Question:
Assalaamu alaikum
for shaykh GFH
I have read shaykh Gibril F Haddad articles about the issue of the omnipresence of the Prophet (sallallaho alayhi wa sallam) and the power of the awliya.
However I understand that his teachers in Syria like shaykh Bouti and shaykh Zuhayli who have a strong grasp of kalam reject some aspects of this as being Shirk.
This is interesting as this is a case of non-wahhabis entertaining this.
Could we therefore have a detailed explanation of this issue and an explanation of why the classical early kalam scholars did not talk about this.
Answer:
`Alaykum salam
Each science has its giants and we defer to them in its context; and the `alim in one science may well be a `ammi in another without shame.
May Allah most High bless our `ulama in Sham and everywhere whose provinces in `ilm are lofty and their contributions uncontested; but kalam (theology), whether that of the late or the early scholars, “is not part of the provision for the grave” as Shaykh `Abd al-Qadir al-Gilani said to the great faqih Ibn Abi ‘Asrun – Allah have mercy on them all.
See Imam Ghazali’s fatwa on the superiority of the`arif over the faqih cited in full by Sultan al-`ulama Ibn `Abd al-Salam in his Fatawa. See the first book of the Ihya on the truest definition of `ilm as consisting in`ilm al-yaqin not rulings of`aqidah and fiqh. It is as if he had written it for our times, addressing your Azhar and your Dar al-Uloom to tell them wake up.
We haven’t even broached `ayn al-yaqin and even less haqq al-yaqin. That is the Thronely (`arshi) speech that parched hearts are after, while dry minds are content with earthly (farshi) debates as the apex of deen. Hayhat!
The hasanat of abrar are the sayyi’at of muqarrabin and above every knower there is a greater knower. The maqams of our spiritual masters such as Mawlana Khalid (he wrote on Rabitah), Sirhindi, and Mawlana Shaykh Nazim demands submission; not ratiocination or endless comparison of apples and oranges.
May Allah turn our state to the best state and keep us with His Siddiqs here and hereafter.
Hajj Gabriel Haddad
