Did the people of the School of Opinion in Kufa deviate from the saved sect?

The questioner : May Allah preserve you. This issue, praise be to Allah, is our call. We constantly call to it and urge people to the Salafi call and to abandon this kind of grouping. However, I see it as a duty to convey everything they say, or might say, so that if a fatwa is issued from you and we act upon it, we will have mentioned everything that could be answered in the session. We will have been fair to our brothers, those who disagree with us, and the callers who hold a view different from ours or a call different from ours. We will have been fair to them in what we say about them.

The Shaykh : Well done.

The questioner : May Allah reward you. There is also the question of how to answer those who cite the School of the People of Kufa and the People of Opinion, who disagreed with the People of the Sunnah in many matters, yet did not claim to be outside the saved sect?

The Shaykh : Yes. First, we say to these people that the situation is different from that of those Kufans and their like. Those people lived in an Islamic state; they lived under a rule that governed by Islam and did not recognize any rule other than the rule of Islam. Yes, there were rulings in which the jurists themselves differed, both in the past and in the present, but none of them adopted a law or a Shari'ah other than Islam. Therefore, the harm of such statements did not manifest; it did not show a weakness in the mass, the mass of the Muslim community at that time, because it was supported by the Caliphate and by ruling by Islam. But today, as is the case, unfortunately, there is no ruler who unites them. If such a ruler existed, there would not be such groupings and parties. These parties actually claim, according to those who establish them, that they are achieving a type of what the Muslim ruler or the Caliph who rules all Islamic lands should achieve. So when they do not find such a ruler, they imagine that through this grouping and this partisanship they are fulfilling something of the obligation, whereas in reality they are adding fire to the fire. For the reason why there is no Muslim ruler over them today who unites them is their distance from their religion. So these people come, in the name of fulfilling something of the obligation, as you mentioned earlier, and they add darkness to the fire. Therefore, their clinging to some of the biases that we read in history as having taken them out of the circle of the religion, the saved group, is because, first of all, in general, they were upon what the righteous Salaf were upon, even if there was some deviation, as we indicate when we mention the Maturidiyyah and the Asha'irah. But the Islamic world digested them, with their good and their bad, because the Muslim ruler did not allow such foul words about the Shari'ah rulings to have any effect in weakening the power of the Muslims. This is unlike this defiance and this deviation that they point to, assuming that we are correct in accusing them of deviation. That this is like what the Kufans had of disagreements and biases. So if it is like this, it means, first, that it is an admission that it is an error, but they want to say that it has no harm, just as that disagreement had no harm. They are not the same. That was like a clear sea into which you throw filth, and it has no effect. But today, there is no clear sea. So even the least filth affects it. And from here comes the error in this analogy. And Allah knows best. Yes.

The questioner : May Allah preserve you. Does this statement you mentioned include those who believe in the Names and Attributes and the creed of the righteous Salaf, and who hold to Lordship, Divinity, and the Names and Attributes, and interpret them as the Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah interprets them, and study in the books of Ibn Taymiyyah and the books of Ibn al-Qayyim? Does this statement include them as long as they call to this partisanship, this partisanship that we consider to help in dividing the Ummah and tearing the fabric, until it has led to what the Muslims have reached? May Allah preserve you, if he explicitly states that he is a partisan and explicitly states that he calls to partisanship and calls people to allegiance and calls people to such and such? If he did not state it explicitly, but this thing is perceived from him, does your ruling also include this type?

The Shaykh : Without a doubt, the language of reality is more eloquent than the language of speech. The language of reality is more eloquent than the language of speech. But I comment on your statement that it cannot be said that they call to it. It can be said that they believe in it in the depths of their souls, but that they call to partisanship and call to the Salafi methodologies, this is absolutely impossible. And reality bears witness to this.

The questioner : This is regarding reality. As for their belief, we do not care about their belief.

The Shaykh : I say that many of the other parties that we used to meet with there and here, they are with us in creed, but they are not with us in methodology. They benefit themselves, they do not benefit others. If there is any benefit for others, it is voluntary. As for benefiting them with what is obligatory, this is what they do not do. So these people benefit for their own selves. As for spreading the call to those who group around them, this is contrary to the methodology of the Salaf. It is not hidden from you that the true caller, wherever he is, is a caller. Wherever he is, he is a caller. And as that jurist poet said: "Knowledge is that which you seek, and life is short for its acquisition, so prioritize the most important of it, then the most important." This prioritizing the most important, then the most important, the partisan groups do not know it at all. But Islam is what established this, because the Prophet of Islam began with what? With the most important, which is tawhid (the oneness of Allah). And today, there is no society, large or small, that is not in need of the call to tawhid. The whole world is like this, in need of tawhid. So how much more so are the ranks of groups and parties, and so on? And their call has no existence at all in the most important thing related to Islam, which is tawhid. And I repeat, I wish the calamity stopped there, but they accuse those who perform this most obligatory duty of dividing the word.