Tawassul
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Tawassul (Arabic: توسل ) is an Islamic religious practice in which a prayer is offered to Allah through an intermediary.The Intermediary could be a good deed, a person (dead or alive) or an attribute of Allah. A succint definition is "Supplicating Allah by means of an intermediary, whether it be a living person, dead person, a good deed, or a name or Attribute of Allah Most High". A simple prayer using Tawassul would be something like "Oh Allah! I ask you for such and such through our prophet Muhammad".
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[edit] Legal validity
The topic of Tawassul is one that is very strongly argued about today. This section offers only brief overview of the arguments. For details, please refer to the chapter from the Reliance of the Traveller and the "Critical look at the Isnad of the Ahadith concerning the Blind man" articles linked to in the Reference section.
[edit] In support
The most often quoted Hadith which teaches the practice of Tawassul is the Hadith of the blind man. In brief, the hadith deals with a person coming to the prophet Muhammad asking him whether it would be permissible for him to skip congregatory prayers in the mosque since he was blind and couldn't find anyone to take him. The prophet answered in the negative. The man then asked the prophet to pray for his sight to return. Instead of a direct prayer, the prophet asked him to pray with the prophet himself as an intermediary.
Other quoted sources include the hadith of the people who were stuck in a cave and who prayed for God to save them using their own good deeds as intermediaries.
[edit] Against
Critics base their allegations upon the claim that many of the Ahadith regarding the usage of Tawassul (such as the hadith of the Blind man mentioned above) are either misunderstood or that they are unreliable and possess a weak chain of narrators. They also quote a number of Qur'anic verses that can be interpreted to contradict the practice of Tawassul, such as the one found in Surah Yunus:
"And they serve besides Allah that which can neither harm them nor profit them and they say, These are our intercessors with Allah. Say, Would you inform Allah of what He knows not in the heavens and the earth? Glory be to Him, and supremely exalted is He above what they set up! (with Him)." [Yunus:18]
Other verses which are often quoted as proofs against Tawassul are Surah Al-Araf:194 and Surah Al-Isra:157.
[edit] Reformations
Scholars such as Ibn Taymiya have rejected that a dead person can be used as an intermediary with God. His argument revolved around the idea that the practice was valid only during the lifetime of the prophet Muhammad and that after his death, it was impermissible and a Bidah or reprehensible innovation. It should be understood that he did not consider it a form of Shirk.
His teachings were revivified by the founder of the Wahabi movement Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab who strengthened the idea to say that it was not only a Bidah but that those who practiced it were guilty of polytheism and were apostates.
[edit] Current viewpoints
In contemporary times, Tawassul is practiced by traditionalist Sunni muslims and Shia muslims. Followers of the Salafi movement reject the practice of using a dead person as an intermediary with Allah. They state that closeness to God can only be achieved by righteous actions, supplicating using God's names and by asking a righteous person to supplicate on one's behalf [1].
[edit] References
- Supporting Tawassul
- Against Tawassul
