علي بن إبراهيم...

علي بن إبراهيم، عن أبيه، عن أحمد بن عبدالله العقيلي، عن عيسى بن عبدالله القرشي قال: دخل أبوحنيفة على أبي عبدالله عليه السلام فقال له: يا أبا حنيفة !

بلغني أنك تقيس؟ قال: نعم قال: لا تقس فإن أول من قاس إبليس حين قال: خلقتني من نار وخلقته من طين، فقاس ما بين النار والطين، ولو قاس نورية آدم بنورية النار عرف فضل ما بين النورين، وصفاء أحدهما على الآخر Ali ibn Ibrahim has narrated from his father from Ahmad ibn Abd Allah al-Aqili from Isa ibn Abd Allah al-Qurashi who has said: Once, abu Hanifa came to see Imam Abu Abd Allah -asws , recipient of divine supreme covenant, who said to abu Hanifa, O abu Hanifa, do you practice analogy [11] as I hear you do?

Abu Hanifa replied, Yes, I do practice analogy. The Imam -asws then said to him, Do not practice it; the first person who used analogy was Iblis when he said, Lord, you have created me from fire and created him from clay. He analogised fire with clay. If he had compared the light in Adam -as and light of the fire, he would have learned about the difference between the two lights and the excellence of one over the other.

[12] Similarly, when Allah -azwj Wanted to appoint successor to Prophet Adam -as and asked both Kabeel -la and Habeel -as to offer their sacrifices, Iblis -la told Kabeel -la to pray to fire which was the sign of acceptance of the sacrifice, those days, as Allah -azwj would Send Fire onto the sacrifice, as a sign of approval, so Kabeel -la instead of praying to Allah -azwj turned to a Wasila (intercession) which was based on a logical idea, in today’s terminology it would be considered a brilliant idea but, however, was against the Laws of Allah -azwj , to have man-made ‘Wasila’.

And hence was considered as a Shirk bil Zaat [13] (polytheism) as being selected by himself and not being given by Him -azwj .

[14] Our responsibilities, therefore are to submit to the Divine Commands without trying to invent or find our own means of improving our religious understanding or status, i.e., selecting a spiritual personality (peer-o-murshid, quaid-e-millat, wali-e-faqih), as our selection will be flawed, even the Prophets -as were unable to select the pious ones among their own nations, for example: Searching a peer/fakeer/murshad/bawa or Quaid-e-Millat: This is true that one needs a teacher, i.e.; for children a school teacher is hired/consulted, or for a higher and specialised areas and fields, one requires a more specialised teacher, i.e.; a professor an expert.