الحَمْدُ لِله، الحَمْدُ لله الذِي جَعَلَ مَحَبَّةَ الصَّحَابَةِ الْكَرَامِ مِنْ مَحَبَّةِ نَبِيِّهِ، وَجَعَلَهُمْ كَالنُّجُومِ بِأَيِّهِمُ اقْتَدَى الإِنْسَانُ اهْتَدَى إِلَى هَدْيِهِ، نَحْمَدُهُ تَعَالَى وَنَسْتَعِينُهُ، وَنَشْكُرُهُ تَعَالَى وَنَسْتَغْفِرُهُ وَنَسْتَغِيثُهُ، نَعُوذُ بِاللهِ مِنْ شُرُورِ أَنْفُسِنَا وَمِنْ سَيِّئَاتِ أَعْمَالِنَا، مَنْ يَهْدِ اللهُ فَهُوَ المُهْتَدِ، وَمَنْ يُضْلِلْ فَلَنْ تَجِدَ لَهُ وَلِّيّاً مُرْشِداً، وَنَشْهَدُ أَنْ لاَ إِلَهَ إِلاَّ اللهُ وَحْدَهُ لاَ شَرِيكَ لَهُ، لَهُ المُلْكُ وَلَهُ الحَمْدُ، يُحْيِي وَيُمِيتُ، بِيَدِهِ الخَيْرُ، وَهُوَ عَلَى كُلِّ شَيْءٍ قَدِيرٌ، وَنَشْهَدُ أَنَّ سَيِّدَنَا وَمَوْلاَنَا مُحَمَّداً عَبْدُهُ وَرَسُولُهُ، وَحَبِيبُهُ وَصَفِيُّهُ، بَلَّغَ الرِّسَالَةَ وَأَدَّى الأَمَانَةَ وَنَصَحَ الأُمَّةَ، النَّبِيُّ الأُمِّيُّ الذِي أَرْسَلَهُ اللهُ بِالْهُدَى وَالدِّينِ الحَقِّ، بَشِيراً وَنَذِيراً بَينَ يَدَيِ السَّاعَةِ، صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ وَعَلَى آلِهِ وَأَصْحَابِهِ وَمَنْ تَبِعَهُمْ بِإِحْسَانٍ إِلَى يَوْمِ الدِّينِ.

      أَمَّا بَعْدُ! فَيَا عِبَادَ اللهِ اتَّقُوا اللهَ حَقَّ تُقَاتِهِ وَلاَ تَمُوتُنَّ إِلاَّ وَأَنْتُمْ مُسْلِمُونَ. يَأَيُّهَا الذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ اتَّقُواْ اللهَ وَقُولُواْ قَولاً سَدِيداً يُصْلِحْ لَكُمُ أَعْمَالَكُمْ وَيَغْفُرْ لَكُمْ ذُنُوبَكُمْ. وَمَنْ يُطِعِ اللهَ وَرَسُولَهُ فَقَدْ فَازَ فَوْزاً عَظِيماً. اِتَّقُواْ اللهَ فِيمَا أَمَرَ وَانْتَهُواْ عَمَّا نَهَا عَنْهُ وَزَجَرَ. قَالَ اللهُ تَعَالَى فِي كِتَابِهِ الْعَزِيزِ وَٱعْتَصِمُواْ بِحَبْلِ ٱللَّهِ جَمِيعاً وَلاَ تَفَرَّقُواْ

            Allah says in His mighty Book, the translation of which is, “Hold fast to the Rope of Allah, and do not split up into groups/differ.” As Muslims we must hold fast to the habl of Allah, and we must remain within the main body of the believers. This is a matter over which there is and can be no disagreement. Similarly, what constitutes the main body of Muslims has also long been a matter that the Umma has agreed upon - the followers of the four madhhabs of fiqh (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafii and Hanbali) and the two madhhabs of aqida (Ash’ari and Maturidi). The differences between these madhhabs are accepted because they are differences in the branches of the deen and they are all reconcilable. Thus they are that type of difference about which the Prophet said,

اختلاف أمتي رحمة

            “Difference of opinion within my umma is a mercy.” Those differences are all on the basis of ijtihad, and existed even among the Sahaba. But that does mean that all types of difference are to be admired, accepted and accommodated. For there is another type of difference that inevitably leads to fitna and fasad. And that is the difference that Allah warns us against in this aya. Qurtubi says in his tafsir of this aya,

الاختلاف ما يتعذر معه الائتلاف والجمع

            “True difference is that which is irreconcilable and irreparable.” It was this type of difference that the Prophet warned against in his famous hadith,

تفرقت اليهود على إحدى وسبعين فِرقة أو ٱثنتين وسبعين فِرقة والنصارى مثل ذلك وتفترق أمَّتي على ثلاث وسبعين فِرقة

            “The Jews split up into seventy-one sects or seventy-two sects, and the Christians did the same. This Umma of mine will split into seventy-three sects.” Qurtubi quotes this hadith in his tafsir and then quotes Abu’lFaraj al-Jawzi as saying that the groups who are astray (i.e. the 72 groups) are well-known, with 6 major groupings and 12 subsidiary groups branching out from each. Those six groups are the Haruriya (i.e. Khawarij), the Qadariya, the Jabariya, the Jahmiya, the Murji’a and the Rawafid. 

            It is the latter grouping about which I wish to speak today, for they include the Shia. Qurtubi says,

وانقسمت الرافضة ٱثنتي عشرة فرقة: العلوية ـ قالوا: إن الرسالة كانت إلى عليّ وإن جبريل أخطأ. والأمِرِيّة ـ قالوا: إن عليّاً شريك محمد في أمره. والشِّيعة ـ قالوا: إن عليّاً رضي الله عنه وصِيّ رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم ووَليُّه من بعده، وإن الأمّة كفرت بمبايعة غيره.

            “The Rafidites are split into twelve groups: the Alawites who say that the Message should have been revealed to Ali and Jibril made a mistake; the Amiriyya who say that Ali was Muhammad’s partner in Prophethood; the Shia who say that Ali, may Allah be pleased with him, was the designated successor of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless and grant him peace, and that the umma became unbelievers when they gave allegiance to another…” Thus, Qurtubi clearly ranked the Shia among the deviant groups, and yet today we find concerted and organised attempts to legitimise and accommodate Shiism and place it among the ranks of what is acceptable within the deen of Allah.

            One prominent example of that is the Amman Message of 2005 which calls Shiism ‘the Ja’fari madhhab’, a complete misnomer because Ja’far as-Sadiq never established a madhhab but rather passed on his knowledge of fiqh matters to Imam Abu Hanifa and Imam Malik, who were both his students, and declares Shiism to be one of the eight acceptable madhhabs. This was followed in 2008 by the ‘Sunni Shia Unity Declaration’. Both these declarations were signed and ratified by large numbers of academics and ulama, such as Shaykh Tantawi, Shaykh al-Qardawi and many others.

            And this process has continued apace with many of their practices, theories and ideas entering into the mainstream. Just last month, one of the Cape Town Muslim radio stations did their weekly Jumua broadcast from the Shia mosque in Ottery along with their adhan, an adhan that differs hugely from our adhan, including the addition of the phrase ‘ashhadu anna aliyan waliyullah’ - ‘I bear witness that Ali is the wali of Allah’. This implied that they viewed the Shia mosque as being just like any of the other mosques from which they broadcast.

            Similarly, in the last month I have read of an increased incidence of the practice of Muta’ marriage (i.e. temporary marriage even marriage for a single hour) in Muslim communities, a practice that is only accepted by the Shia, and have witnessed Muslims reciting surat Yaseen three times on Ashura, mirroring the Shia practice of reciting it once for Sayyidina Ali, once for sayyidina Hasan and once for sayyidina Husayn.

            These Muslims and the scholars who have spoken out in support of the Shia have been deceived and misled, and indeed ‘misleading or lying’, known as taqiyya, is a religious duty of the Shia. In Usul al-Kafi, a work much quoted by al-Khomeini, we find, “Among ten virtues of the deen, nine lie in taqiyya. He who does not observe taqiyya is devoid of Iman.”

            The Shia missionaries, who are at work even as we speak here in Cape Town, come to you, trying to worm their way into your hearts and gain your acceptance and trust, and will only reveal the extent of their deviation when they feel they have won you over. They say, ‘We are just like you except we love the family of the Prophet more. All we want you to do is grow stronger in love of the Messenger and his family.’ Then, when your heart has softened, they tell you the truth, that they hate the Companions of the Messenger of Allah and consider them with almost no exceptions to be traitors and people who have strayed from the deen. They cannot even mention their names without cursing them - just pick up any of their source books to see the truth of this, for most of the modern books are written utilising the principle of taqiyya. For example, Allama Baqir al-Majlisi, one of their most revered scholars, cannot mention the name of Umar without calling on Allah to curse him. And one cannot even say they love the family of the Prophet, for they also curse his wives, especially the one most favoured by the Prophet, Aisha. The Prophet said,

مَنْ سَبَّ أَصْحَابِي، فَعَلَيْهِ لَعْنَةُ اللهِ وَالمَلَائِكَةِ وَالنَّاسِ أَجْمَعِينَ، لاَ يَقْبَلُ اللهُ مِنْهُ صَرْفاً وَلاَ عَدْلاً.

         “Anyone who curses my Companions has the curse of Allah on him, as well as that of the angels and all people. And Allah will not accept any exchange or recompense from him.”

أقول قولي هذا وأستغفر الله لي ولكم ولسائر المسلمين من كل ذنب فاستغفروه إنه هو الغفور الرَّحيم.

الحمد لله الحمد لله رب العالمين، وأشهد أن لا إله إلا الله وحده لا شريك له وأشهد أن محمداً عبده ورسوله، صلى الله وسلم وبارك عليه وعلى آله وصحبه، والتابعين وتابعي التابعين ومن تبعهم بإحسان إلى يوم الدين.

أما بعد! فيأيها الذين ءامنوا اتقوا الله ما استطعتم واسمعوا وأطيعوا وأنفقوا خيرا لأنفسكم. يا عباد الله أوصيكم وإياي بتقوى الله وطاعته وأحذركم وإياي عن معصيته ومخالفته. قال الله تعالى: إِنَّ الَّذِينَ فَرَّقُواْ دِينَهُمْ وَكَانُواْ شِيَعًا لَّسْتَ مِنْهُمْ فِي شَيْءٍ إِنَّمَا أَمْرُهُمْ إِلَى اللّهِ ثُمَّ يُنَبِّئُهُم بِمَا كَانُواْ يَفْعَلُونَ

             Allah says, the translation of which is, “As for those who divide up their deen and form into sects (are shiya’a). You have nothing whatsoever to do with them. Their affair will go back to Allah. And then He will inform them about what they did.”

             Cursing the Sahaba is a grave matter because to do so is to call the authenticity of the entire deen into question. It is through them that this entire we have was transmitted, it is through them that we know of the Messenger of Allah and his life. Every element of the Sunna has come to us through them, as has the Quran itself, for it was Sayyidina Uthman who compiled the first mushafs. If you declare the Sahaba to be dishonest and treacherous, then nothing transmitted by them can be considered qat’i (decisive, indisputable proof), not even the Quran that they taught their students. So nothing of our deen could then be considered a matter of certainty and everything must be considered a matter of uncertainty - the decision to pray or not, pay zakat or not, go on hajj or not would simply a matter for ijtihad, and the deen would have no defined barriers. The laws of Allah would be discarded and disregarded if we were to accept the possibility of the Shia position as being true, because there would be no definitive basis to enforce them. In other words, there would be no workable deen, there would only be vague guiding principles. That is the implication of reviling the Companions. And to revile the Companions is also to revile the Messenger himself, for it is to claim that he lacked good judgement and had no discrimination, surrounding himself with hypocrites and liars, putting them in positions of authority over the Muslims and even marrying them.

         It is for these reasons that the Prophet and the ulama of the past called for those who insulted the Companions to be severely punished, even killed. For example, Sahnun said,

مَنْ قَالَ فِي أَبِي بَكْرٍ وَعُمَرَ وَعُثْمَانَ وَعَلِيٍّ: إِنَّهُمْ كَانُواْ عَلَى ضَلَالَةٍ وكُفْرٍ قُتِلَ، وَمَنْ شَتَمَ غَيْرَهُمْ مِنَ الصَّحَابَة بِمِثْلِ ذَلِكَ نُكِّلَ النِّكَالَ الشَّدِيدَ.

         “Whoever says that any of Abu Bakr, ‘Umar, ‘Uthman and ‘Ali were misguided and unbelievers should be killed. And whoever curses any of the other Companions in the same way should be given a severe punishment.” Now we are not calling for people to go around applying these punishments themselves, for such punishments can only be commanded and carried out by an amir with true authority, nor are we calling on people to declare them to be kafir, even if there is some basis for doing so due to the fact that they consider us unbelievers for denying one of the central tenets of their faith, the belief in Imamate. Abu Ishaq al-Isfarayini said,

كل مخالف يكفرنا فنحن نكفره وإلا فلا

         “Those who differ with us and declare us kafir, then we declare them kafir. BUt if they do not, we do not.”

         But this matter of who is inside of and who is outside of the deen is a matter best left to the ulama and there is considerable difference of opinion about it. However, even if we are to consider them Muslim, still that does not mean that we have to endorse their positions or teachings or declare them to be valid. Do you not see that the Muslim who fornicates or drinks alcohol is still considered Muslim, but we do not say his actions are lawful and his way of living is a valid way of living. Similarly, those who have certain types of incorrect belief about Allah, such as the rationalist Mu’tazila in their claim that Allah is obligated to do what is in the best interests of His slaves, are still considered Muslim, but we do not say that their beliefs are valid. And, indeed, such people are subject to discretionary punishment until they return to the correct way.

         The same approach must be taken to the Shia. And I would like to make clear here that these words are as much for their benefit as the rest of the Muslim umma. The truth may be painful, but in the end it will do them far more benefit than any amount of appeasement. There is no way their practices, positions and beliefs can be considered valid until they fully accord and correspond to the deen as we, the Muslims, know it. And by we, the Muslims, I mean the followers of the four accepted madhhabs of fiqh and the two accepted madhhabs of aqida. The Shia must be actively encouraged to return to the right way, but until they do so, we cannot welcome them into our gatherings or take them as friends as confidantes. For the one who listens to slander and the one who stands by while wrong action is done is as much to blame as the one who spreads it or the one who does it. The Prophet said,

لاَ تَسُبُّواْ أَصْحَابِي، فَإِنَّهُ يَجِيءُ قَوْمٌ فِي آخِرِ الزَّمَانِ يَسُبُّونَ أَصْحَابِي فَلَا تُصَلُّواْ عَلَيْهِمْ، وَلاَ تُصَلُّواْ مَعَهُمْ، وَلاَ تُنَاكِحُوهُمْ، وَلاَ تُُجالِسُوهُمْ، وَإِنْ مَرَضُواْ فَلَا تَعُودُوهُمْ.

         “Do not curse my Companions. A people will come at the end of time who will curse my Companions. Do not pray over them or behind them, do not marry with them and do not sit in their assemblies. And when they are ill, do not visit them.”

         We ask Allah to increase us in love of Him and His Prophet. And we ask Him to increase us in love of His family and Companions and give us the means to defend them from any who seek to revile them and cast aspersions upon them. We ask Him to allow us to see the truth as being true and give us the strength to follow it and falsehood as being false and give us the strength to avoid it. We ask Allah to protect our communities, our youth and our ulama from the lies and wiles of the Shia, and give them the furqan to see who is in front of them. We ask Allah to guide the Shia back to the truth and cleanse their hearts of hatred for the Sahaba and their tongues of the vile insults that defile them. We ask Allah to protect the boundaries of the deen from those who seek to change them and give victory to His deen.

إِنَّ اللهَ وَمَلَائِكَتَهُ يُصَلُّونَ عَلَى النَّبِيِّ، يَا أَيُهَا الذِينَ آمَنُواْ صَلُّواْ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلِّمُواْ تَسْلِيماً.

اللَّهُمَّ صَلِّ وَسَلِّمْ وَبَارِكْ عَلَيْهِ وَعَلَى آلِهِ وَصَحْبِهِ  أَجْمَعِينَ. وَارْضَ اللَّهُمَّ عَنِ الْخُلَفَاءِ الرَّاشِدِينَ أَبِي بَكْرٍ وَعُمَرَ وَعُثْمَانَ وَعَلِيٍّ، وعن أم المومنين عائشة التي أمرنا الله في سورة النور أن ندافع عنها، وَعَنْ سَائِرِ الصَّحَابَةِ أَجْمَعِينَ، خُصُوصاً اِلأَنْصَارَ مِنْهُمْ وَالمُهَاجِرِينَ، وَعَنِ التَّابِعِينَ وَتَابِعِي التَّابِعِينَ وَمَنْ تَبِعَهُمْ بِإِحْسَانٍ إِلَى يَوْمِ الدِّينِ.

اللَّهُمَّ اهْدِ وُلَاةَ أُمُورِ المُسْلِمِينَ لِمَا يُرْضِيكَ وَلِاتِّبَاعِ سُنَّةِ نَبِيِّكَ صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ، وَثَبِّتْ أَقْدَامَهُمْ عَلَى الصِّرَاطِ المُسْتَقِيمِ، وَأَصْلِحْهُمْ يَا رَبَّ الْعَالَمِينَ.

اللَّهُمَّ بَارِكْ عَلَى شَيْخِنَا، وَعَلَى أَمِيرِنَا، وَعَلَى جَمِيعِ أُمَرَاءِ وَزُعَمَاءِ المُسْلِمِينَ.

اللَّهُمَّ بَارِكْ عَلَى المُسْلِمِينَ فِي هَذِهِ المَدِينَةِ، وَوَفِّقْهُمْ لِمَا تُحِبُّهُ وَتَرْضَاهُ يَا أَكْرَمَ الأَكْرَمِينَ.

اللَّهُمَّ أَعِزَّ الإِسْلَامَ وَالمُسِْلمِينَ، وَاخْذُلِ الْكُفْرَ وَالْكَافِرِينَ، وَانْصُرِ المُجَاهِدِينَ فِي سَبِيلِ اللهِ. وَاجْعَلْ كَلِمََتَكَ هِيَ العُلْيَا وَكَلِمَةَ الْكُفْرِ هِيَ السُّفْلَى.

رَبَّنَا ءَاتِنَا فِي الدُّنْيَا حَسَنَةً وَفِي الآخِرَةِ حَسَنَةً وَقَِنَا عَذَابَ النَّارِ.

إِنَّ اللهَ يَامُرُ بِالْعَدْلِ وَالإِحْسَانِ وَإِيتَاءِ ذِي الْقُرْبَى، وَيَنْهَى عَنِ الْفَحْشَاءِ وَالمُنكَرِ وَالْبَغْيِ، يَعِظُكُمْ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَذَّكَّرُونَ، وَلَذِكْرُ اللهِ أَكْبَرُ وَاللهُ يَعْلَمُ مَا تَصْنَعُونَ. وَقُومُواْ إِلَى صَلاتِكُمْ يَرْحَمُكُمُ اللهُ.