The Many Shades of Shirk

From the Publisher The basic concept of Islam is Monotheism. It confirms the belief in Allah's Oneness without assigning partners to Him in worship. No doubt, the adherents of other religions also hold belief in God but they join partners with Him. For instance, the Jews call Prophet Uzair (alayhee assalam) a son of God. The Christians call Prophet Isa (alayhee assalam) a son of God. The Hindus split God into many deities. According to their belief, God incarnates in Human form to punish the wrongdoers, removes injustice and oppression from the world and fills it with justice, equality, and prosperity. In short, all other religions except Islam have a combination of God and His partners or incarnates. In Islam, Shirk (polytheism) is the grievous sin that cannot be forgiven until man turns to Allah in repentance sincerely and asks His pardon. The present book deals with Shirk thoroughly and highlights its various forms in vogue among the Muslims and non-Muslims. Its aim is to arouse ! mass awareness against the Shirk and invite them to the Islamic Monotheism based on the Quran and Sunnah. The book, because of its eloquent yet simple and lucid style, gained much popularity. Darussalam has the honor to publish it in the greater interest of the people. Our purpose is to serve Islam and provide the readers with good, knowledgeable and authentic reading material on the subjects related to the Islamic faith. I expect that people will benefit by it and develop their knowledge about polytheism and its consequences; and avoid indulging therein, for it devours their good deeds. Product Description The book brings to our attention some of the most common forms of Shirk. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. THREE FORMS OF WORSHIP: Each religion has some practices and procedures that are called worship. Worship can be oral, physical or monetary. Oral worship is to pray to someone appeal to someone when in need, to chant someone's name in reverence, to address someone as the fulfiller of all needs and the helper of all those in distress, to swear an oath in someone's name, to believe that someone has the power to forgive. Physical worship includes to prostrate or bow down to someone, to direct your life in obedience to someone's command for their pleasure and reward, to print or engrave the name or symbol of someone on your body or possessions in order to be blessed for it. Monetary worship is to give charity in the name of someone, to harvest some land or rear an animal that has been dedicated to someone; to make a pilgrimage to a place connected with that being in order to worship and rejoice thereby decorating the place, offering sacrifices and gifts, considering the water there to be blessed and the environment to be sacred. Allah alone deserves to be worshipped and revered. Islam considers all the above to be legitimate forms of worhsip, but maintains that Allah alone should be the object....