What do you know about the beliefs of these Peace Bunches associations, and what is your advice to Muslim men and women regarding this group?

The questioner: Praise be to Allah; we praise Him, seek His help, and seek His forgiveness. We seek refuge in Allah from the evil of our own souls and from the evil of our deeds. Whomsoever Allah guides, none can mislead, and whomsoever He leaves to mislead, none can guide. And I bear witness that there is no deity but Allah alone, with no partner, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His slave and His Messenger. As for what follows: We have received some important questions that have confused the minds of many ignorant people and have deceived many Muslims. So we visited the scholar and hadith master Muhammad Nasir al-Din al-Albani (may Allah preserve him) so that he could answer these questions, clarify the path, and advise the Muslims. We asked him the following questions: There are women's associations called "Peace Bunches" that are widespread in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and some of the Gulf states. We have learned that they are connected to the group of Amira Jibril and Fadiyyah al-Taba'ah, who studied under Ahmad Kiftaro, the mufti of Syria. What do you know about the beliefs of these people, and what is your advice to Muslim men and women regarding this group?

The Shaykh: Praise be to Allah; we praise Him, seek His help, and seek His forgiveness. We seek refuge in Allah from the evil of our own souls and from the evil of our deeds. Whomsoever Allah guides, none can mislead, and whomsoever He leaves to mislead, none can guide. And I bear witness that there is no deity but Allah alone, with no partner, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His slave and His Messenger. As for what follows: What I know regarding this question is that this is the result of the upbringing of those who join them among the girls. It appears to me from many reports that many of these girls are good-hearted and sincere, seeking Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) in this affiliation. However, they do not know that Fadiyyah al-Taba'ah is not a scholar. How can we say otherwise when today we lack the true scholar who knows the Book and the Sunnah among men, so what can we say about women?! One of the manifestations of the guidance issued by this woman to the girls who affiliate with her is that they do not observe the prescribed hijab. Much discussion has taken place between some of them and some of the Salafi women, and the answer was that we are now limiting ourselves to this jilbab, which is short at the bottom, because we want to spread the religion gradually. The meaning of this statement, in today's scientific understanding, is that it is a half-measure, and the meaning of that is not adopting Islam fully. This is what I know about this woman. As for Amira Jibril, I do not know anything about her, but it suffices to say that she belongs to the method of Ahmad Kiftaro. We know Ahmad Kiftaro from Damascus; he is the shaykh of the Naqshbandi order, and he used to give public lessons in many of the mosques there. It appears explicitly from his lessons that he calls for his personality to be followed by all his followers in the known Sufi method, which is known to all who know Sufism and the shaykhs of Sufism. This method is based on phrases that are pure shirk (associating partners with Allah), because they imply submission to other than Allah, to other than the ruling of Allah and the ruling of His Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him). I mean by this, from their words: "Whoever says to his shaykh 'why?' will never succeed," and "The one who takes two shaykhs is like a woman who takes two husbands." These two misguidances are established for everyone who belongs to any of the paths that deviate from the Book and the Sunnah, including the Naqshbandi path. That is, no one can deny or refute these two phrases. On this basis, the groups that belong to the paths in general, and to the path of Ahmad Kiftaro, which is the Naqshbandi path, in particular, were raised. And at that point, it is sufficient for us as evidence that this contradicts the Shari'ah the statement of He (Blessed and Exalted is He): .
So we advise everyone who belongs to any of the paths of Sufism, including the Naqshbandi path, to disavow it and to repent to Allah (Mighty and Majestic). They should strive to know what came in the Book of Allah and what came in the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). Submission to anyone, no matter how high or noble a human being may be, is shirk (associating partners with Allah) (Mighty and Majestic). Because Allah (Mighty and Majestic) said first in the famous verse: , and He said in the other verse that came specifically regarding the Christians, though that does not mean it does not include those who do the work of the Christians. That verse is His statement (Mighty and Majestic): . So the one who follows a shaykh blindly contradicts these texts and many other texts, including His statement (Mighty and Majestic). And with this verse I conclude the answer to this question: . The one who follows the saying of a shaykh, even if he is from the Sufis or the path followers, following him on the basis that "the shaykh said it," is like those about whom Allah (Mighty and Majestic) said in the last verse: .

The questioner : May Allah reward you with good.