The Verse of Surah al-'Ankabut 8
We have charged man, that he be kind to his parents; but if they strive with you to make you associate with Me that of which you have no knowledge, do not obey them. To Me you shall return, and I shall tell you what you were doing. (29:8)
This verse is one of the fascinating puzzles of the Holy Qur'an. A little reflection leads to proving that taqlid is shirk. After recommending that man be kind to his parents, the verse commands him not to obey them if they strive to make him associate with God something of which he himself has no knowledge. The question is: is the problem with shirk only about "not having knowledge"? That is, if a child has knowledge, can he commit shirk against God, but without knowledge it is forbidden?
If we take the word "shirk" in this verse to mean merely shirk in worship and interpret it as God saying "if your parents tell you to place someone else instead of or alongside God, do not obey," then the phrase "of which you have no knowledge" becomes unnecessary and meaningless — because whether with knowledge or without, we are not allowed to associate anyone with God. And we know that God is above adding meaningless words to a verse.
I first received the answer to this question from Sayyid Hamid Husseini, and therefore I quote from him:
"This part of the verse contains a very important point in the definition of shirk. If we carefully examine the teachings of the Qur'an and the Itrat regarding shirk, we will see that shirk is nothing but reliance on other than the truth, and reliance on the truth means nothing but reliance on knowledge.
Kufr means ignoring, denying, and concealing the truth; and shirk means, despite awareness of the truth, setting something other than it as the criterion and basis.
Truth means something accepted on the basis of evidence and rational method.
Whoever believes in something and commits to it without having documented evidence and knowledge has placed something other than the truth alongside and as a partner of the truth — and this is the worst sin and the ugliest injustice."
This is indeed the correct answer, consistent with both the text of the verse and reason. In effect, the verse means: whatever you attribute to God without knowledge is shirk, even if it is prayer. That is, if we ask someone "why do you believe God has asked you to pray?" and he says "I don't know, I have no knowledge; just because my father said so" — this is an instance of shirk. Because the person has no documented knowledge of his own and has merely placed his father's word alongside God's other commands as a partner of truth and reality. In other words, he has made his father's word the basis of truth, and this is setting him as a partner alongside God. In reality, he has surrendered to his father without recognizing the truth, while this verse requires man to surrender only to a truth that has become clear to him.
It is also necessary to note that this command is not limited to biological parents. It is not the case that only if parents strive to make the child attribute something to God without knowledge, the child should not obey. Rather, even if it is a teacher, professor, marja', ruler, or anyone else — even the Imams (p) or the Prophet (p) — the ruling is the same, and the person should not obey until some degree of knowledge is attained by him. The indefinite form of the word "`ilm" (knowledge) is evidence that even the slightest degree of knowledge must belong to the person himself for him to say that God has issued a particular command or is pleased with a particular action, and other types of attributions. Notice that the verse uses the precise phrase "laka bihi" (for you of it) — meaning the knowledge must be for you and the knowledge must be of that thing which is attributed to God. Therefore, it is not acceptable for someone to say "I had knowledge of my father's learnedness and that is the same." No, the knowledge must be of the thing being attributed to God and must be present in the person making the attribution.
Although not directly related to the topic of this verse, it is worth noting here that if someone has no knowledge of the wisdom of a command and merely says "because God said so, I accepted it is good," merely to remove responsibility from himself, he too is in the same position — essentially deceiving himself and, in a sense, setting himself as God. For example, someone who says: "I have no knowledge whatsoever of why prayer is enjoined, I see no good in it, no wisdom whatsoever, but because God said so, I accepted that God wants me to pray." This statement and behavior are problematic in various ways. Linguistically and semantically, the statement is circular and meaningless. From a higher perspective, following God without attaining knowledge means imitating God, which is invalid, as the above verse explicitly states. Theoretically, it is shirk because all the validity of this belief comes from the phrase "because God said so," and the person claims not to have erred in this understanding while having no defense for it. In practice and reality, it is also shirk because the person considers prayer futile and attributes a command for vain action to God. In terms of outcome, the person gains nothing from it because even if there is some social benefit (e.g., being hired because of praying), since he himself believes in no benefit from prayer, he does not perceive it and gains no enjoyment from it!
Parent page: Verses Condemning Following without Knowledge