What I Witnessed In England

Author: Shaikh Abu ‘Abdir-Rahmaan Yahyaa bin ‘Alee Al-Hujooree

Source: Al-Manhaj
Translator: Abu Maryam Isma'eel Alarcon

Published: Thursday 30th July, 2015



The Sects and Groups in England

As for the sects there, then England is a sweeping ground – all of the sects are gathered in it: the seventy-three Muslim sects, the seventy-two Christian sects and the seventy-one Jewish sects. All of these sects can be found in England without exception! What bears witness to this is that there is a park there where people give lectures, called Hyde Park. In this park, you can see amazing things – this person calling to Christianity, that person calling to the worship of a cow, this one calling to...everyone is calling to his faith. And the people come to the lectures in this park to hear them, but they are confused – they don’t know where to listen and where to stand.

This one speaks with an ayah from the Qur’aan or a hadeeth, and another one says: “No you are a liar” and this goes on with them throwing accusations at one another. However, quarreling and fighting are forbidden there. That’s why there are police cars and some horses always patrolling that area.

This is even to the point that the callers among the Muslims resort to these accusations. However, there is good in them, all praise be to Allaah. According to what they informed me, many people accept Islaam there. However a majority of them (i.e. the callers) do not have knowledge, so they may recite an ayah and mutilate it (pronunciation) and others may recite an ayah and transform it into a hadeeth or recite a hadeeth and transform it into an ayah. Others just raise their voices and shout: “Islaam is the truth” and “Islaam is good!” So most of them do not have knowledge. But there are some who have knowledge that are not like that – they give da’wah according to what they heard from the tapes, proofs and ayaat.

We are not able to account for all of the sects found there, so we will just mention what we can of the Muslim sects, because those disbelievers are already in ruin as Allaah has condemned and cursed them.

These sects can be found in a masjid in Birmingham, which they call the Masjid of the Seventy-three Sects. There is no person that holds an ideology or holds some evil way except that he comes there. When one of them introduces an evil into Islaam or in the Muslim lands, he flees to England. Likewise, the Sufis, with all of their types, are there – every sect consisting of another sect or sects below it. And likewise the Shee’ah and the Raafidah – all of their types – they have masaajid and they are making da’wah there.

And there is also the Hizb-ut-Tahreer there and the Mu’atazilah. One of them brought out a book for me, which was like a pocket recorder or a little smaller, and in which there was nonsense written in it. He said to me: “Look at this book.” I said: “What am I looking at?” He said: “Concerning the issues of Creed, the lone report (khabar alahaad) is not acceptable. It is only acceptable in matters of Ahkaam (legal rulings).” So I silenced him with one hadeeth, all praise be to Allaah, this was from Allaah’s Bounty. We said: “When the Prophet (sallAllaahu 'alayhi wa sallam) sent who he sent to Yemen, who did he send – Mu’aadh bin Jabal or who?” He said: “Mu’aadh bin Jabal.” I said: “Did he send him to teach the people Creed and also Ahkaam (legal rulings).” He said: “Yes.” We said: “Was he one person or ten?” He said: “He was one person.” We said: “So how can you not use this as proof for the acceptance of the lone report (khabar al-ahaad), when Allaah’s Messenger sent Mu’aadh to Yemen to teach them ‘Aqeedah and to teach them the Religion. And what about the Mu’adhins – how many people call the Adhaan – nine or ten who say: ‘Come to the Prayer.’” He said: “But this is from the matters of Ahkaam.” We said: “But the Creed of the Muslim is found in it. Does he not say: ‘I bear witness that there is no deity worthy of worship except Allaah’ and so on (in the Adhaan)?” We also said to him: “Were the messengers sent with the Creed or with the Ahkaam? How many messengers were sent to each nation? One messenger was sent to every nation to serve as a proof against them.” So he remained there flimsily holding onto his book – all of it on the basis of some ahaadeeth and some proofs – in that gathering. And he had doubt in his book and said: “I will reexamine my views.”

Some of the brothers – I think Abu Bilaal as-Sweedee was among them – who were in that gathering went to look up information on that book and on that school of thought. They found that it was from Hizb-ut-Tahreer, which was built by al-Mas’aree and his colleagues. This despicable al-Mas’aree is the one who established this tempest in that land.

We even learned that from among the sects in England, was one who claimed to be the Mahdee and who would come and say: “There is no way towards Islaam except through me” and so on. And some people believe him, so you can find those who follow him. This is such that even if a donkey were to position itself and begin calling, you would find those who would follow it from among the blind, wallaahul-musta’aan! Many of the Muslims are not able to make distinctions at all. This is the condition of some of the sects.

And the Ikhwaan al-Muslimoon there, as is their custom in embezzling funds, run an “Islamic Mosque Foundation.” [1] And the people who pray there, their custom is to give around like 400 sterling pounds every Friday in charity. So these people use most of that money for their own personal benefits, because they received it from the government. And they say: “We are the caretakers of the Masaajid here.”

And they have there what they call “Islamic Education” and “Islamic Schools.” They hire Christian teachers, by Allaah, this is what the brothers informed me, to teach sports and so on. They teach the Muslim boys. And they hire a female Muslim teacher for the girls to teach them the Qur’aan or to teach them some subjects. And they have a Muslim teacher for the children, to teach them the Qur’aan. They take from each child there every year 1,700 Sterling pounds. So if you have three children, in one year you need to contribute to them to hire this teacher for teaching juzz ‘amma like around a million (Yemeni Riyals). And add to this that they urge the people to donate for the masjid, so the people give charity and they take it. Therefore, they use trickery and deception, and they are not on a correct path. Don’t you see that they hire Evangelist and Christian teachers to teach the children!

We said: “O brothers, why don’t you hire teachers that will teach the people sincerely. And if they cooperate and work with you out of their own will, then that is not forbidden for you, as is well known. They will teach the people the Book and the authentic Sunnah and they will teach them the ‘Aqeedah and raise the children in a good manner. They said: “We are not permitted to run the school in this manner. We are not able to fire them. Until they become a mixture of Christian and Muslim teachers, we will not be pleased with this.” We said: “Is this correct?” They said: “But we will not surrender the aspects of our Religion.”

So these individuals submit and lower themselves to the Christians there and to the disbelievers. And they are happy with just having the testimony of “Laa Ilaaha IllAllaah” and some of the outer rites of Islaam remain with them. They have indeed lowered themselves to a very distant level. The talk about the sects can go on for great lengths.

Footnote

[1] Over there, they call a masjid a Mosque, so they say “Islamic Mosque.”


 

Return to “The Later Muslims (1401H-)”