Shaykh Rabīʿ Bin Hādī: Our Daʿwah Is Clear and Open, We Have No Need for Lying, Tricks, Camouflage, Ambiguity and Coercion

THE ASSOCIATE of Maḥmūd al-Ḥaddād, ʿAbd al-Laṭīf Bāshmīl, claimed that the Shaykhs of Madīnah, such as Shaykh Rabīʿ bin Hādī (رحمه الله) were calling to a deviant political methodology in complete secrecy built upon the errors of Shaykh al-Albānī (رحمه الله). He accused them of being infiltrators, working on the inside for political objectives. He also claimed that they were following the ways of the Ikhwānīs by not making tabdīʿ of certain callers in Saudi Arabia. These Ḥaddādis had exaggeration in matters of tabdīʿ and tajrīḥ, aiming to incite discord and chaos within the ranks of Ahl al-Sunnah. To support their claims, they attached themselves to well-known scholars in Saudi because they opposed Shaykh al-Albānī in various issues, and they leveraged this attachment to attack Shaykh Rabīʿ and others. Bashmīl is from the first wave Ḥaddādīs of the 1990s, and even though Maḥmūd al-Ḥaddād is the origin, and he disappeared into obscurity after being expelled from Saudi, Bāshmīl became the main promulgator, spokesman and caller to the ideology. After them, came the second wave Ḥaddādīs in the 2000s such as Fāliḥ al-Ḥarbī, then Fawzī al-Baḥraynī and they carried on the methodology with their own infusions.

In his refutation of the Ḥaddādī, ʿAbd al-Laṭīf Bāshmīl, Shaykh Rabīʿ bin Hadī (رحمه الله) said:^[1]

We call people to the truth with clear evidences and plain proofs, upon the way of the Messengers and the Righteous Salaf, not upon the path of the Bāṭinīs and Freemasons using tricks and coercive (submission). We have explained more than once that we do not accept error or falsehood from any person whoever it may be.

This is our daʿwah, as clear as the sun in our lessons, lectures and books. We declare it openly, without any ambiguity or secrecy. We are not in need of lying, camouflaging and drawing people gradually through tricks, but we say: She accused me of her own iniquity and slipped away.

Rather, you are the ones who need tricks, camouflages and drawing people (gradually) to your falsehood, and this is the affair of every caller to falsehood, not the caller to truth.

Notes

01 Shaykh Rabīʿ is responding here to the accusation of ʿAbd al-Laṭīf Bāshmīl against him that he uses the way of the Ḥizbīs and Ikhwānīs to target students of knowledge who are aware of Shaykh al-Albānī’s errors, that such ones are considered by Shaykh Rabīʿ and those with him as “suspects”, and that if they do not respond positively, they label each one as a “new Ḥaddādī”, and that they (Shaykh Rabīʿ and others) start making contact in various cities and regions to warn against this suspected “new Ḥaddādī”. This harassment continues until this suspected “new Ḥaddādī” stops warning from al-Albānī’s errors, due to this harassment and coercion.

02 The reality is that these methods of trickery, camouflage, ambiguity and targeting students to bring them into the fold through coercive submission are actually the ways of Bāshmīl and the Ḥaddādiyyah. For their daʿwah is not clear and open, and they are evasive, ambiguous, and unclear. They are the ones who use schemes and tricks to draw people to their views and positions. They are the ones who find suspects who do not align with their extremist views including tabdīʿ of Ahl al-Sunnah and their vicious campaigns, contacting people, forcing their views, making them resign from their occupations as imāms and teachers, pressuring others, and boycotting those who do not submit.

These are the type of deeds of Bāshmīl and his likes, not those of Shaykh Rabīʿ (رحمه الله) who was free and innocent of them, but he audaciously ascribes his own iniquities to Shaykh Rabīʿ. And this is one of the traits of the Ḥaddādīs, they project their own deeds on to others.

03 Ahl al-Sunnah have no need to use tricks and to coerce people into submission through threats and intimidation. If they have a view in a matter or criticise a view or a person, they do so with proofs and evidences while implementing fairness and justice, and they are happy to have their writings subjected to scrutiny in case they have erred, because their pursuit is the truth and nothing else, it is not to amass people around an idea or a personality or to pursue political ambitions and projects.

04 As we said before, if we ignore the names, locations and originating events and look purely at behaviours, then we can see that similar and resembling behaviour has been observed from ʿArafāt al-Muḥammadī and his followers in various countries such as Holland, Germany, Australia, India, the US and elsewhere, wherein they target people in the community who do not fall in line with their unwarranted tabdīʿ and taḍlīl upon the manhaj of Fāliḥ and Ibn Hādī and demand compliance, to the extent that they call for boycotting, blocking (and firing) anyone who does not fall victim to their methods of coercive submission.

That this methodology has found its way into the ranks of the Salafīs, through the handiwork of ʿArafāt al-Muḥammadī, with the havoc and consequences all but evident for all to see not just in one country, but many countries, where splits and enmities have been seeded by him and his followers and loyalists, leaving once united communities divided and bickering among each other, is not the astounding part, as it is expected that there will be carriers and inheritors of certain ways, traits and behaviours.

The astounding part is the silence and absence of standing up in the face of such obvious and blatant violation and corruption that goes against everything that Shaykh Rabīʿ stood for and wrote regarding this vile, barbarous methodology over the past decades, especially in the European and Western lands where the harm is most pronounced.

05 Compare the way and methodology of Shaykh Rabī bin Hādī (رحمه الله) regarding the errant from Ahl al-Sunnah (audio) with that of the ʿArafātiyyah:

I advise (him) and I strive and strive (with respect to him). I know that he has erred, no doubt, but I treat (him), I say: The one who errs, he is treated. The sick person, when he stumbles, we take him to the hospital (to heal him). We do not bleed him (to death) and kill him and finish him off (completely), may Allāh bless you.

Those Ḥaddādīs, when they disparage a person, they destroy him. If he falls, then that’s it, he should not get up again and just perish. Or if they imagine that he erred or fabricated it against him, then he must die.

So this is not a methodology that is Islāmic, nor Salafī and nor even a humane one. This (methodology) is barbarism (brutal, beastly). It is a barbarous methodology that preys on people, unjustly and transgressively.

It is a methodology traversed only by the most vile and filthy beasts. So this methodology is rejected dear brothers, it is a methodology devised to enable splitting and splintering, may Allāh bless you.

Every methodology that splits and splinters, then this is a clear sign for you (regarding it), as (clear as) the sun.

The one who cannot see the difference between these two ways, that of Shaykh Rabīʿ and the way of ʿArafāt and his followers has been blinded, despite the clear signs in front of their noses. Further, they (ʿArafāt and his followers) bring the deeds of the Muṣaʿfiqah and the Ḥaddādiyyah (tabdīʿ and taḍlīl without evidence, splitting Ahl al-Sunnah, coercion, intimidation), and then accuse their victims of being upon these ways after their blatant, evident falsehood and extremism are rejected. She accused me of her own iniquity and slipped away.

History: ʿArafaṭ Reviled the Way of Shaykh Rabīʿ

Years ago ʿArafāt al-Muḥammadī made an apparent repentance for reviling the methodology of Shaykh Rabīʿ of having patience with Ahl al-Sunnah. It seems that he never really changed. and continues in his disastrous path of hasty tabdīʿ, taḍlīl, and tajdīʿ of Ahl al-Sunnah without sufficient evidence, and without patience, wisdom and observing the benefits and harms of his conduct.

In this revilement, he was preceded by the Ḥaddadī ʿImād Farrāj, who said that having patience with the opposer is an innovation and not from the way of the Salaf. Farrāj wrote a refutation against Shaykh Rabīʿ on this very matter—titled: “Bidʿah al-Ṣabr ʿalā al-Mukhālif” (The Innovation of Having Patience with the Opposer)—claiming it is Shaykh Rabīʿ’s “bidʿah”. He said it is not the way of the Salaf, words which are similar to those of ʿArafāt. So as has been said, either ʿArafāt took it from ʿImād Farrāj directly, or he derived it independently due to having a similar mentality and outlook as Farrāj.

This was one of the things raised against ʿArafāt by those who supported Muḥammad bin Hādī, who was unable to validate his hasty tabdīʿ with satisfactory evidences, and nothing he brought justified it. As I said previously and say again, ʿArafāt al-Muḥammadī did not have clean hands, his shenanigans go back to the fitnah of al-Hajūrī, who is also one of his mentors and teachers, influencing him in haste and exaggeration in tabdīʿ and taḍlīl, and many of his followers may be unaware of these realities.

ʿArafāt was initially with al-Ḥajūri and upon his path, then he was convinced by Ṣāliḥ al-Bakrī of the grave errors of al-Ḥajūrī, so he left al-Ḥajūrī, and according to Bakri, ʿArafāt stole his points of refutation against al-Ḥajūrī and published them under hidden identities and pen names on the web, such as “al-Barmakī”, and this is known regarding him. Then he came under the wing of Muḥammad bin Hādī. They fell out with an internal dispute of sorts, which led them to turn on each other, and Ibn Hādī had perceived something of his shenanigans. But Ibn Hādī went overboard, made hasty tabdīʿ, and got overtaken by anger and pride when he was held to standards and principles in protection of the Salafī methodology in this arena. He was unable to do so and this split Ahl al-Sunnah everywhere, polarising them between those appealing to his status and insight (firāsah) and those requiring adherence to Salafī principles and methodology. When his tabdīʿ was rejected in late 2017 and early 2018, those who had sided with him and supported him began to bring past issues against ʿArafāt, trying to exonerate Ibn Hādī and prove he was right all along in his tabdīʿ, . However, Ibn Hādī had zero evidences justifying his tabdīʿ, taḍlīl, taḥdhīr and tajdīʿ and the turmoil he created. This is just like `Arafat today who has zero evidences to justify his path of tabdīʿ and his evil conduct in splitting Ahl al-Sunnah and seeding enmities between them. His blind-followers and loyalists are engaged in frantic activity to justify his extremist methodology. Look at how today resembles yesterday.

In his approach, ʿArafāt resembles his teachers, al-Ḥājūrī and Ibn Hādī, though he is a step further. He has enlisted soldiers all over the world to engage in relentless trolling and bullying on his behalf, to corroborate and justify his tabdīʿ and to dress up this Ḥaddādī-type conduct with the garment of jealous zeal for the Sunnah and its scholars. In the process, they have split Ahl al-Sunnah in many places, which is one of the clear signs of the barbarous methodology which Shaykh Rabīʿ and other scholars are free and innocent of. Then, to shield and camouflage what they are doing, they accuse anyone who exposes their reality of being Muṣaʿfiqah and Ḥaddādiyyah, when they are most worthy of it themselves, and which is all but evident from their brazen conduct.

Observation: In the fitnah of Muḥammad bin Hādī, those who sided with him and appealed to his scholarly status and insight (firāsah) were of categories: a) those who followed him genuinely in his error, with good intentions, thinking the truth was with him, b) those who blindly-followed him without understanding, and c) those who followed him because they had past grievances and grudges against others, so they took this as an avenue to exact their revenge and pursue interests, from the most prominent examples is Abū ʿUmar al-ʿUtaybī. Similarly, those who opposed Muḥammad bin Hādī were of types: d) those who opposed him strictly on the basis of methodological principles with firm grounding, and e) those who opposed him out of blind following or without much understanding, or due to loyalty and partisanship to those Ibn Hādī disparaged.

Today, the fifth category above are the ones sailing upon the same boat that was traversed by Ibn Hādī, and they are ones on the same side of the fence as ʿArafāt al-Muḥammadī. If they had been from the fourth category, they would not be sailing on this boat today, and would have remained consistent and true to principles, and shown open rejection today against what they showed rejection against in 2018.