Ibn Taymiyyah's explanation of "the ghurabaa" hadeeth.(The strangers).2

[bamalli]

Shaykh ul Islam continues and says:
"

" If it is said regarding the saying of Allah the Blessed and Most High,
" Whoever from among you apostates from his Deen, Allah will bring a people whom He will love and they will love Him " 5:54,
that this address is specific to that first generation only, as well as the saying of Allah the Most High,
"Allah has promised to those amongst them who believe and perform righteous actions, that we will establish them on the Earth, just as we did those came before them." 24:55,
then the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi was salama, has explained [in the authentic hadeeths] that they are the people of Yemen who enter into Al-Islam when the apostates from the Arabs apostatized from it and it is also evidence that at the end of time there will not remain a single believer [on the Earth].
It is said regarding the statement of Allah the Blessed and the Most High, " O you who believe!", that it is addressed to every believer that it is conveyed to, just as any other address [in the Qur'aan], for example, when Allah the Most High says, " O you who believe, when you [intend to] pray..." 5:6, and other such examples and that is [what is correct] with regards to the saying of Allah the Most High,
" Allah has promised to those amongst them who believe and perform righteous actions, that we will establish them on the Earth, just as we did those came before them." 24:55
[trans note: meaning it is not just addressed to the Early Muslims only..!]
And these two events have occurred, just as Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, has informed us.
Whenever a group apostate from al-Islam, Allah brings a people whom He loves, fighting in his cause and they are the victorious group up until the hour is established.
And this has been shown in what has been mentioned regarding the prohibition of allegiance [al walaa'] with the disbelievers. Allah has said,
" O you who believe, do not take the Jews or the Christians as allies, they are allies to one another. And whoever from amongst you takes them as allies then he is one of them. Indeed Allah does not guide the people who are oppressors. And you see the people in whose hearts they have a disease [hypocracy] hastening towards them and they say, " We fear that a calamity may befall us.", Perhaps Allah will bring about a victory or a decision by His divine will. Then they will become regretful for what they have been secretly hiding within themselves." up until Allah says, " O you who believe, whoever from among you apostates from his Deen, Allah will bring a people whom He will love and they will love Him " 5:51-54.
So the ones being addressed with regards to the prohibition of taking the Jews and Christians as allies, are the same as those being addressed regarding apostacy. And it is known [in the science of Tafseer], that this address encompasses every generation of this Ummah.
And the verses regarding the prohibition of taking the disbelievers as allies, explains that the one who does that, from those being addressed in the verse, becomes one of them. Meaning, the one who takes them as allies has apostatized from the Deen of al-Islam, and Islam is not harmed by that at all. "

Shaykh ul Islam continues:
"
Rather, Allah will bring a group whom he loves and they will love him. They will take the believers as their allies, not the disbelievers, and they will fight in the path of Allah, and they will not fear the blame of the blamers.
And Allah has said about the beginning of Islam,
" And if they disbelieve in it, then indeed, We have entrusted it to a people who are not disbelievers." 6:89
So these [in this verse] are the ones who do not enter in al-Islam, and those [in the previous ayah] are the ones who exit from al-Islam after they have entered it, and they do not harm al-Islam in any way at all.
Rather, Allah will establish whoever believes in what Allah has sent to His Messenger, and Allah will support his Deen, up until the hour is established.
And the people of Yemen [mentioned earlier], were from those whom Allah sent at that time of apostasy, however, this does not mean that that this verse in specific to them, neither does the hadeeth indicate that it is specific to them, but rather Allah has informed us, that he will bring other than the people of Yemen, for example the progeny of the Persians [al Faarisee]. And the promise of Allah is not specific to them, rather Allah the Most High has said,
" O you who believe! What is the matter with you, when you are called to march in the path of Allâh you cling heavily to the earth? Are you pleased with the life of this world rather than the Hereafter? But little is the enjoyment of the life of this world as compared with the Hereafter. If you do not march forward, He will punish you severely and will replace you with another people, and you cannot harm Him at all, and Allâh is Able to do all things." 9:39
And this verse is also addressed to every generation [of Muslims]. So Allah was informed in this verse that whoever turns away from marching to the Jihaad will be severely punished and they will be replaced with a people who will perform the Jihaad. And this is the reality [of the affair]. Just as Allah the Most High says in another verse,
" Behold! You are those who are called to spend in the path of Allâh, among you are some who are miserly. And whoever is miserly, it is only at the expense of his ownself. But Allah is Rich, and you are the needy. And if you turn away, He will replace you with some other people, and they will not be like you." 47:38
So Allah informs us that whoever turn away from performing Jihaad himself or spending in the path of Allah, he will be replaced.
This is the condition of the cowards, Allah replaces them with people who support and aid al-Islam and they spend from their wealth to it.

Shaykh ul Islam continues:
"

" So what is the condition of the person who is a born Muslim and then he apostates from it? [The answer] Allah will bring a people whom He loves and they love Him. They will we humble towards the believers and harsh towards the disbelievers, and they will fight in the path of Allah, and they will not fear the blame of the blamers.
And this can be found with the people of Knowledge, the people of worship, the people of fighting [jihaad] and the people of wealth. Amongst these four groups are believers who fight and are victorious up until the hour is established, just as there are, from among these four groups, those who apostate or turn away from performing the Jihaad and supporting it with their wealth. As Allah the Most High has said about this,
" Allah has promised to those amongst them who believe and perform righteous actions, that We will establish them on the Earth, just as We did those came before them." 24:55
So this is a promise which is applicable to all those who possess the attributes that Allah has described them with, just as those who possessed those attributes from the first generations of Muslims were established in the Earth and given an Islamic State, as He had promised. And if a generation after them possesses these attributes, Allah will rectify their faith and their actions for them.
And whoever perfects his faith and performs righteous actions, then Allah will establish them [ tamkeen] in the Earth, just as He has mentioned in the end of the verse. And if they have deficiencies or short-comings, then their establishment will be deficient according to the level of their deficiencies and short-comings. And this is a recompense for their actions. So, whoever does these righteous actions, it will be their right to be recompensed by Allah for that.
However, no later generation can ever [completely] resemble the first generation of Muslims. So certainly, no later generation can ever be as established in the Earth like the first generation of Muslims were. And the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi was salama, has said, " The best generation are the generation that I have been sent to, then the next best, are those who come after them, then the next best, are those who come after them. "
However, there will be those [who perform these righteous actions] after that first generation, as has occurred with some parts of the believers in some places. And this is something that is known in every era of time.
And the saying of the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa salama, " Indeed, Allah will sent a gentle breeze which will take the souls of every believer. ", this does not occur due to apostacy, but rather this is how the believers [at that time] will die. And the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi was salama, did not say, "when every believer dies.", [after this breeze] Allah will replace those people with another. Verily, Allah has promised this when some of the people apostate from their Deen.

Shaykh ul Islaam continues and says:
"

"And this hadeeth is evidence to show that the Ummah will never reach consensus upon misguidance, nor will the entire Ummah apostate form the Deen. Rather, there is no doubt that Allah will cause a group of believers to remain, and they will be victorious up until the hour is established. And when every believer has died, then the hour will be established after that.
And this is similar to the hadeeth of "al-'Ilm", and this is known to be saheeh on the authority 'Abdullah ibn 'Umar from the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi was salama, who said, " Indeed Allah does remove the knowledge [of al-Islam] from the people, but rather Allah remove the knowledge by removing the Scholars, up until there will not remain a single Scholar. Then the people will take as [religious] leaders ignoramuses. They will ask them for legal verdicts and they will give them legal verdicts without knowledge. So they will be misguided and they will misguide others."
And regarding the hadeeth of Abdullah ibn Mas'ood, and other than him, who said, [that the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi was salama, said, " The Qur'aan will be removed, so that there will not be a single verse remaining in the musaahif nor will there be a single verse remaining the the breasts [of people].", if it is said that this hadeeth contradicts the previous hadeeth, then we say, it does not [contradict] . The removal of the Qur'aan is not the same as the removal of knowledge and the evidence is the previous hadeeth [as that is how knowledge will be removed at that time].
[Upon hearing the above hadeeth] one of the Ansaar [Ziyaadh radiAllahu], asked, " How can it be removed, when we read the Qur'aan, and we read the Qur'aan to our wives and our children?, The Prophet replied, "May your mother be bereaved of you! I always counted you amongst the knowledgeable Scholars of the people of Madeenah. Don't the Jews and the Christians have with them the Tawraat and the Injeel, and yet it does not benefit them?"
So this hadeeth explains that, just because they are people who have memorized the Qur'aan, it does not necesiatate that they have knowledge, and the Qur'aan is read by both the hypocrite and the believer. The Qur'aan is also read by the uneducated reader who does not understand what he is reading, except for a little.
Al Hasan Al Basri, rahimahullah, said, "Knowledge is of two types. The knowledge of the heart and the knowledge of the tongue. The knowledge which is in the heart, is the knowledge which benefits. And the knowledge which is on the tongues is an evidence for Allah upon his servants."
So when the knowledge is removed by the death of the Scholars, there will remain people reciting the Qur'aan without any knowledge and Allah will remove it from the musaahif and their chests.
Thus it is like the hadeeth of Hudhayfah, radiAllahu, in the two saheeh collections, regarding the removal of honesty/trustworthi ness, wherein he said, " A man will go to sleep and honesty will be taken away from his heart, and only its trace will remain, like the trace of a burn. He will then sleep again, wherein the remainder of the honesty will also be taken away and its trace will be like a blister burn, which [in reality] is empty."
So it is said that, the removal of honesty and imaan is not like the removal of knowledge. A person can have imaan, whilst he is deficient in his knowledge. And this is the type of [weak] imaan which is removed from the chests of men. And this is like the imaan of the children of Isra'eel when they saw the calf.

But the person whose imaan is based upon knowledge, that is the type of [strong] imaan that is not removed from the chest, and similarly this type of person never apostates from al-Islam ever, unlike the one who possesses the Qur'aan [without knowledge] or the one who possesses imaan [without knowledge], and these are the ones whom it is removed from. And this is the reality [that is witnessed]. However, most of those who apostate from al-Islam, have the Qur'aan but no knowledge or imaan, or they have imaan, but no knowledge or [understanding of the] Qur'aan.
But the one who has knowledge of the Qur'aan, and has imaan based upon knowledge, then this is the type of knowledge and imaan which is not removed from the chests, and Allah knows best."