Some say: Adhering to certain recommended practices and holding fast to them hinders the call; so they abandon them in order to preserve the call.

The questioner: His EminenceThe Shaykh- May Allah preserve you - Some of the brothers say that establishing certain recommended practices and holding fast to them hinders the call, and they abandon them in the interest of preserving the call. I ask for guidance on the extent of the importance of holding fast to what the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) brought?

The Shaykh : This is one of the calamities of the present age. Everyone has become a caller to Allah, may Allah will it, yet he barely understands a little of the knowledge. Consequently, he deals with issues using his own mind and his limited knowledge, and he claims that preserving the Sunnah hinders the call. What is the call, my brothers? The call is to Islam. What is Islam? Islam consists of belief, rulings, morals, behavior, etiquette, and so on. Who says that if a Muslim holds fast to the Sunnahs established from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), it hinders the call? Who says this? Is it one of the scholars and jurists to whom others should submit, as we mentioned earlier with the word of Allah: Or is he, as they say, neither in the caravan nor in the army? Yet some of these people say that holding fast to the Sunnah hinders the call. If we hold fast to the Sunnah, it is our duty to explain it to the people. If people turn away from something of the Sunnah after it has been explained, the responsibility falls on those who turn away, like donkeys turning away from a lion. It is not permissible for us to abandon the Sunnah because we assume that holding fast to it repels people. I know that it repels the ignorant, but if we tell them, "This is a Sunnah from the Messenger of Allah," and we explain it to them, and they oppose us with this statement, saying, "Yes, it is a Sunnah, but it hinders the call," before whom is the hindrance? Before those who believe in the Sunnah, love it, and strive to implement it, or before those who hate the Sunnah? If it is... it is a lie; because those who love the Sunnah act upon it first, and then they do not claim that it hinders the call. As for those who hate the Sunnah and consider those who hold fast to it to be extremists, these are the enemies of the Sunnah. Whether they say, "We love the Sunnah and call to it," or "We call to jurisprudence but not to acting upon the Sunnah," both are the same.
Therefore, I believe that one of the plagues of this age is the emergence of these statements from some people that holding fast to the Sunnah hinders the call. They do not know who reminds them of what is like an argument. For example, the saying of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) to Aisha when she wanted to enter the Ka'bah and pray in it, following the example of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). He said to her (peace and blessings be upon him): So we ask: Who said: ? Is it you, who did not understand anything of the knowledge, or is it the master of scholars, the one who brought us this knowledge? It is the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). He knows when to do this thing, and you do not know. So you abandon the Sunnah in defense of your own desires. This is the reality, and it is not as you claim, out of concern for the call. Otherwise, holding fast to the Sunnah would delay the call.
In addition to this, I say something else: The Sunnah is divided into categories. Some of it is obligatory, some is a confirmed recommended practice, and some is below the obligatory. Who is able to distinguish between what is obligatory, what is a confirmed recommended practice, and what is a recommended practice? Are these the ones who say that it is not permissible to hold fast to the Sunnah because it hinders the call? These people know only a little of the knowledge. Therefore, such speech is a complete division of Islam into two parts: one they call the core, and the other they call the peel, or one they call essential and the other secondary. Who brought this division?
He (peace and blessings be upon him) said: In another hadith: The voluntary acts, which they call the peel or the secondary thing, and the obligatory is the only thing they think must be performed. But their ignorance means they do not realize or know that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) made voluntary acts a means to complete what may be lacking in a person's obligatory worship. If it is said, "We now abandon the peels and take the cores," two things necessarily follow:
First: that the Shari'ah is attributed with having a peel that is of no benefit. In reality, this peel by which the Shari'ah is represented is taken from the peel of some fruits and some fruits. Is there anyone who says that when Allah (Mighty and Majestic) gave all fruits a core and a peel, that it was from Him (Blessed and Exalted is He) in vain? Far be it from Allah (Mighty and Majestic). Rather, this is self-evident: if this core did not have a peel to protect it, we would have nothing to eat. Even wheat and barley have that soft husk that is sieved so that humans can eat the sifted, sieved flour. If they compare Islam—and this is not permissible—to these fruits with a core and a peel, we say: Suppose that is the case, but Allah did not create anything in vain. He did not make Islam a core and a peel in vain; rather, this peel protects the core. Whoever does not protect the peel loses the peel and the core with it.
This is one of the calamities of this present age, and only those who do not care about the Sunnah say this. They neglect it and do not know its value, and they want to gather people on something that contradicts the Sunnah in their claim. This thing cannot be correct and sound unless it is in accordance with the Sunnah. Because of His saying (Blessed and Exalted is He), addressing His Prophet (peace be upon him): So his (peace and blessings be upon him) explanation is the Sunnah in all its categories. And it is amazing that these people used to say to the Salafis and the people of hadith, who say we must work for Islam, each having... When they saw us researching the topic of Sunnah and innovation, and not engaging in what they call politics and the like, they said, "They used to, then they returned: We must adopt Islam in its entirety." What does "in its entirety" mean? It means... you engage in purification, prayer, and zakah, we must engage in politics and... and so on. Then, in the end, they confined the call to some newspapers, especially those related to politics. They abandoned research into belief, they abandoned research into acts of worship, whether they agreed with the Book and the Sunnah or not... So they returned with the sandals of Hinnan. They did not call to what they previously called for, which is bearing Islam in its entirety, indivisible... calling to politics and... and the like. The proof is that some of these groups have passed more than half a century, and then under the military regime in some countries: "Stay in your place!" There is movement, there is activity, but there is no progress. Meanwhile, may Allah will it, the general Salafis, using the Syrian expression, are "clipped," meaning... they do not know anything of Islam, and then, overnight, they know tawhid, they know in an authentic hadith, in a weak hadith, in an obligation, in a recommended practice, in such and such, and so on. So within a few years, the conditions of these people changed; because they returned to the Book and the Sunnah, in accordance with his (peace and blessings be upon him) saying:
Yes.