Continuation of the discussion on the virtue of spreading the greeting and the negligence of Muslims in this regard.

The Shaykh : ... Today, in the best of countries—or so it is thought—and the closest to the rulings of the Shari'ah, which is the Saudi country, there is no spreading of the greeting there. As for here, you say to him, "Peace be upon you," and he says to you, "Welcome," or "Ahlan wa sahlan." So where is this? We are talking now about returning the greeting; where is the spreading of the greeting? Returning the greeting is not being realized in these days. If spreading the greeting, or even returning the greeting, required initiating the greeting, and if initiating the greeting were widespread—though it is not spreading the greeting that is widespread—if that were the only issue, we would say: By Allah, the answer is that this initiating has become a custom that does not encompass the legal meaning intended by the Wise Lawgiver when He encouraged initiating the greeting and returning it, and made it a right of a Muslim over another Muslim when he meets him and greets him. If this initiating were prevalent and practiced in the Muslim lands, yet that doubt still arose, we would not find in it safety, tranquility, affection, and love, and so on. So our answer to that is that this is a custom, and there is no difference between a Muslim who says, "Peace be upon you," and another who says, "Good morning," and another who says, "Good evening," because they are all following customs and traditions. The only thing is that this is better than that; the one who says "Peace be upon you" is better than the other. But the intention of the issue is not merely verbal, as we know from all the legal texts, including "Peace be upon you." We should observe the meaning in it. If we assume, contrary to reality, that returning the greeting is going well and is prevalent, the answer is this. But what can you say when initiating the greeting is not going well and is not prevalent, let alone returning the greeting? Because you initiate the greeting and do not receive an answer except "Welcome" or "Ahlan." You talk to people as if you are talking to walls, to the walls, as if you are pulling the return of the greeting from him with a crane after a lecture. He says to you, "And upon you be peace," despite his nose, but he quickly forgets. He quickly returns to his old habit. You say to him, "Peace be upon you," and he says to you, "Ahlan." Where is the peace? The peace has fallen and gone. When I was walking with the scholars there in the Holy City of Madinah, a group of people were walking together. I was engaged with one of the scholars, and my habit is that...The Shaykh : ...so-and-so, who was walking beside me, left and I did not see him. What was his story? He withdrew. He did not say "Peace be upon you," nor did he let us know of his departure. And who is this? A learned, preaching, virtuous scholar. So what can you say about the general people! Therefore, the truth, my brothers, is that we must always keep in mind, and you are doctors, we must keep in mind that the Shari'ah, with all its rulings, is—I do not know what to say—has it reached you in the language of medicine? It is that which treats various diseases with different medicines. The diseases in society are multiple and varied, and spiritual diseases are far more numerous than physical, bodily diseases. If Muslims neglect taking something from the legal rulings, they are like patients who are prescribed medical prescriptions, and the details of the medicines that these patients should take are mentioned in them. So the Muslims who do not apply the legal rulings, I mean from A to Z, from its obligatory to its voluntary, their illness must become severe and intensify. And this is the reality we see today among Muslims. So let no Muslim among us belittle some of the instructions, which, unfortunately, in some Islamic groups, or let us say Islamic parties, some may call some of those legal rulings "shells," and that we should work on the "kernel." This is one of the schemes that Satan has cast and made a habit among the children of Adam, which is dividing the Shari'ah into kernel and shell, into kernel and shell.
We say here two things: The first thing is that the shell was legislated. If we are lenient with them in expression, was that legislated in vain? The answer is no. The example in material things is when our Lord—Mighty and Majestic—delighted us with many fruits and grains, He also surrounded them with shells. That was not in vain. Exalted is Allah from that. So if we concede with them, for the sake of argument, that there is something in the legal rulings that we may call "shells," we should not imagine that our Lord legislated these shells for us in vain. That is because we know that preserving the kernel has no means except through the shell. This is the simplest example known before us. This is the first thing.
The other thing is when it is said that Islam is kernel and shell. Here something comes up now: Where is the kernel and where is the shell? Who is able to distinguish the kernel from the shell? First, this is a modern language that was not there before. That is, the scholars of the Salaf, the four Imams, the forty, the four hundred, and the four thousand, do not know this harsh division. "Islam is kernel and shell"—they do not know this division. If they—and may Allah spare them from it—were tested with such a division, it would have been part of the perfection of their knowledge and virtue to distinguish the kernel from the shell. Even if a person wanted to take pure flour, sifted from the bran, for example, he would find it sifted, but there is nothing in Islam that is distinguished by its kernel from its shell, if we concede with this harsh division. The danger of this is that independent legal reasoning (ijtihad) will multiply, not from the qualified scholars (mujtahids) in the last times, but from the ignorant. So whenever a ruling pleases a person, he says, "This is the kernel," and whenever it does not please him, he says, "This is the shell." So he casts away the shell, which is the kernel, because he is ignorant. And therefore, this reality is what we live and experience today—unfortunately—many legal rulings are trampled and neglected under the name that these are shells. And perhaps you have recently read the book of al-Ghazali, and how he attacks legal rulings, under the name that these are from the shells and not from the kernels, and so on. And therefore, if Islam is a legislation, if the Lord of Islam legislated this religion as a treatment for the diseases of all societies, we must take the medicines of this Islam, and not neglect any of them, otherwise either the diseases will increase, or some of them will become severe until the consequence is certain death.