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The issue of Du'ā' by Gaspard Tessier:
The issue of Du'ā' by Gaspard Tessier:
I was responding to three types of arguments used to justify takfeer on this issue. I know the most basic argument is a syllogism of the type:
1-Du'a is a form of worship
2-Calling a dead or an absent is a dua
3-Therefore if you have called an absent or a dead you have directed ibada to other than Allah and are a mushrik.
The problem is that linguistically a du'a is any request directed to anyone whether dead or alive. The arab linguist Ibn Sidah defined du'a as: Talab al-f'il min al ghayr. So unless you believe that any request directed to anyone dead or alive, able or unable is ibadah then you have nullified your logical argument.
In that case you have admitted that some du'a is worship and some of it isn't. If you changed your syllogism accordingly your claim would look like:
1-Some du'a is worship
2-Calling upon the dead or absent is part of this form of du'a
3-Therefore if you have called an absent or a dead you have directed ibada to other than Allah and are a mushrik.
But for this syllogism to work you need to prove your point and not simply claim it. Merely claiming something is not to prove it.
As for the hadith of Al-Nu'man ibn Basheer about du'a being an ibadah, it adds nothing to your point whether it is weak, authentic or muttawatir. The statement was made, according to many commentators like Al-Khattabi, by the Prophet ﷺ( to explain that du'a directed to Allah is the greatest form of worship. It is like the hadith Hajj is Arafah, meaning that Arafah is the greatest part of Hajj.
This reality does not prove your point. The hadith is not intended to mean that all du'a in the linguistic sense is ibadah. It only means that all du'a directed to Allah is ibadah. Since we know that some du'a are not ibadah (like when we request things from each other) we need an additional proof to show that asking the dead or the absent is a type of du'a which is an ibadah.
Now as for your claim that du'a is worship when directed to something empirically absent. Where is your proof either from the qur'an, the sunnah, or the arabic language. The mushrikeen in the qur'an did not simply direct their du'a to empirically absent entities. They directed their du'as to empirically absent entities they believed to be gods, children of God, intercessors who could intercede without Allah's will and permission, and in some cases like the jinns and the stars to creatures who could harm and protect them without Allah's permission. Had they directed these du'as to living and present individuals they would still have considered mushrikin and their du'as shirks. All this proves that absence or death is not the main defining factors of their kufr.
I would also add that Prophet rebuked a sahabi for calling Allah too loudly and said to him that he was not calling an absent or a deaf. Yet you have made empirical absence one of the defining factors of du'a to Allah being an ibadah.
Returning to the hadith of du'a being an ibadah. We can take this hadith and do three things:
1-We say the hadith means that every type of du'a is worship and start making takfeer of people for name calling or for requesting the most mundane things among themselves.
2-We say the hadith means that ever type of du'a is an ibadah, then admit exceptions like among the living and act as if this did not severely damage our argument that every form of du'a is worship.
3-We say the hadith means that du'a directed to Allah is worship and then say this proves that if one asks other than Allah like one asks Allah then he has committed shirk. In other words that for du'a to be shirk one must ascribe something specific to Allah's Essence, Attributes, Status or Actions to other than Allah. If not it is not shirk as mere du'a is not always an ibadah and hence requires an additionnal condition.
We have proof the first possibility is false. We have proof that the third possibility contains truth as no one denies that to call other than Allah believing he has something specific to Allah is shirk. The second possibility is only based on analogies like Allah being empirically absent and the dead being empirically absent and then claiming that since there would be some similarity between the two cases giving them the same hukm without proving independently that this so-called similarity is the defining factor of shirk. Hence making it a baseless qiyas al-shubah which would be ridiculed in a fiqhi matter let alone a discussion on aqeedah where matters have to be clearcut.