Quote:
Originally Posted by Malaikah  
I'm confused. Some one just neg repped my post saying we do have saints...
What saints?!  How come I've never heard about this? |
People get mixed up with the issue of wali and saint. Someone who is a wali of Allaah is someone who is a friend of Allaah, i.e. Prophet Ibrahim was a wali of Allaah and he was His khaleel - close friend.
The area where people get confused is where they say that someone is a close friend of Allaah, therefore we can ask him to 'intercede on our behalf' - just like christians do to their 'saints' because these people were pious.
Infact, this is explained by the Messenger of Allaah (peace be upon him) before he was about to pass away:
Muslim narrates on the authority of Jundub Ibn `Abdillah (radhiAllahu anhu) that he said: "I heard the Prophet (peace be upon him) say five days before his death: "Verily, I bear witness before Allah (swt ) that I have taken none of you as my Khaleel,2 for truly, Allah (swt ) has taken me as His Khaleel, just as He took Ibraheem (as ) as a Khaleel. If I were to take any man from my Ummah as a khaleel, it would be Abu Bakr. Your predecessors used to take their Prophets' graves as places of worship, so do not make graves into places of worship for I have forbidden you to do this."
It is authentically reported on the authority of `Aa`ishah that Um Salamah (May Allah be pleased with them both) told the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) about a church she had seen in Abyssinia in which there were pictures. The Prophet said: "Those people, when a righteous member of their group or a pious slave (of Allah swt ) dies, they build a mosque over his grave and make images therein; by so doing, they combine two evils: (i) The evil of the graves and (ii) the evil of images." 1
And the Messenger of Allaah spoke the truth when he said:
Abu Sa'id al-Khudri reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: You would tread the same path as was trodden by those before you inch by inch and step by step so much so that if they had entered into the hole of the lizard, you would follow them in this also. We said: Allah's Messenger, do you mean Jews and Christians (by your words) "those before you"? He said: Who else (than those two religious groups)? -Sahih Muslim, Hadith 6448
These links are also beneficial inshaa Allaah:
http://www.islamicboard.com/basics-i...hen-allah.html http://www.islamicboard.com/762140-post33.html http://www.islamicboard.com/discover...er-graves.html http://www.islamicboard.com/prophets...-nuh-noah.html (Prophet Nuh (Noah))
And Allaah knows best.