newly introduced innovations. Every person who wished to advance a doctrinal position found companions and followers for it, and imagined that he had tasted the sweetness of the sunnah and the community because his innovation had found a ready market. But no—matters are not as he imagined or as occurred to his mind. For the People of the Sunnah do not forsake their path of adherence, even if they are sawn apart; nor are they deterred from opposing anyone by deceptive, embellished speech or false analogies.

The Consequences of Debating the Innovators

No injury has been inflicted upon the Muslims greater than debating the innovators. Nor was there any subjugation or humiliation greater for them than the condition in which the Salaf left them: dying of rage, consumed by grief, and grinding their teeth away, while finding no means to openly display their innovation. Then the self-deceived came and opened for them a way to it, becoming guides for them toward the ruin of Islam. Thus disputation among them became widespread, their call emerged through debate, and it reached the ears of both learned and common people who had not previously known of it. Specious arguments then confronted one another as proofs, and they delved deeply into abstruse intricacies. Consequently, they became peers and close companions, intimate friends and brothers in mutual compromise, after having been enemies and opponents for the sake of Allah, and allies in shunning one another for His sake—declaring one another disbelievers openly to their faces and cursing one another publicly. How vast is the difference between these two conditions, and how far apart are these two stations.

We ask Allah to preserve us from tribulation in our religion, to make us hold fast to Islam and the sunnah, and, by His grace and mercy, to protect us through them.