The Reality of Sufism: Is It a Path of Guidance? Shaykh Salih al-Luhaydan

3,991 views·Jun 15, 2026

📌 Sincere Advice Regarding Sufism Is It a Path of Guidance? In this important advice, Shaykh Salih al Luhaydan explains the reality of Sufism and clarifies that guidance is found in adhering to the Qur'an, the Sunnah, and the path of the Prophet ﷺ and his Companions. The Shaykh discusses the origins of Sufism, its later developments, and the obligation of following the way of the Salaf rather than newly introduced paths and labels. About Shaykh Salih ibn Muhammad al Luhaydan • Former Chairman of the Supreme Judicial Council of Saudi Arabia • Member of The Permanent Committee for Scholarly Research and Ifta • Member of the Council of Senior Scholars of Saudi Arabia ⚠️ Sufism is not a path of guidance. Rather, it has historically served as a bridge not only to the kufr of Wahdat al Wujud (the false pantheistic creed known as "the Unity of Existence"), but also to numerous innovated beliefs and practices in both creed and worship. Today, this path is promoted not only by grave worshippers and those who call to shirk, but also by many non Muslims in the West who view it as a means of watering down and neutralizing Islam. This is because Sufism, in many of its forms, shifts people away from pure Tawhid, strict adherence to the Sunnah, and the methodology of the Salaf, replacing them with innovations, mysticism, and blind allegiance to shaykhs and spiritual orders. ✅ Anyone seeking to learn Zuhd (detachment from the worldly life and its temptations) does not need to become a Sufi. There are many excellent books on Zuhd, purification of the soul, and Islamic manners written by the scholars of Ahl al Sunnah. Among the best of them are the works of Ibn al Qayyim, as well as Kitab al Zuhd by Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal and Kitab al Zuhd by Abdullah ibn al Mubarak. ✅ True Zuhd is found through following the Qur'an, the Sunnah, and the understanding of the Salaf, not through Sufi paths and orders. For this reason, Authentic Answers recommends listening to Shaykh Dr. Abd al Razzaq al Badr, whose lessons clearly explain how to cultivate Zuhd while remaining firmly upon the creed and methodology of the Salaf. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⚠️ The Murji'ah conflate the outward rulings pertaining to legislative names and labels with the inward rulings pertaining to legislative punishments. - The outward ruling is the worldly judgment based solely on a person’s outward statements and actions. It does not depend on what is in the heart. - The inward ruling concerns the hidden reality of the heart, which cannot be known. It is only considered in matters of punishment and the ruling of the Hereafter. Ignorance, coercion, mistake, and denial are considered here, not in the outward ruling. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✅ The methodology of Ahl al-Sunnah wal-Jamaah: The outward ruling is based exclusively on statements and actions. Matters of the heart are only considered in punishment and the final judgment, in this world by the judge and in the Hereafter by Allah. ✍️ Al-Hafidh Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani (d. 852H) in Fath al-Bari (12/272), transmitting consensus: وكلهم أجمعوا على أن أحكام الدنيا على الظاهر، والله يتولى السرائر “THEY ALL UNANIMOUSLY AGREED that worldly rulings are based upon what is outwardly apparent, while Allah alone takes charge of what lies within.” End Quote ✍️ Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah (d. 728H) said in As-Sarim al-Maslul (2/339): فمن قال أو فعل ما هو كفر, كفر بذلك، وإن لم يقصد أن يكون كافرًا، إذ لا بقصد الكفر أحدّ إلًّا ما شاء الله. “Whoever says or does that which is kufr, then he becomes a kafir by that itself, even if he did not intend to become a disbeliever, for no one intends kufr except whom Allah wills.” End Quote ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✦ Authentic and True — From the Scholars to You ✦ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ #Islam #Quran #Sunnah #Aqeedah #Salafi #salafiyyah #Bidah #IslamicAdvice #IslamicReminders #SeekingKnowledge #Tawheed #Muslim #Fiqh #scholarsofsunnah #AhlusSunnah #IslamicClips #IslamicShorts #Creed #IslamicEducat