How do we determine or clarify in our contemporary society today that the call has reached a specific group, or that we can say the proof has been established against them?

The questioner : Shall we move on to another topic, O Shaykh?

The Shaykh: Yes.

The questioner : I mean, a discussion among our Salafi brothers.

The Shaykh: Yes.

The questioner : The issue of establishing the proof against the obstinate. For example, we have sects like the grave-worshipping Sufis, most of whom are grave-worshippers. Some of our Salafi brothers do not pray behind them, claiming that these people are disbelievers, polytheists, and grave-worshippers. Others say, no, we should hold back regarding their status until the call reaches them unadulterated. Because the call now, or previously in Sudan, is distorted. The Salafi call is that they are Wahhabis who hate the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), and so on. So it is distorted. They say that these people have excuses because the call did not reach them, either it did not reach them at all, or it reached them distorted.

The Shaykh : I do not see it as correct to say that the Salafi call reached the obstinate you mentioned in a distorted form. No, it reached them sound and free from distortion, but it was accompanied by slander against them.

The questioner : This is what I mean.

The Shaykh : That is what you intend, but your wording was somewhat deficient. I understood what you meant. Now, this sentence can be considered a parenthetical remark. Have you been asked?

The questioner : Let us start with another question.

The Shaykh : No, a question, a question. This will be first, in the name of Allah.

The questioner : The first question: How do we determine in our contemporary society today how we determine or clarify that the call has reached a specific group, and how can we say that the proof has been established against them?

The Shaykh : Yes, without a doubt, the issue differs from country to country. To the extent of my knowledge, the Salafi call is stronger and more organized in some countries, and its scope of propagation is wider than in many other countries. This is the case when the Salafis—or the supporters of the Sunnah, or the people of the Hadith, all names indicating the same designation—are an organized group. These people can, first, convey the call to the people among whom they live more effectively than individuals who are in another community and cannot reach the voice of their true word to those people. So I can say in the first case: that this group has established the proof against that community. But as for those individuals, we cannot say that they have established the proof, because only a few individuals from that community heard them. So in this situation, we cannot say that the proof has been established against this community. Therefore, we must now observe the status of the group among a certain people or community, and the breadth of their propagation of the call among another group where it cannot be said to be a group, but rather there are individuals. This is one part of the answer. The second part: I observe that many of our brothers, many individual Salafi brothers in all countries, ask me, seek my fatwa: What do you say about praying behind such-and-such a Shaykh? He calls for aid from other than Allah, swears by other than Allah, makes vows to the graves of righteous deceased people, and so on. Do I pray behind him? I say, as I quoted from some of them: We do not dare to declare a Muslim a disbeliever who testifies that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah and maintains the performance of the remaining pillars, even if there is some deviation from the Sunnah in them, except after the proof has been established against him. My questioner, whom I am referring to by type, says: I have established the proof against him! And he is not good at reading a verse, not good at reading a hadith. So how does he consider himself and testify that he has established the proof against such-and-such a Shaykh, when that Shaykh might be an Azhar graduate who has struggled for himself in seeking knowledge, seeking hadith, principles, and etiquette, and so on, and he thinks he has established the proof against this? This is a mistake. Rather, this is arrogance and delusion from our Salafi brothers. Therefore, this second condition must be kept in mind when we want to imagine that a Salafi group has established the proof against another group, or against a community, or against a people. First: that they be a mass who feel that their call has reached that group, or that community, or those people. And that they be, in the hope of being truly scholars of the Book and the Sunnah, able to establish the proof by saying, "Allah said, the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said," because this is knowledge. Knowledge is not saying that this is disbelief, this is calling for aid from Allah, this is shirk, and this is misguidance. This is the fruit of the proof. But the fruit does not become a proof in itself unless its proof is accepted. And as you know, the saying of Imam Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyyah (may Allah have mercy on him) when he said:
"Knowledge is: Allah said, His Messenger said, *** The Companions said, it is not deception.
What is knowledge? You set yourself up for foolishness in disagreement between the Messenger and the opinion of a jurist.
No, and neither denial of the attributes and their negation, out of fear of ta'til and tashbih.
So, we must observe a group that has established the proof against another group; they must be qualified for the call and its propagation to those people, so that we can then say that these are disbelievers because the proof has been established against them.