Question:
Asalam o Alaikum Ya shaykh,
I want to know the ruling of 4 imams on saying Ya Ali madad, ya Rasool madad and Ya ghous madad, and also some evidences on this issue.
thank you shaykh
Answer:
wa alaykum salam,
Please see the article “Asking “Ya Shaykh Madad!” – Istighatha/Isti`ana” at Sunnah.org.
Summary:
Al-Zahawi said in al-Fajr al-Sadiq:
<<Al-Subki, al-Qastallani in al-Mawahib al-laduniyya, al-Samhudi in Tarikh al-Madina, and al-Haythami in al-Jawhar al-munazzam said that seeking help with the Prophet and other prophets and pious persons, is only a means of imploring Allah for the sake of their dignity and honor (bi jahihim). The one doing the asking seeks from the One asked that He assign him aid (ghawth) on behalf of the one higher than him. For the one being asked in reality is Allah. The Prophet is but the intermediary means (wasita) between the one asking for help and the One asked in reality. Hence, the help is strictly from Him in its creation (khalqan) and being (ijadan), while the help from the Prophet is strictly in respect to secondary causation (tasabbuban) and acquisition from Allah (kasban)…..
<<As for the invocations of common Muslim people in Arabic like: “O `Abd al-Qadir Gilani look at me (Ya `Abd al-Qadir adrikni)!” and “O Ahmad al-Badawi give us support (Ya Badawi madad)!” they belong to the figurative language of the mind just as the application of someone who would say to his food: “Satisfy me!” or to his water: “Quench my thirst!” or to his medicine: “Heal me!” The food does not satisfy, nor does the water quench the thirst, nor the medicine heal. But the One who is the real Satisfier of our hunger, the Quencher of our thirst and the Healer of our ills is Allah alone. The food, the water, the medicine are only the proximate or secondary causes which custom has established on the surface of things by our mind’s regular association of them with certain concomitant events.>>
Taher Siddiqui
