in the strongest possible terms, saying, “By Him in Whose hand is my soul! You have uttered the very words the Children of Israel said to Moses: ‘Appoint for us a god just as they have gods.’ You are indeed a people who do not understand.” This ḥadith shows that anyone who seeks blessing from a tree, a stone, a grave, or a spot on the ground has committed shirk with Allah and has taken the object of blessing as a deity—provided he is seeking the blessing that inheres in the grave itself.
Second: He also claims, “The blessing we intend is not worship, nor anything close to it; rather, it is simply remembrance, reflection, and insight.”
Our response is that this statement only betrays his ignorance of what worship means and his failure to distinguish between seeking blessing (tabarruk) and mere remembrance and reflection—or else he feigns ignorance in order to confuse people. Worship is a comprehensive term for everything Allah loves and is pleased with, whether words or deeds, and it includes longing, fear, hope, and tabarruk—seeking barakah (blessing), which is requested through His Names. Seeking blessing from anyone or anything other than Allah is shirk, except for taking blessing from the Prophet’s hair or the water of his ablution, for that is unique to him ﷺ because Allah made him blessed. Even then, that could occur only during his lifetime when he was physically present. The Companions never sought blessing from his pulpit, his grave, or his chamber. They were the best generation and the most knowledgeable of what is lawful and unlawful; had it been permissible, they would certainly have done so.
Having finished our rebuttal of what he falsely attributed to Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah, we now turn to what he has ascribed to Shaykh Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab.
Second: What he attributes to Shaykh al-Islam Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab, may Allah have mercy on him.
- He regarded the call of Shaykh Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab as a new, independent sect, labeled it “Wahhabism,” and counted it among the deviant movements he listed under the heading “Modern Schools,” namely the Wahhābī, Bahāʾī, and Qādiyānī groups.