The following Audio is a testimony of Sheikh Ghassan Zary, At Darul Uloom Azadville South Africa, in front of an Ulema gathering. Sheikh Ghassan (an Elder from Madinah) shared his first-hand experience mediating the differences between Maulana Saad and the Elders in 2016.
See his full letter: Saudi Elders tried to mediate Elders and Maulana Saad
Audio Translation
Honourable sheikhs, honestly I am shy to stand before you to speak, but as they say, the matter is above Adaab, so his eminence Sheikh Maulana Sheikh Abdul Hamid ordered me, so I committed to the order and to the Adaab. As you know, this great work of preaching and calling to Allah Almighty for more than fifty years has been a cause of general guidance in the nation of our master Muhammad (SAW). Most of you have travelled to countries of hardship or different countries, and you have seen the impact of calling Allah SWTeverywhere. We start from the north, from America, from Canada, Australia – everywhere, praise be to Allah, the impact of calling to Allah and preaching is great, and it has changed conditions everywhere.
Thirty years ago, I was a student in America. We couldn’t even find a mosque to pray in, nor could we find halal food. But by the grace of Allah Almighty, now we went a few years ago, everything is available – Islamic schools are available, Quran Hifz is available, and all Islamic things are available, praise be to Allah. Islam has become strong by the blessing of this great work and this blessed call. It is no secret to you, dear ones, that the enemies of Islam plot and plan, but Allah plans, and Allah is the best of planners. The enemies of Islam are eager to corrupt and invade the call to Allah and to corrupt it with all their efforts. About four years ago, in 2015, at the Markaz in Nizamuddin India, there was a severe beating and bloodshed. It was during Ramadan, close to Maghrib time, at the sheikhs’ table in Nizamuddin, the centre of the Tabligh. There was beating, bloodshed, and destruction. We were all saddened because this impact affects Muslims and affects Islam everywhere. This saddens us all, and only the enemies of Islam rejoice in it. They are the ones who rejoice in the harm to Islam and the call to Allah Almighty. The enemies of Allah Almighty want to show the West and show the world that Islam is a religion of terrorism.
I was even discussing with some Americans during the outings, non-Muslims, were talking to them, and they would say, “You are Muslims, what is Islam?” Because we were dressed like this in those countries in America, praise be to God in Islamic attire, we go out for the sake of Allah Almighty. They would say, “You are Muslims, what is Islam?” So the enemies of Islam, the religion of mercy – the Prophet, peace be upon him, says Allah Almighty says about him, “And We have not sent you except as a mercy to the worlds.” “I am only a gifted mercy,” he says, peace be upon him. So they say, “We don’t know about Islam except what we see in the media – ISIS, violence, terrorism, and killing. This is what we know about Islam.”
So the enemies of Islam, the enemies of Allah and His Messenger, peace be upon him, they want to invade Islam and destroy and divide Muslims. This fitnah occurred in Nizamuddin, so we were very saddened, and we communicated with Sheikh Abdul Wahab, may Allah have mercy on him, in Pakistan. Sheikh Abdul Wahab said, “You and Brother Fadil go to Nizamuddin and meet the Sheikhs there, and understand from them what is the reason for this dispute, and what is the reason that things have reached this solution.” We said we hear and obey. So we went, praise be to Allah, after Ramadan, because it was Ramadan. After Ramadan, we took the visa from Jeddah, and we went, two men, went to meet Sheikh Saad in Nizamuddin.
We went to him and met him, and honestly, he tried not to sit with us, but we insisted. We said you must give us some time. I came, I was out in America and returned, I left my four-month Khurooj and came specifically for this meeting. So we want you to give some time for us. We sat with him in his room, which was previously Sheikh Inam’s (Inamul Hasan) room. We used to always sit in it with Sheikh Inaam, may Allah have mercy on him. We said to Sheikh Saad, “O our sheikh, now you see the conditions of the Ummah, and you see the conditions of Tabligh in the world, and you see the enemies of Islam, what they want to do, and how they block this Ummah from its religion. So we should rise above differences and unite the Muslims. There should not be division, there should not be disagreement between the Ummah. What happened in Ramadan does not please anyone. It humiliates Islam and the Muslims. If Tabligh dies and Da’wa dies, there is no doubt that the people of knowledge will be next. Ilm and Tabligh are inseparable. There must be Da’wah and Tabligh, there must be Ilm, and there must be Zikr and Tazkiyyah. All these things are required, but who carries out the general Da’wa other than scholars and students of knowledge? It is the Tablighi Jamaat. They are required to go and travel in the land and call people to Allah. So what do we do? If we disagree, Tabligh will fall, and if Tabligh falls, Nizamuddin will collapse, and consequently, Islam will collapse, God forbid. Each of us is on a frontier of Islam’s frontiers. By Allah, by Allah, let not Islam be attacked from my side. We do not accept humiliation for our religion. So we should act now and quickly so that the disagreement does not increase and the division does not increase between you. Because many sheikhs who have been in Tabligh for more than fifty years, like Maulana Sheikh Ibrahim Dewla, Maulana Yaqub, who used to teach Hadith in the Kashif al-Uloom school, and like Sheikh Ismail, and Sheikh Ahmad Lat, and professors from Aligarh University, like Professor Khalid Siddiqi, and Dr. Sanaullah, many of them have now left Nizamuddin at that time, in 2016.”
So we said we must rise above differences, unite, and unify the ranks of the Ummah so that the group does not divide everywhere. This affects all countries everywhere. He said, “Don’t worry, God willing, this will not happen.” We said, “Okay, what about this blood that was spilled in Nizamuddin in Ramadan?” He said, “This is not from there. People entered the mosque who did not prostrate to Allah once.” And he swore, saying, “By Allah, I know them. They did not prostrate to Allah once.” We said to him, “You mean you know them?” He said, “These are the Agha Khanites. They bought a large piece of land in Basti Nizamuddin, and now they are building their largest centre in the world, the Agha Khanites in Nizamuddin. They want to fight Islam in this way.”
We said, “We belong to Allah and to Him we shall return. Okay, Sheikh, now we want one thing from you, Maulana, which is to gather these sheikhs, these professors, Maulana Yaqub, may Allah have mercy on him, who left the centre and taught Sheikh Saad and taught his father Maulana Haroon, who is his father and teacher.” He said, “He (Maulana Yaqub) was upset because he was not accepted, his opinion was not accepted in the Shura, he did not attain any position, so he left, left the Markaz.” We said, “O Sheikh, we want to gather them, Maulana Ibrahim, Maulana Ahmad Lad, Maulana Yaqub, Maulana Ismail, and these great sheikhs, a group of more than ten men, all of them come and you meet together according to the date you agree on, according to the place, and end this crisis and this dispute. Because the signs of this crisis have begun to spread in the world in many places now. Tabligh has begun to split into two groups, a group following you Sheikh Saad from Nizamuddin and a group following the people of Shura. Enmity and hatred have arisen between them, and this is a great fitnah, and fitnah is worse than murder. We must gather all of you quickly as soon as possible. We will not interfere. You meet together in a room and we close the door on you and you think among yourselves and solve the dispute and the issues of disagreement between you. Then come out and say what your decision is, what you have decided, and the whole world will walk behind you, all the Tablighi Jamaat in the world, in America, in Canada, in Australia, in Europe, everywhere we are following you (Maulana Saad).”
In the end, by the grace of Allah Almighty, the Sheikh agreed because we begged onto his feet. We said, “Please, O Sheikh, do not let Tabligh collapse and do not let the Ummah of Muhammad (SAW) collapse.” He said, “Okay, fine, I accept that we meet together.” We said, “Praise be to Allah.” They agreed. We went by plane to Baroda. There is a school there and Sheikh Ibrahim was there after he left Nizamuddin, forced. He was forced to go out. He went out with sadness because he saw that there were things contrary to the principles of Maulana Sheikh Ilyas, may Allah have mercy on him and sanctify his secret. He was one of the great scholars and one of the great Wali and walked on a certain Manhaj, and this Manhaj was derived from the Book and the Sunnah, and he had a connection with the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, and among his sheikhs were Sheikh Al-Gangohi and the great sheikhs in India who gave him ijazahs and succession and so on. So they had a connection with the Noble Prophet, peace be upon him. Then he came with this approach and entrusted it to Sheikh Yusuf, may Allah have mercy on him, and Maulana Yusuf was also for twenty years the amir of the Tabligh and walked on the same first approach. Then Sheikh Inaam came, may Allah have mercy on him and sanctify his secret, and I accompanied him for more than twenty years by the grace of Allah Almighty. Sheikh In’am, and there was strong love between us and him. He is my sheikh and we always spent Ramadan with him, and so on. There was a great relationship. If he came to Medina or to Mecca, we would be at his service and we would arrange everything for him. He would be our guest in the Hijaz and we would be his guests in India. The important thing is that Sheikh Inaam, may Allah have mercy on him, my eyes have not seen a saint like him. All of you, masha’Allah, are righteous and all of you are scholars and saints, but truly, for more than twenty years, by Allah, I have not seen anyone like Sheikh Inaam, may Allah have mercy on him. His actions are bigger than words. Without even speaking, you enter his gathering and feel that your heart has changed. Your heart changes and you feel that strong tranquillity, angels, and so on. I mean, Sheikh Inaam was not an ordinary man. He was one of the great pious people and one of the great saints, may Allah have mercy on him. We accompanied him and we were in his service. I mean, for several years he came to me for Hajj and we would go to him in India and say, we Arabs, four or five from Ghaffar, we are ready to be in service. The Sheikh would agree after pleading with him. We would plead with him and he would agree. Glory be to Allah, by Allah, O brothers, we would see the victory of Allah Almighty before us. I mean, outwardly we were carrying the Sheikh, but in reality, he was the one carrying us. Even, by Allah, from Mina to Mecca in the Tawaf al-Ifadah, which is the hardest thing in Hajj, I mean the Tawaf al-Ifadah and the departure from Arafat, the beloved ones arranged with a police officer who came with the police car with a siren and started walking in front of the Sheikh, opening the way for him until he reached the Holy Kaaba. I mean, the signs were amazing. He descended at Jeddah airport, and the official in charge of royal hospitality, who only walks with kings and ministers, came to receive him from the plane. He said, “Please, O Sheikh.” The Sheikh passed, he and Sheikh Maulana Sulaiman Jahiz, the Sheikh’s special Khadim, and with them their luggage. They didn’t even speak to them a word. The passports, they stamped right away and they left. Then we gathered the people and said, “This Sheikh is one of the saints. He will pray for you.” So the officers gathered and all the people gathered in the same airport, in Jeddah airport, and he made the supplication. I mean, we saw with our own eyes the help, the help of Allah Almighty. By Allah, without exaggeration, and likewise in America, we saw how guidance, how Nusra and Sheikh Inaam came twice to America and we were in his service there. So we saw how Allah Almighty supports this call and supports the scholars of this call and supports guidance and brings guidance everywhere by the blessing of this great work.
The result, dear ones, is that now any distortion or change in the principles of Tabligh and Da’wah is unacceptable because these matters have come and been tried for seventy years and they are walking with the Book and the Sunnah. So if, for example, a man comes to us now and says, “I want to bring you new principles and new principles in Tabligh,” we cannot accept him. The Arab poet says, “Take what you have seen and leave something you have heard, in the appearance of the full moon what suffices you from Saturn.” Meaning, take the thing you have tried yourself, see Allah’s help in it, see guidance in it and see its effect in the world. Will you leave it and take something new just out of a desire to change or discover something new? This should not be the case.
The result is that we went to the sheikhs who were in Baroda. We pleaded with them, “O Maulana Ibrahim, O Maulana Ahmad Lat, O Maulana, we beg you, you must sit with Sheikh Saad to solve this problem. This is a great fitnah, a big fitnah for the whole Ummah, and Islam and Muslims will be affected. Every person among us has a zeal for Islam and fears for this religion. Each of you is on a front and a frontier of Islam’s frontiers, so we should not neglect it.” The sheikhs agreed, may Allah reward them well. They said, “Okay, we will sit with the Sheikh (Saad).” So we went to Sheikh Abdul Wahab in Pakistan and said to him, “O Sheikh, this and this happened, and all the sheikhs agreed. Both parties agreed to meet.” He said, “But your work is not complete, it is incomplete.” We said, “What is missing?” He said, “Go back now and start this meeting immediately. We don’t want a delay. We want you to gather immediately to end this problem.” We said, “Okay, but we don’t have a visa (for India). We have to go back to Jeddah and then take the visa and come again.” He said, “Okay.”
So we went and got the visa. We contacted the sheikhs and said to them, “Okay, Sheikh Abdul Wahab said now you must meet, so we will come to you to bring the two parties together.” The sheikhs said, “Now Sheikh Ibrahim is going for Hajj, so the time is not suitable, but postpone this issue, this explicit meeting, until after Hajj.” We said, “Okay, fine.”
So we came, praise be to Allah, after Hajj. And during the Hajj period, we met with Sheikh Saad. The Sheikh who was with me, Sheikh Fadil, met with Sheikh Saad four times during Hajj in Medina, in Mecca and in Mina. At each meeting, they would be alone for an hour or more discussing reconciliation who would be on the reconciliation committee from the Arabs, what the mechanism of reconciliation and where they would meet, all the details, what the agenda they would discuss during the reconciliation. The important thing is that Sheikh Saad agreed to all matters and the sheikhs too agreed to all matters.
So we came, four people, as they agreed. It was supposed to be six, but two apologized, so we remained four. We went to India. When we entered Nizamuddin, to the Banglewali Masjid, Sheikh Saad was occupied. So we waited and we came to shake hands. The Sheikh, we are older than him and we have known him since his childhood. We love him and respect him because he is the son of our sheikhs, so we love him for the sake of Allah and we serve him and we wish him all good. We came with dates and Zamzam water for blessing, meaning the blessing of Mecca and Medina. This is prophetic hospitality.
Unfortunately, the Sheikh was angry and did not welcome us. The way he greeted us was as if he didn’t know us. Then when lunchtime came, we sat one of us on his right and the other on his left, and we sat with him for food. Usually, the Sheikh would be friendly with us, joke with us, and talk with us, and so on, ask us about our conditions. This time he didn’t speak. He sat for five minutes, seven minutes, then got up right away saying, “I’m tired, I want to go.” We got up behind him and said, “Maulana, we came to you from Mecca and Medina, four people, and all the sheikhs have come, they are present here in Delhi according to the appointment you set and which you specified on October 15th. They all come for this meeting to take place.”
Then the Sheikh became very angry and raised his voice, “Who told you to come? Why did you come? This matter is bigger than you think. You should not interfere in this matter.” And he was scolding us and addressing us harshly. We were surprised and said, “Maybe the Sheikh is tired or his situation is like he didn’t sleep at night or something. Let’s come to him at another time.” So we said, “O Sheikh, we will come to you in the evening if it’s more suitable.” They said, “Come, but sit in the gathering and don’t interfere in this matter at all, the matter of reconciliation, the matter of disagreement, don’t interfere in it at all.”
We said, “O Sheikh, but Sheikh Ibrahim and the sheikhs have come to end this meeting according to your opinion according to your conditions and according to your promise. We came for this reason.” He said, “No, tell Sheikh Ibrahim and tell Ahmad Lat, if they need the Markaz, they should come and sit in the crowd and no one interferes in this matter, the matter of leadership and the matter of Ikhtilaf!” We said, “Lahawlawala Quwwata Illabillah”, We left feeling broken and sad. We wanted to stay because we had endured hardship and travel and so on for the sake of this reconciliation, and we were optimistic that Allah Almighty would solve this issue. But unfortunately, the reaction was severe towards us.
So we talked with one of the businessmen from the people of Delhi, a friend of Sheikh Saad, with whom he has a close relationship. We said, “O so-and-so, this and this happened to us with the Sheikh, and we want you to be a mediator and talk to the Sheikh so that he accepts the meeting that we agreed upon as the date was set before.” He said, “Tonight he will be at my house with his sons visiting me, so I will talk to him about this matter.”
Indeed, Sheikh Saad came to him at night with his sons. By Allah, O honourable sheikhs, there is nothing personal in our hearts against Sheikh Saad at all. He is my brother, my friend and my beloved. I mean, we were always with them for many years. It’s not a matter of personal enmity or private interest, no. Rather, we are talking about the interest of Islam, for the interest of religion. So he said, “Yes.” This businessman whom we entrusted said, “Okay, I will talk to him tonight when he comes to me. I will talk to him.”
He talked to him and said, “These Arabs talked to me, and they are my friends, and they say that they came to you according to the appointment and you didn’t welcome them.” He (Maulana Saad) said, “No, I welcomed them and greeted them and everything was fine.” He said, “They came for this matter and you (Maulana Saad) refused to talk to them about it; the matter of reconciliation and gathering the sheikhs.” He (Maulana Saad) said, “Look, they have come to the Markaz, I honour and serve them, everything, I have no problem. But they should not interfere in this matter. If they interfere in this matter, I will get angry and my voice will rise, and within less than an hour, this Masjid will be filled with Mewatis, and if the Masjid is filled with Mewatis, they will not be able to leave this place safely, all the Arabs.” It was as if he was threatening us with killing and beating.
We said, “What Allah has decreed and willed has happened. Okay, what’s the solution?” One of the beloved ones who was with us, one of the four, said, “Let’s write a letter. We’ll write him a letter and I’ll tell him that we came on the appointment, and the promise of the free man is a debt upon him, and you must meet with them. They are now present for three days and we don’t want time to be wasted,” and so on. We said, “Okay, maybe the letter will be more effective.” We wrote the letter and took it to one of the special people close to Sheikh Saad from the people of Nizamuddin Markaz. We gave him the letter and said, “Please give the letter tonight to Sheikh Saad.”
He did that. He gave Sheikh Saad the letter. Then he called us after Sheikh Saad read the letter. He said, “I will come to you with two or three people. We will meet you after Fajr.” We said, “Okay then, let’s meet in a Masjid. Don’t come to the Masjid we are in.” We didn’t tell them where we were. We said, “Okay, we’ll meet you in the Masjid and we’ll agree, us and you, initially on this meeting for the sheikhs.”
They came to us according to the appointment after Fajr, after sunrise. They came to us in this Masjid and we met in an external Masjid between us and them. When we met, we said to them, “Okay, what’s the solution now? You see the fitnah that has happened in the Ummah and we want to unite the Ummah. What do we do?” They said, “We are ready. The Sheikh will sit with you and sit with the other sheikhs but with one condition.” We said, “What is the condition?” They said, “First thing they must agree is that the Amir in the Tablighi Jamaat is Sheikh Saad, and only that can we meet.”
We said, “This is the first matter of disagreement. How can we start any discussion with it? We cannot start from where we ended. We must look for other solutions.” They said, “Then we won’t participate. When you come to the Markaz, you (all) must come with the condition that Sheikh Saad is the Amir.” We said, “Lahawlawala Quwwata Illa Billah. There is no use now. We must return to our countries. That’s it, we return empty-handed. We didn’t benefit anything.”
So we booked [our return] and we were preparing ourselves around noon. Suddenly there was a knock on the door. We were surprised who was knocking on the door. We opened the door and it was a policeman. What’s the matter? They said, “Are you the Arabs so-and-so and so-and-so and so-and-so?” And they had a picture of the passports. We said, “Yes.” They said, “Why did you come?” We said, “We came because we have a business visa. We came for business.” They said, “No, there is a complaint against you that you are supporting terrorism. There is a complaint on the hotline terrorism that you are supporting terrorism and a team will come to you shortly to investigate you,” and so on.
We consulted the local people. They said, “It’s better you leave the country. Don’t stay even for a minute because if they come, they may throw you in prison for a month or two before the investigation ends.” So we said, “Okay then, we return.” We returned.
When we returned, O sheikhs, we talked, I mean we tried to reach Sheikh Saad, to convince him that the meeting is necessary, it is necessary to mend the rift, it is necessary that we all meet. We failed to obtain any results. So now what we hope from your eminence and from your grace and from the honourable sheikhs is that you preserve Da’wa because this is a great inheritance and this Da’wa, as you know, has preceded all the good in the world. It has preceded so much good in the world.
What we hope and expect from you is that you preserve it as it is with its principles. There is no doubt that the pillars of this Da’wa are you. You are from the scholars, the inheritors of the prophets. We are behind you, we are behind you, but you are at the forefront, the honorable scholars. What we want from you is to preserve this work as it is, and you yourselves have seen the extent of goodness and guidance and blessings and answered prayers and mercies that have descended upon the Ummah because of this great work.
We ask Allah Almighty to grant us and you success to hold fast to this great work and to defend and protect the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah (SAW).
I wanted to mention this as some brothers asked me to explain our trip to India where we met the sheikhs and Sheikh Saad.
We ask Allah Almighty to grant us and you success to support the people of truth and to remain steadfast on this great work and on the call of truth.
