A hadith reports: “The Prophet of Islam forbade engaging in ghalutat” (Musnad Ahmad, Hadith No. 23687). Ghalutat refers to hypothetical or speculative issues that are formulated without any actual occurrence. In another hadith, the Prophet e said: “God dislikes for you three things: idle talk (qil wa qal), wasting wealth, and asking too many questions” (Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith No. 1477).
This teaching is full of wisdom. If this attitude does not remain among people, they will turn everything into a subject of debate and measure everything by the yardstick of dry rationalism. The result is that the real spirit of religion is lost, leaving nothing but verbal arguments over meaningless issues. God’s simple religion, after human additions, becomes a difficult and complicated system. The true spirit of religion lies in meaningful living, not in endless debate.
Consider an example. Once, someone asked a man, “Are you a Muslim?” He replied, “I am a believer, if God wills.” There was nothing to debate in this statement. But later, Muslim jurists (fuqaha) unnecessarily turned it into a subject of discussion. A debate began over whether such a reply was permissible or not. One group said it was permissible, because being a believer ultimately depends on God’s will. Another group said it was not permissible, because it suggests doubt about one’s faith.
Followers of the Shafi‘i school of fiqh held that saying “I am a believer, if God wills” is permissible. By contrast, followers of the Hanafi school of fiqh held that it is impermissible. As this debate intensified, a further question arose: would marriage between such people be valid or not? One group held that a Hanafi woman’s marriage to a Shafi‘i man would not be valid because he is considered to be in doubt about his faith. Others issued a ruling—by analogy with a protected non-Muslim woman—that the marriage would be valid (Irshad al-Naqqad by al-San‘ani, p. 21).
From this, one can see that once people fall into unnecessary debates, the path of the straight path is easily lost. (Al-Risala, January 1983)
