| Min Ahlil Hadeeth
Status: Offline Posts: 7,268 Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: ~ Daar as-Sa'aadah ~ Gender:  Way of Life: Muslim |  Re: A Critical Analysis of Shirk -
06-21-2007
Tawheed Preceded Shirk
The original ruling was that Mankind was upon Tawheed, and Shirk came after that. There are three basic evidences for this.
No.1: The Fitrah
The human Fitrah is the innate nature that Allah created in all of us.
Allah’s Messenger salAllahu ‘alayhi wa sallam said,
“Every child is born with true faith (i.e. to worship none but Allah alone), but his parents convert him to Judaism or Christianity or Zoroastrianism. As an animal delivers a perfect baby animal, do you find it mutilated?”
[Bukhari, Volume 2, Book 23, No.440]
The basis for this Fitrah is the mithaaq, the covenant that Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala took from all of Mankind when Adam was created, as is reported in the authentic hadeeth in the Musnad of Imam Ahmad, at-Tirmidhee, al-Haakim and others. However, the mithaaq was removed from our memory, as this would case the test of this life to be futile. However, it is still in our Fitrah. Therefore, the reminisce of the mithaaq is still in our Fitrah. That is why Islam is so appealing. The proof for this is in the Qur’an and the Sunnah. Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala says;
“When thy Lord drew forth from the Children of Adam - from their loins - their descendants, and made them testify concerning themselves, (saying): "Am I not your Lord (who cherishes and sustains you)?"- They said: "Yea! We do testify!" (This), lest ye should say on the Day of Judgment: "Of this we were never mindful"”
[Al-Araf 7:172]
That is why the majority of people who lived between two Prophets will go to Hellfire if they died upon Shirk, even if they did not get the message of the new Prophet. This is because they went against their own Fitrah. And the proof for this is that there existed people in their time that left Idol worshipping, and they were called Hunafaa. Therefore, they realised by their Fitrah that these Idol worshippers were upon dhalaalah; misguidance.
And the incident of mithaaq is recorded by Imam Ahmad, an-Nasaa’ee, at-Tirmidhee, al-Haakim, Abu Dawood, at-Tabaraani and so many other books of hadeeth, from over six companions. And the ‘Allaamah, the Muhaddith, Shaykh Muhammad Naasir-ud-Deen al-Albaanee has a very good discussion of this, and made a very good takhreej of these narrations in his Silsilatal-Hadeeth as-Saheehah No.1623, which is one of the best discussions found.
The Fitrah means we have a general knowledge of the Sharee’ah, but not a detailed knowledge. For example, every single human being knows that murder, lying, cheating, and stealing is wrong. This is why every society, even the most ruthless, has similar prohibitions of these things. This is the first evidence.
No.2: The First Man
We know that the first man to exist was Adam ‘alayhis salaam, who have a Prophet and servant of Allah that was upon Tawheed, so it is impossible for Shirk to have existed before that in Mankind.
“Allah did choose Adam and Noah, the family of Abraham, and the family of 'Imran above all people.”
[Aal-E-Imran 3:33]
So he would have taught his children Tawheed, and they would have taught that to their children. This is another basic proof.
No.3: The people of Nooh
We know that the first people to commit Shirk were the people of Nooh ‘alayhis salaam. Ibn ‘Abbaas narrates in the Mustadrak of al-Haakim that between Adam and Nooh were ten generations; all of them were upon the sharee’ah and Tawheed. Then they differed (in to shirk) amongst themselves, so Allah sent Nooh ‘alayhis salaam. It says in the Qur’an;
“And they have said (to each other), 'Abandon not your gods: Abandon neither Wadd nor Suwa', neither Yaguth nor Ya'uq, nor Nasr'”
[Nooh 71:23]
And ibn ‘Abbaas narrates, in Saheeh Bukhari, that concerning this verse, that these five people were five pious people. When they died Shaytaan come to that generation and said, ‘Are you not grieved that your companions have died?’ They said, ‘Yes we are’. So Shaytaan replied, ‘Should I not make images of them, so that when you see them, they will remind you of their worship of Allah? Should I not place it in the Qibla, so that when you face the Qibla you will see them and remember Allah?’ They said, ‘No, don’t place it in our Qibla.’ This was because their Fitrah told them that this was something bad. They said, ‘Face it to our backs.’ So Shaytaan did that for them. And then that generation passed away. And when later generations came, shaytaan came to them in the form of an old man and said, ‘What are these statues in your places of worship?’ They said, ‘We found that our fathers had them, so we have them as well.’ So shaytaan said, ‘Verily your forefathers used to worship these idols, therefore you should worship them as well.’ So they started worshipping these idols, and this became the first Shirk that was started by Mankind. And that was when Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala sent Nooh ‘alayhis salaam. The basis of Shirk started in the time of Nooh ‘alayhis salaam, when they exaggerated the status of five righteous people, and this is the basis of Shirk all over the world.
However, many of the modern-day anthropologists claim that first there was Shirk, and then there was Tawheed, i.e. the tribes started of with idol-worshipping, and then they worked their way up to monotheism. And this is the commonly held belief today. What gave rise to this type of idea is Darwinism. This is a rotten fruit of Darwinism, which is the belief that Mankind evolved from something primitive in to something superior. They have two basic evidences for this.
Firstly: archaeological excavations
They dig up an ancient civilisation, and find an idol. So this leads them to the belief that Shirk existed before Tawheed.
We can refute this in a simple manner. You are never going to find an archaeological excavation that brings up Tawheed, as Tawheed negates Idols. You are never going to find an idol or picture of Tawheed, so their whole point makes very little sense. Just because some of the civilisations they have found were upon Shirk, this does not mean that every single generation or civilisations before that were similarly upon Shirk. So there is no proof here.
And secondly, they cannot prove that these were the first of Mankind. If they dig up an excavation in a valley in Iraq and find idols there, then all they have proved is that 3000 years ago, in a valley of Iraq, idols were worshipped. This is it, and nothing more. They can only specify it to that particular time, and that particular place. You cannot generalise it to all of Mankind at that time, or the people before that.
Second: analogy
They make Qiyaas (analogy) upon the primitive tribes of Africa, and the Aborigine tribes and they find that they are upon Shirk, so they come to the conclusion that our great ancestors must have been upon Shirk a well.
However, in order to draw analogies there needs to be some similarities. What gives you the right to draw analogies between earlier nations, and the tribe of Africa, simply because technology hasn’t reached these current tribes? Technology is not a similarity that makes your religion the same as well. You can find nations that are not technologically advanced, yet they are upon Tawheed. In Arabic, this type of Qiyaas is called ‘Qiyaas ma’al saariq’, meaning a Qiyaas that has no basis. There is no basis in comparing apples to oranges. So in reality, these people have turned away from the revelations of Allah, and relied upon their own understandings. Therefore they have gone astray, and fallen in to ideas and methodologies which are contrary to the Qur’an and Sunnah. All of this, because they do not rely upon the inspiration from Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala.
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