The Da’wah To Islam by Sheikh Ahmad Mahmoud

What is the Shar’ee method that the group must follow in order to achieve the Shar’ee objective?

What are the Shar’ee rules that the group needs to adopt so as to realise this objective?

What are the Shar’ee criteria and principles that determine the understanding of the group regarding the great number of Shar’ee rules necessary to embark in the da’wah on their basis?

How does the group deal with the Shar’ee rule? How does it arrive at the Shar’ee rule? What are its sources? Does the group take the view that there is more than one hukm of Allah 􀀬 regarding a single issue? What is the group’s stance regarding Shar’ee rules about which there is ikhtilaaf (disagreement)?

How does the group deal with the issue of the mind and what is its role in adopting the Shar’ee rule and in taking the ‘Aqeedah?

How does it deal with the reality? Does the group make it the source of its thinking or the subject of its thinking?

How does it deal with the question of benefit (maslahah), and is it defined by the mind or the Shar’a?

Afterwards, once we have defined the objective of the group, its work, method, and way of thinking, then we will know what the group must undertake and be established upon. After that we will know what advice (naseehah) we have to give if it diverged, and to rectify it if it deviated.

Before we discus the Shar’ee method the group must follow, we must remind ourselves of a principle regarding which no one is allowed to be ignorant. It is the fact that the Shar’a did not leave a single matter of this life or the Hereafter, or matters regarding good or bad, whether small or big, which concern man, except that it has spoken about it and elucidated its rule. Thus, the Muslim whether he wears or takes off his clothes, enters the house or mosque or exits from them, deals with others, gets married, prays, fasts, speaks of or undertakes any action; Allah 􀀬 has clarified the manner in which he should do this and He 􀀬 has clarified its rule, whether it is a command he is obliged to undertake, or a prohibition he must abstain from, or it is a recommended action that he preferably does, or it is disliked so he detests it, or it is mubah (permitted)

where he is given a choice. These rules are for all man’s actions, to whose limits the Muslim must be confined. What is said regarding actions is said regarding things, but with a different elaboration. Which is that all tangible things are permitted, except what the Shar’ee rule has excluded.

Hence, there is no action or a thing save Allah 􀀬 has revealed for it a rule.

This is following the two Shar’ee principles; “The basis in actions is that they should be restricted to the Sharee’ah’ rule” (al aslu fil af ’aal at taqayyud bil hukm ash-Shar’ee), and “The basis in things is that they are permitted as long as there is no evidence of prohibition” (al aslu fil ashyaa al ibaaha ma lam yarid daleelut tahreem).