to all other deeds, a devotion they call walāyah (spiritual allegiance). As for the “worship of the rabbis,” they say it is nothing but knowledge and jurisprudence. Matters then deteriorated until people began to worship, besides Allah, those who were not even righteous, and—under this second sense of worship—to venerate as authorities men who were utterly ignorant….” End quote.

One form of taking rabbis and monks as lords is obeying the scholars of misguidance in the innovations, superstitions, and errors they have introduced into Allah’s religion—such as reviving birthday festivals (mawlids), adopting Sufi orders, seeking intercession through the dead, and calling upon them instead of Allah. These misguided scholars have legislated what Allah never permitted, and the naïve masses have imitated them, assuming that this is the very religion itself. Whoever rejects these practices and calls people to follow what the Messenger of Allah ﷺ brought is deemed, in their eyes, outside the faith, or accused of hating the scholars and the righteous. Thus right has been deemed wrong and wrong deemed right; the Sunnah is treated as innovation and innovation as Sunnah, until the young have grown up upon it and the old have grown senile upon it. Such is part of the estrangement of the religion and the scarcity of reforming callers. There is no power and no might except with Allah, the Most High, the Tremendous.

If it is forbidden to follow the mujtahid imams of jurisprudence in the errors they committed through ijtihad—though they are excused and rewarded for unintended mistakes, while the mistake itself remains prohibited—how could it not be forbidden to imitate these misguiding impostors who have erred in matters where ijtihad is impermissible, namely the questions of creed? Creed is strictly dependent on revelation and must stop where the texts stop. Yet the situation is exactly as Allah, Exalted is He, says: “We have certainly set forth for mankind in this Qur’an every kind of example; but if you bring them a sign, those who disbelieve will surely say, ‘You are nothing but falsifiers.’ Thus does Allah seal the hearts of those who do not know. So be patient; indeed, the promise of Allah is true. And let not those who lack certainty unsettle you.” 1

Alongside those immersed in blind imitation—whether in fundamentals or in subsidiary matters—there stands another group at the opposite extreme. They regard ijtihad as obligatory upon every individual, even one who is ignorant, unable to read the Qur’an, and devoid of any learning, and they declare unlawful…

1 Surah al-Rum 30:58–60.