that the Messenger of Allāh (ṣallá Allāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam) said: "The most hated people to Allāh are three: one who commits sacrilege in the sacred precinct, one who seeks to revive a pre-Islamic practice in Islam, and one who seeks the blood of a Muslim without right to shed it."¹ Narrated by al-Bukhārī. (Ibn Taymiyyah said: His statement: a pre-Islamic practice)² includes every form of pre-Islamic ignorance, whether absolute or specific to an individual, whether from the People of the Book, paganism, or otherwise, encompassing all that contradicts what the messengers brought. And in the authentic [collections] from Ḥudhayfah (raḍiya Allāhu ʿanhu) who said: "O assembly of reciters, be upright, for you have preceded others by a great distance. If you turn to the right or left, you will have gone far astray." And from Muḥammad ibn Waḍḍāḥ, it is reported that he³ would enter the mosque, stand by the circles, and say: He mentioned it, and said: Ibn ʿUyaynah informed us from Mujālid⁴ from al-Shaʿbī from Masrūq who said: ʿAbd Allāh, meaning Ibn Masʿūd, said: (There is no year except that the one following it is worse than it. I do not mean a year with more rain than another, nor a year more fertile than another, nor a ruler better than another, but rather the loss of your scholars and the best among you, then people will arise who measure matters by their opinions, thereby demolishing and damaging Islam.)⁵