We ask the Shaykh to explain the blessing of the methodology of the Book and the Sunnah, and that it is the only guarantee that protects a person from falling into misguidance and deviation?

The Shaykh: Praise is to Allah; we praise Him, seek His help, and seek His forgiveness. We seek refuge in Allah from the evils of our own selves and from the badness of our deeds. Whomsoever Allah guides, none can misguide, and whomsoever He leaves to misguide, none can guide. And I bear witness that there is no deity but Allah alone, with no partner, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His slave and His Messenger, , , . As for what follows:
Indeed, the best of speech is the speech of Allah, the best of guidance is the guidance of Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him), and the worst of matters are their innovations. Every innovation is a religious innovation, every religious innovation is misguidance, and every misguidance is in the Fire. And after that:
We praise Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) for guiding us to the truth in which people differ, by His permission (Glorified and Exalted is He). Indeed, He guides whom He wills to a straight path. He guided us to adopt the Book and the Sunnah as our creed and our methodology in our lives, while we find other Muslims: every sect among them has been satisfied with a school of jurisprudence that they adhere to with the same commitment a Muslim has to the Book and the Sunnah. This is a blessing after which there is no greater blessing. This is because holding fast to the Book and the Sunnah is the only guarantee that protects a person from falling into clear misguidance, as came in the authentic hadith of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), namely his saying: . Holding fast to the Book and the Sunnah is: walking on the straight path, which our Lord, the Lord of the worlds, informed us of in His noble Book when He said: . Al-Hakim Abu 'Abdullah narrated in his "Mustadrak" with a good chain, from the hadith of 'Abdullah ibn Mas'ud (may Allah be pleased with him), who said: "The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) drew a straight line on the ground for us, then drew other lines on the sides of the first line—short lines, a straight line and short lines around this straight line—then he recited the previous verse, pointing to the straight line and to the crooked lines deviating from it, and said: He said (Glorified and Exalted is He): . Then he added clarification with this beautiful permissible image that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) depicted with his noble hand on the ground, so that it would be imprinted in the minds of those who heard his words and saw his image, so that its effect would be imprinted in their hearts, and he said: . This image was a strong proof of Allah through the tongue of His Prophet against those Muslims who deviated from the straight path of their Lord; because this image clarifies and confirms what came in the previous verse: that the path leading to Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) is nothing but one path, and that the other paths that branch out from this straight path and move away from it, the further the traveler goes in them, the further he moves away from the straight path, and he is lost in clear misguidance. And I see in this image: a very gentle and soft warning to what many people fall into of deviation from the straight line, under the claim that this path is long. We hear this speech today, and we find the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him): as if Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) inspired him with what would happen in the times to come, so he pointed to it with this beautiful, exquisite image. When we argue with some of those who oppose the Salafi methodology, when we call people to this sound methodology, to following the Book and the Sunnah, and we detail for them some of the details, and we tell them: It is necessary to teach people their religion in the correct manner, in accordance with the Book and the Sunnah, and in agreement with what our righteous predecessors (may Allah be pleased with them) were upon, we find many of these people acknowledge that this is the truth in which there is no doubt, but they say: My brother, this is a long task, this requires a long time, and we want to establish the Muslim state in the shortest path. So we say to them: This path, the Messenger (peace be upon him) actually depicted it as an extended and long path, but it is straight. And among the subtleties of this beautiful, exquisite image: he depicted the crooked paths branching out from it and deviating from it as short paths. And that is the completion of what Satan makes easy for the children of Adam, as if Satan or these devils about whom the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) said: ; meaning that these devils stand on the path of those walking on the straight path, as if they are saying to these travelers: How long will you walk? And when will you arrive? To me, to me, each of these devils says: To me, to me, this is the path, look how close it is and how easy it is to reach its end. And this is what has deceived people today. This is the reality of the Islamic sects who want to work for Islam and want to serve Islam and establish the Muslim state. This is their reality. You find them enthusiastic about establishing the Muslim state, but without knowledge. And even if there is knowledge, it is not the beneficial knowledge. Because the beneficial knowledge is only what is based on the Book and the Sunnah, and then what was the practice of the righteous predecessors, the practice of the Companions and those who followed them with excellence. This is the beneficial knowledge. And to this Ibn al-Qayyim pointed, as I mentioned to you in some previous sessions, in his saying:
"Knowledge is what Allah said, what His Messenger said, *** What the Companions said, not by deception.
Knowledge is not setting you up for foolish disagreement *** Between the Messenger and the opinion of a jurist.
No, nor denying the attributes and negating them *** Out of fear of denial of the divine attributes and likening Allah to creation."
So Ibn al-Qayyim points to this reality, that the beneficial knowledge is: the saying of Allah and the saying of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) with the understanding of the Companions of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). These callers who want to reach the great goal that all Muslims agree on the obligation of achieving, which is establishing the rule of Allah on earth, and establishing the righteous caliphate after that past caliphate, they all agree on the obligation of achieving this caliphate, but they differ in the means and the path. And we Salafis are with them in this goal, but we are not with them in the means. Our means is that it is necessary to have the beneficial knowledge and righteous action. And the beneficial knowledge, as we explained in a previous session as well, is only, as you just heard: what is based on the Book of Allah and the hadith of His Messenger, and only the authentic hadith, and on the understanding of the righteous predecessors and acting upon this knowledge. Otherwise, if all the Muslims today agreed on the beneficial knowledge, but did not act upon it, they would not reach their desired goal, which is establishing the rule of Allah on earth, because the one who lacks a thing cannot give it.