Shaykh Shihāb al-Bannā’s Warning Against ʿArafāt al-Muḥammadī
See also: Reintroducing the Ḥaddādī Outcast Hisham al-Beylī Into the Ranks of the Salafis and Welcoming the People of Innovation and Misguidance While Avoiding and Repelling the People of the Sunnah
IT IS ESTABLISHED from ʿArafāt al-Muḥammadī that he shields, praises and endorses Ḥaddādī innovators while making tabdīʿ, taḍlīl and severe tajrīḥ of well-known Salafīs. He praises and endorses Hishām al-Beily who accuses Imām al-Albānī (رحمه الله) of agreeing with the Ashʿarī Murjiʾah and who severely attacked Shaykh Ḥasan bin ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Bannā (رحمه الله), and prohibited the invoking of mercy upon him, which his son, Shaykh Shiḥāb, said is tantamount to takfīr given that Ahl al-Sunnah do not prohibit the invoking of mercy upon the innovators whose innovations do not reach the level of kufr.
Shaykh Shihāb said recently in post dated 20 Ṣafar 1448 corresponding to 3 August 2026:
As salāmu ʿalaykum waraḥmatullāhi wabarakātuh
Honourable brothers, the shaykhs and students of knowledge, I hope you are all well. Please disseminate this (post) as widely as possible through mobile networks so that everyone, whether near and far, may know the state of ʿArafāt and his group comprising the shaykhs of Aden and the defenders of falsehood:
“ʿArafāt concurs with al-Beily in accusing ʿAllāmah al-Albānī with Irjāʾ in his saying, ‘He agreed with the Murjiʾah’, and his takfīr of ʿAllāmah Ḥasan bin ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Bannā by saying, ‘It is impermissible to invoke (Allāh’s) mercy for him.’”
I debated this matter with him when I met him last year—on Monday, the 23rd of Rabīʿ al-Awwal 1447 AH, corresponding to September 15, 2025 CE—at the mosque of ʿAbd al-Ilāh al-Juhanī al-Rifāʿī, following the ʿIshā prayer.
Written by the one in need of the pardon of his Lord: Shihāb al-Dīn bin Ḥasan ʿAbd al-Wahhāb Al-Bannā, a Salafī caller in the Arab Republic of Egypt—may Allah preserve it and all Muslim lands—on the morning of Monday, the 20th of Ṣafar 1448 AH corresponding to August 3, 2026 CE.
Audio version:
Arabic source:
Notes
01 Shielding, praising, endorsing and allying with innovators who display enmity towards senior scholars and revile and slander them is a violation of foundations of the Sunnah on its own (regardless of other affairs such as complicity in rebellion and sedition) and demonstrates deviation from Salafiyyah. And it is not just any innovator, but a Ḥaddādī innovator, and Ḥaddādīyyah is the most harmful and destructive of contemporary innovations to Salafiyyah.
Fuḍayl bin ʿIyāḍ (رحمه الله) said:[1]
The souls are like conscripted soldiers, those that resemble each other become united, whereas those that do not remain (averse and) separate. It is not possible for a person of the Sunnah to collude with a person of innovation except out of hypocrisy.
He (رحمه الله) also said:[2]
Whoever venerated a person of innovation has aided in the destruction of Islām.
Abū Dawūd al-Sijistānī said:[3]
I said to Abū ʿAbd Allāh Aḥmad bin Ḥanbal: “If I see a man from Ahl al-Sunnah with a man from Ahl al-Bidʿah. shall I leave speaking to him?’” He said: “No, inform him that the man that you saw him with is a person of innovation, so if he leaves him, then speak to him, otherwise treat him the same as him, as Ibn Ma’sood said, ‘A man is like his companion.’”
02 What deserves a mention in this context is that ʿArafāt made a retraction regarding his view on the claimed consensus regarding the takfīr of the one who abandons action (tārik al-ʿamal) during the height of the fitnah of Ibn Hādī in mid-2018. This was four or five years after Shaykh Rabīʿ had addressed this matter in detail in his refutations of the Ḥaddādīs and Hājurites, and had convincingly established the truth in the matter.
Refer to our publication: Repelling the Accusation of Irjāʾ from the Scholars of Ahl Al-Sunnah, which was written in 2014.
It is strange that ʿArafāt maintained this view as if he had never read Shaykh Rabīʿs previous refutations of the Ḥaddādīs from the time of Fāliḥ al-Harbī, and now, in the past couple of years, here he is, praising, shielding and endorsing Ḥaddādī innovators who accuse al-Albānī of Irjāʾ.
03 Note that this was one of the points raised by those who supported Ibn Hādī. They stated that ʿAbd al-Ilāh al-Juhanī tried to cover for ʿArafāt by lying about his position in the matter, claiming that this view is not established from him. However, ʿArafāt rendered that a lie by his own retraction in June 2018 and stated it himself, that he held this view. The followers of Ibn Hādī claimed therefore, that `Arafāt made a political retraction to earn favour with Shaykh Rabiʿ in the height of the fitnah. Previously, according to a testimony, he claimed he had debated the matter with Shaykh Rabīʿ and held him to be in error, and this was some time before 2013.
04 This affair of ʿArafāt’s alliance with a Ḥaddādī innovator against Ahl al-Sunnah is a clear sign of his true reality. It is appropriate to repeat what we said before, that Muḥammad bin Hādī fell into the mistake of hasty tabdīʿ and taḍlīl without following due process. When he was held to standard, he could not provide the proofs. Then he got angry and overtaken by pride, and started attacking others. Then, to vindicate him, those who followed him and knew of ʿArafāt’s prior errors and evil conduct began to compile things against him way after the peak of the fitnah which was in late 2017 to mid-2018. Many of these issues were established against him, some of them by his own admission, and he had made apparent retractions from some of them.
However, this never exonerated Muḥammad bin Hādī, because the issue was not about errors, but evidences for tabdīʿ, taḍlīl and severe tajrīḥ, extending his attacks and warnings to other scholars and shaykhs, and the huge commotion and splitting he caused which he could not justify with a single shred of evidence.
Thereafter, ʿArafāt used this entire episode to his advantage to hide his past shenanigans and to shield himself from any further justified scrutiny by dismissing any legitimate criticisms as “the way of the Muṣaʿfiqah”, and this is what he and his followers have been doing since, coupled with the use of tazkiyāt (in a way that they were not intended) to market a unique marjiʿiyyah for Salafīs and the affairs of daʿwah and al-jarḥ wal-taʿdīl. This is the backdrop to the fitnah we have been experiencing following the death of the scholars over the last few years.
05 This is a violation independent of other violations and it is not possible for any Salafī to know of a deviation of this magnitude involving Ḥaddādiyyah and not hate it and speak against it out of love, veneration and defence of the senior scholars. Shaykh Shihāb is one of numerous shaykhs who have called for open warning against this individual, ʿArafāt al-Muḥammadī, for numerous violations that are proven against him, alongside being exposed as a liar.
If ʿArafāt does not free himself from this Ḥaddādī innovator, al-Beily, and repent from praising him, endorsing him and polishing his image in order to introduce him to Salafīs, out of deception and treachery, and as a possible front for the accusation of Irjāʾ against al-Albānī (رحمه الله), then he is thrown alongside him, in full accordance with the way of the Salaf in this regard.
06 As for the issue of takfīr of ʿAllāmah Ḥasan bin ʿAbd al-Wahhāb (رحمه الله), then Shaykh Shihāb’s view on this matter is likely based on what scholars such as Shaykh Muḥammad Amān al-Jāmī have said, that those who deem it impermissible to invoke Allāh’s mercy for someone, then it is to judge him with disbelief. He (رحمه الله) said:
Beware O youth, the one for whom it is not permissible to seek forgiveness and invoke [Allāh’s] mercy for him, you have judged him to be a mushrik with the major shirk, or a disbeliever with the clear, major disbelief.
As for ʿArafāt concurring with this takfīr (upon this line of reasoning), then that requires further investigation.
Conclusion
No matter how sneaky and slimy a person tries to be in the way he moves and in covering his tracks, one thing he and his followers cannot hide is their company, allegiances and friendships. So when you see man allying with vile Ḥaddādīs, then ask no more. Further, when you investigate some of his most vocal defenders and supporters in the Arab and non-Arab lands, you see them having friendships with the Ḥalabiyyīn and Ḥizbīs of various types and affiliations.
This helps to explain the raw hatred and severe enmity they exude against anyone who does not enter the orbit of submission of this group and dares to resist and highlight their suspect activities such as praise and defence of innovators and oppressive tabdīʿ and taḍlīl of Salafīs, alongside lying to senior scholars in matters of war and bloodshed and complicity in rebellion and sedition. It is because ʿArafāt‘s follower-base consists of victims and remnants of past tribulations who have with them ignorance, desires, grievances and scores to settle, and he and his group have become a magnet for them.
Footnotes
1. Al-Ibānah al-Kubrā (2/421).2. Al-Ibānah al-Kubrā (2/421).
3. Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābilah (1/429).