or from the same
nationality or anything like this, that they have some sort of higher
status than anyone else, and likewise the opposite.

So, if we say that someone isn’t your brother, or you have no tie with
him because he’s a disbeliever. Then, we don’t say “they’re all
disbelievers but the Arabi ones aren’t as bad”, or the ones from Lebnan
aren’t as bad, or the ones from Filistin aren’t as bad, or the ones
fighting the Yahud aren’t as bad. None of these things in and of
themselves have a tie to what your allegiance is with the Muslimin.

Yes there are disbelievers who are worse than others, that’s a separate
issue, but that would be coming back to again the Islamic ties. So, if
they haven’t contradicted Islam as much as the others, so that’s why
they wouldn’t be as far, or you might say they’re not as bad as someone
else, or that type of thing, but as far as the language, and the
nationality, and the land and all these things, they have absolutely no
bearing on what tie or what love or what allegiance you have with
these people. So, this can all be taken when Allah said,

29
 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

ٍ ‫ض ُه ْم أ َْولييَآءُ بَ ْع‬
﴾...‫ض‬ ‫﴿والْم ْؤيمنُو َن والْم ْؤيمنَ ي‬
ُ ‫ت بَ ْع‬ ُ َ ُ َ
“The believers, men and women, are supporters of one another; ...” 23

So, He specified the believers for this.

Another point to talk about with this is what are the believers in this
verse? The believers in this verse are obviously the Muslimin. Some
people will try to say that the believers are anyone who believes in
anything, but this is obviously false because Allah revealed this verse
to the Prophet (‫ )ﷺ‬who was calling the Muslimin to Tawhid and
fighting against or calling against the Shirk, which Quraysh had
believed in, and they believed in Allah, and they believed that Allah
was presented that He created everything, and they actually
worshipped Him too. They had their own form of Salat they used to
perform, they used to give Sadaqah, they used to perform Hajj in their
own way, all of these things.

So, obviously we wouldn’t understand from this like some people claim
nowadays that what’s meant by it is anyone who believes in Allah, and
just like that. Yes, you always have to believe in Allah, but you believe
in Allah the correct way that makes you a Muslim, and you perform
the actions that keep you in Islam, and you don’t perform anything
that takes you out of Islam.

So, this is what’s meant by the verse, and insha’Allah we’ll get a lot
more into that when we talk specifically about which things are Shirk,
and which things are a condition for someone to be Muslim, and what
actions and that’s a whole other discussion, but for now we’re just

23 At-Tawbah 9:71

30
 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

talking about the general foundation of Muslimin and kuffar, or Islam

and kufr and the Wilayah and the allegiance that’s based upon this.
And Allah said,

‫يي‬ ‫يي‬ ‫ي‬

‫ت‬
َ ‫ي قُلُوهب ْم لَ ْو أَن َف ْق‬ َْ َ‫ف ب‬ َ َّ‫ي ۞ َوأَل‬ ْ َ‫ ُه َو الَّذى أَيَّ َد َك بين‬...﴿
َ ‫ص يرهي َويابلْ ُم ْؤمن‬
‫ف بَْي نَ ُه ْم إينَّهُ َع يزيز‬ َّ ‫ي قُلُوهبيي ْم َولَ يك َّن‬
َ َّ‫اّللَ أَل‬ َْ َ‫ت ب‬
‫ما يِف االٌّر ي ي‬
َ ‫ض ََجيعاً َّمآ أَلَّْف‬ ْ َ
﴾‫َح يكيم‬
“... He it is Who has supported you with His help and with the believers
— And He has united their (believers’) hearts. If you had spent all that
is in the earth, you could not have united their hearts, but Allah has
united them. Certainly He is All-Mighty, All-Wise.” 24

Here, Allah was talking about Al-Aws and Al-Khazraj, these were two
tribes who in jahiliyah were from the greatest of enemies, despite the
fact they were from the same place. And when Allah joined between
their hearts with the sending of the Prophet (‫ )ﷺ‬and it wasn’t from the
fact that they were from the same place of Yathrib or they were both
Arab, they both spoke Arabi, or they were both from the Arabian
Peninsula. None of this mattered before Islam and Allah united them
through sending the Prophet to them and that they were united upon
Islam.

So, we see here that He didn’t say that, it was never mentioned “you’re
from the same town or you speak the same language, why are you
fighting”, or anything like this. When Islam came to them, this was
the thing that united them and the other stuff was already present but
it didn’t help, and this is what we can see from this verse that their
Wilayah, or their understanding, they put away all of their enmity and

24 Al-Anfal 8:62-63

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 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

hatred and fighting and everything that went before solely for the sake
of Islam, which is something that should be done nowadays.

If you have a good relationship with them before, but then they leave
Islam or then they start insulting Islam, then all these other things
shouldn’t matter that was done before, and likewise the opposite, if you
have someone who you fought with and you had no relationship with,
and they used to steal from you and then they become Muslim, all
those stuff, as much as humanely possible should be thrown away.
There might remain some stuff in your heart you find difficult to get
rid of, but technically it shouldn't matter and we should strive as much
as possible, because if we look at how the Sahabah were with each other
when Islam came, this is how they dealt with these matters.

And Allah also said,

‫اّللي َي‬
﴾...ْ‫َجيعاً َوالَ تَ َف َّرقُوا‬ َّ ‫ص ُمواْ يِبَْب يل‬
‫﴿و ْاعتَ ي‬
َ
“And hold fast, all of you together, to the Rope of Allahviii, and be not
divided among yourselves, ...” 25

Many people say, ‘we shouldn't fall into division’, ‘dispute things’ or
‘Muslimin shouldn’t dispute’ or ‘we shouldn’t argue with each other’
or you don’t want to say something to somebody that’s going to make
them mad if you’re trying to tell them about something good and stop
something bad, and very often they’ll refer to the issue of unity and
say that ‘we’re supposed to be united and we’re not supposed to have
any division.’

Yes this is right but what did Allah tell us to be united upon, all of us
to be upon the rope of Allah, and what is the rope of Allah? Depending
on the Tafsir that you look at, it could be many different things. It can

25 Aal `Imran 3:103

32
 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

be the Qur’an, it can be Islam, it can be the Sunnah, it can be the

Prophet (‫ )ﷺ‬it can be many different things, but the point of it is that
this unity should be upon the Qur’an and the Sunnah.

So, if someone comes and says you telling someone not to do this,
you’re making a problem, and you’re making division. This is division
that’s accepted in Islam, and it’s a division that should be done as we're
supposed to be bringing people back to the rope of Allah. So, if you’re
not following, if you’re not holding onto the rope of Allah then you’ve
already fallen into division. This is the most basic division or the most
basic dispute to go away from the rope of Allah or the Sunnah of the
Prophet (‫)ﷺ‬.

This idea that division should be fought against regardless of what the
division is for or that unity is something that should be sought after
regardless of what we’re given up for this unity, this is something
that's completely false. So, when Allah ordered us to be united upon
the rope of Allah, holding onto the rope of Allah is what should be the
thing that unites us. It shouldn’t be that we’re united and that’s us
being upon the rope of Allah, it’s actually the opposite. So, if everyone
held onto the rope of Allah, then they would be united upon this.

If someone is still in the fold of Islam, but has fallen into acts of Bid’ah
and they've contradicted the Sunnah, then we would give them our
allegiance based upon how much their obedience is to Allah and their
following of the Sunnah. So, someone who followed everything would
have complete allegiance and someone who had less, he would have a
little bit less of this wilayah, just like our love for a Muslim. The more
someone follows the Sunnah, the more love we have for them.

When someone is Muslim, then we give them the basic Wilayah of

that they’re Muslim, and then after that depending on how far they
follow the Sunnah, that would be how far we go after that with our

33
 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

Wilayah and our love for them. Anyone who says they're Muslim and
you don't openly see something that they do that takes them out of
Islam, and you don't know if it's been clarified to them, then you would
treat them as a Muslim. Insha’Allah we’ll get further into it, but for
now I guess the basic rule, someone who claims Islam and you don’t
have a clear evidence that they’ve left Islam, then you treat them as a
Muslim and we’ll leave it at that for now.

And also Allah said,

﴾...‫ َوتَ َع َاونُواْ َعلَى الْ يبّ َوالتَّ ْق َوى َوالَ تَ َع َاونُواْ َعلَى ا يإل ْيث َوالْعُ ْد َو يان‬...﴿
“...Help you one another in Al-Birr (the righteousness) and At-Taqwa
(the piety), but do not help one another in sin and transgression. And
have Taqwa of Allah...” 26

Here we see that Allah ordered us to work together for these things
and what is the greatest act of Birr (righteousness), it’s Tawhid. The
greatest act that someone can do that’s pleasing to Allah and that He
commanded us to do is acts of Tawhid, and the greatest acts of
transgression are acts of Shirk.

So, we see here that Allah is ordering us to deal with each other and
help each other with something wasn’t based upon anything except for
the acts itself and that the acts that the person is doing is what we help
them with, or do we work with this person in something or not, it’s
based upon whether what they’re doing is good or whether what
they’re doing is bad. It has nothing to do with their familial relations
to you or their nationality or anything like this, it all comes back to
their actions that they're committing.

26 Al-Ma`idah 5:2

34
 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

This doesn't mean that we wouldn’t be good to our family if they're

not Muslim, this is a separate issue, but the point of it is, when we're
good to our family who isn't Muslim, the point of it is or the reason
why we’re doing it is because Islam has told us to do it and because we
want them to become Muslim and it has nothing to do with, in and of
itself, we’re doing these things just because they’re our family, it’s
because Allah has ordered us to do these things and to treat them well
and to make da’wah to them, and not to obey them in something that’s
disobedience to Allah, and to obey them in things that aren’t in
disobedience to Allah and so on. So, we see here that this is another
verse that can be used to show that what is the tie or what is the
relationship between people; that it’s based upon their actions; whether
their actions are good or evil.

With regards to some other things that’s important to mention, when

Allah spoke in the Qur’an and he spoke about the earlier nations who
before the Prophet (‫)ﷺ‬, so the nation of ‘Isa, and the nation of Musa
and other nations. He spoke about these people and what they did, and
their Iman, and their good deeds and the trials that they faced in
calling the people to Islam. Despite that these people were divided by
their lands, so some people were in Sham, some people were in Iraq,
and some people in Egypt and some people we might not know exactly
where they were from.

We also know that there were Prophets and Messengers that weren't
mentioned in the Qur’an that we don’t know what lands they were in.
But we know that every nation had received a Messenger, either
directly or that their message stayed within the people for the people
after them to receive it. After Allah talked about these people and the
trials and stories, He said,

‫اعب ُد ي‬ ‫ي‬ ‫يي‬

﴾‫ون‬ ُ ْ َ‫﴿إي َّن َه ذه أ َُّمتُ ُك ْم أ َُّمةً َواح َدةً َوأَ َّنْ َربُّ ُك ْم ف‬

35
 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

“Truly, this, your Ummah is one, and I am your Lord, therefore

worship Me.” 27

So, here we see that despite these people not being in the same time,
and they weren’t from the same place and we know for a fact they were
speaking different languages, Allah called them “One Ummah”, so
what greater thing can we say that when we see that they were divided
by centuries and sometimes maybe even a millennium, and they were
divided by oceans or seas and rivers and all these stuff, and Allah called
them one Ummah, but the people who they were calling to Islam, they
were considered their enemies. And they were considered the people,
who Allah told them to call to Islam, because they weren’t Muslim, or
in certain aspects they were to fight them, and certain aspects they
were ordered to flee from them, either leaving their lands or whatever
the case may be, and Allah punished them once the Muslimin left.

So, we see here that despite living in the same area, speaking the same
language, having ties, we know even Nuh (‫ )عليه السالم‬and Lut (‫)عليه السالم‬,
their wives who lived in their houses actually married to them, they
weren’t even from the same Ummah, technically , maybe linguistically
you might say that they were both from, they spoke this language or
they were this nationality or whatever you want to call it but in the
end, these things didn’t benefit them. Allah called us that they're from
our Ummah and we're from their Ummah. So, we see that we are closer
to Nuh (‫ )عليه السالم‬then we are to our cousins who aren’t Muslim, despite
the fact we never met him or, we don’t specifically know where he was,
where he died anything like this.

We see also, there’s a story in which the Companions were out

fighting, or they were in a battle, and there’s a hadith from Jabir ibn
Abdillah that he said: We were out in a battle and a man from the

27 Al-Anbiya 21:92

36
 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

Muhajirin hit a man from the Ansar, so the Ansari said, “O Ansar, gather
around.” The Muhajirin said “O Muhajirin, gather around.”

Allah let his Messenger (‫ )ﷺ‬hear it, meaning he wasn't close but Allah
let him hear it. So, he came out and said what is going on. They said a
man from the Muhajirin hit a man from the Ansar and both parties
told their own to gather around. The Prophet (‫ )ﷺ‬said “Abandon this
because it’s something that’s putrid.”28 Or similar to when there’s a
dead body, when something’s rotten and disgusting, when the Prophet
(‫ )ﷺ‬heard this, he said to abandon this because it’s putrid, or it’s filthy.

We know that the word ‘Muhajirin’, where did it come from? It’s from
Allah, He calld the Muhajirin the Muhajirin so this is a Shar’i title that
came from Allah and he gave specific rewards for the Muhajirin. Even
from the ‘Aqidah of Ahlus-Sunnah, the Muhajirin have a place that's
special. We even say when it comes to who’s best Abu Bakr, then
‘Umar, then ‘Uthman, then ‘Ali, and then they say, the ten who are
given glad-tidings for the Jannah and the people who were from the
Muhajirin were better than the Ansar, and the people who entered
Islam before the Fath of Makkah were better than the ones who
entered in Islam after the Fath of Makkah.

We see from all this that this term Muhajirin had a specific place in
Islam, and the term Ansar had a specific place in Islam, and it's
mentioned in the Qur’an, it came from above the seven heavens, or
seven skies that Allah revealed His verse, but despite this, when it
came to having some sort of division, that the Muharijin comes to help
the person who’s a Muhajir and the Ansar comes to help the person
who’s from the Ansar, the Prophet (‫ )ﷺ‬called this is something that’s
‘putrid or filthy, or disgusting’ because it had this division.

28 Sahih al-Bukhari

37
 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

Then what would we say about something that didn't come from Allah,
and didn’t come from the Prophet (‫ )ﷺ‬in the Sunnah, it came from
some guy who started a town, and another guy started another town
and now they hate each other, because this guy started another town,
something like that. Or the British came, and they divided up our land,
so the guy who’s on the other side of the river, I hate him because he’s
on the other side of the river, and the Filistinians hate the Jordanians
and the Jordanians hate the Filistinians and the Saudis hate the
Lebnani’s and this and that, and Pakistani’s hate Indians and on and
on.

Who did this? First of all, it’s not from the Shar’a, it’s done after that,
there should be no discussion about it, but not only that, it didn't even
come from Muslimin, but then people started making their Wilayah
based upon these things, and they’ll love the Muslim who's from this
country more than they’ll love the Muslim who’s from another country
and they will hate the Kafir who's from my country less than they hate
the kafir from the other country. Sometimes, you’ll even see that it’s
disgusting that they’ll love the Kafir from my country, more than
they’ll love the Muslim from the other country.

So, they start making these ties based upon, it’s something that’s not
only that’s baseless, the division in and of itself, the asl (root) of it or
the basis of it is something disgusting, that Kuffar took over Muslim
lands and they started dividing it up, and now all of a sudden people
are following these things.

Or, you’ll see that many Muslimin will come to this country and they’ll
start loving kuffar who are Canadians, because I got my citizenship
now, and now I’m a Canadian and we’re all Canadians. You weren’t
even born here, you start seeing these ties and you think how can
who’s read the Qur’an even think like this, but then you see that it’s
like that, and these people they’ll start giving lessons, and running
masajid and this and that and it makes you sick, and you can’t do

38
 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

anything about it and you complain to Allah only because it gets to

the point where you think, these people are so far gone, there’s nothing
else to do. I’m sure especially in the last month or two, I know for a
fact have felt that way about certain issues and that, Allahul Musta’an,
you don’t know what to say about it.

This is just a little bit to talk about the issue of Wilayah, and where
does Wilayah come from, and what is Wilayah based upon, and what
it shouldn't be based upon, and insha’Allah we’ll get more into it when
we get into other topics about what’s the ruling on different types of
Wilayah, and is this considered actually allegiance or not, and is this
considered something that’s allowed with a non-Muslim or not, and
that will come later on insha’Allah if you can be patient, but this is just
kind of laying the ground work, to understand what are the ties based
upon, and why are they based upon that, and what they shouldn’t be
based upon and why they shouldn’t be based upon that. So, that’s the
third point and we can move onto the fourth.

4) And making Takfir of whosoever leaves it or Declaring

those who leave the Tawhid to be non-Muslim:

So, the fourth, and this one will be a little bit shorter. The fourth
thing that is mentioned here is making Takfir or declaring to be
non-Muslim, the people who leave Tawhid. So, just the first, you
know something to talk about before getting into this topic, is the idea
of or the phrase here used is Takfir, and this is something which people
probably hear very often and it creates something in their heart, or
they feel uncomfortable when they hear it.

This is a product of many factors that have come about and things that
have gone on in the Ummah in the last 60 years, and the way that this
phrase is used by certain groups to scare people away from certain
aspects of Tawhid, because in and of itself, what does Takfir mean? It

39
 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

means saying someone isn't a Muslim, that’s all takfir means. So, from
this, we can see that it’s not a good word nor it’s a bad word.

If someone comes up and says “I'm Jewish”, then you say he's not a
Muslim, that's Takfir. No one would say you’re crazy to say that,
everyone would accept that. If you see a priest and he’s not Muslim,
this is takfir. So, in and of itself this word isn’t something good and it’s
not something bad, it’s just the calling someone non-Muslim.

At the same time, if someone walks in here and sees a row of Muslimin
praying and he says these people are all kuffar, this is also takfir. No
one would say that, that’s something acceptable either, calling a
Muslim, who’s confirmed as being Muslim, calling him a Kafir, it’s a
sinful thing and it’s a very grave matter to do. At the same time, not
calling Kuffar, Kuffar is also something that's a very grave thing. So,
if you see a Kafir and you say it’s okay we can call him a Muslim, or
he’ll enter Jannah. So, on the other side, there’s just as dangerous
things that come from the opposite aspect of this issue of Takfir.

Just be careful when you hear that word that it's not being used in a
way that's just a means to scare you away from certain aspects of
Tawhid. Obviously, if someone doesn’t do anything which takes them
out of Islam, we can’t call him a Kafir, and it would be haram upon us
to do that, and we have to give him his rights of Islam and all this. But
at the same time, you’ll find people who say if you call a Jew or
Christian or someone who’s Druzi or someone who’s a Rafidi and you
say this guy’s not Muslim, they’ll freak out and say he’s making Takfir.
But what else am I going to do, I’m not going to call him a Muslim
because he’s obviously not a Muslim, he’s worshipping ‘Ali, he’s
making Tawaf on graves and he doesn’t even call himself a Muslim to
begin with, how am I not going to call him a Kafir or how am I going
to call him a Muslim.

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 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

So, don’t let that fear that people will try to use that word to push you
away from aspects of Tawhid, but also don’t fall into the other side of
taking people who are Muslim, out of Islam. So, insha’Allah by
learning what is actually Islam and what is actually Kufr and Shirk,
this is the best defence from falling into these aspects.

So, you don't let your emotions take over, you look what does the
Qur’an and Sunnah say, these are Muslims, I’ll obviously give them
the rights of Islam and treat them as Muslimin and these aren’t
Muslims, I’m not going to call them Muslimin, and I’m going to call
them what they are, which is disbelievers. So, the best defence isn’t to
let your emotions take over, or your fear, or zeal to follow Islam that
it starts making you call people who are maybe sinners to leave Islam.

So, insha’Allah that’s just kind of an introduction or some points I

wanted to mention before because there is this tendency when that
word is mentioned, everyone starts to run away but insha’Allah you’ll
see that it shouldn’t be looked at that way.

Allah says,

﴾‫﴿قُ ْل أيَيُّ َها الْ َك يف ُرو َن‬

“Say: ‘O disbelievers!’” 29

Allah told the Prophet (‫ )ﷺ‬to say ‘O you disbelievers’. So, Allah told
the Prophet (‫ )ﷺ‬to call them disbelievers, and they were Quraysh.
Calling someone a non-Muslim isn’t a problem as long as they’re a
non-Muslim. If they’re a Muslim, it's an issue.

Allah says:

29 Qul ya Ayyuhal-Kafirun 109:1

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 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

َ ‫َّع بي ُك ْف يرَك قَلييالً إين‬

‫َّك يم ْن‬ ‫يي‬ ‫وجعل يَّّللي أ َ ي ي‬...﴿
ْ ‫َنداداً لّيُض َّل َعن َسبييله قُ ْل ََتَت‬ َ ََ َ
‫َص َح ي‬
﴾‫ب النَّا ير‬ ْ‫أ‬
“...and he sets up rivals to Allah, in order to mislead others from His
path. Say: ‘Take pleasure in your disbelief for a while, surely, you are
(one) of the dwellers of the Fire!’” 30

Here we see that Allah declared non-Muslims to be non-Muslims or

Kuffar and He declared acts of Kufr to be acts of Kufr, so there's no
danger in calling something what it is, if something is this, there’s no
problem in calling the thing that, all you’re doing is stating something
that’s part of reality.

Allah said: “Say: O you disbelievers” , Allah told us to address them in

that way. This is something I actually heard people say and I saw
someone get in an argument one time with someone that he said
something about some people, and he said they’re kuffar, and this guy
freaked out, he said you can’t call them kuffar and he said well they’re
not Muslim, and he said “they’re not Muslim, but there’s a difference
between saying you’re not Muslim and saying you’re a Kafir”, and you
think where are you getting this stuff.

There’s only two options, you’re either a Muslim or a Kafir,

there’s no third. Even Munafiqin, technically they’re kuffar, and
fussaq, technically they’re Muslim, so all these other categories
fall under these two categories.

If something is an act of Kuffar, we should call it an act of Kufr, we

shouldn’t dance around the issue and say maybe it’s not like that or

30 Az-Zumar 39:8

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what do you say that, if it’s Kufr it’s Kufr, people need to know that. If
someone’s not Muslim, last week we talked about this idea about
bringing together the Abrahamic faiths, and we talked a little bit about
Ibrahim was the first one to call us Muslims, and now we’re trying to
bring people who he argued against or he argued against their
concepts of Shirk, and now we’re trying to bring them and say we’re
all from the same person, so we’re all good.

Like, this idea that, they’re Jews and they believe in Ibrahim in their
own way, which is not the correct belief because if it was they would’ve
entered Islam, same thing with the Christians, then by not openly
saying this stuff, we’re not doing us ourselves any good, because we’re
not openly declaring our Islam, and we’re not openly declaring
something that’s wrong to be wrong, and we’re also not doing them
any favours either. If we’re really concerned about making Da’wah to
people, why are we telling them, we’re all from the same thing and it’s
all good, we’ll have meetings together, then they’re going to say, “If
we’re so alike, why would we change then, why don’t you come to us
then or why don’t we stay how we are because the state that we’re in
now really isn’t that big of a deal.”

So, we’re not even doing them any favours, so this idea that it’s for
da’wah, it’s not for da’wah at all, if it was for da’wah, you don’t go to
someone and say you want them to stop doing something, so you tell
them that it’s good, no-one would ever say that. You want your kid to
stop doing something, you don’t go good job keep doing that, you say
don’t do that, this is wrong to do, stop doing it. Same thing with
da’wah, you say we’re Muslimin, we believe you’re on batil and here’s
why, and depending on who it is, you would go to them in a different
manner. If it’s someone who’s very academic, you might deal with
them in an academic way.

In the end, the idea that not bringing up anything, it’s going to make
them mad then they’re going to run away, so in the end they still didn’t

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enter Islam. You clarify what’s correct in the religion but point out the
wrong too, what’s the point of just saying “We believe God created
earth too”, and in the end what did you do for them.

These are the types of things we’ll get into more when we talk about
specific acts, but these are some of the ridiculous things you might see
and hear through your daily life when you deal with Muslims in the
masajid, especially ones who for whatever reasons are trying to do
good and have good intentions, but they really just don’t have
knowledge behind what they’re doing, so they’re trying to do good,
and may Allah guide them towards the right way to do this good, but
they haven’t really come up with enough knowledge with what they’re
doing. So, they’re kind of doing themselves a mis-service and everyone
else who they’re trying to help.

The last thing just on this point, the last Verse is that, we can say that
Allah said:

َّ َّ‫فَ َما َذا بَ ْع َد ا ْحلَ يّق إيال‬...﴿

﴾...‫الضالَ ُل‬
“...So after the truth, what else can there be, save error (or except
falsehood)...” 31

So, we know that anything that’s not the truth is falsehood, so Allah
defined things, they’re either true or they’re false. So, if we want to say
that something isn’t wrong, then we’re saying it’s the truth. If there’s
only two categories and you’re saying it’s not from this category, then
you’re putting them in the other category, and there’s no getting away
from that. So, we can understand from this that there's either
Muslim or there’s a Non-Muslim; there’s nothing in between,
there’s either truth or falsehood, or there’s either Haqq or Batil.

31 Yunus 10:32

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So, there’s no third category, so this idea that we won’t say that he’s
a Muslim, but we won’t also call him a kafir, we’ll say he’s not Muslim.
You’re putting him into one of these categories either way.

Someone might say yes we don’t say that they’re right but what is the
point in saying they're not Muslim, what do we get out of that?

Sure, if I say that if someone worships ‘Ali, or they worship one of the
Imams of the Rafidah, or he says that there’s a Prophet after the
Prophet (‫)ﷺ‬, or he says there’s a book after the Qur’an, if he does any
of these things, yes it’s Kufr, but what is the point of me calling him a
Kafir. What do I get out of that. Or I say that the actions kufr, but him
I’m not going to talk about him, I’m not going to say anything about
him and it’s just left up to Allah.

This is an issue that has been talked about from the time of the Salaf,
and what they call this issue is ‘not declaring someone who's clearly a
disbeliever to be a disbeliever, makes that person a disbeliever.’ So,
what does this mean?

If someone walks in here now, and he does something that’s clear Kufr,
like we talked about last week, he puts a statue in front of the rows so
everyone’s going to worship it, or he stands up and he swears at Allah,
and throws the Qur’an on the ground, any of these types of things. If
someone came now and said this is an act of Kufr, but I’m not going to
call him a Kafir, that’s not allowed and I can’t say anything like that.

The scholars from the time of Salaf, would say that, if you won't call
him a Kafir, then you yourself are a Kafir. And what they mean by that
is because this person has done something and they’ve left Islam, if
you’re not going to declare that he’s actually left Islam, and you’re
going to continue to call him a Muslim, then you’re saying that
someone can be a Muslim and still do these acts.

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So, this is what they mean by it, so essentially, you’re rejecting part of
the Qur’an is what they say, because if Allah said to be a Muslim you
need to do this, or the Prophet (‫ )ﷺ‬made something obligatory upon
you to be Muslim, and someone won’t do that, and you’ll say he’s still
a Muslim. You’re saying I’m not accepting this verse, or I’m not
accepting this hadith.

This is part of our Din, knowing what’s truth and falsehood, telling
people what’s truth and what’s falsehood, telling people if they’re on
the truth or not, when we know that they’re not on the truth, declaring
something “you’re no longer a Muslim”, telling that to them so they
know, telling that to them so other people see that I can’t act like this
and still be a Muslim.

All these things, this is the reason why. If anyone walked in and did
whatever they want, and no one ever said anything. Just imagine some
guy now, he put a statue, this is a very clear example, and nobody ever
said anything and they said he’s still a Muslim, or some other guy
walked in and said I guess you can still do these stuff and still be
Muslim, and there’s no problem with it.

The point of it is to show those people what they are, hopefully that
they’ll turn away from it, show other people what they are so they
don’t fall into it, and even in the end to keep your Islam clear to
yourself that this is something we reject and something that we’ll
never accept as Muslimin. So, those are the benefits of it.

This is a matter that there’s a consensus upon, and we talked with

those who were in the Fiqh lesson, Ijma’ as we know is a hujjah, so if
the Ummah or the scholars of the Ummah agrees on something, then
we know that it’s something that’s correct, and we know that it’s a
Hujjah, and we know that it has to be followed. So, this idea that taking
something, or finding someone who’s not Muslim and saying he’s not
Muslim, that that’s obligatory on us and to clarify, if someone is known

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to us to be not Muslim, we can’t call him Muslim and the opposite as

well, this is a matter where there’s a consensus upon.

This rule is from the time of the Salaf, one of the quotes that we can
mention is al-Qadi Iyadh who was from the major scholars of the
Maliki madhab, that he talked about some issues that there’s Ijma’ that
it’s Kufr, so worshipping someone other than Allah, and so on, he
talked about some of these issues and he said, “And due to this, we
declare to be a Kafir anyone who follows a religion other than the
Millah of the Muslimin, or he withholds regarding them, meaning
he won’t declare people who don’t follow Islam, he won’t call
them Kuffar, or he doubts about it, or he declares their Madhab
to be correct.”

So, we see here that he considers that, if you say that their Madhab or
their Din is correct, or if you doubt whether it’s correct or not, or if
you just withhold calling it wrong, that these are all the same. And he
said, “Even if he openly declares Islam and believes in it”. So, if he
prays, and pays Zakat, and he says La ilaha illa Allah, and he actually
believes in it, even saying these things, if you believe in Islam, and you
show Islam, and practice it but you say Christianity is correct, or you
won’t say that it’s wrong, then he says, “this person is a Kafir, due to
what he displays that contradicts it.”

So, he showed something that contradicts Islam, which means that

Islam from the condition, of correct Islam or if you know what Islam
is correctly, then you’ll say that everything other than Islam is Batil.
So, when you say, yes I believe in Islam and follow it, but I’m not going
to call the other thing Batil, then they say that you’ve done something
that clearly contradicts what you said, and you’re not Muslim. And
this is a matter of Ijma’.

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Sulayman ibn ‘Abdillah ibn Muhammad ibn ‘Abdil-Wahhab (‫)رمحه هللا‬, he

said: “If he doubts the Kufr or their kufr, or he’s ignorant of it, you clarify it
to him the evidence from the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of the Messenger
(‫ )ﷺ‬concerning their Kufr, then if he doubts after that or he hesitates, then he
is a disbeliever or a Kafir according to the consensus or the Ijma’ of the
`Ulama, that whoever doubts the Kufr of the Kuffar, he himself is a Kafir.”

So, if someone doubts that the Christians are kuffar, then this person
himself with a doubt, he’s also a disbeliever, and what does that go
back to? If you know Islam is correct, and you know that Christianity
contradicts Islam, from its basis with Shirk and rejection of the
Prophet (‫ )ﷺ‬and all of the other aspects of Kufr of it, but then you
won’t call it Kufr, or you say I’m not sure if it’s wrong or not, or
whether this is Kufr or not, this shows that you weren’t sure of Islam,
meaning there’s something missing there which means that you’re not
Muslim. So, this is the point he’s saying, and we see here that he
mentioned that this is a matter of consensus, or a matter of Ijma’.

Some people may say that this is something that people nowadays say,
or this is only from the time of Muhammad ibn Abdul-Wahhab or
they’ll say it was only from the time of Ibn Taymiyyah. So, some of
them will go this far back and say these things. But we see that even
Muhammad ibn Sahnun who was from the major Imams of the
Malikiyah, and he died in the beginning of the 3rd century, so this was
very early on, he mentioned that there’s Ijma’ that whoever says that
the Qur’an is created, or whoever says that one of the Attributes of
Allah is a creation, then he is a disbeliever, and whoever doubts in his
disbelief, he’s also a disbeliever.

The point is not about the creation of the Qur’an, we’ll get into that,
but the point is that even on this issue which wasn’t well known to
everyone until later on, the Scholars as far back as the beginning of
the 3rd century and even earlier than this, held this rule to be correct,

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that if someone is clearly non-Muslim then you need to say that he’s
non-Muslim, you can’t beat around the bush, you can’t say he’s
Muslim. This is something from Islam, and this Ijma’, or this is
consensus was also mentioned by Abu Husayn al-Malati ash-Shafi’i,
and he died at the end of the 4th century. So, this was also another
person who mentioned the consensus.

So, we have Muhammad ibn Sahnun from the Malikis, we have

Sulayman ibn ‘Abdillah who was a Hanbali, and he was from the later
scholars, and we have al-Malati who was from the Shafi’i scholars, all
these people mentioning the consensus, and Ibn Taymiyyah also
mentioned this a lot in one of his books, which talks about the ruling
on somebody who swears on the Prophet (‫ )ﷺ‬he talked about the
issues a lot, aspects of Iman and Kufr, he also mentioned that there’s a
consensus on this as well.

So, this is where insha’Allah we’ll stop.

And Allah knows best.

— End of Lecture 02 —

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Lecture 03
Insha’Allah this time we’ll start on the second half of the Risalah. The
first part of the Risalah was talking about, how we deal with the
‘Ibadah of Allah, and how we deal with the Muslimin, and how our
Wilayah is based upon that, and it had more to do with the worship of
Allah, and the second half of the Risalah has to do more with Shirk,
staying away from Shirk, avoiding the people who commit Shirk, so
it’s the second half of that. Insha’Allah we’ll start with this and most
likely we’ll finish today, we won’t need two lessons for this one,
depending on how long it goes insha’Allah.

So, for this, the first thing we’ll talk about is that it’s the negation so
it consists of four requisites. Two of them have to do with Shirk
itself and two of them have to do with the people of shirk.

1) Abandoning shirk (joining partners) in ‘Ibadah to Allah

and warning from it or Warning against worshipping
other than Allah:

So, the first one is: Abandoning Shirk in ‘Ibadah to Allah and
warning from it or warning against it.

So, this has to do with shirk itself and the way we as Muslimin deal
with shirk. So, the thing we have to avoid it. So, this is the first point.
There’s many evidences in the Qur’an and Sunnah and we know that
this is the basis of our Din, avoiding shirk and worshipping Allah. And
we know that the first order in the Qur’an if we look at it
chronologically if we were to go through the Qur’an, it’s to worship
Allah, when Allah said,

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﴾...‫َّاس ْاعبُ ُدواْ َربَّ ُك ُم‬

ُ ‫﴿يَأَيُّ َها الن‬
“O mankind! Worship your Lord (Allah)...” 32

And we know that the first forbiddance is from shirk,

َ ‫فَالَ ََْت َعلُواْ َّّللي أ‬...﴿

﴾‫َنداداً َوأَنتُ ْم تَ ْعلَ ُمو َن‬
“Then do not set up rivals unto Allah (in worship) while you know
(that He alone has the right to be worshipped).” 33

So, we see that again if we look at the Qur’an chronologically, that the
first command in the Qur’an is to worship Allah, and the first
forbiddance is from shirk.

And Allah (‫ )سبحانه وتعاىل‬says,

‫اّلل وال أُ ْش يرَك بييه إيلَْي يه أ َْدعُو وإيلَْي يه م ي‬

﴾‫آب‬ ‫ي‬
ُ ‫قُ ْل إيََّّنَآ أُم ْر‬...﴿
َ َ َ ََّ ‫ت أَ ْن أ َْعبُ َد‬
“...Say: ‘I am commanded only to worship Allah and not to join
partners with Him. To Him I call and to Him is my return.’” 34

This is Allah ordering the Mu’minin, first the Prophet (‫ )ﷺ‬and then
after him, the Mu’minin who follow him to say that: “We are
commanded to worship Allah, and to not set up any partners with
Him.”

And Allah also said,

32 Al-Baqarah 2:21
33 Al-Baqarah 2:22
34 Ar-Ra`d 13:36

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‫ي‬
َ ‫﴿قُ ْل إيََّّنَآ أ َْدعُو َريّب َوالَ أُ ْش ير ُك بيه أ‬
﴾ً‫َحدا‬
“Say: ‘I invoke only my Lord, and I associate none as partners along
with Him.’” 35

And in the hadith from ‘Abdullah ibn Masud (‫ )رضي هللا عنه‬he said: “I asked
the Messenger of Allah (‫)ﷺ‬, which is the greatest sin? So, the Prophet (‫)ﷺ‬
replied: “That you set up a rival or a partner with Allah even though He
created you.” And this hadith is narrated by Bukhari & Muslim.

So here we see when the Prophet (‫ )ﷺ‬was asked about what is the
greatest sin, he mentioned Shirk and in the rest of the hadith,
‘Abdullah ibn Masud (‫ )رضي هللا عنه‬asked: “Then what comes after that?”, the
Prophet (‫ )ﷺ‬said: “That you kill your child out of fear that he will take some
of your rizq”, then he asked “and then what?”, and he said: “That you make
zina with the wife of your neighbour.” 36

So, here we see that the Prophet (‫ )ﷺ‬mentioned these three sins, and
he mentioned them in order. So, it gives us an idea that, we would
obviously say if someone killed their kid, and they killed them out of
fear of being poor, that their rizq would be taken away, someone would
find this to be the most disgusting or most low or pathetic thing that
a person could do. But we see here that the Prophet (‫ )ﷺ‬actually put
shirk above this and that it’s a greater sin.

This shows that there’s something wrong with people if they look at
someone making Shirk with Allah, as if it’s not a big deal, when at the
same time, they would look at someone killing someone else as being

35 Al-Jinn 72:20
36 Refer to Sahih al-Bukhari 4477, 4761, 6001, 7520

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a big deal, and we even see this amongst the Ummah. That if they see
someone who doesn't pray, who doesn’t give Zakat, never made Hajj,
doesn’t fast and he might even swear at Allah, and they’ll think he’s
not a very good person, but then if he was a murderer, they would see
him to be a way worse person.

But in actuality, it should be the opposite. It doesn’t mean that killing

someone isn’t a big deal, obviously it is and the Prophet (‫ )ﷺ‬mentioned
in this hadith as the second greatest sin, but this should show us that
there’s something not right with us if we look at Shirk and we look at
someone swearing at Allah, or worshipping other than Allah or
fighting against the Din of Islam and we don’t find it as being a very
big deal. We should see it actually worse than the other thing, and
everyone would be at a different level with this, depending on how
much tarbiyah they do with their self, or how much they try to train
themselves as hating Shirk and loving Tawhid. But when you see
someone openly makes Shirk in front of them, and they don’t find it as
a big deal or “maybe he doesn’t know”, or “we’re all Muslimin”, and
they’ll give more excuses to that and more leniency to that then if
someone did something to them personally.

So, this is just something to think about, because obviously this hadith
was given for a point and Ibn Mas’ud wanted to know the different
levels. So, when we understand this, I think it would help set out
priorities straight with regards to how we deal with people and what
we think is worse than other actions or which actions we think are
worse. So, we see here that committing shirk is from the greatest sins
and we know this with the Anbiya that came before the Prophet (‫)ﷺ‬
and into the Ummam which was before us, that this was the call that
they came with, when Allah (‫ )سبحانه وتعاىل‬mention about what they say,

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‫اف َعلَْي ُك ْم‬

ُ ‫َخ‬ َّ َّ‫إي َّّن لَ ُك ْم نَ يذير ُّمبيي ۞ أَن الَّ تَ ْعبُ ُدواْ إيال‬...﴿
َ ‫اّللَ إييّّن أ‬
﴾‫اب يَ ْوٍم أَليي ٍم‬ َ ‫َع َذ‬
“...‘I have come to you as a plain warner.’ — ‘That you worship none
but Allah; surely, I fear for you the torment of a painful Day.’” 37

Allah (‫ )سبحانه وتعاىل‬also mentioned about Prophet Hud (‫ )عليه السالم‬when

He was talking about him, He said,

‫ت النُّ ُذ ُر يمن بَ ْ ي‬
‫اف وقَ ْد خلَ ي‬ ‫ي‬ ٍ
‫ي‬ َ َ ‫َخا َعاد إي ْذ أَن َذ َر قَ ْوَمهُ يابالٌّ ْح َق‬ َ ‫﴿ َواذْ ُك ْر أ‬
﴾‫اب يَ ْوٍم َع يظي ٍم‬َ ‫اف َعلَْي ُك ْم َع َذ‬ َّ َّ‫يَ َديْيه َويم ْن َخلْ يف يه أَالَّ تَ ْعبُ ُدواْ إيال‬
َ ‫اّللَ إييّّن أ‬
ُ ‫َخ‬
“And remember the brother of `Ad, when he warned his people in Al-
Ahqaf (the curved sand-hills in the southern part of Arabian
Peninsula). And surely, warners had already passed on before him and
after him (saying): ‘Worship none but Allah; truly, I fear for you the
torment of a mighty Day.’” 38

Here, Allah (‫ )سبحانه وتعاىل‬is mentioning that Hud (‫ )عليه السالم‬as well as the
Messengers that came before and after him, were sent with the same
message, which is “to worship Allah, and not worship anyone except
for Him.”

And on this point, I just want to go a little bit sideways here, just to
talk about a side-point here, when Allah said, “And remember the
brother of `Ad when we warned his people”. Very recently, and there’s
many groups, and people from the callers of bid’ah, and callers against

37 Hud 11:25-26
38 Al-Ahqaf 46:21

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the Sunnah that use this verse and they use many verses like it to say
that there’s some sort of tie with the Muslimin and with the Kuffar,
and they say that this verse shows it.

So, they’ll say things like there’s three types of brotherhood:

1) Brotherhood in Din (the highest level)
2) Brotherhood based upon blood or relations
3) Brotherhood based upon being humans or humanity.

They’ll say phrases like this, and some of them will phrase it differently
and things like this and they’ll say that we know that Hud (‫)عليه السالم‬
wasn’t on the same Din as his people so we know that it doesn’t fall
into the first, and they’ll say, he’s talking about his people so he’s not
talking technically about his blood brothers so it leaves the third
category, which is that we’re all in the same brotherhood, the same
category in being humans so this shows we should all deal with each
other in the same way or have this brotherhood.

This is very, very prominent now and even in this city, I’ve had
discussions and lengthy, lengthy emails and arguments with Imams in
this city with using this phrase, and it never went anywhere. But just
about this, and I was trying to look into this and see is there some sort
of basis for this, because if there is a basis then we want to accept it, if
this is something that came into Islam, that there is these three
categories then obviously, we’ll accept whatever the Din has come
with from the Qur’an and Sunnah, and if it's not, at the same time we
need to know this isn’t from our Din, and we need to tell people this
isn’t from the Din and warn people about the harms that would come
from adding these categories or having these ideas.

So, I wanted to understand is this an actual valid thing or not. So, I

went through the Qur’an and I found 18 verses that can be used to talk
about this, when Allah would mention about each group that was sent
them, and their Prophet, he would say “brothers”. So, there’s 18 verses

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that could be used for this. So I went through the Tafasir that I could
find, not all of them, but I went through a fair amount of books of
Tafasir. I went through 21 books of Tafsir for these 18 verses, because if
I can’t find it in 21 books about 18 verses, then obviously this being
made up on the Din. I think it’s unlikely that it’s not in these books
and they wouldn’t make mention of it, and I just happen to pick all of
the books it’s not found in. Also, I wanted to know what does this
actually mean, am I understanding it wrong, am I not understanding
it wrong.

So, the books of Tafsir I went through, the first one was “Tafsir
Mujahid.” He’s from the companions of Ibn ‘Abbas (‫ )رضي هللا عنه‬and he
said he read the Qur’an to Ibn ‘Abbas twice, and he would stop him at
every verse and ask him about it. And he died in the year 104 Hijri. So,
I checked that and the next one I checked was “Jami al-Bayan” by Ibn
Jarir, he died in 310, and I checked “Kitab Tafsir al-Qur’an” by Ibn
al-Mundhir, and he died in 318. And “Tafsir al-Qur’an al Atheem”
by Ibn Abi Hatim ar-Razi and “Ahkam-al-Qur’an” by Al-Jasas who
was a Hanafi. And “Tafsir ar-Ragib al-Asfahani” who died in 502,
and “Ma’alam al-Tanzil” by al-Baghawi who died in 516, and
“Ahkam al-Qur’an” by Ibn al-Arabi al-Maliki who died in 543 and
“Za’ad al-Masir fi ‘ilm at-Tafsir” by Ibn al-Jawzi who died in 592,
and “Mafatih al-Ghayb” by Fakhr al-Razi who died in 606 and so on
and so on.

So, I found books that were books of Tafsir with Isnad. So, it was a
book of Tafsir compiled in the same way as books of ahadith were. And
I checked ones that focused on Fiqh, and I focused on ones that were
focused on Tafsir of the Qur’an with the Qur’an, and ones that were
from the time of the Salaf, and ones that were from nowadays. And I
didn’t find any mention of this, except for one of the ‘Ulama’ called Az-
Zajaj, who was a scholar of language. He mentioned that for some of
the verses it meant this and Imam al-Qurtubi and Fakhr al-Razi

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 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

mentioned that. They didn’t say it’s the correct opinion, they just said
“some people say this.”

So, out of all the books for the 18 verses, the only thing I found was
this. And I checked, there was another hadith where it's attributed to
the Prophet (‫ )ﷺ‬that he said, “All of the slaves of Allah are brothers”,
or “All of the creation is brothers”. So, first of all this is a weak hadith
and second of all, it’s not even really usable.

So, if you look, there’s this idea that people try to propagate nowadays
and like I said, we even found it in this city, that these types of
brotherhood. If someone just said this and left it at that, then that
would be one issue and we would say it’s wrong because it’s not
supported by the Qur’an or Sunnah. But, the bigger problem with that
is that it has an agenda behind it, which is to say that there are different
Muslimin and Muslimin are closer to Muslims than the kuffar, but
there is this tie with kuffar, that we should love them because they’re
our brothers in humanity or that we’re all humans and this type of
thing.

So, this is the second problem because it opens up this door to say that,
if you’re saying that we should act upon these verses that talk about
Wala’ and Bara’, and these Ayat, and these ahadith that talk about
Wala’ and Bara’, then you’re going against this brotherhood based
upon humanity. So, like I said first of all, it’s not really supported by
the Qur’an and the Sunnah.

And secondly, there’s an agenda behind it which is a way to have this

lack of al-Wala’ wal-Bara’ creep into people’s minds as being
something that's wrong and something that goes against other verses
from the Qur’an. So, I just wanted to make mention of this, and if that
ever comes up with any of you, I can give you all the material that I
compiled on the topic, just because people might bring this up and you
might not know how to respond to it.

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 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

So, that’s what I wanted to say on that, but with regards to what does
it mean, then what it means is that he was from their people, and we
know that if there’s people from a tribe, that generally they are inter-
related in some way. We even know nowadays, if you take any of the
towns that you guys are from, pretty much everyone is related
somehow. Not related like brother and sister, even first cousins, but I
guarantee you find anyone, you’re not find that he’s less related than
like a fourth cousin. And that’s nowadays when think about how many
people are in your towns now, think back then when what would a
town have, maybe 100 people, 200 people, everyone’s going to be more
related. So, that’s what the vast, vast majority of the scholars of Tafsir
would say, is that he’s their brothers in that he’s from their tribe. So,
this is what they would say.

So, when you see that first of all, there’s no clear evidence to say that
there’s this brotherhood in humanity, and second of all, the evidence
that these people are using actually if you look to what the ‘Ulama’
said, they pretty much all said the opposite of it. So, this is an idea if
people bring it up and say there’s this type, just to be aware of that,
that it’s wrong in and of itself, and it’s even worse because it carries an
agenda behind it. I just wanted to make that side-point just like I said
because you find it everywhere, so it’s important to be aware of those
types of things.

Also Allah said,

‫اّللي إييّن لَ ُكم يمنْه نَ يذير ُّمبيي ۞ والَ ََْتعلُواْ مع َّي‬ ‫ي‬
َ َ‫اّلل إيلَهاً ء‬
‫اخَرلَ ُك ْم‬ ََ َ َ ُ ّ ْ ّ َّ ‫﴿فَف ُّرواْ إي َىل‬
﴾‫يّمْنهُ نَ يذير ُّمبيي‬

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 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

“So, flee to Allah. Verily, I am a plain warner to you from Him. —

And set not up any other god along with Allah. Verily, I am a plain
warner to you from Him.” 39

And Allah said,

﴾‫وّن أ َْعبُ ُد أَيُّ َها ا ْْلَ يهلُو َن‬ ‫﴿قُل أَفَغَري َّي‬
ّ‫اّلل ََتْ ُم ُر ي‬ َْ ْ
“Say: ‘Do you order me to worship other than Allah O you fools!’” 40

Allah also said,

‫ك‬
َ ُ‫ت لَيَ ْحبَطَ َّن َع َمل‬ ‫ك وإي َىل الَّ يذين يمن قَبلي َ ي‬ ‫ي ي‬
َ ‫ك لَئ ْن أَ ْشَرْك‬ ْ َ َ َ ‫﴿ولََق ْد أ ُْوح َى إلَْي‬
َ
‫اعب ْد وُكن يمن َّ ي‬ ‫ي‬ ‫ي‬
﴾‫ين‬ َ ‫الش ك ير‬ َ ّ َ ُ ْ َ‫اّللَ ف‬ َّ ‫ين ۞ بَ يل‬ َ ‫َولَتَ ُكونَ َّن م َن ا ْْلَس ير‬
“And indeed it has been revealed to you, as it was to those before you:
‘If you join others in worship with Allah, surely your deeds will be in
vain, and you will certainly be among the losers.’ — Nay! But worship
Allah, and be among the grateful.” 41

So, we see here that even the Prophet (‫)ﷺ‬, Allah mentioned that him,
and any of the other Anbiya or the Rasul, if they had fallen into shirk,
then their actions would’ve been void or their actions would’ve been
cancelled out. So, if this was the case with the Anbiya and the Rasul,
and we know that Allah protected them from shirk, but the point is
that Allah is saying for the sake of argument, if they did fall into shirk,
all their actions would’ve been void. So, what do we say about someone

39 Adh-Dhariyat 51:50-51
40 Az-Zumar 39:64
41 Az-Zumar 39:65-66

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 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

who has less good deeds, and someone who falls into shirk at that
point.

So, if one of us were to fall into shirk, then we know we would be in a

worst situation then them. So, this idea that people say that he says
“La ilaha illa Allah”, so that’s enough, the shirk doesn't matter. Or he
doesn’t pray, and he doesn’t fast and he doesn’t follow anything of
Islam, but he says Islam is the correct religion.

We know that things can cancel out other things, so even if we say yes
it’s good to believe that Islam is the right religion and it’s required,
that isn’t sufficient because we know that there’s other things that can
cancel out those good deeds. And same thing if people say, he has
memorised lots of Qur’an, or he gives lots of Sadaqah or he helps
people or he helps his family or he’s good to his family, but then he
worships other than Allah, in the end how’s that going to help him?
Sure, it’s good to do those things but they’re not going to be accepted
and those actions will be cancelled out because of the other thing that
shirk.

And the last point, just for this first aspect or the first category is that
Allah said,

‫إينَّه من ي ْش ير ْك ياب َّّللي فَ َق ْد ح َّرم َّ ي‬...﴿

ُ ‫اّللُ َعلَيه ا ْْلَنَّةَ َوَمأَْواهُ الن‬
‫َّار َوَما‬ ََ ُ َ ُ
﴾‫َنصا ٍر‬ ‫ليلظَّلي يم ي‬
َ ‫ي م ْن أ‬
َ
“...Verily, whosoever sets up partners (in worship) with Allah, then
Allah has forbidden Paradise for him, and the Fire will be his abode.
And for the wrongdoers there are no helpers.” 42

42 Al-Ma`idah 5:72

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 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

So, this is the first requisite which is abandoning shirk, so it has to do

with how we ourselves deal with shirk itself and not with the people
of shirk.

2) Being severely harsh upon this:

The second point that was mentioned in this Risalah was being
severely harsh upon this and some of the points that the ‘Ulama’
mentioned on this topic or that when they explained this part in this
Risalah some of the evidences that they use is that they say that Allah
said,

Or Allah said the meaning of which is,

ُّ ‫ث َو َج‬ ‫ي‬
ْ‫وه ْم َواقْعُ ُدوا‬
ُ ‫ص ُر‬
ُ ‫اح‬
ْ ‫وه ْم َو‬
ُ ‫وه ْم َو ُخ ُذ‬
ُ ُ‫دَت‬ َ ‫فَاقْتُلُواْ الْ ُم ْش يرك‬...﴿
ُ ‫ي َحْي‬
﴾...‫ص ٍد‬ َ ‫ََلُْم ُك َّل َم ْر‬
“...then fight the Mushrikin wherever you find them, and capture them
and besiege them, and lie in wait for them in each and every ambush...”43

And Allah also said,

‫ي َوا ْغلُ ْظ َعلَْي يه ْم َوَمأَْو ُاه ْم َج َهن ُ ي‬ ‫يي‬ ‫ي‬

‫س‬
َ ‫َّم َوبْئ‬ َ ‫َّب َج يهد الْ ُك َّف َر َوالْ ُمنَ فق‬
ُّ ‫﴿ َأيَيُّ َها الني‬
﴾ُ‫صري‬ ‫الْم ي‬
َ

43 At-Tawbah 9:5

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“O Prophet! Strive hard against the disbelievers and the hypocrites,

and be harsh against them, their abode is Hell, and worst indeed is that
destination.” 44

So, this is some evidence from the Qur’an specifically about dealing
with the Mushrikin, and being harsh against them. And also there’s
evidence from the Sunnah about being harsh against the things that
are worshipped other than Allah, like statues, things that are used for
barakah, or things that are…houses that are set up for worshipping
other than Allah, or newspapers and magazines that are used to spread
Kufr etc., then being harsh against these points, even though they’re
not human, and even though you can’t reason with them and make
da’wah to these things. Then also Allah and the Prophet (‫ )ﷺ‬have
legislated for us to have harshness against these things.

We see this in the hadith from Abu al-Hayaj al-Asadi in Sahih Muslim
that he said, Or Imam Muslim narrated from Abu al-Hayaj al-Asadi
that ‘Ali Ibn Abi Talib (‫ )رضي هللا عنه‬said, “Shall I not send you with the same
instructions that the Messenger of Allah (‫ )ﷺ‬sent me with? Do not leave any
image without defacing it, nor any built-up grave without levelling it.” 45

So, we know that in jahiliyyah and even nowadays in some places, the
graves would be built up very, very high as a means of trying to give
respect to this person, and if the person was some sort of president or
whatever he happens to be, then they’ll built things around the graves
and they’ll make it up high. So, here we see that ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib ( ‫رضي‬
‫ )هللا عنه‬was saying to his companion, that the Prophet ( ‫ )ﷺ‬sent him to
not leave any picture, any statue, or anything like that, except that he
would deface it. So, he would destroy it, because this is something that

44 At-Tawbah 9:73
45 Refer to Sahih Muslim 969

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 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

either is worshipped other than Allah, or it can lead to being

worshipped other than Allah.

And also, in the hadith of `Amr bin Abasa (‫ )رضي هللا عنه‬that he said or he
said to the Prophet (‫)ﷺ‬, “With what did Allah send you with?”, so that
he said, and this hadith is also in Sahih Muslim, so “What were you sent
with?” So, he’s asking the Prophet (‫)ﷺ‬, what did he come with. He said,
“I was sent to uphold the ties of kinship, to break the idols so that nothing is
worshipped besides Allah.” 46

So, here we see that the Prophet (‫ )ﷺ‬was sent with this breaking of
the idols. So, we can take from this and from other ahadith, and also
from the story of Ibrahim (‫ )عليه السالم‬in the Qur’an when he went to the
idols and he broke all of them, except for one.

So, we see that the point of this even though technically people might
say, what is the point of it, there’s still going to be kuffar, and what is
the point of this, you’re only going to make a problem with the people,
and you’re only going to be making people look like “oh these people
are extremists.”

The point of it is we have dislike and hostility and enmity towards the
belief itself, we have it towards the action itself, we have it towards the
people who do the action and we have it towards the things that are
set up for this reason too. So, if someone sets up an idol, or if they set
up or they start spreading da’wah through websites, or through
magazines, or newspapers or stuff like this, it’s perfectly legitimate for
us to stop these things from being done, because these are means to
worshipping other than Allah and these are things that are being used
in da’wah to other than Allah and da’wah to Shirk.

46 Refer to Sahih Muslim 832

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 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

Also, there’s a longer hadith from Jarir Ibn ‘Abdillah al-Bajali ( ‫رضي هللا‬
‫)عنه‬, this hadith is narrated by Bukhari & Muslim from Jarir Ibn
‘Abdillah al-Bajali that he said,

“The Messenger of Allah (‫ )ﷺ‬said to him, O Jarir, will you not relieve me of
Dhul Kasla (and Dhul Kasla was a place that was set up as a Ka’bah in
Yemen). Jarir replied: “I set out with 150 horsemen, and I used to not sit firm
on horses (so, he wasn’t able to ride a horse very well and he had a problem
with it).” The Prophet (‫ )ﷺ‬struck his chest and he said, “O Allah, give him
means to sit well on a horse and make him someone who guides and is guided.”
So, he said, “We went there and we burnt it down.” 47

So here we see that the Prophet (‫ )ﷺ‬wanted this thing which was a
rival to the Ka’bah and was a rival to the Din, and was being used as a
means of bringing people to worship other than Allah, the Prophet (‫)ﷺ‬
put an end to it immediately, and he sent out this companion and they
burnt it down. We also know this in the long story and the Ahkam
that come from the baseline masajid of Dirar, and the masajid that was
set up during the time of the Prophet (‫ )ﷺ‬as a means to bring people
away from the masjid of the Prophet (‫)ﷺ‬. The Prophet (‫ )ﷺ‬had it burnt
down and it was turned into a garbage dump, so the Muslimin would
throw all their garbage and all their najasah into these places.

So, it would’ve been simple enough for the Prophet (‫ )ﷺ‬to put an end
to people praying there, unless he gave them permission because then
it would’ve been used as a means to worship Allah. But, because it was
used as something against Islam, the Prophet (‫ )ﷺ‬made an example of

47 Refer to Sahih al-Bukhari 3020, 3076, 4356, 4357, 6333; and Sahih Muslim 2476

64
 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

it, and he burnt it down and then he turned it into the garbage dump.
So, it was done with, but even the land it was on was turned into
something that Muslimin would humiliate, it’s only good enough for
garbage.

So, this shows the idea that always being overly nice and accepting of
everything, it goes against the Ahkam of Islam, but it even goes
against the Fitrah; that if someone is calling to another religion and
insulting your religion, and you just go “everything’s okay and
everyone can make their choice.”

Sure, we can’t force someone to believe something in their heart, but

that doesn’t mean we should just be fine with it and we shouldn’t hate
it. How can someone say they love Islam and do things like this. These
ahadith are just to show that the idea, because we talked about first,
no-one who is Muslim would say, “you shouldn’t in your heart, dislike
Kufr”, unless they’re so far gone, you can’t even talk to them anymore.

So, that’s something, but there’s also that we should also dislike the
people who are doing this, because they are insulting Allah, and they’re
insulting the Prophet (‫)ﷺ‬. Just like if someone insulted your dad, you’d
get mad at them, and if you didn’t get mad at them, people would look
at you like what’s wrong with you. But, when it comes to Allah, it
should be worse even. So, also we have it against the belief, we have it
against the action and we have it against the things that are being used
for this action.

So, this is the second point.

3) Being hostile for its sake:

The third thing he says is, being hostile for its sake.

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 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

So, here we see that, it’s being hostile or openly showing that we don’t
agree and that we’re not accepting of the shirk and the things that
they’re doing.

So, we see that when Allah mentioned about Ibrahim (‫)عليه السالم‬, He said,

‫ال أَفَ َرءَيْتُ ْم َّما ُكْن تُ ْم تَ ْعبُ ُدو َن ۞ أَنتُ ْم َوءَ َاَب ُؤُك ُم االٌّقْ َد ُمو َن ۞ فَيإ َّْنُ ْم َع ُد ٌّو‬
َ َ‫﴿ق‬
﴾‫ي‬ ‫يىل إيالَّ ر َّ ي‬
َ ‫ب الْ َع لَم‬ َ
“He said: ‘Do you observe that which you have been worshipping’ —
‘You and your ancient fathers’ — ‘Verily, they are enemies to me, except
the Lord of Al-`Alamin,’” 48

So, we see Ibrahim (‫ )عليه السالم‬told them the truth, which is that
worshipping Allah is the correct thing, but he also mentioned the
opposite, so he didn’t say what people say nowadays, we’ll talk about
the thing that we share and we’ll leave everything else out. It has to
be both.

And Allah also mentioned about Ibrahim (‫ )عليه السالم‬that he said,

﴾...‫اّللي‬ ‫﴿وأ َْعتَ يزلُ ُكم وما تَ ْدعُو َن يمن ُد ي‬

َّ ‫ون‬ ََ ْ َ
“And I shall turn away from you and from those whom you invoke
besides Allah...” 49

48 Ash-Shu`ara 26:75-77
49 Maryam 19:48

66
 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

So, we see here that Ibrahim (‫ )عليه السالم‬mentioned the things that are
worshipped other than Allah and he mentioned the people who are
worshipping other than Allah. So, he didn’t just mention the act, which
is another discussion I’ve had with Imams in this city, that they say,
“you can hate the Shirk, but you don’t have to hate the kuffar or you
can’t hate the kuffar”, or some even go that you should love them. So,
they’ll say “you hate the action, but you love the people.”

So, here we see that Ibrahim (‫ )عليه السالم‬said here, and he’s our good
example that Allah told us about, he mentioned the things that they
worship other than Allah, but he mentioned the people and he
mentioned them first. So, this idea that it’s only the action, and not the
people is completely wrong.

So, this is just some points about the third point and insha’Allah

4) And making Takfir of whosoever does it:

The fourth point is that Allah has obligated us to consider the ones
who don’t worship Allah, and who don’t enter Islam, to consider
them kuffar.

We don’t consider them to be Muslimin, if they worship other than

Allah, with a few exceptions where we say that, this is not something
that’s very well known, so the people might have fallen into it because
of ignorance, this is a separate issue, we’re not talking about specific
people. But, in general, if there’s a group that rejects a part of Islam,
then we say they’re not Muslimin, and if there’s a group that does
something, that doesn’t conform with Islam, and or that contradicts
Islam at its basis, then we say that they’re not Muslimin.

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 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

If someone says, “you don’t have to pray”, we’re not going to say that
you’re Muslim. If someone says, “you can worship other than Allah, or
you can pray to someone in a grave or you can make up laws that have
nothing to do with Islam or you can say that Islam is in the home and
in the heart and has nothing to do with politics”, all these types of
things, we can’t as Muslimin say, “it’s fine, they’re still Muslimin”,
because if we do that then we’re lying on the Din, and we’re lying on
Allah in his Ahkam that He’s put down for the religion.

This is clear when Allah says,

‫َص َح ي‬
‫ب‬ ‫ضلَّ عن سبييلييه قُل ََتَتَّع بي ُك ْف يرَك قَلييالً إين َ ي‬
‫وجعل يَّّللي أ َ ي ي‬...﴿
ْ ‫َّك م ْن أ‬ ْ ْ َ َ ُ‫َنداداً لّي‬ َ ََ َ
﴾‫النَّا ير‬
“...and he sets up rivals to Allah, in order to mislead others from His
path. Say: ‘Take pleasure in your disbelief for a while, surely, you are
(one) of the dwellers of the Fire!’” 50

And Allah said,

‫يي‬
ُ ‫س الْ يم َه‬
﴾‫اد‬ ‫ي‬ ‫ي‬
َ ‫﴿قُ ْل لّلَّذ‬
َ ‫ين َك َف ُرواْ َستُ ْغلَبُو َن َوَُْت َش ُرو َن إ َىل َج َهن ََّم َوبْئ‬
“Say to those who disbelieve: ‘You will be defeated and gathered
together to Hell, and worst indeed is that place of rest.’” 51

So, Allah told us to call them people who commit kufr, and to call them
those who have disbelieved. And we know in Surah Kafirun, Allah said,

50 Az-Zumar 39:8
51 Aal `Imran 3:12

68
 Sharh Risalah Asl Din al-Islam

﴾‫﴿قُ ْل أيَيُّ َها الْ َك يف ُرو َن‬

“Say: ‘O you disbelievers!’” 52

So, this idea that you can say that they’re wrong, but you can’t call
them kuffar, or you can say that they’re not Muslimin, but you can’t
call them kuffar. This is a complete false idea, and in the first week we
talked about this in detail so there’s not really much more to talk about
here.

So, with this, we’ll have finished this Risalah, this small Risalah, “Aslu
Din al-Islam wa Qa'idatuhu”, by Muhammad ibn ‘Abdil-Wahhab, and
insha’Allah next we’ll try to start if everyone is able to, next week we’ll
start the Sharh of “Usul ath-Thalatha”, or The Three Fundamentals,
also by Muhammad ibn ‘Abdil-Wahhab. It’s a little bit longer and
more detailed but it talks about some of these topics in more detail and
also some other topics like the right of the Messenger (‫)ﷺ‬, or knowing
the Messenger (‫ )ﷺ‬and knowing the Din of Islam. So, insha’Allah we’ll
start with that.

And Allah knows best.

— End of Lecture 03 —

End Notes:

i
“Islam means ‘Istislam’ (surrendering/submitting) to Allah- through Tawhid,
and submission and obedience to Him; and believing in and following the
Messenger (‫ ;)ﷺ‬and through purity from shirk and disassociating from its people.

52 Qul ya Ayyuhal-Kafirun 109:1

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“Ad-Durar As-Saniyyah” (1/129). And the one who acts upon such is a Muslim-
one who surrenders/submits himself to Allah in the manner which is in
accordance with the Sunnah of Muhammad (‫)ﷺ‬- not by innovations and
heresies.
ii
Shaykh ‘Ali Al-Khudhayr (‫ )فك هللا أسره‬says in “At-Tawdhih Wat-Tatimmat”
regarding Tawhid (singling out Allah with ‘Ibadah) [paraphrased]:

“The meaning of “Singling out Allah” obligates two things:

1) Negating ‘Ibadah (worship) for everything and everyone. (La ilaha-

None is worthy of being worshipped)
2) Affirming it for Allah Alone. (illa Allah- Except Allah)

Nothing is “singled out” (Ifrad) until it contains both a Negation (Nafi) and an
Affirmation (Ithbat). For example if you said, “Qama Muhammad”
(Muhammad stood up): In this phrase you have affirmed Qiyam (standing up)
for Muhammad, but you have not “singled him out”, because there is still a
possibility that there is someone standing with him.

But if you said, “Ma Qama Illa Muhammad” (No one stood up except
Muhammad): Here you have singled out Muhammad. How? By bringing the
Negation (Nafi), which is “No one stood up”, and then following it up with the
Affirmation (Ithbat), which is “except Muhammad.” Thus, one who prostrates
to Allah and then afterwards sacrifices (Thabh) to other than Allah, or worships
Allah and then legislates a law (other than Allah’s) – this person has not singled
out Allah with worship.”

iii
Declaring someone to be a Kafir, expelling someone from the fold of Islam.
Making Takfir of any Muslim is forbidden, and some of the scholars held it to
be an act of kufr on its own, but it is obligatory to do Takfir of every apostate

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and kafir. Shaykh ‘Abdullah Ibn Muhammad Ibn ‘Abdil-Wahhab (‫ )رمحه هللا‬said,
“And in summary, it is obligatory upon those who are sincere to not speak about
these matters without knowledge or evidences from Allah. And he should
beware lest he expels a person from Islam merely because of his own
interpretation. And “expelling someone from the fold of Islam” [Takfir], and
entering someone into the fold of Islam is from the greatest matters of the Din…
And indeed Shaytan has misled many in this regard; so there are such people
who consider a person to be Muslim, but the texts of the Qur’an, Sunnah and
Ijma’ prove that he is a kafir; and then there are others who make Takfir of those
who are actually Muslim according to the Qur’an, Sunnah, and Ijma’.” Refer to
“Ad-Durar As-Saniyyah” (8/217).

Mark this in your heart, O Brother of Tawhid! Unlike the Murj’iah, the Imam
has clarified that doing Takfir of the apostates is from amongst the foundations
and bases of Islam. But what do we see today from the Murji’ah of this era? We
see nothing except warning against making Takfir of the apostates. And anyone
who does Takfir of the apostates is branded as a “Takfiri”, and “Khariji”. And it
has gone beyond this to such a degree, that if someone calls Bush a “Taghut”
and “kafir” publicly, he is branded as “Khawarij”- since, in their opinion, Bush
cannot be labeled as a Taghut unless he declares his own legislations to be
Islamicly Halal. Ya SubhanAllah! Let the people open up the books of history,
and read what the mushrikun had branded the Scholars of Najd with- let your
eyes find the mushrikun calling the Mujaddid with the exact same disgusting
terms, “Takfiri”, “Khariji”, etc. And refuge is sought with Allah.

iv
Shaykh ‘Ali Al-Khudhayr (‫ )فك هللا أسره‬says here, “So whosoever leaves Tawhid,
and goes to secularism, communism, nationalism, patriotism, or to Ba’thism,
capitalism, democracy, or to the fabricated man-made laws, or to the religion of
the Rafidhah, or that of the Sufiyyah grave-worshippers, or any other religion

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or current Math’hab- and takes any of these as his way of life; then whosoever
does such, then he will be labeled as a kafir.” Refer to “Asl Din Al-Islam”.

v
The Taghut is defined as- “Every entity, other than Allah, which has any type
of ‘Ibadah directed at it.” This is the case for “non-thinking” entities which are
worshipped, such as tombs, graves, trees, statues, cows, animals, fire, stars,
zodiac, legislations other than the Shari’ah, etc.

But as for “thinking” things which have ‘Ibadah directed at them- then there
exists an extra condition- “every entity which has any type of ‘Ibadah directed
at itself- other than Allah- and is satisfied with it”. This extra condition is placed
to exclude people such as ‘Isa Ibn Maryam (‫)عليه السالم‬, and ‘Ali Ibn Abi Talib ( ‫رضي‬
‫ )هللا عنه‬from being labeled as “Taghut”. For indeed ‘Isa (‫ )عليه السالم‬never ordered
anything upon his people except to direct all of their ‘Ibadah to Allah Alone.
And on the Day of Resurrection, he will reject the people who worshipped him
and be their enemy, just as he had declared them as denizens of the Fire (refer to
Al-Ma’idah: 72-78, and 116-117, and Al-Ahqaf: 6). And similar is the case with
the Companion ‘Ali Ibn Abi Taalib (‫)رضي هللا عنه‬. So even though there is no
enmity, nor hatred, nor Takfir against ‘Isa (‫ )عليه السالم‬and ‘Ali (‫)رضي هللا عنه‬- these are
obligatory against those who worship such people.

But as for those who are pleased with being worshipped, then no doubt that they
are Tawaghit. Such as Ash-Shaytan Ar-Rajim, those who distort the laws of
Allah, those who rule with other than the Shari’ah, those who claim to possess
Knowledge of the Unseen, those who call to worship other than Allah, etc. Such
as Fir’awn, rabbis, priests, pirs, sorcerers, nuns, fortunetellers, Ka’b Ibn Al-
Ashraf, etc.

The scholars of Najd have also said, “Taghut includes everything which is
worshipped other than Allah. And every leader of misguidance, everyone who

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calls to evil and beautifies it (is also a Taghut). It also includes every person who
is set up by the people to judge between them with laws which are not in
accordance with the Decision of Allah and His Messenger, and these are all laws
of Jahiliyyah. And Taghut also includes the soothsayer, sorcerer; the caretakers
of the idols, those who call to the worshipping of the buried people, and such
people who narrate stories which misguide the ignorant people. And the base of
all these types of Taghut is Shaytan- for he is the greatest Taghut.” “Ad-Durar
As-Saniyyah” (2/301).

vi
It can be translated as “the Religion of Ibrahim”, “the Faith of Ibrahim”, “the
Path of Ibrahim”, “The Din of Ibrahim”. It is also known as Al-Hanifiyyah. The
one who follows the Millat Ibrahim is known as Hanif; the plural of which is
Hunafa’. Every true Muslim is a Hanif and Muwahhid (a person who firmly
believes in Tawhid and acts strictly upon it, and follows it sincerely in all matters
in life), and vice-versa.

vii
Imam Ash-Shanqiti (‫ )رمحه هللا‬says in his Tafsir of this Verse, “Allah has clarified
that Brotherhood (only) takes place in Din…The Brotherhood of Din is greater
and stronger than the brotherhood of blood-relations.” “Adhwa’ Al-Bayan”.

viii
The Rope of Allah: Ibn Kathir (‫ )رمحه هللا‬says that this means the Qur’an, holding
on to the Qur’an, and uniting upon it. This refutes those who call to unite upon
false desires, and fabricated man-made legislations, and alliance with the infidels.

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