Table of Contents
Given what has preceded, with the knowledge that the Deviants and Innovators, the Callers to Misguidance and the Sects, they are the cause of the alteration and distortion (taḥrīf, tabdīl) of scripture (in its interpretation) and signposts of religion (creed, methodology), the Salaf did not suffice with severity and hardship upon the Innovators alone. They also disciplined those who—through their actions and behaviours—violated this methodology, even if they were respected and known for knowledge.
01 ʿAbd Allāh bin ʿUmar al-Sarkhusī— the scholar of al-Khazar—said:[1]
I ate a single meal with an innovator and Ibn al-Mubārak heard of it so he said (of me): ‘I will not speak to him for thirty days.’
02 Ibn Waḍḍāḥ al-Qurṭubī narrates from one of the Salaf:[2]
I was walking alongside ‘Amr bin ʿUbayd (al-Muʿtazilī), and Ibn ʿAwn saw me. Then he turned away from me for two months.
03 Ibn Abī Ḥātim narrates from ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-ʿUwaysī, who said:[3]
When Ismāʿīl bin Abī ʿUways went out towards Ḥusayn bin ʿAbd Allāh bin Ḍamairah, and this reached (Imām) Mālik, he boycotted him for forty days, because he (Mālik) was not pleased with him (Husayn).
04 And Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad bin al-Ḥasan bin Hārūn al-Mawṣilī said:[4]
I asked Abū Abd Allāh Aḥmad bin Hanbal: ‘I am from the people of Mawṣil and the majority of those in our town are Jahmiyyah. And the affair of al-Karābīsī, ‘my recitation of the Qur’an is created’ had appeared there.’ So he replied: ‘Beware of this Karābīsī. Do not speak to him and do not speak to whoever speaks to him.’ So I said to him: ‘This statement in your view and whatever branches from it is all from the saying of Jahm?’ He said: ‘All of it is from the saying of Jahm.’
05 Al-Fuḍayl bin ʿIyāḍ (d. 187H) said:[5]
Whoever sits with a person of innovation, then beware of him and whoever sits with a person of innovation has not been given wisdom. I love that there was fort of iron between me and a person of innovation. That I eat with a Jew and a Christian is more beloved to me than that I eat with a person of innovation.
06 Ibrāhīm bin Maysarah (d.132H) said:[6]
Whoever honours an innovator has aided in the destruction of Islam.
07 Al-Fuḍayl bin ‘Iyāḍ said:[7]
If a man comes to a person to consult him and he directs him to an innovator, then he has acted treacherously to Islām. Beware of going to a person of innovation for they divert [people] from the truth.