7.21. THE REPLY OF AHL AL-SUNNAH TO THE ARGUMENT OF THE QADARIYYAH: CONTENTMENT WITH ALLAH’S DECREE IS OBLIGATORY
Al-Qushayri mentions this in the beginning of the Chapter of Contentment saying: ‘Know that the servant must be pleased with those parts of Allah’s decree which he has been commanded to be pleased with. This is because it is not allowed or obligatory for one to be pleased with all parts of His decree, like disobedience and the various calamities that befall the Muslims.’ The same was said by many scholars before and after him and also in his time, like al-Qadl Abu Bakr and al-Qadi Abu Ya’la. They made their statements when the Qadarites argued that since being pleased with Allah’s decree is obligatory, we are also commanded to be pleased with sins if they too are decreed by Him, but being pleased with what Allah has forbidden is not allowed. Ahl al-Sunnah gave them three answers:
The first answer: this was the answer given by the aforementioned scholars and the majority of the Imams: it is incorrect to generalise the matter, for we have not been commanded to be pleased with everything that Allah has decreed to be, and there is nothing to this effect in the Book or the Sunnah. What is correct is that we have to be pleased with the decree we have been ordered to be pleased with, like the obedience of Allah and His Messenger. This is the reply mentioned by Abu’l-Qasim.
The second answer: We are pleased with the act of decreeing, which is an attribute or actions of Allah, but not with the decree.’ This, however, is a weak answer as we have explained elsewhere.
The third answer: ‘These sins can be looked at from two angles: from the angle of the servant who commits them as they are a result of his doing and choosing, and from the angle of the Lord who cre- ated and destined them to be; we must be pleased with them by their virtue of being attributed to Allah, and displeased with them by the virtue of them being attributed to the servant. This is because these sins are only described as evil, vile, and forbidden deeds that result in punishment and blameworthiness because they are attributed to the servant.’
There are many realities and secrets to be revealed here, and we have mentioned some of them elsewhere. This, however, is not the right place to elaborate on this as it is related to the issue of the attributes and the divine decree which is one of the greatest topics of the religion and the noblest knowledge of the first and the last. The topic is also extremely delicate and somewhat hard to grasp by most minds of the world.
The conclusion is that the Shaykhs of the Sufis^ the scholars, and others than them have explained that some types of contentment are permissible while others are definitely not so, let alone being recom- mended and among the traits of those close to Allah. Abu’l-Qasim mentioned this in his Risalah as well.
If it is said: what you have said is obvious, but where is the mistake of the person who said: ‘Contentment is that you do not ask Allah for Paradise nor seek His protection from Hell?’ And where is the mistake of those whoever they may be who think that this is a good statement?
The answer: they have erred because they thought that when one is truly content with something he does not seek anything else besides it. In other words, when the servant is in some particular situation, being truly content requires him to abstain from seeking anything else than that very situation. As the highest thing one can seek is Paradise and the worst thing one can experience is Hell, they said that since a content person must not seek anything, he must not even seek Paradise, and since he must not dislike anything, he must not even dislike Hell. This is where they went wrong and misguidance found a way to their thought in two ways:
The first: they thought that being satisfied with everything that exists is something that Allah loves and is pleased with as one of the greatest ways of His proteges. They made contentment with every occurrence or every situation a way for the servant to reach Allah and thus went completely astray.
The real path to Allah is taken by pleasing Him by doing what He loves and is pleased with, not by being satisfied with everything that happens and is. This is because He did not command you to do this and does not love it or like it. In fact, He, the Exalted, abhors, dislikes, and hates so many existing actions that only He knows their number. Being a friend or a protege of Allah requires one to agree with Him by loving what He loves and hating what He hates. One must abhor what He abhors and dislike what He dislikes and support whom He supports and show enmity towards those He shows enmity towards. If you love and like what He abhors and dislikes, you are His enemy, not His friend, and you get the same blame as the rest of those who like what Allah dislikes.
Contemplate this, for it reveals a major fundamental rule, and God only knows how many groups of devotees, worshippers, Sufis, and laymen have gone astray regarding it.
The second: they do not make a distinction between the invocation they have been commanded to perform as an obligation or a recommendation and the invocation that they have been forbidden to perform or have neither been commanded nor forbidden to perform. The invocations and requests that a servant makes to his Lord are of three types:
By Shaykhu’l-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah
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