by the late Muhaddith of the Age,
Imam Abu'l-Fayd Ahmad ibn Abi Abdallah al-Siddiq al-Ghimmari,
author of 143 books.
As for the Qarniyyun, their land has not been blessed by Allah with any wali or salih since the beginning of Islam down to the present day. Instead, he only gave it the Qarn al-Shaytan ['the Devil's Horn'], whose followers were the Khawarij of the thirteenth and subsequent Islamic centuries. So fear God, and do not be like he who is beguiled by them, and supports their corrupt sect and worthless opinion, and their state of misguidance which was explicitly described by the Prophet (upon whom be blessings and peace), who characterised them as the 'Dogs of the Fire' [kilab al-nar], and informed us that they are the 'worst of all who dwell beneath the sky', and that they 'swerve from the religion as an arrow swerves away from its target,' and that they mouth among the best of sayings in the form of their prattlings about Tawhid, and implementing the Sunna, and combating bid'as - and yet, by Allah, they are drowning in bid'a; in fact, there is no bid'a worse than theirs, which causes them to 'swerve from the religion as an arrow swerves away from its target', in spite of their superficial efforts in worship and adherence to the religion. It is as the Prophet (upon whom be blessings and peace) declared: 'one of you would despise the prayer he says among them, and the fasting he completes with them; they recite Qur'an but it goes no further than their collarbones.'
It is for this reason that he refrained (upon him be blessings and peace) from making du'a for Najd in the way that he had prayed for the Yemen and for Syria, for he said: 'Allahumma bless us in our Yemen; bless us in our Syria' - and they said, 'And in our Najd, o Messenger of Allah?' (upon him be blessings and peace), but he repeated his prayer for the Yemen and for Syria; and they repeated their utterance; until he said, the second or the third time round, in order to explain why he would not pray for Najd:
'That is the place of earthquakes, and fitnas, and from it the Devil's Horn shall rise.' [Narrated by Bukhari.] And nothing has emerged from there to bring about earthquakes and fitnas in the religion like Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, who was astray and led others astray. Hence he was the Devil's Horn foretold by the Messenger (upon him be blessings and peace), and he abstained from offering prayer for Najd because of him, and because of the fitnas which would flow from his demonic da'wa. Whoever adheres to that da'wa has committed unambiguous kufr, and is destined for apostasy and 'swerving from the religion', as is visible in the case of the other mulhids [heretical unbelievers] of the age who are notorious for their ilhad, for in every case they began by holding fast to the sect of the Devil's Horn, as is well-known to scholars of experience and insight.
Wa-salla'Llahu 'ala sayyidina Muhammadin wa-'ala alihi wa-sahbihi kullama dhakaru a-dhakirun wa-ghafala 'an dhikrihi al-ghafilun.
wa'l-hamdu li'Llahi rabbi'l-'alamin
