How do we distinguish the callers to truth from the callers to falsehood?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
May Allah reward you with good. This questioner says: After the salam, he says: It is not hidden from your noble knowledge the trials that are sweeping through the Muslim community, and what has specifically befallen our lands, these lands of tawhid (the oneness of Allah) and the Sunnah. Many have emerged claiming to be on the methodology of the people of the Sunnah and the community, yet they confuse the people. How do we distinguish the callers to truth from the callers to falsehood? May Allah reward you with good.
Answer:
The criterion is not in the call or the affiliation, but in the reality. If the one who says he is on the methodology of the people of the Sunnah and the community is truthful in this by following the truth and acting upon the evidence from the Book and the Sunnah, and he holds the beliefs of the people of the Sunnah and the community and states this explicitly, then there is no doubt that he is truthful. But if he says this, yet his actions contradict it—he calls upon other than Allah, denies the names and attributes, and calls to bid'ah (religious innovations)—then even if he claims to be from the people of the Sunnah and the community, his actions refute his words, so he is not to be believed in this. Yes.
May Allah reward you with good. This questioner says: After the salam, he says: It is not hidden from your noble knowledge the trials that are sweeping through the Muslim community, and what has specifically befallen our lands, these lands of tawhid (the oneness of Allah) and the Sunnah. Many have emerged claiming to be on the methodology of the people of the Sunnah and the community, yet they confuse the people. How do we distinguish the callers to truth from the callers to falsehood? May Allah reward you with good.
Answer:
The criterion is not in the call or the affiliation, but in the reality. If the one who says he is on the methodology of the people of the Sunnah and the community is truthful in this by following the truth and acting upon the evidence from the Book and the Sunnah, and he holds the beliefs of the people of the Sunnah and the community and states this explicitly, then there is no doubt that he is truthful. But if he says this, yet his actions contradict it—he calls upon other than Allah, denies the names and attributes, and calls to bid'ah (religious innovations)—then even if he claims to be from the people of the Sunnah and the community, his actions refute his words, so he is not to be believed in this. Yes.
Source
قناة «العلامة الدكتور صالح الفوزان»، كيف نعرف دعاة الحق من دعاة الباطل؟\صالح الفوزان\كبار العلماء — youtube.com
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.