Ali Ataie – The Prophet as Intercessor The Islamic Concept on Prophetic Intercession
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Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, he says in the
Quran,
in the 35th ayah of the 5th surah
of the Quran,
He says, oh you who believe,
fear Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
and seek out the means to him
and strive in his path in order for
you to be successful.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala mentions in this ayah
iman. The verb is amanu, the mustar or
infinitive is iman.
He mentions taqwa, iman and taqwa, And then
he mentions a third thing, alwaseelah,
the means of arrival, the means of approach
to him, to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. This
word alwaseelah
is related linguistically to the term tawasul or
intermediation.
You see there may be deficiencies in our
level of iman.
There may be deficiencies in our level of
taqwa. So Allah commands us.
This is a firil amr. This is a
command
to to fill in as it were our
deficient gaps of imam
and taqwa by seeking out the means to
him. And you apply to a university,
our young people know this all too well,
unless you have a 1600 SAT and a
36
ACT and a 4.3 GPA, you will need
help
in the form of letters of recommendation,
help from people that have authority
and rank in academia.
It's similar in the spiritual realm.
We need all the help we can get
from those things nearest and dearest to Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala. We all practice tawasul at
some level. We read the Quran.
As one of my teachers said, the Quran
is not Allah and the Quran is not
you.
Reading the Quran, tera'atul Quran
is a means of drawing near
to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. It is a
wasila.
Now some commentators say about this ayah, the
means of approach mentioned in this ayah that
it is al Anbiya. It is the prophets
more specifically,
Sayyidina Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. Our master
Muhammad,
peace and blessings of God be upon him.
The means of approach to our Lord,
the Ba'alawi Sadaat of Yemen, they recite a
beautiful benediction upon the prophet salallahu alaihi wa
sallam. They say, Allahumma sali alaihi wa sallam
Muhammad.
Oh Allah bless our master Muhammad. Miftahi babiurrahmatilla.
The key to the gate of the mercy
of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. If you think
of the analogy of the rahma of Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala as being like a walled
city with a gate,
and many claim to have the key.
Many claim to have the key to the
city of rahma.
But the true key is the prophet Muhammad
salamahu alaihi alaihi wasallam. The ulama mentioned, the
mufasilin of the Quran mentioned that a waft,
a delegation of Christians from Najran, they came
into Madinah to Manawara and they dialogue with
the Sahaba and the Christians said that we
worship Isa alaihis salam out of love for
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, out of love for
God. This is a subbable news of according
to many of the mufasilin of ayatulimtiham
which Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala commands his prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam to tell them,
Say, if you really love Allah, you have
to have itiba of me.
You have to follow me.
You see.
So you don't demonstrate your love for Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala by worshiping his creation. Yuhbibkumullah.
Then will Allah love you and forgive you
your sins. So the prophet salallahu alaihi wasallam
is not just miftahibabi
rahmatilla.
He is miftahibabi
mahabbatilla.
He is the key to the gate of
the love of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
The prophet shalallahu alaihi wa sallam said, kulmur
and said, kullmul and said, kullmul and said,
kullmul and said, tanqatiya yomal qiamati
The prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, he said,
every type of lineages is cut off and
severed on the yomul kiyama except my lineage
and those who are connected to me. So
the righteous Ahlulbayt
as well as those who are connected to
the prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam through love.
The itisal of Mahaba.
Connection through love. Think of Salman al Farisi.
He's not from the family of the prophet
shalallahu alaihi wa sallam. He's not even an
arab. The mujahideen claimed him. The ansar claimed
him. And the prophet salallahu alaihi wasalam claimed
him. Salmanumminnaahlibait.
Salan is from us the people of the
house. Why? Out of love. He loved the
messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam and
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam loved him
as well.
We are told in traditions that when the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam was shown Jannah,
he said, samia tu khashashatanamani
faeda bilalum.
The prophet shalallahu alaihi wa sallam said, When
I was in paradise, I was shown a
vision of paradise.
I heard footsteps in front of me and
behold there was the footsteps
of Bilal ibn Rabah al Habashi,
the Abyssinian.
Beloved to Allah because he was beloved to
the messenger of Allah. This is called the
itisal,
the connection of Mahaba,
of love, and is open to everybody.
Ask your lord by means of his beloved
and you will not be rejected.
Honor the beloved
of your lord
and you will be honored. This is how
it works. There is an amazing hadith.
Some call it a controversial hadith. I don't
see the controversy.
Amazing hadith written You'll you'll find it in
ibn Majah. The moment Tirmidhi records it, narrated
by Uthman ibn Khunayf.
Over 15 masters of hadith. Her father hadith
have explicitly said that the following hadith is
rigorously authenticated and sound, including Bukhari and Nisai
Al Bayhati and Tabarani, you name it, etcetera,
etcetera. Abu Nu'aim.
That a man who was Dariel al Basar,
a man who was blind. He came to
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam and he
said, You
Rasulullah,
He said, O Messenger of God,
supplicate to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala so that
he might heal me. The prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam said to him, if you have
patience it is better, but if you want
me to I'll supplicate. He said, Rudru, supplicate.
So the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam told
him to go and make an excellent wudu.
Go make a beautiful wudu and pray 2
rak rakas of of rak a aqain. 2
units of prayer.
And then say the following, Allahummaimmi
asaluka
wa atawadjaahuilayka
bi Muhammad
nabiur rahma.
Oh Allah, I ask you and I turn
to you by means of Muhammad sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam,
the prophet of mercy.
You ayyuhaladinamanu
ittakullah wabutahu ilahiwaseelah.
The prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, this is
what the prophet told him, the prophet sallallahu
alaihi alaihi wasallam. He's Ma'asoon, he cannot make
an error.
The Quran says take a waseelah. The Prophet
salallahu alaihi wasallam is the walking Quran.
His prescription to the blind man was based
upon the Quran as he took
himself as the waseela.
There's a hadith in Bukhary. This is one
of my favorite hadith. I mentioned it all
the time.
It's a Hajib, beautiful hadith. A man came
to the prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam after
the congregational prayer. And he said, You Rasulullah,
inmi asapdu hakdan. He said, O Messenger of
God, I have,
I have breached the parameters of permissibility in
the sharia.
Fa'akimfiya
kitab Allah. So punish me according to the
book of Allah. Now imagine how difficult this
must have been for this man. Imagine how
afraid he was, how embarrassed he was. Imagine
him weeping in a state of absolute brokenness.
He He comes to the prophet shalallahu alaihi
wa sallam and the prophet asks him an
interesting question. He didn't, he didn't expect such
a question. He said, alayhis salayta
ma'ala,
didn't you just pray with us?
And he said, Nam. He said, Yes. The
prophet said, Fa'inna Allahhaqadu khafaralaqadhambaq.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala indeed has already forgiven
your sin.
This man brought his sin to the door
of mercy
and the door was open.
Well, some might say, well the prophet was
alive when that happened. Now first of all,
according to the aqidah
or the sound aqidah,
the prophet is Hayun Fitabri hishari. If the
prophet shalallahu alaihi wa sallam is alive in
his noble grave, there's a hadith of Abu
Dawood. This is a good hadith hadith, strong
hadith, Hassan hadith. Mamin ahadinu sunlimu alayeala illa
raddallahu
alayyahruhi.
Hatta arubd alayhis salam. Whenever someone sends salams
upon me, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala returns my
soul to me so that I might respond
to him. Imam al Sayyuti says, this doesn't
literally mean the soul of the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam is going in and out
of his body, but but his consciousness returns.
A heightened state of awareness returns to him.
You might say, how is that possible? Tens
of millions of Muslims
doing salawat alanabi and he and he hears
this and responds to it. You're making him
him into a a deity. No. No one's
doing that. No one's describing to him equality
of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. Think of a
tweet. If you have a 1000000 followers, you
send a tweet in one second, a 1000000
people see it. That's in this world.
The unseen realm is beyond our imaginative
limitations.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says in the Quran
that the shuhada
are not dead.
The shuhada are alive, but you don't perceive
it. Who is better? Ashuhada or Habibullah.
Who is better? The martyrs or the beloved
of Allah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
The bottom line is our Ubadaat, our taqwa,
our iman is deficient. We need to take
the means of approach
to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. We need to
appeal to Allah's beloved and nothing and no
one is more beloved.
Nothing and no one is more beloved to
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala than the prophet Muhammad
salallahu alaihi wa sallam. He's khayr khalkillah. This
is sound aqeedah.
Khayr khalkillah, he's the best of creation. He's
better than Jannah.
He's better than Jannah. He is Jannah's Jannah
because he's better than Jannah.
So what is his reward sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam? Dhruya, the beatific vision of Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala.
Okay. What about after the passing of the
prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam? As if this
makes a difference,
a prophet's maqam with Allah isn't magically annihilated
when that prophet dies.
A prophet's reality with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
isn't suddenly annihilated
when he dies, when he physically passes from
this world.
There is a sound narration and multiple books
and confirmed by all of the salaf.
You'll find it in very popular books,
Kitabashifa bi Qadi Iyad. Imam Abu Nawawi relates
it as well.
Very famous story
that a Bedouin came to the grave of
the prophet shalallahu alaihi wa sallam,
and he said, You Rasulullah.
O Messenger of God, I've committed a great
sin and I've
heard that Allah said in his book,
I've heard Allah say, if only when they
had wronged them selves. They came to you.
This jaa'uqa, this qaful kitab. The kitab is
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. Direct address.
He is the one being addressed.
If he had come to you and they
had asked Allah for forgiveness and that the
messenger had asked Allah for his forgiveness,
then they would have found Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala relenting
and merciful. So the Bedouin said, here I
am,
oh messenger of God. I've asked Allah. Now
I'm asking you to ask to ask Allah
to forgive me.
Of course he recited the famous poem,
Oh best of whose bones are buried in
the earth.
And it continues,
Then the better one, he wept and he
walked away. And there was a man named
Al Uthbi according to the narration who was
in that area. And he'd seen what had
happened. Al Uthbi after some time he dozes
off, he falls asleep. Who should come to
him in his dream? The prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam.
Whoever sees me in a dream has seen
the truth.
So the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam tells
us, manar Utbi, wake up. Go catch up
to this Bedouin and tell him, imamallahaqadhuqfarala
that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has forgiven him.
The Bedouin brought his sin to the door
of mercy
and it was open. The city of mercy
remains accessible
even after the physical passing of the key
to its gate.
Without the shafa'ah of the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam, we will be lost.
There are extremists who write in their popular
books.
They write things like the one of the
Nawakidullah Islam, one of the nullifiers
of one's Islam is taking intercession with Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala. Ajeeb.
Who's teaching these people?
Good luck on yomulkayama.
Wallahi, I don't know what Quran they're reading.
They say no no no no. They're ayat
in the Quran that reject Shafa'a.
Even Hisham said, you have to look at
the Quran as a jumla wahiga,
as a unified totality, as an overall message.
Don't start isolating things. Look at the overall
message.
There's harmonization in the Quran.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says in the Quran,
Yeah. This is half the ayah.
That's also half the ayah. Don't pray.
Their intercession will avail no one. That's half
the ayah. Illah. This is what harfuk is
stiff and not. This is an exception.
Illah man adinadohu
rahman
Except the one
except the one who has given permission from
the indiscriminately
compassionate,
and he is well pleased with his speech.
Who can intercede with Allah
This is hadith sound hadith bukhari.
Intercede and your intercession will be accepted. What
Quran are people reading? What hadith are they
reading? In the hadith recorded by Ibnu Majah,
the prophet shalallahu alaihi wa sallam said,
thalafutunal anbiyauthumaluramathumashuhadaawpamakalalaihi
wa sallam.
On the day of judgment, 3 groups of
people will intercede in this order. The prophets,
then the scholars,
then the martyrs.
In a hadith adiunaydin Abu Dawood, the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
And the hadith and Bukhari, the prophet shalallahu
alaihi wa sallam said, yaflujuqawmun
minanar
b shafaati Muhammadin
there's a group of people in Yomutiyam
who pulled out of the fire
by means of the shafa, the intercession of
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam in their enter
paradise.
The prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said in
bukhari likullinabiin
dawah. Every prophet has a, invocation for Urigu
Insha'Allah and akhtabia dawati shafaatin li umati yomal
qiyama. Wuktamakala alayhis salaahu alayhi wasalam.
Every prophet has an invocation and I wanted
if Allah wills to save mine until the
day of judgment to intercede for my ummah.
In the hadith in Tirumiddhi, the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam was asked about the ayah.
Ayah. Asa ayatakarabuka
maqamam
Mahmooda.
Suilaanhadihiraya.
Doctor Hadith is in Tirmidi. What is the
meaning of Maqam Mahmud?
Qadrasullallahu alaihi sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. He a
shafa'ah.
This is the intercession.
What tafasir are they reading? Walasofiyuratiqarabuka
fatharada. Soon will thy lord give thee that
which will please thee.
And Imam Saluti and many many other Mufasa'd
they say when the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam heard this ayah,
he said,
I will never be pleased even if one
person from my ummah is in the fire.
Even if one person So what did Allah
give him? Walasulfayuratiataaaata.
What did Allah give him? The shifa.
It's unanimous.
Without the shafa'ah we are lost. Without the
sunnah
of the prophet shalallahu alaihi wa sallam we
will be lost. Without the sunnah the Quran
becomes incomprehensible.
The Quran is powerful.
And without the sunnah wielding it, the Quran
can become dangerous.
This is why he said, sallallahu alaihi wasallam,
I've left behind me 2 things. Hold fast
to them and you'll never go astray.
In the immediate instance, this is the reference
to the Arabs, among the Arabs.
Right? You're among them.
But the Quran has multiple levels. There's deeper
meanings. The Quran is a polyvalent
text. There are levels of meaning. The prophet
shalallahu alaihi wa sallam said every ayah of
the Quran has a baher and a baatan
and a hada and a matla. These are
different levels of meaning. So fiqum can also
be translated as in you. This messenger is
within you.
What is within you?
The sunnah, the normative practice, the ethos of
the prophet salallahu alaihi wasallam
has been appropriated
and internalized
by the lovers of the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam. This is why the ulama say,
He
is alive in our hearts and in our
actions.
Imam al Shafi'i said
that the word Hikma in this ayah
when Allah says, we alimukum alchita
that the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam will
teach you alkitab, the Quran.
Wal Hikma and the wisdom.
Imam al Shafiheer rahimullah ta'ala he said, Hikma
in this ayah means sunnah.
That the words The word for sunnah in
the Quran is hikma, they're interchangeable.
The application of the Quran. So the prophet
shalallahu alaihi wa sallam, he taught
he taught the Quran and its application.
The Quran must be interpreted through the lens
of the sunnah.
The sunnah is the hermeneutic of the Quran,
to use a modern,
academic term.
Allah
says,
That indeed we sent down a dhikr.
One of the names of the Quran. We
sent down a dhikr, the reminder,
In order for you to explain,
in order for you
to explicate
for the people what has been revealed to
them. And in order for you to ponder.
Right? To ponder, not to be literalist or
simplistic.
To think deeply about the Quran
guided by the sunnah.
The extremist, the Mutatarifin.
They only look at what the Quran says.
They only answer the question, Mahuwa. What does
the Quran say? Right? If there's a Okay.
There there That's what it is. There it
is.
It's a text.
They ignore the why.
And the how to implement the kifa.
This is very very important. The latter 2
takes
rigorous
ich jihad scholarship
grounded in the sunnah of the messenger sallallahu
alaihi wasallam. It takes decades.
The method of extremism is facile and lazy.
The method of impetuous
boys.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala describes the prophet salallahu
alaihi wa sallam in the Quran by saying,
Azizun alayhi ma anitum.
It crushes him that you should perish.
Hari'sun alaykum.
Deeply concerned is he about you.
So the one who is Harisun Alayna. The
one who is deeply concerned about us is
telling us, manruqi ba'am sunnatif alaysa midni.
Whoever turns away from my sunnah, my normative
practice, my ethos
is not from me.
The one who is harisun alayna. The one
who is deeply concerned about us. The one
who is crushed if we should be if
we should fail.
He says, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, alaikum
I exhort you to follow my sunnah and
the sunnah of the rightly guided caliphs who
followed me.
Hold on tightly to it and bite into
it with your motor key. This is what
he says. Sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam.
There's a hadith of Aisha, our mother Aisha,
Radhi Wa Ta'ala Anha.
This is in Tirmidhi.
That the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said,
6 types of people are cursed.
The one who attempts to add something to
the book of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
The one who belies or disbelieves in the
decree of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Those are
the first two. You get the number 6,
The one who abandons my sunnah.
Why?
Because it leads to corruption in the earth.
The sunnah personalizes
the Quran.
It provides examples
of the universal principles of the Quran.
The universals and particulars.
You see the Minhad, the textual method of
the of
the extremist,
is that they elevate
particulars
over universal.
You see, there are particular stories attributed to
the prophet in Sira
and in individual hadith
that do not match his universally
agreed upon personality,
his sunnah.
Not everything that is written about him, sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam, is true. It's not just,
you know, where's the text? Where's the nus?
No. It takes
There's a difference between hadith and sunnah,
and there's a crossover obviously, but there is
a difference that's very very important. The latter,
the sunnah is the normative,
universally agreed upon, ethos, character. Example of the
prophet salallahu alaihi wasalam. The sunnahs when Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala first
You have the messenger of Allah Subhanahu Wa
Salam a beautiful example
for anyone who has hope. Raja,
hope in Allah.
Has hope in Allah in the last day
and makes frequent dhikr of Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala. It is the normative ethos of the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam that Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala refers to when he says,
Verily you dominate magnificent
character.
This is important
that he is Nabi'ur Rahma. He is a
prophet of mercy and anything
particular
that contradicts this
universal
is suspect.
Anything that contradicts
this universal
any any type of particular
ethos.
We don't allow people to bring text out
of nowhere, this isolated text, this isolated text,
and try to defame and character assassinate the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. We know the
prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam, the most transparent
life life that was ever lived. We know
his normative ethos. Generations and generations of scholarship
have gone to try to determine what was
his character.
The prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said, Du
Anas ibn Malik, this hadith is in Timothy.
Said, yeah,
oh my dear son. This is a term
of endearment.
If you are able to wake up
and go to sleep,
If you're if you are able to wake
up and go to sleep and there is
not any type of deceit or deception in
your heart, then do that.
And he said, okay.
Oh my dear son,
and that is from my sunnah.
And whoever revives my sunnah
has loved me. Woman ahabbani
kana ma'ifiljannah.
And whoever loves me will be with me
in paradise.
Revive us sunnah.
It's not difficult.
Abdullah ibn U Harith he said,
I never saw anyone smiling more than the
prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
Smile at sunnah. I went to an MSA
meeting one time. All the students had smile
it's sunnah. They're wearing them around campus. And
the non Muslims will come and say, what's
sunnah?
So sunnah. What is that? This is the
ethos, the character of the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam.
It's easy.
I'll close with this inshallah ta'ala.
In Tirumadi, this is a warning narrated by
Ubayd Allah ibn Abi Rafir.
Where he says that the Prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam
he said, let me not find one of
you.
Let me not find one of you lounging
on his couch. What we say, you know,
kicking back in his lazy boy.
When I ordered When I When a command,
I order
or prohibition
that comes from me comes to him. In
other words, he's lounging
and the sunnah comes to him
and he says, la adri ma wajaddna pikita
billahi ittaba'ana.
And he says what? I don't know.
What we find in the book of Allah,
we follow it.
You see, they want to separate, divorce,
sever Allah from his messenger.
Again, the Quran with respect to its Akham
can be a difficult book. Without the Sunnah,
one will make a mockery. One can make
a mockery of the Quran. One can defame
the Quran. One can cause humanity to revile
and flee from the Quran.
They will misrepresent the prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam.
May
Allah give us tawfiq to learn Al Kitab
wal Hikma.
The tawfiq to learn Al Quran
was sunnah aquluqawlihada
waastaaafirullahalaywalaqumfastafirullahin
Tubu illallahya
tawabtubaalayna.