Isn't Tawassul Just A Form Of Shirk?

In defense of tawassul two things are said. That is, that Muslims don't call the saint a god and that the prayer goes to God ultimately who answers it. Hindus say the same thing about their idols that they are just intermediaries. Does this mean that the difference between Muslims and polytheists is just superficial and we have similar interaction with saints as they with their idols, but they call them gods and we don't? Is this not a very superficial distinction between tawheed and shirk?

In the name of Allah, Most Compassionate, Most Merciful,

As Shaykh Nuh Keller has previously written:

TAWASSUL (definition)

Supplicating Allah by means of an intermediary, whether it be a living person, dead person, a good deed, or a name or Attribute of Allah Most High. The scholar, Yusuf Rifa'i, says: I here want to convey the position, attested to by compelling legal evidence, of the orthodox majority of Sunni Muslims on the subject of supplicating Allah through an intermediary (tawassul), and so I say (and Allah alone gives success) that since there is no disagreement among scholars that supplicating Allah through an intermediary is in principle legally valid, the discussion of its details merely concerns derived rulings that involve interschool differences, unrelated to questions of belief or unbelief, monotheism or associating partners with Allah (shirk); the sphere of the question being limited to permissibility or impermissibility, and its ruling being that it is either lawful or unlawful. (From "Sunni Saint Worshippers?")

Also please see the following link(s) in answer to your question:

Sunni Saint Worshippers?

Istighatha: Calling Someone Other Than Allah for Help

Tawassul Through the Awliya

Tawassul through the pious

Making tawassul through one's actions

Tawassul of `Umar through al-`Abbas

Al-Shafi`i's Tawassul with Abu Hanifa

Calling on Other than Allah?

Wassalam

SunniPath Fiqh Team