How valid is their saying "The Imam, may Allah honor his face" regarding Ali (may Allah be pleased with him) to the exclusion of the other Companions?

The Shaykh : Therefore, the Jafar attributed to Ali (may Allah be pleased with him)—I almost fell into a famous error that others fall into. I almost said "the Jafar attributed to Imam Ali," but I restrained myself and guarded my tongue, so I did not say "Imam Ali." Not because he is not an Imam—no, he is undoubtedly one of the Imams of the Muslims—but because the custom is specific to this term "Imam." Which custom? The Sunni custom or the innovated custom? Yes, it is the Shia custom. They are the ones who took this title and restricted it to Ali (may Allah be pleased with him) out of their bias for him and against the first Rightly Guided Caliphs: Abu Bakr, 'Umar, and 'Uthman. Therefore, it is an error to refer to Ali with the term "Imam" to the exclusion of the other Rightly Guided Caliphs. If we say "Imam Abu Bakr," then it is permissible for us to say "Imam Ali." But I remind you: have you ever heard a scholar from the people of the Sunnah say "Imam Abu Bakr"? As for the Shia, we do not ask about them because they are enemies of the two Shaykhs, Abu Bakr and 'Umar. But have you ever heard a scholar from the scholars of the Muslims, the people of the Sunnah and the community, say "Imam Abu Bakr said"? The answer is no. But you have heard, as I have, and you almost heard me say, "Imam Ali." Why? This is the negligence that controls people and the blind following that has settled in the hearts of many Muslims, let alone others. They say "Imam Ali (may Allah be pleased with him) said." On my head and eyes, he is our Imam without doubt. But why did you restrict Ali with the title of Imam? Because he is the Imam with the Shia, and because they claim, adding a straw to a camel's load, that the caliphate was for him by the bequest of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). They claimed it for him, and then Abu Bakr, 'Umar, and 'Uthman usurped it from him throughout these noble centuries, and he was unable to come forward quietly. Why? Because they claimed that he saw the benefit in that, not demanding his right which the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) gave him, and in the Farewell Pilgrimage, they claimed. So this is a Shia expression, and you must guard your tongues from it. Similarly, their saying "Ali, may Allah honor his face"—they also restricted Ali with this honor. We say "Ali, may Allah honor his face" without doubt, but why did we restrict Ali to the exclusion of Abu Bakr, 'Umar, and 'Uthman? We tell you, as we said earlier, you have heard the Shia say "Imam Ali, may Allah honor his face," but you have not heard them say "Imam Abu Bakr" for Abu Bakr and the rest. They did not say it and will not say "Abu Bakr, may Allah honor his face," and so on. But have you not heard many of the Shaykhs of the Muslims say "Ali, may Allah be pleased with him, said"? Yes. The latter is exactly like the former. The latter is exactly like the former, I mean the latter is exactly like the former in their usage. The latter is exactly like the former in the impermissibility of restricting the former to Ali to the exclusion of the first two of the Rightly Guided Caliphs. Therefore, we should guard our tongues from saying "Ali, may Allah be pleased with him, said" alone, or "Imam Ali said" alone. If it is necessary, we give the other Caliphs the same description we give him, a description that applies to all of them, so that we do not differentiate between any of them. Undoubtedly, this is a verse that came regarding the prophets and messengers But the followers of the messengers, we should treat them in the way we treat the messengers. The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) gathered them in one mold, as they say, in one phrase, in one sentence, where he said: And he said: up to the ten promised Paradise. So we do not differentiate between any of them. Other than that.
Al-Halabi: Excuse me, Shaykh, you did not complete the question...

The Shaykh : You did well. We were speaking, and, glory be to Allah, I was distracted in my mind, so may Allah reward you with good. They say this Jafar is attributed to whom? To Ali (may Allah be pleased with him). Ali has no report, neither in this term nor about this alleged Jafar. Then this Jafar is invalid religiously, because Allah the Exalted says, alerting His servants and informing them of some of His attributes: The Jafar—those who discuss it, practice it, and rely on it claim that through it they speak about matters of the unseen. There is no way for anyone, by any path that is not an easy path, either by creation, meaning by His saying: Or by the Shari'ah, meaning by what the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) brought regarding speaking about matters of the unseen. We cannot say "such and such will happen" unless there is a text in the Book of Allah or in the authentic hadith of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). The Jafar has nothing of this or that. Therefore, they predict and mislead themselves and mislead others, because no one can know the unseen, as the Exalted said: Blessed and Exalted is He. And if the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) heard one day a slave girl singing and saying in her song "And among us is a Prophet who knows what is in tomorrow", he said to her, and she was a slave girl, he said to her , meaning he described the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) with what is in him, and not as the reciters do, who recite anthems and call them Islamic anthems, which is an innovation in name and in reality. It is not an innovation in name only, but also in reality. Because Islam, in all these centuries that have passed—and I do not mean only the three centuries we always cite as being witnessed to for their excellence, but all these centuries except this century we are living in, or were living in, the fourteenth century—the Muslim society in all these centuries did not know anthems called religious anthems. But the weak in faith and weak in knowledge, when their souls found comfort in some soft songs that are not permissible to utter in Islam, it is not permissible to utter them because of the open sinfulness, lewdness, and obscene speech in them. So, a fortiori, it is not permissible to sing and harmonize with them. When they found that to be forbidden, between the prohibitions, they wanted to find an outlet for relief and recreation for the souls, so they brought anthems they call Islamic anthems. And before that, they had not even escaped the apparent prohibition present in the lewdness and obscene songs. I have found songs they call Islamic anthems, and in them is disbelief that is not in the soft songs. Yes, for example, we read in what they call the Burdah
"For from Your generosity is the world and its neighbor, and from Your knowledge is the knowledge of the Tablet and the Pen"
The Messenger of Allah said to the slave girl, as you heard earlier, "No one knows the unseen except Allah". What did she say? She did not say "The Messenger knows everything," but she said "And among us is a Prophet who knows what is in tomorrow". The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) responded to her to the end of the hadith. As for this poet al-Busiri, he says
"For from Your generosity is the world and its neighbor, and from Your knowledge is the knowledge of the Tablet and the Pen"
"What does he know of what will be tomorrow and what has passed, what was and what will be until the day they are resurrected." This is greater than that word that came from that good-hearted slave girl, and yet the Messenger of Allah was not pleased with it and said to her , to the end of the hadith. Also, a period passed regarding these religious anthems, and due to the humming of the Salafi preachers for only a half-century in this last century, they hummed around forbidding such terms, unlike the other groups present in the arena, ancient and modern. Their call had the expected effect, and praise be to Allah. Many of the young Muslims became aware that we should not recite anthems to relax our souls and remove fatigue from our bodies by harmonizing with anthems that contain what Allah the Exalted has forbidden, like the saying of al-Busiri. So we must bring new poems that are a middle ground between the poems of lewdness and the poems of excessive praise of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) or of the prophets and the righteous. And indeed, such anthems appeared in recent times. They may be purer and closer to the Shari'ah than their predecessors, but nevertheless, many of them are not free from some deviation, exaggeration, and closeness to the detestable Sufism. I used to memorize, while I was in Damascus, some verses of poetry. What does it say? Help me, what does it say? O my master

The questioner : What is the beginning?

The Shaykh : I am going to tell you... the beginning and the end are still in my mind. Who is the guardian of the world?
Al-Halabi: Everything perishes, and what remains is the Living.

The Shaykh : This is it. What is the meaning of the world? This is the unity of existence. The world is an illusion, a shadow of whom? Of the Lord of the worlds. Who is the Lord of the worlds? Here we would have to enter into matters of disbelief, but the one who transmits disbelief is not a disbeliever. They say that everything you see with your eye is Allah, and these creatures are the shadow of Allah, and they are an illusion with no reality. This poetry aims at this false belief. The important thing is that the wording has also improved, but two things have entered into it. First, if we assume the correctness of their meanings and that they do not contradict the Shari'ah, as we mentioned some examples of contradiction earlier, if we assume the safety of their meanings, then first one thing entered into it, and then another followed it. The first thing is that they meter them with the meters of flowing songs.

The questioner : Musical notes.

The Shaykh : Yes, musical notes. This is necessary for all these hymns and hymn-singers. The second thing, and it is the most repugnant, is that they introduced beating the hand drum. So now you hear hymns they call religious hymns, and it was granted to me, despite my little exposure to looking at television, that they brought a person here, and unfortunately he is Syrian, from my country, and there he is performing and beating the hand drum exactly, and he is comfortable, and he is showing off, in the Syrian expression, "qadi gharz," meaning he is satisfying his desire.

The Shaykh : So he beats the hand drum and sings songs and religious hymns, until the hand drum reached the mosques by a trick, what? Religious hymns, and in the Islamic mosques. So it is all mixed, excuse me, harmonized, I said mixed— the Shaykh and the students laugh— no, this is nonsense, but it has a meaning.
Al-Halabi: ...

The Shaykh : Yes, harmonized, some of it with some. The mosques today, unfortunately, if you enter them, it is as if you are entering churches. This is unfortunately apparent. It takes the hearts of non-Muslims on one hand, and the hearts of deviant Muslims on the other. When we were in Damascus, we saw, with great regret, that the Umayyad Mosque became the Ka'bah of Europeans and Americans, women and men. Why? To pray? To be guided? No, none of that was the case. Rather, they were looking at the mosaics and the inscriptions that were engraved in the time of the Umayyads, and so on. These are ancient monuments. And women enter wearing clothes but displaying their adornment, and more than that, we see humiliation, the embodiment, the image, and the arrogance of the disbeliever over the Muslim. And our Lord, Mighty and Majestic, says in the Noble Qur'an: What do we see? We see some of the mosque servants, and on their heads are yellow turbans, which you do not know here. This indicates that the one wearing this turban is not a scholar, but he is holding on to his religion. So some of these servants bring slippers to cover the feet of the European women who are displaying their adornment, wearing clothes but naked, and he is sitting on his heels, and she is on top of him, on top of his head, so he is serving her. Why? He said, so that she can enter the mosque. And in my opinion, if this disbeliever or that disbeliever entered with their slippers, it would be more honorable for the Muslims than this humiliation that we used to see. We are sorry. The point is that the mosques, as 'Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) said when he renovated the Prophet's Mosque, he said to the builder, the engineer: "Shelter the people from heat and cold, and do not make it red or yellow" May Allah be pleased with 'Umar. If he came today and saw the Al-Fayha Mosque, our mosque, but it is not our mosque.