Devotion to God

This facet of worship entails that one fulfill certain deeds which God has commanded in His religion, whether they deal with the inner self or the outer body, and whether they be obligatory or voluntary.  This facet of worship is not only limited to following His commandments, however, but it is also inclusive of leaving those things which He has forbidden.  Worship in this sense, maybe defined as anything believed, felt, or done as an act of obedience to God.

In this respect, worship may also be called servitude, as it is in essence living one’s life in complete servitude to God, doing what He commands, and avoiding what he forbids, 

as a slave lives within the will of his master. 

In essence all creations are slaves of God, whether they like it or not, for they are all subject to the laws He has placed within His creation:

“There is none in the heavens and the earth but comes unto the Most Beneficent (God) as an obedient slave.” (Quran 19:93)

“To Him submitted all creatures in the heavens and the earth, willingly or unwillingly.” (Quran 3:83)

But worship differs from servitude in that it must be coupled with love, awe and reverence.  No act of obedience is regarded as worship unless it is coupled these feelings; one must love the action and love, hold in awe and have reverence for the One the action is being performed.

For this reason, in discussing this topic, it must be emphasized that worship is a right with is solely for God.  Islam adheres to the strictest form of monotheism and does not tolerate that any act of worship be directed towards other than God.  It is God alone who demands our obedience, and it is God alone who deserves our love.  Any veneration of other deities besides God, whether they be demigods, prophets, angels, saints or martyrs, or their relics, statues or pictures, is considered as a breach in this monotheism, and a person is rendered out of the fold of Islam if committed.  Even though one may justify that they venerate saints due to their service to God, or their relics as a remembrance of them, Islam does not differentiate between direct and indirect, or subordinate and superior worship.  All worship and acts of veneration, homage and obedience must be offered for God alone.

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Worship in Islam: Concept and Purpose

The concept and purpose of worship in Islam is unparallel to any other religion in existence.  It combines the mundane with the spiritual, the individual with the society, and the internal soul with the external body.  Worship has a unique role in Islam, and through worship, a person is regarded as a true Muslim who accords his entire life to the Will of God.

The importance of worship may be seen in the fact that it has been prescribed by God in all religions prior to Islam.  God said in the Quran:

“And assuredly We have sent among every people a messenger (with the command): worship God…” (Quran 16:36)

Worship in Islam has so many facets that it is difficult to describe them all in words.  The most general meaning of worship in Islam is inclusive of everything which is pleasing to God, whether they deal with issues of belief, or deeds of the body.  It may include everything a person perceives, thinks, intends, feels, says and does.  It also refers to everything that God requires, external, internal or interactive.  This includes rituals as well as beliefs, work, social activities, and personal behavior, as human being is a whole, such that every part affects every other.

Worship may be classified into two types:

1)    Specific Beliefs, feelings and visible acts of devotion paid in homage to God which He has commanded.

2)    All other acts of goodness generally encouraged in the life of a Muslim.

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Hadith of the day:The Pillars of Islaam

On the authority of Aboo `Abd ir-Rahmaan `Abdullaah, the son of `Umar ibn al-Khattab radiAllaahu 'anhumaa, who said: I heard the Messenger of Allaah (sallAllaahu alayhi wa sallam) say:

Islaam has been built on five [pillars]: testifying that there is no deity worthy of worship except Allaah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allaah, establishing the salaah (prayer), paying the zakaah (obligatory charity), making the Hajj (pilgrimage) to the House, and fasting in Ramadaan. [related by al-Bukhaari and Muslim]

Explanation of Hadith 

Aboo al-'Abbaas al-Qurtubee (rahimahu Allaahu) has said that this hadeeth means that these five matters are the foundation and basic principles upon which the religion of al-Islaam is built. With these five matters does Islaam make itself apparent. And the Prophet sallAllaahu alayhi wa sallam particularised these five matters and did not mention Jihaad along with them (even though it is through Jihaad that Islaam is made uppermost and the resistance of the Disbelievers is belittled) because these five matters are obligatory at all times upon all Muslims, whereas Jihaad is a Fard Kifaayah which may not be required during certain times.
 [Note: a Fard Kifaayah is an obligation that is required of the Muslims such that if a group of them fulfill it then the obligation is lifted from the community as a whole].

And in some of the narrations of this hadeeth (such as the one quoted above), mention of the Hajj is made before mention of the Fasting in Ramadaan. However, and Allaah knows best, the correct form is the placing of the Fasting before the Hajj, as is narrated from Ibn 'Umar that he corrected a narrator who changed the order and said "This is how I have heard it from the Messenger of Allaah (sallAllaahu alayhi wa sallam)". This incident shows us the precision of the Sahaabah and the scholars of Hadeeth after them in preserving the words of the Messenger sallAllaahu alayhi wa sallam, and how can this not be when Allaah 'azza wa jall has said:

"Verily We have sent down the Dhikr and We shall preserve it"

and the Dhikr or Wahee sent down to the Prophet sallAllaahu alayhi wa sallam includes both the Qur'aan and the Sunnah, as Allaah has said:

"Nor does he speak of (his own) desire; It is only an Inspiration that is inspired."

And it is also narrated from Ibn 'Umar radiAllaahu 'anhu that the Messenger sallAllaahu alayhi wa sallam said:

"Islaam is built upon that you worship Allaah (alone) and disbelieve in (the worship of) all that is other than Him, and the establishment of the Prayer, ...(till the end of the hadeeth)"

And in the hadeeth occurs the phrase 'establishment' of the prayer (iqaam as-salaah), as opposed to 'performance' of the prayer. The scholars have mentioned how this indicates that the Prayer must be performed in the most perfect manner, after having completed the wudoo' in the most perfect manner, and in the Masjid with the jamaa'ah for the men, and so on and so forth. That is, simply performing the motions of the Prayer in the most minimal fashion is not what is desired from us - but rather we should exert ourselves in this affair, bearing in mind that the Prayer is the first matter that will be judged on the Day of Resurrection - if it is accepted then the rest of our actions will be accepted, and if it is rejected then the rest of our actions will also be rejected.

Summary

That Islaam is indeed built on the five principles of: 

1) Witnessing that Allaah is our only deity and Muhammad (sallAllaahu alayhi wa sallam) is His Messenger to show us how to fulfill our existence on this earth as Muslims, 

2) Prayer, 

3) Zakaah, 

4) Fasting and 

5) Hajj 

So one must strive to fulfill these pillars with the utmost care, concern and priority, and one must do so normally before one gets involved with other aspects of the Deen.    

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The recording of the hadith

The recording of the hadeeth of the Prophet, may the mercy and blessings of God be upon him, began during the time of the Prophet himself.  Al-Baghdaadi records a number of hadeeth that show that the Prophet explicitly allowed the recording of his hadeeth.  Here are some examples:

1.    Al-Daarimi and Abu Dawood in their Sunans (books) recorded that Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-As stated that they used to record everything they heard from the Prophet.  They were warned against doing so as, it was argued, the Prophet was a human being who may be angry at times and pleased at others.  Abdullah stopped writing his hadeeth until they could ask the Prophet about this issue.  The Messenger of God told him:

“Write [my hadeeth], by the One in whose hand is my soul, nothing comes out [the Prophet’s mouth] except the truth.”[1]

That is, whether he was angry or pleased what he spoke was always the truth.

2.    Al-Bukhari, in his Sahih (book), recorded that Abu Hurairah said, “One can find none of the Companions of the Messenger of God relating more hadeeth than I, except Abdullah ibn Amr because he used to record the hadeeth while I did not do so.”[2]

3.    Al-Bukhari recorded that a person from Yemen came to the Prophet on the day of the Conquest of Mecca and asked him if he could get the Prophet’s speech recorded, and the Prophet approved and told someone:

“Write it for the father of so and so.”

4.    Anas narrated the statement, “Secure knowledge by writing it.”  This hadeeth has been related by a number of authorities but mostly with weak chains.  There is a dispute concerning whether or not it is actually a statement of the Prophet or of some Companion.  However, according to al-Albani, the hadeeth, as recorded by al-Haakim and others, is authentic.[3]

There is no question, therefore, that the recording of hadeeth began during the lifetime of the Messenger of God himself.  This practice of writing hadeeth continued after the death of the Messenger of God.  Al-Azami, in his work Studies in Early Hadeeth Literature, has listed and discussed some fifty Companions of the Prophet who had recorded hadeeth.[4]  Note the following:

Abdullah B. Abbas (3 B.H.-68 A.H.)… He was so eager for knowledge that he would ask as many as 30 Companions about a single incident… It seems he wrote what he heard and sometimes even employed his slaves for this purpose… The following derived hadeeth from him in written form: Ali b. Abdullah ibn Abbas, Amr b. Dinar, Al-Hakam b. Miqsam, Ibn Abu Mulaikah, Ikrimah… Kuraib, Mujahid, Najdah… Said b. Jubair.[5]

Abdullah B. Umar B. al-Khattab (10 B.H.-74 A.H.).  He transmitted a large number of ahadeeth, and was so strict in relating them that he did not allow the order of a word to be changed even though it would not have altered the meaning… He had books.  One Kitab [book] which belonged to Umar, and was in his possession, was read to him by Nafi several times… The following derived hadeeth from him in written form: Jamil b. Zaid al-Tai… Nafi client of ibn Umar, Said b. Jubair, Abd al-Aziz b. Marwan, Abd al-Malik b. Marwan, Ubaidullah b. Umar, Umar b. Ubaidullah …[6]

Al-Azami also compiled a list, discussing each personality individually, of forty-nine people of “the first century successors” who recorded hadeeth.[7]  Al-Azami goes on to list eighty-seven of “the scholars covering the late first and early second centuries” who recorded hadeeth.[8]  Then he lists “from the early second century scholars” 251 people who collected and recorded hadeeth.[9]  Thus al-Azami has produced a list of 437 scholars who had recorded hadeeth and all of them lived and died before the year 250 A. H.  Many of them are from before the time of Umar ibn Abdul Azeez, who has been wrongly credited with having been the first person to ask for the collection of hadeeth.  The story of Umar ibn Abdul Azeez has actually been misunderstood and it does not mean that no one collected hadeeth before him.[10]

To quote al-Azami, “Recent research has proved that almost all of the hadeeth of the Prophet was [sic] written down in the life of the companions, which stretched to the end of the first century.”[11]  This last statement is partially based on al-Azami’s own research in which he has mentioned many Companions and Followers who possessed written hadeeth.  Elsewhere, he himself writes,

I have established in my doctoral thesis Studies in Early Hadeeth Literature that even in the first century of the Hijra many hundreds of booklets of hadeeth were in circulation.  If we add another hundred years, it would be difficult to enumerate the quantity of booklets and books which were in circulation.  Even by the most conservative estimate they were many thousands.[12]

---

Footnotes:

[1] According to al-Albaani, this hadeeth is sahih.  See Muhammad Naasir al-Deen al-Albaani,Saheeh Sunan Abi Dawood (Riyadh: Maktab al-Tarbiyyah al-Arabi li-Duwal al-Khaleej, 1989), vol. 2, p. 695.

[2] Ibn Hajar, commenting on this hadeeth, explained how Abu Huraira could have narrated so many more hadeeth than Abdullah ibn Amr.  See ibn Hajar, Fath, vol. 1, pp. 206-8.  One aspect that he neglected to mention is Abu Hurairah’ dying some sixteen years after Abdullah ibn Amr.

[3] Al-Albani, Saheeh al-Jaami al-Sagheer, vol. 2, p. 816.

[4] Muhammad Mustafa al-Azami, Studies in Early Hadeeth Literature (Indianapolis, IN: American Trust Publications, 1978), pp. 34-60.

[5] Azami, Studies in Early Hadeeth, pp. 40-42. In Azami’s work, “b.” stands for ibn or “son of.”

[6] Azami, Studies in Early Hadeeth, pp. 45-46.

[7] Azami, Early Hadeeth, pp. 60-74.

[8] Ibid., pp. 74-106.

[9] Ibid., pp. 106-182.

[10] The story, as recorded by al-Bukhari, is that Umar (61-101) wrote to Abu Bakr ibn Muhammad (d. 100) saying, “Look for the knowledge of hadith and get it written, as I am afraid that religious knowledge will vanish and the religious learned men will pass away.  Do not accept anything save the hadith of the Prophet.”  He also sent letters to Saad ibn Ibraaheem and al-Zuhri asking them to do the same.  It has been incorrectly stated by some, for example, M. Z.  Siddiqi, that it was this request of Umar’ that led to the beginning of the collections of hadith.

[11] Al-Azami,  Methodology, p. 30.

[12] Ibid., p. 64.

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God’s Preservation of the Sunnah: Al Hadith

Before discussing this topic, it should be noted that, in order for something to be preserved, it is not a necessary condition that it be recorded or written down.  That is, simply because something was not written down, it does not mean that it was not accurately and correctly preserved.  Furthermore, the writing of something down itself is not sufficient for the preservation of something.  It is possible that something is recorded incorrectly.  Both of these points were duly noted by the scholars of hadeeth. 

 They did not require hadeeth to be written down for them to be accepted although they did recognize the importance of such a physical recording and many times, depending on the personality involved, preferred the written record over the verbal record.  These scholars also realized that the mere recording of something is not sufficient.  It must also be ascertained that it was recorded properly.  Hence, scholars of hadeeth would accept or prefer written reports of scholars over memorized reports only if it was known that those scholars were proficient and correct in their writing.

It has been one of the favorite practices of many of the Orientalists to constantly state the “fact” that hadeeth were not recorded at first but were, instead, passed on only orally for the first two centuries after the Hijrah (Arabic calendar).  Therefore, hadeeth are not much more than folklore and legend that was passed on orally and in a haphazard fashion for many years.  Unfortunately, this is a misconception that has become quite widespread amongst many who have sufficed with a mere shallow research of the subject.  

In reality, this false claim and incorrect view has, by the grace of God, been refuted by numerous Muslim scholars in various doctoral dissertations in the Muslim world as well as at Western Universities, such as the dissertations of Muhammad Mustafa Azami (1967), published as Studies in Early Hadeeth, and  Imitiyaz Ahmad’s The Significance of Sunna and Hadeeth and their Early Documentation from Edinburgh in 1974.

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What is Hadith?

The Arabic word Hadith means ‘statement' or ‘talk'. In the Shariah,

 the word Hadith means those things or action, which Prophet

Muhammad (Peace be upon him) said or did. You will also come

 across the word ‘Sunnah' which is also used for Hadith, but usually

 ‘Sunnah' is used to report a deed, such as how the Prophet

 Muhammad (Peace be upon him) slept or ate etc, 

while Hadith is used for ‘talk'.

There are six well know Hadith books, which were compiled by great scholars of Islam:

• Sahih Bukhari

• Sahih Muslim

• Sunnah Abu Dawood

• Sunnah Nasai

• Sunnah Tirmidhi

• Sunnah ibn Majah

There are many others, but these are the most commonly used by Muslims to seek knowledge.

Some people nowadays incorrectly say that you don't need Hadith, and that the Quran is enough for guidance to the straight path.

The correct view and understanding is that many times the Quran gives us the general principal of an order; but to understand the order clearly, Hadith is required.

Basically without Hadith we won't have clear understanding on how to practice Islam properly, Islam is a way of life, which was taught to us by the Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him), which we know as the 'Sunnah' we should try and follow all the Sunnah's to gain great rewards in the hereafter.

An example of a Sunnah is the beard. Recently a non-Muslim asked me, why do you trim your mustache but keep a beard, the answer was it is a Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him).

Some Quran references on following the Sunnah/Hadith of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh):

"Whatever of good reaches you, is from Allah, but whatever evil befalls you, is from yourself. And We have sent you (Muhammad) as a Messenger to humanity, and Allah is sufficient as a witness. He who obeys the Messenger, has indeed obeyed Allaah, but he who turns away, then We have not sent you as a watcher over them. (Surah An-Nisa Ayat  79-80)

"Let those who oppose the Messenger’s order beware of a fitnah (trial) to befall them, or a painful torment to be inflicted upon them." (Sura  24 ayah 63)

"O you who believe! Obey Allaah and obey the Messenger, and those of you who are in authority. If you differ in anything among yourselves, refer it to Allaah and His Messenger if you believe in Allaah and the Last Day. This is better and more suitable for final determination." (Sura 4 ayah 59)

"Obey Allaah and His Messenger, and do not dispute (with each other), lest you fail and your strength depart; and be patient – surely, Allaah is with those who are patient."

 (Sura 8 ayah 46)

"Say (O Muhammad): ‘if you (truly) love Allah, follow me! Allah will then love you and forgive your sins.’ And Allah is All Forgiving, All Merciful."} (Sura Al Imraan ayah 31)

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Who does qualify to receive Zakat?

He has raised some of you in ranks above others that He may try you in the gifts He has given you.” (Quran 6:165)

Zakat has both humanitarian and socio-political value.  It is designed by our Creator to redistribute wealth and encourage social responsibility.  When Zakat is collected and distributed correctly it minimises the needs of citizens to such an extent that there may be no poor or needy within the Muslim community.   It has been reported and documented that at certain times in Islamic history no person, of any religion, who lived in the Islamic Empire qualified to receive Zakat.  There was enough money and wealth circulating to ensure a fair standard of living for everybody.

 So who does qualify to receive Zakat? God has ordained that the Zakat be distributed to certain categories of people.

“The alms are only for the poor, and the needy and those employed to collect the funds; and to attract the hearts of those who have been inclined towards Islam; and to free the captives; and for those in debt; and for those struggling for the cause of God, and for the wayfarer (a traveller who is cut off from everything); a duty imposed by God.” (Quran 9:60)

God mentions eight (8) categories of people.

1.      The poor - those who can meet basic needs but have neither wealth or secure livelihood.

2.      The needy – the extremely poor who cannot meet even basic needs.

3.      Those persons who are appointed to collect Zakat; (regardless of personal wealth).

4.      Those who have recently converted or are considering converting to Islam.

5.      Zakat may be used to purchase the freedom of slaves.

6.      A person whose debts exceed his assets.

7.      Those who are away from home working in the path of God.

8.      A traveller, who is stranded and in need of financial assistance.

If a person has enough wealth to be a contributor he is not able to be a recipient.  Zakat may be distributed directly to individuals, or it may be entrusted to an Islamic welfare organisation or association, to be distributed at their discretion to those who are deserving.

A contributor should not seek fame or praise for carrying out what is an Islamic duty.  In fact he should give the Zakat as covertly as possible so as not to become proud or arrogant, thus nullifying his good deed.  Under certain circumstances however, the disclosure of contributions may encourage others to be generous.

Islam is a religion that encourages generosity and Zakat is just one way of encouraging  this in our everyday lives.  One of the most important principles of Islam is that all things belong to God, wealth therefore is only for our benefit to use for our needs and to distribute.  In terms of the way we look at the world in the 21st century Zakat could be considered a permissible form of insurance.  One who pays or receives the Zakat in a permissible and honourable way will gain many benefits including God’s pleasure, forgiveness and blessings.  In the traditions of Prophet Muhammad we are reminded that giving charity stands in the way of calamity[1].

“The parable of those who spend their wealth in the way of God is that of a grain of corn.  It grows seven ears and each ear has hundred grains.  God increases manifold to whom He pleases.” (Quran 2:261)

Footnotes:

[1] At Tirmidhi

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