Aqeedah
Our Beliefs are according to Mazb-e-Haqq Ahle Sunnah
Wal Jamah
Tawheed: The Oneness of Allah
* We say about Allah's unity believing by Allah's help - that
Allah is One, without any partners.
* There is nothing like Him.
* There is nothing that can overwhelm Him.
* There is no god other than Him.
* He is the Eternal without a beginning and enduring without end.
* He will never perish or come to an end.
* Nothing happens except what He wills.
* No imagination can conceive of Him and no understanding can
comprehend Him.
* He is different from any created being.
* He is living and never dies and is eternally active and never
sleeps.
* He creates without His being in need to do so and provides for
His creation without any effort.
* He causes death with no fear and restores to life without
difficulty.
* He has always existed together with His attributes since before
creation. Bringing creation into existence did not add anything
to His attributes that was not already there. As He was, together
with His attributes, in pre-eternity, so He will remain
throughout endless time.
* It was not only after the act of creation that He could be
described as `the Creator' nor was it only by the act of
origination that He could he described as `the Originator'.
* He was always the Lord even when there was nothing to be Lord
of, and always the Creator even when there was no creation.
* In the same way that He is the `Bringer to life of the dead',
after He has brought them to life a first time, and deserves this
name before bringing them to life, so too He deserves the name of
`Creator' before He has created them.
* This is because He has the power to do everything, everything
is dependent on Him, everything is easy for Him, and He does not
need anything. `There is nothing like Him and He is the Hearer,
the Seer'. [ash-Shura 42:11]
* He created creation with His knowledge.
* He appointed destinies for those He created.
* He allotted to them fixed life spans.
* Nothing about them was hidden from Him before He created them,
and He knew everything that they would do before He created them.
* He ordered them to obey Him and forbade them to disobey Him.
* Everything happens according to His decree and will, and His
will is accomplished. The only will that people have is what He
wills for them. What He wills for them occurs and what He does
not will, does not occur.
* He gives guidance to whoever He wills, and protects them, and
keeps them safe from harm, out of His generosity; and He leads
astray whoever He wills, and abases them, and afflicts them, out
of His justice.
* All of them are subject to His will between either His
generosity or His justice.
* He is exalted beyond having opposites or equals.
* No one can ward off His decree or put back His command or
overpower His affairs.
* We believe in all of this and are certain that everything comes
from Him.
The Prophet
* And we are certain that Muhammad is His chosen servant and
selected Prophet and His Messenger with whom He is well pleased.
* And that he is the Seal of the Prophets and the Imam of the
God-fearing and the Most Honoured of all the Messengers and the
Beloved of the Lord of all the Worlds.
* Every claim to prophethood after Him is falsehood and deceit.
* He is the one who has been sent to all the jinn and all mankind
with Truth and Guidance and with Light and Illumination.
The Qur'an
* The Qur'an is the word of Allah. It came from Him as speech
without it being possible to say how. He sent it down on His
Messenger as revelation. The believers accept it, as absolute
truth. They are certain that it is, in truth, the word of Allah.
It is not created, as is the speech of human beings, and anyone
who hears it and claims that it is human speech has become an
unbeliever. Allah warns him and censures him and threatens him
with Fire when He says, Exalted is He: `I will burn him in the
Fire.' [al-Muddaththir 74:26] When Allah threatens with the Fire
those who say `This is just human speech.' [al-Muddaththir 74:25]
We know for certain that it is the Speech of the Creator of
mankind and that it is totally unlike the speech of mankind.
Likeness of Allah
* Anyone who describes Allah as being in any way the same as a
human being has become an unbeliever. All those who grasp this
will take heed and refrain from saying things such as the
unbelievers say, and they will know that He, in His Attributes,
is not like human beings.
Vision of Allah
* `The Seeing of Allah by the People of the Garden' (Al-Jannah)
is true, without their vision being all-encompassing and without
the manner of their vision being known. As the Book of our Lord
has expressed it: `Faces on that Day radiant, looking at their
Lord'. [al-Qiyamah 75:22-3] The explanation of this is as Allah
knows and wills. Everything that has come down to us about this
from the Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, in
authentic traditions, is as he said and means what he intended.
We do not delve into that, trying to interpret it according to
our own opinions or letting our imaginations have free rein. No
one is safe in his religion unless he surrendershimself
completely to Allah, the Exalted and Glorified and to His
Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and leaves
the knowledge of things that are ambiguous to the one who knows
them.
A True Muslim
* A man's Islam is not secure unless it is based on submission
and surrender. Anyone who desires to know things which it is
beyond his capacity to know, and whose intellect is not content
with surrender, will find that his desire veils him from a pure
understanding of Allah's True Unity, clear knowledge and correct
belief, and that he veers between disbelief and belief,
confirmation and denial and acceptance and rejection. He will be
subject to whisperings and find himself confused and full of
doubt, being neither an accepting believer nor a denying
rejecter.
* Belief of a man in the `seeing of Allah by the people of the
Garden is not correct if he imagines what it is like, or
interprets it according to his own understanding since the
interpretation of this seeing' or indeed, the meaning of any of
the subtle phenomena which are in the realm of Lordship, is by
avoiding its interpretation and strictly adhering to the
submission. `This is the deen (religion) of Muslims. Anyone who
does not guard himself against negating the attributes of Allah,
or likening Allah to something else, has gone astray and has
failed to understand Allah's Glory, because our Lord, the
Glorified and the Exalted, can only possibly be described in
terms of Oneness and Absolute Singularity and no creation is in
any way like Him.
* He is beyond having limits placed on Him, or being restricted,
or having parts or limbs. Nor is He contained by the six
directions as all created things are.
Al-Mi'raj: The Ascension
* Al-Mi'raj (The Ascent Through the Heavens) is true. The
Prophet, was taken by night and ascended in his bodily form,
while awake, through the heavens, to whatever heights Allah
willed for him. Allah ennobled him in the way that He ennobled
him and revealed to him what He revealed to him, `and his heart
was not mistaken about what it saw' [al-Najm 53:11]. Allah
blessed him and granted him peace in this world and the next.
Al-Hawd: The Pool
* Al-Hawd, (the Pool which Allah will grant the Prophet as an
honour to quench the thirst of His Ummah on the Day Of
Judgement), is true.
Ash-Shifa'ah: The Intercession
* Ash-Shifa'ah, (the intercession, which is stored up for
Muslims), is true, as related in the (consistent and confirmed)
Ahadith.
Al-Qadr: The Decree
* The covenant `which Allah made with Adam and his offspring' is
true.
* Allah knew, before the existence of time, the exact number of
those who would enter the Garden (Al-Jannah) and the exact number
of those who would enter the Fire (Jahannam). This number will
neither be increaser nor decreased.
* The same applies to all actions done by people, which are done
exactly as Allah knew they would be done. Everyone is cased to
what he was created for and it is the action with which a man's
life is sealed which dictates his fate. Those who are fortunate
are fortunate by the decree of Allah, and those who are wretched
are wretched by the decree of Allah.
* The exact nature of the decree is Allah's secret in His
creation, and no angel near the Throne, nor Prophet sent with a
message, has been given knowledge of it. Delving into it and
reflecting too much about it only leads to destruction and loss,
and results in rebelliousness. So be extremely careful about
thinking and reflecting on this matter or letting doubts about it
assail you, because Allah has kept knowledge of the decree away
from human beings, and forbidden them to enquire about it, saying
in His Book, `He is not asked about what He does but they are
asked'. [al-Ambiya' 21:23] So anyone who asks: `Why did Allah do
that?' has gone against a judgement of the Book, and anyone who
goes against a judgement of the Book is an unbeliever.
* This in sum is what those of Allah's friends with enlightened
hearts need to know and constitutes the degree of those firmly
endowed with knowledge. For there are two kinds of knowledge:
knowledge which is accessible to created beings, and knowledge
which is not accessible to created beings. Denying the knowledge
which is accessible is disbelief, and claiming the knowledge
which is inaccessible is disbelief. Belief can only be firm when
accessible knowledge is accepted and inaccessible knowledge is
not sought after.
Al-Lawh Wal-Qalam: The Tablet and The Pen
* We believe in Al-Lawh (The Tablet) and Al-Qalam (The Pen) and
in everything written on it. Even if all created beings were to
gather together to make something fail to exist, whose existence
Allah had written on the Tablet, they would not be able to do so.
And if all created beings were to gather together to make
something exist which Allah had not written on it, they would not
be able to do so. The Pen has dried having written down all that
will be in existence until the Day of Judgement. Whatever a
person has missed he would have never got it, and whatever one
gets, he would have never missed it.
* It is necessary for the servant to know that Allah already
knows everything that is going to happen in His creation and
decreed it in a detailed and decisive way. There is nothing that
He has created in either the heavens or the earth that can
contradict it, or add to it, or erase it, or change it, or
decrease it, or increase it in any way. This is a fundamental
aspect of belief and a necessary element of all knowledge and
recognition of Allah's Oneness and Lordship. As Allah says in His
Book: `He created everything and decreed it he a detailed way'.
[al-Furqan 25:2] And He also says: `Allah's command is always a
decided decree'. [al-Ahzab 33:38] So woe to anyone who argues
with Allah concerning the decree and who, with a sick heart,
starts delving into this matter. In his delusory attempt to
investigate the Unseen, he is seeking a secret that can never be
uncovered, and he ends up an evil-doer, telling nothing but lies.
Al-'Arsh wal-Kursi: The Tablet and The Pen
* Al-'Arsh (the Throne) and al-Kursi (the Chair) are true.
* He is independent of the Throne and what is beneath it.
* He encompasses everything and is above it, and what He has
created is incapable of encompassing Him.
Al-Ambiya: The Prophets
* We say with belief, acceptance and submission that Allah took
Ibrahim as an intimate friend and that He spoke directly to Musa.
* We believe in the angels, and the Prophets, and the books which
were revealed to the messengers, and we bear witness that they
were all following the manifest Truth.
Al-'Ummah: The Community
* We call the people of our qiblah Muslims and believers as long
as they acknowledge what the Prophet, , brought, and accept as
true everything that he said and told us about.
* We do not enter into vain talk about Allah nor do we allow any
dispute about the religion Of Allah.
* We do not argue about the Qur'an and we bear witness that it is
the speech of the Lord of all the Worlds which the Trustworthy
Spirit came down with and taught the most honoured Of all the
Messengers, Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. It
is the speech of Allah and no speech of any created being is
comparable to it. We do not say that it was created and we do not
go against the Jama'ah of the Muslims regarding it.
* We do not consider any of the people of our qiblah to he
unbelievers because of any wrong action they have done, as long
as they do not consider that action to have been lawful.
* Nor do we say that the wrong action of a man who has belief
does not have a harmful effect on him.
* We hope that Allah will pardon the people of right action among
the believers and grant them entrance into the Garden through His
Mercy, but we cannot be certain of this, and we cannot bear
witness that it will definitely happen and that they will be in
the Garden. We ask forgiveness for the people of wrong action
among the Believers and, although we are afraid for them, we are
not in despair about them.
* Certainty and despair both remove one from the religion, but
the path of truth for the people of the qiblah lies between the
two (e.g. a person must fear and be conscious of Allah's
reckoning as well as be hopeful of Allah's mercy).
* A person does not step out or belief except by disavowing what
brought him into it.
* Belief consists of affirmation by the tongue and acceptance by
the heart.
* And the whole of what is proven from the Prophet, upon him be
peace, regarding the Shari'ah and the explanation (of the Qur'an
and of Islam) is true.
* Belief is, at base, the same for everyone, but the superiority
of some over others in it is due to their fear and awareness of
Allah, their opposition to their desires, and their choosing what
is more pleasing to Allah.
* All the believers are `friends' of Allah and the noblest of
them in the sight of Allah are those who are the most obedient
and who most closely follow the Qur'an.
* Belief consists of belief in Allah. His Angels, His Books, His
Messengers, the Last Day, and belief that the Decree - both the
good of it and the evil of it, the sweet of it and the bitter or
it - is all from Allah.
* We believe in all these things. We do not make any distinction
between any of the messengers, we accept as true what all of them
brought.
* Those of the Ummah of Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant
him peace, who have committed grave sins will be in the Fire, but
not forever, provided they die and meet Allah as believers
affirming His unity even if they have not repented. They are
subject to His will and judgement. If He wants, He will forgive
them and pardon them out of His generosity, as is mentionied in
the Qur'an when He says: `And He forgives anything less than that
(shirk) to whoever He wills' [an-Nisa' 4: 116]; and if He wants,
He will punish them in the Fire out of His justice and then bring
them out of the Fire through His mercy, and for the intercession
of those who were obedient to Him, and send them to the Garden.
This is because Allah is the Protector of those who recognize Him
and will not treat them in the Next World in the same way as He
treats those who deny Him and who are bereft of His guidance and
have failed to obtain His protection. O Allah, You are the
Protector of Islam and its people; make us firm in Islam until
the day we meet You.
* We agree with doing the prayer behind any of the people of the
qiblah whether right-acting or wrong-acting, and doing the
funeral prayer over any of them when they die.
* We do not say that any of them will categorically go to either
the Garden or the Fire, and we do not accuse any of them of kufr
(disbelief), shirk (associating partners with Allah), or nifaaq
(hypocrisy), as long as they have not openly demonstrated any of
those things. We leave their secrets to Allah.
* We do not agree with killing any of the Ummah of Muhammad, ,
unless it is obligatory by Shari'ah to do so.
* We do not recognize rebellion against our Imam or those in
charge of our affairs even if they are unjust, nor do we wish
evil on them, nor do we withdraw from following them. We hold
that obedience to them is part of obedience to Allah, The
Glorified, and therefore obligatory as long as they do not order
to commit sins. We pray for their right guidance and pardon from
their wrongs.
* We follow the Sunnah of the Prophet and the Jama'ah of the
Muslims, and avoid deviation, differences and divisions.
* We love the people of justice and trustworthiness, and hate the
people of injustice and treachery.
* When our knowledge about something is unclear, we say: `Allah
knows best'.
* We agree with wiping over leather socks (in Wudu) whether on a
journey or otherwise, just as has come in the (consistent and
confirmed) ahadith.
* Hajj and jihad under the leadership of those in charge of the
Muslims, whether they are right or wrong-acting, are continuing
obligations until the Last Hour comes. Nothing can annul or
controvert them.
Al-Akhirah: The After-Life
* We believe in Kiraman Katibin (the noble angels) who write down
our actions for Allah has appointed them over us as two
guardians.
* We believe in the Angel of Death who is charged with taking the
spirits of all the worlds.
* We believe in the punishment in the grave for those who deserve
it, and in the questioning in the grave by Munkar and Nakir about
one's Lord, one's religion and one's prophet, as has come down in
ahadith from the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and
grant him peace, and in reports from the Companions, may Allah be
pleased with them all.
* The grave is either one of the meadows of the Garden or one of
the pits of the Fire.
* We believe in being brought back to life after death and in
being recompensed for our actions on the Day of Judgement, and
al-'Ard, having been shown them and al-Hisab, brought to account
for them. And Qira'at al-Kitab, reading the book, and the reward
or punishments and in al-Sirat (the Bridge) and al-Mizan (the
Balance).
* The Garden and the Fire are created things that never come to
an end and we believe that Allah created them before the rest of
creation and then created people to inhabit each of them. Whoever
He wills goes to the Garden out of His Bounty and whoever He
wills goes to the Fire through His justice. Everybody acts in
accordance with what is destined for him and goes towards what he
has been created for.
* Good and evil have both been decreed for people.
* The capability in terms of Tawfiq (Divine Grace and Favour)
which makes an action certain to occur cannot be ascribed to a
created being. This capability is integral with action, whereas
the capability of an action in terms of having the necessary
health, and ability, being in a position to act and having the
necessary means, exists in a person before the action. It is this
type of capability which is the object of the dictates of
Shariah. Allah the Exalted says: `Allah does not charge a person
except according to his ability'. [al-Baqarah 2: 286]
* People's actions are created by Allah but earned by people.
* Allah, the Exalted, has only charged people with what they are
able to do and people are only capable to do what Allah has
favoured them. This is the explanation of the phrase: `There is
no power and no strength except by Allah.' We add to this that
there is no stratagem or way by which anyone can avoid or escape
disobedience to Allah except with Allah's help; nor does anyone
have the strength to put obedience to Allah into practice and
remain firm in it, except if Allah makes it possible for them to
do so.
* Everything happens according to Allah's will, knowledge,
predestination and decree. His will overpowers all other wills
and His decree overpowers all stratagems. He does whatever He
wills and He is never unjust. He is exalted in His purity above
any evil or perdition and He is perfect far beyond any fault or
flaw. `He will not be asked about what He does but they will he
asked.' [Al-Ambiya 21: 23]
* There is benefit for dead people in the supplication and
alms-giving of the living.
* Allah responds to people's supplications and gives them what
they ask for.
* Allah has absolute control over everything and nothing has any
control over Him. Nothing can be independent of Allah even for
the blinking of an eye, and whoever considers himself independent
of Allah for the blinking of an eye is guilty of unbelief and
becomes one of the people of perdition.
* Allah is angered and can be pleased but not in the same way as
any creature.
As-Sahabah: The Companions
* We love the Companions of the Messenger of Allah but we do not
go to excess in our love for any one individual among them nor do
we disown any one of them. We hate anyone who hates them or does
not speak well of them and we only speak well of them. Love of
them is a part of Islam, part of belief and part of excellent
behaviour, while hatred of them is unbelief, hypocrisy and
rebelliousness.
* We confirm that, after the death of the Messenger of Allah, may
Allah bless him and grant him peace, the caliphate went first to
Abu Bakr As-Siddiq, may Allah be pleased with him, thus proving
his excellence and superiority over the rest of the Muslims; then
to `Umar ibn Al-Khattab, may Allah be pleased with him; then to
`Uthman, may Allah be pleased with him; and then to `Ali ibn Abi
Talib, may Allah be pleased with him. These are the
Rightly-Guided Khaliphs (Al-Khulafa Ar-Rashidoon) and upright
leaders.
* We bear witness that the ten who were named by the Messenger of
Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and who were
promised the Garden by him, will be in the Garden, as the
Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace,
whose word is truth, bore witness that they would he. The ten
are: Abu Bakr, `Umar, `Uthman, `Ali, Talhah, Zubayr, Sa'd, Sa'id,
`Abdur-Rahman ibn `Awf and Abu `Ubaydah ibn Al-Jarrah whose title
was the trustee of this Ummah, may Allah be pleased with all of
them.
* Anyone who speaks well of the Companions of the Messenger of
Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and his wives and
offspring, who are all pure and untainted by any impurity, is
free from the accusation of hypocrisy.
Al-'Ulama wal-'Awliya: The Learned Scholars and
The Saints
* The learned men of the first community and those who followed
in their footsteps - the people of virtue, the narrators of the
Ahadith, the jurists and analysts- they must only be spoken about
in the best way and anyone who says anything bad about them is
not on the right path.
* We do not prefer any of the saintly men among the Ummah over
any of the Prophets but rather we say that any one of the
Prophets is better than all the awliya' put together.
* We believe in what we know of Karamat, the marvels of the
awliya' and in authentic stories about them from trustworthy
sources.
* We believe in the signs of the Hour such as the appearance of
the Dajjal and the descent of `Isa ibn Maryam, peace be upon him,
from heaven and we believe in the rising of the sun from where it
sets and in the emergence of the Beast from the earth.
* We do not accept as true what soothsayers and fortune-tellers
say, nor do we accept the claims of those who affirm anything
which goes against the Book, the Sunnah and the consensus of the
Muslim Ummah.
Unity in Al-Islam
* We agree that holding together is the true and right path and
that separation is deviation and torment.
* There is only one religion of Allah in the heavens and the
earth and that is the religion of Islam. Allah says: `Surely
religion in the sight of Allah is Islam'. [Al `Imran 3:19] And He
also says: `I am pleased with Islam as a religion for you'.
[Am-Matidah 5:3]
* Islam lies between going to excess and falling short, between
Tashbih (likening of Allah's attributes to anything else), and
Tatil (denying Allah's attributes), between Fatalism and refusing
Decree as proceeding from Allah and between certainty (without
being conscious of Allah's reckoning) and despair (of Allah's
Mercy).
* This is our religion and it is what we believe in, both
inwardly and outwardly, and we renounce any connection, before
Allah, with anyone who goes against what we have said and made
clear.
Ad-Du'a: The Supplication
We ask Allah to make us firm in our belief and seal our lives
with it and to protect us from variant ideas, scattering opinions
and evil schools of view such as those of the Mushabbihah, the
Mu'tazilah, the Jahmiyyah the Jabriyah, the Qadriyah and others
like them who go against the Sunnah and Jama'ah and have allied
themselves with error. We renounce any connection with them and
in our opinion they are in error and on the path of destruction.
We ask Allah to protect us from all falsehood and we ask His
Grace and Favour to do all good.