The following is the translation of an Arabic article.
It is therefore obligatory upon the individuals
of any group to listen to others with open minds and hearts. Wisdom is the
guide of the Muslim and he acquires it wherever he can find it. In addition to
that, the reality of listening to others is that it keeps you within the
picture and aware of the situation or condition of the Ummah whom these
individuals are working amongst. Just as it makes them aware of their own
situation or condition. If they were to refuse to listen that would then place
them in one valley whilst their Ummah is in another, whilst they weave from
their imaginations images or perceptions which they subsist upon although they
have no real existence within the reality.
Sheikh Abu Islam Yusuf Shaqeero, Palestine
An examination of the issue of listening
The need to examine the issue of listening has arisen because
it has become known that some of the groups have distributed general
instructions to their members not to discuss with certain people or to not
discuss specific topics with the people etc. Is this action of theirs Halaal or
Haraam?
The correct
view is that this action of there is Haraam and cannot possibly be permissible
under any circumstances. That is because in respect to every Shar’iy obligatory
matter, its obligation is established only by the Daleel Ash-Shar’iy, except
for listening because its obligation is established by the ‘Aql (mind) and the
Shar’a. That is because if listening was not an obligation by the ‘Aql (mind or
rationally), then the one who is called to Islaam and rejects or refuses to
listen will meet Allah without sin. That is not correct and theoretically, in
the least, that would make the messages of the Prophets a matter which hold no
value, whilst the corruption of such a conclusion is an obviously known matter.
Allah
Ta’Aalaa said:
وَإِنِّي كُلَّمَا دَعَوْتُهُمْ
لِتَغْفِرَ لَهُمْ جَعَلُوا أَصَابِعَهُمْ فِي آذَانِهِمْ وَاسْتَغْشَوْا
ثِيَابَهُمْ وَأَصَرُّوا وَاسْتَكْبَرُوا اسْتِكْبَارًا
And indeed, every time I invited them that You
may forgive them, they put their fingers in their ears, covered themselves with
their garments, persisted, and were arrogant with [great] arrogance (Nooh: 7).
Allah
Ta’Aalaa has therefore reproached those who refused to listen to Sayyidinaa
Nooh (‘Alaihi s-Salaam) and rebuked them for that. Similar to the people of
Nooh is applied upon anyone who rejects or refuses to listen to any of the
Prophets and there is no doubt that he is reprehensible before Allah Ta’Aalaa.
Therefore, anyone who is called to good must listen to him and then if he is
convinced he must follow him (in what he has said) and if he is not convinced
them he leaves it.
However,
when the person is a Muslim, and is called to that which is better than he is
upon or more correct, he must listen and it is not Halaal for him to turn away
in opposition, because that leads to making the matter of examining or
searching for the strongest evidence hold no value, whilst nobody has said
that. Therefore, whoever was a Muqallid (follower) of a Hukm Shar’iy derived
from a particular Mujtahid and then a particular person from the people found
fault in the opinion of the Mujtahid that he was following, he must listen to
him, due to the possibility that the evidence that he has is stronger than the
evidence he is upon or basing his following upon.
What
some of the groups do in terms of forbidding its individuals from discussing
with some of the people or discussing some subject areas, represents a matter
which is not correct and they have no right to do that. If their action was
permissible, then it would only be just to say that if any individual from the
people said to them that they did not want to listen to them, he would have the
right to do that, and that this is not condemnable in any way before Allah.
That would mean, even if it was hypothetical, that the existence of these groups
would hold no value and their commanding of the Ma’roof and forbidding of the
Munkar would also hold no value.
That is
whilst the groups themselves which distribute these general instructions
related to this type of matter don’t say that. Rather, they regard it as
obligatory upon the individual from the people to listen to them and what they
carry in terms of good. Therefore, as they make it obligatory upon the people
to listen to what they carry in terms of good, they don’t have the right
themselves to not listen to others. If they were to do that, it would represent
a matter that has no fairness in it, indeed it represents the very meaning of
injustice or unfairness.
Sheikh Abu Islam Yusuf Shaqeero, Palestine
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