The proof in the course of the journey

Forward, son of Raghba, verified it and commented on it, Dr. Abdul Qadir Mustafa Al-Mohammadi. Introduction In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate All praise be to Allah, we praise Him and seek His help. Whoever Allah guides, there is no misleader for him, and whoever He misguides, there is no guide for him. I bear witness that there is no deity but Allah alone, with no partner, and that Muhammad is His servant and Messenger. To proceed, following is considered the most important pillar of the sound Salafi methodology, and its most significant feature historically and presently. It is the criterion between the people of truth and those of desires and innovations. Especially after many people have falsely claimed to follow this straight methodology, introducing what is not part of it and removing from it what is its core and pillars. And praise be to Allah that this methodology has been protected by the Noble Qur'an and the authentic Sunnah, then by sincere scholars. Those scholars who, after Allah, deserve the credit for conveying Islam despite the false claims of the corrupt, the extremists' distortions, and the ignorant's misinterpretations. They stood firm against polytheistic currents and innovative calls to preserve and uphold the religion and its message. No one denies their virtue or deviates from their path except a denier, a jealous person, or a corrupt one. Who denies the virtue of Saeed ibn al-Musayyib, ibn Sirin, Shu’bah, Al-Shafi’i, Ahmad, ibn al-Madini, Al-Bukhari, Muslim, and others—may Allah have mercy on them. Allah, the Most High, established the eminent critics of guidance and correctness, who defeated the party of Satan, distinguished between truth and falsehood, and dedicated themselves to preserving the Sunnah and the meanings of the Qur'an from addition and subtraction. Among these scholars, some were comprehensive encyclopedias in hadith, jurisprudence, and tafsir, even medicine and mathematics. Some distinguished themselves in one or two sciences, and others specialized in a branch of knowledge, such as history and men, for example. And whoever studies history carefully and fairly will find that the main scholarly schools that appeared in Mecca, Medina, Sham, Basra, or Kufa dealt with specific issues, whether purely scientific or purely spiritual and educational. Few of them addressed issues objectively and comprehensively. The most prominent of these schools was the School of the People of Hadith. One of the most important features that distinguished the school of the righteous predecessors, the People of Hadith, was the connection between nourishing the body and nourishing the soul; I mean the link between knowledge and spiritual purification. They sought to worship Allah with knowledge and aimed to purify the souls and feed the spirit from the authentic pure Sunnah. Whoever reads the chapters on piety, asceticism, remembrance, and supplication in the works of our distinguished scholars will realize the magnitude of the falsehood propagated by some ignorant and biased people among the innovators and deviants, claiming that the scholars of the Salaf did not care about the soul and its purification, that they were merely memorizing texts to lead some people astray with their deviant methodology, and that they concealed their flaws by neglecting the evidence and abandoning the methodology of the Salaf. And whoever reads—for example—the book "Asceticism" by Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal, or the collection of fatwas by Sheikh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah, or "Madarij al-Salikin," or "Al-Wabil al-Sayyib," or "Al-Jawab al-Kafi" by Imam Ibn al-Qayyim, or "Jami’ al-‘Ulum wal-Hikam," or "Sharh Hadith Labbayk Allahumma Labbayk," or "The Horrors of the Graves," or "Lata’if al-Ma’arif" and others by Imam ibn Rabiq al-Hanbali—may Allah have mercy on them all—he will find the falsehood of this baseless claim to be false. And our book is but an example of what we have presented; it is a book of upbringing and purification. In it, Ibn Rabiq, may Allah have mercy on him, explains a great hadith, which is a pinnacle in the chapter of the journey to Allah, and in the path carved out by the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and his companions, through their sweat, sleeplessness, and blood. May Allah reward our Prophet with the best reward He has given to a Prophet for his nation, and may He reward his companions and followers until the Day of Judgment with the best reward that the predecessors have given for the successors.