The Islamic Awakening: Many pens have addressed it. In your opinion, what are the urgent matters for guiding this awakening and leading it toward the correct Islam?

The questioner : Another question asks: The Islamic Awakening has been addressed by many pens. In your opinion, what are the urgent matters for guiding this awakening and leading it toward the correct Islam?

The Shaykh : What I believe regarding this question is that the Islamic Awakening, a term that has become common in the present age, is first: a primitive awakening. Second: its causes return to two things. The first thing: this awakening occurred because of the pressures, injustice, and tyranny that surrounded the Muslims from outside their lands and from within them. This severity that befell them was a cause for this awakening and this vigilance.
Another cause, which I believe is more important, is that this awakening resulted from the rise of a group of Muslims, as they are called today, the traditionalists (usuliyun), meaning those who return in their understanding of the Book of Allah and the Hadith of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) to application and practice, and to the methodology of the righteous predecessors (Salaf). The call of these people in the present age, following in the footsteps of some of the old reformist callers, has the greatest cause in awakening the masses of Muslims and achieving this awakening, if it is a scholarly awakening and not just an awakening due to the first cause I mentioned earlier, which is the injustice and tyranny that surrounded the Muslims. In order to benefit from this awakening, which is at the beginning of its path, it is necessary to pave the way and clarify the path for it by the continuous effort of the reformist callers in the manner we mentioned earlier, relying on the Book and the Sunnah and the methodology of the righteous predecessors. They should expand their call and connect with all Islamic groups as much as possible, as much as possible, so that this blessed call becomes clear to them in all its aspects, especially what relates to the creed, the creed of tawhid (the oneness of Allah) in the correct manner that our righteous predecessors were upon. However, on this occasion, I must mention that this awakening, meaning its head or beginning, must be accompanied by directing the Muslims, along with the correct intellectual call, to the necessity of acting upon this Islam, and not stopping at the awakening and the intellectual, scholarly vigilance only. Rather, it must be accompanied by action in accordance with this awakening that returns to the Book and the Sunnah. As for the fact that many Islamic groups or parties remain in calling people to an Islam that is not known and not clarified, this does not benefit the Islamic world at all. They themselves, before anything else, must understand Islam correctly so that they can present it to the Islamic world clearly and distinctly; otherwise, one who lacks a thing cannot give it. In short: we must teach people and guide them to the correct Islam taken from the Book and the Sunnah, and the obligation to act upon it. We see many Islamic callers, let alone those below them, who know many of the legal rulings, yet they do not implement them or carry them out. In fact, some of them openly state that it is not necessary to investigate this from a practical side and draw attention to this aspect, because in that there may be some division and disagreement. So they are afraid that the saying of Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) will apply to them: . Therefore, the call must be to the Book, acting upon the Book and the Sunnah in understanding and application. This is what I have as an answer to this question.