الحمد لله، والصلاة والسلام على من أنزل عليه الحق ﴿إِنَّ ٱلدِّينَ عِندَ ٱللَّهِ ٱلْإِسْلَٰمُ﴾ سيدنا محمد خير الأنام، وعلى آله وأصحابه مصابيح الظلام، وبعد: فإليكم أيها السيد المحترم، ذو الجناب المفخم، بهجة الأنداب ومسرة الأحباب، العلامة الأريب، والصاحب المخلص الأديب، القاضي السيد محمد الكبير، جواب الأسئلة التي خطتها أناملكم الشريفة إلى كاتب هذه الحروف، ولكنك سيدي استسمنت ذا ورم ونفخت في غير ضرم، ومع ذلك فلا يسعني أن أسكت لحسن ظنكم بي عن تلك الأسئلة التي تعرف بالأجوبة. فأما عن التفرق الذي ذكره الله تعالى في آية ﴿شَرَعَ لَكُم مِّنَ ٱلدِّينِ مَا وَصَّىٰ بِهِۦ نُوحًا وَٱلَّذِىٓ أَوْحَيْنَآ إِلَيْكَ وَمَا وَصَّيْنَا بِهِۦٓ إِبْرَٰهِيمَ وَمُوسَىٰ وَعِيسَىٰٓ أَنْ أَقِيمُواْ ٱلدِّينَ وَلَا تَتَفَرَّقُواْ فِيهِ﴾ (الشورى:13)، كأنه قيل: وما ذلك المشروع المشترك بين هؤلاء الرسل؟ فقيل: هو إقامة الدين، أي دين الإسلام الذي هو توحيد الله وطاعته والإيمان بكتبه ورسله وباليوم الآخر وسائر ما يكون الرجل به مؤمنا. والمراد بإقامته تعديل أركانه، وحفظه من أن يقع فيه زيغ، والمواظبة عليه والتشمر له. قوله: ﴿وَلَا تَتَفَرَّقُواْ فِيهِ﴾، أي: في الدين الذي هو عبارة عن الأصول والخطاب متوجه إلى أمته عليه السلام. فهذه وصية لجميع العباد. واعلم أن الأنبياء عليهم السلام مشتركون ومتفقون في أصل الدين وجميعهم أقاموا الدين وقاموا بخدمته، وداموا بالدعوة إليه ولم يختلفوا في ذلك، وباعتبار هذا الاتفاق والاتحاد في الأصول قال تعالى: ﴿إِنَّ ٱلدِّينَ عِندَ ٱللَّهِ ٱلْإِسْلَٰمُ﴾ (آل عمران:19)، من غير تفرقة بين نبي ونبي، ومختلفين في الفروع والأحكام، قال تعالى: ﴿لِكُلٍّ جَعَلْنَا مِنكُمْ شِرْعَةً وَمِنْهَاجًا﴾ (المائدة:48)، وهذا الاختلاف الناشئ من اختلاف الأمم وتفاوت طبائعهم لا يقدح في ذلك الاتفاق. ثم أمر عباده بإقامة الدين والاجتماع عليه، ونهاهم عن التفرق فيه، فإن يد الله ونصرته مع الجماعة1، وإنما يأكل الذئب الشاة البعيدة النافرة المنفردة عن الجماعة1. وأما الأنبياء عليهم الصلاة والسلام فمعصومون قطعا، وإن قيل في حقهم ما يناقض ذلك فيكون مردودا. وقال ابن كثير في تفسيره عند قوله تعالى: ﴿فَقَالَ إِنِّىٓ أَحْبَبْتُ حُبَّ ٱلْخَيْرِ عَن ذِكْرِ رَبِّى حَتَّىٰ تَوَارَتْ بِٱلْحِجَابِ رُدُّوهَا عَلَىَّ﴾ (سورة ص:32،33) ذكر غير واحد من السلف والمفسرين أنه اشتغل بعرضها حتى فات وقت صلاة العصر والذي يقطع به أنه لم يتركها عمدا بل نسيانا كما شغل النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم يوم الخندق عن صلاة العصر حتى صلاها بعد الغروب وذلك ثابت في الصحيحين من غير وجه. من ذلك عن جابر قال: جاء عمر رضي الله عنه يوم الخندق بعد ما غربت الشمس فجعل يسب كفار قريش، ويقول: يا رسول الله، والله ما كدت أصلي العصر حتى كادت الشمس تغرب. فقال رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم: «والله ما صليتها» فقال: فقمنا إلى بطحان فتوضأ للصلاة وتوضأنا لها فصلى العصر بعد ما غربت الشمس ثم صلى بعدها المغرب. ويحتمل أنه كان سائغا في ملتهم تأخير الصلاة لعذر الغزو والقتال، والخيل تراد للقتال2. انتهى منه بلفظه. وفي روح البيان: وقال الإمام في تفسيره: الصواب أن يقال إن رباط الخيل كان مندوبا إليه في دينهم كما هو مندوب إليه في شرعنا. ثم إن سليمان عليه السلام احتاج إلى الغزو فجلس على كرسيه وأمر بإحضار الخيل وأمر بإجرائها وذكر أنه لا يجريها لأجل الدنيا وحظ النفس وإنما يجريها ويحبها لأمر الله. ثم إنه أمر بإجرائها وتسييرها حتى تورات بالحجاب أي غابت عن بصره فإنه كان له ميدان واسع مستدير يسابق فيه بين الخيل حتى تتوارى عنه وتغيب عن عينه. ثم إنه أمر الرائضين أن يردوها فردوا تلك الخيل إليه، فلما عادت إليه طفق يمسح سوقها وأعناقها بيده حبا لها وتشريفا وإبانة لعزتها لكونها من أعظم الأعوان في قهر الأعداء وإعلاء الدين. وهو قول الزهري وابن كيسان، وليس فيه نسبة شيء من المنكرات إلى سليمان عليه السلام، فهو أحق بالقبول عند أولي الأفهام اهـ. وطالع جواهر المعاني عند جواب الشيخ التجاني رضي الله عنه عند قوله تعالى: ﴿لَّقَد تَّابَ ٱللَّهُ عَلَى ٱلنَّبِىِّ﴾ (التوبة:117) في الجزء الأول منه في الصفحة 217، وفيه أيضا في الصفحة 232، تجد فيه مسكتا شافيا كافيا، والله ولي التوفيق وهو الهادي بمنه إلى سواء الطريق. وقال الفخر الرازي معنى قوله: ﴿فَطَفِقَ مَسْحاً بِٱلسُّوقِ وَٱلْأَعْنَاقِ﴾ (ص:33) أنه يمسحها حقيقة بيده ليختبر عيوبها وأمراضها لكونه كان أعلم بأحوال الخيل، وإشارة إلى أنه بلغ من التواضع إلى أنه يباشر الأمور بنفسه، ولم يحصل منه ذبح ولا عقر، ولم تفت عليه صلاة. ومعنى ﴿إِنِّىٓ أَحْبَبْتُ حُبَّ ٱلْخَيْرِ عَن ذِكْرِ رَبِّى﴾، لأجل طاعة ربي لا لهوى نفسي، ومعنى ﴿حَتَّىٰ تَوَارَتْ بِٱلْحِجَابِ﴾، أي: الخيل غابت عن بصره حيث أمر بإجرائها ليختبرها للغزو فقال: ﴿رُدُّوهَا عَلَىَّ﴾، فردوها فصار يمسح في أعناقها وسوقها كما تقدم، وليس في الآية ما يدل على ذبح ولا عقر ولا فوات صلاة اهـ.

Praise belongs to Allah, and blessing and peace be upon the one to whom the truth was sent down — ﴿The dīn with Allah is islām﴾ — our master Muḥammad, the best of mankind, and upon his family and his Companions, the lamps of the dark. To proceed: To you, honoured sir, possessor of the exalted side, delight of the noble ones and joy of the beloved, the sagacious scholar, the sincere and cultivated companion, the qāḍī al-Sayyid Muḥammad al-Kabīr — here is the answer to the questions which your noble fingertips wrote out to the writer of these letters. But you, my master, have taken a swollen thing for fat and blown where there is no ember. Even so, given your good opinion of me, I cannot keep silent about those questions, which are made known by their answers. As for the division that Allah, exalted is He, mentioned in the verse ﴿He has laid down for you, of the dīn, that which He charged Nūḥ with, and that which We have revealed to you, and that which We charged Ibrāhīm and Mūsā and ʿĪsā with: that you uphold the dīn and do not fall into division over it﴾ (al-Shūrā 13) — it is as though it were said: and what is that laid-down thing shared among these messengers? And the answer came: it is the upholding of the dīn, that is, the dīn of islām, which is the affirming of Allah's oneness, obedience to Him, faith in His books and His messengers and in the Last Day, and everything else by which a man becomes a believer. What is meant by upholding it is setting its pillars straight, guarding it against any deviation falling into it, keeping steadily to it, and girding oneself for it. His words ﴿and do not fall into division over it﴾ mean: in the dīn, which is an expression for the fundamentals; and the address is directed to his community, upon him be peace. So this is a charge laid upon all the servants. Know that the prophets, upon them be peace, share in and agree upon the root of the dīn. All of them upheld the dīn and stood in its service and persisted in calling to it, and they did not differ in that. It is with regard to this agreement and unity in the fundamentals that He said, exalted is He: ﴿The dīn with Allah is islām﴾ (Āl ʿImrān 19), without distinguishing between one prophet and another — while they differ in the branches and the rulings, as He said, exalted is He: ﴿For each one of you We appointed a shirʿa [a law] and a minhāj [an open road]﴾ (al-Māʾida 48). This difference, arising from the difference of the communities and the disparity of their natures, does not impair that agreement. Then He commanded His servants to uphold the dīn and to gather upon it, and He forbade them to fall into division over it — for Allah's hand and His help are with the jamāʿa, and the wolf eats only the sheep that strays far, bolts, and keeps apart from the flock. As for the prophets, upon them be blessing and peace, they are decisively maʿṣūm [preserved from sin]; and if anything is said about them that contradicts this, it is to be rejected. Ibn Kathīr said in his tafsīr, at His words, exalted is He, ﴿And he said: I have loved the love of good things away from the remembrance of my Lord, until it concealed itself by the veil. Bring them back to me﴾ (Sūrat Ṣād 32–33): more than one of the salaf and of the commentators mentioned that he was occupied with reviewing them until the time of the ʿaṣr prayer passed; and what is certain is that he did not leave it deliberately but out of forgetfulness, just as the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, was kept from the ʿaṣr prayer on the day of the Trench until he prayed it after sunset. That is established in the two Ṣaḥīḥs by more than one route. Among them, from Jābir, who said: ʿUmar, may Allah be pleased with him, came on the day of the Trench after the sun had set, and began cursing the unbelievers of Quraysh, saying: Messenger of Allah, by Allah, I could scarcely pray ʿaṣr before the sun was about to set. The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said: "By Allah, I have not prayed it." He said: so we went off to Buṭḥān, and he performed the ablution for the prayer and we performed it, and he prayed ʿaṣr after the sun had set, and then prayed maghrib after it. It is also possible that in their law it was permissible to delay the prayer for the excuse of raiding and fighting, and horses are wanted for fighting. End of the quotation from him, in his own wording. And in Rūḥ al-bayān: the Imām said in his tafsīr: the correct thing to say is that the keeping of horses at the ready was something recommended in their dīn, just as it is recommended in our sharīʿa. Then Sulaymān, upon him be peace, had need of raiding, so he sat upon his seat and ordered that the horses be brought and ordered that they be run; and he mentioned that he was not running them for the sake of this world or the portion of the self, but that he was running them and loving them for the sake of Allah's affair. Then he ordered that they be run and driven forward until "it concealed itself by the veil," that is, they vanished from his sight — for he had a wide circular field in which he would race the horses until they passed out of view and disappeared from his eye. Then he ordered the trainers to bring them back, and they returned those horses to him; and when they came back to him he set to stroking their shanks and their necks with his hand, out of love for them, and to honour them, and to make plain their worth, since they are among the greatest helpers in subduing enemies and raising the dīn high. This is the position of al-Zuhrī and Ibn Kaysān, and there is in it no ascription of anything reprehensible to Sulaymān, upon him be peace; so it is the more deserving of acceptance in the view of people of understanding. End of quotation. And consult Jawāhir al-maʿānī at the answer of Shaykh al-Tijānī, may Allah be pleased with him, concerning His words, exalted is He, ﴿Allah has surely turned in mercy toward the Prophet﴾ (al-Tawba 117), in the first volume of it at page 217, and likewise in it at page 232; you will find there a silencing answer, healing and sufficient. Allah is the Master of enabling grace, and He is the One who guides, by His favour, to the level road. Al-Fakhr al-Rāzī said: the meaning of His words ﴿so he set to stroking the shanks and the necks﴾ (Ṣād 33) is that he was stroking them literally with his hand in order to examine their defects and their ailments, since he was the most knowledgeable about the states of horses; and it is an indication that he had reached such a degree of humility that he would attend to matters himself. No slaughtering and no hamstringing occurred from him, and no prayer was missed by him. The meaning of ﴿I have loved the love of good things away from the remembrance of my Lord﴾ is: for the sake of obedience to my Lord, not out of the whim of my self. And the meaning of ﴿until it concealed itself by the veil﴾ is: the horses vanished from his sight, since he had ordered them to be run in order to test them for raiding; so he said ﴿Bring them back to me﴾, and they brought them back, and he began stroking their necks and their shanks, as has preceded. There is nothing in the verse that indicates any slaughtering or hamstringing or any prayer being missed. End of quotation.

§2 of the tafsīr chapter of al-Fatāwā wa-l-ajwiba. The edition prints this reference itself.