What is the reality of the Salafi da'wah? For the Salafis have been accused of being occupied with the details of fiqh to the neglect of refuting the communists and others.

The Shaykh : The opening sermon: We begin with the opening sermon, whether you wish it or I do.
Al-Hawini: You, our Shaykh.

The Shaykh : Indeed, all praise is due to Allah; we praise Him, seek His help, and seek His forgiveness. We seek refuge in Allah from the evil of our own selves and from the evil of our deeds. Whomsoever Allah guides, none can misguide, and whomsoever He misguides, none can guide. And I bear witness that there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah alone, with no partner, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His slave and His Messenger. As for what follows, the best of speech is the speech of Allah, the best of guidance is the guidance of Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him and his family), and the worst of matters are those that are newly invented, and every newly invented matter is an innovation, and every innovation is misguidance, and every misguidance is in the Fire. And now, it is obligatory upon me personally to answer some questions, and I hope that our Lord, Blessed and Exalted is He, will grant me success in answering all of them, or most of them, or some of them. If I am granted success in answering some of them, that is a favor from Allah, Blessed and Exalted is He. And as for what I am unable to answer, I refer the knowledge of it to its scholar. And true is the saying of Allah, the Mighty and Majestic: This is what concerns me. As for what concerns you, O listeners, it is that you maintain order in directing questions and do not direct them orally, but rather in writing. And now, our brother Abu Ishaq is directing the questions he has, and we ask Allah, Blessed and Exalted is He, to grant success to us and to you.
Al-Hawini: Our Shaykh, what is the reality of the Salafi da'wah? For many people spread the claim that they do not care about anything except the secondary details, such as the manner of rising after bowing, or descending with the hands or the knees, or the qunut in the Fajr prayer or its absence. And they leave the refutation of the communists, the secularists, and the destructive schools of thought. They say that the battle of the Salafis is only with Muslims, whereas the battle of others is with the enemies of the Muslims?

The Shaykh : My answer to this doubt is that it is "a tune we know from Akhzam". That is, these are the people who accuse us of not researching or calling to anything except these issues they have cited as examples. And this, in its reality, returns to one of two matters, with no third: either it is ignorance of the reality of the Salafi Islamic da'wah on one hand, and my da'wah concerning the people of da'wah to the Salafi da'wah on the other hand; or it returns to their ignoring the reality of the da'wah and the da'wah workers. So it is either ignorance or ignoring of this good reality, which is obligatory for every Muslim to be aware of. And as is said on such an occasion, "and the sweetest of them is bitter". I say a clear word: We do not refute the communists or the materialists, because when Allah, Mighty and Majestic, sent His Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), and the messengers before him as bringers of good news and warners, they did not concern themselves with the concern that these people who complain about the Salafi da'wah have. They complain about their not addressing communism and the like. That is because we follow the da'wah of our Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), for his da'wah, in its first origin, was that they should worship Allah and avoid the taghut. So now, these people who accuse us of this accusation undoubtedly know that the Salafi da'wah, when it begins, begins by addressing the creed and correcting people's concept of tawhid in its three types, which children in their schools now know correctly, as it came in the Book and the Sunnah, better than these da'wah workers who claim to have taken up the banner of refuting the communists and the atheists. In our belief, these da'wah workers who refute the communists and the like, the first thing they refute is what concerns tawhid al-rububiyyah (oneness of lordship). As for what follows tawhid al-rububiyyah, namely tawhid al-uluhiyyah (oneness of worship) and tawhid al-asma' wa al-sifat (oneness of the names and attributes), this is the tawhid by which the knowledge of the one who says "La ilaha illa Allah" is not completed unless he first knows the difference between tawhid al-rububiyyah, tawhid al-uluhiyyah, and tawhid al-asma' wa al-sifat. So how is it correct for one who is truly a believer and fears his Lord, Mighty and Majestic, to fabricate against the believers or accuse them of being occupied with the secondary matters instead of the creeds, as they say? Those people who are occupied with refuting the communists do not refute based on the study of the Book and the Sunnah, but rather they start from the study of fiqh, and I do not say, in principle, opinion; that is, they judge by their minds which rely, in general, on Islam, but they do not know Islam in its reality as Allah, Mighty and Majestic, revealed it in His Book and in the Sunnah of His Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). We know from the reality of studying knowledge that any student of knowledge who studies knowledge on the scientific methodology begins with what is most important, then what is most important, as it was said:
"Knowledge, if you seek it, is much, and life is short for its acquisition, so prioritize the most important of it, then the most important"
Is it more important for the Muslim to concern himself with others, such as the communists and the materialists, or should he start with himself and rectify it by making it follow what came in the Book and the Sunnah in creed above all else, then in worship, then in morals, and then in behavior? In that case, the accusation is completely reversed upon them, and the saying of the old proverb applies to them: "She cast her illness upon me and slipped away". If we ask these people who claim and boast that they refute the communists, the atheists, and the materialists, if we ask them about tawhid, or even about the meaning of the word , they will be perplexed in their answer and not know the correct answer. This actually includes many of the Muslims who belong to some of the schools of jurisprudence followed since ancient times, along with those who boast of refuting the communists. As for tawhid al-asma' wa al-sifat (oneness of the names and attributes), they are the furthest people from knowing it. Therefore, as long as we have discussed many of them with what came in the Book and the Sunnah of noble verses and hadiths regarding what they say with their tongues in their prostrations, while faith has not entered their hearts, unfortunately, they say with us in prostration, "Glory be to my Lord, the Most High," repeating it three times in every prostration and in every rak'ah of the prayer. If we ask them the question we inherited from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) when he asked the girl to test her about her faith, and she answered, "In the sky," if we direct this question to these people who accuse the innocent of what is not in them—this question, "Where is Allah?"—their eyes would roll in their sockets in confusion and misguidance. Some of them increase in misguidance by saying this question is not permissible in Islam. They know, or do not know, and Allah knows best what is in their hearts, that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) is the one who established for the Muslims, truly, this question to know the faith that saves with Allah, as opposed to the faith that does not save. They know or do not know, but by the grace of Allah (Mighty and Majestic), we have received the hadith containing this hadith or this question from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) through the paths of the imams of hadith, such as Imam Muslim in his Sahih, and before him Imam Malik in his Muwatta, then Imam Ahmad in his Musnad, and others from the imams of the Sunnah. They narrated the hadith of the girl, which is a well-known hadith. I do not want to deviate from answering the question by quoting it in full, but the point is that when the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) asked her, she said, "In the sky". He said to her, she said, "You are the Messenger of Allah". So he (peace and blessings be upon him) turned to her master and said to him, . The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) considered her answer, by her saying that Allah is in the sky, as proof of her faith. So what do we say about the faith of these people who accuse the innocent and then want to guide those whom Allah has led astray, such as the communists and materialists and their like? If they guided them, they would not lead them to more than the fact that Allah exists. That is all they could prove to them, which is what the polytheists of the first age of ignorance, and in every age of ignorance, and in every time and place, believed, namely the existence of Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He). As for this Necessary Being, as some scholars say, meaning this Allah (Mighty and Majestic), what is befitting of Him, and what is obligatory for every Muslim to believe regarding the essence of Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He)? This is something they do not know in the first place. Rather, they go further and deny those who believe in what came in the Book and the Sunnah. We have mentioned what most of you know: that if we direct the Prophetic question, , they deny this question and consequently do not know how to answer. Rather, their answer would be sharing with all believers in the first tawhid, tawhid al-rububiyyah (oneness of lordship). Their answer would be that because they have not been guided by Allah (Mighty and Majestic) through His Book and the Sunnah of His Prophet, it does not benefit them in any way. That is because their answer would be that Allah is everywhere, Allah is in all existence. Can these people call the disbelievers to the tawhid that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) commanded Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) with when He said, ? And we all know that one who lacks a thing cannot give it. So if we hypothetically assume, an impossible assumption, that these people who are so concerned with others and forget themselves were able to make the communists believe in Islam, but if we asked these people who were guided by those they guided to Islam, "What is the tawhid that you understood?" the previous answer returns: one who lacks a thing cannot give it. So in reality, they contradict principles in the Noble Qur'an, including . So we say to these people who deny us and accuse us of what is not in us: Have you understood the truth of "La ilaha illa Allah" (There is no deity but Allah) and the truth of "Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah"? If you have done so, then there is no harm in calling people to what Allah has guided you to. But if you remain for a long time not understanding the word of tawhid except in the meaning that the people of the first age of ignorance understood when they said, "There is no Lord but Allah," , then they do not resent the Muslims for believing in the existence of Allah; rather, they share with them in that. But they differ from them in that they worship other gods alongside Allah. Do you see if these accusers of the Salafis of what is not in them, do they understand the meaning of this tawhid, which is "La ilaha illa Allah," and that there is no worshipped entity with truth in existence except Allah...? To this day, they do not know the meaning of worship. What is the worship that if a Muslim directs it to other than Allah (Mighty and Majestic), he associates partners with Allah, and nothing benefits him, no matter how much he says "La ilaha illa Allah"? I know that some shaykhs in Damascus, in the Levant, authored a treatise titled "La ilaha illa Allah." When he came to explain it, he said, "There is no Lord but Allah". So what did this Muslim who claims to be a Muslim do? He interpreted the word of tawhid with the meaning of tawhid al-rububiyyah only. This tawhid that the polytheists believed in, but they, meaning the polytheists, used to be arrogant when "La ilaha illa Allah" was said to them. These polytheists whom you heard earlier, when asked who created the heavens and the earth, said, "Allah." So at the same time, when they heard the Messenger (peace be upon him) calling them to "La ilaha illa Allah," they were arrogant about this word and mocked the one calling to it. Why? Among the wonders of things is that those polytheists, in their misguidance and their shirk (associating partners with Allah), truly knew the meaning of "La ilaha illa Allah." And therefore they fled from this correct meaning and were arrogant about saying "La ilaha illa Allah," because it means something else, more than what those polytheists were upon, which is to worship Allah. This other meaning is to worship Allah alone, with no partner. They used to deny that and say, as the Noble Qur'an recorded, . We find the Islamic world today, with great regret, drowning in shirk of worship, or shirk of uluhiyyah (oneness of worship), and shirk of names and attributes. They say "La ilaha illa Allah," but the Islamic world today, which those Islamic preachers claimed to be occupied with, and who accuse the Salafi preachers of being occupied with matters they call trivial, like some of the examples mentioned in the question, the Islamic world today is drowning in the ignorance that the polytheists to whom the Messenger (peace be upon him) was sent were upon. So due to their ignorance of Islam and their ignorance of the truth of "La ilaha illa Allah," they think that the Muslims are in a good state. And therefore they turn away from them to those polytheists, and we do not repeat the phrase "communists and their like," because the Muslims are in a good state. Even though many of the Islamic countries, not only some or many of the non-Arab countries, but also some of the Arab countries, shirk is still doing its work in them. They pray and fast and testify that there is no deity but Allah. So why did those preachers leave these Muslim brothers, who are their brothers by the saying of Allah the Exalted, ? Why did they leave them in their misguidance? Not in secondary matters, but in the root of creed, which is tawhid? That is because they do not know tawhid and understand tawhid as the common people do. And the common person who prays and fasts, if he circumambulates graves or makes vows to them or calls upon them other than Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He), this, in the claim of the aforementioned preachers, does not contradict their saying "La ilaha illa Allah." And therefore they left the common Muslims, and among them some of the elite, in their misguidance, deluded. Then they turned to calling, guiding, and leading whom? Those who do not believe in Allah, even with the faith of the polytheists, such as the materialists for example. And they left the people who live among them, who are practically disbelieving by the testimony of "La ilaha illa Allah," believing in word but disbelieving in practice. That is because the polytheists were more understanding of this word than they were. And therefore they said, . As for these later people, or these so-called preachers, they have not understood that the completion of this tawhid is tawhid of worship, and that this necessitates that no one be worshipped except Allah, not by directing oneself to the grave of a wali (close friend of Allah), nor by calling out to him, nor by seeking aid from him, and the like. So due to their ignorance of the reality of Islam, they turned away from what we are directing ourselves to, by the grace and mercy of Allah, to being occupied with others to call them to faith, which does not fatten nor satisfy hunger. If they believed in the call of these preachers, because these preachers themselves are not aware of the faith that saves with Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He). And the summary of that is that it is a blatant, terrible accusation when they ignore the call to truth, the call of "La ilaha illa Allah" and its explanation to all Muslims with the truths upon which the scholars of the Salaf agreed. They ignore these truths and accuse the Salafis that they do not do and do not call people except to raising the hands and moving the finger and the like of the sunnahs. Second, we have established more than once, following our imams before and after, that the Noble Qur'an cannot be understood except in the light of the Sunnah, by the saying of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) addressing His Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), . So we say to these so-called preachers: Are you with us in that the Book cannot be understood except through the path of the Muhammadan Sunnah? In my opinion, their answer will be agreement, even if only in word. And we are not obligated to reach what is in their hearts. At that time, we say to them: Do you know that what is not from the Sunnah has entered into it? If they also answer in the affirmative, we say: Is it necessary knowledge, obligatory knowledge, to purify this Sunnah from what has entered into it? Or is purifying this Sunnah also from the trivial matters and from the thing that is only voluntary? Or is it from the obligations that the Qur'an cannot be understood without this purification of this Sunnah? If they agree with us, and in my opinion they have no way but to agree with us, and at that time we say to them: Have you done anything in this regard? Rather, are you able to do anything of purifying the Sunnah and distinguishing its authentic from its weak? If they say yes, we say to them, . And we do not need to demand proofs from them, for in their books that they author in refuting the disbelievers in general, we often find interpretations of verses contrary to what came in the transmitted tafsir. And we often see that they contain hadiths that have no validity, no peak and no rein. We do not want to say that it is obligatory for all Islamic groups to work and all of them to perform the duty of purifying the Sunnah from what has entered into it. But I want to remind these people of the like of the saying of Allah the Exalted, . They know that those who purify the creed from what has entered into it of polytheistic and idolatrous elements are the Salafis. They are the supporters of the Sunnah, they are the people of hadith, they are the group. The names multiply due to the difference of countries, but the name is one. Those who purify the creed from what has entered into it that is not from it, they are only the Salafis whom they accused of being occupied with trivial matters. Likewise, they know for certain that those who purify the Sunnah from what has entered into it of weak and fabricated hadiths, and many of these hadiths were fabricated by some of the sects that wanted to plot against Islam and Muslims and wanted to divert them from the religion in the name of the religion, so they fabricated those weak and fabricated hadiths. They truly know that those who perform this purification are also the Salafis, and not those so-called preachers who are concerned with refuting the communists and their like. Then who are those who are concerned with correcting the worship of the Muslims, from prayer, fasting, Hajj, 'Umrah, and knowledge of zakah and its establishment and its conditions and the like? No one stands for that except one who combines the Book and the authentic Sunnah. No doubt that accusing the Salafis of what preceded from some of the examples, this blessed community in these sacred lands, is truly the greatest proof that the Salafis are innocent, innocent as the wolf is from the blood of the son of Jacob, from that accusation. Because it is assumed that we, and praise be to Allah, should be on a common word, to know tawhid and to know prayer and to know Hajj and the like. And yet we have spoken in many gatherings, not in purity, nor in raising the hands and grasping and the like, but rather we have often spoken in principles related to the Islamic rules that those people do not know. Perhaps with this word I have answered the question, or is there something remaining in it?
Al-Huwaini: May Allah reward you.

The Shaykh : Other than that?