Imaam Muhammad Ibn Saaleh Al-Uthaymeen (rahimahullaah) said:
[الطبوليات ] are those Masaa’il (affairs related to the religion) by way of which fame is sought. They are called ‘Tubooliyyaat’ because it is similar to a Tabl (drum) which has a sound and an echo. So when an odd affair comes to the people and a (person) becomes famous by way of it, then it becomes as if it is the sound of a drum.
Imaam Muhammad Bin Saaleh Al-Uthaymeen (rahimahullaah) was asked about the statement of a person who says: ”I am free (or liberated?)”
Answer
If a liberated (or free person) says this and intends by it freedom from slavery to the creation, then yes he is free from slavery to the creation. However, if he intends by this that he is liberated (freed) from servitude to Allaah (The Mighty and Majestic), then indeed he has erred in his understanding of servitude and he does not understand the meaning of freedom. That is because servitude to other than Allaah is bondage. As for the servitude of a person to Allaah (The Mighty and Majestic), then this is real freedom because if he does not humble himself to Allaah, he will humble himself to other than Allaah. So he deceives himself when he says that he is free (or liberated), meaning: he is liberated from obedience to Allaah and does not fulfil (such obedience to Him).
And know that, among you there is the Messenger of Allah. If he were to obey you (i.e. follow your opinions and desires) in much of the matter, you would surely be in trouble, but Allah has endeared the Faith to you and has beautified it in your hearts, and has made disbelief, wickedness and disobedience (to Allah and His Messenger) hateful to you. These! They are the rightly guided ones, (This is) a Grace from Allah and His Favour. And Allah is All-Knowing, All-Wise. [Soorah al-Hujuraat: Ayah 7-8]
Your love for Imaan, desire for it and its beautification in your hearts is not from yourselves; rather it is Allaah who placed it in your hearts. He is the one who made it preferable and pleasing to you; therefore do not put yourself before My [i.e. I (Allaah)] Messenger-neither speak until he speaks nor act until he commands you. The one (i.e. Allaah) who made you love Imaan is the most knowledgeable concerning what is of benefit for His slaves than yourselves. And had it not been the Tawfeeq of Allaah upon you, your souls would not have yielded to Imaan. Imaan would not have been (acquired) through your consultation and bestowed from yourselves, nor would you have given it precedence because your souls are unable and weak to (do that), and cannot reach it…. [For further details, See ‘Madaarij As-Saalikeen 1/414—415]
O mankind! A similitude has been coined, so listen to it (carefully): Verily! Those on whom you call besides Allah, cannot create (even) a fly, even though they combine together for the purpose. And if the fly snatched away a thing from them, they would have no power to release it from the fly. So weak are (both) the seeker and the sought. They have not estimated Allah His Rightful Estimate; Verily, Allah is All-Strong, All-Mighty. [Hajj: Ayah: 73-74]
Imaam Ibnul Qayyim (rahimahullaah) said:
It is obligatory that the slave makes his heart pay attention to this parable and ponder upon it as it should be truly pondered upon because it cuts off the desire of shirk from his heart. The gods that the idolaters worship besides Allaah cannot create (even) a fly, even if they all combined together to create it, then how about what is greater than it? They are neither able to create a fly which is among the weakest of animals nor are they able to gain the upper hand against it to recover what it took away from them. There is nothing more disabled and feebler than them, so how can a sensible person deem it good to worship them besides Allaah.
This Ayah nullifies shirk and (shows) the ignorance of its people. It is a testimony that Satan plays about with them more than kids play with a ball due to the fact that they assign Godhood-which necessitates having absolute power over all the existence, having absolute knowledge of all sources of knowledge and having no need of all the creation, and (the creation being dependent) upon the Lord for their needs, (dependent upon Him) for relief from distress and relief from anxiety and (dependent upon Him to respond to (their) invocations etc.-to images and statues that are deprived of the ability to create the most insignificant creature of the True God, even if they (i.e. those statues and images) gathered and supported one another to do that.
Imaam Maalik (rahimahullaah) said that it reached him from Al-Qaasim Bin Muhammad (rahimahullaah) who said: “I met a people (i.e. Salaf) who were not amazed by speech;rather they were amazed by actions.” [Quoted by Shaikh Raslaan in Fadlul Ilm. page: 597]
Imaam Ibnul Qayyim (rahimahullaah) stated:
”Allaah loves that a slave of His should beautify his tongue with truthfulness, his heart with sincerity to Allaah and love of (Him), turning repentantly to (Him) and placing his trust in (Him).” [Al-Fawaa-id. page:327]
Imaam Ibn Qudaamah Al-Maqdisee (rahimahullaah) said:
Know that the basis of (love) of prestige is the love of widespread fame and glory (for oneself). This is a great danger and in obscurity there is safety. The people of goodness do not have an intention for (seeking) fame -neither do they turn their attention towards it nor towards the means to it; rather if it comes to them from Allaah (The Most High), they guard themselves against it and they used to prefer obscurity, as it has been reported about Ibn Mas’ood (radiyallaahu-anhu) that he came out of his house and a group of people followed him, so he noticed them and said: ‘’Why are you following me? By Allaah had you known what is locked (behind) my door, then no two men amongst you would follow me.” And in another wording (of this report he said): ‘’Go back, for indeed it is humiliation for the follower and a trial for the followed.” [Mukhtasar Minhaaj Al-Qaasideen: Page 222]
Imaam Ibn Qudaamah Al-Maqdisee (rahimahullah) said:
Know that envy is a great disease of the hearts and the diseases of the hearts are not cured except with knowledge and action. The beneficial knowledge for curing envy is to know that in reality envy is harmful to you in (your) Religious and worldly affairs, and the envied one is neither harmed in his Religious nor worldly affairs; rather he is benefitted by it. Blessings do not cease from the person you envy. And even if you were not a believer in the resurrection, this (envy) would still have necessitated a realization–if you are sensible–to be mindful of envy due to the pain it contains in the heart alongside (having) no benefit. So how about when you know of its punishment in the afterlife.
And the clarification of our statement: “Indeed the envied one is neither harmed in his Religious nor worldly affairs, rather he is benefitted by it in his Religious and worldly affairs;”is because the blessings Allaah has decreed for him will continue until the end of the lifespan and there is no harm upon him in the hereafter (due to being envied) because he has not committed any sin in that; rather he is benefitted by it because he is someone receiving oppression from you, especially if the envy comes out through speech and action.
As for the benefit in the worldly life (i.e. the benefits of being envied), it is that the most important goal of the creation (i.e. the envious ones amongst mankind and Jinn) is (to witness) the grief of an enemy and there is no punishment greater than the envy you find yourself in. If you contemplate on what we have mentioned, you will know that you are indeed an enemy to yourself– a friend of your enemy (within yourself). Your likeness is nothing other than that of a person, who threw a stone at his enemy to kill him, but he could not harm him and the stone bounced back on his right eye and plucked it out. So his anger increased and he again threw a stone harder than the first one, but it bounced back on his other eye and plucked it out. So his rage increased and he threw a third stone, but it bounced back on his head and broke it, whilst his enemy is safe and laughing at him. This is a knowledge base cure (for envy). If a person reflects upon this, the inferno of envy will be extinguished from his heart.
As for beneficial action (to help cure envy), then it is to make binding upon oneself to destroy what envy commands one to do. So if it arouses him towards hatred and defamation of the one envied, then he should make it binding upon himself to praise and extol him. If it makes him arrogant, then he should make it binding upon himself to be humble towards him (i.e. the one envied); and if it makes him block favours from reaching him, then he should make it binding upon himself to increase in giving him favours. And there were a group of the Salaf who whenever it reached them that a person backbit them, they would give him (i.e. the back bitter) a gift.
These are very beneficial remedies for envy….
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[For further details, see ‘Mukhtasar Minhaajil Qaasideen’ page: 200-201 with the Takhreej of Imaam Albaanee (rahimahullah). Abridged and slightly paraphrased]
Sulaymaan Bin Yasaar (rahimahullaah) reported that a people were on a journey, so they said when they were about to depart:
سُـبْحانَ الَّذي سَخَّـرَ لَنا هذا وَما كُنّا لَهُ مُقْـرِنين
وَإِنّا إِلى رَبِّنـا لَمُنْقَـلِبون
Glory to Him who has subjected this to us, and we could never have it (by our efforts). And verily, to Our Lord we indeed are to return]
A man amongst the people who had a sturdy she-camel said: As for me, I indeed reached the night due to this sturdy she-camel, so it (threw) him and broke his neck. [Source: Al-Uqoobaat’ by Ibn Abee Dunyah’ page 316]
know-may may Allaah (The Mot High) grant you success-that it is obligatory upon everyone (i.e. the scholars who criticise or commend narrators of hadeeth) to know the distinction between the authentic chains of transmission and the faulty ones, and the (trustworthiness, precision etc) of the narrators of (the authentic chains) as opposed to those who have been charged (with weakness, forgetfulness, fabrication etc in their narrations), so that nothing is transmitted from these narrations except that which whose narrator is sound and blameless in his narrations, and to avoid that which is from those who have been charged with (weakness, forgetfulness, fabrication etc) and the obstinate ones amongst Ahlul Bidah. [Muqaddimah Saheeh Muslim: page 61]
As for those who came after the Sahaabah (i.e. us), among them is that one who was brought up in Islaam but knows not what is in opposition to it. Therefore, some of the details of the path of the believers and that of the criminals became confusing to him, for indeed confusion occurs due to the weakness of one’s knowledge regarding either paths or one of them, as Umar Ibnul Khattaab (radiyallaahu-anhu) said:
”The ties of Islaam will be demolished one after the other when a people brought up in Islaam know not what Jaahiliyyah (Pre-Islamic Ignorance) is.”
This (statement indicates) Umar’s excellent knowledge. And if you do not know what pre-Islamic ignorance and its rulings are, then it is all that is in opposition to what the Messenger came with-all (affairs) that are in opposition to the Messenger is tantamount to ignorance.
And there is that one who is neither acquainted with the path of the criminals nor has it been made clear to him, or he has doubts and thus thinks that some of their ways are from the ways of the believers. This has occurred in this Ummah in many affairs pertaining to Aqeedah, Knowledge and Action from the path of the criminals, the disbelievers and the enemies of the Messengers, (which) was brought into the path of the believers by the one who does not know the (detailed distinction between) the path of believers and the path of the criminals, so he calls to (this path of the criminals); excommunicates the one who opposes him and declares lawful that which Allaah and His Messenger made unlawful, just as what has occurred with many of the people of bidah, such as the Jahmiyyah, the Qadariyyah, the Khawaarij, the Rawaafid and their likes, among those who initiated an innovation, called to it and excommunicated those who opposed it.
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[Source: Al-Fawaa’d pages 167-180; abridged and slightly paraphrased]
