Sheikh Bin baz???

[quran_alone]

Bin baz says:

Tawheed al-'Ebaadah (Maintaining The Unity of Worship)

"If you asked them who created them, they would surely say, 'Allaah' "

"If you asked them who brings down water from the sky and with it brings the earth to life after its death? They will most certainly say, 'Allaah'."

In spite of the Makkans' confessions of Tawheed and their knowledge of Allaah, Allaah classified them as disbelievers (Kuffaar) and pagans (Mushrikoon) simply because they worshipped other gods along with their worship of Allaah.

Consequently, the most important aspect of Tawheed is that of Tawheed al-'Ebaadah, maintaining the unity of Allaah's worship. All forms of worship must be directed only to Allaah because He alone deserves worship, and it is He alone who can grant benefit to man as a result of His worship. Furthermore, there is no need for any form of intercessor or intermediary between man and God. Allaah emphasized the importance of directing worship to Him alone by pointing out that this was the main purpose of man's creation and the essence of the message brought by all the prophets. Allaah says:

"I did not create the Jinn and Mankind except for My worship."

"Verily, We have sent to every nation a messenger (saying), 'Worship Allaah and avoid false gods'."

In Soorah al-Faatihah, which every Muslim is required to recite in his or her prayers at least seventeen times daily, verse four reads, "You alone do we worship and from You alone do we seek help". A clear statement that all forms of worship should only be directed to the One who can respond, Allaah.

If someone prays to the Prophet (saws), to so-called saints, Jinns or angels asking for help or asking them to request help from Allaah for them, they have also committed Shirk. The concept of "Ghaus-i-Azam" (al-Ghawth al-A'dHam), a title given by the ignorant to 'Abdul-Qaadir al-Jeelaanee, is also an expression of Shirk in this form of Tawheed. The title literally means "the greatest source of rescue; the one most able to save someone from danger" and such a description only belongs to Allaah. When misfortune occurs, some people call on 'Abdul-Qaadir by this title seeking his aid and protection END QUOTE

Now here bin baz says that the arabs proclaimed tawheed based on the first two verses he quotes. So they were still mushriks even if they believed that God is the sustainer of the universe. He then goes on to say they were mushriks because they associated partners in their worship like dua. And then he says this is the same as making " dua" to the prophets or sahabis as in tawassul. However if the arab pagans believed that God is the sustainer of the world they would by definition be monotheist. Never in history has there been polytheist who acknowledges that God and God alone sustains the world. So why did the koran say they did, yes they did but not God ALONE. The arabs believed God and OTHER dieties also ran the affairs of this world. So lets see what the pagan arabs believed.

[quran_alone]

The henotheism aqeedah of Arabia before Islam.

In contrast, paganism among the sedentary societies of Arabia had developed from its earlier and simpler manifestations into a complex form of neo-animism, providing a host of divine and semi-divine intermediaries who stood between the creator god and his creation. This creator god was called Allah, which is not a proper name but a contraction of the word al-ilah, meaning simply "the god." Like his Greek counterpart, Zeus, Allah was originally an ancient rain/sky deity who had been elevated into the role of the supreme god of the pre-Islamic Arabs. Though a powerful deity to swear by, Allah's eminent status in the Arab pantheon rendered him, like most High Gods, beyond the supplications of ordinary people. Only in times of great peril would anyone bother consulting him. Otherwise, it was far more expedient to turn to the lesser, more accessible gods who acted as Allah's intercessors, the most powerful of whom were his three daughters, Allat ("the goddess"), al-Uzza ("the mighty"), and Manat (the goddess of fate, whose name is probably derived from the Hebrew word mana, meaning "portion" or "share"). These divine mediators were not only represented in the Kaaba, they had their own individual shrines throughout the Arabian Peninsula: Allat in the city of Ta'if; al-Uzza in Nakhlah; and Manat in Qudayd. It was to them that the Arabs prayed when they needed rain, when their children were ill, when they entered into battle or embarked on a journey deep into the treacherous desert abodes of the Jinn -- those intelligent, imperceptible, and salvable beings made of smokeless flame who are called "genies" in the West and who function as the nymphs and fairies of Arabian mythology.

There were no priests and no pagan scriptures in pre-Islamic Arabia, but that does not mean the gods remained silent. They regularly revealed themselves through the ecstatic utterances of a group of cultic officials known as the Kahins. The Kahins were poets who functioned primarily as soothsayers and who, for a fee, would fall into a trance in which they would reveal divine messages through rhyming couplets. Poets already had an important role in pre-Islamic society as bards, tribal historians, social commentators, dispensers of moral philosophy, and, on occasion, administrators of justice. But the Kahins represented a more spiritual function of the poet. Emerging from every social and economic stratum, and including a number of women, the Kahins interpreted dreams, cleared up crimes, found lost animals, settled disputes, and expounded upon ethics. As with their Pythian counterparts at Delphi, however, the Kahins' oracles were vague and deliberately imprecise; it was the supplicant's responsibility to figure out what the gods actually meant.

Although considered the link between humanity and the divine, the Kahins did not communicate directly with the gods but rather accessed them through the Jinn and other spirits who were such an integral part of the Jahiliyyah religious experience. Even so, neither the Kahins, nor anyone else for that matter, had access to Allah. In fact, the god who had created the heavens and the earth, who had fashioned human beings in his own image, was the only god in the whole of the Hijaz not represented by an idol in the Kaaba. Although called "the King of the Gods" and "the Lord of the House," Allah was not the central deity in the Kaaba. That honor belonged to Hubal, the Syrian god who had been brought to Mecca centuries before the rise of Islam.

Despite Allah's minimal role in the religious cult of pre-Islamic Arabia, his eminent position in the Arab pantheon is a clear indication of just how far paganism in the Arabian Peninsula had evolved from its simple animistic roots. Perhaps the most striking example of this development can be seen in the processional chant that tradition claims the pilgrims sang as they approached the Kaaba:

Here I am, O Allah, here I am.
You have no partner,
Except such a partner as you have.
You possess him and all that is his.

This remarkable proclamation, with its obvious resemblance to the Muslim profession of faith -- "There is no god but God" -- may reveal the earliest traces in pre-Islamic Arabia of what the German philologist Max Muller termed henotheism: the belief in a single High God, without necessarily rejecting the existence of other, subordinate gods. The earliest evidence of henotheism in Arabia can be traced back to a tribe called the Amir, who lived near modern-day Yemen in the second century B.C.E., and who worshipped a High God they called dhu-Samawi, "The Lord of the Heavens." While the details of the Amirs' religion have been lost to history, most scholars are convinced that by the sixth century C.E., henotheism had become the standard belief of the vast majority of sedentary Arabs, who not only accepted Allah as their High God, but insisted that he was the same god as Yahweh, the god of the Jews. END QUOTE.

So they were miles away from tawheed, that why they were mushriks. Bin baz i am afaid had it wrong. The issue was not whether God sustains but whether He alone is the sustainer. Tawassul i am afraid does not equate to anything near the polytheism of arabia.