Hakikat Kitabevi Publications No: 10 answer to an enemy of islam

“He who infers
rules from the Qur’ân al-kerîm through his own opinion becomes
a kâfir.” Al-Imâm al’a’zam Abû Hanîfa, too, said that it was not
permissible for the ignorant who are not in the grade of ijtihâd to
issue fatwâs. The religion reformer, too, writes this fact as quoted
above. Then, Hadrat Ibn ’Âbidîn is absolutely right. Hadrat Sayyid
’Abdulhakîm-i Arwâsî, al-Walî al-kâmil wa ’l-mukammil, the
profound ’âlim cognizant of the four madhhabs down to their
subtle particulars, said, “Of the books of fiqh in the Hanafî
madhhab, 
Radd al-muhtâr [by Ibn ’Âbidîn] is the most useful and
valuable one. Its every word is a proof; its every decision is a
document.” What else can a person who speaks ill of and slights
such a basic book of Islam be, if he is not a zindîq? Ibn ’Âbidîn was
a great ’âlim of fiqh in the Hanafî madhhab. He took his every
word, his every decision from the mujtahids who had taken them
from al-Imâm al-a’zam, and, this great imâm from the Book and
the Sunna. As it is seen, any Muslim who follows the rules
conveyed by Ibn ’Âbidîn, in fact, follows the Book and the Sunna.
But he who does not want to follow Ibn ’Âbidîn follows not the
Book or the Sunna, but his own fancies, the desires of his nafs. The
Qur’ân al-kerîm and hadîth ash-sherîf say that a person who does
so will go to Hell. Let us say again that the statement, “It is not
permissible to act upon the Book and the Sunna while there is the
fiqh,” has been fabricated by religion reformers. Neither an ’âlim
nor a Muslim has said or written so. It is written in religion
reformers’ books only.
As for raising the finger in salât, it is explained in detail in the
third volume of 
Ma’ârif as-sunan. Giving examples from many
books, the book prefers the raising of the finger. However, Hadrat
al-Imâm ar-Rabbânî, in the 312th letter of the first volume of his
Maktûbât, alluded to his deep penetration into the methods and
principles of madhhabs and the superiority of mujtahids, and after
quoting the hadîths showing that the finger was to be raised, he
listed also the valuable fatwas informing that it was harâm and
makrûh. With strong documentary evidences, he proved that it
would be more prudent not to raise the finger. In this conclusion,
he depended, again, upon the hadîth ash-sherîf of Rasûlullah, the
Master of Mankind (sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam). This letter in
Maktûbât fully exposed to view how meticulously the imâms of
Islam observed the matter for adapting themselves to a hadîth ash-
– 62 –

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sherîf. Hadrat Ahmad Sa’îd al-Fârûqî ad-Dahlawî, one of the
’ulamâ’ of Islam and great men of tasawwuf of India, explained
fully the comments of the ’ulamâ’ of fiqh on the raising of the
finger. He wrote in his sixty-third letter, “Some ’ulamâ’, seeing
that there were many narrations about it, said that it was a sunna.
Some others, seeing that the narrations were incongruous, said
that the finger should not be raised. When there are two fatwâs on
a matter, one may do it according to either of them. The person
who does the one way should not belittle or censure those who do
the other way.” As it is seen, the ’ulamâ’ of fiqh ordered Muslims
to respect one another’s madhhabs. ’Alî al-Qârî’s speaking ill of al-
Kaidânî’s fiqh book is not surprising; it is written in the book