who says, verbatim: “A group—meaning the Salafis—have gone astray. Their hearts have never felt love for the Messenger of Allah, ﷺ, and so they began to denounce seeking intercession by his very person after his passing.” (1)

This charge is as outrageous as the two preceding ones, for its import is likewise that, in his eyes, the Salafis are unbelievers. Yet this ignorant fool does not realize that leading authorities—whom he and his fellow blind partisans insist people must imitate—preceded us in rejecting that very form of tawassul. Foremost among them is Imām Abū Ḥanīfah, d. 150 AH. So tell me, dull-witted man: are he and the others misguided, or is it simply that you have no idea what comes out of your own mouth?

And now, is Abū Ghuddah’s statement (p. 19) truthful when he writes, “Declaring people—let alone scholars—to be unbelievers is neither my habit nor my character, praise be to Allah. Allah has safeguarded me, by the intellect with which He has honored me (!) and by the manners of Islam with which He has refined me, from falling into these acts that entail takfīr and perdition. For whoever pronounces a believer to be an unbeliever has himself disbelieved”?

I say: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ spoke the truth—“Whoever declares a Muslim to be an unbeliever has himself disbelieved.” Now Abū Ghuddah claims that Salafis’ souls recoil when they hear mention of the Prophet ﷺ, and then asserts, “Whoever’s soul recoils at the mention of Muḥammad ﷺ is certainly outside the fold of Islam.” Immediately thereafter he exempts from this faith-nullifying revulsion “the people of the Sacred Lands who…"