Is there any advice for students who debate and discuss the people of innovation, even though they are not qualified for that?

The questioner : Shaykh, I just mean, first of all, some of these people invite some of our brothers to sit and debate, and some of the brothers may not be at the required level; so what advice do you direct to the brothers in the first place? May Allah reward you.

The Shaykh : This is a good question.
The truth is, I do not advise any of our brothers to meet with these people unless he is filled with correct knowledge from the Book and the Sunnah; because they are people of desires and people of doubts. So if the one who wants to debate them and establish the proof against them has not combined knowledge and intellect together, it is feared that something of their desires will affect his self and his creed. Therefore, the righteous Salaf would hasten with all haste to forbid the Muslims from sitting with the people of desires.
I am often asked by phone by individuals who I feel are affected by sitting with these people. The last thing that happened, one of them said to me: "In your book *Sifat al-Salah* (The Description of Prayer), you authenticated the hadith: , and in the book *Al-Irwaa'* you weakened it," he said this. I said: "How?" He said: "You said: such and such." And lo and behold, he was quoting my response to Al-Busayri, who had authenticated this hadith in *Sunan Ibn Majah*. The chain of the hadith in *Sunan Ibn Majah* is weak and not authentic. So, as is obligatory for every researcher and fair person to be free from following desires, I criticized Al-Busayri and clarified that he was mistaken in authenticating the chain of this hadith of Ibn Majah, and that this chain is weak. I said to him: "Have you read the entire research in *Al-Irwaa'?" He did not answer. I searched with him until he reached the topic, in the Syrian expression: ... and so on ... He spent two or three days asking me this question. I researched this hadith in *Al-Irwaa'* in about twelve pages, twelve pages only, to reach the ruling that this hadith is either hasan li ghayrihi (good due to other supporting evidence) or sahih li ghayrihi (authentic due to other supporting evidence) only. All twelve pages. I later found out that this was a plot by this fool, to make people think that Al-Albani is contradictory: "Here he authenticated the hadith in *Sifat al-Salah* and weakened it in *Al-Irwaa'*!!" Whereas I authenticated it in *Al-Irwaa'* as well, but through very great effort, twelve pages, to say at the end of the research: "From what has preceded, it becomes clear that this hadith, with the sum of its paths that are free from severe weakness—because some of them are in severe weakness—rises to the level of being sahih li ghayrihi." All of this was ignored and turned away from, so that it would appear to people that this Al-Albani is contradictory!! This man is a deceiver...