Q716 :In my home country there are many people who
do not follow Islam or fulfill its major duties, such as prayer.
Instead, they attend graveyards and visit the tombs of some religious
personalities, asking for their help. They do not miss performing
“fatihah” every month, on the first Thursday of the new moon. How will
this type of people be treated by Allah on the day of Judgment.
A716 : We cannot say how will Allah deal with
anybody on the day of Judgement. He will administer His absolute
justice to all. He knows the special circumstances, the intentions, the
motives and objectives of everyone. He values every action by every
individual in the fairest of manners. What we can do, however, is to
judge people’s actions as they appear to us in the light of divine
guidance provided by Allah in the Qur’an and in the light of the Sunnah
of the Prophet. They should give us a very good idea whether a certain
kind of action is acceptable or not. The first thing to say about such
people is that they do not attend regularly to their most essential
Islamic duties, such as prayers. The Prophet describes prayer as the
mainstay of the Islamic faith. He explains that by adding: “He who
attends to it (i.e. prayer) provides his faith with strong support,
while he who neglects it, allows his faith to collapse.” Moreover, a
person who neglects his prayer is more likely to neglect his other
Islamic duties. It is a fact of life that a person who does not attend
to his prayer is also likely to indulge in different types of forbidden
practices. Such a person is not likely to have much reward from Allah.
There will be little to his credit on the day of Judgement. Yet these
people try to satisfy their natural desire to be religious by resorting
to practices that give them such an appearance. They visit the graves
and tombs of those whom they consider saints. Because they give those
dead people such a status, they imagine that they [the dead saints]
have special privileges and powers. It may be true that the dead people
whose graves they visit were of high religious standing and it may be
true that they have been given certain privileges by Allah, but those
are not of the type which enables them to respond to the requests of
those who visit their graves. No dead person can be of any benefit to
the living. Indeed, a dead person can be of no benefit even to himself.
The Prophet tells us that “when a human being dies, his actions nete to
an absolute end, except in one of three ways: A continuing act of
charity, a useful contribution to knowledge or a dutiful child who
prays for him.” In other words, the living can be of benefit to the
dead by praying Allah on their behalf, but the dead cannot be of
benefit to the living. When those people whom you have described go to
such graves in order to request the dead to help them, they are engaged
in a futile action. Moreover, they are indeed guilty of the worst type
of sin, namely, associating partners with Allah. Their practices can
only be described as the worshipping of graves. The “fatihah” is a
certain type of ritual in which people gather to engage in reading
certain verses of the Qur’an and certain phrases of glorification of
Allah thousands of times. This is coupled with other rituals such as
the preparation of food, which is placed at a particular point before
starting and then eaten after the whole ritual is over. All this has no
basis whatsoever. It cannot be supported by any Hadith or Qur’anic
verse. As such, it is an innovation which is totally unacceptable. The
Prophet says: “Beware of newly invented matters. For every invention is
an innovation and every innovation is going astray and every going
astray is in hell fire.” (Related by Abu Dawood and At-Tirmithi). The
Prophet also says: “He who innovates something in this matter of ours,
that is not of it, will have it rejected.” When people engage in such
practices, neglecting their duties, they actually try to give their
lives a religious aspect. However, they err because they do not see the
Prophet’s guidance. Indeed, when it is pointed out to them that their
practices are wrong, they are not prepared to listen to sound advice.
They feel that their actions are good because they have seen some
people whom they consider guides to them. They err in not seeking the
guidance provided by Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), who was sent
by Allah to convey His knowledge. Their actions are of no value,
because they do not give them any religious conscience. Their effect is
only to give them a feeling that they have discharged what religion
expects of them. Our religion is not a set of rituals. It has a very
clear code of practice. Unless it is approached in the manner taught to
us by the Prophet, it does not yield its fruit. If we want to be true
Muslims, we have to follow the Prophet’s guidance. That means
discharging our duties and not adding to the faith of Islam anything
that is not part of it. Unfortunately, such practices are widespread in
large areas of the Muslim world. They are responsible for the
backwardness of Muslims everywhere. Muslims will not regain their
strength and proper status until they disown such practices and regain
their Islamic sense. That sense will guide them along the path set out
for us by Prophet Muhammad, Allah’s last messenger (peace be upon him).
Our Dialogue ( Source : Arab News – Jeddah )