Allah Most High is the only One worthy of worship

 

Allah Most High is the only One worthy of worship

 

Weekly lecture of Mufti Syed Ziauddin Naqshbandi

 

Allah Most High is Wajib Ul Wujood i.e. necessary for the existence of the creation.  He has no peer in His Being, attributes or works.  He is the only Lord Almighty and the only One worthy of being worshipped.  One cannot take someone else to be our god even in a secondary sense.  Associating someone with Him, either with respect to His Being or with respect to His attributes, is such a grave sin that Almighty Allah will never forgive it.  Allah Most High says in the Holy Quran:

 

Surely, Allah does not forgive setting up of partners with Him, and He forgives (any other sin) lesser in degree for whom He wills. And whoever sets up partners with Allah certainly fabricates a horrible sin.  Surah Nisa (4:48)

 

However if and when that person abandons all polytheism and embraces Islam, then Allah Most High forgives Him.  The Holy Prophet (Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam) said:  Embracing Islam wipes out all sins committed previously.

 

These are the words of Mufti Syed Ziauddin Naqshbandi, Professor, Islamic Law, Jamia Nizamia, Founder-Director, Abul Hasanaat Islamic Research Center, in the weekly lecture conducted under the aegis of AHIRC in Masjid Abul Hasanaat.

 

The revered Mufti said that those with superficial thinking go way overboard in this regard.  First, they declare something as a reprehensible innovation (Bida’ah).  Then to further emphasize it, they declare it as Shirk i.e. as associating partners with Allah Most High.  They equate the respect of Muslims for Prophets and the saints with idol-worship and declare Muslims as polytheists.  As “proof,” they quote the following verse of the Holy Quran:

 

‘We worship them only that they may bring us near to Allah.’  Surah Zumar (39:03)

 

It is deduced from this verse, which was revealed about the polytheists, that if Muslims consider the Prophets and the saints as means to achieve the closeness of Allah Most High, it amounts to Shirk.

 

The revered Mufti stressed that to make such a deduction from the aforementioned verse of the Holy Quran itself is wrong.  The polytheists worshipped their idols as a means of gaining the closeness of Allah Most High and no Muslim, no matter how remote a place he/she comes from, does NOT worship the Prophets or the saints.  Muslims merely revere and respect them.

 

Muslims worship only Allah Most High and respect the Prophets and saints.  Respect and reverence is one thing and worship is entirely something else.  Equating respect with worship and declaring Muslims as polytheists is blatant unfairness.  There is a Hadith in Sahih Bukhari that Hadhrat ‘Abdullah bin ‘Umar (May Allah be well pleased with them) would declare those people as the worst people of all who would equate with Muslims those verses of the Holy Quran that were revealed about polytheists.

 

Here, the revered Mufti quoted many verses of the Holy Quran and showed the difference between Shirk and believing in Oneness of Allah Most High.  He said that if the charge of associating partners with Allah Most High can be leveled only because of similar words, then every human being considers himself/herself as alive and Allah Most High is also Hayy – the ever-living One.  If Allah Most High is also Hayy and human beings also consider themselves as alive, does it entail Shirk?

 

The revered Mufti quoted a verse from Surah Aale ‘Imran:

 

I have undoubtedly brought to you a sign from your Lord: I design for you from clay (a figure) like the shape of a bird; then I breathe into it; and at once it becomes a flying bird by Allah’s command. And I restore health to the born blind, and the lepers, and raise the dead to life by the command of Allah. And I inform you of (all) what you have eaten, and what you have hoarded in your houses. Truly, there is a sign in it for you if you believe.  Surah Aale ‘Imran (3:49)

 

The way people insist on defining Shirk nowadays, that would definitely mean a contradiction between numerous verse verses of the Holy Quran and the aforementioned words of Hadhrat ‘Isa (May peace be upon him). 

 

Here we have no choice but to accept that the real and ultimate Creator, the One who truly cures and who knows everything open or hidden is Allah Most High, and through His grant, Hadhrat ‘Isa (May peace be upon him) also cures the sick and grants life to deceased folk.  The knowledge of Allah Most High is His own.  No one gave it to Him.  The knowledge of the Prophets is granted to them by Allah Most High and their need is with Allah Most High.

 

The session ended with Salaam and Dua.