The Quran as Waseela: A Self-Sufficient Guide to Allah

 

By Naseer Ahmed, New Age Islam

5 May 2025

Editor’s Note

In this thought-provoking essay, The Quran as Waseela: A Self-Sufficient Guide to Allah, Naseer Ahmed challenges long-held assumptions about the role of intermediaries in spiritual life. Drawing upon Quranic verses and Islamic principles, he presents a compelling case for direct engagement with the Quran — unaided by saints, scholars, or spiritual guides—as the truest means of seeking nearness to Allah. At a time when many Muslims are rediscovering the importance of personal accountability and intellectual honesty in faith, this article offers a timely reminder: Islam's core strength lies not in hierarchy or inherited authority, but in the accessibility of divine guidance to all who approach it with sincerity and taqwa.

This piece is sure to spark reflection and healthy debate, and we invite readers to engage with its ideas in the same spirit of open inquiry that the Quran itself commands.

Abstract

This article argues that the perfect way to approach Allah is directly through the Quran. Using any other intermediary is to reject the Quran in favour of something imperfect. Doing so denies us the Quran’s ability to speak directly to our minds and hearts and reveal its secrets. The Quran can become a fresh revelation to us only if we approach it with openness and heedfulness (Taqwa). It has the power to provide all the answers we need, provided we trust it and treat it with the respect it deserves. Admitting intermediaries into this relationship beyond the basic teaching destroys the trust that the Quran demands and deserves.

1. The Quran as Direct Access to Allah

Some critics suggest that those who do not believe in Waseela — understood as reliance on spiritual intermediaries — are arrogant or delusional. But my belief is grounded in the Quran's own guidance: the Quran itself is the Waseela — the means to reach Allah. To suggest that the Kitabum Mubeen (Clear Book) needs an external Waseela is a contradiction and a rejection of its claims. No wonder the Quran remains closed and unclear to such people.

In Islam, nearness to Allah is based solely on Taqwa (heedfulness or God-consciousness), not on intercession by any spiritual authority. Islam broke the chains of priesthood, mysticism, and hierarchy. There are no priests, no sacraments, and no intermediaries. All humans stand equally before Allah. To restore intermediaries in the name of Waseela is to regress into a system Islam came to abolish.

2. Refuting Intermediary Waseela with Quranic Evidence

The major flaw in traditional and Sufi methodology lies in the insistence that religious knowledge and nearness to Allah require a spiritual guide or Murshid. This belief creates a closed loop in which errors are preserved rather than corrected, passed down through generations without scrutiny. Instead of seeking direct understanding from the Quran, its message is obscured under layers of inherited, unexamined interpretations. Though rich in spiritual insight, Sufi scholarship has often contributed to layering Islamic theology with mythic elements not directly grounded in the Quran.

Consider the following verses:

•        (40:15): "He sends the Spirit by His command to any of His servants He wills, to warn of the Day of Meeting."

•        (16:2): "He sends down the angels with the inspiration of His command to those of His servants He chooses."

This inspiration is direct — there is no Waseela of a spiritual guide here. A commonly cited verse is:

•        (5:35): "O you who believe! Fear Allah and seek the Waseela to Him and strive hard in His cause that you may succeed."

Here, Waseela clearly refers to obedience and good deeds — Taqwa, striving in Allah's cause — not a person. This interpretation is confirmed by:

•        (17:56-57): "Say: Call those besides Him whom you fancy; they have no power to remove your difficulties or to change them. Those whom they call upon do themselves seek the Waseela to their Lord..."

Even those nearest to Allah seek Waseela directly from Him — not through intermediaries. Thus, the concept of reaching Allah via any human intermediary is not just un-Islamic, it is anti-Quranic.

It is not that the concept of the Quran as a Waseela is foreign to the Sufis. They say that the recitation of Surah 67 Al-Mulk, will intercede against punishment in the grave. So, why not the Quran as an intercessor on the Day of Judgment? That can happen only when we sincerely follow it by constantly refining our understanding through our efforts.

3. The Pitfalls of Taqlid and Spiritual Hierarchy

The relationship between Waseela, Taqlid (blind imitation), and Ijazat (permission) reveals how these concepts work together to suppress fresh insights and an individual’s spiritual progress. A disciple (Mureed) can go only as far as his spiritual guide (murshid) permits. Eastern traditions glorify the guru, discouraging challenge to inherited knowledge. In contrast, the Western academic tradition encourages students to question and improve upon their teachers, fostering continual progress.

Islam does not chain truth to any individual. The Quran invites everyone to contemplate and reason. Allah’s guidance is available to all. My own methodology — “A Quran-Alone Methodology for Muhkamat Verses, and Science-Alone for the Mutashabihat” — demonstrates that new insights emerge when we return to the Quran directly, without the shackles of Taqlid, or reliance on any guru or permission.

To manage the affairs of the Muslim community today, we need the Ijma (consensus) of enlightened minds of the present, not an uncritical acceptance of the Ijma of past scholars whose circumstances, challenges, and knowledge base were different. True Ijma is dynamic, not fossilised. Islam is not a religion of stagnation but of constant renewal through ijtihad — fresh reasoning rooted in the Quran and guided by Taqwa.

4. Blind Imitation: A Quranic Critique

Those who blindly follow the opinions of their predecessors behave no differently from the disbelievers condemned in the Quran:

•        (26:74): "They said: 'Nay, but we found our fathers doing thus (what we do).'"

•        (31:21): "When they are told to follow the (Revelation) that Allah has sent down, they say: 'Nay, we shall follow the ways that we found our fathers (following).' What! even if it is Satan beckoning them to the Penalty of the (Blazing) Fire?"

•        (43:22): "Nay! they say: 'We found our fathers following a certain religion, and we do guide ourselves by their footsteps.'"

The Quran speaks of those who do not use their intellect and behave like animals — deaf, dumb, and blind to all reason:

•        (41:44): "It is a Guide and a Healing to those who believe; and for those who believe not, there is a deafness in their ears, and it is blindness in their (eyes): They are (as it were) being called from a place far distant!"

•        (8:22): "For the worst of beasts in the sight of Allah are the deaf and the dumb — those who understand not."

These descriptions apply equally to those believers who shut themselves off from new insights and follow the errors of the past imams.

5. Conclusion: Reclaiming the Quran as Our Waseela

Let us reclaim the Quran as our only true Waseela, as Allah intended — a guide speaking directly to our minds and hearts. In doing so, we revive the spirit of Islam: direct, unmediated, and alive. By trusting the Quran alone, we restore a relationship with Allah that is rooted in personal responsibility, contemplation, and sincerity. This is the Islam that liberates, enlightens, and unites.

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A frequent contributor to NewAgeIslam.com, Naseer Ahmed is an Engineering graduate from IIT Kanpur and is an independent IT consultant after having served in both the Public and Private sector in responsible positions for over three decades. He has spent years studying Quran in-depth and made seminal contributions to its interpretation.

 

URL:    https://www.newageislam.com/debating-islam/quran-waseela-sufficient-guide-allah/d/135427

 

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