Husam al-Haramayn wa Tamhid-e-Iman:
Urdu,
Paperback - 206 pages,
by AlaHadrat Imam Ahmad Raza Khan.
Description :
In 1906, Imam Ahmad Raza Khan Qadiri (
may Allah be well pleased with him) addressed some
ulema in Makkah in his fatwa;
Husam al-Haramain ala Manhar al-Kufr wal Main [The Sword of the
Haramain at the Throat of
Kufr and Falsehood], as follows:
'' Tell me clearly, whether you think these leaders of heresy as I have portrayed them… and if so, whether the judgment [of
kufr] that I have passed onto them is inappropriate….some ignorant people, in whose hearts faith has not lodged itself, claim that because they are ‘
ulema’ and
maulawis the
sharia calls upon us to respect them – even though they are
Wahabis, and even though they insult Almighty Allah and the Prophet.
'' ---[Ahmad Raza Khan,
Husam al-Haramain ala Manhar al-Kufr wal Main – Lahore:
Maktaba Nabawiyya, 1985, p.10, originally written in 1323/1905-6].
The ‘leaders of heresy’ referred to in the above paragraph were well-known
ulama in 20th century British India: Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadiyan, the first on Imam Ahmad Raza’s list of
kafirs, was the founder of the
Ahmadiyya movement. The others – Rashid Ahmad Gangohi, Muhammad Qasim Nanautawi, Ashraf Ali Thanawi, and Khalil Ahmad Ambethwi – were leading figures at the Darul Ulum at
Deoband or in affiliated institutions. In this
fatwa [legal opinion given by a
mufti] originally written in 1902, all but Mirza Ghulam Ahmad were described as ‘
Wahhabis’, a word frequently encountered in the then current literature of the
Ahl-e Sunnat in reference to
ulema with
Deoband or
Ahle-e Hadis affiliations.
The judgment of
Kufr passed in Husam al-Haramain in 1906 was a highly public one, delivered in Makkah while Imam Ahmad Raza was on his second
hajj. Despite the
Imam’s insistent opposition to numerous groups of Muslims, among them the
Twelver Shi’is and the organization of ulema known as the
Nadwat al-Ulema. The Imam had written in general terms of various groups of Muslims being either bad-
mazhab [those whose beliefs were ‘wrong’] or
gumrah [‘lost’, on the wrong path], or
murtadd [apostates from Islam], based on whether or not they had, as Imam Ahmad Raza interpreted it, denied any of the ‘fundamentals’ of belief [
zuriyat-e din]. Though he had used the term
kafir in this context, it had not being personally directed. There were no specific
takfir [declaration of someone as
kafir] involved.
It was thus of some consequence that Imam Ahmad Raza should have accused the
ulema named in
Husam al-Haramain of
kufr, and have presented his
fatawa to
ulema in Makkah and Madina for their seals and signatures [
tasdiqat], whereby they signaled approval of his opinion. He himself regarded the
takfir [declaring someone an infidel or unbeliever (
kafir)] of another Muslim with great seriousness. Experts in the law [
fuqaha], he wrote, had enjoined restraint in making a charge of
kafir as long as any possibility existed that a statement that seemed on the face of it to involve
kufr may not have been intended that way, that another, perfectly ‘Islamic’ [as opposed to
kufr-laden] interpretation of the statement may have been meant.
Nevertheless, and on the face of it in contradiction of the above principle [in fact not so, seen in
Ahl-e Sunnat terms], Imam Ahmad Raza wrote that when confronted with one who ‘ascribes lies to Almighty Allah or decreases the glory of the leader of the Prophets’, such search for intended meaning was unnecessary, for this was a clear-cut case of
kufr.Failure to acknowledge such a person as
kafir, or doubt of such a person’s
kufr, resulted in the denier or doubter of
kufr becoming
kafir as well. Because offences of this nature [denigrating Allah or the Prophet Muhammad] were against the ‘fundamentals’ of religion, even if a person’s faith [
aqida] was within the bounds of Islam in every other aspect, in Imam Ahmad Raza’s view the person was a
kafir. As he put it rather graphically, "If you put one drop of urine in nine hundred and ninety-nine drops of rose water, it will all become urine. But these ignorant people say that if you put one drop of rose water in nine hundred and ninety-nine drops of urine, it will all become pure. Seen in this light, everything hinged on whether or not a statement constituted denial of a ‘fundament’ of belief.
Detailed analysis of
Husam al-Haramain provides a useful entrée into the nature of the
Ahl-e Sunnat differences with
Deoband and to approach related issues such the
Ahl-e Sunnat use of the term ‘
Wahhabi’, and most important
Ahl-e Sunnat prophetology. It was the beloved Prophet who really held the key to the
Ahl-e Sunnat perspective on what it was to be a ‘good’ Muslim.