79 — The Danger of Callers to Falsehood and Leaders of Misguidance

The evidence is overwhelming, and numerous texts in the Quran and Sunnah demonstrate that directing supplication to anyone other than Allah is forbidden, that it is a form of shirk that takes a person outside the fold of Islam, and that supplication may be directed only to the One in whose hand lie withholding and granting, lowering and raising, and constricting and expanding. Allah has no partner in any of this. Allah, Most High, says:

“Who responds to the distressed when he calls upon Him, removes evil, and makes you successors upon the earth? Is there a god alongside Allah? Little do you take heed.”1

And He, Most High, says:

“Whatever mercy Allah opens up for people, none can withhold; and whatever He withholds, none can release thereafter.”2

And He, Most High, says:

“Do not invoke besides Allah what can neither benefit nor harm you. If you do so, you will then be among the wrongdoers. If Allah touches you with harm, none can remove it except Him; and if He intends good for you, none can repel His bounty. He bestows it upon whomever He wills of His servants, and He is the All-Forgiving, the Most Merciful.”3

How, then, can it be fitting for a human being—or acceptable from any rational person—that Allah created him, yet he calls upon another; that Allah provides for him, yet he asks someone else; and that Allah gives to him, yet he turns to another? Every being invoked besides Allah has no power to grant or withhold, benefit or harm. Allah, Most High, says:

“Say: Invoke those whom you claim besides Him. They have no power to remove your affliction or shift it elsewhere.”4

And He says