The Shaykh’s explanation of the first condition of a righteous deed, which is (that it be in accordance with the Sunnah), and a discussion on the scholars’ attention to the Sunnah.

The Shaykh : Now that we have understood this, I wish to confine my remarks to this first condition, because many Muslims today have gone astray in understanding this condition. That is, when is a deed considered righteous? Many people assume that a deed is righteous and acceptable to Allah, Blessed and Exalted is He, in their opinion, simply because its doer is sincere to Allah in it.
If you recall the previous verse and its interpretation, you will know that this claim is refuted against its holder, because sincerity in a deed is only one of two conditions, not the entirety of the conditions. The other condition is that the deed be in accordance with the Sunnah. For a Muslim to know that his deed is in accordance with the Sunnah, he must do one of two things: either he must be knowledgeable of the Book and the Sunnah, or he must ask someone who is knowledgeable of the Book and the Sunnah. The unfortunate reality today is that knowledge of the Book and the Sunnah has become limited to a small, mentioned number among this vast number of Muslims. The majority of scholars, let alone others, have turned away from caring for the Sunnah in particular. This necessitates that they occupy themselves with matters other than the Sunnah. Even if this occupation is with interpreting the speech of Allah, it does not benefit them greatly, because the understanding of the Noble Qur'an is based on the Sunnah, as our Lord, Blessed and Exalted is He, clarified in His saying to His Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him): Thus, Allah, Mighty and Majestic, has explicitly stated in this verse that there is a revealed Qur'an and that there is an explanation for this revealed Qur'an. This explanation is the speech of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) If the scholar is not well-versed in the Sunnah, he cannot understand the Qur'an, because there is no way to understand the Qur'an alone without resorting to the Sunnah for its understanding. Therefore, the people of the Sunnah agreed that the sources to which one should refer in the Islamic Shari'ah are only two: the Qur'an and the Sunnah. They agreed on this only because, as we mentioned, there is no way to understand the Qur'an except through the Sunnah. However, despite this generality, most scholars did not fulfill what is obligatory upon them regarding the care of serving the Sunnah. A group of hadith scholars in the past, and very few individuals in the later eras, took this upon themselves. In fact, most of the hadith scholars who served the Sunnah in the past served it in terms of... Only a very few of them served the Sunnah by verifying and distinguishing what is authentic from what is not. Among the foremost of these imams are Imam al-Bukhari and Imam Muslim. However, most hadiths remained in need of purification and, as the scholars of hadith terminology express it, in need of investigation and verification to distinguish the authentic from the weak. Those who occupied themselves with tafsir did not give the obligatory care to the Sunnah in terms of distinguishing its authentic from its weak. Therefore, we find in books of tafsir many hadiths attributed to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) that are not authentic in any way. I am not now in a position to give examples of this, because I believe that some of those examples are already in your minds. The purpose is to remind you of the obligation to refer to the understanding of the religion that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) made a cure for this disease that has afflicted the Muslims. This religion is to be understood in the original Salafi understanding, which was the way of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and his noble Companions. There is no way to know this except through the path of the Sunnah.