Question: What
is your answer to the permissibility of Wasilah (seeking a means)
in Islam? Is there anything from the Qur’an that supports it? In
particular, 5:35 mentions the word Wasilah.
Answer: There
is no concept of Wasilah in Islam. The Qur’an tells the believers
to ask directly from the Almighty:
When my servants ask you [O Prophet!] concerning Me;
I am indeed close to them. I listen to the prayer of every supplicant when
he calls on Me. (2:186)
The Qur’an does not accept the
existence of any intermediary between a person and his Allah. In fact,
in several surahs, it has severely reprimanded the idolaters of
Makkah who used to regard the angels as the daughters of Allah and
held that these angels would mediate and intercede for them on the Day
of Judgement. For example, consider these verses of Surah Najm:
Have you ever pondered over the reality of this Lat
and this ‘Uzza and this third Manat, which is next in
rank below them? [You consider them as the daughters of Allah, whereas
it is not befitting to ascribe either sons or daughters to Him. But just
reflect on your own foolishness:] For your own selves you like sons and
for Him daughters! This indeed is a division unjust! [Nay, they have no
basis]. They are but names which you and your fathers have invented in
whose favour the Almighty has revealed no warrant. [Woe be to their foolishness.]
They follow vain conjectures and the whims of their own souls, even though
there has already come to them a manifest guidance from their Lord
[Let them desire what they want], but will man attain
all that he desires? [No, certainly not! The Almighty shall not alter his
law for anyone] Therefore, they should remember that this world and the
Hereafter are under the control of Allah. And [not to mention these deities],
how many angels are there in the heavens whose intercession shall avail
nothing until the Almighty gives permission to whom He wants and for whom
He chooses. Those who do not believe in the Hereafter call the angels by
the names of females. Yet of this they have no knowledge; They follow merely
conjecture and conjecture can never take the place of truth. Therefore,
[O Prophet!] turn away from those who turn away from Our Reminder [the
Qur’an] and seek only the life of this world. This is the farthest
limit of their knowledge. [O Prophet ! leave them to themselves. They shall
soon be nabbed and summoned]. Your Lord best knows those who have strayed
from His path and those who are rightly guided. (53:19-30)
As far as the 5:35 is concerned, you are
right that it does mention the word Wasilah. However, whenever one
interprets a Qur’anic verse, one must not forget that it is set
in the most eloquent Arabic idiom, which must be understood keeping in
view some universal principles of linguistics. All meanings which betray
the denotions and connotations of the word they are attributed to are redundant
and have no place in the world of interpretation. It is no less than injustice
to the Qur’an to attribute to its words those meanings which have
no basis in the Arabic language at all. The word Wasilah in Arabic
has a different meaning from the one in Urdu. Some people translate it
while keeping in mind the Urdu meaning. In Arabic it means ‘nearness’.
The correct translation of 5:35, keeping in view this explanation, is:
O you who believe, seek the nearness of Allah only
and strive in his way that you may attain salvation. (5:35)
The context of the verse shows that Muslims
have been directed to leave aside all other supports and depend only on
Allah -- the best way for this being to follow the Shari‘ah revealed
by Him.
So you must remember that the same
in word in two languages can have different meanings. In fact, it is by
not being aware of this fact that some people ascribe the Urdu meaning
of a word to its counterpart in Arabic, and in this way end up wrongly
interpreting a word. For example, the word Jannah in Urdu means
‘paradise’. However, in Arabic, as an indefinite noun, it means an ‘orchard’.
Similarly, the word ‘Makr’ in Arabic means ‘a secret plan’, while
in Urdu it means ‘an evil scheme’. So one must be careful in this matter.
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