During the past year, I published 3 articles dealing with the following: Praying for a non-Muslim for mercy and forgiveness, and does the infidel benefit from his righteous deeds in the hereafter?, and the verses and hadiths related to the deeds of the infidels and seeking forgiveness for them.

In the first two articles I discussed the doctrines of scholars, their perceptions and their explanations, and in the third I dealt with the texts that were the origins from which they were issued and based on, and their interpretations of it and their approaches to dealing with it differed, and it made clear that the disagreement here is not about knowledge or ignorance of a verse or hadith that proves (or does not prove) the permissibility of supplication By relieving the infidel from the torment in the hereafter, or it is proven (or not proven) that the unbeliever benefits from his deeds in the hereafter, but the disagreement is about the approach to interpreting these different and conflicting texts, and about reconciling these texts on the one hand, and the general rules that have been established in theology from On the other hand.

As for this article, I will dedicate it to address two issues:

The first:

Explaining my method of treating and selecting topics, perhaps this contributes to understanding my intentions and helps me grasp the idea accurately, away from slander, incitement, and mistrust.

Second:

Discussion of criticism directed to my previous articles regarding the separation and connection between the two issues of supplication for a non-Muslim and his benefit from his righteous deeds in the Hereafter.

As for the first issue, I usually start from specific facts or occasions that I treat according to a multidisciplinary approach. The topic of the articles referred to - for example - raises controversy constantly and on every occasion, and we can talk about different motives for this, but I will not go into them, and I I will not give in to conspiracy theories about religion and the constants that dwell in the minds of some of those who are waging what they see as a “battle” over or for religion, and all means are permissible for this, such as lying, distorting words from their places, straying from places of conflict, and deceiving the opponent!

These are - in my estimation - kinetic and advocacy concerns that do not concern me. What I am interested in here, as usual, expresses the type of specialization I wanted for my articles and my way of writing, and I can explain it through several things as follows:

The first:

delving into jurisprudential and ethical discussions of current affairs issues that people care about, or impose themselves on our thinking or our lives. It is related to social and moral behavior on the one hand, and legal and philosophical issues on the other.

She has previously dealt with many issues such as congratulating non-Muslims on their holidays, suicide, homosexuality, honor killings, artificial intelligence, media ethics, and other issues during the past few years.

The second:

The principle on which scholars have agreed is that it is not permissible for a Muslim to do an act whose ruling he does not know Shariah, and such jurisprudential and ethical discussions that I am engaging in may contribute to the development of our assessments and moral arguments that we issue in our behavior, even if some of them see that such issues are not They deserve to be discussed in the first place on the pretext that they have become normal issues, but in reality they are not, especially when we see all this controversy and sharp disagreement.

The third:

Researching jurisprudential and ethical assessments does not necessarily mean that we issue a single opinion, but rather that each of us has justifications that indicate the morality of his behavior in a consistent and reasoned manner so that he does not follow his whims even if we all differ in diligence and interpretation.

Therefore, I am trying to restore the jurisprudential heritage - despite its diversity and richness - and include it in the issues of current affairs, to show that it is still current on the one hand, and that it is able to enrich our current discussions and is not a source of relevance to reality on the other hand, in addition to engaging with modern ethical discussions where we invest Ideas from different disciplines according to the issue under study, and all of this would reveal shortcomings in some contemporary fatwas that do not fulfill the issues they are entitled to, and are not even faithful to the same jurisprudential heritage.

If a Muslim intends to supplicate for a non-Muslim to venerate his infidel belief, he is a disbeliever.

The controversy that we witnessed during the past few days about supplication for non-Muslims revealed tension between the two public morals circles on the one hand, and the faith that some of us see as threatening on the other.

By public morals, I mean good manners with people, all people, for ourselves first as moral beings (i.e. the virtues of the self), and for others, secondly, as members of a human group that enjoin us and upon us rights and duties (such as fellowship, neighborhood, kinship, and so on).

As for the threat that deals with faith, from the perspective of some of us at least, it is represented in the absence of clear boundaries of religions: Islam and others, or involvement in glorifying the beliefs and rituals of another religion through the emotion of the death of a person, or the absence of boundaries between praising his person and praising his belief, which may scratch one’s faith And it leads him to disbelief if he intends to do so. Worship is veneration, and two beliefs are not right in one heart.

But our jurists clearly distinguished between the action and the subject, or between the apparent act and the intention of the subject, in addition to the fact that the separation between a person and a belief has become a common thing in the present time, as it is not necessary to glorify a person to glorify his belief. Or his scientific contributions or his service to a just cause and the like.

As for the second issue, the previous three articles dealt with two main issues: supplication for a non-Muslim on the one hand, and the fate of righteous deeds for a non-Muslim on the other hand. This linking between the two issues was formed by some commentators and raised two objections:

The first objection:

that one of them claimed that this is a “misconception of God’s mercy,” arguing that if God Almighty wants to have mercy on an unbeliever, that does not depend on the existence of good deeds for him.

The second objection:

that another argued that this link confused two separate issues on the pretext that the infidel’s benefit from his work in the hereafter is a matter of belief in the unseen, while supplication for the unbeliever is a matter of jurisprudence related to our actions. His righteous deed in the hereafter does not undermine the aforementioned consensus and does not invalidate it at all, because the two issues are separate.

In fact, these comments that claim a complete separation between the two issues, the least it can be said that they do not have a correct conception, yet they claim broad claims, and the method of the people of knowledge is to separate or impose possibilities: if he intended so-and-so, and if he intended so-and-so, and since this link between The work of the righteous infidel and the supplication for him seemed ambiguous, as I found it an opportunity for further clarification, as we are here before an issue in which jurisprudence overlaps with theological and in which the practical and the theoretical meet.

As for the first objection, which is that divine mercy is not restricted to the existence of good deeds, our words here are not about the perfection of the divine power, but in the applications of divine justice and the legal laws in force. - Glory be to Him - the reward for good deeds.

As for the Ash’ari doctrine, the laws are causes and signs set up by the legislator to establish the scales of justice, and we have said that forgiveness of what is less than polytheism is left to the divine will, as well as the acceptance of good deeds from a polytheist under the will. God Almighty and He saved him, except that these acts of obedience and the legitimate laws are signs and signs of attaining that happiness.” Righteous deeds are a sign of recompense, either in this world or in the hereafter for the Muslim and the unbeliever because of the general meaning of the Almighty’s saying: “So whoever does an atom’s weight of good will see it.” This abode is a test for the servants and a test for them, for it is a path to happiness or misery.” That is, divine justice is consistent with the laws established by God Almighty.

As for the second objection, supplication for a non-Muslim has two sides: my words and jurisprudence.

Praying for a non-Muslim for forgiveness is a branch of establishing the legal permission from God Almighty to do so. The legislator did not authorize forgiveness of the sin of polytheism when he said: “God does not forgive that a polytheist be associated with Him, and He forgives what is less than that for whom He wills.” Hence, it follows that it is not permissible for us to pray for a polytheist to erase a sin. shirk especially

The first aspect is the

supplication itself, and it has two cases: if we look at the supplication from the point of view of the action of the supplicant, it is a matter of jurisprudence, and if we look at it from the viewpoint of the supplicant’s belief and its purpose behind supplication for a non-Muslim, it is a verbal issue. The intent of the supplication is to seek forgiveness from God Almighty, in which the Shafi'is differed.

The second aspect:

The effect of supplication, so does the supplication of a Muslim to a non-Muslim after his death benefit him in the Hereafter?

Here we are faced with a verbal issue as well, although we are talking about the act of the person responsible, but it resulted in an action of God Almighty, and this is a metaphysical issue that is proven only by texts, which is what I addressed in some of my previous articles.

Praying for forgiveness and benefiting from good deeds

As for the infidel’s benefiting from his righteous deeds in this world and the hereafter, it is a matter of speech, but it has a jurisprudential aspect as well, which is that if we say that the legislator decided to reward the infidel for his righteous deeds by reducing his torment on the Day of Resurrection, it is necessary from this that our supplication for him to relieve him is beneficial for him in the hereafter. Our supplication has a branch on the proof of the legal permission from God Almighty to do so.

The legislator did not authorize the forgiveness of the sin of polytheism when he said: {Indeed, God does not forgive that polytheism is committed with Him and forgives what is less than that for whomever He wills}, and therefore it follows that it is not permissible for us to pray for the polytheist to erase the sin of polytheism in particular, but what about praying for him to relieve him only, for his sins that are without shirk?

Here we say that there are two indications:

The first

indication: a textual indication, which is that the Almighty’s saying {and forgives what is less than that to whomever He wills} is general in the Muslim and the unbeliever, and therefore supplication for the infidel for forgiveness without polytheism is a request from God Almighty to fulfill His will, Glory be to Him, in some of His servants, and this meaning is established in the text of the Qur’an .

The second

indication: a standard indication, which is that when he told the Prophet - may God’s prayers and peace be upon him - about the story of his uncle Abu Talib when a man said to him: What did you sing about your uncle, because he was surrounding you and angry with you?

He said, “He is in a shallow grave of fire, and if it were not for me, he would have been in the lowest depths of the fire,” as in the pronunciation of Imam al-Bukhari, and in some narrations of al-Bukhari as well, “Perhaps my intercession will benefit him on the Day of Resurrection..”

Intercession is a supplication, as the Sheikh of Islam Ibn Taymiyyah said, and accordingly it is permissible to follow the example of the Prophet - may God’s prayers and peace be upon him - in supplicating for the infidel to reduce the torment for a righteous deed, especially since there is no evidence in the text that indicates that this action is specific to him, may God’s prayers and peace be upon him, or his uncle. In fact, we have other texts that convey this meaning as well, and I referred to some of them in one of my previous articles.

Thus it is clear - according to jurisprudence - that supplication is a branch of the issue of mitigation and not, as some of them imagined, that there is no connection between them, and since there was an old saying of the predecessors about mitigating the torment and joined to that in the generality of the previous verse, it is permissible to supplicate for the infidel for mitigation by requesting the fulfillment of the will of God Almighty only.

As for the other texts whose apparent meaning is the prohibition of seeking forgiveness for the polytheists, their meaning is the prohibition of praying for the forgiveness of polytheism specifically, which is definitely stipulated in the verse {Indeed, God does not forgive association with Him and forgives what is less than that for whom He wills}, and I have previously quoted in a previous article the doctrine of those who understood this from the Shafi’i jurists Latecomers (and it is not true for those who deny the existence of this, the texts are established and I may dedicate an article to this).

The claim of unanimity on the prevention is contained exclusively on the prohibition of seeking forgiveness of polytheism, and it is established in the Qur’anic text, that is, the prohibition of absolute supplication that includes forgiveness of polytheism, not absolute supplication for the polytheist, which includes a request for relief from him only, and I have detailed the saying in this in my previous articles. The prohibition of absolute supplication (not absolute supplication) is contradicted by the supplication of the Prophet - may God’s prayers and peace be upon him - (or his intercession) for his uncle Abu Talib.

And it is not said that supplication for the relief of torment is meaningless, because it is a kind of consolation, otherwise the intercession of the Prophet - may God’s prayers and peace be upon him - in Abu Talib would have no meaning. To console his infidel neighbor with the death of his infidel father to the custodian of the neighbourhood, and he says to him, if he passes by him, “The one who was of your affliction has reached me with your father. From the people of his religion, the Muslim is the first to receive condolences, and thus he is more deserving and better.”

Ibn Arafa said in the interpretation of Malik’s supplication, then followed by Al-Hattab Al-Maliki, “I said: In the first (i.e. Malik’s supplication) the illusion that the people of his religion - after this (Islamic) religion - were in happiness, otherwise it was a supplication for him”, meaning that Malik was actually supplicating He has his benefit in the hereafter, as it does not make sense for him to be mocked while he shows his right to the guardianship of the neighbourhood.

All of the above clarifies the outrageous mistake made by one of the muftis when he claimed that the issue of the absolute prohibition of supplication for the polytheist is something known from the religion by necessity. Which everyone knows, otherwise all this controversy would not occur today and there is no disagreement among the scholars in (some) of its forms as I detailed it, and this is nothing but the opposite of seeking the highest paradise for a non-Muslim, and God knows best.