Is Abu Ja'far al-Tahawi one of the followers of taqlid? And a word on the condemnation of partisanship and taqlid.

The questioner : The statement of al-Tahawi, what does he say regarding the condemnation of taqlid and partisanship?

The Shaykh : Abu Ja'far al-Tahawi?

The questioner: Yes.

Another questioner : Peace be upon you.

The Shaykh : And upon you be peace and the mercy of Allah and His blessings. Welcome. Now I have understood, or nearly understood. Perhaps you mean what I said this morning?

The questioner: Yes.

The Shaykh : "There is no difference between a muqallid who follows blindly and a beast that is led." This is its meaning.

The questioner : I think he said that only a fool or a partisan follows blindly.

The Shaykh : Yes, it contains the word "partisan." Yes.

The questioner : I have seen the partisans of the Hanafi school; it is something terrible.

The Shaykh : No harm, O Shaykh, but even if the hadith is weak in its chain, the meaning is correct . Abu Ja'far al-Tahawi, yes, is a follower of taqlid, and taqlid predominates in him, and he defends the school like the followers of taqlid do, but he is better than many.

The questioner : Is he more knowledgeable than Abu Hanifa, O Shaykh?

The Shaykh : I tell you, he is better than many of the followers of taqlid, as evidenced by the fact that he contradicted the school in dozens of issues. But in reality, I want our brothers, the callers to the Sunnah, to know the nature of humans and not to observe the difficulty of breaking free from habit and taqlid except after great effort and a long time. Perhaps you will share with me your knowledge of Abu al-Hasan al-Laknawi, who is one of the rarities among the Hanafis in India, who were influenced by the methodology of the people of hadith and chose many of the issues in which they contradict their imams. He died and it was not decreed for him to live a long life. In my opinion, if it had been granted to him, he would have been a leader in the call to hadith and the people of hadith there in India, where he resided, may Allah have mercy on him. But as they say, and I do not know if this phrase is correct to say, "Death hastened him," so it was not granted to him to continue in this scientific criticism with the abundance of his knowledge, to become, in my opinion, better than the one with whom he had long discussions, which is Sayyid Hasan Khan. So, if we see Abu Ja'far al-Tahawi and his like holding fast to the school, we must know that this is the nature of humans, and that getting rid of the effects, or even... this sectarian rigidity is not at all an easy matter. So, if we find Abu Ja'far contradicting his school in dozens of issues in his book in which his partisanship for his school is manifest, which is "Sharh Ma'ani al-Athar," in this same book he affirms his contradiction of Abu Hanifa, Imam Muhammad, and Abu Yusuf, following the hadith. So I explain that he did not depart from adherence to the school to a great extent, as is the case with Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn al-Qayyim, who departed from adherence to the Hanbali school to the utmost limits. But even so, there remained many residues, especially regarding Ibn al-Qayyim, where residues of Sufism remained in him, as he appears to have studied under some Sufi shaykhs there. Therefore, you find Sufism in him, which we do not find in Ibn Taymiyyah. And I personally do not blame him, because getting rid of these residues is not at all an easy matter. In summary, Abu Ja'far al-Tahawi is a man knowledgeable of the Sunnah, knowledgeable of hadith in the manner of the people of hadith, and he collects the chains and wordings and builds upon them legal rulings. And in many instances he exercises independent legal reasoning and does not follow blindly. But most of the time, unfortunately, he is of the Hanafi school. So, if we mention his faults, we also mention his virtues with them. But I advise, in the way of finding some intellectual closeness between us and those who disagree with us, that we not dwell on the faults, but rather we dwell more on the virtues. And when we are compelled to mention that this man, despite his virtue and knowledge, remained rigid in his taqlid for most of the issues, we do so because we do not want to favor anyone, but we want, as you indicated recently, excuse me, in some of the scholarly sessions, that we must use legal policy. And of your policy is that you prevent our companion from recording your words. This is a legal policy that is not wrong if it is placed in its proper place. Also, because the truth is, I fear excess and deficiency, that our young student brothers become accustomed to sneering, hinting, and attacking those who disagree with us in many issues, while they walk with us in the main line, which is following the Book and the Sunnah, but they differ from us in that they are still followers of taqlid. And I, as they say, we in Syria, the poor servant, I know why I am in harmony with you often, because I did not live under the guidance of a Hanafi scholar, but rather our Lord, Mighty and Majestic, saved me by His grace and raised me with a special scholarly upbringing. So I did not know sectarian adherence except in the beginning of my scholarly life. I read from my father, may Allah have mercy on him, and from others of some of the Hanafi shaykhs, such as "Maraqi al-Falah," such as "al-Quduri," and the like. But soon my Lord guided me to the Sunnah, and I lived upon it as you see. But I imagine if I had been raised on the Hanafi school for many years, and then the opening came to me after the Book and the Sunnah, as we do with people today, "here, so that he returns and comes back to the truth by fifty or sixty percent," it is very difficult. Therefore, I believe that we should be content if we see a person in the first step agreeing with us on the Book and the Sunnah. The point I wanted to make is, if we meet with some of these followers of taqlid, or the deviant Sufis, or the Ash'aris, or the Maturidis, and they respond to us that this speech is the truth, the Book and the Sunnah, and nothing else, but you see he is still on his creed, still on his Hanafism. So I say, merely hearing this acknowledgment from him, in the Syrian expression, "laugh in your drink." Laugh in your drink if he agrees with you on this correct principle. But after that, follow him with admonition and reminder, and so on. And whatever deviation you obtain from him from what he was upon, from sectarian adherence to holding fast to the Book and the Sunnah, this is light upon light. As for him becoming a Salafi in creed and scientific methodology overnight, this is impossible. The example is before us: to see the effort of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and his toil with his Companions. And let us take as an example the second Rightly Guided Caliph, 'Umar ibn al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him). How severe an enemy he was against the call, and how much he tried to mislead people from the call, until the time came and he embraced Islam out of conviction, and then he became one of the strongest people in the religion of Allah, Blessed and Exalted is He.

The questioner : And Allah made Islam strong through him. Islam has remained strong since 'Umar embraced Islam.

The Shaykh : You have spoken well. This is the saying of Ibn Mas'ud (may Allah be pleased with him). Yes, the point is...

Another questioner : Peace be upon you.

The Shaykh : And upon you be peace, and the mercy of Allah and His blessings. I say to some of our brothers, let me give them an example, and I am mentioning this example now to kill two birds with one stone, as they say in our region, two birds with one stone. First, to alert those present and to emphasize the difficulty of sending people and moving them away from a custom, even though they are Muslims and worship Allah, Lord of the Worlds, but they have become accustomed to a custom, so it is very, very difficult for them to deviate from it. And when we mention this example, and we will mention it, we will also mention the greatness of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), who was sent to the Arabs who used to worship idols and were known for bad morals, such as burying daughters alive, drinking intoxicants, and the like. How was he able, peace and blessings be upon him, to move this nation, the Arab nation, from misguidance to guidance? From major shirk to tawhid, and so on? This alone is a miracle for the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) if we compare it to other callers. The example is, and our Jordanian brothers know this, do you know our friend Abu Malik Muhammad Shuqra? He is the imam of a mosque there called the Salah al-Din Mosque, and he is one of the first who responded to the Salafi call, and praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds, there. And he was known for knowing, among other things, the Sunnah that was hidden from many of the worshippers, and here the intention is to remind. The hadith known to you, which al-Bukhari and Muslim narrated in their Sahihs, from the hadith of Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him), who said: The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: What is observed now in the entire Islamic world, and this country is part of this world, is that the imam barely finishes reading the last verse of al-Fatihah, barely does he settle the noon of "wa-ld-dallin" (and not the misguided), but the mosque is filled with the sound of "Ameen." The hadith says, "When the imam says Ameen, then say Ameen." The scholars explain this hadith with two meanings: "When the imam says Ameen" means when it is prescribed, or when he finishes. And if we take the second opinion in interpreting this phrase, the discrepancy in the application of this hadith and the error becomes very great. And if we take the first opinion, which is the one my heart has settled on recently, "When the imam begins with Ameen, then you begin with Ameen," even so, the deviation is fully embodied. This is the one bird, which is alerting our brother students, first, to train themselves on this observation so that they do not precede the imam with the word "Ameen" until they hear the imam's Ameen, and no one should be hasty to say it. And if the imam does not say Ameen aloud, like the Hanafis, for example, this has another ruling. The point is, this is the first bird. The second bird is our brother Abu Malik, who until this hour, for years, has been trying to train the few people who pray in his mosque, and in every Jumu'ah prayer, let alone the rest of the five prayers, he alerts the people with this reminder briefly and reminds them of the hadith. And yet, as soon as he reads it is as if he had not spoken. I say to our brothers frankly, look how difficult it is to guide people and move them from their customs and traditions to the correct path. And upon you be peace, and the mercy of Allah and His blessings. So, until now, you find that despite the repetition of the reminder, teaching, and guidance, people have not straightened out on the Sunnah in this detail. So what do you think if we expand the circle of teaching and reminding to dozens and hundreds of issues? And by Allah, this call requires the patience of Ayyub (peace be upon him), and I do not say the patience of Nuh (peace be upon him), who stayed with his people for a thousand years except fifty, because that is contrary to the Sunnah of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) in His creation. But the caller needs to be patient. And of patience is that we use wisdom and policy, as you mentioned in some of your words, with these deviants, and that we be gentle with them and not belittle their scholars among them, so that they think ill of us. And so, like Abu Ja'far al-Tahawi, I hope that all the Hanafis, past and present, are like him in knowledge and in deviating from the rigidity of madhhab taqlid in some issues. This is a great blessing. And yet, the matter is as it was said, and when they deviated a little, they became today less than a little, so they became today...

Another questioner : ...better than a little.

The Shaykh : Yes, so we ask Allah (Mighty and Majestic) to guide us and to grant us success in following the Sunnah and calling to it with wisdom and good exhortation. Yes.

The questioner : And yet, O our Shaykh, if you saw the wonders of the speed of turning away from falsehood in some people...

The Shaykh : Ah

The questioner : I mean, if a person lived a long life in error, and then when it is said to him, "Allah said, the Messenger of Allah said," this error ends quickly.

The Shaykh : Praise be to Allah.

The questioner : We saw wonders in Kashmir, O our Shaykh, I mean...The Shaykh : Abd al-Razzaq... in the mosques, we noticed errors in their prayer and other things, so the single observation we threw at them, everything ended.

The Shaykh : But this, without a doubt, does not happen with those who are well-versed in fiqh. The later fiqh is still like unfermented dough.

The questioner : No, these people have sound foundations. The people of hadith, their foundation is holding fast to the Book and the Sunnah, meaning the foundation is sound. So if you say, "Allah said, the Messenger of Allah said," they are prepared for change easily as well...

The Shaykh : May Allah bless you, may Allah reward you with good.

The questioner : We went to the schools first... after the university, in those days, we sent them clothes, and we came and they were teaching, among other things, that Salafiyyah in 'aqidah, the books of tawhid, do not exist. Ibn Taymiyyah and Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab do not exist at all. And their reference in 'aqidah is the 'Aqidah al-Nasafiyyah. So we refuted this and said, how is this methodology? You claim that you are people of hadith and that you are Salafis, so where is your reference from Salafiyyah? And you have nothing of Salafiyyah, but rather you have its opposite, which is the 'Aqidah al-Nasafiyyah. Of course, it contains what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. And this methodology is before you, take what you want from the books and that is the end of the matter, things proceed. And we changed the methodology and brought the books of tawhid by Ibn Taymiyyah and Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab, and al-Tahawiyyah, al-Wasitiyyah, al-Tadmuriyyah, Kitab al-Tawhid, and Fath al-Majid. And the Indian universities immediately changed to Salafiyyah, they changed immediately. Their foundations are sound.

The Shaykh : Praise be to Allah.

The questioner : Praise be to Allah. But afterwards, the group cools down when you say this to them. They go to sleep regarding the call. Tell them, be patient and continue with the call, but let the morals be good, is that not so? So...The Shaykh : ...do not let them cool you down. Be men, working, but with wisdom and good conduct...