Back to basics:

All the great scholars of Islam emphasize that if any of their fatwa is not in the supported by Quran and Sunnah, simply ignore it. This is because they know that the religion of Islam has been perfected during the times of Prophet (peace be upon him). Allah revealed in Quran: "...This day, I have perfected your religion for you, completed My Favour upon you, and have chosen for you Islam as your religion..." (5:3). This verse was recited by the Prophet (peace be upon him) during his last sermon.

I was arguing with one of my friend that visiting mazar or wearing amulets is form of shirk. He argued: ‘Do you mean to say that so and so hazrat was wrong? I asked: “Who decides right or wrong?” He replied: ‘Allah’. I said: “Did Allah not give you reasoning, Quran and Sunnah to decide what is right and what is wrong in the matters of religion?” The Prophet (peace be upon him) said in his last sermon: “…O People, NO PROPHET OR APOSTLE WILL COME AFTER ME AND NO NEW FAITH WILL BE BORN. Reason well, therefore, O People, and understand words which I convey to you. I leave behind me two things, the Qur'an and my example, the Sunnah and if you follow these you will never go astray…”

Even Allah commands in Quran that whatever differences Muslims should have, they should resolve it in the light of Quran and Sunnah: "O ye who believe! Obey allah, and obey the Messenger, and those charged with authority among you. If ye differ in anything among yourselves, refer it to allah and His Messenger, if ye do believe in allah and the Last Day: That is best, and most suitable for final determination." 4:59

How often we forget the advice of referring to Quran and Sunnah and use our reasoning? Such a beautiful gift of Allah to use reasoning and guidance through Quran and Sunnah is ignored simple because we don’t want to put efforts and prefer to spread the word of any hazrat without confirming the same. I give the same reply when I receive emails that contain hadith without reference or some dreams of sheikhs because the religion of Islam is perfected during the times of Prophet (peace be upon him) and Allah is not going to send any revelations to any sheik via dreams.

If we have to say how reliable a building is, shall we only decide by its beauty and magnificence? We will have to look into the base how solid it is to know whether the building is reliable or not. Similarly, when interpreting the matters of religion we have to go back to Quran and Sunnah as the Prophet (peace be upon him) said very clearly that he is leaving behind the two things that should be followed i.e. Quran and Sunnah.

There are some forms of shocking beliefs among Muslims in India that will make you feel sorry for them. I am not a religious scholar, so I just want to point key arguments against such devastating beliefs:

The Prophet (peace be upon him) used to teach some special teachings to a selected group of people:

The difference between Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him) and the preceding messengers is that the later were sent for specific nations while Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him) was sent for all the worlds, humans and jinns. Allah says in Quran “And [thus, O Prophet,] We have sent thee as [an evidence of Our] grace towards all the worlds”. (21:107)

Will the Messenger of all the worlds give a secret message to certain people? How illogical it is?

The Prophet (peace be upon him) did not die and the wali of Allah do not die. They are alive in their graves:

1. Can a Muslim refute anything that is in Quran? If he does, than he is no longer a Muslim. Allah says:"Muhammad is no more than a Messenger: many were the Messengers that passed away before him. If he died or were slain, will you then turn back on your heels? If any did turn back on his heels, not the least harm will he do to Allah; but Allah (on the other hand) will swiftly reward those who (serve Him) with gratitude." (3:144) This verse was recited by Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him) when our beloved Prophet (peace be upon him) passed away. This verse opened the heart of Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) as he was unable to accept with the fact that Prophet (peace be upon him) has died.

2. When Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him) said upon the death of the Prophet (peace be upon him): "O People! If Muhammad is the sole object of your adoration, then know that he is dead. But if it is Allah (The One God) you Worshiped, then know that He does not die." Will any Muslim say that Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him) lied?

3. When Allah says in Quran, “Every soul shall have a taste of death…” (3:185) Will you still say that the Prophets and the wali of Allah do not die?

The claim that the Prophet or wali do not die is an attempt to compare Allah with His creation. Allah is hayyul qayuum, He is Everlasting, He doesn’t die, He is not dependent on anything, He is All Powerful and so on. While the prophets are merely human beings and they have parents, they live, they die, they fall sick and so on. How can a logical mind compare the creator and created? This is blatant shirk. The basic difference between Islam and other religions is that other religions tend to say that the Creator took the form of Created i.e. human being. The Prophets are just slaves of Allah ‘mohammadan abduhu wa rasuluhu’. (Mohammed (peace be upon him) is His slave and messenger’. This is what we say as a part of proclaiming the faith but we forget it so often.

The human beings have some element of the ALL qualities of Allah:

It is again such a hollow and devastating belief. I simply said to my friend: Tell me, is any human being Razzak, Is any human being Qadeer, Is any human being Hayyul Qayyum, Is any human being ‘Khaliq’, Is any human being death giver??? How can we compare the created and the Creator? He argued: ‘Yes, Allah is All Powerful but today heads of the nations have power’. I said: ‘Is any head of the nation All Powerful? ‘If Allah causes him heart attack, what can he do? Ariel Sharon used to be so arrogant with his power and now when he lies as vegetable since one and half year, what power he has?”

There are some qualities of Allah that are unique to Him and this is why you don’t have names with Rahman, Raheem, Kareem, Qadeer alone but you use the word abd before it which means ‘slave’ e.g. Abdullah, AbdurRahim, AbdurRahman etc. There are some names that might given without using abd e.g. Mueez which means ‘The one who gives honor’. A son can be muiz for his father and vice versa.

Even such qualities are ever lasting with Allah while they are perishable with human beings. A son can give honour at one time but might give dishonour at some other stage. A King can be magnificent at one time and can be a prisoner at other time.

Wearing Amulets:

In every prayer we say Surah Fatiha and I can say almost every Muslim knows at this Sura. The fifth ayah of this sura is: Thee do we worship, and Thine aid we seek. (1:5)

So when we go for an amulet, whose help are we seeking? Did Allah say I will listen you better if you go to mazar or wear my Quran around your neck? Did Allah not give us heart and tongue to invoke to him? Did He not say: “so remember Me, and I shall remember you…” (2:152) We do not pray to Him, we do not invoke to Him and rush to mullah for a taweez or to a mazar. Quran warns towards using symbols: “In His stead, they invoke only life­less symbols - thus invoking none but a rebellious Satan.”(4:117) Allah gave us right to invoke Him directly and we brought in the intermediaries which He hates. How foolish and self detrimental?

Some say what the harm is if that amulet only contains some verse of Allah. First of all you do not know what it contains. There are some narrations that shayateen make the practitioners of magic to write verses of Quran in reverse to cause them to do a greater sin. Even if it contains the verses in right manner, it is like you go to a doctor and instead of swallowing the pill, you tie it in a knot and hang it around the neck. Will this pill benefit you? Similarly Quran will only benefit you if you recite it, understand it and adhere to it. It will not benefit you in the wall, on your neck on your shelves.

Sadly amulets are source of earning for many mullahs and this is why when you visit them with a problem, they do not say: ‘Do you pray five times a day? ‘Or ‘Do you read Quran? ‘Do you remember Allah often? They do not tell you the dua or dhikr that is pertaining to the problem, instead they are quick to hand you out a symbol which Allah warns of in the above-mentioned ayah.

I have a few hadith to quote on wearing amulets. These hadith can be found in any authentic book on Tauheed i.e. Islamic Monotheism:

Zaynab, the wife of `Abdullah ibn Mas`ud, reported that `Abdullah ibn Mas`ud (may Allah be pleased with him) stated that he heard the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) saying: “Spells, amulets and love-charms are (forms of) shirk.” `Abdullah said, “Why do you say this? By Allah, when I was weeping eczema, I kept going to so and so, the Jew, who did a spell for me and made the thing calm down.” `Abdullah said: “That was just the work of Satan, who was picking it with his hand, and when (the Jew) uttered the spell, he stopped. All you needed to do was to say as the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) used to say: Adh-hib al-ba’s Rabb an-Nas ishfi anta ash-Shafi la shifa’a illa shifa’uka shifa’an la yughadiru saqaman (Remove the harm, O Lord of mankind, and heal, You are the Healer. There is no healing but Yours, a healing which leaves no disease behind.’” (Reported by Abu Dawud and Ibn Majah)

The above hadith also tells us that many times shayateen cause a problem for example family feuds, depression, insomnia etc and when the person visits somebody who does charms, the shayateen set the afflicted person free. This way they achieve twin objectives: 1) Making the afflicted person committing shirk by visiting some individual and 2) making the person who does charm do weird things and even making them right Quran in reverse.

There is another hadith in the same reference:

`Uqbah ibn `Amir Al-Juhani (may Allah be pleased with him) reported that a group came to the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) to pledge their allegiance (bay`ah) to him. He accepted the allegiance of nine of them but not of one of them. They said, “O Messenger of Allah, you accepted the allegiance of nine but not of this one.” He (the Prophet) said, “He is wearing an amulet.” The man put his hand (in his shirt) and took it off, then the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) accepted his allegiance. He (peace and blessings be upon him) then said, “Whoever wears an amulet has committed shirk.” (Reported by Ahmad)

You may also like to refer to the fatwa on wearing amulets that gives more details.

Some people also have the argument regarding charms that only iron cuts an iron, so if I am afflicted by any charm, I have to refute it through someone who knows how to counter it. We should know that the only protection we have is the remembrance of Allah. The Prophet (peace be upon him) has taught us various dhikr that we should do for protection and we should learn those dhikr by ourselves and recite by ourselves. In some cases obstinate shayateen overpower a human being but that too can only be repelled by the dhikr of Allah. We should not take any amulet for the protection. Ayatul Kursi is the protection for Muslims for the whole day when recited in the morning and for the whole night when recited during the night. Some people prefer to hang ayatul kursi around the neck, which is the same as hanging the medicine around the neck and not swallowing it.

Remembrance of Allah through Qawwali:

There is great following of Sufis in India through qawwali. The simple argument is if there is remembrance of Allah, what is the harm in it? It sounds logical. But at the same time this remembrance has its own traps which are as follows:

- It includes music which is haram
- We should remember Allah in the sunnah way as the Prophet (peace be upon him) taught us. - - Instead of giving some trouble to our tongue by saying subhanallah, alhamdulillah, allahu akbar and so on, we just prefer to passively listen to qawwali. This is against the spirit of Islam in which every worship requires efforts whether it is dhikr, prayers, fasting, haj, charity and so on.
- There are qawwals that sing shirk in their poetry. A famous qawwali is ‘bhar de jholi meri ya Mohammad’.. Audhubillah, we are seeking invocations to the Prophet (peace be upon him) which he taught us to pray for him via dorood and invocations after adhaan.
Such programs often become places of lewdness. There is mixing of genders. People come late night just for fun. Then you have qawalis in movies where semi-nude girls dance on the names of Mohammad and Allah… Inna lillahi wa inna ilaihi rajiooon.

Visiting graves for intercession:

Allah is samih un aleem. He listens wherever you call Him from and answers your prayers where you call Him from. Some Muslims visit graves of famous Islamic scholars in order to gain rewards and their intercession. This is shirk as you are bringing a created to interfere in the affairs of Allah.

Allah forbids us to call anyone besides Him: “Say: "Shall we indeed call on others besides Allah,- things that can do us neither good nor harm,- and turn on our heels after receiving guidance from Allah? - like one whom the evil ones have made into a fool, wandering bewildered through the earth, his friends calling, 'come to us', (vainly) guiding him to the path." Say: "Allah's guidance is the (only) guidance, and we have been directed to submit ourselves to the Lord of the worlds;-, “(6:71)

The only created who has the right for intercession is the Prophet (peace be upon him) and he reserved this right for the day of judgment for his ummah, so that he might plead Allah to some Muslims out of hell who were not so strong in eeman. This is clear from the following hadith:

Narrated Abu Huraira: Allah's Apostle said, "For every Prophet there is one invocation which is definitely fulfilled by Allah, and I wish, if Allah will, to keep my that (special) invocation as to be the intercession for my followers on the Day of Resurrection." (Sahih Bukhari Volume 9, Book 93, Number 566)

It should also be noted that this right of intercession is only for the Day of Judgment, so we cannot expect any intercession from any authority before that.

When the Prophet (peace be upon him) was on death bed, he sensed that people might turn his grave to be a place of worship. The following hadith specifies that he strongly warned Muslims not to turn the graves of pious Muslims a place of worship:

Narrated 'Aisha and Ibn 'Abbas: On his death-bed Allah's Apostle put a sheet over his-face and when he felt hot, he would remove it from his face. When in that state (of putting and removing the sheet) he said, "May Allah's Curse be on the Jews and the Christians for they build places of worship at the graves of their prophets." (By that) he intended to warn (the Muslim) from what they (i.e. Jews and Christians) had done. (Sahih Bukhari Volume 4, Book 56, Number 660)

Anybody who would have read this article till the end, would have seen the use of words ‘peace be upon him’ so many times, that we all say when the name of the Prophet (peace be upon him) is mentioned. We should reflect that it is a dua that we are doing for the Prophet (peace be upon him). The Prophet (peace be upon him) taught us a dua to be recited after every adhaan in which we invoke Allah to grant wasila and fadeela for the Prophet (peace be upon him) and to raise him to Maqaam –e-Mahmood. (To see translation, click on dua after adhaan,) Now if the Prophet (peace be upon him) taught us to invoke Allah for him, how can we invoke someone else besides Allah. The Prophet (peace be upon him) wanted to give us life long wisdom that if we understood only this, we will not be deceived by satan and will not commit shirk by invoking someone else besides Allah.

Seeking help from Allah only:

We should seek help from Allah only as He commands us to do:

“When My servants ask thee concerning Me, I am indeed close (to them): I listen to the prayer of every suppliant when he calleth on Me: Let them also, with a will, Listen to My call, and believe in Me: That they may walk in the right way.” (2:186)

“Or, Who listens to the (soul) distressed when it calls on Him, and Who relieves its suffering, and makes you (mankind) inheritors of the earth? (Can there be another) god besides Allah. Little it is that ye heed!” (27:62)

“And your Lord says: "Call on Me; I will answer your (Prayer): but those who are too arrogant to serve Me will surely find themselves in Hell - in humiliation!" (40:60)

May Allah save us from all form of shirk and we should repent from any shirk that we might have done by mistake because Allah is ghufurrur raheem and may forgive all the sins, even without repentance by being pleased with anything, but He will not forgive shirk until we repent from it.