The Difference Between Going Out for Da'wah and Conveying What One Has Learned of a Legal Ruling

The Shaykh : O our Shaykh, you clarified in a lecture yesterday and the day before that the one who conveys the religion of Allah, Blessed and Exalted is He, must be a scholar. You mentioned the conditions and attributes of this scholar, that he must be a scholar, meaning knowledgeable in the four schools of jurisprudence, and so on.

The Shaykh: Yes.

The questioner : Among the conditions you mentioned, today you stated that whoever understands a sound hadith or a sound verse should convey it. You did not mention this yesterday, but today this statement is different?

The Shaykh : No, it is not different.

The questioner : You mentioned this yesterday...

The Shaykh : Allow me, may Allah reward you. What I said now is that conveying, even if it is just a verse as he said, is one thing. But going out, going out, departing from one village to another, from one country to another, from the lands of the Muslims to the lands of the disbelievers, this requires knowledge. And I said in that lecture that this person will encounter issues whose answers are known only to a scholar. As for what we said just now, this is conveying a verse one knows, conveying it to others. But going out, departing, as we give examples and said just now, and recently and long ago, the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), who did he send to Yemen? Mu'adh ibn Jabal, Abu Musa, Ali ibn Abi Talib, Dhihah al-Kalbi, and others. He sent them as callers to Allah. This is going out. It is required that one be a scholar, without doubt, because he will encounter issues that the one sitting here who has memorized a verse or memorized a hadith does not know. And why did I mention to you the hadith of that man who was wounded, then he had a wet dream, so he asked those around him, and they issued a ruling that he must bathe. So he bathed and died.
In such an incident, it is not sufficient for one to issue a ruling when he is not a scholar. Therefore, they issued a ruling because they were not scholars. Do not forget, it is necessary that every one of the attendees take the subject from all its angles. So, I am correct, I said as a comment on Do you know a verse? Convey it to others. But I did not say go out and travel from one country to another when you are a man who knows little of knowledge. So, in summary, we distinguish between two matters: going out for da'wah and conveying what one has learned of a legal ruling and knows about it. This is one thing, and going out is another!

The questioner : You mentioned, O our Shaykh, that you came, may Allah reward you with good, from Oman, a distance of four hundred kilometers, to Aqaba for the sake of this conveying.

The Shaykh : Yes, that is right.

The questioner : But now you are conveying this, conveying what you have of the religion of Allah, Mighty and Majestic, and of the jurisprudence of the religion of Allah, Mighty and Majestic, to people who are, meaning, in the House of Allah, Mighty and Majestic, may Allah guide them. But many, very many people are in the anger of Allah, in disobedience to Allah, Mighty and Majestic, far from the House of Allah, Mighty and Majestic, and they do not know thatThe Shaykh : Muhammad Nasir al-Din al-Albani, may Allah reward him with good, for us and for all the Muslims.

The Shaykh : And beware of that.

The questioner : That he came. So how about these people? How do we convey to them? And not these whom Allah has guided, but we want these who are stumbling in the disobedience of Allah, Mighty and Majestic. How do we convey to them?

The Shaykh : The answer has already been given to you now.

The questioner: Yes.

The Shaykh : Did you hear what I told you? Go to the house, go to work, go to the place where you work and convey to those around you.
You have not gone out in the path of Allah as the group say. You are conveying, and this is from the etiquette of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) that when he would preach to the people, especially in the large gathering at the major pilgrimage, he would say: O Allah, be a witness. O Allah, have I conveyed?
So he would, meaning, ask the people and say to them: Let the one present convey to the one absent. So conveying, my brother, is one thing, and going out is another. I hope you distinguish between the two matters.

The questioner : Yes, yes, I distinguish. I understood that, yes.

The Shaykh: Good.

The questioner : Now you mentioned, may Allah reward you with good, that there is a substitute for going out to the land of disbelief. Of course, this is subject to many conditions that you mentioned.

The Shaykh : Yes.

The questioner : But you said that the most permanent and most beneficial of that are these villages of the Bedouins and the Arabs who do not know how to read al-Fatihah, and do not even know how to perform wudu. These people, should I go to them if I know how to read al-Fatihah and how to perform wudu?

The Shaykh : Yes, go to them and teach them what you know, and that is enough.

The questioner: Yes.

The Shaykh : Go to them and convey to them what you know, and that is enough.

The questioner: May Allah reward you with good.

The Shaykh : If you are asked a question, you say: I do not know. I know that some people, as I have been told, and the responsibility is on the narrator, went to a village to call them, and he found the people of the village circumambulating a grave they call a wali. So he circumambulated with them. Why?
He said: To attract their hearts to him when he calls them to Islam, they listen to him. But if he said to them, as in the Noble Qur'an: they fled from him. So he circumambulated with them until what? To attract their hearts. If he had been a scholar, he would never have done this action. But ignorance leads its owner to fall into the prohibited thing for which he went out to convey to people, that they should not fall into it, not that they should not fall into it, but that they should not fall into something like it. But he fell into something like this evil from the perspective of the rule some people without knowledge utter: "The end justifies the means." This is not a legal statement at all. This is the statement of the Jews who kill and rob and shed blood, and so on. The end justifies the means. So the Muslim, if he has gone out to call with a general call, must be a scholar and a jurist. But if he has gone out to call only with what he knows, what he is knowledgeable about, this is as came in the hadith But what I know is that they get involved because they think they are conveying the call of Islam, and the call of Islam is very broad and wide. So you have asked well now. If you go to the desert and call them to what you know of Islam, there is no obstacle. But why do you take fifteen with you? Why?
This is the system with them, but this system has not been sent down by Allah with any authority!

The questioner : O our Shaykh, may Allah reward you with good.

The Shaykh : And beware of that.

The questioner : If these people, meaning, to whom you conveyed what I know of the verse and the hadith, and they were in the anger of Allah, then they were guided to Allah, Blessed and Exalted is He. But we face a difficult problem in these days: this person is guided to Allah, Mighty and Majestic, but the companions of evil and the friends of evil who were with him previously continue to pursue him day and night, even at the mosque. When he comes out of the mosque, they pounce on him until they mislead him from what he was guided to...

The Shaykh : From the path of Allah.

The questioner : From the path of Allah, Mighty and Majestic. So if this person, or this individual, what is the solution so that we preserve this person whom Allah has newly guided? What is the way to preserve him from those people who mislead from the path of Allah?

The Shaykh : Yes, the answer is with us. It is not going out, but rather leaving off going out. Ah, and by their opposites things become clear. The cure is to remain where you are with these people who were guided by your hands, not that you take them and go out with them. No, this is misleading them. Look at how he (peace and blessings be upon him) said when going out is permissible and when it is not. It is not permissible for a Muslim to go out from the abode of Islam to the abode of disbelief. And it is known that going out from the abode of Islam to the abode of disbelief is [impermissible], but the opposite is correct: to go out from the abode of disbelief to the abode of Islam.