PREFACE
I begin writing the book Endless Bliss in the name of Allah. Pitying all the people in this world, He creates and sends useful things to them. In the next world, favouring whomever He wishes of those Muslims who are to go to Hell by forgiving them, He will put them into Paradise. He, alone, creates every living creature, keeps every being every moment in existence, and protects all against fear and horror. Trusting myself to the honourable name of such a being as Allah, I begin to write this book.
Allâhu ta’âlâ has created everything, the living and the non-living, out of nothing. He alone is the Creator. Because He pities mankind very much, He creates and sends everything that is necessary for a comfortable, sweet and cheerful existence in this world and the next. As the most superior and valuable of His endless blessings, He has made distinctions for us between the way of truth leading to felicity and the way of falsehood, which brings about misery and sorrow. He has always commanded goodness, diligence, and helping others. He has declared that He will call all people to account following the rising after death, that those who do good deeds will live in endless happiness in Paradise, and that those who do not believe in the teachings of His prophets (’alaihimu’s-salâm) will remain in endless torment and pain in Hell. Therefore, we begin writing this work with the dhikr of His name and by trusting ourselves in His help. We also see it as an honourable duty upon us to express our gratitude and love for those superior men called “Prophets”, and especially, for the most superior of them, the Last Prophet, Muhammad (’alaihi’s-salâm), whom He has selected as an intermediary and messenger to guide human beings to the way of felicity and comfort.
Islam’s adversaries, who are against Islam as a result of sheer ignorance, learned from the bloody, dismal experiences they had had for centuries that unless their îmân was demolished, it would be impossible to demolish Muslim people. They attempted to mispresent Islam as hostile against knowledge, science and bravery, while, in fact, it is a protector encouraging every kind of progress and improvement. They aimed at depriving younger generations of knowledge and faith, thus shooting them on the moral front. They spent millions of sterlings for this purpose. Some ignorant people, whose weapons of knowledge and belief had been rusted and who had been seized by their ambitions and sensuous desires, were easily undermined by these attacks of the enemies. A part of them took shelter behind their etiquettes, pretended to be Muslims, disguised themselves as scientists, authorities and religious savants and even, protectors of Muslims, and embarked on stealing the belief of pure youngsters. They misrepresented evil as a talent, and irreligiousness as a virtue, a mode. Those who had faith (îmân), were called fanatics, retrogressive bigots. Religious knowledge, valuable books of Islam were said to be reactionary, retrogressive and bigoted. By imputing the immorality and ignominy, which is their own characteristic, to Muslims and to great men of Islam, they strove to slander those noble people and sow discord between children and fathers. Also, they spoke ill of our history, attempted to darken its shining and honourable pages, to blemish the pure writings, to change the events and proofs in it, to sever the youth from faith and belief, and to annihilate Islam and Muslims. In order to untie the sacred bond which placed into the young hearts the love of our ancestors, whose fame and honour had spread all over the world owing to their knowledge, science, beautiful morals, virtue and bravery, and to leave the youth deprived of and estranged from the maturity and greatness of their ancestors, they attacked hearts, souls and conscience. However, they did not realize that as Islam got weaker and as we got further away from the path of Messenger of Allah, not only were our morals corrupted, but we also gradually lost our superiority in making every kind of means, and in the modern knowledge which the century necessitated, and we, let alone maintaining any more the accomplishments of our ancestors in militarism, in science and arts, became worse. Thus, these masked disbelievers tried, on the one hand, to cause us to remain behind in knowledge and science, and on the other hand they said, “Islam causes us to remain behind. In order to cope up with the western industries, we have to abolish this black curtain and get rid of the oriental religion, the laws of deserts.” Consequently, they demolished our material and spiritual values and did our country the harm which the enemies from outside had been wishing, but not been able, to do for centuries.
He who wants to attain happiness in this world, in his grave, and in the Hereafter must, after adapting his îmân to the Ahl-as-sunnat, live in obedience to one of the four Madhhabs. In other words, all his worships and actions must be suited to one Madhhab. Of the four Madhhabs, he must choose the one that is the easiest for him to learn and follow; after learning it, he must act in accordance with it in everything he does. The savants of the Ahl-as-sunnat declared unanimously that when doing a certain thing, it is not permissible to mix the four Madhabbs with one another. That is, it is never permissible to do one part of something or a worship according to one Madhhab and another part according to another Madhhab. If one does so, one will have disobeyed the unanimity of the savants and will have followed none of the Madhhabs. To follow one Madhhab means to learn it and to intend to follow it. It is not acceptable to follow it without the intention.
A person who does not follow a Madhhab is called a lâ-madhhabî. A lâ-madhhabî person cannot be Ahl-as-sunnat. His worships are not sahîh (correct, valid). It is harâm to change one’s Madhhab for worldly advantages in order to get the desires of one’s nafs (lower self). Each Muslim must learn at least one Madhhab and do all his deeds accordingly.
May Allahu ta’âlâ protect us all from being deceived by the insidious enemies of Islam, from being trapped by lâ-madhhabî people, or by religion reformers who bear Muslim names! Âmîn.
Mîlâdî - Hijrî Shamsî - Hijrî Kamarî
1998 – 1376 - 1418