The only reason I ask due to narration of Ibn Sirīn. He knew of them to be people of desires and refused to listen from them and his response was that he feared their distorting of it would settle in his heart. Could that not be the case with debates, if the heretics present their evidences it may settle/influence the sunni scholar or even those in attendance causing them to possibly to turn back on their beliefs. Allāh Knows Best
in fact, if A is our scholar and X is another scholar. one line "debate of A vs X" is enough for anyone to keep away from X even if they didn't attend or watch or learn about the debate itself. if X is against A - then keep away from X. that is the power of association.
'sitting' is not absolute. it means 'socialising' or 'hanging around' - because one could go astray because of the company, or the onlooker may be misled into believing that there is no real difference between the two, and thus adopt other ideas. in debates, it is clear at the outset that you are sitting AGAINST the person, not with him or alongside him.
Asalam alaikum Shaykh, Would this then be applicable to debates which happen in person? Jazakallah Khair
SubHaan Allah A much needed post. Allah bless you Shaykh for speaking Haq. Allah allow us to follow the path of our pious predecessors. Budmazhabo se Rishte is also a great book to consult on this topic by Mufti Jalaludeen Amjadi Alayhir rahma
in the narrations below: "tujalis'hum" is translated as 'don't sit with them' for brevity, though the tense is: "don't let them/allow them to sit with you'. as we saw the narration of ibn sirin, where he told the heretics who came to his gathering: "either you leave or i do." the way of our salaf was: if a heretic comes to sit with you, don't allow him to do so; because one should fear putting one's own faith in peril. you can imagine what our elders would say if you went to their gatherings! nas'alu Allah al-aafiyah.
another issue is that sometimes we are fooled into thinking that the heretic is listening to us and we may have influence over them. these is a ruse they use to trap us. in al-iytisam, 1/213 imam ayyub said: "there was a man who held a [deviant] belief and he then retracted from it. i came to muhammad and i was pleased with this and i told him: "did you know that so-and-so has abandoned a [heretical] belief which he used to profess?" he told me: look at where he turns to. because the next portion of the hadith: "they will go out of religion...and they will not return". --- so we must be cautious about known heretics, when they say that they have abandoned their heretical ideas. they should be tested for a time before one can promote them.
I spoke to a scholar from Pakistan recently and he said, 'the UK is strong breeding ground for sulh kullism. The attitudes of people here make it an attractive prospect.' --- This post of Shaykh Abu Hasan is one of the most important made for a long time and must be shared.
a brother asked on twitter whether it is permitted to listen to qur'an recited by mubtadiy reciters. this is unfortunately a disease that is becoming prevalent and some people, even ulama among them who should know better have thrown caution to the winds and freely socialise with people of shady aqidah. a well-known sunni speaker has nowadays no hesitation to go anywhere and sit with anyone - mubtadiy or their sympathisers. a brother shared a screenshot of a post on SM by someone [supposedly a student of sh.asrar] claiming it is "a term came around 200 yrs ago and never existed prior." ignorance coupled with arrogance gives such confidence. poor fellow should have checked with sh.asrar and he would have probably told him that it was invented 400 years ago by a brilliant scholar with versatile talent. unfortunately, he preferred this world and decided to make peace with everyone including hindus and even invented a new religion, using the clout of an illiterate but a powerful king. abu'l fazl and akbar are dead. their "din-e-shaytani" also didn't survive. but unfortunately, the idea of 'sulh e kull' - to make peace with everyone keeps surfacing now and then in various forms. whether sir-syed, or the nadwah, or the amman message or the exhortation of new-age maulvis to "unite". some people may respect a contemporary scholar samir al-nass, but after watching a few clips of his, i feel he has no clue about the strictness of our salaf concerning mubtadiys. these so-called ash'aris would probably term imam abu'l hasan himself as an 'extremist' because even on his death bed, he was refuting the mubtadiys. and refute we will in sha'Allah, until our last breath. ولا يخافون لومة لائم ---- sub'HanAllah! anyone who is familiar with the lives of our salaf will not be confused about meeting with heretics, or those inclined towards heretics. i encourage young ulama (or old ulama) to read about our salaf and their choices - to understand how much they feared for faith and how cautious they were with heretics. sunan darimi, #411 asma'a ibn ubayd said: two men who were heretics came to ibn sirin and they said to him: "o abu bakr, shall we discuss something with you" he replied: "no" they said: "then, shall we recite a quranic verse from the Book of Allah?" he replied: "no. either you both go away from here, or i will leave" he [narrator] said: so both of them left. someone in the gathering said: "o abu bakr, what harm would befall you if they just recited one qur'anic verse from the Book of Allah?" he replied: "i feared that they would recite a verse and would divert [either by recitation or by meaning] and that would take place in my heart". sub'HanAllah! this is imam muhammad ibn sirin, among the greatest of the tabiyis! yet, young scholars are so confident that they mingle with heretics [or their sympathisers] without hesitation, sit in their gatherings, and parley with them! some even justify that they are not heretics, even though those alleged to be heretics openly profess such condemnable beliefs! inna lillahi wa inna raji'un. ------ reported by both imam hasan al-basri and imam muhammad ibn sirin that they both said: "do not sit with heretics, nor argue with them, nor listen to them." our salaf kept themselves far from heretics / people of their own desire [as'hab al-ahwa] and advised us to stay away from them. so you can either listen to them or blindly follow samir alnass and go pray in deobandi/wahabi mosques. ---- a heretic asked ayyub [al-sakhtiyani]: "o abu bakr, i want to ask you one thing" he turned away from him and gesturing with his [little] finger, "not even half a word" sayid showed us the gesture by placing on his little finger yet, modern day maulvis are confident of sitting in hours of gatherings where heretics and their sympathisers are speakers! abu bakr ayyub al-sakhtiyani said: sayid ibn jubayr [once] saw me sitting with Talq ibn Habib and he said to me: "did i not see you sitting with Talq ibn Habib? don't sit with him" because Talq was a heretic. and imam abu bakr al-sakhtiyani is known as sayyidu'l ulama! again from imam ayyub: ayyub said: abu qilabah said: do not sit with heretics, nor argue with them. indeed i do not feel that you will be safe from them: they may drag you into their heresies or confuse you about what you already know. ----- in al-i'ytiSam of al-Shatibi is a saying attributed to imam sufyan al-thawri concerning those who mingle with heretics. 1/224. sufyan al-thawri said: whoever sits [or socialises] with a heretic will not be safe from one of the three things: 1. he will cause others to be tempted [will cause others to be instigated or become heretics] 2. or something from [the heresy of his companion] will catch hold in heart and will cause him to slip and will go in fire [because of this] 3. or he will say: "i do not care what they say about me. indeed i am confident about myself - i trust myself [i.e. i cannot go astray] whosoever feels safe from [Wrath / Divine Plan] of Allah in his religion, for a period as short as a blinking of an eye, it [religion] will be taken away from him. when a common man sees a scholar hanging out and exuding bonhomie with people who are not either sunni, or people who are sulh-kulli, or people who don't care about sunniyat at all, the common man thinks that it is ok to listen to them, to sit with them, to be a part of their circle. who is responsible if the common man then adapts the heresies of those people? iytisam, 1/224 in the hadith: "a man is upon the religion of his friends. let him look [take care] at whom he befriends" nas'alu Allah al-aafiyah.
