Question:
The questioner asks: There are Islamic lands where “polytheism” (Shirk) prevails and people of “monotheism” (Tawhid) are few, to the extent that those few are called “Wahhabis” due to the scarcity of monotheists. Are their slaughtered animals permissible to eat, knowing that they mention the name of Allah over them and do not acknowledge their polytheism, as is the case with grave-worshippers?
Answer:
Polytheists’ slaughtered animals are not permissible to eat, even if they mention Allah the Almighty [over them], because they are polytheists. This is indicated by the concept derived from the verse: “And the food of those who were given the Scripture is lawful for you” [Al-Ma’idah: 5]. The implication is that those other than the People of the Book among non-Muslims—their food is not lawful for us, and “food” here means their slaughtered animals.
The claim of whoever asserts that “those who were given the Scripture” is merely a title whose concept is non-binding, thereby attempting to argue that the slaughtered animals of polytheists are halal, is a mistaken claim. This is because “those who were given the Scripture” is a relative clause containing a relative pronoun, and a relative pronoun with its connecting clause functions like a verbal noun or participle (meaning it acts as a description/attribute). It is well-known among scholars of legal theory that the concept of a participle or descriptive noun is not a mere title, but rather an operative description, and the concept of an attribute is a valid and considered matter among legal theorists.
Based on this, those people who worship graves and call upon the dead are polytheists, and their slaughtered animals are not lawful.
As for labeling the people of monotheism among them as “Wahhabis,” this label was in reality fabricated to distort the call to monotheism. Otherwise, “Wahhabism” is not an independent school of thought outside the schools of the Muslims. Rather, all the books of these scholars—from small treatises to large major works—all indicate that these people took their methodology from the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of His Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), and that they did not depart from what the verifier scholars among the Hanbalis, such as Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah, Ibn al-Qayyim, and others, were upon.
However, given that this call grew strong by the grace of Allah the Almighty and then through the facilitation of the Kings of the House of Saud who undertook it in the best manner possible, politics became intertwined with it. Consequently, the politicians of the state—not the scholars of the religious community—began distorting this call by claiming it is a “Wahhabi” call outside of what Muslims followed from the well-known schools of thought. By doing so, they intended to alienate people from it.
Their likeness is none other than that of Quraysh when they said about the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), “This is a magician, a liar.” Otherwise, whoever examines this call with knowledge and fairness will become clear to them that it is the true reality of the Hanbali madhhab and other schools of Ahl al-Sunnah wa al-Jama’ah, and that it does not exceed what the “early Muslim generations” (Salaf) of this Ummah were upon.