A Refutation of Wrong Opinions about Tawassul
as Expressed in the So-called "Fundamentals of Tawheed"
Bilal Philips, in his “Evolution of Fiqh,” page 130, says:
“Furthermore, in opposing tawassul...the twentieth century descendants and followers of Ibn ‘Abdul-Wahhaab were attacking unislamic practices.” (emphasis added).
The above statement from Bilal Philips tells the readers two things about him. First, he acknowledges to be a supporter of wahhabees and hence becomes a wahhabee himself. Second, he claims that tawassul is an unIslamic practice. The false claims of Bilal Philips opposes the perspectives of Ahl al-Sunna wa’al Jama’ah, whom make up the majority of the best of Ummahs. To read a refutation of the wahhabee movement, one can read plenty of books by Ahl al-Sunna scholars. “Al-Fitnatul- Wahhabiyya,” by the Mufti of Mecca, Ahmad ibn Zayni Dahlan ash-Shafi’i and “The Beacon of Humanity and the Clarification of Ignorance,” by the great Shaykh Ibn Alawi Al-Haddad. There are hundreds of other books written by other ulema although the aforementioned refutations are sufficient to expose wahhabee deviance. For your reference, here are a few more sources of refutation against the wahhabees: Shaykh Muhammad Sa‘id Ramadan Al-Buti’s “Al-salafiyyatu marhalatun zamaniyyatun mubarakatun la madhhabun islami” [”The Salafiyya is a blessed historical period not an Islamic school of law”], Al-muhaddith Muhammad al-Hasan ibn ‘Alawi Al-Maliki al-Husayni’s “Mafahimu yajibu an tusahhah” [”Notions that should be corrected”], and al-Sayyid Mustafa ibn Ahmad ibn Hasan Al-Shatti al-Athari al-Hanbali’s “al-Nuqul al-shar’iyyah fi al-radd ‘ala al-Wahhabiyya” [”The Legal Proofs in Answering the Wahhabis”]. One will have ample evidence from these sources to prove that Bilal Philips’ defense of wahhabees is tantamount to defending ignorance and reprehensible innovations. Claims that seeking an intermediary between Allah and man is unIslamic are also made by other wahhabee “scholars.” For example: Muhammad bin Suleiman At-Tamimi, in his article, “What Negates One’s Islam,” says:
“Whoever sets up an intermediary between himself and Allah, whom he prays to, seeks intercession from and puts his reliance in, has blasphemed according to the consensus of the scholars.” (emphasis added).
Al-Tamimi is lying in behalf of the majority of scholars because you will read below that the majority of scholars have considered setting up an intermediary between oneself and Allah and seeking intercession a permissible and meritorious act. Al-Tamimi only speaks in behalf of the wahhabees who are in opposition to the Sunni majority. A similar statement is made by the so-called Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Abdl-Aziz bin Abdullah Bin Baaz. Bin Baaz, in his article “Ten Things Which Nullify One’s Islam,” says:
“Setting up intermediaries between oneself and Allah, making supplication to them, asking their intercession with Allah, and placing ones trust in them is unbelief (kufr).” (emphasis added).
What Bin Baaz and al-Tamimi call “kufr,” i.e. setting up intermediaries when asking Allah, is in fact a practice of the noble Sahaba and their pious followers. This will be explained in more detail below. Bilal Philips’ claim that tawassul is an “unIslamic practice” opposes the Qur’an, Sunnah, and consensus of our beloved orthodox Sunni ulema. You will see very clearly how wahhabees mix truth with falsehood, by equating pagan practices with practices of the noble and pious Sahaba, Tabi’een, Tabi al-Tabi’een, and the khalaf whom adhered to their footsteps. This will be explained in more detail below. The defintion of Tawassul is: Supplicating Allahu Ta’ala by means of anintermediary, whether it be a living person, dead person, a good deed, or a name or attribute of Allahu Ta’ala. Tawassul is a “means” Muslims seek, using an intermediary, when asking Allahu Ta’ala for something. One of the many verses in the noble Qur’an which permit Tawassul is: “Allah the Blessed and the Exalted said:
“O ye who believe, fear Allah and seek ye the means to Him” (al-Ma’ida, 34)
Shaykh ul-Islam Yusuf ibn al-Sayyid Hashim al-Rifa’i, a Shafi’i scholar, former minister of state, educator, Sufi, and author explains the issue of tawassul very clearly in his “Adilla Ahl al-Sunna wa al-Jama’ah.” The following is a translation of part of this book by Shaykh Nuh Ha Mim Keller, a Shafi’i scholar, who added this as a section in his translation of “Al-‘Umdat al- salik” (The Reliance of the Traveller) by Shaykh Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri, a student of the famous Shafi’i mujtahid Taqi al- Din al-Subki. Shaykh Yusuf al-Rifa’i says:
“I here want to convey the position, attested to by compelling legal evidence, of the orthodox majority of Sunni Muslims on the subject of supplicating Allah through an intermediary (tawassul), and so I say (and Allah alone gives success) that since there is no disagreement among scholars that supplicating Allah through an intermediary is in principle legally valid, the discussion of its details merely concerns derived rulings that involve interschool differences, unrelated to questions of belief or unbelief, monotheism or associating partners with Allah (shirk); the sphere of the question being limited to permissibility or impermissibility, and its ruling being that it is either lawful or unlawful. There is no difference among groups of Muslims in their consensus on the permissibility of three types of supplicating Allah through an intermediary (tawassul): (1) TAWASSUL through a living righteous person to Allah Most High, as in the hadith of the blind man with the Prophet (Allah bless him and grant him peace) as we shall explain; (2) The TAWASSUL of a living person to Allah Most High through his own good deeds, as in the hadith of the three people trapped in a cave by a great stone, a hadith related by Imam Bukhari in his “Sahih;” (3) And the TAWASSUL of a person to Allah Most High through His entity (dhat), names, attributes, and so forth.
