In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful, Most Compassionate
Assalaamu alaykum
Dear Friends
I pray that you are well.
Wishing you and your families a blessed Dhu'l-Hijjah. May Allah increase our worship and righteous deeds in these blessed 10 days and make our hearts truly focused on Him. Ameen.
Counsels on Religious Obligations
And this is what the Messenger of Allah, may blessings and peace be upon him, referred to when he said: 'Allah the Exalted says: "My servant draws nearer to Me with nothing more pleasing to Me than what I have made obligatory upon him, and then continues to draw nearer to Me with supererogatory devotions until I love him; and when I love him I become his hearing with which he hears, his sight with which he sees, his hand with which he strikes, and his foot with which he walks, so that by Me he hears, by Me he sees, by Me he strikes, and by Me he walks. Should he ask Me, I shall surely grant him his request; should he ask Me for protection I shall surely protect him. Never do I hesitate in anything as I hesitate in taking the soul of my believing servant; he dislikes death, and I dislike to displease him, but it is a thing inevitable".'
See, may Allah have mercy on you, what this hadith Qudsi (Holy Tradition) contains of secrets and gnosis, and ponder on the fine meanings and subtleties which it indicates. This fortunate servant only reaches that great rank, where everything he likes is liked by Allah, and everything he dislikes is disliked by Him by virtue of his conforming to what He has made obligatory upon him, and his performing supererogatory devotions in abundance in his wish to draw nearer to Him. So make haste! Make haste, if you are determined to reach the degrees of perfection and wish to attain to the ranks of men. The path is now clear before you, and the radiance of realization has appeared to you.
Know that Allah has put much good into supererogatory devotions, through His grace and mercy, for many imperfections occur in obligatory worship. However, imperfection in an obligatory act can only be redeemed by an act of supererogation of the same kind: prayer by prayer, and fasting by fasting. Obligations are the basis and acts of supererogation are dependent upon them.
The one who performs the obligations, avoids the prohibited things, and does not add anything to this is better than him who performs acts of supererogation but neglects some obligations. Beware therefore, of neglecting any obligations while occupied with acts of supererogation, for you would thereby sin, and by abandoning your obligations your acts of supererogation will become unacceptable to Allah. An example of this is the man who occupies himself with acquiring a kind of knowledge which is, for him, supererogatory, and neglects acquiring the kind which is, for him, obligatory, either outwardly or inwardly. Another is the man who is able to but neglects working for a livelihood and busies himself with supererogatory devotions, leaving his children to beg from others. You can use these two examples to assess by analogy other similar situations.
Know that you will never attain to the performing of obligations, the avoiding of the prohibited things, and the performance of the supererogatory acts that He has laid down for you to draw nearer to Him, save through knowledge. Seek it then! For he has said, may blessings and peace be upon him: 'Seeking knowledge is an obligation upon every Muslim.'
Knowledge makes you aware of what is a duty, what is recommended, what is forbidden, how to perform your duties and recommended acts, and how to avoid what is prohibited. Therefore, you must have knowledge and cannot dispense with it; for on the practice of it your happiness in this world and the hereafter depends. Know that those who worship but have no knowledge end up receiving more harm from their worship than benefit. How many a worshiper has tired himself out in worshiping while persistently committing a sin which he believed to be an act of obedience or [at any rate] not a sin!
The gnostic Shaykh Ibn 'Arabi, in the chapter on advice in the Futuhat, relates the story of a Moroccan who showed great zeal in worship, and [one day] bought a female donkey which he never [ostensibly] used for any purpose. A man questioned him about why he kept the animal and he replied: 'I keep it to protect my genitals [from adultery].' He did not know that it was prohibited to have intercourse with animals! When he was informed about this he was frightened and wept profusely.
The knowledge obligatory upon every Muslim is to know the mandatory status of those things which Allah has made obligatory upon him, and the forbidden status of those which Allah has prohibited him. As for knowing the way to perform each obligation, this becomes obligatory only at the time of wanting to perform it. The one who reaches puberty or enters Islam in the month of Muharram, for instance, must immediately learn the meaning of the two Affirmations, and utter them; and then learn about the duty of performing the five prayers and their necessary components and rules. He must then learn about the obligations of fasting, the zakat, the pilgrimage [hajj], and so forth, and about the prohibition of adultery, wine drinking, the wrongful appropriation of other people's wealth, and the other things forbidden by the Law. It is not necessary for him to learn precisely how to fast or perform the Hajj until Ramadan or Hajj time arrives, nor how to calculate the zakat until he has enough money for the zakat to become due and its time arrives. And Allah knows best.
The main duties and prohibitions are well known among Muslims; the important thing, however, is to know the various rules, which can only be acquired from a scholar who fears Allah and upholds the truth. The commonalty are sometimes right and sometimes mistaken, so beware of doing what they do and leaving what they leave by emulation, for emulation can be sound only if it be of a scholar who practices that which he knows, and such people are today a rarity. Therefore, if you see a scholar these days and observe him doing or leaving something, and you do not know whether this is right or wrong, do not be content with just having seen what he does or refrains from doing; ask him about the legal reasons and the religious rules behind it.
A Muslim does not need a long time to acquire the knowledge that is obligatory for him, nor is much hardship involved. An intelligent student will find it sufficient to sit with a proficient scholar for an hour or two. A bedouin once came to the Messenger of Allah, may blessings and peace be upon him, while he was preaching from his pulpit, and asked him to teach him some of that which Allah had taught him. He descended from his pulpit, taught him, then returned to it and completed his sermon.
On the whole, those who want security and gain must not initiate any act or continue in something already initiated until they know Allah's ruling in its regard: whether it is obligatory, recommended, just licit, or prohibited. Everything will fall into one of those four groups. This must surely be a duty for every Muslim.
Believers can be divided into the commonalty and the elect. The former may fall into the neglect of duties and the committing of forbidden things; they are not keen on supererogatory devotions and they use the merely licit [category of] things to excess. The best among them are those who hasten to repent and ask for forgiveness. As for the elect, they carry out their obligations and avoid prohibitions under all circumstances; they are also careful to perform the recommended things, and confine themselves when using what is licit to that which is a means of conforming to [Allah's] orders and prohibitions.
And Allah is the One Who grants success.
Allahumma salli 'ala Muhammad wa 'ala aalihi wa sahbihi wassallam.
And Allah knows best.
Wassalaam
Related Archive:
Prepare for the First Ten Days of Dhu'l-hijjah
Source: The Book of Assistance, Imam ‘Abdallah Ibn ‘Alawi al-Haddad (Allah have mercy upon him). Translated by: Dr. Mostafa al-Badawi, Madina
The author Imam Abdallah Ibn-Alawi Al-Haddad (d. 1720), lived at Tarim in the Hadramaut valley between Yemen and Oman, and is widely held to have been the ?renewer? of the twelfth Islamic century. A direct descendant of the Prophet, his sanctity and direct experience of God are clearly reflected in his writings, which include several books, a collection of Sufi letters, and a volume of mystical poetry. He spent most of his life in Kenya and Saudi Arabia where he taught Islamic jurisprudence and classical Sufism according to the order (tariqa) of the Ba’Alawi sayids.
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