Trust in the Causer of Causes, Not the Cause: The Lesson of the Numbers

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

Resuming the Sīrah after a three-and-a-half-month break, the shaykh goes back to draw out the points of benefit from Ḥunayn and Ṭāʾif that were rushed through the first time. The Conquest of Makkah (Ramaḍān, 8 AH) had brought the Quraysh into Islam; then Thaqīf of Ṭāʾif and their cousins Hawāzin, the two tribes that rivalled Quraysh, massed over twenty thousand to attack, and the Muslims met them at Ḥunayn, one of only two battles Allāh names in the Qurʾān (with Badr).

❧The primary cause of victory is tawakkul

The first and greatest lesson is what the believers momentarily neglected at Ḥunayn. Allāh describes it: وَيَوْمَ حُنَيْنٍ إِذْ أَعْجَبَتْكُمْ كَثْرَتُكُمْ, "and on the day of Ḥunayn, when your great numbers pleased you" (9:25). For an instant they leaned on the cause, their numbers, rather than on Allāh, and so it availed them nothing until they returned to Him.

❧Trust must be in Musabbib al-Asbāb, not the sabab

This is a foundational point of tawḥīd. Our tawakkul must rest on the One who causes the cause (مُسَبِّب الْأَسْبَاب), not on the cause itself (السَّبَب). To put the heart's trust in the cause is a kind of shirk, usually minor, hidden shirk, not the major shirk that expels from Islam. You arm the alarm, you see the doctor, you earn the degree, but the heart's reliance stays with Allāh, for it is He who brings the shifāʾ, not the medicine in itself. It becomes major shirk and kufr only when a person eliminates the Causer entirely and makes himself or the cause the ultimate source, as Qārūn said, إِنَّمَا أُوتِيتُهُ عَلَىٰ عِلْمٍ عِندِي, "I was only given it because of knowledge I have."

❧Physical causes versus spiritual causes

There are two kinds. A physical cause is natural, believed in by all people regardless of religion, medicine, strength, an alarm, a career; the heart must not attach to it. A spiritual cause is supernatural and requires a particular belief, the shaman, the pundit's rite, and, for us, duʿāʾ and the Qurʾān. Because a legitimate spiritual cause is itself bound to Allāh, the heart may attach to it: that is tawḥīd, whereas attaching the heart to a physical cause runs against tawḥīd. Yet the physical causes must still be taken, for Allāh made them causes, as the ḥadīth teaches, اعْقِلْهَا وَتَوَكَّلْ, "tie your camel and trust in Allāh." Do the means; leave the heart with Him.