A Teaser from ‘al-Hadd al-Faasil’

And then to give you a small sample of the reply of Shaikh Rabee’ in ‘al-Hadd al-Faasil’ to the four pages that have become the debris that the drowning Qutubi reaches for, we leave you with the following:

All the points below are derived from ‘Al-Hadd al-Fasil bain al-Haqq wal-Batil’ (1^st edition):

1. The Shaikh speaks directly to Shaikh Bakr Abu Zaid informing him that the four page letter that he had written dated 20/1/1414H had actually been received by him on 14/9/1414H, which is seven months and twenty-four days after it had been written. And also that he had not received it directly from the Shaikh himself, but through the biased partisans, the Qutubis and their brothers from amongst the straying Innovators. (p.3)

2. The Shaikh states that it is an extremely sad story that the likes of Shaikh Bakr who had aided the Sunnah and had waged Jihad against the Innovators with his works, and who had aforetime refuted the likes of Abu Ghuddah and as-Saboonee, has now come out to defend the Innovators with his writings, the first of which was his book ‘Laa Jadeed fis-Salaat’, and then ‘Tasneef un-Naas’ and then finally this little letter of his, which was worse than what came before it. (p.4-5)

3. The Shaikh said, that he refrained from refuting Shaikh Bakr due to these writings of his, despite the fact that he was requested by some of the Mashayikh to do so – and instead he told them that Shaikh Bakr is our brother and is from amongst us and that they ought to have patience. He also explains that he had scolded Shaikh Bakr in the Shaikh’s own study in Taif who subsequently said that he did not actually intend this or that with his writings (i.e. the first two works mentioned above) and that he promised that he will soon issue a clarification that those whom he intended by his writings were not from Ahl us-Sunnah. But, as Shaikh Rabee’ notes, he did not fulfil his promise, despite his knowledge that the mischief-makers amongst the biased-partisans and Qutubis, the helpers of the people of Innovation were using his works to attack Ahl us-Sunnah. (p.6)

4. The Shaikh then notes that Shaikh Bakr’s four page letter completely lack any knowledge and any display of the mannerisms of the Scholars when they reply on a firm knowledge-based basis. And secondly, that Shaikh Bakr had depended merely upon generalisations and absolutions, without going into any detail, or actually quoting any of the contested texts from Sayyid Qutb. (p.7)

5. Then the Shaikh mentions that he did not wish to write his current work in refutation of Shaikh Bakr, and due to this he actually phoned up Shaikh Bakr and asked him about this letter of his, whether he had written it or whether someone else had written them. And that if he had written them, then he ought to apologise and if it was someone else, then he ought to free himself from it publicly. The Shaikh said he granted Shaikh Bakr two weeks to respond to this request. After this, a number of the people of knowledge got in touch with Shaikh Bakr in order to encourage him to recant, and amongst them Shaikh Salih al-Fawzan, Shaikh Zaid Muhammad Haadee, and Shaikh Ali Hasan. When all of this failed and when the evil effects of the writings of Shaikh Bakr had become apparent – from that which was witnessed in the Saudi Kingdom, Kuwait, the Emirates, Qatar, Algeria and elsewhere – and after the Shaikh’s time was taken upon in phone calls from everywhere, he saw that it was necessary to refute this letter and to make the truth manifest. (p.8)

6. The Shaikh mentions that he sent his book ‘Adwaa Islaamiyyah ‘alaa ‘Aqidah Sayyid Qutb wa Fikrihi’ to numerous people of knowledge, amongst them Shaikh ‘Abdul-Aziz bin Baz, Shaikh Ibn Uthaimeen, Shaikh Salih al-Fawzan, Shaikh al-Albani, Shaikh ‘Abdul-Muhsin al-‘Abbad amongst numerous others – including Shaikh Bakr himself. He did this with the hope that they might pick out any errors and offer their advice, because of the reason that all of the sons of Aadam err, and it may have been possible for him to have fallen into error on some matters. The result of all of that was that where was very strong support from numerous scholars for his work and that every Salafi rejoiced with the book.(p.11-12)