AbdalQadir
time to move along! will check pm's.
DH has been falling out with the madkhalis for a long time now, for not blanket takfiring Sufis and shias.
The Ignorance and Dishonesty of Madkhalis and Salafi Sectarians like Jake, et al.
Yesterday, a Madkhali account accused me of "falling into kufr." The reason? On Haqiqat Show, I criticized sectarian idiots who takfir anyone who doesn't have the same position as them on the issue of istighatha: calling on unseen entities other than Allah for help.
I responded to this severe accusation. If I have fallen into kufr for not takfiring anyone who doesn't consider those doing istighatha as automatically mushrik, then so have most Sunni scholars historically. Furthermore, it is clear that Imam Ahmad himself did a type of istighatha. So if we don't say Imam Ahmad was a mushrik, does that mean we have fallen into kufr ourselves?
In response, the Madkhalis and sectarians went ape!
They began spamming under my post: Do you think istighatha is shirk or not?
They kept spamming this question and demanding an answer because they think it is a trap for me.
In reality, they only revealed how ignorant on this issue they really are.
The reality is, istighatha has many types. As such, there are many possible rulings depending on the type.
In all matters of haram and halal, there are gray areas.
The Prophet ﷺ said "Both legal and illegal things are obvious, and in between them are doubtful matters. So whoever forsakes those doubtful things lest he may commit a sin, will definitely avoid what is clearly illegal; and whoever indulges in these doubtful things bravely, is likely to commit what is clearly illegal. Sins are Allah's Hima (i.e. private pasture) and whoever pastures (his sheep) near it, is likely to get in it at any moment." [Bukhari]
For example, drinking alcohol is clearly haram. But what about eating food that has been cooked in alcohol? Or what about drinks that are slightly fermented and have traces of alcohol but aren't considered alcoholic?
These are gray areas and scholars past and present will arrive at different rulings based on their usul.
But an ignorant person with a strictly binary understanding will not recognize gray areas and intermediate cases. Combine that ignorance with the misguided zeal to takfir anyone who disagrees and you have these sectarians.
The same is the case with istighatha, despite the new ideas of extreme sectarians, who pretend there are no intermediate cases.
They hold that there is a strict binary of shirk and non-shirk.
This is exactly why they kept spamming their asinine question. It is also why they reacted the way they did to the question I posed to them about Imam Ahmad.
Rather than recognize that the case of Imam Ahmad asking Angels for help is a gray area, the Madkhalis/sectarians claimed that this was clearly and obviously halal!
So according to sectarians like Jake, it is halal for Muslims to make dua to unseen Angels, instead of Allah.
They explained that there is no problem to do this because Angels are alive, they can hear you, they have power from Allah, but dead saints don't. So praying to Angels instead of Allah is not only NOT shirk, it is also halal!
This shows their ignorance. Something can be not shirk but also be an innovation that is completely haram and should be avoided. This was my whole point: to show that there are gray areas in the matter of istighatha and it cannot be reduced to a simple binary of shirk vs not shirk.
To my surprise, these people were too ignorant to understand this point and, instead, justified and defended making dua to Angels, instead of Allah, as perfectly halal to do!
A more consistent answer would be that it falls into the gray zone and should be avoided. The same is true of making sajda to a person to honor him. The same is true of the Muslim who makes istighatha of the dead while believing the dead person is not a god. Depending on the details, these are all gray zones, some of them could be outright shirk or they could be the door leading to shirk.
Not only do sectarians not understand these nuances, they also want to automatically takfir anyone who doesn't adopt their binary categorization. This is why they accused me of "falling into kufr." They accused me of this, not because I said istighatha is halal or istighatha is never shirk. They accused me of this merely for not automatically takfiring someone who does istighatha.
In reality, I have more of a strict position on istighatha than these buffoons because I don't believe that making dua to Angels for help is halal, let alone to dead people. But that doesn't mean I accuse Imam Ahmad of shirk or claim that anyone who doesn't view making dua to Angels as shirk has himself fallen into kufr. He can be excused for any number of reasons. And so can others.
That was my whole point all along.
There are gray areas and a multiplicity of practices under the umbrella of istighatha that cannot be reduced to a simplistic binary such that we auto-takfir Muslims solely on the basis of them partaking in istighatha. For sectarians to accuse me of "falling into kufr" for this view is symptomatic of their deeper diseased approach to Islam and other Muslims.
Sadly, it seems all this is far too complicated of an issue for the blind sectarian clowns to grasp.
