Hijr of the Sunnah between the ancient and the contemporary

Authored by Dr. Mahmoud Al-Dosari Introduction Praise be to Allah, we praise Him, seek His help, ask for His forgiveness, and seek refuge in Allah from the evil of ourselves and our wrong deeds. Whomsoever Allah guides, there is none to misguide him, and whomsoever He misguides, there is none to guide him. I bear witness that there is no deity but Allah, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and Messenger. O you who have believed, fear Allah as He should be feared, and do not die except as Muslims. [Al-Imran: 102] And, O mankind, fear your Lord who created you from a single soul and created from it its mate, and dispersed from both many men and women. And fear Allah, through whom you ask one another, and the wombs. Surely, Allah is ever watchful over you. [An-Nisa: 1] O you who have believed, fear Allah and speak words of appropriate justice. He will amend for you your deeds and forgive you your sins. And whoever obeys Allah and His Messenger has certainly attained a great victory. [Al-Ahzab: 70-71] As for what follows: Since the noble Sunnah is the stronghold of this religion, its enemies have throughout history attempted to undermine it, destroy its structure, break its walls, and weaken its pillars so they could infiltrate the religion and thus indulge in distortion, alteration, interpretation, and nullification. Their goal and aim is to demolish it from its foundation and eradicate its influence. To the extent that the enemies of the religion sought to harm the Sunnah, the sincere scholars and leaders of the Ummah rose up to defend and protect it. Victory was their ally and success their companion. The Sunnah remained high and lofty in the sky, firmly rooted in the depths of the earth, testifying to their good deeds. May Allah reward them for their efforts and elevate their ranks according to their defense of the Sunnah of His Prophet. In this book, we strive to chronicle this intense hostility from the enemies of the noble Sunnah, to know them, their history, ideas, and arguments from one side, and from the other side, to highlight the great efforts of the people of Sunnah and Jama'ah in confronting them, overcoming their falsehoods, and refuting their doubts. It is a long-standing struggle between truth and falsehood, which began early in the history of Islam, with various groups and sects succeeding one another in a long chain—starting with the Khawarij, passing through the Rāfidah, the Mu'tazilah, the Sufis, the fabricators, sectarian extremists, and ending with the Orientalists, their children among the rationalists, modernists, and their newborns among the Qur'aniyyin.