Part 52

Ma‘qal said that he saw al-Zuhri and told him about their saying. He said: “Glory to Allah! Do people quarrel about such issues?” [He was astonished to hear such ideas, which result in many controversies.] The Prophet (pbuh) said: “A fornicator who fornicates is not considered a believer as long as he continues to do so, and no one who drinks wine is considered a believer as long as he continues to do so.” Ma‘qal said: “I met al-Hakam Ibn ‘Utaybah’ and said to him that I was told by “Abd al-Karim and Maymin that some of the Murji?ites came to present their views to you, and that you accepted them.” He [al-Hakam] replied: “Maymiin and “Abd al-Karim reported that about me? While I was sick I was visited by twelve men who said to me: ‘Abu Muhammad, have you heard that a man came to the Prophet (pbuh) with a black maiden or an Abyssinian slave! When he approached the Prophet, he said Oh, Messenger of Allah, I have to emancipate a believing slave. Do you see this slave as a believer?’” The Messenger asked the slave: “Do you testify that there is no god but Allah?” Upon this, the slave replied: “Yes.” The Prophet added: “Do you testify that Muhammad is a Messenger of Allah?” She answered: “Yes.” He [the Prophet] then said: “Do you testify that Paradise and Hell are real?” She answered: “Yes.” He [the Prophet] then asked: “Do you testify that Allah resurrects you back to life [after death]?” She replied: “Yes.” Upon this, the Prophet said: “Emancipate her. Indeed, she is a believer.” Then they departed, thinking about the argument.

’ Al-Hakam Ibn ‘Utaybah, Abu Muhammad (2-115 A.H.), was a celebrated jurist and a trustworthy scholar of hadith. [Kitab al-Iman MZ, p.191.}

Ma‘qal said that once he sat next to Maymiin Ibn Mahran and asked him to recite and then explain a seerah of the Qur’an. Then Maymiin recited what Allah says: “When the sun with its spacious light is folded up” (81:1), up until “With authority there, and faithful to his trust” (81:21). Then he said that here Gabriel is meant. Failure awaits whoever said that his Iman is like that of Gabriel. Supporting this is the account of Hanbal,* on the authority of Ahmad and also narrated by Ibn Abi Malikah.’ He [Hanbal] said: “Ages have passed by and I have never encountered in a people anyone who said:‘I am a true believer.” He was not satisfied until he had said: “My belief is like that of Gabriel and Michael.” And Satan continued to harass them until one of them said: “I am a believer,” even though he had taken his sister, his mother, and his daughter as wives. This is what I have come to understand from the Companions of the Prophet (pbuh), none of whom died without fearing for himself lest he be found to be a hypocrite. The same meaning was also reported in Sahih al-Bukhari. He said: “I realized that thirty of the Companions of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) feared becoming hypocrites, and none of them ever said that his Iman was like that of Gabriel.”

Al-Baghawi related on the authority of ‘Abd Allah Ibn Muhammad that Ibn Mujahid said: “While I was sitting with ‘Ata Ibn Abi Rabah, his son Ya‘qub entered and said: ‘Oh, father, some of my companions claim that their Iman is like that of Gabriel.’ Upon this, he [‘Ata”] answered: ‘Oh my dear son, the Iman of the one who obeys Allah is not like that of someone who disobeyed Him.”

THE MuRuPITES’ VIEWS ON WORKS: ARE THEY PART OF IMAN OR RELIGION?

We said that the claim that prayer and giving zakah are not part of religion may be a position that was held by only some of the Murji’ites. However, all of them held that these duties are not part of belief. As for their part in religion, some of them are reported to have said that these duties were not part of religion; moreover, we make no distinction between belief and religion. However, some of them said that these two duties are indeed part of religion, and [thus] a distinction must be made between the terms “belief” and “religion.” These were the claims

5 ‘The full name of Hanbal is Hanbal Ibn Hilal al-Shaybani, a cousin of Iman Ahmad Ibn Hanbal. He worked on history and hadiths.

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that are known to have been made. However, I found that none of them claimed, in any of their writings, that good works are not part of religion; rather, they held that they are not part of belief. This is also what Abu ‘Ubayd reported concerning the views of members of this sect who debated with him. Abu ‘Ubayd and others argued that good works are indeed part of religion. In support of this Allah says: “... This day, I have perfected your religion for you . . .” (5:3). This verse was revealed as part of the farewell sermon that the Prophet preached. According to Abu ‘Ubayd, the religion [of the Prophet’s believing community] was brought to completion at the end of [this period of] Islam, with this speech given by the Prophet (pbuh). However, the Murji’ites claimed that religion had reached completion twenty years before this, from the time when the revelation first descended upon the Prophet in Makkah and when the Prophet called upon people to acknowledge [Islam as the true religion]. He [Abu ‘Ubayd] even said that some of them were obliged to retreat when the injunctions contained in this sermon were introduced into it. He also added that belief is not all of religion; rather, religion consists of three parts: belief, religious duties, and supererogatory acts of devotion.

This claim he made was the doctrine held by the majority of the people. But according to Abu ‘Ubayd, it was not consistent with what the Book teaches. For did not Allah say: “Truly, the religion in the sight of Allah is Islam. . .” (3:19); He also says: “And whoever seeks a religion other than Islam, it will never be accepted of him. . .” (3:85); and He also says: “. . . And I have chosen for you Islam as your religion . . .”” (5:3). All these verses indicate that Islam is religion in its entirety, while the Murji’ites claimed that it represents only one-third of religion.

However, what they have said was not that belief is one-third of religion, but merely that belief is ‘a third.” Moreover, they made a distinction between the concepts of “belief” and “religion.” And, if Allah wills, we shall mention in the following what has been said concerning each of these. For some have been reported to have said that first of all, prayer and giving zakah are not part of religion, and second, that no distinction is to be made between the terms “belief” and “religion.” Others, however, have insisted that both these practices are part of religion. Al-Shafi‘I (may Allah be pleased with him) used to praise ‘Ata’ Ibn Abi Rabah and said that none of the followers was better than ‘Ata’ in following hadith. Likewise, Abu Hanifah said: “I have never seen anybody like ‘Ata’.” Al-Shafi‘l cited this statement about ‘Ata [based on the conversation between

Ma‘qal and ‘Ata? about whether prayer is part of religion or not]. Ibn Abi Hatim narrated on the authority of his father, from ‘Abd al-Malik Ibn ‘Abd al-Hamid alMaymiini, from Abu ‘Uthman Ibn Muhammad Ibn Muhammad al-Shafi‘, that one night he heard his father saying to al-Hamidi that the strongest refutation of the argument of the Murji’tes was the following saying of Allah: “And they have been commanded no more than this: to worship Allah, offering Him sincere devotion, being true [in belief]; to establish regular prayer; and to give zakah; and that is the Religion Right and Straight ” (98:5).

In his book al-Umm, (The Mother), in the Chapter on Intent, al-Shafi‘l also said that no prayer is adequate without good intent, as indicated in the saying of ‘Umar Ibn al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him), from the Prophet (pbuh): “Deeds are recorded according to the intentions of those who perform them.” He further said: “The Companions and the followers unanimously agree upon the saying that Iman is an utterance, a work, and an intent. None of these three matters is regarded without the other two.”

Hanbal said that al-Hamidi reported that he heard that some people say that whoever acknowledged the duties of prayer, giving zakah, fasting, and pilgrimage but did not practice any of them until he died, was a believer, provided he was not a denier, knowing that his abandonment of these duties was a constituent of Iman as long as he admitted the obligations and faced the qiblah [when he prayed]. The author refutes this argument as an explicit rejection of Iman, of the Book, of the Sunnah, and of the unanimity of the Muslim jurists. Allah says: “And they have been commanded no more than this: to worship Allah, to offer Him sincere devotion . . .” (98:5). Furthermore, Hanbal said that I heard Abu ‘Abd Allah Ahmad Ibn Hanbal say that whoever said so [in agreement with al-Hamidi], indeed, he has committed blasphemy and denied Allah’s commands and rejected what the Messenger brought forward from Allah.

The Murji?ite’s citation of the Prophet’s statement: “Emancipate her [the slave girl]; indeed, she is a believer,” is one of their famous arguments, based on which Ibn Kullab said that Iman is both tasdiq, assent, and qawl, saying. Against this, the author argues that this statement of the Prophet (pbuh) is not applicable here {cannot be generalized]. For manifest Iman, about which worldly judgments may be made, does not necessitate the existence of inner Iman, whose adherent will enjoy happiness in the Hereafter. Allah says hypocrites are those who say: “... We

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believe in Allah and the Last Day; but they do not [really] believe” (2:8). Outwardly they pretend to be believers. For they pray, fast, go on pilgrimage, invade, inherit from Muslims, and marry Muslims in the same way hypocrites used to do during the time of the Messenger of Allah (pbuh). The Prophet did not regard them as unbelievers who manifested their unbelief neither in their marriage nor inheritance practices nor anything else. Rather, when ‘Abd Allah Ibn Ubay Ibn Salil, one of the most notorious hypocrites, died, his heir was his son ‘Abd Allah, who was among the most virtuous believers. Similarly, in the cases of all other hypocrites who died, their inheritances were passed on to their believing heirs. And if any heirs to any of them died, they in turn were this person’s heirs along with the Muslims.