I am mistaken, then say to me, “You are wrong.”

Interjection: …

Shaykh: No, this is obligatory. Why? Because I am as certain as can be that he, Kishk, and others like them do not know how to perform the prayer. They do pray, but they do not know how to pray. Why? Their prayer is based only on what they have read in their own school of law. If they are Shafiʿis, for example, they will do such-and-such; if they are Hanafis, they will say, “No, ….” The examples are many—indeed, very many. Yet the Prophet ﷺ said, “Pray as you have seen me pray” (1).

So here we notice that the true scholars are those who study the entire Book, especially what pertains to correcting beliefs and then acts of worship. As for the empirical and natural sciences, these unquestionably benefit a person and increase the believer’s faith in Allah’s power and wisdom. But before all that, they were duty-bound to learn how to worship Allah without associating anything with Him.

Today, let me tell you, in every country on earth you will find Muslims who deliberately visit graves, and some of them treat the grave— the grave of a saint or a righteous man—like a Kaʿbah, circumambulating around it. In your time, did you ever go to Egypt?

Interjection: No.

Shaykh: Have you seen the mausoleums of al-Ḥusayn, Lady Zaynab, and Aḥmad al-Badawī?

Interjection: By Allah, I have heard about them but I have not seen them.

Shaykh: I gathered that you were Jordanian.