We will expound upon the Straight Path in a succinct manner for the people have explained it in various ways all of them revolving around one essential fact. The Straight Path is the path of Allāh which He has put in place to lead mankind to Him; there is no path to Him other than this one which He appointed upon the tongues of His Messengers. It is to single Him out alone for worship and to single out His Messengers alone for obedience. Therefore none should commit shirk in His worship just as none should commit shirk in the following of His Messenger (sall Allāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam); one should purify his tawḥīd and purify his following of the Messenger (sall Allāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam), this is the full import of the testification that, ‘None has the right to be worshipped save Allāh and Muḥammad is the Messenger of Allāh.’
All of the various explanations given to the Straight Path fall under these two principles; you must love Him with all your heart, you must try to please Him to the utmost of your ability; there should not be any area of your heart except that it is overflowing with love of Him and you should have no desire except to please Him.
The first point is realised through actualising, ‘None has the right to be worshipped save Allāh’ and the second point is realised through actualising, ‘Muāammad is the Messenger of Allāh.’ This is guidance and the religion of truth, this is knowing the truth and acting upon it, this in turn is knowing what He sent His Messenger with and living by it. All definitions revolve around this essential concept.
Sahl b. ʿAbdullāh said,
‘Stick to the narrations and Sunnah for I fear that soon will come a time that when the Prophet (sall Allāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam) and the importance of following him in everything is mentioned, the people would censure the person who says this, cause others to flee from him, disassociate themselves from him, humiliate him and disgrace him.‘[1]
Al-Tirmidhi records on the authority of Nawwas b. Sam`an that the Messenger of Allāh (sall Allāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam) said,
‘Allāh has set forth the following as a parable: there is a road that leads straight to the destination. On either side of the road there is a wall in which there are open doors with curtains hanging on them. From the remote end of the road, a voice calls, ‘Proceed straight and do not turn aside.’ Whenever someone intends to lift a curtain from the door another voice calls from above, ‘Beware! Do not lift the curtain, otherwise you will be lured inside.’
The Prophet (sall Allāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam) explained the parable by saying that the straight path is Islām, the walls are the limits imposed by Allāh, the open doors are the things that he has prohibited, the voice which calls from the end of the road is the Qur’ān and the voice which calls from above is Allāh’s monitor in the heart of every believer.
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Notes: By Ibn al-Qayyim. Translated by Abu Rumaysah
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[1] Cited in ʿAbdu’l-Raḥmān ʿAlī al-Shaykh, Fath al-Majid Sharh Kitab al-Tawhid, pg. 24 who summarised this from Ibn al-Qayyim, Bada`i al-Fawa´id, vol. 1, pp. 280+
This is Truth
As Salaamu Alaikum,
As Salaamu Alaikum
May He the Almighty Mighty One, bless the Seal and Perfect Exemplar of Humanity, Rasullallah, Muhammad Mustapha (SAWS), the Mothers of the Believers, and his Noble Companions and his Progeny . And May Allah Subhana, the Everlasting Omnipotent Merciful One bless this protect this Ummah and defend its guardians on the frontier and comport the true in faith to everlasting bliss. Ameen!
Alhamdulillah, I find that this article encapsulates our journey to our Lord and Cherisher, Allah in simple speech that is thought provoking. The hadith mentioned above regarding how the true in faith will be regarded in the latter days and we are truly witnessing that, as our own brothers and sisters struggle to embrace empty political principles such as democracy and freedom in contradistinction to that which is prescribed in al Quran and Sunnah as the medicine for all of the ills that humanity faces.