Part 97

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replied no, it is not necessary for him to say “if Allah wills” if he says he is a Muslim. Al-Athram asked if it is acceptable to call him a Muslim when one knows that other Muslims are not protected from his hands and tongue? One should remember that the Prophet (pbuh) said: “A Muslim is he from whose hand and tongue other Muslims are protected.” Ahmad replied that he knows that not all people are safe from him, and then he mentioned the hadith of Mu‘mmar, on the authority of al-Zuhri, which declares that Islam is kalimah and Iman is works.

Hence, Ahmad [Ibn Hanbal] made clear that if Islam is understood to be a kalimah, testimony, then there is no need for someone who claims to be a Muslim to add the phrase, “if Allah wills.” And if the term “belief” is understood in the same way, as in the phrase where Allah says: “. .. The freeing of a believing slave ...” (4:92), then what is meant by the term “believer” is someone who has shown himself outwardly to be a Muslim. For the belief upon which worldly judgments are based is an outward belief that may be identified with Islam. Hence, in terms of outward judgments on individuals, the words “belief” and Islam, or “believer” and Muslim, refer to the same thing. For this reason, when al-Athram mentioned to Ahmad [Ibn Hanbal] that the Murji’ites’ argument was based on the words of the Prophet (pbuh): “Free her, for she is a believer,” Ahmad replied that this statement is based on the woman’s being reckoned a believer according to outward, worldly standards; it does not, however, mean that if this woman met Allah [in the afterlife], with nothing but an outward testimony of belief, she would be a believer in Allah’s eyes meriting Paradise without having first to enter Hellfire [to purify her of her sins]. This type of believer is the “absolute” believer according to the Book of Allah, that is, the one who has perfect belief and is therefore promised Paradise without ever having to go through the fires of Hell. Therefore, Ibn Mas‘id and others of the pious ancestors used to require anyone who claimed to have belief to also claim that he would enter Paradise (i.e., to claim that he would die a believer). For it was firmly agreed on that Paradise is only for those who die with their belief intact.

Ifa person said: “I am, absolutely, a believer, and I am a believer in the judgment of Allah,” he would be asked to ascertain that he would enter Paradise without punishment if he died in this state; for Allah says that believers would enter Paradise without punishment. Indeed, Ahmad Ibn Hanbal denied the hadith of Ibn “Umayrah that stated that ‘Abd Allah Ibn Mas‘td changed his mind about the matter of saying “if Allah wills” after stating that one is a believer. This is due to

the fact that when Ibn Mas‘“iid was told that a community said: “We are believers,” he asked: “Did you not ask them if they would be in Paradise?” In another account, Ibn Mas‘iid asked: “Did they not say that they were the people of Paradise?” In a third account, he was told that a man claimed to be a believer, to which Ibn Mas‘id replied: “Ask him: Will he be in Paradise or in Hell?” When they asked the man, his answer was: “Allah knows best.” To this Ton Mas‘iid replied: “Why did he not say the same thing [“‘Allah knows best”] when he was asked about Iman?” Indeed, it is recorded by Qatidah, Na‘im Ibn Abi Hind,”? and others on the authority of “(Umar Ibn al-Khattab that he [the latter] said: “Whoever says ‘I am a believer’ is an unbeliever, whoever says ‘I am a scholar’ is ignorant, and whoever says ‘I will be in Paradise’ will be in Hell.”

The Murjiites posed this question to Ibn Mas ‘id, saying that Yazid Ibn “Umayrah had posed it to Ibn Mas‘id also, until he changed his mind about the question of whether to say “if Allah wills” after claiming to be a believer. But if one knows that he is a believer today, he does not know that he will remain so when he dies. ‘That is why some people started saying that a believer is he whom Allah knew in advance would have his belief sealed. for him; the unbeliever is the one whom Allah knew in advance would be an unbeliever. Moreover, no consideration is given to what the person was before this time. It is on this basis that they insisted on the necessity of saying “if Allah wills” after claiming to be a believer. Indeed, this is what some of the companions of Ahmad and others said, and it was also the view of Abu al-Hassan [al-Ashari] and his companions.

However, Ahmad [Ibn Hanbal] and others among the pious ancestors did not mean this. Rather, they meant that absolute Iman includes the performance of what is commanded. Accordingly, saying, “I am a believer” is like his saying, “I am Allah’s friend; I am a believer who fears Allah and believes in Him; I am one of the pious ones” and so on. And as it is a well-known fact that Ibn Mas‘“iid knew well that Paradise is only for the person who dies as a believer and that a man does not know in which state [whether belief or disbelief] he will die. However, his saying, “Ask him, will he be in Paradise if he dies in his state [of belief]?’ is similar to saying, “Ask him, will he be one of the people of Paradise in this state?” But when the man replied: “Allah and His Messenger know best,” Ibn Mas‘tid

30 Na‘im Ibn Abi Hind (2-110 A.H.) was a trustworthy scholar of hadith. [Kitab al-Iman MZ, p. 362.)

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remarked: “He should have said the same thing when he was asked about his Iman.” This means that one should not testify of himself that he performs the obligations and that he abandons what is prohibited. For if he does so, then he testifies of himself that he will be one of the people of Paradise if he dies in this state. That is why those who do not believe in saying, “if Allah wills” concerning one’s present state, but only concerning one’s state when he dies, do not judge for certain that Allah does not accept the repentance of a repentant for he may go back on his repentance before death. They also did not judge for certain that Allah punishes a sinner. For if they claimed to know for certain that his repentance was accepted, this would require that they guarantee his entry into Paradise. However, they do not state absolutely whether any Muslim will go to Paradise or Hell unless this is stated clearly of him in the texts [of Qur’dn and the Sunnah].

If it is said that Paradise is for whoever faithfully repents of all bad deeds, and they said that even if he died in this state of repentance, we cannot judge for certain that he would enter Paradise. They did not make exceptions in certain cases. Rather, they judged that a believer is he who has complete Iman. Accordingly, they guaranteed Paradise for the person whom they judged to have died as a believer, with no sins. That is why they did not judge the acceptability of his repentance, in order not to be forced to judge him worthy to enter Paradise. The leaders of the pious ancestors did not make any unequivocal judgments about who enters Paradise, for they could not judge for certain that a man performed what he was commanded _ to do and abandoned what was prohibited. Nor did they judge for certain that he was true and faithful in his repentance.

The leading pious ancestors unanimously agreed on the fact that a single name is negated or affirmed according to judgments that are related to it. Hence, if a name is affirmed or negated in one judgment, it does not mean it would be so in all the rest. This is true of the speech of the Arabs as well as of other communities. An illustrative example is the hypocrites who were included among the believers in one place, while they were excluded from them in another. Allah says: “Indeed Allah knows those among you who keep back [men] and those who say to their brother: come along to us, but come not to the fight except for just a little while. [They are] covetous over you. Then when fear comes, you will see them looking to you, their eyes revolving, like [those of] one over whom hovers death; but when the fear is past, they will smite you with sharp tongues in their greed for wealth [from the spoils]. Such men have no belief, and so Allah makes their deeds of no

effect: and that is easy for Allah” (33:18-19). In this verse, hypocrites are described as those who fear the enemy, are reluctant to undertake jihad, forbid others from jihad, and dispraise believers. In another verse, Allah says: “They swear by Allah that they are indeed of you; but they are not of you: yet they are afraid [to appear in their true colors]. If they could find a place to flee to, or caves, or a place of concealment, they would turn away threats with an obstinate rush” (9:56-57). The sins of these hypocrites are less serious than those of the hypocrites mentioned in the previous verses. For they did not harm the believers, either by forbidding them from jihad or by smiting them with sharp tongues. However, they swore by Allah that they were believers in their hearts, although they were not. That is why Allah says, in the last verse, that “they are not of you.” He also says, in the previous verse, that “indeed Allah knows those among you who keep back [men].” This statement refers to whoever is outwardly a believing Muslim, saying that some of them have these characteristics. However, such people are not believers, for Allah make their deeds worthless. Hence, such people were “of you” outwardly, but not inwardly.

Indeed, when the Prophet (pbuh) was questioned about fighting against hypocrites, he said: “He did not want people to say that Muhammad fights against his friends.” Accordingly these hypocrites were, outwardly speaking, considered friends of the Prophet. Indeed, this is what was believed by those who did not know the truth about them. However, the true friends of the Prophet (pbuh) did not have the least hypocrisy. For they [the true friends] were the ones who taught others about the sayings of the Prophet, who fought against the apostates, who became unbelievers after the death of the Prophet, and the ones who pledged allegiance to the Prophet (pbuh) under the tree, including the people of Badr and others. However, these people, who were hypocrites, were mostly people who were not versed in worldly affairs.