5-Endless Bliss Fifth Fascicle - Hakikat Kitabevi

marginal notes by Tahtâwî, “There are nass (âyats and hadîths
with clear meanings) about isqât (absolution) of the (sin for the)
omitted fastings by giving fidya. All savants unanimously
declare that, because the namâz is more important than fasting,
as with fasting, isqât is to be performed for the prayers of
namâz which a person missed for some reason justified by the
Sharî’a and which he could not make qadâ of [1] later because
he took to his deathbed though he wished to perform them. A
person who says that isqât cannot be performed for namâz
must be ignorant. For he objects to the agreement of savants. A
hadîth-i sherîf declares, ‘A person cannot fast or perform
namâz on behalf of another person. But he can feed the
poor for his (the other person’s) fasting or namâz.’ ” As we
have heard recently, some people, who cannot realize the
superiorities of the savants of Ahl-as sunna and who suppose
that our imâms of Madhhabs express their personal illusions, as
they themselves do, say, “There is no isqât or dawr in Islam.
Isqât resembles Christians’ redemption.” Such words of theirs
expose them to risk. For our Prophet (sallallâhu ’alaihi
wasallam) declared, “My Umma do not come together in
deviation.” And “Something which Believers consider
beautiful is beautiful according to Allâhu ta’âlâ, too.” These
hadîth-i sherîfs are written on the 94th page of the book Berîqa,
and they prove that to make dawr is certainly true in Islam. He
who does not believe in dawr will have denied the hadîth-i
sherîfs quoted above. It is written at the end of the namâz of
Witr in Ibn Abidîn, “A person who unbelieves the knowledge of
ijmâ; i.e. the essential religious knowledge which is known even
by the ignorant, becomes a kâfir (unbeliever).” İjmâ’ means the
unanimity of savants. How can isqât ever be likened to
redemption? Under the pretext of redemption, priests are
rooking people. But in Islam men of religion cannot perform
isqât. Isqât can be performed only by the deceased person’s
walî, and the money is given not to men of religion but to the
poor.
Today there is next to no place where the business of isqât
and dawr are being performed suitably with the Sharî’a. If the
cavillers of isqât said that “the isqâts and dawrs being
[1] To make qadâ of any religious precept means to perform it later, if one
has not been able to perform it within its prescribed time.
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