Why Is Our Focus So Much On Tawhid?

📚 The eminent jurist, Shaykh Dr. Ṣāliḥ al-Fawzān (may Allah preserve him), said:

 “Someone may say—and this has indeed been said—why is it that you always focus on Tawḥīd and speak so much about it, and you do not address the present issues of the Muslims, who are being killed and displaced across the land, and whom the disbelieving nations pursue everywhere?”

Then he said (may Allah preserve him):

 “We do not neglect the issues of the Muslims; rather, we care about them, support them, and try by every means to ward off harm from them. It is not easy for us to see Muslims being killed and displaced. However, caring about the issues of the Muslims does not mean that we merely cry and pretend to cry, filling the world with talk, writing, shouting, and wailing—for this achieves nothing.”

 “Rather, the correct treatment of the Muslims’ problems is to first search for the causes that led to these punishments befalling the Muslims and to the enemy being given power over them.”

What is the reason for the enemies having power over the Muslims?

 “When we look at the Islamic world, we do not find among most of those who ascribe themselves to Islam true adherence to Islam—except whom Allah has mercy upon. Rather, they are Muslims in name only.”

 “For the creed, in the case of most of them, has been lost: they worship others besides Allah; they attach themselves to saints, righteous people, graves, and shrines; they do not establish the prayer, nor give zakāh, nor fast, nor carry out what Allah has made obligatory upon them—including preparing strength for jihād against the disbelievers. This is the condition of many who ascribe themselves to Islam: they have neglected their religion…”

 “So Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, abandoned them.”

 “And among the most important reasons that brought these punishments upon them is their neglect of Tawḥīd…”

  “And their falling into major shirk, without forbidding it or condemning it.”

 “Whoever among them does not commit it does not denounce it; rather, he does not even consider it shirk.”

  “These, then, are among the most important reasons that have caused these punishments to befall the Muslims. Had they held fast to their religion, established their Tawḥīd, grounded their creed upon the Qur’an and the Sunnah, and held firmly together to the rope of Allah without division, what has befallen them would not have occurred. Allah, the Exalted, says:

‘And Allah will surely support those who support Him. Indeed, Allah is Powerful and Mighty.’”

📙 Lessons from the Qur’an — Shaykh Ṣāliḥ al-Fawzān, p. 4