I say, and success is by Allah, that frequenting worldly people, as has been mentioned, is not allowed.
Ibn al-Hajj said in al-Madkhal, “One should be very cautious about frequenting any of those thought to be worldly people, even if they do not outwardly appear to be so, because people should come to the door of the scholar. He should not go to their doors. He has no need to do that either to avert something he is afraid of or in the hope that it will be a means of taking care of other people’s needs by bringing benefit and averting harm from them. This is because:
- Firstly, it is feared as an immediate consequence that those whom he frequents will control him.
- Secondly, he is doing something definitely forbidden for the sake of something theoretical which may or may not take place.
The Gnostic of Allah, ‘Abdu’l-Wahhab ash-Sha’rani said in Lawaqi’ al-Anwar that Sufyan ath-Thawri said,
“Beware, my brother, of being in the proximity of princes and mixing with them for any reason. For instance you may be asked to intercede and defend someone who has been wronged and to avert injustice from him. That comes from the trickery of Iblis. He uses that enticement as a means to draw the scholars near them and he uses this world as a trap.”
‘Abdu’l-‘Aziz al-Andalusi said, “If you say that there are weak and wronged people in the clutches of injustice, and therefore that resorting to kings and being familiar with the leaders of people with the intention of interceding for those in need of it, is a great act of worship, going by the Prophet’s words, ‘Intercede and you will be rewarded or Allah will decide on the tongue of his Prophet as He likes,’ we say that this is one of the basic tricks of Shaytan. Frequenting tyrants is tantamount to destruction because of the abasement implicit in that for those who support the Shari’a. The supporters of the Shari’a are the true nobles of islam in every region. This is because sitting with those people in order to become friendly is for the supporters of the Shari’a one of the greatest acts of rebellion, hypocrisy and fighting Allah and His Messenger."
I say, however, that this does not preclude interceding for those who are wronged when something which makes doing this necessary happens and it is within your power to do so, the deen is safe, and there is no harm. More than one of the ‘ulama’ have stated this.
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