What can one say of such an obstinate man, who denies well-established scholarly facts acknowledged by the most eminent scholars, as mentioned above? Nothing but to recite: “For indeed, it is not the eyes that are blind, but rather the hearts within the breasts that are blind.” And to recall the Prophet’s saying, peace and blessings be upon him, in the hadith of Mu‘awiyah—may Allah be pleased with him—regarding the division of the Ummah:

“There will emerge among my Ummah people through whom vain desires will course as rabies courses through its victim; no vein or joint will remain without its entering it.” Sahih al-Targhib (1/97/48). We ask Allah for safety and well-being.

Following in the footsteps of this denier is the Moroccan shaykh, ‘Abd Allah al-Ghumari, who—like al-Kawthari—is known for his intense hostility toward the sunnah and its adherents. He even surpasses him in that he is a shaykh of the Darqawi order and claims to be the renewer of the present age. In his annotations to al-Tamhid (7/135), he rejected the hadith in Muslim, alleging that the Prophet’s words in it, “Where is Allah?” and the slave-girl’s response, “In heaven,” were an alteration made by the narrators. In doing so, he disregarded the authentication of this hadith by those hadith masters, the corroborating reports that confirm its authenticity, and the possibility of reconciling it with certain wordings which, he alleges, contradict it—although it is more authentic than they are, as stated above. How deserving, then, are he, his predecessor al-Kawthari, and others like them—who reject authentic hadiths accepted by the Ummah, such as the contemporary al-Ghazali—of the warning in Allah’s saying: “Whoever opposes the Messenger after guidance has become clear to him, and follows a path other than that of the believers, We will leave him to what he has chosen and drive him into Hell—what an evil destination!” [al-Nisaʾ/15].

Then, after accusing the transmitters of the more authentic wording of error and of transmitting it according to its meaning, this denier plunged still deeper into misguidance, saying:

“This is supported by the fact that it is mass-transmitted from the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, that he would test a person’s Islam by asking him about the two testimonies of faith, which are the foundation and proof of Islam.”