In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. The life of the salaf between speech and action.
The position of the salaf regarding faith.
It is belief, speech, and action.
It increases and decreases.
On the authority of Jundub ibn ‘Abdullah al-Bajali, may Allah be pleased with him, who said:
We were with the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him,
while we were young, sturdy youths.
We learned faith before we learned the Qur’an.
Then we learned the Qur’an, and through it, our faith increased.
On the authority of ‘Ubayd ibn ‘Umayr al-Laythi, may Allah have mercy on him, who said:
Faith is not mere wishful thinking.
Rather, faith is a conviction held in the heart and an action performed.
On the authority of Sufyan ibn ‘Uyaynah, may Allah have mercy on him, who said more than once:
Faith is speech and action.
He said:
We took it from those before us: it is speech and action.
And there is no speech except through action.
Ibn ‘Uyaynah was asked: Does it increase and decrease?
He said:
What else could it be?
It was also said to him, may Allah have mercy on him:
Does faith increase and decrease?
He said:
Do you not recite the Qur’an?
It says: "And it increased them in faith," in more than one place.
It was said:
Does it decrease?
He said:
There is nothing that increases except that it also decreases.
Al-Awza‘i, may Allah have mercy on him, said:
Those who passed before us from our salaf did not differentiate between faith and action.
Action is part of faith.
And faith is part of action.
Yahya ibn Sa‘id al-Qattan, may Allah have mercy on him, said:
The Imams I encountered used to say:
Faith is speech and action.
It increases and decreases.
The position of the salaf regarding the Divine Decree (Qadar).
On the authority of ‘Abdullah ibn Fayruz, may Allah have mercy on him, who said:
Something occurred in my mind regarding this Qadar.
I feared it would corrupt my religion and my affairs.
So I went to Ubayy ibn Ka‘b and said:
O Abu al-Mundhir!
Something has occurred in my mind regarding this Qadar.
I fear for my religion and my affairs.
So tell me something about it,
perhaps Allah will benefit me through it.
He said:
If Allah were to punish the inhabitants of His heavens and His earth,
He would punish them while not being unjust to them.
And if He were to have mercy on them, His mercy would be better for them than their own deeds.
Even if you had a mountain of gold like Uhud,
or the equivalent of Mount Uhud,
and you spent it in the way of Allah,
it would not be accepted from you until you believe in Qadar.
You must know that what has befallen you could not have missed you,
and what has missed you could not have befallen you.
And if you were to die believing otherwise, you would enter the Fire.
It would not hurt you to go to my brother ‘Abdullah ibn Mas‘ud and ask him.
So I went to ‘Abdullah,
and I asked him.
He mentioned the same as what Ubayy had said.
He said to me:
It would not hurt you to go to Hudhayfah.
So I went to Hudhayfah,
and I asked him.
He said the same as what he had said.
And he said:
Go to Zayd ibn Thabit and ask him.
So I went to Zayd ibn Thabit,
and I asked him.
He said:
I heard the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, say:
If Allah were to punish the inhabitants of His heavens and His earth,
He would punish them while not being unjust to them.
And if He were to have mercy on them,
His mercy would be better for them than their own deeds.
Even if you had gold like Uhud,
or the equivalent of Mount Uhud in gold,
and you spent it in the way of Allah,
He would not accept it from you until you believe in Qadar.
You must know that what has befallen you could not have missed you,
and what has missed you could not have befallen you.
And if you were to die believing otherwise, you would enter the Fire.
It was said to Salman al-Farisi, may Allah be pleased with him:
What is the statement of the people regarding believing in Qadar, its good and its evil?
He said:
When you believe in Qadar,
you know that what has missed you could not have befallen you,
and what has befallen you could not have missed you.
And you do not say:
"If I had done such and such, then such and such would have happened,"
or "If I had not done such and such,
then such and such would not have happened."
‘Ubadah ibn al-Samit, may Allah be pleased with him, said
to his son when death approached him:
O my son,
I advise you to have taqwa of Allah, the Almighty and Majestic.
And know that you will never have taqwa of Allah
until you believe in Allah.
And know that you will never believe in Allah,
nor will you taste the reality of faith,
nor will you reach the essence of knowledge,
until you believe in Qadar in its entirety,
its good and its evil.
He said to him: O my father,
how can I believe in Qadar in its entirety, its good and its evil?
He said:
Know that what has befallen you could not have missed you,
and what has missed you could not have befallen you.
O my son,
I heard the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, say:
The first thing Allah created was the Pen.
He said:
"Write."
It said:
"What shall I write, O Lord?"
He said:
"Write the Qadar."
So the Pen flowed at that very moment with what had been,
and what will be until eternity.
On the authority of Ibn ‘Umar, may Allah be pleased with them both,
that he was asked about Qadar,
and he said:
It is something Allah the Almighty willed not to disclose to you.
So do not seek from Allah the Almighty what He has withheld from you.
Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn al-Husayn al-Ajurri, may Allah have mercy on him, said,
commenting on this report:
This is the meaning of what ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, may Allah have mercy on him, said
in his letter to the people of Qadar.
His statement:
"If you say:
'Allah has said in His Book such and such,'
it is said to them:
They have read from it—
meaning the Companions—
what you have read,
and they understood from its interpretation what you are ignorant of.
Then they said after all of that:
Everything is by Book and Qadar,
and the writing of wretchedness.
What is decreed will be,
and what He willed has come to pass,
and what He did not will has not come to pass.
We possess no power to harm or benefit ourselves.
Then, after that, they sought His favor and feared Him.
And peace."
On the authority of Ibn ‘Abbas, may Allah be pleased with them both, that he said:
Everything is by Qadar,
even your placing your hand upon your cheek.
On the authority of Muhammad ibn Sirin, may Allah have mercy on him, that he said:
How can a people deny that Allah, the Almighty and Majestic, knew something and then wrote it down?
On the authority of Iyas ibn Mu‘awiyah, may Allah have mercy on him, who said:
I have never debated with all my intellect against the people of innovation except for the people of Qadar.
I said:
Tell me, what is injustice in the language of the Arabs?
They said:
That a man takes what is not his.
I said:
But everything belongs to Allah.
Some of them said:
A weak-minded person wastes his opportunity,
and when the matter passes, he blames the Qadar.
It was said to Muhammad ibn Wasi‘, may Allah have mercy on him:
What do you say about the Divine Decree and Qadar?
He said:
Allah, the Almighty and Majestic, will not ask His servants on the Day of Resurrection about His decree and His Qadar.
He will only ask them about their deeds.
On the authority of al-Hasan al-Basri, may Allah have mercy on him, who said:
Whoever denies Qadar has committed kufr.