and to His Messenger, and to the leaders of the Muslims and their common folk.”

Yet Abū Ghuddah ignores this ḥadīth—along with the other scriptural texts that oblige enjoining right, forbidding wrong, and giving sincere counsel to the leaders and the laity—and recasts such counsel as an affront to the rulers. He then tries to turn them against me, claiming that I had denounced them. After courting their favour with flattering praise—though his own associates and pupils know better than anyone that his tongue utters what his heart does not hold—he went back to the Introduction, to the very descriptions we have shown to fit him, and to assailing its author and publisher, saying:

“Those who claim Salafism and zeal for creed do so for personal gain and ulterior motives; they are the fiercest enemies of what they profess!”

So this is how facts are inverted: Abū Ghuddah al-Kawtharī is the Salafī, while al-Albānī and his brethren—who have been publicly known as Salafīs for more than thirty years—are the fiercest enemies of their own claim, and not he, the Kawtharī and a disciple of al-Kawtharī! By Allah, the proverb fits him perfectly: “He turned up with a donkey’s horns.”

Abū Ghuddah al-Kawtharī then proceeds, under the heading “Exploiting Salafism and Attacking It,” saying:

“They have printed in some of their books remarks with which they disparaged the scholars and officials of this noble Kingdom, a Kingdom founded upon the creed, committed to protecting, maintaining, and propagating it, and which continues to be its vigilant guardian, dedicating all its resources to spreading it, calling to it, and defending it. In the book Ḥujjat al-Nabī ﷺ (p. 145) they wrote—denouncing the honoured Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the well-known scholars and shaykhs therein; I cite their words exactly, in parentheses: ‘Indeed, the State of Tawḥīd (monotheism) has begun…’”