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This content has been automatically translated. View original in Arabic
Peace be upon you, dear ones. There is no doubt that the horrors happening in Gaza squeeze every living heart, especially when combined with the pain of oppression from the oppressive abandonment, and even the shameful conspiracy for more than 20 months. To the point where one of us thirsts for anything that can heal our anger from these criminals who subject our brothers to severe torment.
And there is no doubt that we do not want the Zionist project and those who support it to feel the euphoria of victory, and they remain striking and rampaging without finding anyone to deter them. Therefore, we rejoice with all severity and pain that befalls the enemies of Allah, so that they may taste from the cup they pour for the Muslims.
This pain, oppression, and thirst for healing may cause some of us to lose balance, so we need to remind each other of the truth and remembrance, for remembrance benefits the believers.
Brother Abdullah Al-Sharif came out with an episode titled "O Allah, Support the Enemies of the Religion," summarizing that Iran is not as it was thought, that some scholars have slandered and defamed it, and that it seems to be the intended meaning of Allah's saying: {And if you turn away, He will replace you with another people; then they will not be like you} [Quran 38: Muhammad]. Meaning that Iran will be the alternative to us, the Arab Muslims.
And that the hadith of the Prophet (peace be upon him) applies to the men of Iran: "If faith were in the Pleiades, the men of Persia would have taken it." And that they are better than us, the Sunnis who claim to be the saved sect, and better than our scholars who do not wear the camouflaged uniform, i.e., the military fatigues, nor do they call for war against the Zionists and their allies.
Of course, before commenting, it is necessary to clarify some matters:
First: I would not have liked to respond to Abdullah Al-Sharif, as he has good stances and shows sincere zeal for the religion and the Muslims in his speech. However, this episode of his indeed contains significant errors, so clarification is necessary. We have delayed the response hoping that he would retract, but that did not happen. It has happened more than once that Brother Abdullah Al-Sharif comes out and retracts from mistakes he has made, and we ask Allah to enlighten his heart with the truth this time as well. He also personally requested in the mentioned episode that someone respond to him and clarify if there was any error in his speech.
Second: It is expected that a group of people will say: "You are busy responding while the people of Gaza are starving, being killed, and besieged..." The problem is that these brothers only play this record when something is said that contradicts their whims, whereas if something is said that agrees with their whims, they applaud it, spread it, and it becomes the clear truth. The confusion of concepts, my brothers, is one of the most important reasons for the continuation of our weakness. May Allah guide these brothers or leave us to clarify what we see as the truth.
Third: It is necessary to know the goal of this speech before delving into the details. The most important goal, my brothers, the most important goal is to combat normalization with corrupt ideologies, which begins with praising the Rafidi project represented by Iran. This matter, which we fear that Abdullah Al-Sharif's episode is approaching, after the brother had previously made commendable efforts to disassociate himself from this project and its ideological and bloody corruption against Muslims.
And once again, the one who will come to us and say: "Why do you not speak about normalization with Israel and those who support it from the Arab governments before you combat normalization with corrupt ideologies?" We say: "Spirit, my son, read what we publish and follow it over the past 18 years on social media platforms, as well as what we have published since the beginning of the current war. Look at what we have been subjected to, I and others who clarify in this regard for the sake of speaking the truth and denouncing evil, and that is made light for us in the sake of Allah. So look, may Allah guide you, before criticizing just for the sake of criticizing."
What does normalization with corrupt ideologies mean, my brothers? It means that what is happening now is that gradually, a generation will emerge that will tell you: "Iran and those you call Rafidis, Iran and those you call Rafidis are better than us, the Sunnis." My son, these people have partnerships and excommunicate the companions, curse Abu Bakr and Umar, insult the mothers of the believers Aisha and Hafsa, may Allah be pleased with them all. "It's okay, I differ with them in that, but I admire their jihad and their support for the Palestinian cause, and they are better than us."
Gradually, the partnerships, the cursing of the companions, and the excommunication of the companions become secondary errors, as if we are talking about a controversial issue or minor sins and evils. Abu Bakr, the friend of the Prophet (peace be upon him), the greatest role model for Muslims after the Messenger of Allah, who protected Islam from the appearance of apostasy. Al-Farooq Umar, a symbol of justice and strength in truth. Aisha, the daughter of Abu Bakr, purified from above the seven heavens, our mother the mother of the believers, the most beloved to the Prophet and a narrator of many of his hadiths. And our mother Hafsa, the daughter of Umar, may Allah be pleased with her.
These great role models, their cursing, insulting, and excommunication become a viewpoint with which we do not agree, but it does not cancel out our admiration and love for their enemies and those who insult them. You are not yet aware of the danger of this matter because you honor the companions and the mothers of the believers and cannot imagine that such matters will become a subject of discussion. However, with the fluidity of ideology, ignorance of the foundations of religion, and the overwhelming emotional pressure, generations are affected more than you imagine. Therefore, the Prophet (peace be upon him) said: "The strongest bonds of faith are love for the sake of Allah, hatred for the sake of Allah, allegiance for the sake of Allah, and enmity for the sake of Allah." Unrestrained love and admiration for deviants gradually imprint their beliefs on you.
The second goal of this speech is to warn Brother Abdullah Al-Sharif and those who follow him about the consequences of this tone that appeared in his episode, which casts doubt on the scholars of Ahl al-Sunnah in general, causing people to lose trust in scholars collectively and individually without distinction, and putting them in a state of confusion and doubt in everything they have heard from established truths, adding nothing but weakness and confusion to the Muslims.
And also warning against self-flagellation, which his episode represented, so that we, the people of Sunnah, feel that we are the worst people, worthless, that we have not presented anything nor do we have heroic models, so we applaud anyone who appears because everyone is better than us, and we carry the burdens of the oppressors on our necks, increasing our loss and loss of identity, and completely erasing our sense of the goodness of the nation of Muhammad (peace be upon him).
These were the necessary preliminaries. After that, we will enter into Brother Abdullah Al-Sharif's episode to see where exactly the mistake occurred, hoping that we can contribute to correcting the concepts.
The first issue is the way the brother dealt with the verse and hadith upon which he based his episode, and his application of them to the rulers of Iran to make them eligible for the hadith of the people whom Allah will replace us with if we take over. He also mentioned that they consume faith even if it were in the Pleiades, and that they are the intended companions of Sahlan the Persian, may Allah be pleased with him, in the hadith.
Our brother says, "We used to hear that the Shia insult the companions and the mothers of the believers and say that the Quran is tampered with. Among them, there are criminals like this, but not all of them, just as you understand, and just as we have people who worship graves, it is not right to say that all of Ahl al-Sunnah are like this. Similarly, not all Shia are like this."
Before responding to this point, it is necessary to remind that Iran is not entirely Shia. There are millions of oppressed Sunni people there, and there are numbers of those who turned to secularism, disgusted by the system of the mullahs and its reliance on spreading blind hatred. There are also numbers of simple Shia people whom we hope the call of truth reaches, and they can be influenced by it if the barriers between them and it are removed.
However, O Abdullah al-Sharif, those whom you praise from those who took the decision to respond to Israel are none of the aforementioned categories. They are not sellers of cakes and vegetables or taxi drivers in Iran for you to say, "Not all of them are like this." Brother, the decision-makers in Iran are the mullahs, the army leaders, and the Revolutionary Guards. They are the officials of Iran who fought the Sunni people in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and Afghanistan, and even in Ahvaz within Iran. They have demolished many of their mosques and executed many of their scholars, and this has extended in Iraq, for example, for more than 25 years.
Those whom you praise are those who aided Bashar and his army in violating the sanctity of Muslims in Syria, torturing them, imprisoning them, and crushing them with human presses, and forcing them to say, "There is no god but Bashar." The one whose picture you put on the cover of your episode is Khamenei, the head of this system that is clearly hostile to the Sunni people. Can these people be like Sahlan the Persian, may Allah be pleased with him? Can they be among those whom the Prophet described as saying, "If faith were in the Pleiades, men from Persia would attain it?"
Moreover, brother, you are fighting generalization and saying that it is not right to say, "All of them are like this," then you go on throughout the episode saying, "We, Ahl al-Sunnah, prevented our sisters in Gaza from entering our lands. We, Ahl al-Sunnah, have betrayed our brothers. We, we." You generalize every crime committed by the Sunni people and their followers, and you generalize it to Ahl al-Sunnah. Why do you err in generalization regarding Iran while we do not generalize but talk about the actions of those who are most hostile to the Sunni people, while with Ahl al-Sunnah you generalize the actions of the greatest criminals who have no relation to the Sunni people, and you generalize them to Ahl al-Sunnah?
So, what is the meaning of the hadith that Abdullah al-Sharif cited? The hadith, by the way, is narrated by Abu Huraira, may Allah be pleased with him, Abu Huraira whom the Shia attack, insult, and lie about. According to the Shia doctrine, this hadith is not authentic. However, the hadith indeed has a sound narration from Abu Huraira, may Allah be pleased with him, who said, "We were sitting with the Prophet, peace be upon him, when the Surah of Jumu'ah was revealed to him. When he read {And others among them who have not yet joined them} [Al-Jumu'ah: 3], a man said, 'Who are these, O Messenger of Allah?' The Prophet, peace be upon him, did not respond to him, meaning he did not answer him until he asked him once or twice or three times. He said, 'Among us is Sahlan the Persian.' The Prophet, peace be upon him, placed his hand on Sahlan and said, 'If faith were with the Pleiades, men from these people would attain it.' Meaning from the people of Sahlan."
First, note that the verse says, {And others among them who have not yet joined them}, meaning they join the companions in faith and following, not insulting them, disbelieving in them, and cursing them. Abu al-Abbas al-Qurtubi said in the interpretation of the verse, "The best thing said about them is that they are the sons of Persia, as evidenced by the text of this hadith. The interpretations of the interpreters about this have increased, and it has become clear to the eye, for the religion has appeared among them, and the scholars have increased among them. Their existence was like this as evidence of the evidence of the truthfulness of the Prophet, peace be upon him."
Ibn Taymiyyah also said in the explanation of the hadith, "The fulfillment of this is what was found in the followers and those after them from the free and the clients of Persia, such as Al-Hasan, Ibn Sirin, and 'Ikrimah, the client of Ibn 'Abbas, and others, to those who were found after them from the prominent ones in faith, religion, and knowledge until these prominent ones became better than most of the Arabs."
The meaning of the hadith is that Islam will spread among the Muslim Persians, and knowledge will increase among them in all its forms. In the hadith, for example, Al-Bukhari, Muslim, and the compilers of the Sunan, Abu Dawud, Al-Tirmidhi, Al-Nasa'i, and Ibn Majah, are all from non-Arab origins, specifically from the region of Iran and Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. The region of Iran was controlled by the Shia in the Safavid era in 907 AH, meaning 900 years ago, and the Sunni people were the majority there.
You go, O Abdullah al-Sharif, may Allah guide you, leave all this period and all the scholars who it is right to apply the hadith to them, and you bring the hadith down to those who opposed all these scholars and fought the true religion that the Muslim Persians carried throughout the centuries. Do you not see that applying the hadith to the Shia of Iran is exactly like naming those who oppress the people of Gaza "the best troops on earth," and naming the troops of the infidel Bashar, the usurpers of freedoms, "troops in Sham," referring to the hadith of the Prophet, peace be upon him, in praising the troops of Sham.
This method of cutting the hadith from its context and coming out with an interpretation and application that no one from the scholars of the nation, past or present, has said, and saying that I will use my mind and that has nothing to do with using the mind. Do you not see that this resembles what people like Shahrur and al-Kayali do? And I am afraid for you to be like them. Is it knowledge to bring down a verse and a hadith on transient political events like this without rules or contemplation? And it opens the door for everyone who wants to interpret as he wishes.
A second stop with the episode of Abdullah Al-Sharif. Our brother is flogging Sunni scholars, none of whom are wearing camouflage like military fatigues, and none of whom are inciting the masses to jihad. By Allah, Sunni scholars come out with their hands raised calling for jihad and leading the masses to war against the Zionists, but they do not do this thing out of a desire to remain in the pot and the pressure?
Meaning, you, Abdullah Al-Sharif, are not living with us on the same planet and seeing how there are thousands of Sunni scholars who have been arrested simply because one of them denied the establishment of a party in the holiest land of Allah, or because he merely demanded the cessation of some evils. The crux of the problem is that the scholars are not wearing fatigues and declaring jihad? As if they were to do something like that or prepare for it, it would be available to them and they would not be thrown into prisons.
Then why does my brother come in his episode with the worst examples as representatives of Sunni scholars? Is this not striking an emotional chord in an unobjective way? There are scholars of the sultans, yes, who use religious texts with distortion to subjugate people to their masters who help in the slaughter of Gaza from vein to vein. We are innocent of them, for Allah the Almighty has said: {Indeed, those who conceal what We sent down of clear proofs and guidance after We made it clear for the people in the Book - those are cursed by Allah and cursed by those who curse} [Al-Baqarah: 159].
But are all scholars like this? Is it not Iran itself that has overseen the elimination of trustworthy scholars in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Khuzestan? Are you going to blame the scholars for not being brave like Iran, which has arrested and killed them? The scholars and students of knowledge whose cause you yourself, Abdullah Al-Sharif, and the imprisoned by the thousands are among the most vocal about the deviation of Shiite Iran. They had honorable stances, great efforts, and much good spread, then they were arrested, and those who knew them for a time mourned them, then forgot them except for those whom Allah has mercy upon.
And yet, whenever a foreigner takes a stance in support of Gaza and Iran does not fire a missile, the shouters cry out: "Where are you, O Sunni scholars?" Many Sunni scholars are refugees outside their countries and can speak; they have issued numerous fatwas on the obligation of jihad and supporting the people of Gaza, and some of them are in their own countries. What happened after that? Did the masses move? Is the problem really that they make the ruling clear to the people?
The statement known as "The Statement of the Flood Scholars" called for dozens of scholars and preachers to mobilize in a clear and explicit manner. What happened after that? Did the masses move? And he who wants them to move, can he actually mobilize? The nation has scholars and preachers who are burning with what is happening in Gaza, supporting it within their means, reviving its cause in the hearts, reminding people of their duty towards it, refuting the falsehoods of those who drum for their masters, and trying to build a generation that will raise the humiliation from this nation.
And yet, you see some people saying to them: "Where are you, O scholars? Why do you not declare that so-and-so is an agent and so-and-so is a traitor? Come on, speak up, why are you afraid?" Then if he speaks, he is imprisoned, and the doors of good that were standing on him turn black, and these inciters weep for him and spread the hashtag "We are all so-and-so" "Freedom for so-and-so" for two or three days, not more, then they forget his affair and go to another scholar or preacher to say to him: "Where are you? Why do you not declare? Are you afraid, a coward?" And if he is imprisoned, they weep for him and move on to another. And thus, the atmosphere is left to the ignorant and the foolish. Attacking Sunni scholars in general means causing people to lose trust in all scholars, indeed, in everything they have heard from them, even from the sound religious rulings, then leaving people without a dam for this void, and the result is more loss and ideological fluidity.
A third stop with the episode of Abdullah Al-Sharif, that he speaks about the stances of the leaders as if they represent the Sunni peoples, and this is indeed a great and reprehensible confusion. He compares what he calls "Sunni countries" with Iran to say to you: "The Shiites are better than us, the Sunni countries." This speech equates the oppressed, subjugated Muslim peoples with those who are oppressing them.
Where are the countries that rule by the Sunnah, O Abdullah Al-Sharif? Or where are the countries that do not fight the Sunnah and its people? Have you forgotten, brother, the fact that Muslims are in large prisons, and their torturers prevent them from supporting each other? Have you forgotten that among the people of the Sunnah there are tens of thousands of noble men who are crowded in prisons, and who have honorable and praiseworthy stances, and even those who are now in Gaza defending the criminals? Are they not from the people of the Sunnah?
We have Sunni peoples, but the evil forces of the world are ready to fight with all ferocity to prevent the establishment of a state that rules by the Book and the Sunnah. So, no, brother, do not flog yourself and burden the Muslims with the guilt of their torturers. Indeed, the people of the Sunnah have tried or thought of trying, tried to support their people in Gaza, and their fate was life imprisonment or close to it, and they remain far from their children, wives, and loved ones, and few inquire about these families.
Among the people of the Sunnah are those who have been dismissed from their jobs, tortured, and crushed in the stomach for their stance on Gaza. Indeed, the people of the Sunnah in Iraq are still being executed by the hundreds, and there are thousands of them on the waiting list for execution amidst a shameful and oppressive media silence, and their scholars and preachers in Yemen are being hunted one after another, and the credit for that goes to Iran, which you prefer over us, may Allah guide you. Then you come to blame the people of the Sunnah for their weakness, which Iran is undoubtedly one of the causes of. There is a great shortcoming from many Muslims who deserve to be flogged and rebuked for it, but do not generalize, but remember the hadith of the Prophet, peace be upon him: "Whoever says the people are doomed, he is the one who dooms them."
Of course, in all my previous speech, my brothers, I did not discuss the fact that Iran did not stand with Gaza in a stance of ideological support. If it were support based on ideology, it would not have fought the Sunnah and its people in other countries and still does. Rather, it is a matter of interests, and one of the clearest indications of that is that our brothers in Gaza have been ground down for 20 months, and Iran has not delivered painful blows to their killers except when it was invaded in its own backyard, and it did not dare to strike American interests except with prior notice more than once, as Trump has stated more than once, while with the people of the Sunnah, there is killing and torture without relenting.
Then, at the end of this current battle, there is a truce in which Gaza has no share, and nothing was stipulated in the truce in favor of Gaza. It is therefore fitting for the Muslims to seek their path away from the attachment to the illusions of other projects.
In conclusion, I ask Allah the Almighty to open the chest of our brother Abdullah Al-Sharif so that his stance may be corrected and what he publishes in the upcoming episodes may be regulated, and that He may prepare for us, the people of the Sunnah, righteousness in our affairs and employ us in the honor of His religion and the support of one another, and that He may guide those in whose hearts there is good from the Shiites and from all sects and from all the people of religions, and that He may employ us in guiding them and guiding them. And peace be upon you all, and the mercy of Allah and His blessings.