repent; and among those who affiliate themselves with them are people who wrong their own souls and disobey their Lord. Groups from among the innovators and outright heretics have claimed a connection to them, yet, in the view of the exacting scholars of the Sufi path, such individuals are not truly of them—al-Hallāj, for example. End of quotation from Majmūʿ al-Fatāwā (11/5, 17–18).
This, may Allah have mercy on him, is his statement concerning the balanced form of Sufism that was known in his time and before. As for the deviant Sufism that existed during his era and afterwards, no one gives it any sanction. The Sufi orders have changed, and a great deal of innovation, superstition, and outright polytheism has crept into them; they must therefore be abandoned, shunned, and replaced by strict adherence to the Sunnah.
7 – They further allege that he issued legal rulings that contradict scholarly consensus. These, they claim, include the following:
1 – That an oath sworn by way of divorce is not an actual divorce but merely an oath that is subject to expiation. Our reply is that the assertion of consensus on this question is false. The Shaykh, may Allah have mercy on him, actually listed three opinions on the issue. His words are:
“If a person swears by divorce or manumission in order either to induce or to prevent something—for example, saying, ‘Divorce (or manumission) is binding on me if I do such-and-such’ or ‘if I do not do such-and-such,’ or saying, ‘If I do such-and-such, my wife is divorced,’ or ‘my slave is free,’ and the like—the scholars hold three views:
First: that if he breaks the oath, the divorce or manumission takes effect. This is the position of some of the Successors and is the view most widely held among the jurists.
Second: that nothing takes effect and no expiation is required. This is reported from some of the early generations and is the school of Dāwūd, Ibn Ḥazm, and other later scholars. For this reason Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah—the teacher of al-Shāfiʿī—and Aḥmad would not deliver a verdict that it takes effect.