Our noble Shaikh Rabee’ bin Haady al-Madkhaly was asked the following:

هل يُشترط في جرح أهل البدع إجماع أهل العصر، أم يكفي عالمٌ واحد فقط؟!!!!! .

هذه من القواعد المميعة الخبيثة – بارك الله فيكم- في أي عصر اشترطوا هذا الإجماع؟ وما الدليل علىهذا الشرط؟ كل شرطٍ ليس في كتاب الله فهو باطل، وإن كان مائة شرط

Is consensus of the scholars of (of any given) time a condition in the refutation/disparagement of the people of innovation, or is one scholar sufficient?

“This is from the malignant and lenient/soft principles – may Allah bless you – in which time did they make this consensus a condition!? And what is the evidence for this condition? Every condition that is not in the Book of Allah then it is false, even if it were 100 conditions….”

Consider therefore the claim of those who accept refutations upon certain individuals and have no reluctance in declaring them innovators due to the presence of a “consensus” (as they claim) and reject refutations upon other individuals and have an extreme reluctance in accepting, namely al-Ma’riby, al-Maghrawy, al-Halaby etc due the lack of “consensus”….

…or the statement “it is not a must that I accept that such and such is an innovator” is employed.

The question then arises….to what extent will this statement be employed? 2 possible answers;

1 – The employment of it to every single individual the scholars have ever declared to be an innovator therefore dictating that in the opinion of the one who takes this position he does not consider there are any innovators at all….they simply have errors that can be refuted but they are not outside of the fold of ahlul-sunnah wal jama’at. A statement that is clearly rejected and no-one will accept…

2 – The employment of it to some individuals (therefore not accepting them to be innovators) but not others, hence accepting that certain individuals are innovators. The one who takes this opinion must then have some principle based upon which he accepts refutations upon certain individuals but rejects it upon others employing this statement…so what is the distinguishing principle? What allows these individuals to accept refutations upon some and reject it upon others with the statement “it is not a must that i accept that such and such is an innovator”?

For instance if such a person was asked regarding Sayed Qutb, then he would have no hesitation in declaring him an innovator, however if  Halaby or Ma’riby is mentioned to the same individual, then suddenly the affair for reasons unkown becomes extremely complicated upon him[!].

Perhaps the response provided is:

– Because I have read and am convinced with certain refutations but am not convinced with others; the response to it is the statement of Shaikh Zaid we mentioned previously.

– Because I believe they do have errors that I will warn the people from but will not refute the individuals in clarifying that they are innovators as declared by the scholars; the response is what we previously mentioned in perforation no.5.

– Because so “many scholars” have refuted Qutb, whereas the affair of Halaby or Ma’riby is not like that…subhaanAllah, what nonsense and deception to refrain from accepting the truth, such so called graduates should be informed the truth is accepted due to the evidence not the numbers or the “concensus”-type ideology[!].

We ask Allah to make us firm upon the methodology of the salaf and to distance us from following desires.