There is a trend among some of the brothers in China toward the Salafi call, but some of them have shown strictness and errors due to ignorance. What is your advice for these people?

The questioner : It is pleasing to everyone that the Salafi call has begun to move in China.

The Shaykh : As Allah willed.

The questioner : But there is a group who claim to be Salafis, perhaps due to their ignorance and lack of learning, who said that the word of testimony, "La ilaha illa Allah, Muhammad rasul Allah," if said in this form, falls into shirk (associating partners with Allah), because they made Muhammad a substitute for the Name of Allah?

The Shaykh : Yes, indeed, these people are ignorant.
The student : If you permit it, our Shaykh, let me summarize the situation for you in general.

The Shaykh: Yes.
The student : He is saying now that there is a trend among some of the brothers in China toward the Salafi call, but they have become, meaning out of love for this call, through reading books, and they learned the Arabic language in China, so they began with their personal ijtihad (independent legal reasoning), and such matters appear.

The Shaykh : These anomalies.
The student : He says that if one says: "La ilaha illa Allah, Muhammad rasul Allah," this falls into shirk because there is no evidence for this wording. One must say, "I bear witness that there is no god but Allah, and I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah." As for this, it leads to shirk because it paired Muhammad with Allah (Mighty and Majestic).

The Shaykh : Meaning, they distinguish between saying "La ilaha illa Allah, Muhammad rasul Allah" and saying "I bear witness that there is no god but Allah, and I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah." So the first phrase is shirk and the second is tawhid (the oneness of Allah).
The student: Yes.

The Shaykh : These people were given ignorance, ignorance of the language, meaning because the two sentences are separate from each other. Well, in another matter, they have anomalies.
The student : Meaning, they are strict in some aspects. They say, for example, that they lengthen their hair a lot, and they say that it is from the sunnah (recommended practice). And it was mentioned to me about some of them that he came for Hajj (the major pilgrimage) and shortened his hair but did not shave.

The Shaykh : Strange.
The student : Even though I clarified to him that the sunnah is to shave.

The Shaykh: Yes.
The student : So they are strict in this. The brother is asking for advice for them, or directing advice to them, because they have now come into conflict with them.

The Shaykh : There is no power or strength except with Allah. Well, before answering, where did the Salafi call seep into them from?

The questioner : This is from reading the books that reached us from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The Shaykh : But in the Kingdom, in the books published from the Kingdom, there is no such ignorance and distinction between the two wordings in the two testimonies.

The questioner : Therefore, it appears that it is personal ijtihad, meaning ijtihad from them due to their ignorance of the Arabic language.

The Shaykh : That is it. I advise these people to be patient and not to engage in issuing fatwas (scholarly legal rulings) and declaring things lawful or forbidden until they strengthen their fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) with the Book and the Sunnah. And they must remember well that the Qur'an and the Sunnah cannot be understood except through the Arabic language. To the extent that a student of knowledge, or a scholar, is proficient in the Arabic language and its literature, he is more knowledgeable in the Book and the Sunnah than one who is below him in knowledge of the Arabic language. And due to the long centuries that have passed for the Muslim peoples, distancing themselves from studying the Arabic language, which was studied in the past by virtue of the rulers being Arabs, when they entered the lands of the non-Arabs, they did not only spread their religion but also spread their language. So among the non-Arab foreigners, there were scholars in the Arabic language, and consequently scholars in the Islamic Shari'ah (Islamic sacred law) in tafsir (Qur'anic exegesis), hadith, and fiqh, such as Abu Hanifa, al-Bukhari, and their like, al-Kisa'i, and others. Their origin is not from the Arabs, but when the Arabs spread the religion among the non-Arabs, they also spread their Arabic language with the religion. This support was cut off from the non-Arab lands hundreds of years ago, so they came to know only very few words of the Arabic language. Therefore, we advise the young Muslim Chinese, and non-Chinese, and indeed we advise the young Arabs, because they have become non-Arab in speech and forgotten much of their Arabic language. And I know this from my personal experience. We advise them all to focus on studying the Arabic language, especially those among them who are non-Arab. So we advise these Chinese Salafi brothers not to rush, and to be patient with themselves, and to study the Arabic language extensively, so that they can understand the Book and the Sunnah. Then, finally, I advise that they not issue a fatwa based on opinion unless they are preceded to it by a scholar who is pointed to with the finger (a renowned scholar). Do you know this? As for personal opinions, these are misleading and a cause for great misguidance, even in the Arab lands today. And perhaps you lived in Saudi Arabia and found that the Salafis themselves have now divided into many factions. The cause of this is the shallowness of fiqh in the Book and the Sunnah. Therefore, this is my advice to the young Salafi Chinese: to be patient in studying the language, and not to rush in issuing fatwas with their personal opinions, but rather, if something is difficult for them, they should ask the people of knowledge, the people of learning. I do not know, on this occasion, in your knowledge, is it easy or difficult to call from China to the Arab countries by phone, like Algeria, Pakistan, and India?

The questioner : It is easy.

The Shaykh : If it is easy, then you must advise them to contact the Arab Muslim scholars, especially in the Saudi lands, if a Shari'ah ruling is difficult for them. This is my advice to you and to our brothers.

The questioner : May Allah reward you with good.