Allah Ta’alaaccorded a high status to the ‘ulamâ’. I am therefore telling you that you must value and appreciate them. I am greatly hurt by the person who has no respect for the ‘ulamâ’. I am most pleased when the masses carry their bedding and go out for the sake of Islam. We personally encourage people to join them and we ourselves are invited to the ijtimâ‘ât to deliver talks. But when I hear such statements wherein the ‘ulamâ’, mashâ’ikh and elders of Islam are disparaged, then I cannot bear this because long before Maulânâ Ilyâs rahimahullâh, people like Shâh Walî Allâh Muhaddith Dehlawî rahimahullâh, Maulânâ Rashîd Ahmad Gangohî rahimahullâh, Maulânâ Qâsim Nânautwî rahimahullâh, ‘Abdullâh ibn Mubârak rahimahullâh, Imam Abû Hanîfah rahimahullâh, Imam Ahmad ibn Hambal rahimahullâh, Imam Shâfi‘î rahimahullâh, Khwâjah Hasan Basrî rahimahullâh and numerous others did not carry their bedding and go out. It is thus harâm to make such statements that if a person does not go for fortydays, there is no guarantee for his entry into Paradise, or to deliver such speeches whereby the respect for the ‘ulamâ’ is decreased in the minds of the masses.

Listen to this fatwa of mine: to choose such a theme, or to speak of a particular act or service to Islam in such a manner whereby this decreases respect of the ‘ulamâ’, mashâ’ikh and Ahlullâh (friends of Allâh), and people begin saying that our ‘ulamâ’ and mashâ’ikh are not doing anything, they are merely sitting in their rooms, they are sitting in the coolness of fans in the madâris, etc. I say that such talks and speeches are harâm. This is because a Hadîth Qudsî states:

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“The person who scorns or displays enmity towards My friend, then I announce war against him.”

Do you think that this is a trivial enmity where you cause the masses to have bad thoughts about the Ahlullâh and the ‘ulamâ’? And that you consider non-‘ulamâ’ who spent a few forty days to be equal to ‘ulamâ’? This is similar to causing sick people to scorn the heart specialists and showing high regard to those who merely tie the bandages. A poor person came for a heart operation and you sent him to a person to tie a bandage for him. While he is busy tying his bandage, the person’s heart fails!