2. TEN DEGREES OF
GUIDANCE (1) (edited)
The classical Muslim scholar Ibn
al-Qayyim al-Jawzillah (691-751/1292-1350) in his book Madārij al-Sālikīn (Steps
of Divine Seekers) mentions ten
degrees of guidance(مَرَاتِبُ
الْهِداَيَة) endowed by Allah to His servants.
The first degree of guidance which is the highest degree is Allah’s direct
talking to His servant in his wakefulness but behind a veil, like His direct talking
to Prophet Moses a.s. Allah said:
... وَكَلَّمَ اللَّهُ
مُوسَى تَكْلِيمًا (النساء:164)
… and to Mūsā (Moses) Allah spoke directly. (Q. 4:164)
The use of maṣdar
(verbal noun) تَكْلِيمًا (lit. "speaking")
indicates that the speaking is not as a figure of speech or metaphorical, but
real speaking. It happened to the Prophet in his mi‘rāj (ascension to
heaven).
The second degree of guidance is Allah’s waḥy (revelation),
“in the form of true
dreams which came true like bright daylight”, whereas the third degree is the
sending of an angel to them, namely, Gabriel (Jibrīl or Jibrā’īl) a.s. either
in the form of a human being or as his own appearance, and reveals to them what
Allah wants to reveal to them. These three degrees of guidance are only for
prophets and messengers. Allah mentions in the Qur’an as follows:
وَمَا كَانَ لِبَشَرٍ أَنْ يُكَلِّمَهُ اللَّهُ إِلَّا وَحْيًا أَوْ مِنْ وَرَاءِ
حِجَابٍ أَوْ يُرْسِلَ
رَسُولًا فَيُوحِيَ بِإِذْنِهِ مَا
يَشَاءُ إِنَّهُ عَلِيٌّ حَكِيمٌ (الشورى:51)
(Q. 42:51)
It is not given to any human being that Allah
should
speak to him unless (it be) by Revelation, or
from behind
a veil,
or (that) He sends a Messenger to reveal what
He wills by His Leave. Verily, He is the Most
High, Most Wise. (Q./42:51)
When the Prophet was asked by al-Ḥarith ibn Hishām how
revelation came to him, he replied:
Sometimes it is (revealed) like the ringing of
a bell, this
form of
Inspiration is the hardest of all and then this state
passes
off after I have grasped what is inspired. Sometimes
the angel comes in the form of a man and talks
to me and
I grasp whatever he says. ‘Ā’ishah r.a. added:
Verily, I saw
the
Prophet s.a.w. being inspired (divinely) and (noticed)
the sweat dropping from his forehead on a very
cold
day as
he Inspiration was over.
(Reported by
Bukhārī)
The fourth degree
of guidance is through taḥdīth (talking), and the person who is
endowed with this privilege of being told something is called muḥaddath. Ibn
al-Qayyim al-Jawziyyah cites a ḥadīth narrated by Abū Hurayrah, that the
Prophet s.a.w said:
لَقَدْ كَانَ فِيمَنْ كَانَ
قَبْلَكُمْ مِنْ بَنِي إِسْرَائِيلَ رِجَالٌ يُكَلَّمُونَ مِنْ غَيْر أَنْ
يَكُونُوا أَنْبِيَاءَ فَإِنْ يَكُنْ مِنْ أُمَّتِي
مِنْهُمْ أَحَدٌ فَعُمَرُ (رواه البخاري)
Among the
nation of Bani Israel who lived before you,
there were man who used to be inspired with
guidance
though they
were not Prophets, and if there is any of
such persons among my followers, it is ‘Umar
(Reported by Bukhārī)
Ibn Taymiyyah’s commentary on the above ḥadīth
is that since the message and the prophethood of this nation have been
completed, there would be no need for having a muḥaddath. The Prophet
said that if there is which means it does not happen, he would be ‘Umar. A muḥaddath is
a person who is told something through his inmost and heart, and then it
happens as it has been told. The upright person (al-Ṣiddīq, which is
also the epithet of Abū Bakr) is in higher position than the muḥaddath, because
he does not need any taḥdīth, inspiration, vision, or kashf (unveiling,
illumination), because he has surrendered his whole heart and his whole life to
the message of the Prophet. Moreover, a muḥaddath has to refer what he
receives to the teachings of the Prophet: if it agrees with it he accepts it;
otherwise, if it does not agree with it, he has to reject it.
Ibn al-Qayyim said further that among ignorant
people one would claim that his heart has spoken to him from his Lord. He said
that if it is true that his heart has spoken to him, from whom? From his Lord
or from Satan? If he said it was from his Lord, there would be nobody who would
know whether it really came from his Lord, and that would be a lie. A muḥaddath
never claimed to be so in the past, because he was not sure of it, whether
it was really from Allah or not. ‘Umar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, when he became caliph, his secretary wrote
for him:
هَذاَ مَا أَرَى اللَّهُ
أَمِيْرَ الْمُؤْمِنِيْن عُمَرَ بْنَ الْخَطَّاب
This
is what Allah has shown to the Prince of the Believers,
he asked him to erase it and to
write instead,
هَذاَ مَا رَأَى عُمَرُ
بْنُ الْخَطَّابِ, فَإنْ كاَنَ صَوَابًا فَمِنَ اللّهِ,
ؤَإنْ كَانَ خَطَأً فَمِنْ عُمَر, وَاللَّهُ وَ
رَسُوْلُهُ مِنْهُ بَرِئ
This is the opinion of ‘Umar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, if it is right
it is from Allah,
and if it is wrong it is from ‘Umar,
and Allah and His Messenger are free from it
In
another occasion ‘Umar r.a. gave his opinion about the kalālah (the
man who has neither descendants nor ascendants) and then said,
أَقُوْلُ فِيْهَا
بِرَأْيِي. فَإنْ يَكُنْ صَوَابًا فَمِنَ اللّهِ, ؤَإنْ كَانَ خَطَأً فَمِنِّي وَ
مِنَ الشَّيْطَان
I say it with my personal opinion; if it is
right it
is from Allah, and if it is wrong,
then it is from me and from Satan.
Abū ‘Abdullah al-Shaybānī says that there are twenty-one
matters where ‘Umar agrees with his Lord in the Qur’an although some of them
are not authentic. Among sound ḥadīths
are as follows:
‘Umar r.a. said, “I agree with
my Lord (or my Lord
agreed with me) in three matters.
I said, ‘O Messenger
of Allah! I wish you take the Maqām of Ibrāhīm
a place
for prayer.’ Then it was revealed وَاتَّخِذُوا مِنْ
مَقَامِ إِبْرَاهِيمَ مُصَلًّى
“And
take you (people) the Maqām
(place) of Ibrāhīm
a
place for prayer”[Q. 2:125] . I also said, ‘O Messenger
of Allah! The righteous and the wicked enter
your house.
I wish you would command the Mothers of
the believers
(the Prophet’s wives) to wear Ḥijāb. Allah
sent down the
verse
that required Ḥijāb. And when I knew the Prophet
was
angry with some of his wives, I came to them and said,
“Either
you stop what you are doing, or Allah will endow
His Messenger with better women than you are.”
I advised
one
of his wives and she said to me, ”O ‘Umar! Does the
Messenger of Allah not know to advise his
wives, so that
you have to do the job instead of him?” The
Allah revealed
عَسَى رَبُّهُ إِنْ طَلَّقَكُنَّ
أَنْ يُبَدِّلَهُ أَزْوَاجًا خَيْرًا مِنْكُنَّ… “It
may be if he
divorced you (all) that his Lord will give him
instead
of you, wives better than you….[Q. 66:5]
The
verse that required Ḥijāb in the above ḥadīth is as follows:
يَا أَيُّهَا النَّبِيُّ
قُلْ لِأَزْوَاجِكَ وَبَنَاتِكَ وَنِسَاءِ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ يُدْنِينَ عَلَيْهِنَّ مِنْ
جَلَابِيبِهِنَّ
ذَلِكَ أَدْنَى
أَنْ يُعْرَفْنَ فَلَا يُؤْذَيْنَ وَكَانَ اللَّهُ غَفُورًا رَحِيمًا (الأحزاب:59)
O Prophet! Tell thy
wives and thy daughters, as well as
all
[other] believing women, that they should draw over
themselves some of their outer garment [when
in public]:
this
swill be more conducive to their being recognized
[as decent women] and not annoyed. But [withal,]
God is indeed much-forgiving, a dispenser of
grace.
(Q.
33:59, Muhammad Asad’s translation).[1]
In a ḥadīth
narrated by Ibn ‘Umar the Prophet s.a.w. insisted to pray funeral prayer
for ‘Abdullah ibn ‘Ubayy, the leader of the hypocrites in Madinah, at the
request of his son ‘Abdullah, who was one of his companions. ‘Umar reminded him
not to do so, as he was a hypocrite. Revelation came later in support of
‘Umar’s view, as follows:
وَلَا تُصَلِّ عَلَى أَحَدٍ مِنْهُمْ مَاتَ أَبَدًا وَلَا
تَقُمْ عَلَى قَبْرِهِ إِنَّهُمْ
كَفَرُوا بِاللَّهِ وَرَسُولِهِ
وَمَاتُوا وَهُمْ فَاسِقُونَ (التوبة:84)
And never (O Muhammad) pray (funeral prayer) to any
of them
(hypocrites) who dies, nor stand at his grave.
Certainly they disbelieved in Allah and His
Messenger,
and died while they were rebellious (Q. 9:84)
(Reported by Muslim)
When the following verse was
revealed:
وَلَقَدْ خَلَقْنَا الْإِنْسَانَ
مِنْ سُلَالَةٍ مِنْ طِينٍ. ثُمَّ جَعَلْنَاهُ نُطْفَةً فِي قَرَارٍ مَكِينٍ .
ثُمَّ خَلَقْنَا النُّطْفَةَ
عَلَقَةً فَخَلَقْنَا الْعَلَقَةَ مُضْغَةً فَخَلَقْنَا الْمُضْغَةَ عِظَامًا
فَكَسَوْنَا الْعِظَامَ
لَحْمًا ثُمَّ أَنْشَأْنَاهُ خَلْقًا آخَر...(المؤمنون:12-14)
And indeed We created man (Adam) out of an extract
of clay (water and earth). Thereafter We made
him (the offspring of Adam as a Nutfah (mixed drops of male and
female sexual discharge and lodged it) in a
safe lodging
(womb of
the woman). Then We made the Nutfah into
a clot (a piece of thick coagulated blood),
then We made
out of that little lump of flesh bones, then We
clothed
the bones with flesh, and then We brought it
forth
as
another creation… (Q.23:12-14)
‘Umar said فَتَبَارَكَ اللَّهُ أَحْسَنُ الْخَالِقِينَ
“So
blessed is Allah, the Best of creators”, and the verse ended like what he had
said.
After
the battle of Badr the Prophet asked the opinion of his companion what to do
with the captives. ‘Umar said that they should be executed. Abū Bakr said they
should pay ransom, or teach the Muslims reading and writing. The Prophet took
Abū Bakr’s opinion, and therefore, some of their relatives who were forced to
join the enemy in the battlefield, like the Prophet’s uncle al-‘Abbās were
saved. Later on, revelation came agreeing with ‘Umar’s opinion, as follows:
مَا كَانَ لِنَبِيٍّ
أَنْ يَكُونَ لَهُ أَسْرَى حَتَّى يُثْخِنَ فِي الأَرْضِ تُرِيدُونَ
عَرَضَ الدُّنْيَا
وَاللهُ يُرِيدُ الآَخِرَةَ وَاللهُ عَزِيزٌ حَكِيمٌ) الأنفال: 67(
It is not for a
Prophet that he should have prisoners of war
(and free them with ransom) until he had made
a great
slaughter (among his enemies) in the land. You
desire the
good of this world (i.e., the money of ransom
for freeing
the captives), but Allah desires (for you) the
Hereafter.
And Allah is All-Mighty, All-Wise (Q. 8:67)
These
are some examples where revelation came agreeing what ‘Umar had said. He had
reached the level of a muḥaddath, but he did not claim it, as there is
no longer any muḥaddath among the followers of Prophet Muhammad s.a.w.,
who said that if there was any muḥaddath, he would have been
‘Umar. Based on the above statement of the Prophet any person who claimes to be
a muḥaddath among Muslims, let alone to be a prophet, his claim should
not be accepted.
(CIVIC,
15 January, 2016) المراجع: المكتبة
الشاملة
تفسير الطبري (ت. 310 هـ(
تفسير القرطبى (ت. 671
هـ(
تفسير ابن كثير (ت.
774 هـ(
ابن القيم الجوزية. مدارج السالكين.
Muhsin Khan, Dr. Muhammad. Summarized Sahih Al-Bukhari. Riyadh:
Darussalam, 1996
Asad, Muhammad. The Message of the Qur’an. Gibraltar: Dar
al-Andalus, 1984.
http://jamharah.net/showthread.php?t=22172#.VpycPlLIWpY
http://www.alhiwar.net/ShowNews.php?Tnd=26462
[1] Muhammad Asad’s commentary on this verse is as
follows: “The specific, time-bound formulation of the above verse (evident in
the reference to the wives and daughters of the Prophet), as well as the
deliberate vagueness of the recommendation that women ‘should draw upon themselves
some of their outer garments (min jalābibihinna)’ when in public, makes
it clear that the verse was not meant to be an injunction (ḥukm) in the
general, timeless sense of this term but, rather, a moral guideline to be
observed against the ever-changing background of time and social environment.
This finding is reinforced by the concluding referenced of God’s forgiveness
and grace.” Muhammad Asad, The Message of the Qur’an, p. 651, n. 75.
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