The Invalidity of Seeking a Means other than the Three Previously Mentioned
From all that has preceded it becomes clear that the lawful tawassul—established by the texts of the Quran and Sunnah, practiced by the righteous early generations, and unanimously accepted by the Muslims—is limited to the following:
1 Seeking a means through one of Allah’s names or one of His attributes.
2 Seeking a means through a righteous deed the supplicant himself has performed.
3 Seeking a means through the supplication of a righteous person.
Everything beyond these three forms is disputed. Our settled conviction—and the position by which we worship Allah—is that such tawassul is neither permissible nor legislated, for no proof exists that would make it binding. Leading scholars throughout successive Islamic centuries have rejected it, even though some eminent imams have allowed certain aspects of it: Imam Aḥmad, for example, permitted tawassul through the Messenger of Allah ﷺ alone, while others—such as Imam al-Shawkānī—extended that permission to him and to other prophets and the righteous. Yet we—as is our practice in all