What is the Salafi method of refuting the sorcerers? With the Shaykh mentioning his stories with them.

The questioner : The Salafi method of refuting the sorcerers is present... What do you think about them?

The Shaykh : The Salafi method is well known.
"And all good is in following those who came before, and all evil is in the innovation of those who came after."
One says to these people: Who are your predecessors in this? Their predecessors are the like of them among the Dajjals. I told some of our brothers that these people do not understand the evidence, and if they did understand it, they would not return to it. Rather, they are on what they found their fathers and grandfathers upon. They are, without a doubt, from the jurisprudential aspect, claiming adherence to a madhhab, so each of them claims affiliation to one of the four madhhabs followed today. But this is in reality only in name and form, while in truth and reality, none of them is bound by the rulings of the Shari'ah. But if you ask him, "What is your madhhab?" he will say, "I am Hanafi or Shafi'i." At that point, one says to him, "Did your imam, al-Shafi'i, say that this action is permissible?" Our plan is to return to the Sunnah and to the Salaf. But these people do not understand this optimal plan. However, when they are in need, they return to arguing against us with the imams, and they say to us, "You are Khamsiyyah, you are Wahhabi, and you are such and such." So we address them in their language and say to them, "Who are your predecessors in these actions you perform?" Then the matter requires a type of practical testing and examination. It was mentioned that some of you saw one who strikes himself with skewers. This is a known matter among these people since hundreds of years, and that they are very bold in piercing themselves with their hands, but they are in reality, as it is said, "one knows how to eat the shoulder." He knows that he pierces himself with his own hand, and thus the matter returns to training, exercise, and practice. So they turn the matter against them and ask them to pierce one of you, for example, not with the skewer but with the small knife, and the story continues... And these people must be confronted with a practical plan that shows people that they are truly deceiving, because the scholarly argument does not benefit them. My father had a precedent and experience with some of these Sufi path followers, and then an incident also happened to me. There was in our native land, Albania, a Naqshbandi Shaykh who came with such false claims, claiming that he is a wali (close friend of Allah) by inheritance and that he does this and that, and among his claims is that he pierces himself with skewers. So my father challenged him, may Allah have mercy on him, and said to him, "I am a poor man who owns nothing but this house, and yet it is yours if you remain alive, if you allow me to pierce you with this small knife instead of the large skewer he uses." But he refused. The secret in this is known: they pierce their bodies in places they know are not fatal. And an incident also happened to me ten years ago in Aleppo, which is north of Damascus. It was my custom to travel there for the sake of da'wah for a few days every month. After I delivered the speech or lecture and the people dispersed, usually some of the close brothers, three or four, would remain and be delayed. But one of them remained whom I did not see, and I did not notice him in the session because the session was full. But when they left and three or four whom we know remained, he appeared before me as an unknown person to me. Then something caught my attention: he was thin and not fat like me, yet despite being thin, his belly was sticking out. What is this, my brother? He said, "This is a Rihaniyyah." I heard of it for the first time. I said, "What does Rihaniyyah mean?" He said, "Skewers." I understood at that time that he was a Sufi. I said to him, "Do you want to show us your skewer as a karamah (miracle granted to a righteous person)?" He said, "Yes." And glory be to Allah, I was carrying a small knife like my father's, a small knife with two handles, do you know, a small knife with two small blades? I said to him, "The matter does not need skewers. Pulling them out is scary, but what do you think if I strike you with this knife with my hand?" The wicked one said, "Not with my hand." So I said to him, "Not with my hand." And he would not listen.Those present : Except that this word was repeated by both of us. He was saying "with my hand" and I was saying "with my hand, with my hand, with my hand" until I annoyed him and bored him. He said, "What is the difference?" I said to him, "Since there is no difference, then with my hand."
The student brothers laughed.
So the man was stunned and turned and twisted in his words, and he called the owner of the house, saying, "O Abu Ahmad, bring the brazier. You call it the coal brazier, bring the brazier." I understood what he wanted. I said, "You want to show us that fire does not affect you?" He said, "Yes." I said, "O Abu Ahmad, do not bring the brazier, just bring the match."
The student brothers laughed.
Glory be to Allah, how quickly falsehood is exposed! The man brought the match and placed it there, a bit far from me. I stood up to him; he was sitting on the chair. I lit the match and said to him, "Will you retract these false claims, or I will burn you?" The poor man was terrified and turned and twisted, and he did not speak a single word. How did he start not speaking? So I began to burn his beard, and it actually caught fire. Then I said to him, "Look, it became like this, meaning in front of you. I said to him, 'Go to your Shuyukh and show them our karamah (miracle granted to a righteous person).'"
The student brothers laughed.
This group needs it this way, because the matter is a matter of training, not a matter of karamah (miracle granted to a righteous person) in the first place, and it may sometimes be sorcery, but this is not of that; these are all exercises. Our Lord, Mighty and Majestic, inspired one of the Shuyukh of the paths in Aleppo—we do not know if he was sincere, we do not know what his goal was—he became a Salafi... He pretended that the angels carry him by throwing the drum they beat to gather people, and the truth is they want to gather the Shayatins (Satan) who are in the eyes of the people of evil, so they throw the drum on the ground and then he stands on the drum, so the drum does not collapse or burst because the angels are carrying him, thus they delude the people. I say this man, and I still remember his name, and his name is Hasan, and he says he is Arna'ut, meaning from our lands, Hasan al-Arna'ut, the Shaykh of his path. It appeared that he was a Salafi. He said, "Once a young Shaykh of his path came to Aleppo and started gathering people in the squares of Aleppo and holding a dhikr party in their way. The party requires that he throw the drum and stand on it, and the people see how the drum does not affect him. He wanted this, but Allah disgraced him; he could hardly stand before the drum collapsed and he fell. Our friend was present and in the time of his shaykhhood, he said to him, 'Go, you have not yet reached the level.' He came and turned the drum to the other side and stood on it, and the people clapped for him, meaning this is a son of the path and a son of a Shaykh, and so on. He said, 'What is the trick in this?' The matter has nothing in it except a type of training. This is my Shaykh, he is young and not yet trained. He said the trick in that is that the one who wants to perform the operation puts the heel of his foot on the edge of the drum's frame, and the rest of the foot is on the skin, and thus nothing happens. And this man, considering he was not trained, the weight of the foot fell on the skin, and he fell with it. And thus he narrated to us many things, and very many, all revolving around completely ordinary matters, but they require training and a type of agility and lightness. Once, while we were in Damascus, some young men from Albania came. He was not a righteous young man; he wanted to try life in Syria, hoping it would be better than there. And behold, he did some of these actions that the Sufi path followers commit, among which is eating glass. At that time, electricity had not spread in the country; there were oil lamps with wicks and a local-made bulb. He took the bulb that people throw away and bit it. When we hear it, our body recoils from the sound of it with his teeth, then he swallows it. My brother, who was two years older than me, passed away, may Allah have mercy on him, in Hajj three years ago. His name was Abu Ahmad; perhaps some of our brothers know him, and Abu Abdullah. He trained and became one who eats glass, but not with the same claim that the Sufi path followers claim. Yes, so in matters that require a type of boldness and practice, this group is like this; they are not overcome except by being given the opposite of what they claim. As for the matter of argument by the Book and the Sunnah, the imams and scholars do not understand anything of this at all, so we must know how to confront them and oppose them.
The student : In a suggestion, we say to them: Since you are awliya (close friends of Allah), the wali does not need preliminaries like the drum and the like, so try your karamahs (miracles granted to a righteous person) without this drum.

The questioner : He tells you, "This is the presence (hadrat), and the karamah (miracle granted to a righteous person) does not happen except after the presence, so that they draw near and reach..."

The Shaykh : May Allah keep you alive and dead, as Allah wills.

The Shaykh : If you are clever, Abu 'Abdullah, you won't miss any of the people sitting here, hehe.
Al-Halabi : Shaykh, the first time we went, we went to them, and perhaps Abu Ahmad told you, we entered their den... We said, as soon as we went, we said to them and we refuted them, so there was a lot of excitement, swords, students, and disciples, all of them followers of him, raised by him, and we were just strangers there. Frankly, by Allah, and we asked questions, I am sure some of them doubted, do you see how we asked questions? Some of them doubted, but we said next time we want to raise issues like the ones you mentioned, do you see? Or we want to see one of the brothers, Khayil, a lot... And we see how?
And the student brothers laughed.

The questioner : My teacher, I want to tell you, and this will benefit all the brothers. On one of my visits to Sham, a cousin was with me, so he said to me, come so we can walk. At the door of al-Hamidiyyah market, there was a man standing, swallowing blades and nails, and saying, "O brothers, watch out for pickpockets." So I said to my cousin, walk. He said to me, why? I said, walk so you don't get pickpocketed. He said, isn't that what he is warning about? I said to him, the danger is possible. He said, how? I said, a person is distracted, but he says, "Watch out for pickpockets," and he puts his hand on his money, "here it is, here it is." He means, if you want to steal this money, by Allah, every time he says, "Watch out for pickpockets," I put my hands on them and find them. I said to him, finish, they know where your money is, and withdraw.

The Shaykh : The Egyptians are clever with such cases. People come to us in Damascus and do a trick like this: he takes a fifty-pound Syrian paper bill and burns it in front of people, then returns it. There is no doubt this is one of the types of sorcery, as Allah the Exalted said regarding the magicians of Pharaoh: Yes. Likewise, he takes a ring from a person's hand, and when it is in another person's hand, strange things happen, even though he is a man with no talent, perhaps he does not pray and does not fast, and so on. But the difference with this one is that he has made it a profession; whereas these people have made it a karamah (a miracle granted to a righteous person) and wilayah (close friendship with Allah).
Al-Halabi : Therefore, our teacher, if I heard from Abu Ahmad, they used to say, "We follow the Book, the Sunnah, and the biography of the Salaf al-Salih (the earliest generations). We follow authentic hadiths." He would bring a fabricated hadith, for example, and say, "This is an authentic, established hadith, narrated by..." I don't know who. He would bring words, "Subhan Allah al-Azim (Glory be to Allah the Great)," meaning, the common people, without doubt, are dazzled by this speech.

The questioner : And therefore, I said, the Shaykh used to enter easily, so Abu Bakr said, no, he did not do that.

The Shaykh : I seek refuge in Allah.The Shaykh : on
Al-Halabi : This is a joke. I said, our master al-Shafi'i... Were they Qadariyyah (a sect that denied divine decree) or Rifa'iyyah? So he was clever and said, "O my son, these were before."
...