Advice of Scholars - DISBELIEVERS

Imâm-i Ghazâlî, in his book Al-munqîz, classifies those disbelievers who think of themselves as clever, unerring scientists in three groups: the first group are the Dahriyyûn and materialists, who existed centuries before Greek philosophers. [And today, some idiots who pass for scientists, communists, and freemasons are in this group. ] They deny the existence of Allâhu ta’âlâ and say that the âlam (all beings) came into being from itself, that it will exist forever, that it does not — may Allah protect us from saying — have a creator, that the living will multiply from one another and this will go on forever. An atheist who pretends to be a Muslim and tries to demolish Islam from within by undermining the beliefs of Muslims, is called a zindîq or bigoted scientist.

The second group, naturalists, seeing the astounding order and delicacies in the living and the lifeless, had to confess that Allâhu ta’âlâ exists, but denied the Rising Day, the next world, Paradise and Hell.

The third group maintained the philosophies of Socrates and Plato, his disciple, and Aristotle, a disciple to the latter. In order to divulge how wrong and how base the Dahriyyûn and the naturalists were, they refuted them and said so many things about them that others need not add any more. But they could not escape disbelief, either. All these three groups, together with their followers, are disbelievers.

To our astonishment, we have heard that some credulous people have been looking on these disbelievers as religious authorities and even holding them to be equal with prophets, so much so that they have fabricated hadîths about them. Disbelievers can say anything. But it is a pitious situation that those who seem to be Muslims cannot distinguish between îmân and disbelief.