his leadership, after they gathered in his house, with me and some of our Damascene brothers present. All of them advised him and asked him to refrain from imposing his opinion and insistence, and to cooperate with all his brothers, especially the elders and jurists among them. He refused, so they dismissed him from his leadership and appointed another over them while in his house! After that, he would speak ill of his old companion whenever he was mentioned, describing him with things that were not true! Even though he was known among his brothers for his sincerity, piety, understanding of fiqh, and zeal for the cause, as far as we know, and Allāh is his reckoner, and we do not commend anyone over Allāh. Because of this, I severed my ties with him; I do not visit him, nor does he visit me, even though he shows affection and reverence whenever he meets me, and I turn away from him until he repents to his Lord for his deed and apologizes to his brother for his offense against him. To Allāh belongs the outcome of matters. Despite leaving his hometown (Aleppo) and being left by the group as mentioned before, he still announces in Saudi Arabia that he is the leader of the group, and even claims that he is the founder of the Salafī call. He did this in his book "Al-Tawassul." I criticized him in my book "Al-Tawassul: Its Types and Rulings" (pp. 91-93), and he responded to me in the second edition of his aforementioned book, in a way that would appear to the discerning reader that he realized the correctness of my criticism of him, but he did not show it. The greatest evidence of this is that in his second edition, he restricted his previous title, saying about himself (!) "Founder of the Salafī call in Aleppo," without mentioning that he benefited from my aforementioned criticism, and he interpreted his statement "Founder" as I had mentioned in my criticism, that perhaps he meant "Reviver of the Salafī call." He spoke at length in words that do not depart from the aforementioned interpretation. I wished he had stated that he was "Reviver of the Salafī call in Aleppo," then his brothers would not have agreed with him on that, because they know he is not worthy of that, and it suffices him to be a follower of one of the revivers, as I said there. His aforementioned book is the greatest witness to what I say, as it is filled with scientific errors of various kinds, with weak understanding in expression, and his words in this matter..