What is the ruling on boycotting the innovator?

The questioner : Regarding this issue that the brother mentioned, tolerance, do you not see boycotting the innovators, meaning severing ties with them without speaking to them...?

The Shaykh : No, we do not see this. This, my brother, as we tell you and others whose questions you hear, if we were to apply the methodology in this time—here I hope you pay attention to how the methodology differs—the Salafi methodology that we inherited from some of our scholars from the Salaf, regarding the severity toward innovators, boycotting them, and not listening to them, we would go back in time. As I say: if we had a friend, for example, who was with us on the path, then he deviated until he started not praying, often the question comes from some of the zealous ones: should we not cut him off? I say we do not cut him off, rather we follow up with him through admonition, advice, and reminding. Otherwise, if we cut him off, his inner state will be, as we tell you in the Syrian proverb: the one who used to not pray, then repented and returned, and went to the mosque to pray for the first time, and found the mosque closed. He said: "You are an alcoholic and I am a sinner." This is the one who left prayer; if you treat him with harshness and severity and turn away from him in the form of boycotting, and boycotting is originally prescribed in the hadith of the three who were left behind, but it must be placed in its proper place. So this one who left prayer, whom we were surprised to see leave prayer, if we boycott him, we increase him in misguidance. Rather, what should be done is to follow up with him through admonition, reminding, gentleness, and leniency, as the one with prayers and blessings upon him did with that Jew. And in this way, we also deal with the innovators. If we leave them to their own devices and their misguidance, who will take charge of guiding them? Today it is not permissible, just as we say it is not permissible if you meet a woman displaying her adornment to say in her face: "May the curse of Allah be upon you," due to the harms that result. But if the Muslim society returns and a woman deviates from this Muslim society and this woman comes out like this displaying her adornment, then there is where this public rebuke comes in... exactly as the one with prayers and blessings upon him said: These levels were not said in vain. Far be it from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) to utter words that do not contain the wisdom known about him. But this is a facilitation from Allah for His believing servants to use wisdom in enjoining good and forbidding evil. There is room for changing evil by hand, otherwise, how many, how many in the past broke what do we say in gathering the tambourines, the tambourines are correct, the tambourines are correct, oh professor, how many, how many tambourines and drums and the like were broken. Now, if we did something like this, our fate would be torment and imprisonment... etc. Then the more dangerous fate is that this zealous person goes back in time and regresses, and we know this by individuals... I do not mean we know individuals who were zealous, as soon as they entered prison and came out of it, they no longer recognized the call at all. And we know a Shaykh in Damascus al-Sham who dared to rebuke the tomb worshippers and those who circumambulate them, as Allah wills, until the shepherds and the common people rose up against him and beat him and humiliated him. So the outcome was that I saw him with the group he used to rebuke, standing in front of the alleged grave of Yahya (peace be upon him) in the Umayyad Mosque, the great mosque, humble and submissive, and so on. No, therefore I say there is great wisdom in the saying of the one with prayers and blessings upon him: And from this hadith and its like, the common people among us in Syria took their saying: "Excessive tightness leads to looseness." And this is a very natural material matter, whether it is in the physical or the spiritual, and here we are discussing the spiritual. He turned upside down after he was raising his voice in rebuking the innovators, if he turns completely upside down. This is from the spiritual aspect. From the material aspect, grip with an iron fist, no matter how much of a hero you are, no matter how much you are trained, you will find that grip loosens and it is inevitable. I think the answer to this question is finished, if Allah wills.