A Refutation of the Qadiyani Sect

The Shaykh : Among the most famous of these sects in the present age, which adopt Islam as a book and Sunnah but are in no way part of Islam, are the "Qadiyani sect." We know them in Syria, and we have had many debates and confrontations with them. They are spread throughout the world, in Islamic lands and non-Islamic lands alike. These people say: "We are upon the Book and the Sunnah," but they have also cast Islam behind their backs, even though they claim to adhere to it. This is because they do not give weight to the school of the righteous Salaf. They follow their own heads in interpreting the texts of the Book and the Sunnah, and they never pay attention to how the righteous Salaf interpreted the verses and explained the hadiths. I will give you two examples of this: one regarding their interpretation of a verse in the Qur'an, and the other regarding their interpretation of a hadith from the authentic, established hadiths of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him):
As for the verse, it is His saying (Blessed and Exalted is He): . Since the Qadiyans claim that prophethood was not sealed with the Seal of the Prophets and Messengers, our Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), but rather that many prophets will come after him (peace and blessings be upon him), and they affirm this by the arrival of one of them in "Qadian" in "India"; they claim that the one named "Mirza Ghulam Ahmad al-Qadiyani"—in a long story we are not concerned with now—is a prophet to whom revelation is sent!! When the scholars of the Muslims argued with him using the aforementioned verse, he said: "The verse does not mean what you think it means." What is the meaning of the verse according to them? They said: "But the Messenger of Allah and the Seal of the Prophets" means: the adornment of the prophets. In their view, the meaning of "Seal" is not "the last of the prophets," but rather "the adornment of the prophets." They said: "Just as a ring is the adornment of the finger, so the Messenger is the adornment of the prophets. You are misunderstanding the verse. You understand the verse to mean that there is no prophet after the Messenger (peace be upon him). That is not the case." This is the statement of the Qadiyans. The meaning of the verse is: , meaning: their adornment. And this does not negate that prophets may come after him who are better than them. This account of his is sufficient to dispense with detailing the refutation of him. The other example is their interpretation of when the scholars of the Sunnah argued with them using his saying (peace and blessings be upon him) to Ali when he left him (peace be upon him) in Madinah when he went on the expedition of Tabuk, and Ali (may Allah be pleased with him) wept at the Messenger's (peace and blessings be upon him) leaving him in Madinah. He said to him (peace and blessings be upon him): . This is a text that refutes the Qadiyans. How did they interpret this hadith? They said: "There is no prophet after me" means: with me, meaning: with me during my lifetime. But after my death, there are prophets.
The point of this example from the Sunnah and that example from the Qur'an is: that this sect, deeply rooted in misguidance, does not disavow the Book and the Sunnah, and yet they are misguided. Why? Because they followed their minds and their desires in interpreting the texts of the Book and the Sunnah, and they fell into clear misguidance. They should have taken a lesson from what we mentioned regarding the hadith of the sects and the saying of the Messenger (peace be upon him) in describing the saved sect, that they are those who are , and the hadith: .
There is no one among the Companions of the Prophet (may Allah send prayers and blessings upon him and his family) who went, for example, to what these Qadiyans went to. Rather, they all agreed that it is as he said (peace and blessings be upon him): . So their deviation from this third principle—we say: the first principle is the Book and the Sunnah, and the third principle is that we return to what our righteous Salaf were upon—is not a new matter, as I have heard from some of the young Muslims today, until some of them confronted me on this when one of them visited me recently in Damascus. He said: "I used to hear you talk a lot about the methodology of the righteous Salaf." So I said: "What is this methodology of the righteous Salaf? Is not the Book and the Sunnah sufficient for us?" He said: "Until I attended a gathering where a man from the people of the Sunnah and hadith and another from the sheikhs of the Sufi orders met, and a discussion took place between them in the presence of this man who came to me in Damascus, regarding collective dhikr, regarding dhikr with one voice as some of the Sufis and people of the orders do, 'Allah, Allah, Allah' and similar dhikr, and 'La ilaha illa Allah' with one voice—for example—after the Fajr prayer and the Maghrib prayer. So the Sufi cited the general hadiths, and here is the error, for example: to the end of the hadith... They gathered to recite the Book of Allah. He interpreted this hadith as: with one voice and one group. So the Sunni said to him: "There is no doubt that the righteous Salaf knew this hadith much better than we do. Have you known any of the righteous Salaf who permitted this collective dhikr that you are upon?" He said: "We do not need that. The hadith is clear and explicit that it contains gathering to recite the Book of Allah (Mighty and Majestic)."
This is the way of the people of innovation always and forever; they cling to texts and interpret them according to their desires, without returning to the understanding of our righteous Salaf (may Allah be pleased with them) in understanding them. And now we live in an atmosphere whose appearance is pleasing, which is... the Book and the Sunnah, but many of the young Muslims, as I have experienced it myself, do not pay attention to this condition that the two previous hadiths indicated to us; which is returning to what our righteous Salaf were upon, and interpreting the texts of the Book and the Sunnah according to what our righteous Salaf were upon.
And these people overlook, and I hope they are not deliberately ignoring, the point in the saying of Allah (Mighty and Majestic): . This verse contains a mention of the Messenger (peace be upon him) in whom the Sunnah is embodied, and it contains something else, which is what we have been talking about; this other thing is His saying (Blessed and Exalted is He) in the verse: . Allah (Mighty and Majestic) did not say: "And whoever opposes the Messenger after the guidance has become clear to him, We will turn him to what he has turned to." Rather, He connected it to His saying: , He said: .
Therefore, I return now and say: among the virtues of the Sunnah is that it does not only inform us of what the Messenger (peace be upon him) was upon, but it also informs us of what our righteous Salaf were upon. So the path of the Sunnah is the path of salvation, but not by relying on our opinions in interpreting it, and perhaps on our desires, but rather by relying on what our righteous Salaf were upon in interpreting the Sunnah and also the Qur'an; because they are those in whom the saying of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) in the previous verse is first embodied: , . Is the path of the believers these later ones? Those who have split up and are still differing? Is it the path that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) connected this path to His saying: , or is it the path of the first believers?