Our Shaykh, it is well known that your position regarding political parties, such as the Muslim Brotherhood and the like, is clear.

Al-Halabi : As for the first question, it concerns some of the political parties and activist movements that have spread in the world of people today. Your position, our esteemed professor, regarding these groups and these parties is clear and well known. You continue to be as we have known, recognized, read, and heard from you and for you, that you refute these ideas, respond to them, and expose their evils. This is from several points:
The first is the narrow partisanship by which they want to gather people around it.
The second is the declaring of people as disbelievers (takfir) that these people commit because of their dark view of contemporary societies.
The third is what follows from this takfir, which is called political revolutions. You have a word in denying these revolutions, more than thirty years ago, in the book "Al-'Aqida al-Tahawiyyah: Explanation and Commentary." So this is not new from you.
But we say, as we have said before, that we only ask this to annoy these people. Perhaps this annoyance will guide them, reform them, and return them to the path of truth and correctness, instead of the deviation and the burdening of the words of the scholars with what they cannot bear that they are indulging in. Perhaps by this and that, they want to stir up discord among the scholars of the Ummah, such that this Shaykh has a critique of that one, and that one has a critique of this one. I do not mean the scientific critique that is a light circulating among scholars, but the critique intended to cast aspersions and to sow enmity among the people of knowledge. But our trust in our scholars and Shaykhs, such as your excellence, and the majesty of the father Shaykh 'Abd al-'Aziz ibn Baz, and the virtue of Shaykh Muhammad ibn Salih al-'Uthaymeen, and whoever is in the orbit of these Imams and scholars all together; I say: all of these are too high and elevated to be an easy prey in the hands of these or those who lie in wait for them. Therefore, I say, my Shaykh: your position regarding political movements in general is clear and distinct. But we have heard from some and read from others that they say that you praise some of these movements and commend them, and that is for an occasion that arose in which the name of Shaykh "Hassan al-Banna" (may Allah have mercy on him and forgive him) was mentioned, as well as the name of the Muslim Brotherhood group, for example, or "Sayyid Qutb." Even though, as I say, as I have said, and I say and repeat, that we know your positions regarding "Sayyid Qutb" and your position regarding his ideas, and how you were among the first, or rather I do not exaggerate if I say the first, to respond to him and expose what was in him of deviation from the path of truth and correctness. So we want from you, and even if I may have lengthened a brief word in which I placed the dots on the letters, as it is said, in this matter. May Allah guide you, my Shaykh, to the truth and to showing it.

The Shaykh : After praise to Allah and prayer upon the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him and his family).
What you mentioned in your question is what we say and constantly revolve around, and I believe that I live upon it and die upon it, unless Allah guides these groups. Then, if, and I do not want to say "if," if they retreat from their partisanship and their fanaticism, each for his party and group, this fanaticism that was among the causes of the division of the Ummah, their enmity, and the dominance of the disbelievers over much of the lands of Islam and Muslims. So I say: if these people retreat and enter with us in the call of truth, the call of the Book and the Sunnah, and upon the methodology of our righteous predecessors (may Allah be pleased with them all), then at that time we say it frankly: they are with us, they have what we have, and they are bound by what we are bound by. And I add to what came in the question describing these groups that every group imposes the pledge of allegiance (bay'ah) on its individuals, and this pledge is what strengthens the back of the division among the individuals of the Muslims. Because those who pledged allegiance to so-and-so have his methodology, and those others who pledged allegiance to another so-and-so have his methodology, and thus the matter becomes as it was said:
"And each claims a connection to Layla, *** But Layla does not approve of that for them."
In fairness, I said in some comments and writings, starting from such as His saying (Blessed and Exalted is He) ; in fairness, I say regarding Shaykh "Hassan al-Banna" (may Allah have mercy on him and forgive us and him): he has a commendable effort in gathering the lost youth there in Egypt around the call of Islam and taking them out of some darkness into some light. This is something that should not be concealed, because he differs from us in our methodology, which no Muslim, whether he is a scholar, a student of knowledge, or from the general Muslims, should differ from us in, each according to his knowledge and according to his ignorance. Because the original principle, as Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah (may Allah have mercy on him) says in some of his books, is that faith is sufficient to be absolute faith, in that whenever a Muslim receives news about the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), he believes in it, confirms it, and submits to it. People differ in this field between scholars, students, and the general Muslims. So these general people, it is obligatory for them to believe in a general manner. Then above them, the students of knowledge, their generality must have some detail in it. Then the scholars increase in knowledge and detail, and so on.

The Shaykh : This is what I say regarding the call of "Hassan al-Banna." He has his merit, and we thank him in that aspect. But we take from him that he was not, as he declared in his contradictory call, a Sufi Salafi call. They are two opposites that do not meet, no matter how some try to give the word "Sufi" a modified, beautiful meaning, as if to say that the intention is only asceticism and the like of what was mentioned in the Sunnah.
There is no moderate Sufism—meaning: conforming to the Book and the Sunnah. But without a doubt, Sufism differs from people to others. And from the saying: "Some evil is easier than some," as in "Hananiyak." But that there be in Sufism something that our righteous predecessors were not upon, this is impossible. So we take from him that he was not knowledgeable about this call. And some of his writings in some of his letters in which he speaks about some of what concerns the divine attributes and explicitly states tafwid (delegation); this is proof that the man was not knowledgeable.
We do not hold a person accountable if he is from the general people or from the students of knowledge and is not from the people of knowledge and scholars. But we hold accountable the people who are blindly fanatical and make such a man, for example, a renewer (mujaddid), even though the famous hadith does not apply to him regarding the chronological time in which he existed. We take from his followers more severely than we take from him, because he is an individual, and . So if he directed himself to gathering these youth and collecting them and taking them out of the amusements, cinemas, and cafes and the like, then this is without a doubt a commendable deed and he will be rewarded for it, if Allah wills. But these who came after him and knew his saying or the saying of some of his followers: "Establish the state of Islam in your hearts and it will be established for you on your land"; about a century of time has passed for them—and I said this in many writings or recordings—and they are still, in the military expression: "Stay in your place."
After about a hundred years from this saying—and it is truth without a doubt: "Establish the state of Islam in your hearts and it will be established for you on your land."
Without a doubt, the hearts are the center of creed and the center of righteous action. Because action, as is known by the consensus of the scholars of the Muslims, does not become a righteous action unless it is pure for Allah. Then added to this, if it is pure but not upon the way of the Sunnah, it will not be accepted. As came in the transmitted exegesis regarding this verse, that action does not become righteous except with these two conditions: that it be upon the way of the Sunnah, and that it be pure...
So when one of them, and one of their leaders, says to them, "Establish the state of Islam in your hearts," while they remain as they received it, and we regret this era to the utmost, for no such call has been found in a man who is a scholar. Let him be a scholar in tafsir, let him be a scholar in hadith, let him be a scholar in fiqh from the four madhabs. And I do not say a faqih in the four madhabs; that is what is called today in the language of the present age "comparative fiqh."
No such call has been found! So what has this call done in these decades except shouting and wailing that Muhammad is our leader? He is your leader in words, but in deed you did not follow him, and you constantly read the saying of Allah (Mighty and Majestic): .
And there is no doubt or ambiguity that every person who wants to follow someone he loves must know the conduct of his beloved and his path throughout his life. And there is no doubt that Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) is the most beloved of Allah’s creation to Allah first, and consequently to us Muslims second. So why do these people not care to know the biography of their beloved, as they claim, and to follow his biography, also, from creed to conduct, deeds, and legal rulings? Therefore, we do not favor anyone and we do not force anyone, but we try, we try, because we are human and we err and we hit the mark, to give every right its due. So "Hassan al-Banna" is not Salafi in creed, and he is not Salafi in methodology, but we do not deny his initial effort in gathering these Muslims. So it was up to those who came after him to complete his work and gather these youths, so they took gathering as their methodology; they took gathering the Muslims as their methodology, on the basis that they would teach them Islam, and then none of that happened.
And so we summarize our call, O Salafis, and the call of the others, including the Muslim Brotherhood. We say: Our call is established, after the detail known to those who follow the news of this blessed call; our call is established: "Educate then mobilize." As for the call of the others, it is the opposite of that: "Mobilize then educate, then no education"!! And "Stay in your place"!! This is my opinion, and perhaps in this is enough, if Allah wills, as an answer to that question.