Clarifying the ignorance and misguidance of those who declare the Imam al-Nawawi and the Imam Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani to be disbelievers or misguided.

The Shaykh : On this occasion, I say that a new group has now emerged who have not encompassed—I do not say with knowledge, but rather with some of the scientific principles—so they have begun to declare many of our scholars, the people of hadith and the people of the Sunnah as well, to be misguided, if not disbelievers. This is because they appear to have still been adhering to some of the taqlid (following a scholar without knowing his evidence) of their fathers in certain matters of creed. I specifically mean the Imam al-Nawawi and the Imam al-Asqalani, who are undoubtedly two great imams in jurisprudential and hadith sciences, and other matters related to the sacred sciences. It is regrettable, without a doubt, that imams like these two should remain with some of what they inherited from the creed of the later Asha'irah. It is not permissible for us to rush to declare these people disbelievers, nor even to declare them misguided, because we do not believe that the argument was established against them at that time. Therefore, I say in conclusion that one should be cautious in issuing rulings of takfir (declaring someone a disbeliever) against these imams. In fact, we are scrupulous about issuing rulings of takfir against some of the rulers who rule by other than what Allah has revealed, because two things have not become clear to us regarding them: first, that they knew the ruling of Allah as Allah (Mighty and Majestic) revealed it; and second, that they denied it with their hearts and tongues. For this reason, we are content with ruling on their misguidance and deviation from the Shari'ah. As for pronouncing the word of kufr (disbelief), which entails riddah (apostasy) and exiting the religion, we do not issue this against these people, let alone against others among the scholars of knowledge whom we have referred to, due to the lack of clarity in our view that the argument was established against them. This is my answer to what you asked.