Thread by @ClassicalMuslim

1) CRITIQUE OF WAHHABI-SALAFISM

A “twitterised” version of my forthcoming book. But first...

1a) NON-MUSLIMS
Salafism is a different religion posing as Islam & predominates in the West. Taking Islam from them is like taking Catholicism from Lutherans. It’s a whole other thing!

1b) SALAFIS: I mean you well, so please avoid:

• foul speech: it’s childish & Allah may give me your deeds on Y/Qiyama.
• protests like “go learn your aqida!” Bring me valid source & reference it FULLY
• hasty judgments: Read the whole thread 1st then comment.

1c) TO SUNNIS: prophecy calls them the “dogs of hell”, so be wise. A dog can’t be blamed for his master’s bidding. He’s ignorant, even if loud & aggressive. Be gentle with the dog & pat him on the head, but be harsh on his master who holds the lead: Shaytan. He is the enemy.

2) Ibn Abdul Wahhab (MIAW) said tawhid is made of 3 INDEPENDENT affirmations:

- rubūbiyya (Allah alone is LORD who creates & sustains).
- ulūhiyya (Allah alone is GOD - worthy of worship)
- sifāt (Allah is unique in His names and ATTRIBUTES).

Okay, let’s get into it...

3a) MIAW’s “trinity” isn’t from the salaf. It was innovated centuries after by Ibn Taymiyya (IT). But whilst IT said these 3 categories essentially overlapped in meaning, MIAW said they were wholly separate/distinct from each other, hence you must affirm all 3 INDEPENDENTLY.

3b) 3 INDEPENDENT tawhids means you can believe in one kind but not the other. MIAW claimed this is the condition of all mushrikūn: they affirm Allah’s SOLE lordship (rubūbiyyah) but violate His SOLE godhood (ulūhiyya) by worshipping false gods/idols.

4a) This was the setup for the next claim: that the Muslims of his time were like the mushrikūn - they acknowledged Allah as lord but by using awliyā as intercessors at graves, were directing worship to them, making them their GODS, violating the 2nd tawhid & thus were mushriks.

4b) It follows that if the Prophet ﷺ fought the mushriks for this error, so too was it necessary for the Muslims of MIAW’s time to be fought. This point is implied persistently throughout his Kashf al-Shubuhāt, which functioned as a manual for his armed missionaries.

4c) Throughout the text, on almost every occasion where he mentions the Prophet ﷺ being sent to the pagan Arabs, the preferred expression is not ‘those to whom the Messenger preached’ but ‘those to whom the Messenger fought’. The book is effectively a Wahhabi jus ad bellum.

5) THE CRITIQUE
MIAW ignored the ulema’s responses & continued killing, inviting takfir & his name to be cursed everywhere at Friday Prayer. His trinity is wrong in 3 ways. It is:

• linguistically errant
• rationally absurd
• Quranically unfaithful

Let’s explore these...

6a) LINGUISTIC ERROR

Al-Lisān al-Arab, the standard dictionary of Classical Arabic, defines ilah (god) as “creator, designer & sustainer”. This means ilāh & rabb are the same. MIAW can’t have made a mistake on this because this is too basic a fact. It was a deliberate deception.

6b) Thus, if the polytheists worshipped other gods it was because they acknowledged them as lords. This explicit linguistic definition lays the axe to the root of the whole Wahhabi doctrinal system.

Now let’s looks at some verses from the Qur’an to evidence this.

7a) QUR’ANICALLY UNFAITHFUL
The following passages demonstrate that one’s GOD/OBJECT OF WORSHIP is always one’s LORD. The mushrikuun believed that their gods possessed what MIAW called attributes of lordship. His categoric distinction in 2 independent tawhids is flat WRONG.

7b) 26:96-98 & 6:1 are especially crucial. Two things are made equal when they are believed to share the same attributes (i.e. equal in height, age, intelligence, etc...) To have made their gods “equal with the Lord” was to believe their gods to create, sustain, or regulate life.

7c) Again, to make someone your god means you regard them as your lord. Conversely your lord is your god (one you worship). A Christian who declares, ‘Christ is my Lord, but I won’t worship him’ has by his very acceptance of Christ’s divine lordship, already worshipped Him.

7d) For the ACT of worship [ibadah] – bowing, prostrating, etc... – is simply a formal expression of an internal condition of ubūdiyyah (‘worshipfulness’, ‘bounded attachment’, or ‘total servitude’) that reflects one’s belief in the divine power which that “lord” has over you.

7e) This is also why an atheist who performs the Salah did not “worship” Allah. He made familiar movements RESEMBLING Muslim worship, but it was not worship for ‘Actions are because of intentions’. Without the internal condition, the physical act is meaningless & invalid...

7f) Now look at Sura 9:31. If lord & god were divided, then the command to “worship One god” as a response to taking other lords would have been misplaced. The verse only makes sense if lord & god mean the same thing. So, in taking other lords they had thereby worshipped them.

7g) Elsewhere, when the rabbis & priests, in a deliberate exaggeration of the Prophet’s ﷺ claim to authority, said: ‘O Muhammad! Do you want us to take you as a Lord?’, Allah’s reply in the following verse clearly identified “taking something as a Lord” with “worshipping it”.

7h) Enough? Let’s have one more for the road... If we replace the word “god” with the Wahhabi definition in sura 21:22 we will arrive at an absurdity!

Why?

7i) Did the Aztecs not worship at least 200 gods. Did the Greeks not worship 12 chief gods? Do Christians not worship Christ as co-eternal with God? Did MIAW not say the mushrikuun worshipped idols? Why, then, has the universe not shattered into ruin already? The reason is...

7j) Because god in that verse means lord. Had there been another creator/designer (a 2nd will) it would have contradicted the first and creation would, thus, have been in chaos. The fact the we have order, however, is a sign of the Oneness of the Originator. THIS is real tawhid.

8a) RATIONALLY ABSURD.
We come, at last, to the 3rd contention:

With all this in mind, to believe an object to be worthy of worship but not possess divine lordship (i.e. those very qualities that make it worthy in the first place) is an absurd paradox. Salafiyya is wrong AGAIN.

8b) To say you can believe in Allah’s SOLE rubūbiyya but violate His ulūhiyya is like a tenant saying to his landlord: “I believe you own all of the house & its contents IN ENTIRETY. But my friend owns a piece of furniture in it.”

This is rationally absurd because...

8c) If the 1st statement is true, it makes the 2nd impossible; if the 2nd statement is true it exposes the first as a lie. Two mutually contradictive beliefs cannot both be equally true at the same time. Let's finish here with another excerpt from the book.

9) Please continue reading to thread 2 (SALAFI CONTENTIONS: AN ADDENDUM TO CRITIQUE OF WAHHABI-SALAFISM) for the conclusion and a response to common objections raised by Salafis:

https://twitter.com/ClassicalMuslim/status/1288434376687128577