percent; and now we say: ninety-nine after your admission that you repudiate your Shaykh’s opposition to the two Shaykhs—and Allah is sufficient to call you to account! Even so, you have not removed the charge that you are a Kawtharī, for a single point of disagreement does not sever your affiliation with him, as has already been demonstrated. So do you possess the sound creed and the scholarly courage to clarify for us in detail—especially on the points we asked you about: his accusing the two Shaykhs and Ahl al-Sunnah of anthropomorphism, his deviation from the two Ṣaḥīḥs (Bukhari and Muslim), his declaring many of their hadiths weak, and the other matters we cited in the introduction and condensed in this paragraph? Had you been innocent, you would have done so; and if you do not, you stand as an enemy of the two Shaykhs and of the people of hadith until you publicly renounce every one of al-Kawtharī’s deviations from them.

2 – You say that you have praised the two Shaykhs, may Allah have mercy on them. Our reply is that such praise—those numerous pages you darkened in your Kalimāt (Collected Words) by quoting from your marginal notes on certain books—does not, in the eyes of those with knowledge, prove that you hold a sound opinion of them or that your view of their scholarship is free of deviation. This is precisely the point of contention between Salafis like us and Khalafis like you. The proof: in all those words there is not a single sentence, indeed not even a fragment, from which one can sense your esteem for their creed or your conviction that they were upright in their knowledge. Bear in mind as well that most of those marginalia were published while you were employed in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, living among a people who recognize the virtue of Ibn Taymiyyah and his disciple and who follow their creed; hence one may say—and indeed it has been said—that your words were issued merely for local consumption.

Examples of his disparagement of Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn al-Qayyim

Another point: your praise may beguile those who are unaware of the accusations you have leveled against their creed and their learning, and you are not—