A speech delivered by Ibrahim Shuqara in which he explains the danger posed by the da'i 'Abd al-Rahim al-Tahan.

Ibrahim Shuqara: 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 souls and the badness of our deeds. Whoever Allah guides is not to be led astray, and whoever He leaves astray is not to be guided. I bear witness that there is no deity but Allah alone, with no partner, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His slave and His Messenger. As for what follows, the truest speech is the Book of Allah, the best guidance is the guidance of Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him), and the worst of matters are their innovations. Every innovation is misguidance, every misguidance is in the Fire. In response to the words of our Shaykh, the Imam, the Hafiz,The Shaykh : Nasir al-Din al-Albani, in his discussion of the hadith and the stirrings that followed, in which one of those who work in the field of Islamic da'wah, namelyThe Shaykh : 'Abd al-Rahim al-Tahan, in his lessons and sermons that he delivers in Qatar, and the beautiful, strong scholarly responses that our Shaykh (may Allah preserve him) poured forth—precise scholarly responses that indicate generosity in knowledge, comprehensive coverage of its issues, and the ability to gather its material, both near and far, and to combine and synthesize it. I have no response to offer except for what the occasion requires, not in terms of scholarly investigations and the details that should be noted in what our Shaykh (may Allah reward him with good) presented. Rather, my response concerns matters and issues that I ask Allah (Mighty and Majestic) to accept from me in defense of two great Shaykhs, two major Imams, and two pillars of da'wah in this era. I do not think that time in our day, or that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) in our day, has bestowed upon the Ummah anyone better or more excellent than them, namely our Shaykh, the jurist, the ascetic, the scholar, the mujtahid,The Shaykh : 'Abd al-'Aziz ibn Baz, and our Shaykh, the hadith scholar, the Hafiz, the jurist, and the humble da'i,The Shaykh : Muhammad Nasir al-Din al-Albani. May Allah preserve them both and delight the Muslims with their lives, and make their ending better than their beginning, if Allah wills. I say that if I have any words to say after this beautiful, wonderful introduction that the intellect ofThe Shaykh : Nasir al-Din al-Albani poured forth, it is only a response in which I clarify the path of those who came before us in defending the renowned scholars and explaining the right that the Ummah owes them, and especially the students of knowledge. How I wished thatThe Shaykh : 'Abd al-Rahim al-Tahan would be one of those who fulfill this right and duty, rather than being an arrow shot into the backs of these twoThe Shaykh : who are far from him. Even if they were close to him, he would have been different from what he was. But thus has Allah decreed. I ask Allah to guide me to speak the truth and explain it, for it is a truth that Allah has made obligatory upon every student of knowledge who is able to speak the word of truth and stand with it, defending it and explaining what may be hidden of the issues, paths, and causes that lead to it. Upon Allah is the straightening of the path, and Allah guides to His straightest path and supports the truth and its people with what they are most deserving of, if Allah wills.
I say after that, there are three necessities for this Ummah that it hardly escapes, and which refuse to be anything but its torment, individuals and groups, troubling them in the depths of the night and the edges of the day, and... in its call to be led astray, open to be diminished by all that its devils dictate to it of evil and wrong, so that it retains it with a retention in which nothing of it is lost, whether small or large. These are loathsome psychological afflictions and hateful abominations carried by... devils that roam the horizons and run through the streets, telling people that they are nothing without them. They are suspicion, taking omens, and envy. These afflictions are at their worst when they set up their tents in the hearts of scholars and students of knowledge, building enmity in them, severing affection in their hearts, and preventing taqwa from their souls. Then they are on the brink of a precipice, holding onto the collars of those they sit with in the circles of knowledge and listen to, while they slip with their tongues, sweetened speech, eloquent talk, and issues of knowledge, to drag them down with them into this precipice. And every day a man appears who puts his tongue into the honor of the earliest predecessors of the righteous of this Ummah, the people of knowledge, diminishing their status and attributing ignorance to them, or attributing ignorance to them, and he does not see that they have a right over him because they taught him and bestowed upon him some of the favor that Allah granted them, and extended their hands with it to him and to the thousands of sons of this Ummah, young and old, small and large, women and men. If he were to be content with this, we would say the matter is easy and the affair is simple. But in the name of the true Sunnah, the clear Book, and the sound 'aqidah, he comes to the apparent issues, presenting them individually and in groups, with the power of his tongue and the strength of his rhetoric and the beauty of his logic, bringing them close to the common people and detailing them for them, and repeating them with care and precision, a repetition that hides behind it a matter you do not know until Allah permits whom He wills and is pleased to know it. My experience with the brotherThe Shaykh : 'Abd al-Rahim al-Tahan is that he is one of those who defend the Sunnah, protect the 'aqidah of the Salaf, and carry the banner of da'wah. And I do not know how to interpret his new positions on scholarly, 'aqidah, and da'wah issues that he has spread among the people in a mocking, hurtful style, in which he has targeted the heads of Salafi da'wah in our time,The Shaykh : 'Abd al-'Aziz ibn Baz, andThe Shaykh : Nasir al-Din al-Albani, and he has mocked the students of knowledge who are eager to act upon the Book and the Sunnah and call to them. It is a mockery in which no one who hears it doubts that he is in a state of separation, opposition, and great distance from them. It was possible for him to present those scholarly means in an objective, honest manner, free from mockery, ridicule, and sarcasm, and to correctThe Shaykh : the two great ones, if Allah wills, with a purely scholarly correction, and to prove their error in what they held by proof and argument. And to direct his words and lectures, which he called sermons, to the people, deepening in their hearts love for the sake of Allah, increasing their affection, and lightening the intensity of their zeal, and explaining to them what they should be of high adab, upright character, and steadfastness in the command and standing firm upon it, and teaching them their religion which their Lord (Glorified and Exalted is He) has chosen for them, without sarcasm, without ridicule, and without targeting the masters of the people of knowledge in this time. Does he not see an adab that he teaches the youth and young people by which he stabs and criticizes their Shaykhs whom they love, respect, and honor, while he does not accept from anyone he teaches, who sits with him in his circle, to raise his voice against him or blame him in an issue he presents that the blamer considers an error? Or has there not remained, O 'Abd al-Rahim, of those who blame in... the perishing people exceptThe Shaykh : the Ummah in our time and the pillar of da'wah? Did not that deter you from blaming them and criticizing them? And are not the thousands of oppressors, people of rebellion, open sinners, transgressors, and worshippers of the dirham and dinar sufficient to occupy you with them? I think, O 'Abd al-Rahim, that Satan has suggested to you this encounter in the honor ofThe Shaykh : And I think that if you were to throw one of them, or both of them, you would find that silence is the only option. This is the state of many people other than you who are caught up in their affair with them. And it is, by Allah, a good thing that its doer is praised for it, if he does it out of good manners. Perhaps you will be guided to repent from what you have fallen into, and that would be good of you, and you would be praised for it, if Allah wills. What will you say to your Lord on the Day you stand before Him to take revenge on you for the two Shaykhs, if you do not repent? He will ask you: Was Abdul Aziz ibn Baz, the jurist, the ascetic, the worshipper, the generous, the patient, one who folds his wings over filth and corruption when you described him in your speech to those who spoke to you with defiling knowledge and religion? And was al-Nasir al-Din, who is truly his supporter, a fool when you ruled that he must be placed under guardianship? I swear to you by Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, that you would not have said what you said in their absence if you had met them. Is this something to be praised in you, or something to be condemned? And is what you said about them the truth by which you seek nearness to Allah? And do you think you will escape from its selling and its responsibility on the Day of Resurrection, and the sin you committed with your tongue? Courage in the truth, O this one, if it is not adorned with the fear of Allah and the eagerness to protect the honor of the Muslims and to withhold harm from them, is a thing that returns to its owner with harm. Especially when the matter is from someone like you who sits with some people and entices them and threatens them. Do you not see, O Shaykh Abd al-Rahim, that what you are doing of this kind of action against suchThe Shaykh : people in their absence, and declaring them ignorant, and ruling against them with unjust rulings, is not a sin for you alone, but it is also a boldness from those you admonish to delve into the honor of the Muslims for the slightest reason. So look at what you will meet Allah with, with heavy sins, and what you are doing with your admonition of the people. Will he who has spent his life ignorant in purifying the creed of the Ummah and cleansing it, and exerting his energy in raising generations and guiding them, be one who defiles the religion? And will he who has spread the banners of the Sunnah on earth, and spent half a century in manifesting its truth and warning against its falsehood, and calling people to it, be a fool? And perhaps it is a settled matter of knowledge with you that the flesh of scholars is poisoned. Did you not find your tongue from this poison of supplication? And I do not think except that you know that the spread of the call in this time is due, after Allah, to these twoThe Shaykh : people, one of whom is defiled in your view, and the other must be placed under guardianship. Do you not fear Allah, O this one? And are you, O Shaykh Abd al-Rahim, and you are still in the early fifties of your age, as I think, except a fruit from their fruits? And what is the reward of goodness except goodness? And are you except a good deed from their good deeds? And is it good manners with the Shaykhs that one who has been good to him should be bad to him? And let me now discuss the matters in which you boast, with guidance, andThe Shaykh : those behind them and those after them, without guidance, to see together which of the two groups is on the straighter path and the most upright in speech. And before we present those matters, I would like to mentionThe Shaykh : Abd al-Rahim and those of his ilk who make it easy to attack the Shaykhs of knowledge and their leaders, with three things. As for the first, if thousands like you were to gather to attack them, they would only increase the people in love and attachment to them, and they would only increase in insight into you. As for the second, the etiquette of knowledge is mutual love in it, especially from the juniors toward the seniors. And does this not require that they correspond and the junior presents his statement on the matter in which he differs to the senior before he spreads it among the people, so that its spread causes division among the people of knowledge? Some of them would shame you or harm you or belittle you, and you might be in the fourth or fifth tier of the students ofThe Shaykh : them. If you had contacted them or written to them about what was in your heart regarding your disagreement with them on these matters, instead of attacking them with criticism and fault-finding, I think you would not have gained anything by that, by Allah, except from yourself, so may Allah have mercy on you. How good it would have been if you had known your worth when you knew the virtue of the great Shaykhs over you. And as for the third, and as for the third, you named your gatherings "admonitions," and the basis of admonition is encouraging and warning, and much reminding of death and what comes after it of threatening matters, and gathering the mind in the states related to them with a connective style that stirs the soul's stirrings and moves its stillness and draws out tears from ... with what the admonisher brings of parables and stories and events, and encouraging toward Paradise and its bliss, and warning from the Fire and its painful punishment, and so on of what the admonisher Ibn al-Jawzi (may Allah have mercy on him) used to hear. As for listing hadiths and athar with their chains and their routes, and mentioning the narrators and their ages and the number of their narrations and their birth and death and describing their conditions and their dwellings and naming their Shaykhs and the number of scientific issues up to where they are and mentioning the pages in which they are found, and so on of what is not needed except by the researching investigator and the writing author who digs, I do not know, by Allah, what relation all of that has to admonition and admonitions, except that it is something you know or that no one knows except you. And that is because you know that speech causes some of it to be forgotten, and admonitions do not have an effect except with their correct material and their good style. And my excuse, O Shaykh Abd al-Rahim, if I say here that I do not accuse, but do you see any benefit that the listeners derive from you while you throw at them what you call admonition in this manner that you have followed in your admonitions? If you see that, then I hope you will make a special session for it in which you explain what has closed our understanding of this new admonition style. And otherwise, what turns suspicion around it from it, and I hope you will deny the suspicion before it becomes certainty. And I think I am not lying if I say that the admonition style thatThe Shaykh : Abu Bakr al-Jazairi (may Allah prolong his life) is the optimal style that it is good for every admonisher to benefit from. He has excelled in it, and if you have some observations about it, but the believers are advisors to one another, and whoever humbles himself to Allah, Allah raises him, so it would have been better for you to advise him to return from some of the wrong things you see in him, rather than to make of him something to mock, and you know the reward of one who mocks his Muslim brother.
The questioner: And the admonisher, O Abd al-Rahim, is not an admonisher unless his admonition is beneficial to himself first, so that the admonished see the effect of his admonition in him. The least of it is that he does not mention the people of knowledge and righteousness and the good callers except with good, and that he defends them if they are mentioned to him with bad. And the highest of it is that he avoids the style of the storytellers who used to turn the faces of the people to them with attractive styles, by which they are thought to be scholars firmly established in the reins of all the sciences, and they delude the common masses that they are able to turn the faces of speech where they wish and how they wish and when they wish. And no rational person doubts, but rather affirms, that the storytellers with their great intelligence and their innate eloquence in old and new, have been able to achieve the love of the common people and possess their hearts and attract their admiration, until they have had a permanent mention on their tongues and a permanent presence that does not cease in their hearts. Their virtues are abundant with them and their excellences are plentiful with them ... from this and that, what is not with the scholars of the Ummah if they gathered except a little. And may Allah have mercy on Ahmad ibn Hanbal and Ibn Ma'in, for they adhered to silence from the amazement of the knot of their tongues, and that storyteller attributes to them what they did not know and what they did not say. And I have not previously listened to the speech of the brotherThe Shaykh : Abd al-Rahim, and I have not seen him, and I do not know of his affair except what I used to hear of the praise of the people for him, and among them our ShaykhThe Shaykh : the hadith scholar, the scholarThe Shaykh : al-Nasir (may Allah delight with his life and his knowledge the Ummah). Yes, by Allah, he used to praise you, O Shaykh Abd al-Rahim, at the time when your tongue was stretching out in his defilement, and you obligated guardianship over him by your injustice and your ugly speech. O Allah, how ugly is injustice and how bad is the unjust. Look, O Abd al-Rahim, at what the one you obligated guardianship over says about you, and what you say about him. Which of you is more fearful of Allah? I advise you, O Abd al-Rahim, to hasten to contactThe Shaykh : the defiled Abdul Aziz ibn Baz and the one who must be placed under guardianship.The Shaykh : Al-Albani, after you have sought forgiveness from your Lord for your heinous sin and ... yourself from the bonds of the evil into which you have plunged yourself by disparaging them, then hasten to a repentance that you declare to the people, just as you declared your disparagement of them, disavowing in it what you have done to their honor.The Shaykh : I say that I had never listened to your speech before, but when I listened to the tapes in which you spoke against them,The Shaykh : I was very pleased with your style, your method of presentation, your digressions, your eloquence, and your quick wit. I think you know, Shaykh Abd al-Rahim, that knowledge is a trust, and that the scholar and the reader are the first to be questioned on the Day of Resurrection about their knowledge, and it will be said to him what is said. So prepare for that day. I advise you to keep your tongue submerged in what the ignorant, attacking ones who do not fear Allah submerge it in, so do not turn your tongue to cursing them and speaking ill of them, and do not remove from your heart ... which stirred your tongue against them without ... or any evil done by one of them, unless it is for the favor they have done to you and to the thousands of your like, if you are fair to yourself, then you should say about them more than you have said aboutThe Shaykh : them, and that you loose your tongue against them with attacks and criticism, and that you reveal to the people what you may be hiding from them. The listener to what you say in your recorded tapes is certain that your soul is agitated not only againstThe Shaykh : them, but against everyone who loves them from the countless thousands spread across the earth. I think you were once one of those thousands, so what changed until you became an enemy? And now, Shaykh Abd al-Rahim, regarding the issues you have presented to the people in the name of the Sunnah and the Book and wisdom and the decisive word, entering upon them from every door, thinking that you have reached the truth in them, drawing near thereby to the Generous, the Bestower. The first issue is the one you extracted from his saying, peace and blessings be upon him, until the Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him, says . The summary of this issue is that Allah’s kindness to His Prophet after his death is like His kindness to him during his life, and it is a kindness that extends to his Ummah. No one among the Muslims, I think, would dispute this claim with you; it is accepted by all the sensible Muslims, and even by their fools. However, we must understand together that your statement, in its generality, is most misleading, and the misleading nature arises from the simile that does not distinguish between the tenor and the vehicle except one who knows the science of rhetoric. The scholars of rhetoric say that a simile does not require the two sides of the simile, the tenor and the vehicle, to be completely identical in the common point of resemblance. Therefore, if your intention is that Allah’s kindness to His Prophet in his grave is like His kindness to him before his death, and that they are completely identical and completely similar, then Allah’s kindness, Mighty and Majestic, to His Prophet after his death is a hidden kindness, and its reality is not known. If you claim otherwise, your claim lacks evidence, and there is no evidence. So we refer it to Allah, the Exalted, and we stand at the limits of what we know in our worldly life and what has reached us of the news of our Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, regarding his state, may the prayers and peace of Allah be upon him. This is what we know of Allah’s honor for him, which transcends all honor and surpasses all honor. How could it be otherwise, when he and his brothers the prophets were granted the honor of the preservation of their bodies from being eaten by the earth? And it is necessary that the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, has surpassed his brothers the prophets in some aspect of honor by his superiority in rank over all his brothers the prophets, peace and blessings be upon them all. And what has reached us of what we know of Allah’s honor and kindness to him ... is what Allah revealed to him, the Exalted, of His Book and his Sunnah, peace and blessings be upon him. And there is no doubt that Allah’s kindness to him by preserving his body is a result of His kindness to him in his life by making him a prophet and choosing him as a close friend. This kindness and its result is a common measure among all the prophets. If this kindness and its result were an additional favor for the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, over the prophets, he would have deserved it by a favor other than the favor of prophethood, messengership, and selection, and it would be a precedence for his favor and his advancement by a special favor of his prophethood alone over all the prophets, may the prayers and peace of Allah be upon them. And it is by this that Allah, the Exalted, enabled him to say about himself by the command of his Lord: . And if your intention is that Allah’s kindness to His Prophet after his death is like His kindness to him in his life in the good that He caused to flow through his hands for his Ummah, and that he attained of reward and favor what, if the least of it were attained by many of the prophets, would suffice them, then we accept this from you without doubt, and no sensible person can deny it. And Allah, the Exalted, rewards kindness with like kindness, and His favor is vast and His good is great. And He revealed to His Prophet to say to his Ummah: .