Sufi’s Mystical Interpretation: The Apparent Meaning of the Quran & Sunnah Will Never be Denied, By Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi
Compiled By: Mufti Umar Anwar Badkhshani
It is important to know that denying the apparent meaning of the Quran and Hadith is absolute disbelief. The authentic research scholars (muhaqqiqin) accepts the apparent and also investigate its hidden meaning. For instance, it is mentioned in Hadith:
لا تدخل الملائكة بيتا فيه كلب و لا تصاوير
“Angels of mercy don’t enter a house where there is a dog”.
On the basis of this Hadith, the scholars of Externalism (Zahiriyah) believes that keeping a dog is prohibited but they do not refrain themselves by accumulating dog-like qualities in their hearts. But if they have iman in their hearts regardless of its quantity they will eventually go to paradise.
on the other hand, the Mystical people allowed the breeding of dog and by claiming that Shariah scholars misunderstood the meaning of the hadith, they themselves fabricated and new understanding, in which they stated that in this hadith the ‘house’ means heart, and the ‘angels’ means unseen grace and blessings, and ‘dog’ means dog-like virtues. Therefore, by denying the Shari’ah, these people became infidels and deserved hell.
The authentic research scholars (muhaqqiqin) stated that the real meaning of the hadith is what is apparent and understood by scholars of externalism, but the question should be considered why the angels of mercy hate and distance themselves from dogs?
In fact, dogs have some very bad traits which keep the angels of mercy away from them. dogs are unclean and impure, and of course, they also have inhuman cruel animal traits. When it is not permissible to keep a dog in one’s own house, then how can it be permissible to have qualities of dog in his heart?
The authentic research scholars (muhaqqiqin) combined the opinions of both sides. they prohibited keeping a dog in the house as this is apparent in the hadeeth, and they forbade keeping dog-like evil traits in the heart because Hadith also indicates this.
Source: Talimud deen, By Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi
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