Mu' meneen Brothers and Sisters,

As Salaam Aleikum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuh.  (May Allah's Peace, Mercy and Blessings be upon all of you)

One of our brothers/sisters has asked this question:

Please could you clarify this question. It really confuses me.

Most Bohras always take "minaat" of e.g. Syedna Hatim bin Ibrahim, or Hakimmuddin Moula, etc. to relieve us for whatever difficulties we have. We will usually do a daris or say Yasin in the name of these great saints. According to the Quran, we should only pray to Allah to relieve us for our difficulties. Is this islamic. I have heard that Syedna Hatim bin Ibrahim and Hamkimjuddin Moula or Syedi Fakhruddin Saheb are performers of miracles.

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Answer:

Minnat

In the name of Allah, We praise Him, seek His help and ask for His forgiveness. Whoever Allah guides none can misguide, and who-ever He allows to fall astray, none can guide them aright. We bear witness that there is no one (no idol, no person, no grave, no prophet, no imam, no dai, nobody!) worthy of worship but Allah Alone, and we bear witness that Muhammad (saws) is His slave-servant and the seal of His Messengers.

Allah Alone has absolutely all the power in the heavens and the earth! No one has any power or any strength, except Allah. There is nobody who can take what Allah gives, and there is nobody who can give what Allah takes! There is none who can influence Allah’s decision in any way! No one, absolutely no one, has any Power to change or influence the decision of Allah, the All Mighty. Rather than give you our opinion, we should go directly to the Glorious Quran and see what Allah says about this issue:

Allah says in the Holy Quran Chapter 7 Surah Aaraf verses 197: Those whom you call besides Allah, cannot help you, nor can they help themselves.

Allah says in the Holy Quran Chapter 34 Surah Saba verses 22: (O Prophet) say, “Call on those whom you invoke as deities besides Allah. They neither own an atom’s weight of anything in the heavens, nor in the earth. Nor have they anything to share in either, nor is any of them a helper of Allah”

Allah says in the Holy Quran Chapter 22 Surah Hajj verses 13: Then, instead of Allah, he invokes those who can do him neither harm nor good. This is the last extremity of deviation. He invokes those who are more likely to do him harm, than good! What an evil ‘maula’ he chooses, and what an evil companion.

Allah says in the Holy Quran Chapter 36 Surah Yaa Seen verses 74-75: Yet, they have set up others besides Allah, hoping that they would be helped! They(those invoked) do not have the power to help them, yet these people stand as an ever ready troop at their service!

Allah says in the Holy Quran Chapter 3 Surah Ale Imran verses 160: If Allah helps you, none can overcome you! And if Allah forsakes you, who is there, then, after Allah, that can help you? Therefore, the true believers should trust in Allah Alone.

Allah says in the Holy Quran Chapter 5 Surah Maidah verse 76: (O Prophet) tell them, “Do you worship besides Allah that which has no power to harm you nor benefit you? In fact, it is Allah Alone Who hears everything and knows everything.”

Allah says in the Holy Quran Chapter 10 Surah Yunus verses 106-107: And do not call besides Allah, any being that can neither do you any good nor any harm. For if you will do so, you shall be one of the doers of wrong. If Allah afflicts you with a calamity, there is none to remove it, but He Himself. Likewise, if Allah wills to bestow a favor on you, there is none to withhold Allah’s bounty. He bestows His bounty on anyone of His servants He wills. And He is The Forgiving, The Merciful.

Allah says in the Holy Quran Chapter 17 Surah Isra (Bani Israel) verses 56-57: (O Prophet) say, “You may call for help those, besides Allah, whom you fancy. They have neither the power to remove your troubles from you, nor change them!” In fact, those beings whom these people call for help themselves seek the means of approach to Allah, and vie with one another to be nearer to Him, and hope for His Mercy and fear His Wrath. The fact is that the Wrath of your Lord is a thing to be dreaded!

Allah says in the Holy Quran Chapter 39 Surah Zumar verse 38: If indeed you (O Prophet) asked them, “Who is it that created the earth?”, they would surely say, “Allah”. Say, “See you then? The things that you invoke besides Allah, can they, if Allah wills some penalty for me, remove His penalty? Or if Allah wills some mercy for me, can they keep back His mercy?” Say: “Sufficient is Allah for me! In Him trust those, who put their trust.”

Allah says in the Holy Quran Chapter 22 Surah Hajj verse 73: O mankind! A parable is related to you, so listen to it! Those on whom you call besides Allah, cannot create a fly, even though they may all combine together for this purpose! Nay! If a fly snatches away anything from them, they would have no power to release it from the fly! How weak are the those who petition, and how weak are those to whom they supplicate!

Nobody, absolutely nobody deserves our invocation, except Allah Alone! No one has any power to give or take anything, except Allah Alone! Thus it is to Allah Alone that a true believer should invoke exclusively.

The truth is that if one takes a ‘minnat’ of any shrine, any grave, any person, any being, any body, or anything in the Universe, other than of Allah Alone, he is guilty of committing the heinous and horrendous sin of ‘shirk’ or associating others with Allah! Some of these people who take ‘minnats’ at these shrines, graves and tombs, say that these pious men do not actually give us something, or remove our troubles, but only take our prayers and our supplications to Allah, and thus bring us nearer to Allah. This is precisely what Allah in the Glorious Quran calls ‘shirk’!

Allah says in the Holy Quran Chapter 39 Surah Zumur verse 2-3: So worship Allah Alone, making your religion His exclusively. Beware! Religion is the exclusive Right of Allah. As for those who have taken other ‘auliyas’ (guardians) with Allah (and justify their this conduct by saying): “We serve them only that they may bring us closer to Allah.” Allah will surely judge between them concerning all that in which they differ. Allah does not show guidance to any liar and denier of the Truth.

Allah says in the Holy Quran Chapter 10 Surah Yunus verse 18: These people serve beside Allah those which can neither harm nor benefit them, and say, “These are our ‘shofa’a’ (intercessors) with Allah!” (O Mohammed), tell them, “Do you wish to inform Allah of that thing which He knows not in the heavens, or in the earth?” He is absolutely free from, and exalted above the shirk that they commit.

It is Allah Alone who Created us and everything else that exists in the Universe. It is Allah Alone who is our Provider, our Sustainer, our Fashioner, our Maintainer, our Cherisher, our Protector, our Reckoner, our Originator, our Governor, our Enricher, our Guide, our Pardoner, our Preserver, our Restorer, our Reseurrector and our Gatherer! He Alone is the All Powerful and the All Mighty!

All the other beings people invoke are nothing but His Creation and His slaves, and they all have absolutely no Power. All the Power is vested in The All Powerful Alone!

It is Allah Alone Who Sees everything, and Hears everything. He is very close to His slaves and He Hears them when they call on Him. He Alone has the Power to hear our duas and our prayers, and He Alone has the Power to answer them! And Allah exhorts us again and again in the Glorious Quran, that whatever we need, we should call on Him, and Him Alone!

Allah says in the Holy Quran Chapter 40 Surah Mumin verse 60: And Your Lord says, “Call upon Me. I will answer your prayers. Those who disdain My worship on account of arrogance, shall certainly enter Hell in disgrace!”

Allah says in the Holy Quran Chapter 13 Surah Raad verse 14: To Him Alone is prayer, in Truth! As regards the other beings whom they call besides Allah, they cannot answer their prayers. It is as if a man were to stretch out his hands towards water and ask it to rise to his mouth, when it cannot reach it! Likewise the prayers of the disbelievers are nothing but aimless efforts!

Allah says in the Holy Quran Chapter 2 Surah Baqarah verse 186: And if My servants ask you, O Prophet, concerning Me, tell them that I am quite near to them. I hear and answer the prayer of the suppliant, when he calls on Me. So let them respond to My call and believe in Me. (Convey this to them), perhaps they may be guided aright!

Your Comment: I have heard that Syedna Hatim bin Ibrahim and Hamkimjuddin Moula or Syedi Fakhruddin Saheb are performers of miracles.

Allah Alone has the Power to perform miracles, and He has bestowed on the Prophets the Sign of Miracles. No Prophet of Allah could bring about a miracle at his own bidding, but it was Allah who decided when and where and in front of whom those miracles were to be performed! The Prophets of Allah did not have the power to bring about a miracle by themselves!

Allah says in the Holy Quran Chapter 5 Surah Maidah verse 110: Allah says, “O Jesus, son of Mary, recall to mind My favor I bestowed upon you and upon your mother. I strengthened you with the Holy Spirit. You talked to the people even in the cradle as you talked when you were grown up. I taught you the Book and the Wisdom and the Torah and the Gospel. By My leave, you made from clay the likeness of a bird, and breathed into it, and by My leave, it became a living bird. By My leave, you healed the born-blind and the lepers. By My leave, you brought forth the dead! Also remember that I protected you from the Israelites, when you came to them with clear Signs, and the disbelievers among them said, “These Signs are nothing but obvious magic.”

My beloved brother, these people whose names you mentioned have died hundreds of years ago! These people are dead! They might have been pious slaves of Allah, but they did not have the power to perform miracles when they were alive, and they definitely do not have the power to perform miracles from their graves! May Allah have mercy on them, these people do not even know that they are being invoked in their graves! On the Day of Judgment, these pious people will become enemies of the ones who invoked them and absolutely deny their invocations, their worship and their ‘minnats’!

Allah says in the Holy Quran Chapter 16 Surah Nahl verses 20-21: And the other beings, whom the people invoke with Allah, create nothing! Nay, they are themselves created! They are DEAD, not living! And they do not at all know when they shall again be raised back to life!

Allah says in the Holy Quran Chapter 10 Surah Yunus verses 28-30: On the Day when We will muster them together, We shall say to those who committed ‘shirk’, “Stay where you are, you and those whom you set up as partners with Us.” Then We shall remove the state of strangeness from among them, and the partners they had set up will say, “You did not worship us! Allah suffices as a witness between you and us, and (even if you worshipped us), we were utterly unaware of your worship!” At that time everyone will taste of what he did. All shall be brought back to Allah, their real Lord, and all the lies they had invented will vanish from them!

Allah says in the Holy Quran Chapter 46 Surah Ahqaf verses 4-6: Prophet, say to them, "Have you ever seen them with open eyes those whom you invoke instead of Allah? Show me what they have created in the earth? Or have they any share in the creation and control of the heavens? Bring me a Book revealed before this, or produce some remnant of knowledge in support of your beliefs if you are truthful." And who could be further astray than the one who invokes, instead of Allah, those who cannot answer him till the Day of Resurrection. Nay, they are even UNAWARE THAT THEY ARE BEING INVOKED. And when all mankind shall be gathered together (on the Day of Qiyamah), they (the so-called intercessors) will become enemies of those who invoked them, and they will DISOWN THEIR WORSHIP!!!

Allah says in the Holy Quran Chapter 19 Surah Maryam verse 81-82: These people have set up other gods with Allah so that they may become their supporters. There will be no supporters! (On the Day of Judgement), they will not only disown their worship, but also become their opponents!

Thus my beloved brothers and sisters, these ‘minnats’ or duas or prayers or supplications at these shrines and tombs of pious people are nothing but a clear form of ‘Shirk’! And ‘Shirk’ is the single biggest sin in Islam. Allah has promised Himself in the Holy Quran that He will forgive whatever He Wills, except ‘shirk’, and the confirmed destination of a person who dies while in the state of ‘shirk’ is the eternal torture of Hell Fire!

Allah says in the Quran: Chapter 4 Surah An-Nisa Verse 48: Shirk (associating other deities with Allah) is the only sin that Allah does not forgive, and He forgives, whomsoever He pleases, sins other than this. For whosoever associates any other partner with Allah, does indeed forge a big lie and commits the most heinous sin.

Allah says in the Holy Quran Chapter 5 Surah Maidah verse 72: Whoever commits ‘shirk’ (invoking anything with Allah), Allah shall forbid for him Paradise, and Hell shall be his abode. And for such wrong doers there will be no one to help.

In conclusion, my dear brethren, whoever has taken ‘minnats’ at graves or anywhere else in the past, turn to Allah in repentance and make Taubah. Whoever intends to take ‘minnats’, please refrain from committing this heinous and horrendous crime of ‘shirk’! And whoever is guiding you towards these ‘minnats’, please note that these people are guiding you towards nothing, but the ever lasting Fire of Hell, so please refrain from it. Because on the Day of Judgment, it will be you alone in the Court of Allah, and you will have to answer for all your deeds in person. And there will absolutely be no helper and no protector and no ‘shafaa’, despite all the promises made by some self-made leaders and self-proclaimed holy men today!

May Allah guide you and us all to read the Quran with understanding, so that we can recognize the Power and Majesty of our Lord and Creator! May Allah guide you and us all to read the Quran with understanding, so that we can recognize and stay away from this most heinous of sins, ‘shirk’. May Allah guide you and us all to the Straight Path of Islam!.

May Allah guide you and us to read and understand the simple and plain words of the Glorious Quran. May Allah increase our knowledge from the Holy Quran. May Allah guide us to the Siraat al Mustaqeem.

Whatever written of Truth and benefit is only due to Allah’s Assistance and Guidance, and whatever of error is of me. Allah Alone Knows Best and He is the Only Source of Strength.

Your brother and well wisher in Islam,

Burhan