EVERY BID'AH MUST BE REFUTED
By
Ibn Abdillah As-sudaisiy Al-Iloori
The glaring and incontrovertible acts of bid'ah that Ikhwaanul Muslimun do engage in must be refuted by people who are armed with its tools. No deviant group deserves to be pampered, defended or be spared of knowledge based refutation. Every innovation is misguidance. This is an elementary principle of Sunnah. It is wrong for anyone or group of people to defend anyone or any group upon their bid'ah. Those who defend ikhwaanees too must be refuted just like the ikhwaanees themselves by those who are qualified to do so. Refutation is part of the deen. Acts of bid'ah should be refuted in defence of the Deen. I support this wholeheartedly.
However, we have to call to the way of Allāh with wisdom and best of advice. The refutation should be knowledge based and must be sincerely done to guide those being refuted and clear the doubts of the common Muslims. Several of our scholars have done well in this regard. May Allāh bless them. If someone cannot refute in a way the desired result would be achieved, it is better to leave it for those who can do it properly. Giving da'wah with good presentation is a gift. It is not everyone that has it. Allāh gives it to anyone he likes.
Then, those who do it properly shouldn't be wrongly accused of tashaddud (extremism). If I cannot refute a group on its bid'ah because I am not adequately armed with required tools, then I should be able to support anyone who refutes them with the best of manner. If a scholar refutes another scholar, there ought not to be animosity at all if we would be sincere with ourselves. Sometimes, refutation is a form of advice that if well taken would uplift the status of the refutee. There ought not to be insinuation of insincerity on the part of the refuter. This is a way of following the words of Allāh in Suratuz Zumar:
(الَّذِينَ يَسْتَمِعُونَ الْقَوْلَ فَيَتَّبِعُونَ أَحْسَنَهُ ۚ أُولَٰئِكَ الَّذِينَ هَدَاهُمُ اللَّهُ ۖ وَأُولَٰئِكَ هُمْ أُولُو الْأَلْبَابِ)
Who listen to speech and follow the best of it. Those are the ones Allah has guided, and those are people of understanding. [Surat Az-Zumar 18]
The danger of doing refutation with insults is that it may divert the attention of unsuspecting listeners away from the truth. Let us just imagine a scenario where a person who is yet to understand Sunnah listens to an abusive refutation. He might run away from us. This is why we try to calm down some of us to leave this work for competent hands if we can't take necessary cautions.
Sometimes, you will open a post and find fellow salafi brothers insulting one another with foul and unprintable names that you may not even find among the people of bid'ah. It is we (fellow students) that would understand that we are upon the truth, a common Muslim with limited understanding would be distracted by our wrong presentations. He can see such thread and run away from us. The dangerous thing here is that he might be judging all salafis and even Salafiyyah with the wrong precedent he has seen.There are some utterances we read or hear these days that are unbecoming of someone who is upon Salafiyyah. Let us not treat the issue of good presentation with kids gloves. This is where we need to tell ourselves the bitter truth.
The truth ought to be presented properly for it to have far reaching impacts. This is what I have learnt over the years based on my profession. You would have mastered your case before getting to court and you have a good case, if your presentation is poor, it would not only affect your client, it will affect your own professional reputation. The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم alluded to this fact when he was talking about presentation of cases before him. He said:
إِنَّكُمْ تَخْتَصِمُونَ إِلَىَّ، وَلَعَلَّ بَعْضَكُمْ أَلْحَنُ بِحُجَّتِهِ مِنْ بَعْضٍ، فَمَنْ قَضَيْتُ لَهُ بِحَقِّ أَخِيهِ شَيْئًا بِقَوْلِهِ، فَإِنَّمَا أَقْطَعُ لَهُ قِطْعَةً مِنَ النَّارِ فَلاَ يَأْخُذْهَا
"You people present your cases to me and some of you may be more eloquent and persuasive in presenting their argument. So, if I give some one's right to another (wrongly) because of the latter's (tricky) presentation of the case, I am really giving him a piece of fire; so he should not take it." [Sahih al-Bukhari 2680]
However, bad presentation doesn't mean that the truth should be rejected. Whether the truth is presented well or not, it will still prevail because this is the promise of Allāh. But we may have to bear the burden of some of its many negative consequences. Ultimately, the truth must not suffer at any cost. So, it is really better to do refutation calmly with knowledge and wisdom. Anyone who loves the truth will follow it and be guided by Allah's leave.
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