A benefit from the Shaykh regarding the ruling on letting the beard grow entirely, and mentioning some of the rules and methods of argumentation in this issue and others.

The Shaykh : I see this brother as a good man, if Allah wills.

The questioner : If Allah wills, we consider him to be so.

The Shaykh : And it seems he is from the group of the people of hadith in those lands. Is that so?

The questioner : ... I apologize, my Shaykh. I thought you had finished. Forgive us, my Shaykh. He says he is one of those who came to you, Abu Sufyan, two years ago, a group of people.

The Shaykh : This is not the answer to my question.

The questioner : He says if you know these people, then I am one of them.

The Shaykh : No, I do not know.

The questioner : Do you not know?

The Shaykh : And it saves us from the round and the loop. He says I am one of them, and no.

The questioner : The Salafi there is not from the people of hadith. The Association for Reviving the Methodology of the Sunnah is responsible for them, and they are Salafis.

The Shaykh : Where is the center of this association? Is it in Pakistan or in India?

The questioner : It is in London, my Shaykh, and it is only for the youth.

The Shaykh : They do not have any shaykhs, do they!

The questioner : No.

The Shaykh : All right, I want to offer a piece of advice to him and to those like him who hold fast to the Sunnah: that exaggeration in holding fast leads to the opposite result, as he (peace and blessings be upon him) said That is why I asked if he is from the people of hadith, because the people of hadith, like many of the scholars of Saudi Arabia, see that letting the beard grow entirely is the view.

The questioner : This is another question for him, and it came, glory be to Allah, in ... .

The Shaykh : So that you may be safe, we are not the Sufis, the people of unveiling. We are the people of unveiling! So the point is ... As long as we and they share, and praise be to Allah, in one call upon a common word, the Book and the Sunnah, and upon the methodology of the pious predecessors, I want you to understand the following fact in your foreign gibberish, and do not worry, and I will gibber like you, just in another language. Understand that Ibn Umar (may Allah be pleased with him), who accompanied the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) for years, as Allah wills, and grew up in Islam and was raised on Islam, and died while the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) was pleased with him, used to take from his beard whenever he performed Hajj or 'Umrah. And I do not think he or anyone else in the East or the West believes that he is more understanding of the Sunnah than Ibn Umar, or more obedient and more following of the Sunnah than Ibn Umar. If Ibn Umar, and here is a precise jurisprudential point, is one of the narrators of the hadith , and yet he used to take from his beard and not leave it as it is in its natural state, and we linked this statement to the research in the mid-morning, we say that taking from the beard is like taking from the mustache, meaning it is an exception to changing the creation of Allah (Mighty and Majestic). We want you to understand in his language that he understands this fact for two reasons: first, that we are truly Salafis; second, I believe that exaggeration in implementing the absolute command that was not implemented by the pious predecessors in its absoluteness becomes a cause for people to be repelled from the call to which we have dedicated ourselves.

The questioner : Do you allow me, my Shaykh? Because I know what he said to me, and he had sat with me and told me about the matter of the beard. So it is from the chapter of the command before I gibber to him, and I want to understand so that he understands how a Companion becomes a proof when there is a text from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). This is his question.

The Shaykh : I know, I gave you the answer beforehand.

The questioner : But I want to elaborate so that you know, so that I can answer him.

The Shaykh : I do not think there is elaboration. Elaborate.

The questioner : Yes, how a Companion becomes a proof when the text is general or when there is no text. And he gives me an example when we say about wiping over the leather socks: if we remove the leather socks, we do not wash the feet. And we have a text from Ali ibn Abi Talib (may Allah be pleased with him) that he removed his leather socks and then went and prayed. And we have another text in the issue.

The Shaykh : Excuse me, excuse me. I did not understand the purpose of this first text?

The questioner : The purpose is that this Companion became a proof in this matter that we do not wash our feet when we do not remove the leather socks. This is the proof, meaning the Companion became a proof here, even though it was reported from Ali ibn Abi Talib?

The Shaykh : Meaning it is not a proof?

The questioner : That he is a proof.

The Shaykh : Meaning he is not a proof.

The questioner : No, his action is a proof.

The Shaykh: All right.

The questioner : But the action of Abdullah ibn Umar in wiping over the bandage is not a proof, even though it is his action. This is the problem for him, meaning Abdullah ibn Umar wiped over the bandage, and we did not use his action as a proof, even though we have a weakly narrated, anomalous hadith about wiping over the bandage. How did we not use the action of Abdullah ibn Umar, and we used Ali and Abdullah ibn Umar in the beard?

The Shaykh : This is his answer, it is clear, but this is not the method of research. First of all, we want to see if the rule from which we want to start is correct or not. Then we see the branches: what is applied to them and what is not. We say now we have a hadith of the Messenger Who understands that this text is in its absoluteness and comprehensiveness more: the one who hears the hadith directly from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), or we, after fourteen centuries! Is there any argument in the subject here?

The questioner : There is no argument.

The Shaykh : What is the relation of this to this? Now we are facing a text we want to understand correctly. Is this letting grow in its absoluteness or not? Who understands more, the witness or the absent one?

The questioner : The witness.

The Shaykh : All right, does this have a relation to that issue?

The questioner : It does not have a relation?

The Shaykh : Therefore, I see that there is anticipation of the subject with branches we have not yet entered, or we do not need to enter them. This is first. Second, I mentioned this branch: Ibn Umar, yes, that action, but we did not find a follower for it. Whereas here, we do not find among the predecessors anyone who let his beard grow until it almost dragged on the ground. There is no existence of this at all. On the contrary, all the reports we have come across from Ibn Umar, from Abu Hurayrah, and from the Companions in general, are that they used to take from their beards. This is different from that, my brother.

The questioner : This last clarification, my Shaykh, glory be to Allah, there are many Companions.

The Shaykh : All right, if I gibber ... .

The questioner : Do you allow me, my Shaykh? The gibberish is for our brother here.

The Shaykh: Go ahead.

The questioner : He may ask another question about this point?

The Shaykh : Yes, it is possible, and it may even be obligatory.

The questioner : He asks if there is consensus among the Companions.

The Shaykh : A very difficult request from a scientific point of view, but it is sufficient for the student of knowledge to know that two or three of the Companions did an action, and it was not reported from others that they differed from their action, and then those who came after them followed them in that with goodness. This scientific fact is sufficient and dispenses with verifying that difficult request. It is clear.

The questioner : He is speaking in English.

The Shaykh : I want you to understand them. I spoke in the morning and I will repeat the statement, but I see its repetition as very necessary, because people, especially people, are heedless of this rule, even though they practically apply in many of the branches the general texts that came in the Book and the Sunnah. It is not permissible to apply them within the limits of our understanding of their generality, but only within the limits of the application of the predecessors. Yes, the pious predecessors are the Companions and the Tabi'un.

The questioner : This is the meaning of Salafism: that we understand the texts as the pious predecessors understood them.

The Shaykh : This is it. You now understand it. Translate it for him, and for the continuation of the research.

The questioner : He is speaking in English.

The Shaykh : The true Muslim follows the texts of the Book and the Sunnah in their generalities, and likewise follows the Shari'ah in its specifics. Worship is not performed according to what seems right to any one of us, but according to what has been transmitted from predecessor to successor. Without attention to this principle, our argument against the innovators collapses. Whenever we cite evidence against them and deny one of their innovations, they counter us with a text from the Book or the Sunnah. We cannot refute that text because it is a text, and it is general and comprehensive. But we respond to them by asking, "Was it applied in this way?" At this point, they are stumped and make excuses, unable to answer. For example, take the most prominent issue in the Muslim world, except for what Allah wills: the difference between the lawful adhan and the innovated adhan. There is no difference except in adherence to the Sunnah. The adhan began with "Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar" and ended with "La ilaha illa Allah." These additions were all taken from the general evidence of the Qur'an and the Sunnah, particularly regarding the sending of blessings upon the Messenger after the adhan. They argue with us by saying, "Allah said ." We have no such thing. We say, "My brother, the Messenger forbade adding to it. We have nothing of this kind. All we have is what we know was practiced in the first and second eras, until this innovation occurred. Therefore, the scholars' approach is: if it were good, they would have preceded us to it. This is taken from the basic principles . Therefore, if we now wish to draw near to Allah by growing the beard completely, we must have been preceded to this act of drawing near, because they are first more knowledgeable about the Shari'ah of our Lord than we are, and second, more mindful of our Lord (Mighty and Majestic) than we are. These are two facts in which no Muslim doubts, even these innovators, but they are stubborn, argue, and follow their desires.