Ahl al-Sunnah only travel to, sit with, study with and take from the people of truth, those upon the Salafī creed and methodology. They do not study with the people of deviation and error in creed or methodology. However, if truth comes to a person from such people, through whatever means, then truth is accepted from anybody, regardless of whoever it is, because truth is truth, and is accepted because it is truth, not because of who said it.
Question:[1]
Is there a difference between accepting the truth from Ahl al-Bidaʿ and others, and learning from them?
Shaykh Ibn ʿUthaymīn (رحمه الله):
Yes, there is a difference between them. Accepting truth from them, we accept truth and reject falsehood. [But as for] learning from them, perhaps it will encourage them, perhaps it will encourage them and they will remain upon what they are upon (of misguidance). And others besides them will be misled as well. [A person] will say: ‘So-and-so studies under him, and so-and-so studies under him.’ Much harm will be caused by that. As for accepting the truth, then I say: Accept the truth from any person, even a Jew and Christian, until even from Shayṭān, even from the associationists.
Audio:
Question:[2]
Can it be taken from the story of Abū Hurayrah with the Shayṭān that it is obligatory to take the truth if a disbeliever or innovator brings it, and not rejecting his speech entirely?
From the answer of Shaykh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz bin Bāz (رحمه الله):
Whoever brings the truth, it is obligatory to accept the truth, even if it comes from a disbeliever.
The people of innovation and ḥizbiyyah try to use these types of clarifications from these scholars and try to extend their application, until they promote the idea of taking the truth from everybody, meaning, listen to everybody and study with everybody. However, this is not the intent in the above statements and what is similar to them from the people of knowledge. When something of truth reaches you, it comes to you, and it comes from a disbeliever (whether about religion or otherwise), or from a Jew, or a Christian, or an innovator, then truth is accepted no matter where it comes from, in whatever issue.
This is very different to listening to everybody, seeking from everybody, and claiming that because the innovators have truth with them, that we can seek from them and study with them to take the truth they have while leaving their errors. So this is false, and this is what the ḥizbiyyīn claim in order to draw people to misguided figureheads. This is something that innovators and ḥizbīs, such as Abū al-Ḥasan al-Miṣrī al-Maʾribī, tried to call to using this particular issue.
As for Ahl al-Sunnah, then they only seek, study and learn with the people of truth, of sound creed and sound methodology. But if something of truth reaches them, from any person, then they accept the truth because it is the truth and not because of who it came from.
Within this is also a refutation of those who dismiss the truth just because it comes from those outside of their chosen circle of scholarship, or those who are lesser in knowledge, or whom they deem not to have status or rank. Rather, the truth is taken from Ahl al-Sunnah no matter where they are, or who they are, when it is based on evidence. For if truth is taken from a Jew, Christian, or innovator, how can it not be accepted from someone from Ahl al-Sunnah?