the Book and the Sunnah—in the name of the Book and the Sunnah and the obligation to refer back to them. For he has devoted a chapter to this, and another to innovation, its condemnation, and the general applicability of that condemnation. Thus, anyone who has not carefully followed his words and the statements of scholars that he cites in support of the impossibility he maintains might imagine that he is a Salafi or an Athari—as he claims to be—through and through! Yet the reality to which his book attests is that he is a latter-day Mu'tazilite, one of the people of deviant desires. Added to this is his ignorance of the Sunnah and hadiths, together with his extreme weakness in the Arabic language and its literary conventions, to the point that he seems almost like an uneducated commoner. Despite this, he is conceited about his learning and impressed with himself. He has no regard for the leading scholars of the Salaf who held views contrary to his title, such as Imam Ahmad, Ibn Taymiyyah, Ibn al-Qayyim, al-Tabari, Ibn Kathir, al-Qurtubi, Imam al-Shawkani, and Siddiq Hasan Khan al-Qanuji; rather, he accuses them of blind imitation! It is like the saying: “She accused me of her own ailment, then slipped away.” This has confirmed to me that we are living in an age in which some of the signs of the Hour have become manifest, among them the Prophet’s saying: “And the Ruwaybidah will speak.” It was asked, “Who is the Ruwaybidah?” He said: “An insignificant man who speaks on matters of public concern.” (1)

Similar is the statement of Umar (may Allah be pleased with him): “Religion is corrupted when knowledge comes from the young, for the elder finds it difficult to accept; and people are set right when knowledge comes from the elder, for the young follow him in it.” (2) How numerous are these “youngsters” who speak about the affairs of the Muslims in profound ignorance! It was not long ago that another Egyptian authored a work declaring the niqab forbidden for Muslim women, and a third, a Jordanian, authored a work declaring weak the Prophet’s saying: “Hold fast to my Sunnah and the sunnah of the caliphs