Reddit reply in r/MuslimAcademics: ama with dr yasir qadhi — October 26, 2025 | Ali Shukri Amin

Thanks so much for answering Dr. Qadhi.

To clarify some points here:

You said,

"No pagan, past or present, would practice paganism using the version of *istighātha* found in Muslim practitioners of it."

But earlier you said,

"I have been to India, where Muslims and Hindus worship side-by-side venerating a Muslim saint side-by-side in what some might consider a genuine ecumenical spirit(/s)! It is well nigh impossible to tell their actions apart, and in all likelihood if we could open their hearts, it wouldn’t be possible to differentiate between their beliefs either."

Upon initially reading your comment I thought you meant "Muslim practitioners" as in the 'ulama that wrote vehement defenses of istighatha and not the 'awwam who maybe could fall into shirk.

But I was confused when you wrote,

"none of them worshipped their gods with the frame of mind a Sufi devotee would have when he invokes the Prophet (SAW), and it is insulting to compare those two."

In paragraph #1 you gave an example of syncretic religion that is very likely shirk done by some Indian Muslims in folk religious practices beside Hindus. But then you said in paragraph #2 that the kind of istighatha Muslim Sufis do/did is not like the shirk of any pagans. I thought you meant the ulama but paragraph #3 mentions devotees.

And furthermore, if we agree that some of Quraysh were henotheistic and therefore their shirk was 'amali, does that not mean the Quran & Sunnah MUST demarcate what constitutes a shirk in amal in a technical sense? Isn't that the core thesis of what the Quran is supposed to be doing?

Thank you if you find the time to elaborate here.