Exegesis of the saying of Allah the Exalted: (Our Lord, and send among them a messenger from themselves who will recite to them Your verses and teach them the Book and wisdom and purify them. Indeed, You are the Mighty, the Wise)

The questioner : In the name of Allah, praise is to Allah, and may peace and blessings be upon the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). My question is: What are the terms or foundations from which the caller to Allah the Exalted departs to guide people to the correct understanding of their religion? I say this by way of question and example, the saying of the Exalted and Majestic: So what is your answer to this question? Please inform us, may Allah reward you.

The Shaykh : Regarding the verse in relation to the question, something occurred to me, but I want clarification from you: what did you intend by mentioning the verse?

The questioner : Is it possible that it serves as a sign or evidence for the foundations from which the caller departs?

The Shaykh : Repeat the verse.

The questioner :

The Shaykh : Yes, there is no doubt, no doubt, that it can be considered that the verse gathers the qualities that the caller must revolve around in his call to Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He). The first of these is not a basic condition, but a condition of perfection, unlike what came in the rest of the verse: So it is good for the caller to be from the same people and known to them for his uprightness, purity, truthfulness, and sincerity in his call, because if he is a stranger to them, they may not trust him. From here, it was part of divine wisdom that no prophet was sent except to his own people. From here, we can take a wisdom or policy for the caller: that he should be a caller among the same people in whom he is known. It is not necessary, for example, that the Arabs are divided into many, many peoples, so it is not necessary, for example, that the caller be Jordanian but calling in Iraq, unless he is residing there and his character is known and his sincerity is known. In that case, he has a precedent in the prophets, indeed in the Master of the Prophets (peace and blessings be upon him), who was sent to his people. The wisdom of that appeared when he called them to tawhid (the oneness of Allah); he called them and established the proof against them with what Allah (Mighty and Majestic) related in the Noble Qur'an, saying: Meaning that they lived with the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) for forty years and knew in him nothing but truthfulness and trustworthiness. Therefore, Lady Khadijah (may Allah be pleased with her) was from that or those people who knew his trustworthiness, so she sent him to trade in the lands of Sham. The Arabs among whom the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) was sent knew him truly for his truthfulness and trustworthiness, so the proof was established against them with such a verse: The caller should call his people and his people, because he will have a stronger effect on them. This is the first point, and I said this is not a basic condition, but it is a condition of perfection. As for the basic conditions, they are what came later in the completion of the verse: Meaning he calls them to the Book of Allah the Exalted, and does not call them to a book other than the Noble Book, because any book in the world from the books written by Muslim scholars, let alone others, contains what agrees with the Book and what contradicts it. As for the Qur'an, it is as Allah the Exalted described it: Therefore, he should call the people to the Book of Allah, not to a madhhab (school of jurisprudence), nor to a path, nor to a party, nor to any other group, except what Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) said.
As for wisdom, it is the Sunnah, and whenever wisdom is paired with the Qur'an, the intended meaning is the Sunnah of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). Here, it is necessary to remind that the Sunnah in the time of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) was the twin of the Qur'an. The ruling of the Sunnah at that time was the ruling of the Qur'an, and it is so today without doubt, but with a very large difference. The Sunnah at that time, as I mentioned earlier, was the twin of the Qur'an because the Qur'an is fixed with certainty, and the Sunnah at that time was also so, because there was no intermediary between the Messenger and his Companions, so it was also fixed with certainty for the Companions. But the matter changed when the Sunnah passed from the first generation, the Companions of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), to the second generation, and so on until the Sunnah reached us. In these stages, things entered the Sunnah that were not part of it, and what entered was of two kinds: some was error without intent, and some was with intent and deliberation. This second part is divided into two sections: some was introduced by some Muslims following their desires, and the rest was introduced by the enemies of the religion to corrupt the religion. From here came the weak and fabricated hadiths. And thus, it became obligatory upon the caller today what was not obligatory in that first day. So this caller, when he calls people to the Book and then to wisdom, i.e., the Sunnah, must remember this clear, obvious truth that there is no dispute in it: that in the Sunnah there is what the Sunnah disowns. This requires knowledge of one of the sciences of Islam that the scholars of the Muslims have neglected, let alone others, which is the science of the terminology of hadith and the biographies of the men. Because with these two sciences, the Muslim caller can call to wisdom; otherwise, he calls to it and to its opposite. Because if he does not distinguish the authentic from the weak in the Sunnah, then wisdom has become mixed with other things. From here, it becomes clear that most of the Islamic callers today are not on the straight path in their call, because the straight path is the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of His Messenger, which is wisdom. That is because their masses do not distinguish between the authentic hadith and the weak one. Therefore, you find weak and fabricated hadiths and jurisprudence deviating from the Book and Sunnah proceeding among the callers themselves, let alone those they call. So the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) was teaching them the Book and wisdom, the Sunnah. It is our duty today to distinguish the authentic Sunnah from the weak Sunnah. If we do that, the goal behind the call to the Book and wisdom is for the face of Allah the Exalted, to purify the hearts of these callers, not to gain a position from them or to obtain wealth from them, but rather as Allah the Exalted said: And they say in what they say: Their call to the Book and wisdom is only for the purification of those called. It is upon this that the caller's call must be established, if Allah wills.