Ilāh, the Sects Today and Taqdīr

The difference in the meaning of ilāh also calls for some commentary.

The mufassirīn like Ṭabarī and Ibn Kathīr, and all the others, have actually discussed this word ilāh, in terms of where it comes from and so on. There is no need to go into any detail here; but ilāh could also come from a meaning in which it means to seek solace, to seek peace and tranquillity; and thus people resort to Allah (swt) in their need, and in their life, and so on and so forth. So that is one meaning. There are other meanings as well: being worthy of worship; the one everybody resorts to, and worships, is the Deity of worship.

Is there, then, any contemporary group whose ʿaqīdah is related or similar to the ʿaqīdah of the other sects?

This was mentioned right at the beginning, in the first chapter. There are groups today, like progressives, who are very much like the Antinomians, or the Murjiʾah. They basically say that they are ready to accept anybody as Muslim, as long as they call themselves Muslim, even though they may be wearing a cross or whatever in interfaith programmes. That is not the opinion of Ahl al-Sunnah wa al-Jamāʿah. Ahl al-Sunnah wa al-Jamāʿah says that if anybody, even if he is fully convinced about the faith, takes on a salient sign, a feature of another religion, like bowing to a cross, or wearing a cross for that matter, that is a serious issue that takes a person out of their faith. These people are willing to accept anybody, whoever they are (and this is not about a certain category of people necessarily, the big sinners): they are willing to accept anybody as a Muslim, even if they have a seriously deviant ideology that takes them to kufr, as long as they are just willing to call themselves Muslim.

Now again, as Ahl al-Sunnah wa al-Jamāʿah, our belief is that because of a sin, as major a sin as it may be, as long as it is not kufr or shirk, we are not going to relegate anybody to eternal Hellfire. We are going to say that he is under the will of Allah. If Allah wills, He can punish him for the sins, or forgive him and not punish him at all. But eventually, due to the blessedness of the faith, lā ilāha illā Allāh, they will go to Paradise. They will eventually go to Paradise. But if somebody has kufr or shirk, then that cannot happen.

So there are many groups like that. Then there are groups today that consider everybody else kāfir very easily: just willing to call people kāfir, and go out and kill them, as is seen happening in other countries. That is a bit like the Khawārij. Then there are the Muʿtazilites: there does not seem to be any formal group as Muʿtazilites, but there are definitely individuals who like to associate themselves with the Muʿtazilites, and so on and so forth.

One further question is actually a taqdīr issue, which is only introduced here. If Allah has planned every minute of our lives from the time a human is given birth to, does that mean Allah has planned all the good and bad deeds a person will commit when he first enters this world?

It is not that Allah (swt) wrote it in a way that He is going to force people to do this, that, or the other. He just knows what people are going to do with their free will, and that is what was written down. But that is dealt with later, inshāʾAllāh.