Is It Considered Shirk to Fear Other Than Allah Most High?
Hanafi Fiqh
Answered by Shaykh Yusuf Weltch
Question
Is it considered shirk (associating partners with Allah) to fear other than Allah Most High?
Answer
In the Name of Allah the Most Merciful and Compassionate
What is Shirk?
It is not considered shirk (associating partners with Allah) to fear other than Allah Most High.
The definition of shirk is to ascribe partners with Allah Most High in regards to divinity, His attributes or His actions.
Love and Fear
Allah Most High says, “The mosques of Allah are only to be maintained by those who believe in Allah and the Last Day and establish prayer and give zakah and do not fear except Allah, for it is expected that those will be of the [rightly] guided. [Quran; 09:18]
Allah Most High says, “Still there are some who take others as Allah’s equal—they love them as they should love Allah—but the ˹true˺ believers love Allah even more…” [Quran; 02:165]
Though fearing only Allah Most High and loving only Allah Most High are desired qualities in our faith – they are the integrals of perfect faith and even though we are encouraged to strive to perfect our faith – it is not sinful if one has yet to reach such a station let alone being shirk.
Hope this helps
Allah knows best
[Shaykh] Yusuf Weltch
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani
Shaykh Yusuf Weltch is a teacher of Arabic, Islamic law, and spirituality. After accepting Islam in 2008, he completed four years at the Darul Uloom seminary in New York, where he studied Arabic and the traditional sciences. He then traveled to Tarim, Yemen, where he stayed for three years studying in Dar Al-Mustafa under some of the greatest scholars of our time, including Habib Umar Bin Hafiz, Habib Kadhim al-Saqqaf, and Shaykh Umar al-Khatib. In Tarim, Shaykh Yusuf completed the memorization of the Qur’an and studied beliefs, legal methodology, hadith methodology, Qur’anic exegesis, Islamic history, and several texts on spirituality. He joined the SeekersGuidance faculty in the summer of 2019.
