Question (8)

Although we believe that mere barren Tauhid [belief in Oneness of God] cannot ensure salvation and that no one can attain salvation by performing any deeds after having distanced oneself from the obedience to the Holy Prophet, may peace and blessings of Allah be upon him; yet, we beg to ask what are the meaning of the verses cited by ‘Abdul-Hakim Khan, for instance:

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And as the verse:

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And the verse:

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Answer: Let it be clear that the promulgation of these verses in the Holy Quran does not mean that salvation can be achieved without believing in the Prophet. Rather, what is meant is that salvation cannot be achieved without believing in Allah, the One without any associate, and in the Last Day.4 And complete belief in Allah is possible only when one believes in His Prophets, inasmuch as they are the expression of His attributes and the existence of something is not proved until its attributes are manifested. Therefore, the cognizance of the Exalted Maker stays deficient without the knowledge of the attributes of the Exalted Maker. Take for example the attributes of Allah that He speaks, hears, knows the unseen, and has power to show mercy and to inflict punishment. How can these attributes be believed without knowing them through a Messenger? And if these attributes are not substantiated through observation, the very existence of God Almighty is not substantiated and in this case what would be the meaning of believing in Him? And a person who believes in God must believe in His attributes also, and such belief will force him to believe in the Prophets. For instance, how can it be understood that God sends down His Word and speaks, without the specimen of God’s Word; and it is only the Prophets who present this Word along with its proof.

It must also be understood that the Holy Quran comprises two types of verses. One type is muhkamat [categorical] and explicit, for instance the verse:

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Meaning that: There are those who do not want to believe in a way that they believe both in God and His Messenger, and seek to separate God from His Messengers and say, ‘We believe in some and not in others’—that is to say, we believe in God, but not in His Messengers or that we believe in some Messengers and not in others, and intend to adopt a halfway course—these indeed are the disbelievers, nay they are confirmed disbelievers; and We have prepared a humiliating punishment for the disbelievers. These are the categorical verses, the details of which I have just given at great length.

The second type of verses is mutashabihat [allegorical]; their meanings are abstruse and their understanding is granted only to those who are firmly grounded in knowledge. Those whose hearts are afflicted with hypocrisy do not care about the muhkamat at all and seek to follow the allegorical. The hallmark of the muhkamat is that they are plentiful in the Word of God Almighty. The Word of God is replete with them and their meanings are manifestly clear, and denying them inevitably leads to evil consequences. For example, consider this very instance that one who only believes in God Almighty but does not believe in His Messengers has to repudiate divine attributes. This is illustrated by the new sect of Brahmus who proclaim that they believe in God but do not believe in the Prophets. They repudiate the Word of God; it is obvious that if God hears, then He speaks as well. Therefore, if His speaking is not established, His hearing remains unproven. Thus, such people become like atheists by repudiating divine attributes. And just as divine attributes are in existence since eternity, so are they everlasting; and they are demonstrated only by Prophets, peace be upon them; and denial of the attributes necessitates the denial of the existence of God. This analysis shows that, in order to believe in Allah the Exalted, it is critical to believe in the Prophets, peace be on them; without them, belief in God is left imperfect and incomplete. Furthermore, another distinguishing mark of the muhkamat, apart from their abundance, is that they are supported by practical evidence; namely, the continued testimony of the Prophets of God is found in their support. Therefore, anyone who studies the Word of God, the Holy Quran, and the Scriptures of other Prophets will find that, just as the Scriptures insist upon belief in God, they also insist on the belief in His Messengers. And it is the hallmark of the mutashabihat that if they are interpreted in a sense which contravenes the categorical verses, discord becomes inevitable, and they would contravene other verses that are in majority. No contradiction is possible in the Word of God; therefore, the few need to be harmonized with the majority.

As I have already pointed out, this doubt is dispelled if one closely studies the word ‘Allah’. The text of the Holy Quran itself clarifies the meaning of the term ‘Allah’. It says that Allah is the God who has sent down Books, Prophets, and the Holy Prophet, may peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, so that people should obtain those spiritual stations and ranks which shall be vouchsafed to people for following the Noble Prophet; because the utterly blind cannot reach the ranks which those who follow the light of Prophethood can reach. This is the grace of God; He bestows it upon whomsoever He wills. Since God Almighty has declared the name ‘Allah’ to be endowed with all His actions and attributes, then why should we not pay due regard to this essential matter when interpreting the word ‘Allah’?

It does not concern us in what sense the Arabs used the word ‘Allah’ before the Holy Quran. But we must restrict ourselves to the sense in which God Almighty has used the word ‘Allah’ throughout the Holy Quran from beginning to end; namely, He it is who sends the Messengers, Prophets, and Books; is the Creator of the earth and the heavens, and is endowed with such and such attributes; and is One without any partner. It is true that those who have never had access to God’s Word and are utterly unaware of it, will be judged according to their knowledge, intelligence, and understanding, but it is absolutely impossible for them to achieve the grades and ranks which will be bestowed upon those who follow the Holy Prophet(sa). The utterly blind cannot reach the ranks that those who follow the light of Prophethood can reach. This is the grace of God; He bestows it upon whomsoever He wills.6

Now, note the travesty that, despite hundreds of verses of the Holy Quran which proclaim emphatically that Tauhid alone cannot be sufficient for salvation and that belief in the Holy Prophet(sa) along with it is also essential, yet Miyan ‘Abdul-Hakim does not pay heed to these verses at all; and, like the Jews, he insists upon presenting one or two verses, which are synoptic, with his distorted interpretation. Every sensible person can appreciate that if those verses mean what ‘Abdul-Hakim presents, then Islam disappears from the world and the commandments like prayer and fasting etc., which have been taught by the Holy Prophet, may peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, are rendered absurd, vain, and meaningless. If it were true that everyone could attain salvation through his own fancied version of the Oneness of God, then rejection of the Prophet would be no sin nor would apostasy do anyone any harm. Thus, it should be remembered that there is not a single verse in the Holy Quran which relieves one of the obedience to the Noble Prophet. Even if it were supposed that there are two or three verses that contravene these hundreds of verses, even then, the few should have been subordinated to the multitude instead of adopting apostasy through total disregard of the multitude. In this instance, there is not even one contradiction in the verses of the Word of Allah; it is simply the distortion of one’s understanding and the darkness of one’s nature. We ought to interpret the word ‘Allah’, as God Almighty Himself has done and not—like the Jews— create a different interpretation.

Moreover, it has always been the way of the Word of God Almighty and the practice of His Messengers, that they seek to guide every rebellious and hardened disbeliever by instructing him that if he believes in God in the correct and sincere manner, and loves Him, and accepts Him as One without any partner, he will then, surely, attain salvation. The purpose of this discourse is that if they would believe in God fully, they would be enabled by God to accept Islam.

The Holy Quran, which these people do not study, clearly affirms that he who truly believes in God is led to belief in His Messenger, and his bosom is opened for accepting Islam. Therefore, my own practice is also that when an Aryah, or a Brahmu, or a Christian, or a Jew, or a Sikh, or any other non-Muslim persists in erroneous reasoning and does not stop it by any means, I tell him, at the end, that his arguments will not benefit him in any way but that if he believes in God with complete sincerity, He will grant him salvation on this account. But by this statement I do not mean that salvation can be achieved without following the Holy Prophet(sa); what I mean is that if a person believes in God with complete sincerity, God will grant him the ability, and will open his heart, to believe in His Messenger.

Similarly, my own experience bears out that one good leads to another good and one righteous deed enables one to perform another righteous deed. A wonderful episode is related in Tadhkiratul-Auliya’ [‘Memoirs of the Saints’]. An esteemed saint narrates:

Once it so happened that it continued to rain heavily for several days. When it stopped, I happened to go to the roof of my house. My neighbour, who was an old man, and a fire-worshipper, was at that time scattering lots of grains on the roof of his house. I asked him why he did that. He replied, ‘The birds are starved for a few days on account of the rain. I took pity on them and am throwing them these grains so that I may be rewarded.’ I said, ‘Old man, you are wrong in this thought. You are an idolater because you are a fire-worshipper and an idolater does not get any reward.’ I came down after saying this. Sometime later, I had the occasion to perform the Pilgrimage and arrived in Holy Makkah. When I was making the circuits, another person who was making the circuits called me from behind, addressing me by name. When I looked back, I found that it was the same old man who, after embracing Islam, was now making the circuits. He said to me, ‘Have I or have I not been rewarded for the grains I fed the birds?’

So if feeding birds with grains ultimately draws a person to Islam, will someone who comes to believe in the True King, the Real Omnipotent, remain deprived of Islam? Absolutely not.

What kind of a lover is it that the [True] Beloved does not take notice of his condition?
My dear, the pain does not exist, otherwise the ‘Healer’ is there!

It should be remembered that, in the first place, Tauhid cannot be achieved completely without following the Noble Prophet(sa). As I have just explained, the attributes of God Almighty, which cannot be isolated from His Being, cannot be observed except through the mirror of the revelation of Prophethood. They are illustrated in practice only by a Prophet. But even if someone should acquire an imperfect appreciation of them, it would not be altogether free from the traces of idolatry until God accepts his flawed merchandise and leads him into Islam. Whatever a person receives from God Almighty through His Messenger is heavenly water which is not tainted by his own pride and conceit, but whatever a person achieves through his own effort always develops some pollution of idolatry.

This was the very wisdom why the Messengers were sent to teach Tauhid. It has not been left dependent upon human reason alone, so that Tauhid should remain pure and should not become tainted with the idolatry of human conceit. This is why the misguided philosophers have never been able to grasp the pure Tauhid, inasmuch as they were afflicted with pride, arrogance, and conceit—and pure Tauhid demands negation of the self. Such negation cannot be effected unless a person sincerely believes that it is a gift of God in which his effort has no part. For instance, say a man is irrigating his field by keeping awake all night and putting himself through hardship, while another slept all night and a cloud came and filled his field with water. May I ask: Would these two be equal in their gratitude to God? Indeed, not. He whose field was irrigated without his labour would be more grateful. That is why the Word of God Almighty has repeatedly admonished man to be grateful to God, who sent Messengers and taught him Tauhid.