PDF of The Recent Boycotting Posts

Here is the PDF of the recent boycotting posts:

On Boycotting.

Answering Those Who Accuse Ahlus-Sunnah of Having Irjaa

The PDF: Accusing Ahlus-Sunnah of Having Irjaa.

Questioner: Our Shaikh, some books have surfaced which talk about the issue of declaring others to be disbelievers [takfir], and they cite some proofs regarding the issue of eemaan with which they accuse the creed of Ahlus-Sunnah wal-Jamaa’ah in this issue as being that of the Murji’ah, and they mention some statements of Ibn Abil-Izz and at-Tahaawi. So what is your response to this doubt [they raise]? May Allaah reward you with good.

Al-Albaani: Our answer is that firstly, the fundamental difference between the real Ahlus-Sunnah and the real Murji’ah is from two angles: that Ahlus-Sunnah believe that righteous actions are from eemaan, the Murji’ah do not believe that and openly state that eemaan is to acknowledge with the tongue and to attest to that with the heart–but that righteous actions are not from eemaan, and through that they reject many texts which, now at the very least, we are not in need of mentioning, unless compelled to.

This is the first point in which the Murji’ah oppose the real Ahlus-Sunnah.

The second point, which branches off from the first, is that Ahlus-Sunnah say that eemaan increases and decreases, [that] it increases through righteous action and decreases through disobedience. The Murji’ah deny this legislated reality and say that eemaan does not increase or decrease.

So the accusation of those people you alluded to [in your question]–and the responsibility is on the narrator [of correctly relaying what he is conveying, i.e., the answer I give is based on the question you ask]–the accusation of these present-day writers saying that Ahlus-Sunnah are Murji’ah in the issue of eemaan shows one of two things, and even the better of the two choices is bitter: either that they are ignorant of this reality, or that they are wilfully ignoring it. How can they accuse people who say that eemaan includes righteous actions and that it increases and decreases–how can they accuse them of being Murji’ah?

And the Murji’ah oppose these people [i.e., Ahlus-Sunnah] from the very root, saying that eemaan does not include righteous actions and does not accept any increase or decrease to such an extent that one of their heads used to say, ‘My eemaan is like that of Jibreel,’ عليه السلام, and he might truly believe that, but he has not been truthful with the text of the Book of his Lord by saying, ‘My eemaan is like that of Jibreel,’ because he believes that eemaan has no connection to prayer, worship and piety and that it is just eemaan, and that this eemaan which is just belief does not increase or decrease since if it did decrease below [the level] of certainty [it would mean that] doubt and uncertainty would enter it and then at that stage it would not benefit.

But eemaan does not accept rigidity … like [for example] this light, like this place, every time the light spreads in it the place expands and expands endlessly.

So the accusation of these people against Ahlus-Sunnnah … these people who make these accusations [against Ahlus-Sunnah] and who appear to follow the Khawaarij, [the Khawaarij being] those who make statements like this and who declare people who commit major sins to be disbelievers and who oppose many, very many texts from the Book and the Sunnah in that–how strange it is that they accuse the multitudes of Muslims from the Companions and those who followed them and those who followed them, people whom Allaah’s Messenger صلى الله عليه سلم testified to as being the best of generations, [how strange it is that they] accuse them of being Murji’ah, and by doing so oppose the great multitude of texts from the Book and the Sunnah.

And in my opinion, answering this fabrication does not require more elaboration than what I’ve just mentioned, and maybe in this much there is sufficiency, inshaa Allaah.

Al-Hudaa wan-Noor, 764.

‘This is not your nest, so move along.’ | Al-Albaani on Imaam Ash-Shaatibi’s Advice to the Scholar, Then What of the Student?

Here’s the PDF: ThisIsNotYourNest.

Shaikh al-Albaani said, “The Allaamah ash-Shaatibi [d. 790ah] , may Allaah have mercy on him, said in his book  Al-Iitisaam [vol. 3, p. 99] when explaining the signs of the people of desires and innovation:

“And a scholar (here Shaikh al-Albaani said, “Examine this closely, he didn’t say, ‘a student of knowledge!’”)–if the [other] scholars have not attested [to his knowledge], then the ruling regarding him is that he remains under the original state of the absence of knowledge–until another [scholar] attests otherwise and until he himself knows what was attested to in his regard.

And if not, then he, for a surety, is upon an absence of knowledge or is upon doubt.

So choosing to proceed [by presenting himself as a scholar] in these two cases instead of refraining is not done except by following desires [i.e., the two cases being [1] a scholar attestting to his knowledge and [2] knowing what the [other] scholar has attested to in his regard].

For it was his duty to get a fatwa from someone else about himself but he didn’t.

And it was his right not to be put forward [presented as a scholar] unless another [scholar] put him forward, and no-one did.””

Shaikh Al-Albaani commenting on this said, “This is Imaam ash-Shaatibi’s advice to ‘a scholar’ who is capable of going before the people with some share of knowledge–he is advising him not to do so until the scholars attest [to his knowledge], fearful that he may be a person of desires.

So what, I wonder, do you think his advice would have been if he saw some of these who are attaching themselves to this knowledge in this time of ours?!

There is no doubt that he would have said to such a person:

لَيْسَ هَذَا بِعُشِّكِ فَادْرُجِي
‘This is not your nest, so move along.’

[Ed. Note: Al-Midaani said in Majma’ul-Amthaal, “‘This is not your nest, so move along,’ i.e., this affair is not something you have a right in, so leave it … it is given as an example for someone who raises himself above his rank.”]

So is there anyone who will take heed?!

And indeed I, by Allaah, fear that these [people] will be included in his saying صلى الله عليه وسلم, “The intellects of the people of that time will be plucked away. And in its place only worthless people will remain. Most of them will think that they are upon something, but they are not upon anything.” [As-Saheehah, no. 1682]

And Allaah’s Aid is sought.”

As-Saheehah, vol. 2, p. 713.

Worshipping Personalities, Fanaticism Towards or Against a Particular Personality, Turning Away from Knowledge and Memorising the Quraan and Becoming Known for Saying, ‘‘This person is an innovator … this person is misguided … this person has such and such an issue …this one has this and that … and this one praises the people of innovation … and this one says such and such …’ | 1 |

The PDF: Worshipping Personalities.

 

Questioner: I want you to give some advice to some of the brothers, students of knowledge in Kuwait. The current situation will not be hidden from the Shaikh concerning the fitnah which is on-going one after the other with the youth of the awakening, from which is the fitnah of the brothers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia [concerning] the brother Safar and Salmaan and so on and those who support what they are on in some issues which they speak about, this issue has reached us in our area in Kuwait and then, ya’ni, “… each group [is] rejoicing in its belief …” [Mu’minoon 23:53]

Al-Albaani: Allaahu Akbar.

Questioner: … and each person claims the love of Lailaa [i.e., each person claims that he is right] …

Al-Albaani: Yes, by Allaah.

Questioner: … every one of them says, ‘I am on the Straight Path …’

Al-Albaani: Yes.

Questioner: ‘…I am the one bearing the Banner … the Banner of Salafiyyah and I am defending it.’

Now something has come between the brothers who are, inshaa Allaah tabaaraka wa ta’aala, on the Salafi way because of these issues, and there is nothing for us except this issue [i.e., it has become the only thing that concerns them]: we have left seeking knowledge …

Al-Albaani: Yes, by Allaah.

Questioner: … we have left memorizing the Book of Allaah the Blessed and Most High, we have left many things and [instead] speak about this issue, such that many of our brothers, the youth, have no concern except this issue, speaking about this person’s honour or that.

And they have made this the vehicle for what? The vehicle for the Salafi da’wah and for defending the Sunnah speaking by dishonouring so and so, and so and so, and so and so, and so and so [fulaan and fulaan and fulaan and fulaan], then the issue resulted in defaming[tajreeh] the people themselves and not the mistakes they have.

So now the youth, our youth who are at their prime, when someone comes … and I’ll give you one example, what we know about the Muslim Brotherhood when a youth starts practising Allaah’s Religion, taking up this way, they warn him against what? Against the Salafis.

Al-Albaani: Yes.

Questioner: [So] now as soon as this youth comes to practice the first thing they warn him against is the tape of so and so, and the cassette of so and so, and so and so.

This is the most important thing now, and this is what many of the youth talk about now until they have become identified with and known for [saying things like], ‘This person is an innovator … this person is misguided … this person has such and such an issue …’

Al-Albaani: Laa hawla wa laa quwwata illaa billaah..

Questioner: ‘… this one has this and that … and this one praises the people of innovation … and this one says such and such …’ and if you were to say to this person that this person [who you’re talking about] …

I was asked one time, a person came to me and said, ‘What do you say about Shaikh [Sayyid] Qutb?’ I said, ‘Yaa akhi, I love him for the Sake of Allaah, he’s a Muslim, and I hate the mistakes that he has. I love him as a Muslim, the general love [a Muslim has for another], and I hate the mistakes that he has …’

Al-Albaani: Tamaam [i.e., perfect/right/fine].

Questioner: … so they started saying, ‘This person is praising the people of innovation! And he’s saying that they have this and that! … These people should be warned against! … Here the proof is available …’

Shaikh, your advice for these youth, may Allaah bless you.

Al-Albaani: By Allaah, Yaa akhi, my opinion is not to apply oneself to/turn to these people who are being praised or criticised today.

And in reality, on many nights questions come to me from Kuwait, the Emirates and elsewhere, [saying], ‘What is your opinion about so and so?’ from which it is obvious that he [i.e., the questioner] is either for that person [he is asking about] or against him.

So I repel him from such a question and say to him, ‘Ask, Yaa akhi, about that which will benefit you concerning those things connected to rectifying your aqidah, your worship, improving your manners. Don’t ask about Zaid, Bakr and Amr [i.e., Tom, Dick and Harry], because this question adds fire to fire.

The person asking might be with these people and against those, or with those and against these, so if you [i.e., I] praise this one you will have slandered that one, or if you praise that one you will have slandered this one, [and] so this, as we said, just increases the fire’s intensity.

For this reason, I advise [the youth] with a concise statement which [in fact] reminds me of Abu Bakr as-Siddiq’s statement when the Prophet عليه السلام passed away. He [i.e., the Prophet عليه السلام] is the one personality whose love all of the Muslims are united upon, whoever turns away from this love will have disbelieved, in contrast to their difference in their love for many of the Companions and their slander of some of them, in most cases this will be [regarded as] fisq and not disbelief.

[So] what I want to say is that even though the Prophet عليه السلام is the Chief of Mankind, and every Muslim’s beloved, when Umar stood up fervently against the one who reported the news that the Prophet had passed away, you know the story, Abu Bakr as-Siddiq proceeded to say, ‘Whoever used to worship Muhammad, then Muhammad has died, and whoever used to worship Allaah, then Allaah is Living, Eternal, and does not die.’

So I do not hold that each one of these factions should be partisan to so and so against so and so or vice versa. Rather I advocate the statement of the Lord of the Worlds, ‘And be with the truthful,’ [Tawbah 9:119], so these youth you pointed out [in the question] are most deserving of [listening to] this statement, it is upon these people who get all worked up to correct their aqidah, their worship, their behaviour, and not to become bigoted for one of these individuals or against him.

Because such fanaticism, firstly, is just like worshipping people/personalities, the type of worship which Abu Bakr as-Siddiq warned against in his previous statement, ‘Whoever used to worship Muhammad, then Muhammad has died, and whoever used to worship Allaah, then Allaah is Living and does not die.’

So becoming enthused towards these people is to become enthused over those who are not infallible, and the issue is as Imaam Maalik, the Imaam of the place of migration, said, ‘There is none from us except that he rejects and is rejected, except for the companion of this grave,’ and he pointed to the Prophet’s صلى الله عليه وآله وسلم grave.

So any person who becomes fanatical for another, [whether that person be] a scholar or a caller, then he will find mistakes in him, and [any person who] becomes fanatical against another will soon find that he [i.e., the person he is against] will have something correct and will soon find some good in him …

Al-Albaani Destroys, “If you’re not with us, you’re against us.”

Here’s the PDF: IfYou’reNotWithUSYou’re AgainstUs.

Questioner: There are principles, O Shaikh, which some of the youth act upon, from these rules is, ‘Whoever does not declare a disbeliever to be a disbeliever then he is a disbeliever.  Whoever does not declare an innovator to be an innovator then he is an innovator,’ and another rule, ‘Whoever is not with us, then he is against us.’

What is your opinion about these rules, O Shaikh?

Al-Albaani: And where have these rules come from?! And who laid them down?!

This reminds me of a joke that is told in my motherland, Albania, my father, may Allaah have mercy on him, related it in a sitting. In the story he said that a scholar visited a friend of his at his house and then when he left he declared his friend to be a disbeliever.

He was asked why …

In our country we have a custom, and I think it is [something] uniform in the countries of non-Arabs, they glorify and respect, and revere the scholars with some customs and habits which differ from country to country. From these is that when a scholar enters a house, visiting someone, upon leaving his shoes are supposed to be turned around so that the scholar will not have to burden himself by turning around–he should just find the shoes are ready for him to slide his feet into.

So when this scholar visited his friend and then went to leave he found that his shoes were just as he had left them, i.e., the host had not respected the Shaikh and had just left them as they were.

So ‘the scholar’ said that this is disbelief.

Why? Because the host had not respected the scholar, and the one who has not respected a scholar has not respected knowledge, and the one who does not respect knowledge does not respect the one who brought the knowledge–and the one who brought the knowledge is Muhammad عليه السلام and he carried on in this way until he got to Jibreel and then the Lord of the Worlds, and thus the host is a kaafir.

This question [of yours], this rule [you mentioned], reminded me of this fable!

It is not a condition at all that someone who has declared a person to be a disbeliever or has established the proof against someone, that [as a result of that] all of the people have to be with him in that judgement of takfir, because he [i.e., the person’s situation] may be open to interpretation and [thus] another scholar may hold that it is not permissible to declare that individual to be a disbeliever, and the same goes for declaring someone to be a faasiq or an innovator.

This reality is from the trials of the present day, and from the hastiness of some youth who falsely claim knowledge. So the point is that this chain [of deduction] or making this binding is not incumbent at all.

This is an open/expansive issue, one scholar may hold something to be obligatory and the other may hold that it is not. And the scholars of before and those who came later never differed except due to the fact that the door of ijtihaad does not make it incumbent on others to take his opinion, ‘that others have to take his opinion.’ It is only the blind-follower [muqallid] who has no knowledge who has to blindly-follow [yuqallid].

The scholar, who sees another declare an individual to be a disbeliever, or a faasiq or an innovator, but does not agree with his opinion–it is not incumbent upon him at all to follow that [other] scholar.

And this is a calamity which, inshaa Allaah, has not spread from your country to others?

Questioner: By Allaah, O Shaikh, it is present in our country, the issue of declaring people to be innovators and declaring them to be disbelievers.

Al-Albaani: As for the Jamaa’atut-Takfeer then it is well-known that it is a group that started in Egypt and their fitnah was here in Ammaan before I settled here, i.e., about fourteen years ago. But Allaah the Mighty and Majestic guided them and they became upright on the Sunnah with us. Likewise some of them came to Damascus before I came here, and they tried to spread the fitnah of declaring other people to be disbelievers there, but again, our Lord did not give them success and they returned empty-handed. As for this misguidance, it is still present in Egypt and I fear that some of it may have reached the students of knowledge, and Allaah’s Aid is sought.

Al-Hudaa wan-Noor, 778.

PDF: On Boycotting

Here is the PDF version of all the separate posts in one place.  If you want to save it, right click on the link and go to ‘Save Link/Target As’:

Boycotting.

PDF: An Advice to the Salafis to Show Kindness and Softness and to Reject Disunity and Differences … and to Leave the Unlegislated Type of Boycotting

Here is the PDF version of all the separate posts in one place.  If you want to save it, right click on the link and go to ‘Save Link/Target As’:

Harshness.

 

Last Post and PDF of the Discussion on the Ascendancy of Allaah

Translated by Ahmed Abu Turaab

This is the last post from the lecture.  Now what’s the point of reading this and not helping to spread it?  Forward the PDF to whoever you can, here it is: Ascendancy

Al-Albaani: At this moment we are in a house [of Allaah, i.e., a mosque], a place that is from the most excellent of places as occurs in the Saheeh [where it is mentioned] that the Prophet of Allaah صلى الله عليه وسلم was asked about the best and worst of places, so he said that the best places are the mosques and the worst are the marketplaces.

In the marketplace there are places that are even worse than the market [itself], like the lavatories for example, so the marketplace is from the worst of places as you just heard, and even worse than it are the lavatories, in some markets there are bars, pubs, brothels and so on.

Is Allaah the Mighty and Majestic in these places in His Essence [based upon the aayah], ‘… and He is with you wherever you are?’

Never!

Rather He is above His Throne as Abdullaah ibn al-Mubaarak said—but He is with you in His Knowledge, no secret is hidden from Him in the earth or the heavens.

So let not the intending meaning of this aayah be difficult for anyone to understand: Allaah’s [Dhaat] Essence, Allaah’s [Dhaat] Essence is free of all creation, ‘Allaah was and nothing was with Him.’

So, ‘… and He is with you wherever you are …’ He is with you wherever you are in His Knowledge.

No person says, ‘By Allaah, I’m [here] between the four walls [of this place], so there is a veil between me and my Lord such that He cannot see me,’ no, no one says this except an unbeliever who denies the existence of Allaah the Mighty and Majestic.

The same is said about aayahs like, ‘…Indeed, I am with you both.  I hear and I see.’ [Taa Haa 20:46]

The last part of this aayah explains its first part, and its first part the last, ‘… Indeed, I am with you both.  I hear and I see.’  This sentence is an explanation of His Saying, the Most High, ‘… Indeed, I am with you both …’ how? ‘I hear and I see.’

So He was with them when He sent them to Pharaoh and ordered them to remind him [of Allaah] and to make him fear [Allaah].  Allaah said to them, ‘Fear not.  Indeed, I am with you both.  I hear and I see.’

So this sentence, ‘… I hear and I see,’ is an explanation of His Saying, the Most High, ‘… Indeed, I am with you both,’

He is not there [Himself] as someone who would lead an army would be, or present as the head of an army would be–no, it is not like that–Allaah, the Mighty and Majestic, is free and in no need of the world.  He regulates the universe from the heavens to the earth while having ascended and being above The Throne, as He, the Most High, has stated.

Al-Hudaa wan-Noor, 741-742.

The video:

 

PDF: Is the Sufi’s Stabbing themselves with Skewers a Miracle?

Here is the PDF version of all the separate posts in one place.  If you want to save it, right click on the link and go to ‘Save Link/Target As’:

Skewers.

The video:

PDF of Shaikh al-Albaani’s Meeting with ‘the Hashish Wali’

Here is the PDF version of all the separate posts in one place.  If you want to save it, right click on the link and go to ‘Save Link/Target As’:

The Hashish Wali.

Here’s the YouTube video: