Guidance for the Leaders and Members of Islamic Groups Active in the Field
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Praise be to Allah, and may peace and blessings be upon His Messenger, and upon his family and companions and those who follow them. Your Eminence, our dear father, Shaykh Muhammad ibn Salih al-Uthaymeen (may Allah preserve him and grant him piety). Peace be upon you and Allah’s mercy and blessings. I ask your permission to praise Allah the Exalted to you for His blessings, and to call upon Him the Exalted for continued well-being and strength of resolve, and that Allah Mighty and Majestic may increase you in His favor and guidance, bless your life, and make your efforts and struggle beneficial to the servants and the lands. O our noble Shaykh! We praise Allah the Exalted for having enabled us, by His success and care, to make the journey to you from the sister country of Jordan, and to reach your gathering and your home in this blessed town, carrying to you, as we carried to a select group of our distinguished Shaykhs in this blessed kingdom, a trust during the month of Ramadan, passing through the Prophet’s City (may the best of prayers and peace be upon its inhabitant), then Jeddah and Riyadh. We praise Allah the Exalted for having guided us, by His grace, to deliver it to them. Then we praise Him, Glorified is He, for having helped us to arrive at your home at the time of your customary weekly scholarly gathering on Thursday. It was decreed by Allah the Exalted that the time of my arrival to deliver this trust, which I hold in my hands now, coincided with the convening of your gathering with your student sons. I hope, and I insist on the hope, that your brothers and sons in Jordan, and the sons present here, will share in this with me. O our dear father and his sons present! O dear brothers! May Allah increase us and you in zeal for good, and provide us all with righteousness and piety. I hope to ask your permission, which is the hope of your brothers in Jordan who entrusted me with this trust, to read it to your ears. It consists of two questions I pose to Your Eminence, our dear father.
O Your Eminence! Allah the Exalted has guided the son-in-law of our dear father, Shaykh al-Albani, Professor Nizam Salam Sukajha, who is the owner of the Islamic Bookstore. He directed this invitation and this memorandum to fifty-five scholars from among the scholars of the Muslims in Jordan and outside Jordan. He specifically designated this kingdom with a select group of our Shaykhs to include them in this memorandum as well. And you, praise be to Allah, after we met a select group in Madinah, Jeddah, and Riyadh, headed by our dear father, Shaykh ‘Abd al-‘Aziz ibn Baz, who welcomed us and offered some guidance, by the help of Allah the book will be printed under the title: Advice and Guidance from the Scholars of the Muslims to the Islamic Groups and Parties in the World, which is a book we hope Allah the Exalted will crown with a word, advice, and guidance from you. Our scholars in Riyadh have answered these questions, and this is the first question: Allah the Exalted said: [Al-Hujurat: 10] And Allah the Exalted said: (And their affair is [decided by] consultation among themselves) [Al-Shura: 38] And he said: [Al-Imran: 103] And the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: (The believers, in their love and mercy and compassion for one another, are like a body; if one part complains, the rest of the body responds with sleeplessness and fever) . O Your Eminence! In light of this noble divine guidance and that noble Prophetic direction, and by virtue of your experience and long journey in the field of da'wah and the Islamic field: May we be granted your guidance and suggestions, as your brothers, the scholars of the kingdom, have graciously done, for the leaders and members of the Islamic groups and parties active in the great Islamic homeland, in order to, at least with a first step, begin on the path and journey toward mending the rift, uniting the word, and unifying efforts among them, hoping for serious, organized work toward the single expected goal, which is: the pleasure of Allah the Exalted, supporting His religion, and exalting His word, and standing as one row against those who lie in wait for this Ummah—the Ummah of tawhid (the oneness of Allah)—so that there is no fitnah (trial, discord or temptation) and the religion is entirely for Allah.
As for the first question: It is the scattered, partisan groups that have surfaced on the water in this recent period, whereas the youth a few years ago had a sound direction; none of them believed that the other was opposed to Allah, or that he was on one side and he on another. But in this recent period, what Satan has sown among our youth is partisanship and zeal for a specific sect or a specific person, until loyalty and disavowal became contingent on whether one loves this person or not. There is no doubt that this is a great stain and a fatal disease that melts the Ummah, tears its unity, and scatters its youth.So my advice to my young sons and my brothers: That they abandon this partisanship and abandon classifying people, and that they not focus on a specific person, but make loyalty and disavowal contingent on allegiance to or disavowal from [the truth], and that they take hold of the truth wherever it is and abandon falsehood wherever it is. If a scholar errs, his error is upon himself; and if he hits the mark, his success is for himself and for others.
And it is not permissible at all for us to believe that anyone is infallible from error in the religion of Allah except the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him).So why do we test people now and say: What do you say about such-and-such? What do you say about so-and-so? What do you say about such-and-such a sect? Did the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) test people in this way? Or did the Companions test people in this way? This is the concern of the misguided people who want to divide people so that they do not become a firm mountain in the face of the challenges we hear every day and see in the newspapers and magazines from those who fight this religion and its people.
If the youth who say: He is concerned with Islam and is jealous for Islam. If they are divided, who will argue for Islam and who will debate these falsifiers?I say: O youth! Do you not know that this division is the delight of the eyes of the disbelievers, the secularists and others?Because they say: We have been sufficed without them. If any of these disbelievers, or even if a nation of these disbelievers, wanted to divide the youth of Islam in this division and this tearing apart, they would not be able to find a way to do so if the intention were pure and the work were sound. But now, the youth are in a lamentable state. For this reason, I call upon them to fear Allah Mighty and Majestic to refrain from this partisanship, and to be one Ummah.Allah, Mighty and Majestic, said: [Al-Anbiya: 92] And that a person not be concerned with partisanship for so-and-so or so-and-so, or for such-and-such a sect or such-and-such a sect. Let him look to his path and cut his path to Allah. These partisanship and these arguments, without doubt, divert a person from the religion of Allah. If you investigated the hearts of those who exaggerate regarding some persons and believe in their infallibility,And if an error occurs from them, they say: Perhaps they would return from this error; because the errors that occur from some people, if they are open to ta'wil (figurative interpretation), they should interpret them in the correct meaning.And if it is not open to interpretation, they say: He returned from it, and this is a mistake. They have no concern with this man who erred; his error is upon himself, and Allah is the One who will hold him accountable.
A person must look to his path to Allah Mighty and Majestic: how does he worship Allah? And how does he reach the abode of His honor? He has no concern with the people.
This is with regard to the first question.
I see that it is obligatory that the goal be unified and the work be unified, and that our concern not be fanaticism for a party, sect, or person. Let our concern be reaching the Shari'ah of Allah Mighty and Majestic, and that we unite upon it and agree upon it.
This is one point.
O Your Eminence! Allah the Exalted has guided the son-in-law of our dear father, Shaykh al-Albani, Professor Nizam Salam Sukajha, who is the owner of the Islamic Bookstore. He directed this invitation and this memorandum to fifty-five scholars from among the scholars of the Muslims in Jordan and outside Jordan. He specifically designated this kingdom with a select group of our Shaykhs to include them in this memorandum as well. And you, praise be to Allah, after we met a select group in Madinah, Jeddah, and Riyadh, headed by our dear father, Shaykh ‘Abd al-‘Aziz ibn Baz, who welcomed us and offered some guidance, by the help of Allah the book will be printed under the title: Advice and Guidance from the Scholars of the Muslims to the Islamic Groups and Parties in the World, which is a book we hope Allah the Exalted will crown with a word, advice, and guidance from you. Our scholars in Riyadh have answered these questions, and this is the first question: Allah the Exalted said:
The believers are but brothers
إِنَّمَا الْمُؤْمِنُونَ إِخْوَةٌAnd hold firmly to the rope of Allah all together and do not become divided
وَاعْتَصِمُوا بِحَبْلِ اللَّهِ جَمِيعاً وَلا تَفَرَّقُواAs for the first question: It is the scattered, partisan groups that have surfaced on the water in this recent period, whereas the youth a few years ago had a sound direction; none of them believed that the other was opposed to Allah, or that he was on one side and he on another. But in this recent period, what Satan has sown among our youth is partisanship and zeal for a specific sect or a specific person, until loyalty and disavowal became contingent on whether one loves this person or not. There is no doubt that this is a great stain and a fatal disease that melts the Ummah, tears its unity, and scatters its youth.So my advice to my young sons and my brothers: That they abandon this partisanship and abandon classifying people, and that they not focus on a specific person, but make loyalty and disavowal contingent on allegiance to or disavowal from [the truth], and that they take hold of the truth wherever it is and abandon falsehood wherever it is. If a scholar errs, his error is upon himself; and if he hits the mark, his success is for himself and for others.
And it is not permissible at all for us to believe that anyone is infallible from error in the religion of Allah except the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him).So why do we test people now and say: What do you say about such-and-such? What do you say about so-and-so? What do you say about such-and-such a sect? Did the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) test people in this way? Or did the Companions test people in this way? This is the concern of the misguided people who want to divide people so that they do not become a firm mountain in the face of the challenges we hear every day and see in the newspapers and magazines from those who fight this religion and its people.
If the youth who say: He is concerned with Islam and is jealous for Islam. If they are divided, who will argue for Islam and who will debate these falsifiers?I say: O youth! Do you not know that this division is the delight of the eyes of the disbelievers, the secularists and others?Because they say: We have been sufficed without them. If any of these disbelievers, or even if a nation of these disbelievers, wanted to divide the youth of Islam in this division and this tearing apart, they would not be able to find a way to do so if the intention were pure and the work were sound. But now, the youth are in a lamentable state. For this reason, I call upon them to fear Allah Mighty and Majestic to refrain from this partisanship, and to be one Ummah.Allah, Mighty and Majestic, said:
Indeed this, your religion, is one religion, and I am your Lord, so worship Me.
إِنَّ هَذِهِ أُمَّتُكُمْ أُمَّةً وَاحِدَةً وَأَنَا رَبُّكُمْ فَاعْبُدُونِA person must look to his path to Allah Mighty and Majestic: how does he worship Allah? And how does he reach the abode of His honor? He has no concern with the people.
This is with regard to the first question.
I see that it is obligatory that the goal be unified and the work be unified, and that our concern not be fanaticism for a party, sect, or person. Let our concern be reaching the Shari'ah of Allah Mighty and Majestic, and that we unite upon it and agree upon it.
This is one point.