claim affiliation to the call yet give no real attention to creed. Their focus is restricted to secondary moral and behavioural concerns, even though they see large numbers of people committing major polytheism around the domed shrines built over graves in some Muslim lands. They raise no objection, neither in a word, nor in a lecture, nor in a publication—save on the rarest occasions. Indeed, there are sometimes individuals within their own ranks who practise polytheistic rites and deviant forms of Sufism, yet they are neither rebuked nor warned. And yet beginning by calling such people and rectifying their creed is more pressing than addressing atheists and open unbelievers, for the latter openly acknowledge their disbelief and admit that their way conflicts with what the messengers brought, whereas those who frequent graves and the deviant Sufis imagine themselves to be Muslims and to be practising Islam; they are therefore deluded and mislead others.
Allah, exalted is He, has commanded us to start with the disbelievers who are nearest to us. He says: “O you who believe, fight those disbelievers who are closest to you, and let them find harshness in you; and know that Allah is with the God-fearing.” 1 Unless the ranks of those who bear the Muslim name are first purged of alien elements, they will never be able to stand firm before their enemy.
It is related that a shrine-worshipper once saw a man prostrating before an idol and reproached him. The idol-worshipper retorted, “You worship a created being who is absent from you, whereas I worship a created being that is right in front of me—who of us is the more astonishing?” The shrine-worshipper was silenced.
Although both are misguided polytheists, worshipping something that possesses neither harm nor benefit, the shrine-worshipper has sunk still deeper into error and is pursuing an even greater impossibility.
Accordingly, those who invite to Allah must concentrate on matters of creed above all else: study it thoroughly, grasp it first, then teach it to others and summon back anyone who has deviated from it or neglected it. Allah the Most High said to His Prophet: “Say: This is my path; I call to Allah upon …"