What is the best way to rebuke the people of innovation, given that he is a doer of good?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner : O Shaykh, may Allah preserve you, there is a man who follows a Sufi path, O Shaykh. He believes in Sufism and practices some innovations, O Shaykh. But this man helps in good deeds. So, O Shaykh, if for example we rebuke him for his innovation and expose him among the people, he stops helping the people of righteousness and the people of good. So I do not know, O Shaykh.
The Shaykh : Is this man influential in his calling?
The questioner : Yes, O Shaykh, he calls to his innovation.
The Shaykh : Yes.
The questioner : Yes, he calls to his innovation.
The Shaykh : Well, which is greater: poverty or misguidance?
The questioner : Misguidance, O Shaykh.
The Shaykh : Misguidance is greater. So if this man is a caller and influential, it is obligatory that he be clarified and people be warned against him, even if he cuts off his own good deeds. In that case, he has only forbidden himself. But as for us keeping him so that he misguides the servants of Allah in order to gain a dirham or two dirhams from him, that is not possible. Yes, after him is ease.
The Shaykh : Is this man influential in his calling?
The questioner : Yes, O Shaykh, he calls to his innovation.
The Shaykh : Yes.
The questioner : Yes, he calls to his innovation.
The Shaykh : Well, which is greater: poverty or misguidance?
The questioner : Misguidance, O Shaykh.
The Shaykh : Misguidance is greater. So if this man is a caller and influential, it is obligatory that he be clarified and people be warned against him, even if he cuts off his own good deeds. In that case, he has only forbidden himself. But as for us keeping him so that he misguides the servants of Allah in order to gain a dirham or two dirhams from him, that is not possible. Yes, after him is ease.