Frequenting places where Bid‘ahs (religious innovations) are rampant

27-1-2011 | IslamWeb

Question:

Is it permissible to travel to a country whose people are Sufis? Most of these people seek the help of the dead and offer certain acts of worship to them?

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Answer:

All perfect praise be to Allaah, the Lord of the worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, is His Slave and Messenger.

Sufism includes many deviations that sometimes result in disbelief which leads to apostasy, An example of this is offering certain acts of worship to some Shaykhs and righteous people and to their mausoleums. This kind of Shirk (polytheism) invalidates the monotheism of Islam, for Allaah The Almighty Says (what means): {And do not invoke besides Allaah that which neither benefits you nor harms you, for if you did, then indeed you would be of the wrongdoers.} [Quran 10:106]

A Muslim must be careful of such acts of Shirk. He must not mix with the people who do these acts. He must seek to guide them to monotheism, if he is able to do so. If not, he must leave them and warn others against them. If a person argues with them about such matters and he is not capable of doing so, they may convince him of their beliefs. Therefore, if a person fears that he will fall into falsehood, it is impermissible for him to travel to such countries where religious innovations are wide spread.

Allaah Knows best.