[FrassyLap]

Asalamu aleikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh,

I am nearly 20 years old, I attended an Islamic school and for the most part up until 2010 roughly I was very happy and comfortable with the basic understanding of Islam that I had, all I knew was that I was a Muslim and I should be a good person, pray my salah, fast ramadan, observe the shariah etc. I believed strongly in Allah all I knew was that Allah existed and that He is the most loving and kind, and I believed in the angels and that they could come down to earth and take the form of humans and such, and I knew that there was a world of the unseen and that the jin exist and such, previous to the islamic secondary school I had attended an arabic school every weekend for years and I loved the community there and I was very happy in the environment there. Basically to sum up I just believed Islam was very simple and that we were all Muslims united on Islam and everything was great, the only sect that I had ever heard of were 'shias' and I knew that they were wrong and I vaguely knew that I was a 'maliki'. Anyway in the secondary school I found out later on that the sheikh that we had had was something called a 'barelvi' when I heard about this I didn't really know what it was and I just thought it was another school of thought, he was a wonderful teacher and simply used to teach arabic and also Islamic studies (which was mainly Seerah). Then mysteriously he had left and we got a new RE teacher that used to be quite fun, he used to show us a tv show about people called 'sufis' and how strange and funny they were. I didn't really pay much attention to any of that kind of stuff and I carried on trying to pray my salah on time and be a good muslim in general.

Anyway after I had gone to college I kept in contact with my old friends and associates which were all teenagers and everyone added each other on facebook etc, I basically started to watch more and more videos on youtube which were what you might call 'salafi' orientated and read various articles from places like salafitalk and allahuakbar.com and the islamic awakening forums and literally from 2010 to now I have gone from being a happy balanced Muslim into someone who is physically ill from confusion, at times I feel very glad in my mind and a sort of calmness that I follow the Quran in its apparent meaning and I try and follow the sunnah of the prophet peace be upon him and I find all the good speakers and all the 'mashaykh' from madinah university all unified on the same aqeedah creed and following fiqh closest to the sunnah and how salafiya is spreading throughout the youth and how we refute the 'esoteric sufis' and the misguided 'hellenistic philosophers' who use logically derived interpretations to describe Allah, and then I have fully gone down the path of affirming that Allah created Adam with His own two hands and that He has Hands and Feet and a Face and He has two Right Hands meaning they are both perfect all in a manner most befitting to him... then along the way I get surges of confusion and unhappiness because I feel ill that these are incorrect beliefs and that this is in fact all a modernist new-age reformist understanding of Islam and I feel how its so strange that I base almost everything in my understanding of Islam and my deen off Sheikhul Islam Ibn Taymiyya rahimullah and his student Ibn Qayyim al Jawzia rahimullah and then Muhammed ibn abdul Wahab rahimullah and then Sheikh Bin Baz rahimullah, Sheikh Albani rahimullah and Sheikh Uthaymeen rahimullah and the Islam QA website and Islamic awakning dot com. And I've basically come to the conclusion that this is the way to practice Islam best and that Imam Malik and the rest of the great Imams, like Imam Nawawi and such rahimullah had the same creed as these sheiukh teach.

but this is because along the way I've attended a couple of what you would call 'sufi' events, one was a Sheikh Nuh Keller suhba and the other was a spiritual retreat for a week with a Sheikh, also I have to admit that of all the people I've come across I've found that the ones that seem to be most sound hearted and aware of the heart and keeping good manners and actually caring about not backbiting etc. were either Deobandis or other people that seemed Sufi, and after this retreat I even had beautiful calm and peace and made beautiful long du'as and quite amazing dreams

but then when I got back I got straight back onto the computer and starting going down on Salafitalk dot com and found everything I had gained in serenity was destroyed because I was literally staying up ALL NIGHT reading reading reading scouring through endless breakdowns and refutations of 'deviant sects' and heretical 'ashari' philosophical arguments and maturidis and etc. etc. I felt ill again until I put myself back to just simply following the ahlul hadeeth way I guess you could call it, and by then I had started to go to university and I find the ISoc is basically ahlul hadeeth too so i seem to get along fine and dandy and then i start taking lessons from a sheikh from madinah which I find quite useful and enjoyable and pretty good for fiqh but I find its a bit distant you could say and I don't feel like my Iman is growing but lately I've felt like Ive had quite weak Iman Allah knows best, mainly because I feel that somehow my wudhu might not be valid because I've been wiping over my socks for wudhu very frequently.

I felt good because I felt we are the majority theres ONE guy who is an ashari and there are a couple of hanafi deobandi / tablighi brothers that are really friendly and literally never debate about anything to do with aqeedah, only very infrequently mention one or two fiqh things if you discuss it with them, the thing is the ISoc although they are effectively all ahlul hadeeth, are actually quite decent brothers and they're very good in trying to give dawah etc and dont be angry and judge people like you used to find with 'salafis' about a decade ago,

I feel literally like its a whole new wave, everybody is salafi these days, only a few pakistani / indians are actually focused on being strict hanafi / maturidi , or the salafi burnout kind of guys you get, which that One ashari I mentioned is.

basically recently I've rediscovered some Nuh Keller articles and I was reading them and I read about the history of the Ummah and how apparently the Ulema was mainly ashari / maturidi with some athari Hanbali scholars etc. and i started watching some videos and I felt there was noor and I felt different inside so I made wudhu and wore a nice clean thobe and covered my head and tried to pray my salah as I did when I used to kind of follow the hanafi way of praying, then I prayed my sunnah and I just felt so alive in my spirit and I made a dua and I just felt a good loving connection with Allah..

then I went back to the internet and googled about Sheikh Nuh Keller and found some disturbing articles about calling on dead people and I just felt all that illness again and I just felt horrible, then I read a whole list of people calling it the Keller cult and even people that I have respect for like Suhaib Webb was calling it the keller cult and saying other things, I just felt sad again and confused...


My dream is that I just want to follow Islam as pure and beautiful as it really is, I just want to so desperately follow what Islam has been for the past 1400 years, what were the Ahlus Sunnah throughout history upon?!?!?!

I am SO AFRAID of keeping company or learning from Deobandi muslims because I am so afraid of falling into being one of the sects, i just want to keep from becoming a member of any sect

Ya Allah please Allah guide me.

[hiedeemom]

Short answer, research taṣawwuf. Good start Abdul Hakim Murad.

[cepAceryTem]

Bismihee Ta'aala

Asalamualaikum

You do know that Deobandi is not a sect right? There are 72 different sects. Whoever is Hanafi, Shafi, Maliki, or Hanbali are part of the same sect.

Deobandi is just a movement.

Anyways make istikara. Who better than to consult with Allah (SWT)? Afterwards follow the ulema who you believe follow Islam according to how you think the sahabas would follow it. See which ulema follow the most sunnahs. Follow the ulema who remind you of Allah (SWT) every-time you see them. Let this be your criteria.

And Allah (SWT) knows best.

[StevenS]

Asalamu aleikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh,

I am nearly 20 years old, I attended an Islamic school and for the most part up until 2010 roughly I was very happy and comfortable with the basic understanding of Islam that I had, all I knew was that I was a Muslim and I should be a good person, pray my salah, fast ramadan, observe the shariah etc. I believed strongly in Allah all I knew was that Allah existed and that He is the most loving and kind, and I believed in the angels and that they could come down to earth and take the form of humans and such, and I knew that there was a world of the unseen and that the jin exist and such, previous to the islamic secondary school I had attended an arabic school every weekend for years and I loved the community there and I was very happy in the environment there. Basically to sum up I just believed Islam was very simple and that we were all Muslims united on Islam and everything was great, the only sect that I had ever heard of were 'shias' and I knew that they were wrong and I vaguely knew that I was a 'maliki'. Anyway in the secondary school I found out later on that the sheikh that we had had was something called a 'barelvi' when I heard about this I didn't really know what it was and I just thought it was another school of thought, he was a wonderful teacher and simply used to teach arabic and also Islamic studies (which was mainly Seerah). Then mysteriously he had left and we got a new RE teacher that used to be quite fun, he used to show us a tv show about people called 'sufis' and how strange and funny they were. I didn't really pay much attention to any of that kind of stuff and I carried on trying to pray my salah on time and be a good muslim in general.

Anyway after I had gone to college I kept in contact with my old friends and associates which were all teenagers and everyone added each other on facebook etc, I basically started to watch more and more videos on youtube which were what you might call 'salafi' orientated and read various articles from places like salafitalk and allahuakbar.com and the islamic awakening forums and literally from 2010 to now I have gone from being a happy balanced Muslim into someone who is physically ill from confusion, at times I feel very glad in my mind and a sort of calmness that I follow the Quran in its apparent meaning and I try and follow the sunnah of the prophet peace be upon him and I find all the good speakers and all the 'mashaykh' from madinah university all unified on the same aqeedah creed and following fiqh closest to the sunnah and how salafiya is spreading throughout the youth and how we refute the 'esoteric sufis' and the misguided 'hellenistic philosophers' who use logically derived interpretations to describe Allah, and then I have fully gone down the path of affirming that Allah created Adam with His own two hands and that He has Hands and Feet and a Face and He has two Right Hands meaning they are both perfect all in a manner most befitting to him... then along the way I get surges of confusion and unhappiness because I feel ill that these are incorrect beliefs and that this is in fact all a modernist new-age reformist understanding of Islam and I feel how its so strange that I base almost everything in my understanding of Islam and my deen off Sheikhul Islam Ibn Taymiyya rahimullah and his student Ibn Qayyim al Jawzia rahimullah and then Muhammed ibn abdul Wahab rahimullah and then Sheikh Bin Baz rahimullah, Sheikh Albani rahimullah and Sheikh Uthaymeen rahimullah and the Islam QA website and Islamic awakning dot com. And I've basically come to the conclusion that this is the way to practice Islam best and that Imam Malik and the rest of the great Imams, like Imam Nawawi and such rahimullah had the same creed as these sheiukh teach.

but this is because along the way I've attended a couple of what you would call 'sufi' events, one was a Sheikh Nuh Keller suhba and the other was a spiritual retreat for a week with a Sheikh, also I have to admit that of all the people I've come across I've found that the ones that seem to be most sound hearted and aware of the heart and keeping good manners and actually caring about not backbiting etc. were either Deobandis or other people that seemed Sufi, and after this retreat I even had beautiful calm and peace and made beautiful long du'as and quite amazing dreams

but then when I got back I got straight back onto the computer and starting going down on Salafitalk dot com and found everything I had gained in serenity was destroyed because I was literally staying up ALL NIGHT reading reading reading scouring through endless breakdowns and refutations of 'deviant sects' and heretical 'ashari' philosophical arguments and maturidis and etc. etc. I felt ill again until I put myself back to just simply following the ahlul hadeeth way I guess you could call it, and by then I had started to go to university and I find the ISoc is basically ahlul hadeeth too so i seem to get along fine and dandy and then i start taking lessons from a sheikh from madinah which I find quite useful and enjoyable and pretty good for fiqh but I find its a bit distant you could say and I don't feel like my Iman is growing but lately I've felt like Ive had quite weak Iman Allah knows best, mainly because I feel that somehow my wudhu might not be valid because I've been wiping over my socks for wudhu very frequently.

I felt good because I felt we are the majority theres ONE guy who is an ashari and there are a couple of hanafi deobandi / tablighi brothers that are really friendly and literally never debate about anything to do with aqeedah, only very infrequently mention one or two fiqh things if you discuss it with them, the thing is the ISoc although they are effectively all ahlul hadeeth, are actually quite decent brothers and they're very good in trying to give dawah etc and dont be angry and judge people like you used to find with 'salafis' about a decade ago,

I feel literally like its a whole new wave, everybody is salafi these days, only a few pakistani / indians are actually focused on being strict hanafi / maturidi , or the salafi burnout kind of guys you get, which that One ashari I mentioned is.

basically recently I've rediscovered some Nuh Keller articles and I was reading them and I read about the history of the Ummah and how apparently the Ulema was mainly ashari / maturidi with some athari Hanbali scholars etc. and i started watching some videos and I felt there was noor and I felt different inside so I made wudhu and wore a nice clean thobe and covered my head and tried to pray my salah as I did when I used to kind of follow the hanafi way of praying, then I prayed my sunnah and I just felt so alive in my spirit and I made a dua and I just felt a good loving connection with Allah..

then I went back to the internet and googled about Sheikh Nuh Keller and found some disturbing articles about calling on dead people and I just felt all that illness again and I just felt horrible, then I read a whole list of people calling it the Keller cult and even people that I have respect for like Suhaib Webb was calling it the keller cult and saying other things, I just felt sad again and confused...


My dream is that I just want to follow Islam as pure and beautiful as it really is, I just want to so desperately follow what Islam has been for the past 1400 years, what were the Ahlus Sunnah throughout history upon?!?!?!

I am SO AFRAID of keeping company or learning from Deobandi muslims because I am so afraid of falling into being one of the sects, i just want to keep from becoming a member of any sect

Ya Allah please Allah guide me.

Ameen...May Allah guide and keep you.Try not to be hard on yourself.Many of us have been through this.

What I do is take the good from different groups and leave the rest.We are only human and Allah knows that
so just keep trusting in Him and being sincere and Insha Allah it will be all right for you.Wa Salaam

[FrassyLap]

Is there a reliable set of Sheikhs that share the same way? I always find endless various sheikhs that follow their own thing from dancing around to kissing shrines and pouring milk over the graves, this stuff scares me from what I read about as tasawuf.

That's why i always go back to following the Sunnah of Rasool Allah peace be upon him and I find those who follow the salafiya tend to be upon it most closely and they all share the same way, the same creed and they have Makkah and Madinah and all the young generations are becoming followers of salafiya. You can see why its so powerful, is there anything wrong with following salafiya?

Why can't we just find a true path of Islam that doesn't need all of this sectarianism, theres a very good sheikh that I love but the only thing is is that he does the hadra every single week in the masjid and I feel that this is a bid'ah.

is Sheikh Nuh Keller a reliable scholar? I just feel afriad of sunnipath because of the fatwas on calling out on others than Allah (istighatha I think) and visiting graves

[cepAceryTem]

Bismihee Ta'aala

Look people follow the salafiyya because it easier for them. They rather not follow a mathab. They follow the "strongest opinion."

If you don't feel comfortable following tassawuf, then don't do it. All that is fard is that you get your islah done. Why people get shaykhs is because it very difficult for sinners like me to do our own islah.


Shaykh Nuh, from what I know, is a reliable scholar.


If I said anything wrong, please some-one correct me.

And Allah (SWT) knows best

[FrassyLap]

Is the hadra a bad thing? Are most of the Ulema in Syria upon tasawuf? the thing that I am confused about is that I find many Sheikhs that are upon salafiya,

I want to find out more about the Sheikhs upon tasawuf in Syria and Sham, Egypt and the Arab world, is Al Azhar upon tasawuf?? Thats what I want to find out, I want to know what is the Islam that has been followed as the Ahlus sunnah wa'l Jamah for the past 1400 years not any modernist groups.

is it sinful or bid'ah to do the hadra? who are the people that the angels hit off the path to jannah for introducing innovations? is the hadra an innovation?

Jazakallah khair may Allah bless you all btw! Allahu akbar.

[hiedeemom]

".........hadra every single week in the masjid and I feel that this is a bid'ah."

hadra was done in the times of the prophet, INFRONT of him, and he approved it.

[FrassyLap]

Please can you bring evidences may Allah bless you.

[hiedeemom]

Would Musnad Ahmed bin Hanbal suffice:

[Musnad Ahmed bin Hanbal 1:537 #857]

Hadrat Ali (ra) said: I went to the Prophet (salallaho alaihi wasalam) with Jafar (RA) and Zayd (ra), The Prophet (saw) said to Zayd: You are my freedman (anta Mawlay), “AT THIS ZAYD BEGAN TO HOP ON ONE LEG (HAJALA) AROUND THE PROPHET” then the Prophet (saw) said to Jafar (ra): You resemble me in my creation and my manners, at this Jafar also began to hop behind Zayd, then the Prophet (saw) said to Ali (ra): You are from me and I am from you, at this he also started to hop behind Jafar.

Major scholar who accepted hadra: Imam Jalaludin Suyuti

Subhanallah

[AntonioMQ]

The hadra is an issue that is dealt with by the scholars of fiqh, not by the shuyukh of tasawwuf.

http://www.askimam.org/fatwa/fatwa.p...964440d67f7eaf

The inherent permissibility or impermissibility of some of these exercises will rest upon the differences of the various Madhāhib since some of these practices cross the boundary of a mere internal metaphysical sphere to the externally physical; thus, falling under the jurisdiction of the Fuqahā’. To present a brief example, the practice of hadrah, a type of spiritual bodily movement similar to swaying that some refer to dancing coupled with loud dhikr, is permissible for the followers of the Shāfi‘ī Madhhab since according to their ‘Ulamā and Madhhab dancing is permissible with certain conditions.

والرقص بلا تكسر مباح لخبر الصحيحين إنه صلى الله عليه وسلم وقف لعائشة يسترها حتى تنظر إلى الحبشة وهم يلعبون ويزفنون والزفن الرقص لأنه مجرد حركات على استقامة أو اعوجاج وعلى الإباحة التي صرح بها المصنف الفوراني والغزالي في وسيطه وهي مقتضى كلام غيرهما وقال القفال بالكراهة وعبارة الأصل محتملة لها حيث قال و الرَّقْصُ ليس بِحَرَامٍ وَبِالتَّكَسُّرِ حَرَامٌ وَلَوْ من النِّسَاءِ لِأَنَّهُ يُشْبِهُ أَفْعَالَ الْمُخَنَّثِينَ (أسنى المطالب في شرح روض الطالب ج 4 ص 346 العلمية)


Consequently, it will be permissible for the Shuyūkh and Mūrīds who follow the Shāfi‘ī Madhhab to participate in the hadrah. On the contrary, it will not be permissible for the Shuyūkh and Murīds of the Hanafī Madhhab to participate in the dancing or swaying of the hadrah since no form of dancing is permitted in the Madhhab unless one is overtaken by an uncontrollable state of ecstasy. It is for this reason that the majority of Shuyūkh of the Ahnāf prescribe a different form of dhikr that produces the same result and effect as produced by the hadra. In the Chishti Tarīqah, the Shuyūkh prescribe loud dhikr of the Kalīmah, La Ilāha illa Allah where the Murīd sits and focuses his concentration on his heart with his head turned towards the direction of his heart. Then, with full devotion, absorption and zeal he recites La ilaaha (there is no deity) while moving his head towards the back and left intending thereby the negation and purging of everything other than Allah from the heart. Thereafter, with full vigor and force, he recites illa Allah (except Allah) while meditating that the love of Allah is flooding his heart. The similar effect of the hadra, namely, that of purification of the heart and spiritual vigor is thus produced which are some of the main ingredients for reviving the diseased heart.

[Kennypor]

Brother PeaceSeeker. Don't worry about being confused. I was also on such a journey for the past two and half years. Let me tell you something, you should just put a fullstop on indulging in these in-depth discussions. Its like kids trying to solve calculus before studying basic addition and subtraction. They would simply be confused. So what you need to do is stop such 'discussions' for some time. First make sure you are following the 5 pillars of Islam. The best best thing to do is to follow a Madhab. All the four madhabs are a result of verification and counter verifications of Proofs from Quran, Sunnah and reliable sources for 1000+ years. That you won't get from anywhere else. Choose a Madhab whose scholars you have easy access to locally. You mentioned debandi scholars. I am following the shafi'i madhab, but from the books and lectures I have understood that the Deobandi scholars are one of the best among the modern Hanafi scholars. So bro, go back to basics. I myself was a victim of the salafi fitna. But Alhamdulillah I understood that the Madhabs are the best and closest to Islam one can get. There are difference in opinion, but its just like the difference in opinion among the Sahaba, both are right. May Allah make it easy for you. ameen.

[FrassyLap]

Subhan'Allah I read a very beautiful and heart lifting article by Sheikh Nuh Keller that established the true meaning of tafwid what true Atharia is and what ta'wil is and how it is done when necessary to remove any fear of falling into anthropormorphism and it explained how the actual Early Muslims did ta'wil, including Ibn Abbas ra, Imam Bukhari, Al Tabari ra, and he also explained the tafwidh that the early Muslims did and how it is utterly and completely unlike what people misunderstand and push for in todays world of people who try to and be upon 'salafiya', I know these people have good intentions but so many are fed misinformation, may Allah guide us all and keep us firmly upon the straight path.

This is very beautiful for me and alhamdulilah you can not imagine the soundness I feel affirming that Allah is the incomparable reality, wa'l Alhamdulilah.

I can not believe the difference there is in accepting this understanding that is the correct universal Islamic creed, so I don't have this fear in my heart that in fact 'the ash'aris' or the 'maturidis' are sects based on 'speculative hellenistic philosophy' since this is the creed that the vast majority of Ulema have been upon for the past 1400 years, and that I can affirm that the Atharis, the REAL people who affirm the athari creed of tafwidh, are also exemplary as being upon the accepted creed of Ahlus Sunnah wa'l Jama.

I am very happy with this understanding, of course Allahu 'alim.

The thing I want to ask now is regarding the whole graves thing and calling upon the dead, besides Allah, I simply can not understand why any Muslim would call upon other than Allah, this particular issue puts me off taking from sunnipath and other sites even though they have tons of amazing fatawa and such.