Table of Contents
Note that this harshness is contextual and has its place and is not to be understood as a blanket approach to all of those who are not upon the way of the Salaf. We must distinguish between the ignorant, the common-folk and the learned callers to innovation. Likewise, between those who are silent with their innovation, not calling to it, and those who are open and vocal.
In a like manner, gentleness—though it is a foundation in calling to Allāh—is also contextual and has its place. Thus, gentlenes is not appropriate in all situations and similarly, harshness is not appropriate in all situations, each has its place. What governs the maṣlaḥah (beneficial interest) is the Sharīʿah and what has been acted upon by the Salaf, not an individual’s opinion, reason and expedience.
01 Al-Ḍhahabī said, in his biography of Ḥammād bin Salamah (d.167H):
Shaykh ul-Islām (Abū Ismāʿīl al-Ansārī) said: “Imām Aḥmad said: ‘When you see a man mocking Ḥammād bin Salamah, then suspect him against Islām, for he was harsh, severe upon the Innovators.’
02 Al-Hāfiḍh Ibn Hajar says about Sharīk bin ʿAbd Allāh al-Nakhaʿī (d. 177H):[1]
He was upright, just, a noble person, severe, harsh upon the people of innovations.
03 And Muʿāwiyah bin Ṣāliḥ al-Ashʿari said:[2]
I asked Aḥmad bin Ḥanbal about Shareek, and he said, “He was intelligent, truthful, a muḥaddith. And he was severe, harsh upon the people of doubt and innovations.
04 Imām Mālik bin Anas (d. 179H) said:[3]
Do not give salutations to the People of Desires, do not sit with them, unless you wish to be harsh upon them, and do not visit their ill, and nor narrate any ahādeeth from them.
05 Al-Bayḥaqī said about Imām ash-Shāfi’ee (d.204H):[4]
And al-Shāfiʿī—Allāh be pleased with him—was severe, harsh upon the people of Ilḥād (deviation, heresy), and the people of innovations, and he would openly (announce) hatred of them and boycotting of them.
06 It is also said in the biography of the Imām, Abū Yaʿqūb Yūsuf bin Yaḥyā al-Buwayṭī (d. 231H), the companion of al-Shāfiʿī:[5]
Indeed, he was severe, harsh upon the People of Innovations.
07 Ibn Farḥūn said in the biography of ʿAbd Allāh bin Abī Hassān al-Yahsabī (d. 226H):[6]
And he was generous, outspoken and very strong in debate, a defender of the Sunnah, following the madhhab of Mālik, and he was severe, harsh upon the people of innovations.
08 Ibn Hibbān said about the Imām, ʿUthmān bin Saʾīd al-Dārimī (d. 280H):
Al-Dārimī was amongst the precise memorisers, amongst the people of piety, awe in the religion, amongst those who had memorized and gathered together (the knowledge) and had gained understanding and authored (works) and narrated (this knowledge). And he made the Sunnah manifest in his land, called to it, defended its sanctity and repelled its opposers.
And al-Ḍhahabī said:[7]
He was devoted to the Sunnah, insightful in debate, and he was a pole shaft in the eyes of the Innovators.
09 In the narration of Ismāʿīl bin Isḥāq al-Qāḍī (d. 282), there occurs:[8]
And he was severe, harsh upon the people of innovations, he saw their repentance (that it be demanded from them), to such an extent that they kept away from Baghdād during his days (out of fear of him)…
Subḥānallāh. In the days of old the Innovators, would flee from the outspoken people of the Sunnah who would announce openly their speech against the opposers and deviants. The Innovators would flee from their towns and their lands of residence, out of fear of them and out of fear of being disparaged by them, and today, you find that the deviants and opposers find refuge with the Mumayyiʿah, seeking their company, and their support and their patronage, and benefaction.
10 In the biography of Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad bin al-ʿAbbās bin Ayūb al-Akhram (d.301H), there occurs:[9]
He was partisan to the Sunnah, and was severely harsh (ghaleedhan) upon the people of innovations.
11 And Ibn Kathīr said, concerning Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥussain bin ʿAlī bin Khalf al-Barbahārī (d.329H):[10]
The scholar, the abstemious, the Ḥanbalī jurist, the admonisher, the companion of al-Marwazī and Sahl al-Tustarī… he was severe, harsh upon the people of innovations and sins, and had high esteem (held for him), the specific and general people would venerate him.
And Ibn Rajab said about al-Barbahārī:[11]
The Shaykh of the group (of scholars) of his time, and the foremost amongst them in showing rejection against the people of innovations, and separating them out with either the hand or the tongue.
12 Al-Ḍhahabī said in the biography of the Imām Abū ʿUmar bin Muḥammad al-Muʿāfirī al-Andalusī al-Ṭalamankī, the Scholar of Qurṭuba (d. 429H):[12]
He was a noble person, very severe in the Sunnah, Khalf Ibn Bashkwāl said: “He was an unsheathed sword upon the people of desires and innovations, repelling them, very jealous for the Sharīʿah and very stern, severe, for the sake of Allāh.”
13 Ibn Kathīr said about Abū Manṣūr ʿAbd al-Malik bin Muḥammad bin Yūsuf al-Baghdādī (d. 460H):[13]
He was a unique individual of his time in enjoining the good and forbidding the evil, and being enterprising in performing good deeds, and bringing about strength in the hands of those (doers of good), alongside the severity in his undertaking against the people of innovation and cursing them.
14 And also what has been said about Shaykh al-Islām Abū Ismāʿīl ʿAbd Allāh bin Muḥammad al-Anṣārī al-Harawī (d. 481H) by Ibn Rajab:[14]
… he was severe in his undertaking in supporting the Sunnah, defending it, repelling whoever opposed it, and as a result of this many great tribulations came his way, and he was very severe in aiding and venerating the madhhab of Imām Aḥmad.
And al-Ḍhahabī said about him:[15]
And this man was a drawn sword against the Mutakallimīn (speculative theologians)…
Hhe also said:
He was a drawn sword against the opposers and a pole shaft in the eyes of the Mutakallimīn (speculative theologians)…
And also:[16]
He was a pole shaft in the eyes of the Innovators, a sword against the Jahmiyyah.
15 And in the biography of Abū al-Mudhaffar al-Samʿānī (d.458H), al-Ḍhahabī says:[17]
He authored the book al-Istalām, and also al-Burhān and al-Amālī concerning (the subject) of ḥadīth. He was partisan to Ahl al-Ḥadīth wal-Sunnah wal-Jamāʿah, and he was a thorn in the eyes of the opposers, and a proof for Ahl al-Sunnah.
16 And Ibn Abd al-Hādī says about Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah (d. 728):[18]
And he (رحمه الله) was a drawn sword upon the opposers, a thorn in the throats of the people of desires and the innovators.
And al-Ḥāfiḍh Ibn Ḥajar said:[19]
It is [from the] most amazing of amazing (affairs) that this man was the greatest of people in facing (and repelling) the people of innovations, amongst the Rawāfiḍ, the Ḥulūliyyah, the Ittiḥādiyyah, and his various works in this regard are many and famous, and his verdicts concerning them are too many to be enumerated.
The author of ‘Ijmā al-‘Ulamā, Shaykh Khālid (حفظه الله) after bringing these narrations (and many more), then says (p. 55):
So after this, is it permissible for a person to criticize anyone from the people of the Sunnah by way of this Salafī characteristic (of harshness, severity). So if he was to do this, then this pauper doesn’t know that by doing this he is criticizing the Righteous Salaf, and at the head of them the Sahābah, as has already preceded in narrating from them.
After appreciating what has preceded, the harshness of the Salaf towards the Deviants and Innovators, let us observe the very strange and amazing affair of one Abū Ja`far Aḥmad bin ʿAwnillāh, which is not for the squeamish and effeminate.