Well, in fact, this question covers the whole gamut of life, complete. There is nothing left out of one’s life which is not covered by this question. Because in a nutshell, the religion is one unity of Allah. That is in a nutshell. The prophethood is also sometimes eliminated from the central point of religion. So, Anwar sallallahu alaihi wa sallam once said, man kaala laa ilaha illa zahra jannah and he didn’t mention Muhammadun Rasulullah along with it. He himself said it. And Hazrat Abu Huraira started declaring it and announcing it openly. And it was Hazrat Umar who caught him and brought him back.
And first of all, he doubted whether the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam had said it at all or not. And when Hazrat Abu Huraira sallallahu alaihi wa sallam confirmed that, yes, I said it. And he said, people would misunderstand. So please, withdraw your permission. So he did. So that proves the point that the pivotal point of every religion, the very fundamental, is Tawhid or the unity of God. And from this springs everything. So the negation of this also covers everything. Because wherever a positive value is found, its negative value is to be discussed. That means that everywhere the negative value will be discussed wherever there is a positive value.
So this is why I said your question covers the entire life. Everything. And you want me to answer it in how many minutes? Five minutes? No, no, but whatever I say, in whatever form, wherever, all belongs to this question in fact. But to be brief, I think I better explain what Hazrat Khalifatul Masih I r.a. meant by saying that there are two types of idolatries or calling partners with Allah. One is Itikadi and the other is Amali. One is in belief and the other is in practice.
So he also meant the same thing by this. That unity also covers the views and doctrines. So the negation of unity covers the views and doctrines. Unity covers all the actions of humans, all the human actions. So the negation of unity also covers all the human actions. So what happens is that in belief and in views, we find many persons who believe in unity practically deviating from it in many aspects. And at the same time that he claims to be believing in one God, he creates other Gods. The Holy Qur’an tells us this phenomenon by saying, What are the words? Are these the words? Well, check up. I thought Hafiz Sahib would be here. He’s not here today. There are persons or a person can be like this. That he makes his desire his God.
So that is what I meant when I said that the calling partners by Allah is not just saying that so and so is God. But in views and one’s views and one’s attitude to life, one can become an idolater by worshipping his desires. So much so that whenever his desire clashes with the concept of Allah, he prefers the desire and sacrifices that aspect of the concept of Allah which comes into clash with his desire. So among the Unitarians, those who believe in the unity of God, you will find many an idolater in practical life. And this is just one small illustration.
In fact, to be truly Mawahid, that is to believe in one God in complete detail is a very, very difficult thing. Very few people are blessed by Allah who can truly claim to be Mawahidin, that is the believers in the unity of Allah in this sense. Somehow, somewhere they falter and in their imaginations, in their pursuits of life, in the goals they set for themselves, there is some mingling of an untrue God, an imaginary God, which they either make a partner with Allah or worship him alone without ever realising that they are doing it. So that is, if the deeper it sinks and more delicate it becomes, it turns from shirk-e-jali to shirk-e-khafi. This is again a terminology. Shirk-e-jali is called that shirk which one consciously believes in.
If somebody knows that this is Allah and this is my God, whether it is an imaginary God or his desire or whatever it is, if he knows it clearly and consciously, that is called shirk-e-jali. If he closes his eyes and lets something sink below him so that he cannot notice conveniently for himself, that shirk turns into shirk-e-khafi. And sometimes this is done with a criminal intent and sometimes unconsciously and inadvertently this happens. So that is the shirk of views which Hazrat Khalifatul Masih I referred to in that sentence. And the shirk of act is when you translate these views into your actions and commit sins. Every sin that you commit is in reality a type of idolatry. You ignore the injunction of God and act according to your own desire.
So there you prove that the desire was your God in fact and you have listened to the voice of desire and acted upon it. So Allah so graciously has ignored this shirk and does not call it a shirk because shirk or calling partners of Allah is such a big crime that Allah says I will not forgive it. So these are in ordinary terms called sins. Errors, mistakes. But if you deeply analyse you will come to the conclusion that every sin be it big or small in fact emanates from idolatry. And because it is for the human to err and they are weak and sometimes they know things and yet cannot do it know the goodness and the righteousness of things and yet they fail to perform them.
So this is why Allah has so graciously made a division between sins and idolatry. Idolatry in the views and according to the Holy Quran’s teachings does not extend to practice unless it be a practice of worship itself to a God other than Allah. So when Sufis or some saints say that idolatry in fact applies to every action in essence it is true but according to the terminology of Islam it is extending it too far. But in reality it is true, there is no doubt about it. This is why Prophet Muhammad said which meant that whoever believes in the unity of God truly in essence and practices that unity he would positively enter Jannah because if somebody truly believes in God he cannot sin cannot commit sin, it is impossible. In the view of the explanation which I have just made goodness and belief in unity become one and the same thing if the belief is true and deep and real.
So that is what Prophet Muhammad meant and that is what was missed by Hazrat Abu Huraira and that is what Hazrat Umar feared that ordinary people would not understand with the result that they would continue or in fact they would be encouraged to commit sins of every type and say just we have said La ilaha illallah and that is enough. So that is enough for the time.
