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Question
What is the religion known as Haneef? Should it be followed after Islam was introduced? I know that it is related to Ibrahim (Abraham), may Allah exalt his mention. There is a website that says that we should follow Haneef Islam (the religion of Ibrahim). At that moment, I felt disgust and angrily thought that there should be no other religion in Islam that should be followed. Have I done Kufr (disbelief) by belittling the religion of Ibrahim, peace be upon him?
Answer
All perfect praise be to Allah, the Lord of the worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah and that Muhammad, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, is His slave and Messenger.
The religion of Ibraaheem (Abraham), may Allah exalt his mention, was the Haneefiyyah, which the Prophet, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, was commanded to follow; Allah, the Exalted, says (what means): {Then We revealed to you (O Muhammad) to follow the religion of Ibrahim, inclining toward truth; and he was not of those who associate with Allah.} [Quran 16:123] We were also commanded to follow it; Allah, the Exalted, says (what means): {Say: Allah has told the truth. So, follow the religion of Ibrahim, inclining toward truth; and he was not of the polytheists.} [Quran 3:95]
Haneefiyyah, in essence, means Tawheed (monotheism; worship of one God), and it is the religion with which Allah sent all the Messengers; Allah, the Exalted, says (what means): {And We sent not before you any messenger except that We revealed to him that: There is no deity except Me, so worship Me.} [Quran 21:25]
Tawheed is the root from which all religions stemmed, but they differed in their legislation and rulings only; Allah, the Exalted, says (what means): {...To each of you We prescribed a law and a method ...} [Quran 4:48]
Abu Hurayrah, may Allah be pleased with him, reported that the Prophet, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, said, "Prophets are brothers in faith; they have different mothers, but their religion is one." [Al-Bukhaari and Muslim]
"Their religion is one," i.e. Islam and Tawheed. "Their mothers" means their legislation, in which they are different. Hence, Haneefiyyah means Islam in its broader sense, i.e. submission to Allah as the one and only God worthy of worship. For more benefit, please refer to fatwa 88906.
You may have confused between this broader sense of Islam (the general concept of submitting to Allah) and the specific sense referring to the religion of Islam with its details and structure as established in the Quran through Prophet Muhammad, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam. The message of Islam abrogated all the previous divine messages in the sense that the Islamic legislation abrogated all that contradicts it in the previous divine legislation. All previous legislation has been canceled and is longer followed as an act of worship; rather, all people are required to worship Allah by following the Islamic Shariah, for He will not accept any other Shariah from them.
We believe that you intended that last meaning. Accordingly, your statement is not considered belittling the religion of Prophet Ibraaheem, may Allah exalt his mention. So you should ignore such thoughts which the devil uses to distract you from what benefits you in this worldly life and the Hereafter, especially given that you suffer from Waswaas (obsessive whisperings), as is reflected in some of your previous questions.
Allah knows best.
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