How should the people of the Sunnah deal with the innovators who seek to plot against them?

The Shaykh : What was the previous position, what was it?

The questioner : Shaykh, it is the decisive position toward the innovators. In fact, in our view, the innovators are such that everyone who seeks nearness to Allah through a means (tawassul) is an innovator, and everyone who calls for aid (istighathah) is an innovator. In fact, the matter reaches the point that anyone who does not move his finger during the tashahhud—meaning his position is hardly good in this matter.

The Shaykh : Yes, yes.

The questioner : So, our Shaykh, the basis of the youth's position is strictness toward the grave-worshippers and toward those who seek nearness through means (tawassul). I mean, complete strictness, because in our view, Shaykh, frankly, the grave-worshippers' matter is clear and evident, and their calling for aid from other than Allah is clear, and no one among them hides it. In fact, they oppose the people of the Sunnah with it, and in fact, they sometimes plot against the people of the Sunnah, as is the case now, and this has caused problems. When they heard this fatwa, in truth, some of them kept looking to the right and left, but praise be to Allah, the position of the scholars among us was clear, and they understood your intent, O Shaykh. So praise be to Allah, they clarified the matters.

The Shaykh : In any case, may Allah reward you.

The questioner : And may Allah bless you.

The Shaykh : This that you mention regarding your country, the affliction is general in all the lands of the world, like this. That is, the people of innovation dispute the people of the Sunnah and reject them with many bad titles, and they do not stop there, but they fabricate sayings about them and lie about them. In Syria, it was like this, and here we do not fail to find those who throw at the followers of the Sunnah or the Salafis what is not in them. But what I want to say regarding our brothers in the unseen (ghayb) who live there or in other countries, these people did not connect with Al-Albani much, neither personally nor scientifically. Rather, they picked up some of his fatwas or some of his recordings, or read some of his books, letters, and volumes, but they did not take from him the general Salafi methodology. So when they heard a fatwa like this, they thought it was something new. I have issued this fatwa since I was in Syria, and the hostility was at its peak between us and the people of innovation. Then, if they oppose us and do not try to approach us, and Islam unites us all, it is not befitting for us to be like them. Rather, it is obligatory for us to be better than them. We are callers to guidance and callers to good. We call them, so if one responds, that is good and excellent. And if he refuses, if Allah (Mighty and Majestic) says to His Prophet: , , and therefore, in many of my lectures and words, I say to these innovators or these misguided ones that they are in need of our compassion and our mercy more than our hostility and our revenge against them. That is because they are sick, a spiritual sickness, if the expression is correct.
The summary is that this is not something new. This brother of ours—as you report—records, meaning little and much of my words as you report. So he has many tapes, all of which revolve around compassion for these innovators and that praying behind them is permissible with the condition I mentioned earlier, as long as they are within the circle of Islam. But if they go out of it, then to Hellfire, and what an evil destination. This is our view, it is never new, but it may be new for the one who heard of it recently. Yes, indeed.