How do we understand the religion according to the methodology of our righteous predecessors?

The questioner : I bear witness that there is no god but Allah, alone, with no partner, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His slave and His Messenger. As for what follows:
The best of speech is the speech of Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He), and the best of guidance is the guidance of Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him). The worst of matters are their newly invented ones, and every newly invented matter is a religious innovation, and every religious innovation is misguidance, and every misguidance is in the Fire.
We praise Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) with a second praise, and we cannot count His praise, (Glorified and Exalted is He) as He has praised Himself. The blessings of Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) upon us are many, and among His blessings is that today among us is our teacher and shaykh, Muhammad al-Nasir al-Albani. I borrow, and you all naturally know him before you see him, through reading and studying under him. In this occasion, I will borrow a word from Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal in his description of al-Shafi'i (may Allah be pleased with them both), who said: "He was like the sun for the world, and health for the people." And this, if Allah wills, perhaps this description is true today of our shaykh and teacher, for there is no student of knowledge in our present era who walks upon the methodology of the righteous predecessors but has benefited from the knowledge ofThe Shaykh : al-Nasir (may Allah reward him with good), for what Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) prepared for him of verifying the hadiths of the Prophet (may the prayers and peace of Allah be upon him) and distinguishing the authentic from the weak, at a time when this knowledge was studied among the people, and the small number that cares for it and attends to it became few. The reality is that this knowledge is the essence of the religion, and it is the strong barrier between the correct religion and the false religion, andThe Shaykh : (may Allah preserve him) did not make his concern to be among the lines of books and locked rooms, but rather he read and listened for the general public of preachers and the general public of writers; so whenever he found a weak hadith in a famous sermon, or a weak hadith in a famous book in the hands of people, he would attend to it and clarify it, and he bore the speech of people and the anger of the angry, but by the power of Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) and His strength... that is, in any case, this is not the place for praisingThe Shaykh : and he is greater and more noble than this, if Allah wills, and we ask Allah that his status with Him be greater. On this night, if Allah wills, the discussion will be around a fundamental topic of the Salafi da'wah; which is how do we understand the religion according to the methodology of our righteous predecessors (may Allah be pleased with them)? If Allah wills, the questions will come after he finishesThe Shaykh : from the speech, and they will be written, if Allah wills, and papers will be distributed to you, and we will open for discussion, if Allah wills, after the completion of the speech, and I now leave the space for the shaykh, so please proceed.

The Shaykh : Indeed, praise is to Allah; we praise Him, seek His help, and seek His forgiveness, and we seek refuge in Allah from the evils of our souls and from the badness of our deeds. Whom Allah guides, there is no one who can misguide him, and whom He misguides, there is no one who can guide him. And I bear witness that there is no god but Allah, alone, with no partner, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His slave and His Messenger. , , . As for what follows:
Indeed, the best of speech is the speech of Allah, and the best of guidance is the guidance of Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him), and the worst of matters are their innovations, and every innovation is a religious innovation, and every religious innovation is misguidance, and every misguidance is in the Fire. And after that:
And you all know that all Muslims agreed that Islam is nothing but the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of His Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him and his family), with no disagreement in this. Therefore, we must understand the difference between our call, we Salafis, among the other groups or parties or schools of thought, old and new. Those groups and schools that meet us on what we mentioned, namely that Islam is nothing but the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of His Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him and his family). We should know that the difference between us and those we referred to is in a very important matter. If the Muslims had adhered to it in the past and in the present, this severe and abundant disagreement would not have occurred in the past and in the present. And that is adhering to what the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) and his noble Companions after him were upon. This is because the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), who was addressed in the Noble Qur'an by the saying of the Lord of the Worlds, , in this verse there is an explicit statement that Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) charged His Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) with two things. The first thing is to convey to the people the words of what was revealed to him from the Book of his Lord (Blessed and Exalted is He). The second thing is to explain it to the people and clarify it for them. The Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) was thus charged with two duties: conveying the wording, and explaining the meaning. The conveying of the wording is what our Lord (Blessed and Exalted is He) intended by His saying (Mighty and Majestic): , "Convey what has been revealed to you from your Lord from the Book of Allah (Mighty and Majestic)," and from other rulings that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) revealed upon the heart of Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him), and then he took charge of transmitting them to the people by the way of his hadith (peace and blessings be upon him). This is the first thing that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) was commanded to convey to the people.
And the second thing, which is very important like the first thing, is the explanation and clarification of what Allah revealed upon the heart of Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) from the Qur'an. This is what is intended by the previously mentioned verse: . And the "mention" here, as is known to the scholars of exegesis, is the Noble Qur'an. "And We have revealed to you the mention" is like His saying (Glorified and Exalted is He): . Just as the "mention" intended by this last verse is the Noble Qur'an, so the "mention" intended by the previous verse: . If this becomes clear to us, namely that the Noble Qur'an cannot be understood correctly except through the way of our Prophet (may the prayers and peace of Allah be upon him), for he took charge of explaining, clarifying, and interpreting the Qur'an. From here, no Muslim can be a true Muslim if he acts arrogantly and desires to understand the speech of Allah independently and separately from the explanation of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him and his family). Otherwise, in that case, he would not be a believer in the second part of the two testimonies, the second testimony: "And that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah." One who relies on himself in understanding the Book of his Lord without relying on the explanation, interpretation, and clarification of his Prophet is not considered a Muslim, because he has not believed in the depths of his heart that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) is truly the Messenger of Allah. Therefore, we must visualize this reality: that there is no way to understand the Qur'an except through the way of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him). This is one point, and it is a fundamental point.
In my opinion, the Muslims have not differed on this matter in the past, even if in recent times some have at least doubted it, as they resort to interpreting the Qur'an with their own opinions without referring to the explanation of the Messenger (peace be upon him) and his Sunnah. These are a group that emerged in India, then some of its members spread to Egypt, and then to other countries. They are called, or call themselves, "the Quranists." These people have turned away from adhering to this explanation that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) mentioned in the Qur'an, as we have clarified. Consequently, they have produced an Islam that has no basis in the Book or the Sunnah; it is merely concepts they invented when they deviated from this second principle, which is the Sunnah of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). We know for certain that the Companions of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) were the most knowledgeable people regarding the language of the Qur'an, the Arabic language in which the Qur'an was revealed. Yet they stopped in their understanding of many verses, and some of the Companions (peace and blessings be upon him) even erred in some of them, until the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) clarified them with many well-known examples in the Sunnah. Sufficient for you is that when Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) revealed His saying (Mighty and Majestic) regarding fasting: , some of the Companions understood the noble verse before it, , which was revealed up to this point, to mean that the white thread and the black thread are the literal meaning of the word "thread." So one of them would place two threads under his pillow and wake up at the end of the night, trying to distinguish the white thread from the black thread. This reached the Messenger (peace be upon him), and he said to him: . Because his understanding was flawed, Allah (Mighty and Majestic) revealed a clarification and explanation of the intended meaning of His saying (Blessed and Exalted is He): , which is not from cloth or garment or thread or the like. If the Arabs, in whom the Qur'an was directly revealed, needed the teaching and explanation of the Messenger (peace be upon him), as in this hadith and another hadith where the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), when Allah (Mighty and Majestic) revealed His saying: Our Messenger (may Allah's prayers and peace be upon him) cited as evidence for this the saying of Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He), narrating Luqman when he said to his son while admonishing him: . So, in the previous verse, the meaning of injustice there is the greatest shirk. If such a second verse was difficult for some of the Companions, and they understood injustice in a meaning different from the other verse, until the Messenger (may Allah's prayers and peace be upon him) clarified to them that the injustice in the first verse is the same as the injustice in the other verse, which is shirk with Allah (Mighty and Majestic).
A researcher finds many, and very many, such examples in the Sunnah and in the history of the Companions with their Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). Therefore, it was self-evident that the scholars of the Muslims agreed that there is no way to understand the Noble Qur'an except through our Prophet (may Allah's prayers and peace be upon him). For this reason, we find authentic Prophetic hadiths following one another, each supporting the other, in clarifying that the Muslims will be on the guidance of their Lord and in the right path in their affairs as long as they adhere to the Book of Allah and the explanation of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), which is the Sunnah. Perhaps each of you has heard his saying (peace and blessings be upon him) in the Farewell Pilgrimage: . It is not a single matter, which is the Qur'an as the Quranists claim, but rather two matters, meaning: it is obligatory for the Muslims to remain adhering to these two principles, the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), until the Day of Resurrection, so that the Qur'an and the Sunnah will be gathered together without separation between them. The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) confirmed this in more than one authentic hadith, including what Imam Abu Dawud, Imam Ahmad, and al-Hakim in al-Mustadrak and others narrated from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) that he said: , and in another hadith: . This hadith confirms what came in some of the previous verses of His saying (Exalted is He): . So, in other words, there is an explainer and the explained. The explained is the Noble Qur'an, and the explainer is the Messenger (may the best of prayers and the most perfect of peace be upon him). It is not permissible to separate the Qur'an from the Sunnah.
This truth is one of the matters on which the scholars of the Muslims have agreed in the past, and praise be to Allah. But there remains a third thing that the masses of those who claim to belong to Islam have overlooked today, including some Islamic groups and Muslim parties. This third matter is also one that the Qur'an then the Messenger (peace be upon him) took upon themselves to explain. As for the Qur'an, listen to the saying of Allah (Mighty and Majestic): . The point of this verse is that we observe that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) mentioned the Messenger here, then connected to that the path of the believers, saying (Mighty and Majestic): , to the end of the verse. Why? What is the wisdom, I wonder, in our Lord (Mighty and Majestic) mentioning the path of the believers in this context? Was it not sufficient and complete if the verse did not mention the path of the believers? If the verse had been as I say: "And whoever opposes the Messenger after the guidance has become clear to him, We will turn him to what he has turned to"? Why did the verse not come this way? Instead, it came with the addition of . Here is a very important point, and indeed the crux of the matter, as they say, of my speech in this blessed evening, if Allah wills. Allah (Mighty and Majestic) connected His saying: with His saying: , for an important reason. What is it, I wonder? That is because we have learned that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) directly conveyed to his noble Companions the wording of the Qur'an and its explanation, that is, its interpretation. And these righteous predecessors, led by his Companions (peace be upon him), when they received this explanatory interpretation of the Qur'an, understood it, without doubt, with a correct understanding first, and then applied it with a correct application. Therefore, they deserved the victory of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) in all the battles in which they struggled in the path of Allah, because they supported Allah, so He supported them.
Since that is the case, those who came after them, the followers who followed them with excellence, also received the explanation of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) and the application of the Companions of this explanation, making this explanation an Islam, as it is said today, that walks on the face of the earth. The followers, and then their followers, also received this explanation issued by the Messenger (peace be upon him) and applied among them over the years, indeed over the three centuries attested to as the best. So they were all on the guidance of their Lord. The consequence for one who opposes these predecessors and follows a path other than theirs is that the severe warning you heard in the previous verse will be upon him: .
If Allah (Mighty and Majestic) had not mentioned this verse, there would have been a wide scope for the opponent, indeed the one who opposes the Messenger (peace be upon him), to say, "This is my understanding of the Qur'an." And this is a reality, unfortunately. For example, there are very old sects who understood from the Qur'an that the fighting prayer is only three units, not five as is the opinion of the people of the Sunnah and the community, because they looked at such as His saying (Blessed and Exalted is He).
Yes?

The questioner : ... .

The Shaykh : No, a verse, .

The questioner : ... .

The Shaykh : No, a verse What is its beginning?

The questioner : .

The Shaykh : , they understood from this verse that there are only three times, meaning: for its disappearance, and meaning: the appearance of darkness, meaning: the Fajr prayer. These are the three times. Therefore, they do not have what was mass-transmitted from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) regarding what Jibril (peace be upon him) taught him about the five prayers, as we have inherited it, generation after generation, from the Salaf. Why did they engage their minds and unleash them upon such a text, so that they understood from it only that there are three times in which five prayers are performed: the Dhuhr and 'Asr prayers in one time, the Maghrib and 'Isha' prayers in one time, and the Fajr prayer in one time, exactly as the people of the Sunnah do when they are traveling? So they neglected or turned away from the path of the believers who transmitted to us from the Master of the Messengers that he used to pray with his Companions throughout his blessed life in five times. When we look at this practical Sunnah, we understand what the Salaf mentioned in the interpretation of the previous verse: meaning: for the entry of the time of Dhuhr and the time of 'Asr, because the time of 'Asr does not exist except after the sun has declined. So the fact that there are two times, one for Dhuhr and one for 'Asr, does not contradict the verse that says: ; because the time of the sun's disappearance is long, and very long, sufficient for two prayers, which are the Dhuhr and 'Asr prayers. Similarly, His saying (Blessed and Exalted is He): meaning: the darkness of the night. The time of Maghrib enters into the darkness of the night, then the time of the 'Isha' prayer. As for the recitation of the Fajr in the Fajr prayer, that is clear.
This is an example of the examples that become clear to the Muslim who is eager to understand his religion as it was with the righteous Salaf. It becomes clear to him how the innovators deviate from understanding the Qur'an and contradict the path of the believers because they do not pay attention to what the Companions received from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). This is so that the Muslim does not fall into such a wrong understanding, saying: "I understand the Qur'an to mean that there are only three times for the five prayers." The phrase: meaning: as if Allah (Mighty and Majestic) wants to say to the Muslims, "I protect you and make you fear that you will not contradict your Prophet, and not contradict his path, and not also contradict the path of the believers." So whoever does that, for him is the reward of Hellfire: . So it is not enough for the Muslim to say, "I understand the Qur'an this way," and then not pay attention to what the Muslims were upon in their understanding of the Qur'an. Otherwise, whoever follows this path has not believed in the Qur'an. And Allah (Mighty and Majestic), when He said in this verse: ; He did not say that in vain. Meaning, if a person were to delete this phrase, there is no doubt that it would corrupt the intended meaning of the Qur'an; because He intended two things: first, not contradicting the Messenger, and second, not deviating from the path of the believers.
And the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) confirmed this and added clarification, as is his custom in many matters; he clarifies the Qur'an and adds explanation for the people. This path of the believers was clarified by the Messenger (peace be upon him) in the hadith of the lost sheep when he said (peace be upon him): . They said: "Who are they, O Messenger of Allah?" He said: . This is the most famous and most authentic narration, but it does not contradict the other narration which says that the saved sect from the Fire is the one that is - meaning the Messenger (peace be upon him) - . Why, then, did the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) mention in this authentic hadith that the saved sect is the one that is upon what the Messenger was upon, and did not suffice with that, but also added to it - also - , that they are upon what the Messenger was upon, and upon what his Companions were upon? The point in this hadith is in the previous verse. The Messenger (peace be upon him) mentioned the Companions in this hadith because they are the ones who received the Qur'an from the Messenger (peace be upon him) directly, fresh and new, and then received from him (peace be upon him) its clarification, interpretation, and explanation, and they practiced it. So if we turn away from adhering to what the Companions of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) were upon, we are not guaranteed to be from the saved sect; because the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) presented us with two descriptions to be from the saved sect:
- The first description: that we take what came to us from the Messenger (peace be upon him). And the second description: that we take what came to us from his noble Companions.
So this hadith is like His saying (Mighty and Majestic) in the previous verse, when He drew attention to the fact that there is a very important matter that Muslims must heed and not contradict; which is the path of the first Muslims. Similarly, here the Messenger (peace be upon him) confirmed the meaning and said in the description of the saved sect: it is the one that is upon what I am upon and my Companions. Of this nature is also, exactly, the hadith narrated by the compilers of the Sunan, Imam al-Tirmidhi and others, from the hadith of al-'Arba' ibn Sariyah (may Allah be pleased with him). He said: "The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) preached to us a sermon that made our hearts tremble and our eyes shed tears. So we said: 'Advise us, O Messenger of Allah.' He said: . He did not stop at his Sunnah, but also added to it and said: . And in the other hadith: . The point of this hadith is that the Messenger (peace be upon him) advised his noble Companions, and consequently those who come after them, to adhere to his Sunnah and the Sunnah of the Rightly Guided Caliphs. Why did he mention the Sunnah of the Rightly Guided Caliphs? Because these Caliphs, among all the Companions, also understood what they received from the Messenger (peace be upon him) with correct understanding, and practiced it with correct practice. So it is as if he is saying (peace and blessings be upon him) to the people: adhere to what my Companions were upon; because they were upon guidance from their Lord in understanding and action. And many Muslims may understand with correct understanding, but do not practice it in themselves and in those who follow them.
As for the Companions, they were upon guidance from their Lord, understanding the Book of their Lord and following the Sunnah of their Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). For that reason, and because the calls have multiplied in the recent times, every one of the people of these calls claims to be upon Islam, and all of them have raised their voices with the Book and the Sunnah in the last of times. But you will not find a single group among them that declares this explicitly, let alone that they adopt it as their creed. They do not say "the Book and the Sunnah and the methodology of the righteous predecessors." This is because their masses want to interpret the Qur'an and the hadiths of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) in a way that suits their desires, their tastes, or what they claim to be the benefit of the Ummah. You will find many of today's Islamic writers who do not follow the Sunnah of the righteous predecessors in proclaiming the truth, which does not accept multiplicity. You will find many of them issuing fatwas that they themselves know, let alone others, are contrary to the correct Sunnah, if not contrary to the Noble Qur'an. They take from the opinions in which scholars disagreed whatever is more widespread and popular among the people, under the pretext of what? Making things easy for the people. Therefore, they have established a methodology other than the methodology of the righteous predecessors, who followed the text, whether it contained ease or strictness. I do not say difficulty; for ease is not according to our desires, wishes, or appetites. Rather, ease is what Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) has made easy. Such calls cannot adopt what we emphasize in this speech, "the methodology of the righteous predecessors." Rather, they cling to some verses and interpret them according to the demands of their appetites. They say, for example, "Make things easy and do not make them difficult," as if ease is in our hands. Ease is a divine legislation, as you know. The truth is that we make things easy where Allah has made them easy, and we are strict where Allah has been strict with us. We have no choice in the Shari'ah whatsoever; it is pure following. Therefore, we, the Salafis, must clarify our call clearly, with no ambiguity. Our call is the Book of Allah and the hadith of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). Every Islamic group agrees with us on this. But when we say to them, "And upon the methodology of the righteous predecessors," based on the aforementioned evidence, they do not walk with us and they turn away from us. Therefore, we must understand the reality of our call, and then we must apply it in practice.
You must have heard in much of what is broadcast or published in some letters the denial of the people of the Sunnah, whom they hold to in word and deed. They have become a target of denial because they do not evolve with time. Was this evolution with time part of the guidance of the righteous predecessors? The answer is: absolutely not. A Companion would enter upon the greatest of the disbelieving kings, whether it was the King of Persia or the Caesar, and he would not change anything of his guidance or his manner of dealing with people. Rather, he would stand firm by that, proving that he is a Muslim and that he has a guidance from which he does not deviate by a hair's breadth, because he received it from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). Meanwhile, those who do not commit to the methodology of the righteous predecessors with us want to make us evolve and make our Islam a European Islam or an American Islam, under the pretext of what? "Make things easy and do not make them difficult." We say: we make things easy in accordance with the Shari'ah, and we do not make things easy in violation of the Shari'ah. So we must remember this reality: our call is the Book of Allah and the hadith of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) and the methodology of the righteous predecessors. Therefore, it is reported from the predecessors and the scholars their saying:
And all good is in following those who came before *** And all evil is in the innovation of those who came after
I said earlier in the course of this speech that all Islamic groups claim that correct call in itself, the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). But despite that, we find among them those who have fallen into major disbelief and misguidance, while claiming to be upon the Book and the Sunnah. This has been the case in the past and the present. Here are some examples: for instance, the Mu'tazilah do not have anyone who denies a verse from the verses of Allah in the Book of Allah (Mighty and Majestic). But despite that, they contradicted the righteous predecessors in their creed in many matters. The clearest of these is their denial of what is established in the Book and the Sunnah and the sayings of the righteous predecessors regarding the believers seeing their Lord on the Day of Resurrection. As some scholars said:
The believers will see Him without how, *** without likening, and without any example.
The Mu'tazilah denied this authentic, ancient Islamic creed, despite the saying of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) in the Noble Qur'an: , and His saying (Blessed and Exalted is He): . The Messenger (peace be upon him) interpreted this verse by saying: meaning: Paradise, meaning: seeing Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He). This hadith is in "Sahih Muslim." They also denied what was mass-transmitted from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) in the hadith of Abu Hurayrah, and the hadith of Abu Sa'id al-Khudri and others, that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) was sitting with his Companions on the night of Badr (the full moon of Badr), and he said to them: and in another narration: . They denied all these hadiths and the sayings that came from the righteous predecessors, despite the clarity of the Qur'an. Did they deny the verse? No, but they interpreted it with their minds and did not pay attention to its interpretation transmitted from the righteous predecessors. So the aforementioned verse became applicable to them: .
From that also, and let us come a little closer to our reality, many of the Muslims who are attributed to the Sunnah, in the past and the present, have denied many of the attributes that came in the Book of Allah and in the hadith of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). They have associated themselves with the Mu'tazilah. The Mu'tazilah did not deny that verse, but they denied its correct meaning upon which our righteous predecessors were. Similarly, those who are known today as "the Asha'irah," and among them some of "the Maturidiyyah," have denied many of the clear, correct meanings in the Book of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) by way of interpreting them contrary to what the predecessors were upon...
So the Salafi, regarding the saying of Allah (Mighty and Majestic): , the predecessors said, without any disagreement among them: meaning: He rose above; above all His creations, in a manner befitting His greatness (Blessed and Exalted is He) and His majesty. They interpreted His saying (Blessed and Exalted is He) to mean "He took control." So they fell into a problem that we explained recently, and we are not in that context now. This is an example of the examples in which some of the people of the Sunnah went astray because they did not hold fast to what the righteous predecessors were upon.
There are many examples, and let us turn to a final example today. You have all certainly heard of the sect that departed from Islam entirely, namely the Qadiyyah, who claimed that there are prophets who come after our Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). They actually asserted that one of them has come, known as Mirza Ghulam Ahmad al-Qadiyyani. These people also say what others have said, both in the past and the present: "We are with the Book and the Sunnah." When they are asked, "How are you with the Book and the Sunnah when the Noble Book describes our Prophet (peace be upon him) as follows: , and you say he is not the Seal of the Prophets?" They reply: "The meaning of 'Seal of the Prophets' is not that he is the last of them, but rather that he is the adornment of the prophets." They brought forth a philosophy unknown to the people of language to whom the Qur'an was revealed. They said: "The meaning of 'Seal of the Prophets' is the adornment of the prophets." They said: "This is a metaphor, just as a ring is the adornment of the finger; so the Messenger (peace be upon him) is the Seal of the Prophets, meaning their adornment." They played with the verse and interpreted it other than its correct interpretation, and they strayed far astray, disbelieving in Islam with a complete declaration of disbelief. What is the reason? They did not stand by the path of the believers. This is the point in mentioning the path of the believers in the verse, and the Companions in the hadith, and the Rightly Guided Caliphs in the other hadith. Therefore, we must be Salafis in creed, methodology, and behavior, so that we are protected from deviating from the Shari'ah in the name of the Shari'ah, in the name of the Book and the Sunnah. All these individuals whom we cited as examples have deviated from the Shari'ah, and they say: "We believe in the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah (may Allah bless him and grant him peace)," but they interpreted the Book of Allah and the hadith of the Messenger of Allah according to their desires, not according to what came to us from the righteous Salaf.
I mentioned to you lastly how this Qadiyyah sect interpreted the verse that explicitly states that there is no prophet after him (peace be upon him). They were asked, "What is your position regarding the numerous, indeed mass-transmitted, hadiths that there is no prophet after him (peace be upon him), especially the hadith of Ali when the Messenger of Allah (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) left him in Madinah when he went to Tabuk (may Allah bless him and grant him peace)? Ali (may Allah be pleased with him) ran after him, and he (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) reassured him by saying: ." This argument was presented to the Qadiyyah; what was their position toward it? They said: "There is no prophet after me, meaning with me, but after his death (peace be upon him) there are prophets." They interpreted the hadith this way as well. This example, and the one before it, and the many examples before that, indicate to you that there is a wide scope for people of desires to play with the texts of the Book and the Sunnah, and to interpret them in a way that supports their desires and their false statements. By what do we establish the argument against these people? And there are many, especially individuals who do not have calls among the people. Each one comes with an interpretation, and Satan beautifies this interpretation for him, and he is pleased with it, until some of them say, "This is something new; no one preceded him to it," and he takes pride in it, whereas it was fitting for him to be repelled by this opinion that appeared to him, and to turn to the interpretation of the righteous Salaf of the noble verses that he faces with a new interpretation.
Therefore, the argument is established today and before today by the Book of Allah and the hadith of the Messenger of Allah (may Allah bless him and grant him peace), and by what the righteous Salaf (may Allah be pleased with them all) were upon. There is no disagreement among the four Imams and their like on this point; that is, on the obligation of following the righteous Salaf. It is not that we only say "Qur'an and Sunnah," but rather "Qur'an and Sunnah upon the methodology of the righteous Salaf." For this reason, many of the Imams, especially Imam Ahmad, relied on the statements of the Salaf, from the Companions and others, when he did not find an answer in what presented itself to him of a matter in the Book of Allah or in the hadith of the Messenger of Allah (may Allah bless him and grant him peace). For this reason, many well-known hadiths came recommending that we know the right of the Companions (may Allah be pleased with them). Among the most famous of these hadiths is his saying (may Allah bless him and grant him peace), as in "al-Sahihayn": .
And we ask Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He), in conclusion of this speech, to make us successful in following the Book and the Sunnah upon the methodology of the righteous Salaf. And all praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds.