The Position of the Sects Regarding the Attribute of Allah’s (Blessed and Exalted is He) Highness, and the Issue of Compulsion and Choice, and Their Contradiction of the Book, the Sunnah, and the Salaf.

The Shaykh : So what is the position of these old sects and those who adopt this creed today? I do not know if you are following me in this thinking and awareness, but today we do not hear scholars believing that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) is in the sky, as is the explicit text of the Noble Qur'an, but rather they believe the exact opposite. So you hear some of them, on occasion and without occasion, say: "Allah is present in every place." Is that not what they say? "Allah is present in every place, Allah is present in all of existence." Allah is the Greatest! This is the creed of the Mu'tazilah. This word that we pronounce today, and which is pronounced by the people of the Sunnah and the community, praise be to Allah, is the creed of the Mu'tazilah. They are the ones who denied texts from the Qur'an; not by denying the wording, but by denying the meaning. Because if a Muslim reaches the point of denying a text in the Qur'an due to misguidance, he has exited the circle of Islam. Neither prayer nor fasting nor anything else benefits him. But if he says, "I believe in His saying (the Exalted): " but he twists and turns regarding the meaning so that he can refute the hadith and say, "The slave girl made a mistake," because the meaning of is the angels, then he has believed in the text of the Qur'an, but he twisted and turned around the Qur'anic text and brought forth a figurative interpretation (ta'wil) that differs from the true interpretation.
And this example, along with the only example we mentioned regarding legal rulings—which is the flowing of blood—is a serious disagreement that exists today among Muslims. And the two misguidances in creed are sufficient for you: the claim that man is compelled and given choice, and that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) is in every place. So wherever the places are, however dirty they are, however ritually impure they are, they believe that Allah is in those places; whereas the Book and the Sunnah are contrary to both of these creeds. For this reason, and for this and much else, we fled, as He (the Exalted) said: . What does "they fled to Allah" mean? Does it mean that Allah is sitting in a place that we go to Him? No; "they fled to Allah" means to His Book and to the Sunnah of His Prophet, as He (Mighty and Majestic) said in the well-known verse in such an occasion: ; meaning, refer it to Allah, meaning, like the one seeking a ruling goes to the mufti and asks him? No, it is not so; and therefore the scholars of the Muslims agreed that the intended meaning of is not to the Essence of Allah, and the Messenger is the Essence of the Messenger; because the Messenger (peace be upon him), as our Lord said in the Qur'an: "The messengers have passed away before him." What is the beginning of the verse? . So the Messenger has died, and it is not possible to reach him, and the Lord of the worlds (Blessed and Exalted is He) is the One who is free of need of the worlds; so we cannot reach His Essence. But the intended meaning of is to His Book, and the Messenger to his Sunnah. Likewise, does not intend this Sufi jurisprudence (fiqh) that they express as "we want to reach Allah." Reaching Allah in this deviated Sufi sense is impossible; rather, it is misguidance itself. But the intended meaning here is that we fled to Allah, meaning: we returned to the Book of Allah and to the hadith of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) so that we may be saved from this disagreement and turmoil in creed; let alone in legal rulings.
But here is something very important—and it is perhaps the crux of my answer to that question—namely: it is not sufficient today for us to say, "We return to the Book of Allah and to the hadith of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him)," because this statement is common to all Islamic sects. You will not hear from any sect, however deeply rooted in misguidance, "We do not believe in the Qur'an, we do not believe in the Sunnah." That would mean they are not Muslims. But all these sects say, "We are with the Book and the Sunnah." So how did all these sects, which the Messenger (peace be upon him) mentioned in the hadith you heard, repeatedly and repeatedly, saying at the end of the hadith: . They said: Who are they, O Messenger of Allah? He said: . All these sects are perishing except this one sect, which is the saved one. They all say: "Our reference is the Book and the Sunnah." So where did the disagreement come from? This is a very important matter. Since everyone returns to the Book and the Sunnah, where did the disagreement come from?
The disagreement came from not stopping at the phrase: , with which we began the answer to that question with this verse: . Why did Allah (Mighty and Majestic) mention in this noble verse? Would it not have conveyed the intended meaning of His (the Exalted) saying: ? If He had said: , would it not have served the purpose? We say: Yes, but there is another purpose, or more precisely, another objective from Allah (Mighty and Majestic); when He mentioned this phrase , He wanted to draw attention to the reason for the disagreement among the Islamic sects, which is that they did not return to the righteous Salaf. The righteous Salaf who received the Qur'an fresh from the mouth of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), and if something was difficult for them, they asked him and he answered them and made it clear to them. And they, in turn, transmitted it to those who came after them and followed them, and they are the Tabi'un, then the followers of the Tabi'un. These three generations to which the Messenger (peace be upon him) testified to their excellence in the authentic hadith, indeed the mass-transmitted (mutawatir) hadith; namely his saying (may Allah's prayer and peace be upon him): . This is the wording of the authentic hadith, and not "the best of the generations," .
The Islamic sects all stumbled because they did not stop at the intent of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) in the previous verse: . Why did He mention the path of the believers? Because it is obligatory upon us, by this strong indication from Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) in this verse, to understand the Qur'an and the Sunnah as it was practiced by our righteous Salaf; because they were not in disagreement, but rather the disagreement came after them. Therefore, there is none among them who says compulsion (jabr), and there is none among them who says that Allah is in every place, and there is none among them who says anything of these misguidances in which these many, and very many, sects have divided. Why? Because they, as we mentioned earlier, took the Shari'ah from the mouth of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), as he (may Allah's prayer and peace be upon him) indicated in the authentic hadith: . Ibn Umm Abd is Abdullah ibn Mas'ud (may Allah be pleased with him). . Likewise, if we want to take the Qur'an fresh as it was revealed with the correct understanding, we have no way but the path of the believers.
We said at the beginning of this speech: The path of the believers, we mean today, did we add disagreement upon disagreement? This is impossible. So the path of the believers in the verse is the righteous Salaf. Therefore, we claim that we follow the righteous Salaf and affiliate ourselves to them, and we should be aware of a point that we often hear people not being aware of. Some of those with limited understanding and knowledge say: "This is an innovated name, and you fight innovations (bid'ah); so how did you fall into what you fled from?" We say: We, without doubt, and this is from the favor of Allah upon us and upon the people, but most people do not know, we fight innovation (bid'ah), but we distinguish between the innovation intended as an addition to drawing near to Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He), and its nature is that it does not occur except in acts of worship, and the innovation that occurs in customs. As for these customs, we are free in them as long as we do not contradict a legal text. But as for acts of worship, we are bound, and we are slaves to the Shari'ah in what it has made us worship with; it is not permissible for us to add a hair to it or to subtract a hair from it. Therefore, the truthful scholars say: The original ruling in acts of worship is prohibition except for evidence, and the original ruling in customs is permissibility except for evidence.