Explaining the importance of adding the condition: "on the methodology of the righteous predecessors" in our saying and calling: "returning to the Book and the Sunnah."

The Shaykh: And your question reminds me of some topics I have touched upon frequently in Egypt, and I have done so here a few times as well. It is not sufficient for us to call people to the Book and the Sunnah only; rather, it is obligatory for us to add to this call: the Book and the Sunnah on the methodology of the righteous predecessors. Do you know why this condition is necessary? This condition here in the Levant, I may have mentioned it a few times, and very few times at that, but in Egypt I felt the importance of this condition very, very much, even among the supporters of the Sunnah. We used to lecture on this specific point for long hours. So, I am reminding you now of some of the hadiths that we constantly and perpetually recite; . They said: Who is it, O Messenger of Allah? He said: , and in the other narration attested to from the hadith of al-'Urbah, he said: . The hadith of al-'Urbah says: ; do you see—here is the point—why the Messenger did not limit himself in the first hadith to mentioning: but added to that ? Do you see why the Messenger (peace be upon him) did not limit himself in the hadith of al-'Urbah to saying: but added to that: ? Do you see why our Lord (Mighty and Majestic) said in the Noble Qur'an: Why did He say: ? Why was the verse not in the following form: "And whoever opposes the Messenger after the guidance has become clear to him, We will turn him to what he has turned to and cast him into Hell, and evil is the destination," but rather it came with the Qur'anic text: ; what is the secret in the verse? What is the secret in the two previous hadiths that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) did not limit Himself to the warning against opposing the Messenger only, but added to that His saying: ? And the Messenger himself did not limit himself to mentioning his Sunnah, but added to it his Companions and the Rightly Guided Caliphs from among them in particular?
The secret in this is that when we study the seventy-three sects of the Islamic sects, we do not find a single sect that says: "We disavow the Sunnah." You have the last sect we know of that claims Islam, prays, fasts, and so on, "the Qadiyyah." They say: "We are upon the Book and the Sunnah." All the sects, even this one, do not disavow the Sunnah. So every one of the misguided sects says: "We are upon the Book and the Sunnah." The decisive ruling comes: ; that is: it is obligatory for the Muslim to be protected from deviation and to be among the misguided sects so that he does not become one of the misguided sects, that he embodies the concepts of the Companions regarding the texts of the Book and the Sunnah. Otherwise, the fundamental misguidance of all these misguided sects did not come from their denial of the Sunnah, let alone the Qur'an, but rather from their denial of the meanings of the Qur'an and the meanings of the Sunnah. They came with new meanings that the righteous predecessors did not know.
So the Mu'tazilah, for example, are among the most famous misguided sects that oppose the people of the Sunnah when they deny the creed of the righteous predecessors which is explicitly stated in the Book and the Sunnah. For example: Do they deny this verse? I say: they deny it or they do not deny it. They do not deny it as a fixed word in the Noble Qur'an; they do not deny it or a single letter of it. But they deny it when they deny its true meaning. They say, very simply, the meaning is , that is: she is looking toward the pleasure of her Lord. They invalidated the text with a deleted modifier. Our Lord is saying: They say: toward the pleasure; meaning toward the Paradise of her Lord. As if our Lord (Mighty and Majestic), with all the verses and hadiths in which He gave glad tidings to His believing servants that they will enter Paradise, as if it was feared that they would enter Paradise and someone would understand that they do not look at the pleasure of Paradise. So our Lord came with this verse to say to them: ; that is: she is looking toward the pleasure of her Lord, to make it clear to them that you are seeing the pleasure of Paradise, you will not pass by it with your eyes closed. This is ta'til (denial of the divine attributes) itself. So, in order for these Muslims not to fall into any of these deviations in the future, it is necessary to add the addition we mentioned: "Book and Sunnah on the methodology of the righteous predecessors." Otherwise, if we leave this methodology, we will be misguided far away and become a sect!