Thread by @SalafiUnveiling

Scholastically speaking, Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahhab was as qualified to speak on matters of religion as a post-millennial YouTuber.

This seems like a joke but it is not.

Hanbalis have a 7 tier hierarchy of scholarly rank ranging from Absolute Mujtahid (the four Imams), down to Muslim laity (YouTubers, Ibn Abdul Wahhab and myself).

Ibn Abdul Wahhab is never mentioned amongst the in-house ’tabaqat’ biographies of Hanbali scholars, which have been recorded since Imam Ahmad, as he was never inducted into the scholarly chain of transmission. His brother, Sulaiman, who condemned him, is.

To claim that Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahhab was a ‘scholar’ reveals ignorance (often innocent) of how authority has been acknowledged and documented within the Hanbali madhab for over a thousand years.

“He [MIAW] said ‘If I was able to get to the Chamber of the Messenger, I would destroy it... taken the jewels from it and left it as wood’. Didn’t he hear: ‘whoever shows reverence for the Symbols of Allah, shows piety of his heart?’”{22.32}.

~ Imam Sulaiman Ibn Suhaim [d.1773]

“Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahhab was shown to have reached the level of a false Prophet and a liar of the same capacity as Musailimah, Sajjah the false Prophetess, Tulayha & others. As for his father, he was a pious man.”

~ Imam Abdullah Ibn Dawud al-Basri (d.1810), Heresiographer.

“Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahhab and his followers are people of innovation because they contradict all of that which has been handed down.”

~ Hanbali Scholar & Judge, Muhammad Ibn Fairuz [d. 1801] responding to Wahhabi da’wah just prior to the movement’s bloody invasion of Mecca.

Hanbali Imam Isa Al-Qaddumi (c.1774) was instrumental in preaching against the Wahabbi movement, delivering letters to and from ulema, warning about their impending plight. This Imam, like others, classified the Wahabbi movement as Khawarij.

Imam Muhammad Ibn Gharib [d.1794] initially kept quiet during the Wahhabi takeover. He was soon snitched on by a cult spy who earned his trust, having him disclose his real views of the cult as evil murderers. Refusing to retract his statements, cult authorities had him executed.

Islamic scholars who opposed Ibn Abdul Wahhab at the time often referred to him as the “Najdi Shaykh”, with an intended connotation, equating him to the elderly man from the Najd who appeared in the seerah of the Prophet ﷺ and turned out to be the Devil incarnate.

Imam Abdul Aziz Ibn Sulaiman followed the legacy of his father resisting the cult, while continuing to pass on the scholarly chain of the Hanbali madhab. He became a Qadi and in his lifetime saw lands of the Muslims taken back from the cult. MIAW’s sons were of the movement, yes.

“Every Imam is required to push people away from this astray innovator [MIAW]. The ummah has documented the madhabs in the best way... What does this ignorant fool know about the Book & Sunnah?!”

~ Major authority of the Hanbalis of his time, Imam Muhammad as-Saffarini [d.1775]

"The followers of M. Ibn Abdul Wahhab believed that they were Muslims and that whoever opposed them were idol worshippers. By doing this, they declared the killing of the scholars and laymen of Muslim Orthodoxy as permissible."

~ Hanafi Judge, Imam Muhammad ibn Abidin [d. 1836].