After advising us not to abandon lessons after attending the first few, our teacher, Ustādh Mūsá Richardson, may Allāh have abundant mercy upon him, stated the following:

“An additional benefit that is related to our salafīyyah and our distinction from the Khawārij of today is that there is a special attribute that the Khawārij have — specifically the Khawārij who call to rebel against the rulers. You might say ‘this is a strange connection’, but I will tell you the Khawārij of today have no patience in Ṭālab al-ʿIlm. They have no patience to continue [upon it] and study day-after-day, week-after-week, and year-after-year. While they may have acts of worship which are great and other things that they perform with diligence, [having patience in] Ṭālab al-ʿIlm is very hard for them in this era. Why — I do not know. Why do I say that  — it manifests itself in their claim when they speak about the scholars of Ahl al-Sunnah. [From] the evil nicknames that the Khawārij invent for our scholars today are that they are the scholars of women’s underpants (i.e. menses, the colour of the blood, when it is pure and impure).

What is the secret behind this claim, aside from them being khabīth and having filthy accusations? Why do they pick this issue out of all of the issues in the religion, saying that the scholars are busy with this? They could say that the ʿulāma are busy with sheep and cows, dividing them up for zakāh. They could say that they ʿulāma are busy with raising your hands or not raising your hands in takbīr. If they wanted to speak about the ʿulāma, they could say so many things.

Why did they say that the scholars are people who are so busy with issues of women’s purity? This is because they attended the first few lessons with the scholars; they tried to seek knowledge — they tried but they did not get past ṭahārah (purification)! So, in their minds, the ʿulāma are still teaching menses after 25-30 years. They came to a few lessons and saw the ʿulāma of Islām dealing with the texts of the Book and the Sunnah in great detail and precision, making taḥqīq, and showing how the issues about ṭahārah are to be understood properly — and one of the issues [was] women’s menses. This is an issue from our dīn. So, when they couldn’t bear it and they did not have patience to go beyond that and gain real fiqh in the religion, they immediately jumped to the newspapers, seeking fiqh al-Wāqiʿ, and [ran] to the political activities propped up as scholars, getting behind them, trying to replace our scholars with [these] political activities. What made them make this jump? What made them leave the lessons with the ʿulāma in the very beginning? It is their lack of patience. So be a Salafī. Be distinguished. Be patient upon Ṭālab al-ʿIlm. It takes patience for you to study a book from beginning to end.

From the words of Shaykh Ṣāliḥ al-Fawzān: ‘This is the path to understanding your religion. This is the path to being firm in your ʿaqīdah and being rightly guided as the Companions were rightly guided. This is the path to salvation.’

So be patient and ask Allāh for consistency, patience, and persistence upon this good you are on right now.”

Source: Shaykh al-Fawzān, Masāʿil al-Jāhiliyyah as taught by Ustādh Mūsá Richardson ~ Class 01.
Transcribed by: Umm Sufyān Fāṭimah