Those who worship the Graves: Are these people excused for their ignorance? By Shaykh Abu Qatada “Ignorance” is a relative point. It varies from one context to another. It is relative to the individual. For example, you will expect the bedouin to be more ignorant than someone from the people of knowledge. So where the bedouin can be excused for ignorance, the people of knowledge would not be excused. Another factor to bear in mind is the land that the person resides in. So if you have a land where the ruler spreads the deen amongs the people, in this particular place, there will be knowledge that will be known by necessity. Thus the ignorance will vary depending on the knowledge that the average person will know. This knowledge may vary from land to land, as some lands could be more deviant that others. Another factor you must bear in mind is that an individual can vary on how much information he could soak up and whether he can understand it. Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahab said if you try to explain in the way of eloquence in speech to an average commoner, he will not understand you. This reiterates that you must bear in mind the knowledge that is known by the average Muslim. The majority of the Najdi scholars dont give excuses to the grave worshippers, and call them mushrikeen. However Ibn Abdul Wahab said that the ones who went to certain graves in “tuwaaj”, were not kuffar, until you establish the hujjah on them. What does he mean by Hujjah in this case? This isnt the hujjah to establish the foundation of the deen that we mentioned earlier. The hujjah is to teach them the aspects of the deen. An example can be seen with Abdul latif Ali Shaykh who was asked about the Jahimees in Kuwait, who said that Allah is not above the heavens. He said before we do anything regarding them, we must established the hujjah on them, and he quoted that ayat “we dont punish people until Allah sends a messenger”. He added that the absence of hujjah, means an absence of takfir. This principal can be seen where if you were to imagine a commoner being told by his mosque imam that this particular act-grave worshipping- is what the prophet recommends and promotes. Then you must establish the hujjah on him, as he can be ignorant of this act. So we must look at the individual circumstances before passing a ruling on someone. The hujjah needs to be established on someone before takfir is made on them, whether it is done by yourself or someone else. So if the hujjah has been carried out by another person, and yet he still persists on the grave worshipping, then you can make takfir on him. The ones that will disagree with this opinion and say that ignorance is not an excuse will provide proof where ignorance is not accepted in the kufr of the foundation of the deen. However, we agree them that ignorance is not an excuse when it comes down to matters that pertain the foundation of the deen. Whereas other matters, can be excused by ignorance. Ahlus Sunnah Wal Jamaah are in agreement that the hujjah must be established before the takfir is made, on aspects of the deen. However ignorance in the foundation of the deen is not excusable. With regards to the kuffar, you dont need to establish hujjah on them before you make takfir on them. However the scholars have made two exceptions where they are not linked to the foundation of the deen, and yet ignorance will not excuse them. They are to curse the prophet or curse Allah. They say that even if you are ignorant of this, then you are still kafir, because it emanates from the corruption of your deen. Shaykh Abu Qatada - Iman Series
Posted on: Tue, 28 Jan 2014 11:40:56 +0000
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