THE SIGNS OF ISLAM

07-05-2018

The Signs of Islam

The True Islam:
To serve Allah (swt) only, to stay away from the Shirk and their people and to speak the Kufr on them is nothing else than the true Islam - the pure Tauhid faith.
Whoever fulfils these conditions is a Muslim/Muwahid for Allah.
In addition, the following questions are often discussed:
How do you judge a person whom you do not know personally, whether he/she belongs to the people of Islam or not?
It should be noted that there are three ways to determine whether that person belongs to the people of Islam or not.
1) Yaqeen (The certainty)
2) Islamic signs
3) Ahkam'ul Taba'iyya (The rule of subjugation)

1. Yaqeen

This category includes people you know for sure, such as family members, school friends or those you grew up with in a community. About all these people, whom one knows for sure, one can often make a statement about their way of thinking and for which faith or for which ideology they stand after all.
By talking to or discussing such issues with them, one could determine whether they belong to the people of Islam or whether the opposite is the case.
However, the focus should be on those people we personally do not know and with whom we have never talked in the past.
How do you judge whether such people belong to the people of Islam or not?
Points 2 Islamic Signs and 3 Ahkam'ul Taba'iyya are of great importance for this.

2. Islamic signs

If we would ask the averag guy, who calls himself Muslim, in the street what the Islamic signs are, then we would have received the following answers with a high probability: e.g. the prayer, the Zekat, the beard, Islamic clothes etc..
But what do Islam and Islamic scholars say?
The Prophet (saws) says:
"Islam is to testify that no deity exists beside Allah, and Muhammad is his servant and messenger;[Islam is] to pray, fast in the month of Ramadan and make the pilgrimage."   [Buhari, Volume 1, Chapter: Iman]

As we can see, Islam is built on five things:
1. La ilahe illallah Muhammadur Rasulullah
2. Prayer.
3. The Fasting
4. The Zekat
5. The Hajj

When looking more closely at the life of Allah's Messenger or when reading a Sira book, however, it is noticeable that he did not treat those who fasted, who paid Zekat and went to the Hajj in the same way as the people of Islam or not like Muslims; this, although the acts just mentioned belong to the most fundamental elements/pillars of Islam. However, the Prophet did not accept these as Islamic signs. One of the reasons for this is that these three factors (fasting, zekat, hajj) were also present from Mushrikun, beside the Muslims of Mecca.

Consequently, there was no visible difference between Muslim and Muschrik. In order not to consider someone as who is not known to be one of the people of Islam, the Messenger of Allah did not accept these factors for determination.

Consequently, there was no visible difference between Muslim and Muschrik. In order not to consider someone as who is not known to be one of the people of Islam, the Messenger of Allah did not accept these factors for determination.

The qualities/signs/characteristics with which he could classify someone to the people of Islam had been La ilahe illallah Muhammedur Rasulullah and prayer - this only because the idolaters in Mecca neither testified the existence of a single God (La ilahe illah) nor how Muslims carried out prayer (with Ruku, Sujud etc.). As far as faith in a single God is concerned, it should also be added that polytheism was widespread among the people of Mecca at the time.

In a Hadith of the Messenger of Allah (S.A.W) it says: "He who performs our prayer, turns in our direction (Qibla) and slaughters as we do is Muslim." [Sahih Al-Bukhari 391]

The Messenger of Allah (S.A.W) was forced to use the term "Salatena" (our prayer) in the above hadith and so to limit the general prayer to our prayer. The reason is that the Muschrikun of Mecca also prayed, but they prayed standing up, whistling and clapping their hands. If the Prophet in the Hadith had used the words "who does the prayer" instead of "who does our prayer", then prayer in itself would no longer be a sign for the distinction of a Muslim from a Muschrik: Since both do the prayer, it would no longer be a sign which could only be attributed to the people of Islam.

The life story of the Messenger of Allah (saws) also proves to us that he accepted the words „La ilahe illallah“ in Mecca as an Islamic sign and that all those who spoke these words were also among the people of Islam. As already mentioned above, the reason is that the people of Mecca were polytheistic.

In a Hadith of the Messenger of Allah (swas) it says as follows:
It reports Usama ibn Zaid (r): "Once the Messenger of Allah (s) sent us on a battle against the Juhaynah tribe who lived in the oasis of Huraqa. We got to their water sources in the morning. One of the Ansar and I met one of their men, and when we had overwhelmed him, he said aloud: "La ilaha illa-llah". ***

When my companion heard this from the Ansar, he paused, but I killed him with a spear thrust. When we returned to Medina, this incident was submitted to the Prophet (s). He asked me, "Oh Usama, did you even kill him after he said La ilaha illa-llah?" I said: "O Messenger of Allah! He made this statement only to save his life!" He asked again: "Did you kill him after he had confirmed:'There is no god but Allah.'" He continued to repeat this sentence until I wished I had only become a Muslim after that day. [Sahih Al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim]

As we can take from the Hadith, the prophet criticized Usama ibn Zaid (ra)  strongly because he killed a man in the areas of Mecca. But why did the Prophet (s) criticize him so strongly? Because the people of Mecca were a polytheistic people and La ilaha illallah was accordingly an Islamic sign.

In the Sira of the Prophet (s) you can also see the following: When he emigrated to Medina and suddenly had a people of Ahlu Kitab before him, only the words La ilahe illallah were no longer enough for him as an Islamic sign; he added: Muhammedur Rasulullah.

The reason for this is quite conclusive: The people of Ahlu Kitab already testified to monotheism, i.e. that there is only one God; but they did not testify that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.

In the two hadiths listed above we can see two factors that play a significant role in the theme of 'The Judgement of the People'.

1) That an Islamic sign must be one that distinguishes Muslims from other religions and ideologies.
2) That Islamic signs can lose their validity, in specific situations.

This is the conclusion of the four schools of law about which they are in consensus, as can be seen in the book el-Mevsuatu-l Kuveytiyyeh, Bab: İslam.

Moreover, the scholars of the Arabic language have defined the word 'alam, which comes from the word 'alama (sign), as follows:

"One thing that clearly distinguishes one from the other."

For example, the fence separating two fields from two farmers was called'alam. Why? Precisely because it clearly separates one field from the other. National flags were also called'alam; it separated one people from another.

Considering that Islamic signs must on the one hand distinguish Muslims from all other religions and ideologies and on the other hand can change from time to time, neither La ilahe illallah nor prayer is nowadays considered an Islamic sign.

The reason for this is that today we are dealing with people who call themselves Muslims, who say the words La ilahe illallah, pray etc. and at the same time worship graves, vote in the system of democracy, who call leaders who do not rule under the laws of Allah as Muslims. Even the Tawagheet say on the one hand La ilahe illallah and on the other hand they worship human beings, such as Recep Tayip Erdogan.

In the last Turkish elections (2015), for example, more than 54 million people took part; they went to the polls despite the fact that a large majority of them pronounced the words La ilahe illallah and possibly even prayed.

We are dealing with members of the people (those who call themselves Muslims or the people of so-called Islamic countries) who say La ilahe illallah and at the same time place mediators between them and Allah.

If we live in such an environment, the question arises as to how we can still say that La ilahe illallah or prayer are considered'Islamic' signs. How can we attribute those whom we do not know for sure, but of whom we know that they say La ilahe illallah, to the people of Islam, i.e. the perfect and pure religion of Allah?

And this, although the Islamic scholars teach that an Islamic sign must be that which distinguishes the Muslim from the other Millah (people).

How can we still say today that La ilahe illallah or prayer distinguishes us from these dirty idolaters?

For all these reasons, we cannot use Islamic signs today to make statements about people who may or may not belong to Islam. After all, the greatest Islamic sign is La ilahe illallah Muhammedur Rasulullah, although this unfortunately disappears, since today's Muschrikun, who call themselves Muslims, have abused this actually Islamic sign and carried it away from the categories of Islamic signs.

3. Ahkam'ul Taba'iyya

In the end, the only category left to judge people is the last one: Ahkam'ul Taba'iyya.
Since the one in Islam is bound to three things (as can be seen from the Hadith of the Prophet (s)) - either the leader he follows; his parents or a country - this category is also divided into three groups.

1.The judgement of men according to the Dar in which they live.
So this means the following: If he lives in Darul Islam, we assign him to the people of Islam. However, if he lives in Darul Kuffr, we assign him to the people of Kuffr. This procedure is also described by Imam Serahsi in his book Mabsud, volume 3, page 76.

2.We judge by the leader they follow.
3. we judge by the parents of the person concerned.
We are in a position to go into the above points and pseudo-arguments in more detail and to base them with the Islamic sources.

Initially, however, this should be enough for those who criticized because of this topic.
And Allah knows best. Our last prayer of praise is „Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds.“

 

By order of Islam / Im Auftrag des Islam