Strengthening of the Faith

Prostration To Allah and Paying Due Respect To a Messenger

It is narrated by Aishah {May Allah have mercy on Her}:

The Prophet {Peace be upon Him} was sitting with a group of Muhajirin and Ansar. A camel came walking all the way to the Prophet {Peace be upon Him} and prostrated before him. Upon observing this spectacle, his Companions said: "O Allah's Messenger {Peace be upon Him}! The animals and trees prostrate before you! And as long as they do it, we are more rightful in doing this to you (i.e. to prostrate before you)." The Prophet {Peace be upon Him} answered: "You must worship your Lord and pay due respect to your brothers." (Musnad Ahmad).

It means that all the human beings are brothers to one another. The one who is the most elderly and the most pious is an elder brother. We should respect such a person just like our elder brother.

Allah is the Rabb of all and therefore, we should worship none but Him alone.

Thus we understand that all the people who are close to Allah, regardless of whether they are Messengers or saints, are none but the helpless slaves of Allah, and are our brothers, and as long as Allah has bestowed on them marks of greatness, they are like our brothers and we are instructed to obey them. Since we are younger to them, we are instructed to respect them in their capacity as human beings only without giving them a Divine status (i.e. without making them an object of worship).

It is further added to our knowledge that some saints are held in great reverence by animals and trees also and hence we do find some Dargah (sanctums and tombs of saints) being frequented by lions, or elephants or wolves, but the human beings are not supposed to emulate their examples and ape them in their actions.

A human being may only respect someone within the limits prescribed by Allah and may not exceed it. For example, the statutes of Shari'ah do not permit anyone to take a residence in a tomb or around a grave in the capacity of a Mujawir (caretaker or custodian of a grave) and therefore, one must never become a Mujawir even though one may notice the presence of a lion day and night at a certain tomb of a saint, since it is not the becoming of a man to ape an animal.

It is reported by Abu Dawud on the authority of Qais bin Sa'd {May Allah have mercy on him}: I went to the city of Hirah where I saw the people prostrating to their king. I thought within my heart that Allah's Messenger{Peace be upon Him} indeed is more eligible and rightful to be prostrated. Therefore, I went to the Prophet {Peace be upon Him} and said:

"I have seen people prostrating to their king in the city of Hira and hence you are more rightful and eligible that we should offer our prostrations to you." The Prophet {Peace be upon Him} answered: "If you happen to pass by my grave, will you still prostrate before it?" I said, "No." At this the Prophet {Peace be upon Him} said: "Then you must not do this too!"

By this the Prophet {Peace be upon Him} meant to convey it to the people that the day would come when he {Peace be upon Him} would pass away and have an eternal sleep in the grave and then he {Peace be upon Him} would not be worthy of such prostrations. The only one, worthy of prostrations, is the One Who is Eternal and Everlasting.

Thus we understand that no one, whether dead or alive is eligible for prostrations. It is not permissible for one to prostrate either before a grave or at the tomb/sanctuary of a saint, because the one who is alive is definitely going to die tomorrow and the one who is dead now, had once been alive and was none but a human being.

Therefore, he is still a slave of Allah after his death and has not acquired a Divine status. It is not permissible to call someone one's slave:

It is reported by Muslim on the authority of Abu Hurairah {May Allah have mercy on him} that the Prophet {Peace be upon Him} said:

"Everyone must refrain from uttering such words like 'my male slave' or 'my female slave.' All of you are the slaves of Allah and all your women are slaves of Allah. A slave should not address his master as his lord because the Lord of you all is Allah."

Thus it becomes known to us that even the slaves, while talking to each other, must avoid such expressions during the course of their conversation such as "I am a slave of such and such person and such and such person is my lord." Taking this into consideration, how unfair is it to be known by such names (denoting slavery to someone) as the slave of the Prophet, the slave of Ali, the slave of His Excellency, the choicest worshipper, the worshipper of an adolescent boy, the worshipper of a woman,

the worshipper of one's religious preceptor and what an arrogance it is to often observe such remarks that "You are the master of our lives and wealth, or we are at your absolute command, and we shall obey you in whatever you instruct us to do." All these observations are based on falsehood and Shirk (polytheism).

An excellent example to pay respect to the Prophet {Peace be upon Him}:

It is narrated by Umar {May Allah have mercy on him} that the Prophet {Peace be upon Him} said:

"Do not exceed the limits in dignifying me as the Christians have done to Jesus {Peace be upon Him}.I am none but Allah's slave only and therefore you should call me a slave of Allah and His Messenger." (Al-Bukhari-Muslim)

What the Prophet {Peace be upon Him} meant to convey to the people is that whatever qualities and perfections Allah has conferred on him, become epitomized in calling him a slave and a Messenger of Allah, because what greater status or title of honor may be conferred on a human being than awarding him the honor of being a Prophet? The rest of the other titles just rank underneath it. But a human being, despite being awarded Prophethood, is still a human being. He takes pride in being a slave itself.

He does not acquire Divine qualities after being awarded the Prophethood and he does not get merged with Allah's Self (i.e. by losing his separate identity as a slave). We must treat human beings in their capacity of human beings only. We should not become like Christians who did not recognize Jesus {Peace be upon Him} as a human being and gave him a Divine status and thus they became disbelievers and polytheists and deserved Allah's wrath and perdition.

This is the reason why the Prophet {Peace be upon Him} instructed his Ummah not to resort to such casuistry as done by the Christians and not to exceed the limits in lavishing undue praise to him lest it (Ummah) should deserve and invoke the anger of Allah on itself. But it is a deplorable fact that the rude and disrespectful people among this Ummah paid no heed to the instructions of the Prophet {Peace be upon Him} and started pursuing the misleading sophistry as done earlier by the Christians. The view which the Christians hold about the Jesus Christ {Peace be upon Him} is that Allah, Himself appeared assuming a guise or incarnation of Jesus Christ and therefore, Jesus Christ is a human being on one hand whereas on the other hand, he is the Rabb. Some supercilious and arrogant delinquents have observed exactly the same view in regard to the Prophet {Peace be upon Him} by saying:

"The Rabb Himself descended this earth assuming different incarnations of the Prophets during different ages. Finally, He came down in the guise of an Arab and became the Emperor of the world."

Another poet observes:

"You (the Prophet {Peace be upon Him}) are both a mortal and an eternal entity at the same time and your existence involves an element of possibility as well as an element of compulsion." These kind of polytheistic expressions are intolerably repulsive and hence an abomination to the earth as well as to the heavens. May Allah award proper understanding of Faith to the Muslims. Amin.

Some of the unscrupulous perverts also had the cheek of fabricating a Hadith and ascribing it to the Prophet {Peace be upon Him} himself. According to this fabricated Hadith, the Prophet {Peace be upon Him} observes:

"I am Ahmad without the alphabet "Meem" which means that I am Ahad (i.e. the one and solitary, which is one of the Attributes of Allah, may Allah forbid!). Similarly, some people concocted lengthy patches of prose in Arabic, named it Khutbat-ul-lftikhar and ascribed it to Ali {May Allah have mercy on him} This is a monstrous act of slandering. (O Rabb! You are free from all kinds of Shirk. This is a mighty calumnious accusation which they have directed against You. O Rabb! We hereby implore You to make the truth prevail over falsehood and let the perpetrators of falsehood face an ignominy in this world! Amin.

The Christians believe in such a faith that the Prophet Jesus Christ {Peace be upon Him} wields a jurisdiction over both the worlds. Anyone claiming to have a faith in him, if pleads him in earnest, needs not worship Allah. Sins do not affect his faith. Making a discrimination between the permissible and the forbidden does not hold true for him anymore. In another words, he is free to run berserk like a mad elephant, liberated and unfettered, and doing everything according to the dictates of his whims.

He musters this audacity encouraged by the belief that Jesus Christ shall intercede with Allah on his behalf and save him from Allah's punishment. The ignorant Muslims nurse an identical belief not only in regard to the Prophet {Peace be upon Him} alone, but also in regard to every Imam, pious person, and preceptor. May Allah direct them to the Right Path.

It is narrated by Mutarrif bin Abdullah bin Ash-Shikhkhir {May Allah have mercy on him}that he, along with a delegation of Banu Amir tribesmen, went to Allah's Messenger {Peace be upon Him} They said:

"You are our Lord!" The Prophet answered, "Allah is the Lord." They said, "You are superior to us, elder than us and more generous than we are." The Prophet answered, "Yes, you can say all or some of these things about me, but I am afraid lest the Devil should make you arrogant."

It means that one should observe an extreme precaution while passing a remark about a saint. One should praise a saint in his capacity as a human being only and that too within reasonable limits (i.e. avoiding exaggerations). Do not extol him to the skies lest you should commit a sacrilege towards Divinity.

The word Saiyid carries two meanings:

The word Saiyid carries two meanings which are as follows:

a) Self-dependent or independent, the master of all who is not governed by anyone, and does anything he wills to do. No one except Allah possesses this quality and magnificence and hence there is no Saiyid but Allah in this sense of the meaning.

b) In another sense, it implies a person who receives the instructions of a lord and then conveys it to the others. This type of sense includes a chieftain and a land-lord etc. According to this sense, each Messenger of Allah is the chief of his Ummah, each Imam a chief of his contemporaries, every Mujtahid a chief of his followers, every saint a chief of his devotees and every scholar a chief of his disciples.

They are accorded this position of prominence due to the fact that at first, they act upon the Divine injunctions by themselves, and then they educate and instruct their youngsters in this faculty of knowledge.

In this respect, our favorite and beloved Prophet {Peace be upon Him} is the Saiyid of the whole world. He {Peace be upon Him} has the greatest and the most exalted status with Allah. He {Peace be upon Him} was the one who followed the injunctions of Shari'ah to the core more than anyone else. The people stand in dire need of him to be enlightened about the religion of Allah. Therefore, He {Peace be upon Him} may semantically be called the master of the entire world, nay, we should justifiably call him so. In terms of the first implied meaning, we shouldn't even consider him {Peace be upon Him} a master of an ant, because he himself is not empowered to exercise an authority even over an ant.

Sayings of the Prophet {Peace be upon Him} in regard to the pictures:

Aishah {May Allah have mercy on Her} narrated:

"Once I bought a cushion which was decorated with pictures. When Allah's Prophet {Peace be upon Him} sighted it, he kept standing at the door and did not enter the house. I detected an expression of disgust on his face. Upon noticing it said, "O Allah's Messenger, I seek forgiveness of Allah! What have I done wrong?" The Prophet {Peace be upon Him} said: "What this cushion is all about?" I said,

"I have bought it for you so that you may sit on it and use it as a pillow." The Prophet said, "The people who portray these pictures shall be subjected to a perdition on the Day of Judgment as they shall be asked to revive the picture they have portrayed." The {Peace be upon Him} further elaborated saying that the angels do not enter a house which contain pictures. (Al-Bukhari)

Since the majority of the polytheists indulge in an act of worshipping idols, the angels and the Prophets are averse to them and therefore angels do not enter such a house. The artists who portray and paint pictures shall be brought to books as they purvey to the people the paraphernalia of idolatry. It thus becomes understood that the preservation and portrayal of a picture, whether it be of a Prophet, an Imam, a saint, a Qutub, a preceptor or a devotee, is forbidden.

The people who honor the portraits of their elderly folks or religious mentors and preserve them as an object of consecration are indeed the ones who have gone astray and have turned into polytheists. Such people are abhorred by the Prophets and angels. It is an obligation on a Muslim that he must eliminate pictures of all kinds from his house considering them abominable so that the angels bearing the mercy of Allah may also enter his house thereby filling it with the element of Barakah (blessing).

The five major sins:

It is narrated by Ibn Abbas {May Allah have mercy on him} that he heard the Prophet {Peace be upon Him} saying:

"The one subjected to the severest torture on the Day of Judgment shall be the one who either killed a Prophet or the one who was killed by a Prophet, or the one who has killed either of his parents and the one portraying pictures, and a scholar who does not benefit out of his knowledge." (Baihaqi)

It means that the one who portrays pictures, also falls under the category of the major sins and therefore a penalty which is incurred by the murderer of a Messenger shall also be incurred by the one who portrays pictures.

It is narrated by Abu Hurairah {May Allah have mercy on him} that he heard the Prophet {Peace be upon Him} saying:

"Allah the Almighty says that the most wrong-doer person is the one who makes an effort to create like I do. In case some one boasts of doing that, let him create a particle, a grain or a barley." (Al-Bukhari-Muslim)

It implies that a portrayer (i.e. an artist) surreptitiously claims Divinity. He intends to create things which are the sole prerogative of Allah. He is the most arrogant person and a great liar. Despite the fact that he does not even possess the capability of creating a grain, he is still trying to emulate divinity. An imitator is a condemned person who is accursed by Allah.

The statement of the Prophet {Peace be upon Him} about himself: It is narrated by Anas {May Allah have mercy on him} that Allah's Messenger {Peace be upon Him} said: "I do not want you to raise me above the status which Allah has designated for me. I am Muhammad, the son of Abdullah, a slave of Allah and His Messenger." (Razin)1 1 The references of this matter are to be found in Musnad Ahmad and At- Tabarani etc. The following are the words of Hadith recorded in Musnad Ahmad:

It is narrated by Anas {May Allah have mercy on him} :

"A person said to the Prophet {Peace be upon Him} "You are our chief and the son of our chief!" The Prophet {Peace be upon Him} answered, "You may say so, but you must observe an utmost precaution lest the Satan should play tricks on you and prompts you into the act of exaggerating about me. I am Muhammad, the son of Abdullah and I swear to Allah that I do not like you to uplift me further from the status which Allah has assigned to me (by extolling me to skies The point which the Prophet {Peace be upon Him} wanted to drive home is that the way the other people, enjoying power and authority (i.e. the celebrities and tycoons), feel gratified and flattered out of being excessively praised, he (the Prophet {Peace be upon Him}) did not like being exaggerated in his praise even in the least.

These (so called) great people have nothing to do with the religion of those who lavish praise on them and they little care about whether or not they observe the precepts of their religions. But the Prophet {Peace be upon Him}was so kind and compassionate about his Ummah that he was always obsessed with their welfare in terms of religion (i.e. uplifting their moral standards and edifying their religious awakening etc.). When he {Peace be upon Him} knew that the people of his Ummah loved him on the immense and cherished that the way the other people,

enjoying power and authority (i.e. the celebrities and tycoons), feel gratified and flattered out of being excessively praised, he (the Prophet {Peace be upon Him}) did not like being exaggerated in his praise even in the least. These (so called) great people have nothing to do with the religion of those who lavish praise on them and they little care about whether or not they observe the precepts of their religions.

But the Prophet {Peace be upon Him}was so kind and compassionate about his Ummah that he was always obsessed with their welfare in terms of religion (i.e. uplifting their moral standards and edifying their religious awakening etc.).

When he {Peace be upon Him}knew that the people of his Ummah loved him on the immense and cherished their utmost gratitudes for him while also being aware of the fact that in order to oblige their favorites, people often eulogize them by extolling them to the skies, the Prophet {Peace be upon Him} became afraid lest the people should exceed the limits in lavishing praise on him thereby committing a sacrilege towards Allah, because if such a thing happens,

their faith shall be utterly destroyed, and it is but imperative that it will also cause a resentment to him (the Prophet {Peace be upon Him}). With a view to this possibility, the Prophet {Peace be upon Him}declared that he disliked exaggeration in his own respect. He {Peace be upon Him}said, "My name is Muhammad {Peace be upon Him}' I am not the creator or sustainer. Like anybody else, I was sired by my father and my honor lies within the status of my being a slave of Allah.

The only thing separating me from the common people is that I have the knowledge of the commandments of Allah which the people do not have. Therefore, people should seek the knowledge of Allah's religion from me."

O our Rabb! Show Your mercy and blessing upon the one who was sent as a manifestation of mercy for the entire world (i.e. the Prophet {Peace be upon Him}). O Allah! None but You can understand and reward to the fullest, the tireless efforts which the Prophet {Peace be upon Him}made to teach religion to the ignorant like us. O Allah, the Exalted, the Supreme! We are none but your helpless slaves! Nothing lies under our through hyperboles)."

A narration of At- Tabarani composes these words:

It is narrated by Husain bin Ali {May Allah have mercy on him} that the Prophet {Peace be upon Him} said: "Do not raise me any further than what my status is, because Allah has created me as His slave prior to appointing me as His Messenger.'"

control. As You, by Your grace, have made us comprehend and appreciate the meanings of Shirk (polytheism) and Tauhid (The Oneness of Allah), made us aware about the requirements of La ilaha ill-Allah, separated us from among the polytheists and made us purified and among the ones who believe in the Oneness of Allah, we entreat You to similarly teach us, by Your kindness and munificence, the meanings of Bid'ah (i.e. innovation in religion) and Sunnah (the ways of the Prophet {Peace be upon Him}), award us an awareness about the compulsory requirements of pronouncing the Kalimah "Muhammad Rasulullah. "

O my Rabb! We implore You to be so kind as to separate and distance us from among the apostates and the ones who innovate new things in religion and make us the pure devotees of the creed of the Prophet {Peace be upon Him}and prompt us into being the followers of Qur'an and Sunnah. Amin.