The Shaykh spoke on: (Who is the innovator and who is the disbeliever).

The Shaykh : I have presented to you a reality in which no two people differ, and that is that a person is either a Muslim or a disbeliever. A Muslim, whatever his status, is prayed over, inherits, and is inherited from, is washed, shrouded, and buried in the graves of Muslims. If he is not a Muslim, he is cast aside like a pomegranate seed and buried in the graves of disbelievers. There is nothing in between for us. However, if he does not pray, or if he is a scholar who does not follow a Muslim, none of this means that it is not permissible to pray over him. Rather, it means that it points to a wisdom that may not be achieved by any other means. For example, the hadiths that you must remember something of, in which the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) said in some of them: Did the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) refrain from praying over a Muslim? Is the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) who refrained from praying over a Muslim more important, or the Salafi scholar who refrained from praying over a Muslim? Which is more important? Tell me, what is more important?

The questioner : The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) refrained from praying

The Shaykh : Yes?

The questioner : The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) refrained

The Shaykh : Well, if the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) refrained from praying over a Muslim, that does not indicate that refraining from praying over him means it is not permissible to pray over him. A fortiori, when a scholar from among the scholars of the Salaf refrains from praying over an innovating Muslim, that does not indicate that he should not be prayed over. And even if it did indicate that he should not be prayed over, does that mean that we do not invoke mercy and forgiveness for him, as long as we believe he is a Muslim? So, in short, the refraining of some of the Salaf from praying over some Muslims because of their innovation does not negate the legitimacy of praying over every Muslim, because this is a matter of deterrence and discipline for their like, as the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) did with the one over whom he did not pray, whose only sin was that he died with a debt and what else?

Another questioner : and the excess

The Shaykh : and the excess from the war spoils and the like. So, this refraining, meaning the refraining of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), is more important than the refraining of some of the Salaf. Neither of these indicates that it is not permissible to pray over an innovating Muslim. Then, here we must investigate what we need to know: who is the innovator, just as we must know who is the disbeliever. Here is a question, as they say today, that poses itself: Does every one who falls into disbelief have disbelief attributed to him, and likewise, does every one who falls into innovation have innovation attributed to him, or is the matter not so? If the answer is that it is not so, we proceed with the topic, and if it is obscure, it must be clarified. Let me restate the issue with some detail. What is innovation? It is a newly invented matter contrary to the Sunnah of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family), by which its practitioner intends to draw closer to Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He). Does every one who innovates an innovation become an innovator? I want to hear the answer briefly. No.

The questioner : No

The Shaykh : So, who is the innovator?

The questioner : The one against whom the argument is established and who persists in his innovation thereafter.

The Shaykh : Well, as for those whom we say are not to be prayed over, was the argument established against them? Allah knows best. I say from my own perspective:

The questioner : Allah knows best, Shaykh.

The Shaykh : As for you, what do you say? Say what you have.

The questioner : I said as I said, O Shaykh.

The Shaykh : May Allah reward you with good.

The questioner: May Allah bless you.

The Shaykh : So, what is the original status of these people: Islam or disbelief?

The questioner: Islam.

The Shaykh : Good. If the original status is that they are to be prayed over, is that not so? If the case is closed, it is not permissible for us to adopt a school of thought today and say that it is not permissible to invoke mercy for so-and-so, so-and-so, and so-and-so from the general Muslims, let alone the specific ones, let alone their scholars. Why? For two reasons, and this is a summary of what has preceded. The first reason is that they are Muslims. The second reason is that if they are innovators, we do not know that the argument was established against them and that they persisted in their innovation and persisted in their misguidance. For this reason, I say that one of the grave errors today is that the committed youth, who hold fast to the Book and the Sunnah as they think, fall into contradicting the Book and the Sunnah without realizing or feeling it. Consequently, it is right for me, according to their school of thought, to call them innovators because they contradicted the Book and the Sunnah, but I do not contradict my own school of thought: the original status of these people is that they are Muslims.

The questioner : Yes.

The Shaykh : And that they do not intend innovation, nor do they deny the argument, nor do they reject the proof and evidence. Therefore, we say they erred while intending the truth.

The questioner : May Allah reward you with good.

The Shaykh : And if we know this reality, we are saved from many thorny matters in this time. Among them is the group of Hijrah and Takfir that was in Egypt and spread some of its ideas, and it reached Syria when I was there, and then here as well. We had brothers on the Salafi methodology of the Book and the Sunnah who were influenced by that false call and left praying with the congregation, and even Jumu'ah, and they used to pray in their rooms and in their homes. Until we gathered with them and held three sessions. The first session was between Maghrib and 'Isha', and they refrained from praying behind us, meaning behind us the Salafis. I did not want to say behind me because I will be speaking about myself. They used to say, "We rely on your books," and yet they did not pray behind me. Why? Because we do not declare Muslims disbelievers who they declare disbelievers. This was in the first session. The second session was in their own home and lasted until midnight, but the good news, praise be to Allah, began to appear in their response to the call of truth, where we called the adhan and iqamah and prayed there before midnight, so they prayed behind us. That was the second session. As for the third session, it lasted from after the 'Isha' prayer to the adhan of Fajr, a single stretch, and it was, praise be to Allah, the decisive one. They are with us to this day, and about twelve years have passed since then, praise be to Allah. It was nothing but doubts that came to them from their lack of understanding of the Book and the Sunnah. Perhaps you know, my brother Khalid, that understanding the Book and the Sunnah is not an easy matter today, after we have inherited many schools of thought and a great number of sects in creed and in jurisprudence, so one cannotThe student : It is not befitting for the young to plunge into the depths of these scholarly disagreements except after a long and very lengthy period of studying what is called today comparative jurisprudence, and studying the evidence of the disputants in the principles and the branches. In reality, this requires a long life first, and then success from the Lord of the Worlds second, so that the Muslim can achieve for himself the supplication that Allah, Mighty and Majestic, established for us through His Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) when he was supplicating in some of the supplications of the night prayer: Therefore, we advise our young people today, who follow the methodology of the Book and the Sunnah, to be patient, to be deliberate, and not to issue rulings based on some apparent indications of the evidence, because not every apparent indication is one at which the Muslim should stop. Otherwise, he will live in endless scientific confusion. I think you know that the school of jurisprudence closest to the Book and the Sunnah is the school of the people of hadith. And you know that the people of hadith rely on the narration of innovators if they are trustworthy, truthful, and possessors of good memory. This means that they did not lump them in with the disbelievers, nor with those about whom no mercy is invoked. Rather, you know that there are among some of the imams followed today—about whom no truly knowledgeable Muslim scholar doubts that he is a Muslim, and not only that, but a noble scholar—yet they contradicted the Book and the Sunnah, and contradicted the righteous Salaf in more than one issue. For example, I mean al-Nu'man ibn Thabit, Abu Hanifah (may Allah have mercy on him), who says that faith does not increase or decrease, and that it is not permissible for a Muslim to say, "I am a believer, if Allah wills," and that if he says "if Allah wills," he is not a Muslim. There is no doubt that this statement is a religious innovation because it contradicts the Book and the Sunnah. However, he did not intend innovation; he intended the truth but missed it. Therefore, opening this door of doubt regarding the scholars of the Muslims, whether they are from the Salaf or the Khalaf, is a contradiction of what the Muslims are upon. And our Lord, Mighty and Majestic, says in the Noble Qur'an: Finally, I want to mention a fact about which there is no disagreement, but I want to attach to it something that our young people in this era do not think about. That fact is his (peace and blessings be upon him) statement in many hadiths: This is a fact about which there is no doubt, and the detail of this hadith is known in some other narrations: if the one he declared a disbeliever was actually a disbeliever, then he hit the mark; otherwise, it rebounds upon him and returns to him. This requires research because the hadith on this is explicit. But I want to attach to it and say: if one declares a Muslim to be an innovator, then either this Muslim is an innovator, or the one who declared it is the innovator. This is the reality I told you earlier: our young people declare scholars to be innovators, and it is those scholars who fell into innovation, but they did not know it and did not want innovation; rather, they fought against it. But the saying of one who said long ago applies to them: "Sa'd led them in, and Sa'd was covered in dust. This is not, O Sa'd, how you lead in the camels." Therefore, we advise our young people to adhere to acting in accordance with the Book and the Sunnah within the limits of their knowledge, and not to overstep those who are not their equals in knowledge, understanding, and perhaps piety. Like al-Nawawi and like al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani. We have given today, in the entire Islamic world, the like of these two men. And leave aside Sayyid Qutb; this man—we respect him for his struggle—but he does not exceed being a writer, a literary man, a creator. But he was not a scholar. So it is no surprise that things and things and things issue from him that contradict the correct methodology. As for those mentioned with him, like al-Nawawi and Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani and their like, then by Allah, it is injustice to say that they are from the people of innovation. I know that both of them are from the Asha'irah, but they did not intend to contradict the Book and the Sunnah; rather, they were mistaken and thought that what they inherited from the Ash'ari creed—they thought two things: first, that Imam al-Ash'ari says that, and he does not say that except in the past, because he turned away from it; and second, they assumed it was correct, and it is not correct. Bring your support now.