Misconceptions and Their Replies
That is what I wrote ten years ago in the introduction to this book, and during this interval (*) it has become clear to us that it has borne good fruit among believing youth, guiding them to the necessity of returning, in their religion and worship, to the pure source of Islam: the Book and the Sunnah. Praise be to Allah, the number of those who act on the Sunnah and worship in accordance with it has increased among them until they have become known for it. Yet I have noticed in some of them a hesitation to press forward in practicing it—not because they doubt its obligation, after the verses and reports from the Imams that we have already cited commanding a return to it, but because of certain misgivings they hear from some blindly-following shaykhs. I have therefore decided to set out those objections and refute them, hoping that such individuals will then be motivated to practice the Sunnah alongside those who already do so, and thus belong—by Allah’s permission—to the saved group.
- One of them said:
“There is no doubt that returning to the guidance of our Prophet ﷺ in the affairs of our religion is obligatory, especially in matters that are purely devotional and allow no scope for opinion or independent reasoning, for they are fixed by revelation—such as the prayer, for example. Yet we hardly ever hear any of the conformist shaykhs enjoining this; instead, we find them sanctioning disagreement and claiming that it brings ease to the ummah. They cite in support of this a hadith they frequently repeat on such occasions in rebuttal of the advocates of the Sunnah: ‘The differences within my ummah are a mercy.’
“It would therefore seem that this hadith contradicts the method you are calling for and upon which you have written this and other books. What is your view regarding this hadith?”