What is the correct path for Muslims to return to their religion? It includes an explanation that the greatest cause is the hadith: (until you return to your religion), and the meaning of that.

The questioner : There are not... many scholars, preachers, and various Islamic groups [working] for the return of Muslims to their religion.

The Shaykh: Yes.

The questioner : But all these efforts go to waste, and the Muslims do not return, and they only increase in evil.

The Shaykh: Yes.

The questioner : And their problems increase... year after year, whether these problems are political, economic, social, or unity-based on the basis of religion; so what is the correct path for Muslims to return to their religion?

The Shaykh : This is what we have been going around and around on, may Allah reward you. The Messenger (peace be upon him) mentioned the cure explicitly in this hadith, but people do not scrutinize what is meant by the religion. And we have traded with 'inah; is that not so?

The questioner : Yes.

The Shaykh : And we have married with the marriage of tahil, and we have made lawful what Allah has forbidden. Many of the scholars of the Muslims today make musical instruments lawful; the scholars of the Muslims, let alone others!! And the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) says: .

The questioner : But there is no doubt that there are scholars.

The Shaykh : If you allow me, if you allow me.
So the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) says in this hadith: And we have traded with 'inah and other things by which we have made lawful what Allah has forbidden with the lowest of tricks, So the Messenger (peace be upon him), for example, says: , who denies this Prophetic reality? The fitnah of the Ummah today is money, and some of the Islamic countries that Allah has blessed with money and drowned them in this money to the extent that they do not know how to deal with this money, and they forget the right of the other Islamic peoples in this money; this money may have been a fitnah.
The point is: All of this has happened, this has happened before this time; because you know that jihad is of two types: individual obligation and collective obligation. So the collective obligation is jihad in the path of conveying the da'wah, and this has been abandoned since ancient times. And the individual obligation is now, here we are, we are falling short in performing it. The entire Islamic Ummah is sinful now, ; so what will be the punishment of this Ummah? , returning to the religion. All the preachers, all the orators and guides and so on, they say: The Muslims were humiliated because they abandoned the Book and the Sunnah. But you quickly understand from this preacher that he contradicts the Book and the Sunnah; the first one to contradict is he; why? Because of a shubhah that arose in his heart, because of a deviation that settled in his thought and mind, so he became among the causes of what? This humiliation that befell the Muslims.
So the cure, the Messenger (peace be upon him) says: If you do this and this , so tell me - O honorable Shaykh - who is calling the Muslims today in writing, sermons, sermons, and radio to the obligation of returning to the Book and the Sunnah? And to the obligation of making the Book and the Sunnah the judge in everything they differ in, between themselves, between their peoples, and between their governments? This da'wah - for example - is the one that realizes the cause by which they deserve the lifting of the humiliation, which is returning to the religion with the concept that the righteous Salaf (may Allah be pleased with them all) were upon. These are correct, as you said, the scholars in their various specializations are working, but they do not meet on a common word; and that is that they return to the Book and the Sunnah when they differ. And disagreement - as we all know - is one of the causes of weakness and the collapse of the Ummah, , .
So it is obligatory upon the people of knowledge, especially, to call to the Islam that was the cause of turning the life of the first Arabs, and it will be the cause, without doubt - and history repeats itself - of turning the life of the Arabs and all Muslims from this humiliation to the honor that is the nature of the Muslims, ; so this is what we see as the cause of the non-appearance of the benefit of these movements and this da'wah; because in short, they do not meet on a common word.

The questioner : The people of zeal for Islam are in confusion, how is the salvation?

The Shaykh : This is the path.

The questioner : ... the men of religion are the ones who perform ... and the killing of Muslims is not ... and nothing.

The Shaykh : This is another thing, we must know the path, , the religion has two concepts; a wrong concept in some aspects that must be corrected, a clear and correct concept that must be applied. So you, leave the people of knowledge, look at yourself; this religion that you know, do you apply it in yourself and your family? No, so apply it. The other type that you understood wrongly, like some of the examples I mentioned earlier, and there are examples closer and more touching to the lives of individual Muslims, for much and much. And perhaps I will remind you of these examples soon - if Allah wills - so correct these concepts and apply them in yourself; then the support will come to you from the sky, and the victory will come to you from Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He). But as long as you and I and so-and-so and so-and-so understand it wrongly and insist on it, and do not return in its understanding to what the righteous Salaf were upon, and what we understand correctly we do not apply it and do not hold ourselves to it; so where will the victory of Allah come from? The matter is as the common people among us say: "The worm of the vinegar is in it and from it," the cause is from us and in our souls. But we must know, if the doctor knows the cause of the patient's illness, perhaps he can prescribe the cure, but if he does not know the cause, he will not know the cure.
Most of the scholars of the Muslims today - I say scholars and I do not mean those below them - do not know the cause of the Muslims. They are all applying the saying: They abandoned Islam. No, my master, they did not abandon Islam, but they understood it upside down. Take, for example, the belief in divine decree and destiny. The belief in divine decree and destiny, when the Companions understood it, they set out in the path of Allah, fighting and selling the most precious thing they had of their souls, their wealth, and their children, all of that being cheap in the path of Allah. Why? Because they understood that qadar does not mean abandoning action, but on the contrary; that the decrees are tied to their causes. So you, for example, if you do good, you enter Paradise, and if you do evil, you enter the Fire. So this concept was inverted, "My master, Allah is Forgiving and Merciful," "And what is written on the forehead, the eye must see it."

Eid Abbasi : "There is no better than what was."

The Shaykh : Yes?

Eid Abbasi : "There is no better than what was."

The Shaykh : "There is no better" - in the books of 'ilm al-kalam - "There is no better than what was" and so on. So we understood, we understood the idea of divine decree and destiny, and what is it? It is one of the conditions of faith, one of the pillars of faith, required in full. And what a wonderful example 'Umar ibn al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him) exemplified with this topic when he came from Madinah to Sham, and he heard that the plague had descended in the land of Sham. So he held a consultative council; what do you say? Do we proceed to the plague or do we return? His companions differed in two opinions; some said: We enter and we rely on Allah. Some said: We do not return. And the opinion of 'Umar did not settle on anything; because his companions differed; until 'Abd al-Rahman ibn 'Awf (may Allah be pleased with him) entered upon them. When he understood the point of disagreement, he said: I have knowledge of that; I heard the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) say: , so 'Umar ibn al-Khattab returned when he heard the hadith, and he was standing by the Book of Allah and the hadith of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him and his family).
When he returned, a man who represented the ideas of the Muslim masses today, from those who are complacent rather than those who rely upon Allah, intercepted his path. He said to him: "O 'Umar, are you fleeing from the decree of Allah?" He said to him: "Yes, fleeing from the decree of Allah to the decree of Allah." And he gave him an example of this, one of the most eloquent examples; he said: "Do you see if you had livestock between the two banks of a river, and one bank was green and the other barren, would you graze them in the barren one or in the green one?" He said: "No, I would graze them in the green one." He said: "So if you graze them in the barren one, it is by the decree of Allah, and if you graze them in the green, fertile one, it is by the decree of Allah. So we flee from the decree of Allah to the decree of Allah." Therefore, this 'Umar, who understood this reality, when the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) was asked about what people do in terms of happiness and misery, whether it is by what has preceded or is it new? He said: . He said: "Then what is the work for?" He said (peace and blessings be upon him): . 'Umar understood that Allah (Mighty and Majestic), by His wisdom, linked the effects to their causes, and that He made a cause for every thing. So as long as the cause of Paradise is righteous work and faith, as He (the Exalted) said: ; then we do righteous work. If we want to be among the people of Paradise, we do righteous work, otherwise we do evil work. So what was 'Umar's answer when the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) said: ? He said: "Then we strive."
Then we strive. The Muslims today do not understand this understanding; rather, their state says: "Then we become complacent." As long as a group is in Paradise and a group is in the blazing Fire; if I am among the happy ones, my evil work does not harm me, and if I am among the wretched ones, my righteous work will not benefit me. This is like the example of one who is hungry and thirsty until he is about to die, saying: "If Allah (Mighty and Majestic) has decreed death for me, what is the benefit of eating or drinking?" This is stubbornness; because he knows that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) made leaving off eating and drinking a cause for destruction, ruin, and death, and conversely, He made, as He (the Exalted) said: , making water a cause for life. So the one who leaves off taking the means of life dies, and he has no right to argue with the decree; because taking the means of life and safety is part of the decree, as 'Umar indicated.
The Muslims today, this belief in divine decree and destiny, which was a motivator for the earliest generations to work, as you heard from 'Umar in his answer to the Messenger first: "Then we strive," and as he said to the questioner: "Are you fleeing from the decree of Allah?" He said: "We flee from the decree of Allah to the decree of Allah." This is how the righteous Salaf understood it, whereas the wicked Khalaf reversed this sound concept to the point that there is no need for work, and that it is only the decree.
So we need to correct the concepts that the Muslim masses have misunderstood.