Did Prophet Abraham Commit Shirk or Doubt? Refuting Quranic Misconceptions About Ibrahim ﷺ
Refuting Doubts Against Prophet Abraham ﷺ: Polytheism, Astrology, Doubt, and the Three “Lies”
Table of Contents
- The First Claim
- The First Place
- The Second Place
- Response to the First Claim
- 1 As for the Verses in Surat Al-An’am
- 2 As for the Almighty’s Saying So He Looked at the Stars
- The Second Doubt
- Response to the Second Doubt
- The First Aspect
- The Second Aspect
- The Third Doubt
- Response to the Third Doubt
- The First
- The Second
- The Third
The First Claim
The First Place
The Second Place
Response to the First Claim
- By Allah, it is the greatest ignorance that these people thought about those noble verses, that they relate polytheism about the Prophet of Allah, Abraham, may Allah protect us, and he is the friend of the Most Merciful, whom He praised in every place in His Book, saying: “Indeed, there has been for you an excellent example in Abraham and those with him, when they said to their people, ‘Indeed, we are innocent of you and of what you associate with Allah.’” You worship besides Allah. And Allah the Almighty said: And We had already given Abraham his sound judgment before, and We were of him Knowing. And Allah gave an example of the Hanifism of Abraham and confirmed with decisive texts his innocence from polytheism and polytheists forever, so Allah the Almighty said: Indeed, Abraham was a nation obedient to Allah, inclining toward truth, and he was not of the polytheists. And Allah the Almighty said: And who is better in religion than one who submits his face to Allah while being a doer of good and follows the religion of Abraham, inclining toward truth? And Allah took Abraham as a friend. The hadiths of the Messenger of God (PBUH) came to exonerate our father Abraham from all blemish, to the point that he strongly denied it when he entered the Holy Kaaba and found a picture of Abraham and Ishmael, peace be upon them, with arrows in their hands, so he, peace be upon him, said: “May God fight them, by God, they have never cast lots with arrows.” (
And we explain the truth in the noble verses as follows:
1 As for the Verses in Surat Al-An’am
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As for the verses in Surat Al-An’am, there is no doubt that this position is not a position of contemplation and research, but rather a position of debate so that Abraham, peace be upon him, may establish the argument against his people. So he showed his agreement with them outwardly as a prelude to refuting their belief with a refutation and showing that these bright planets are not fit for divinity nor to be worshipped with God Almighty because they are created, nurtured, manufactured, managed and subjugated. They rise sometimes and set other times, then they disappear from this world, and nothing is hidden from the Lord Almighty, and He is the Eternal, the Everlasting, without passing away. There is no god but Him and no lord other than Him. And He moved with them from the planets to the sun to the moon. So when divinity was negated from these three bodies, which are the brightest that the eyes fall upon, and the conclusive evidence was established of the invalidity of their worship, Abraham revealed to them the certain truth and declared his sincerity to God, the One, the Compeller, and his complete disavowal of their false polytheism, ((So when he saw the sun And when it set, he said, “This is my Lord; this is greater.” But when it set, he said, “O my people, indeed I am innocent of what you associate with Him. Indeed, I have turned my face toward He who created the heavens and the earth, inclining toward truth, and I am not of those who associate others with Him.” (Al-An’am 78)
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And Allah the Almighty began these blessed verses by praising His Prophet, saying: And thus did We show Abraham the kingdom of the heavens and the earth that he might be of the certain Al-An`am 75. So Allah the Almighty testified to His friend’s complete faith and bestowed upon him insight and knowledge of what His kingdom, the Almighty and Majestic, contained of conclusive evidence and shining proofs, so certainty and complete knowledge were obtained and Allah’s blessing was completed.
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And what also confirms that he was in this position debating with his people is the Almighty’s saying in the following verses: ((And his people argued with him. He said, “Do you argue with me about Allah while He has already guided me? And I do not fear what you associate with Him, unless my Lord should will a thing.” My Lord encompasses all things in knowledge. Will you not then remember? And how should I fear what you associate with Him while you do not fear that you have associated with Allah that for which He has not sent down to you any authority? Then which of the two parties has more right to security, if you should know? (Al-An`am 80:
2 As for the Almighty’s Saying So He Looked at the Stars
Qatada said: “The Arabs say to someone who contemplates, ‘He looked at the stars.’” That is, He looked at the sky thinking about what would distract them from him. The witness is that he did not believe in the stars and only wanted to trick the polytheists so that he would not witness their pagan festivals and to plot against their false gods.
Also, these verses were mentioned in the context of praising Abraham, peace be upon him, so God began them from the end of the story of Noah, so the Almighty said: ((And among his followers was Abraham, * When he came to his Lord with a sound heart * When he said to his father and his people, “What do you worship? * Do you seek false gods besides God? * What then do you think of the Lord of the worlds? * So he looked at the stars… ((
The Second Doubt
They claimed that Abraham, peace be upon him, doubted In faith, as God Almighty said: “And when Abraham said, ‘My Lord, show me how You give life to the dead.’ He said, ‘Do you not believe?’ He said, ‘Yes, but [to] reassure my heart.’”
Response to the Second Doubt
The answer to that is from two aspects:
The First Aspect
And let us give an example of this: If a person believes with absolute certainty that there is food inside the bag, then this is absolute certainty. If he opens the bag and sees the food with his eyes, then this is absolute certainty. If he holds this food and eats from it, then this is absolute certainty. Abraham, peace be upon him, never doubted his Lord, but he wanted to move from the level of inference to the level of seeing and ascending to a higher degree of faith. This is the state of believers always in their quest for perfection. The difference between Abraham’s question and someone else’s question is like the difference between Moses’ question to see his Lord and his people’s question for the same request, because Moses’ question was a question of love and longing for God, while his people’s question was a question of doubt and stubbornness. The
Messenger of God (peace be upon him) undertook to explain this meaning when some people said, “Abraham doubted, but our Prophet did not doubt.” The Messenger of God (peace be upon him) said out of humility, “We are more deserving of doubt than Abraham.” The Prophet, peace be upon him, never doubted, and he is the one who said, “I do not doubt, nor do I ask.” So this was a kind of assumption. It cannot happen to be more eloquent in indicating the intended meaning, which is the impossibility of doubt occurring from Abraham, peace be upon him
. It was said that what is meant is: We are more eager to see that than Abraham. It was said: Its meaning is that which you see as doubt, we are more deserving of it because it is a request for more clarification. There is no doubt in the Most Gracious.
The Second Aspect
The Third Doubt
They challenged the infallibility of the Prophet of God, Abraham, because the Messenger of God (PBUH) said: “The Prophet Abraham, peace be upon him, never lied except three lies. Two of them were about God. His saying: I am sick. His saying: Rather, their leader did it. And one about Sarah.”
And his saying, peace be upon him, in the hadith of intercession: “So they will come to Abraham and say: O Abraham, you are the Prophet of God and His friend from the people of the earth. Intercede for us with your Lord. Do you not see what we are in? So he will say to them: Indeed, my Lord has become angry today with an anger that He has never been angry before and will never be angry with the like thereof. I have told three lies, myself, myself, myself. Go to someone else.”
Response to the Third Doubt
- As is clear to every intelligent person, this doubt does not deserve the effort of responding to it, but I deliberately mentioned it because it is evidence of the infallibility of Abraham, peace be upon him. These three lies will be considered sins by the friend. He committed it when he is asked for intercession on the Day of Resurrection, and this restriction negates any other sin from him, in addition to that they are not sins in reality, so by Allah, what kind of person is this who has not lied in his entire life except three lies, all of them by way of insinuation and two of them were for the sake of Allah?!