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Origins of Al Irjaa’

Understanding the Islamic Aqeedah is essential for every Muslim. To be aware about all its topics, from the beginning to the end according to al Salaf al Saalih is very important. Not to have a short or partial understanding of a particular topic of Aqeedah e.g. the topic of Imaan or Asmaa’ wal Sifaat. It is not good just to study a little bit here and there; you need to study it deeply. It is unreasonable that you never study anything Islamic from childhood and then you suddenly think that you can understand all about Aqeedah later.

You must study from the childhood, especially those who decide to study Aqaa’id from books without proper foundations, without scholarly understanding and foundations or without to consult the Ulemaa’.

What is known from Islam by necessity is that the Deen of Islam is based on Wahi; it is not a matter that people can just say they found the Wahi because the Wahi is only the Qur’an and the Sunnah. It is not only about what was revealed in 23 years in the Qur’an and the sayings, actions and consent of the Messenger (saw). You must know the circumstances that it was revealed in. Moreover the prophet (saw) said that his Sunnah is not enough, you must also follow the Sunnah of the companions.

It has become well known among Ahl al ilm that lying and distortion and interpretation are the attribute of the deviant sects, the philosophers and of the rationalists. That is because they are ahl al Bid’ah, their job is to spread their Bid’ah and because they have to defend their stance. They end up having to lie or fabricate Ahadith, or to interpret falsely anything they can to justify their Bid’ah.

So this topic is concerning a very dangerous disease, the dirtiest disease existing in the bodies of the Muslim Ummah nowadays. It is very dangerous and infects the entire body, it becomes like a cancer growing everyday and it is essential to expose that disease. Especially if we know that this disease has effects that are so very direct and others that are implicit. This disease is the disease of Al Irjaa’

It is the cause for the Ummah and the activists in particular to become confused, such that they cannot distinguish between the Muslim and the Kafir. We must explain in detail the principle of irjaa’ and the Murji’ah.

Al Irjaa’ in Arabic is an adverb of the word Arja’a, which is to delay a thing. If you make irjaa’ for any matter, you delay or exclude it.

Irjaa’ among the juristic scholars, means “to take out the action from the name of the Imaan”. Among the Murji’ah you will find the action to be exclusive such that whenever they mention Imaan, the action is not included. It is well known among the firaq (sects) that the group who does this are Al Murji’ah; they are the ones who exclude the actions from the Imaan. They separate their actions from what they believe and so they will never call anyone Fasiq, rather they will leave it till the day of Judgement.

Anyone who has that disease will never judge someone to be Fasiq, Kafir or Murtad, they will want to leave it to Allah, they believe that Imaan is only in the heart and so they always exclude all actions, verbal or physical from the Imaan.

The Murji’ah are those who say that Allah, the messengers, the angels, books, the fate and destiny etc are only in the heart. Among them there are those who say that it is enough to believe it in your heart, or that it is enough to say in the heart and the tongue, and they make the action something extra, not included in the Imaan. They say that it is outside of the Imaan, not part of it.

Based on that wrong understanding, they lead on to a very dangerous thought and Aqeedah. This incorrect understanding of the Imaan leads to them believing that anyone who diverts from all the actions commanded by the messenger (saw) i.e. they do not have any action at all, they do not fulfil any Islamic duties, that it does not take them out of the Imaan even though they are capable to do it. They believe that they will not negate their Imaan nor leave the fold of Islam.

Secondly, they will believe that the Imaan will never be affected or negated at all by ANY deed, however corrupted it was unless it is combined with Juhoud or Istihlal in his heart i.e. rejecting the obligation in his heart or permitting the prohibition in his heart.

They believe that ‘nothing can negate the Tasdiq except the Takdhib.’ These are the two main fundamental misguidance of the Murji’ah. It means that either you will just carry the kalimah in your heart without to do any action or duty whatsoever, or that your Imaan is in your heart and whatever corruption, fusq, fujur or Kufr you do, you will never leave Islam, rather you will continue as Mu’min.

Some people who speak about these two false ideas will say that it is not just in the heart alone, some people will even say that someone cannot only reject (Juhoud) in his heart to become Kafir, they must speak it on the tongue before they will become Kafir. This results in them saying, that “we can never call anyone Kafir, we can only call their actions Kafir”!

There are many types of Murji’ah: Ashaa’irah, Karraamiyyah, Murji’atul Fuqahaa etc. We can recognise them when they say that the action is not a pillar of the Imaan, that it is just extra condition, (i.e. the kamal of it) and when they say that there is no Kufr except when combined with Juhoud in the heart or Istihlal in the heart.

That is why the Murji’ah have a problem with the chapters of Apostasy of the books of the Ulemaa of the salaf. Because they say that we can never know who the Murtad is.

The danger in both of these, is that the vitality that Allah has revealed for the man will be lost, the vitality that connects the inner and outer together, that connects the heart with the tongue and the limbs. This vitality is the essence and driving force behind the actions, this type of understanding will make the Imaan in the heart like a theory, rigid in the heart. These people will have a dead Aqeedah completely and they will never have any action because they believe that the actions have nothing to do with the Imaan.

With that understanding, if you become Mu’min, you do not need any action! They do not see any need for action, when they see you praying or commanding good and forbidding evil; they will say ‘why do you make trouble for yourself?’

People will even say Kufr and do the Kufr, and they will call the people towards the Kufr, they will be the first to attack Islam because they claim that they are Muslim, and so because he says laa ilaaha illallah and “what does it matter whatever Kufr or Haram that he does?” This is the danger of this Aqeedah. And we see that they all have this same fundamental disease.

This disease has appeared in this Ummah since 4-5th century Hijri and they make interpretation for everything. In order to deal with them, we must look deeply at how it was caused, at how it spread.

If we were to describe Al Irjaa’, it is like saying “Say laa ilaaha illallah Muhammadan rasulullah and then throw away the mushaf, destroy the Ka’bah, kiss all the crosses and call the people to all interfaith, to become Jew or Christian.” After all, none of it will affect your Imaan.

The secular people who have no Deen are happy with the irjaa’, but it is not them who are the problem so much, the problem are those who call for revival, who are apparently practising Muslims but they call for irjaa’. It suits the secular people, the Fasiq Fajir, and it suits the Kuffar but to inject it into the blood of the Muslims and the activists, causes one of the greatest obstacles to the revival.

Al Imaan has three pillars; they are moulded together and cannot be separated:

1- Al I’tiqaadu bil Qalb - to have conviction in the heart.

2- Al Iqraar bil lisaan - testifying by the tongue.

3- Al ‘Amal al Jawaarih - practising willingly by the limbs

That is called Imaan. The inner and hidden part of it is the belief in the heart, while the outer Imaan is the testifying by the tongue and the practising by the limbs. Al Talazum between the inner and outer is the Imaan together.

Everything that you say or do is linked to your Imaan. Your Imaan will increase by the good deeds that you do and will be decreased by whatever sin you commit and it will be negated by any Kufr that you say or do or believe.

Imaan negates the Kufr, we do not say that Imaan negates Takdhib (the lie); rather Al Sidq negates the lie, whereas the Imaan is in opposition to the Kufr. So when someone says that I trust you or believe you, which means that it is in opposition to him lying.

Why has the Irjaa’ spread? In the past, people became Murji’ because they quoted the Hadith from Abu Hurairah that the prophet (saw) said,

“Allah ordered me to fight people until they say laa ilaaha illallah”

So they say that “that is enough.” And they quote that the prophet (saw) said,

“If you see that somebody testifies that laa ilaaha illallah and believes it in the heart, testify that they are in Jannah”

And so they say that “that is enough.” They claim that Imaan is just to trust or to say that you can testify by the tongue and that is enough. Some extreme Murji’ah will go further and take all matters that are a necessity for the Tawheed and they will leave them and cast them aside, e.g. ruling by whatever Allah revealed even though that is the meaning of the kalimah, “that there is none worthy to be worshipped, obeyed or followed except for Allah.”

They misunderstand certain things, their ‘scholars’ have certain confusing ways of quoting things, and they take Ahadith out of context, take evidences out of context. However, there are two ways to deal with the Murji’ah. If you want to expose the Murji’ah, you want to follow the evidences that they use, you will find that they do not use the entire ayah or Hadith, or they will take it out of context, or sometimes they will make judgement before they finish the Hadith or without to check other Ahadith. If they find other Ahadith that contradict them then they will not combine or outweigh between the Ahadith, rather they will accuse the other Hadith or they will hide it.

The second way to recognise them, is that they always refer to Da’eef or mawdou’ Hadith. That is because they never check Hadith, the ash’aris and maturidis do not check Ahadith and are not good at it at all. Some of them even say that they will take weak Ahadith or even fabricated Ahadith if it praises the prophet (saw), or that they take the weak Hadith in fadaa’il ul a’mal, and yet they will ignore the Saheeh Hadith if it disagrees with their madhhab.

Also, the Murji’ah will take a part of the Shari’ah without to attribute it to the general principle, they go to the fari’ and leave the Asl. They do not know how to attribute the branch to the root.

Also, another path that the Murji’ah have deviated by is that they distort the evidences and change the meaning; they always try to apply evidences to a reality that never existed. They do not verify the reality of the evidences; they do not trace the old reality nor verify the current reality. They will simply distort any ayah to suit them, e.g. they will quote “fulfil your contracts” and then say “therefore mortgages are allowed.” They take it out of its manaat. However Usuli scholars from Ahl Al Sunnah Wal Jama’ah always check the reality.

Sometimes the Murji’ah refer to a Hadith and will generalise it to everything, e.g. to say, the prophet (saw) said, “do not harm yourself ...” so “therefore you must vote otherwise you will harm yourself”! “Send children to Kufr school otherwise you will harm yourself”!

They will always innovate, the Murji’ah are very creative in making Bid’ah. They are expert innovators, especially those Sufis or brelwies or duobondis. Unfortunately, this disease has affected even the ‘islamists’ such that they hardly call any Taghout Kafir, they will leave them however much Kufr and shirk that they commit and delay it until the day of judgement.

Thirdly, we need to refer to what they stand for in order to expose them. They refer to Imaan as Tasdiq, but it is not so, the opposite of Imaan is Kufr, while the opposite of Tasdiq is Takdhib. They are not the same, Imam Shafi’i said,

“Imaan is ismun Shari’i (divine noun)”

The legislator used it to refer to a particular thing, which is:

“The totality of the sayings and actions that you believe in”

It is not a man-made name, it is the sayings, the actions and the convictions, we should know that if the Shari’ah defines a term, we do not follow the linguistic meaning and it is not allowed to go to the linguistic meaning unless we have no Shari’i meaning; so when they define the Imaan as Tasdiq, that is completely nonsense! Because the revelation mentioned it to indicate the totality of the sayings and actions that we believe in.

We need to study all the terms that the Qur’an mentions, e.g. the Zakat in Arabic means ‘investment’, but we cannot say that Zakat is investment, because it has a divine meaning in the Shari’ah with a particular nisaab, it has conditions and preventions, it has to be calculated in a particular way and paid to certain people, it is ismun Shari’i.

Similarly the Imaan was mentioned in the Qur’an, we cannot just go to the linguistic meaning. If we try to understand those terms linguistically, we will never do so. Firstly, because we will never have the same level of Arabic as the Sahabah and secondly because the Qur’an is not only another Arabic book. When we look to all the terms of the Qur’an, we must look to what it means, what are the circumstances of the revelation, the time, the place; we have to look to the understanding of the Sahabah. It is not the case we just go to all the linguistic people to find out what it all means, because we have the Shari’ah meaning.

The problem is that people go to the linguistic meaning and leave the Shari’ah meaning and that is why when we study Usul ul Fiqh, we always study both meanings. If the meaning is not found in the Shari’ah, then we will go to the linguistic meaning because the Qur’an happens to be in the Arabic language.

But we must restrict ourselves to the understanding of Al Salaf Al Saalih, who believed that,

“Imaan is a Shari’i name used by the legislator to indicate a particular thing, it combines the totality of the sayings and actions and the conviction...” [Kitab ul Imaan for ibn Taymiyyah]

Imam Shafi’i in Kitab ul Ilm said,

“Imaan is a Shari’ah term that indicates the sayings, actions and the conviction.”

Moreover, the Imaan does not mean Tasdiq, even linguistically. If someone said a thing to you, in Arabic you will say, “I trust you,” not “I believe in you.”

The word Imaan is opposite to Kufr not like Tasdiq which is opposite of Takdhib (the lie), the one who disbelieves we say he is Kafir; we do not say he is kaadhib. Similarly the one who says a lie we do not say that he is Kafir, we say he is a liar. This is very important, when we speak about Imaan and Tasdiq, we see they have the same meaning, but when they come together they have a different meaning. Similarly Al Imaan and Al Islam, they have the same meaning when mentioned apart, but when they meet they have different meanings, i.e. when mentioned alone in separate texts they will have the same meaning but when they are mentioned in the same text, they have differing meanings. Al Islam is Al Imaan and Al Imaan is Al Islam, they are to submit to Allah inner and outer. But when they come together they have different meanings like in the Hadith about Jibreel (as), when he came to Rasulullah and asked about Islam and Imaan, they came in the same text and have different meanings. Here the prophet (saw) spoke about Islam as the outer actions and the Imaan as the inner actions, Islam is to believe in Allah exclusively and to obey him and have Baraa from the Shirk and its people.

In the Hadith of Muslim, from Abu Huraira that the prophet (saw) said,

“Al Imaan is 70 and some branches, the highest is to say Laa ilaaha illallah (saying) and the lowest is to remove something harmful from the road (an action) and Hayaa’ is from the Imaan.”

So the Imaan is sayings and actions, hidden and apparent, and the Imaan increases and decreases. Allah (swt) says,

“They will have increase in their Imaan”

Umar narrated that when a man asked the prophet (saw) to tell him about Islam, the prophet (saw) said,

“’Al Islam is to worship Allah without to associate with him any partners, to fast Ramadhan, to make hajj to the house ...etc” [Muslim]

All this is included, anyone that is missing it is not Muslim, and it is not called Islam unless it has all of this. So the question is which linguistic meaning of the word can bring all this meaning? Which linguist would have answered similar to the prophet (saw) in this Hadith? So you cannot just follow the linguistic meaning of everything, you must refer to the Shari’ah exclusively.

From alghurabaa.co.uk