18. The Fitnah of ʿArafāt al-Muḥammadī and ʿAbd al-Ilāh al-Rifāʿī
In their words
Note: This article was written in April 2025, but not publicised until December 2025. Since that time, in just a matter of a month or so, ʿArafāt al-Muḥammadī has been exposed as a liar through numerous other routes. In addition, he has been exposed for plotting to lie against Shaykh Rabīʿ to get a favourable fatwā that justifies khurūj against the legitimate authority in Yemen, as well as hiding his clear fatwā in the matter. He continues to be exposed day by day with more and more disgraces.
This article is related to the Brixton Contract entry which is background reading that provides context. In short, over two decades ago, al-Maʿribi and his followers attempted to get Maktabah Salafiyyah to agree to making two Jordanian shaykhs to be the reference point (marjiʿiyyah) for all of their daʿwah affairs, and this was rejected by us, and afterwards Shaykh Rabīʿ and Shaykh ʿUbayd refuted the contract and described it as a call to ḥizbiyyah.
Abd al-Ilāh al-Rifāʿī is said to be a former student and follower of the extreme Ḥaddādī known as ʿAbd Allāh al-Jarbūʿ and his nurturing as a youth is said to be an Ikhwānī one, with affiliation to and defence of the likes of ʿĀʾiḍ al-Qarnī, Nāṣir al-ʿUmar and others, having only entered Salafiyyah during or at the end of his undergraduate studies at the Jāmiʿah. This is what is said—and it may be that he repented from that way, but sometimes a man's past can remain with him unless his repentance has been genuine, deep and truly rectifying—and as such, this man's background needs further investigation for verification and corroboration, due to his suspect activities.[1]
I’d never even heard of him until some years before the fitnah of the Muṣaʿfiqah came into motion. Prior to that, I have no idea how long he had been a Salafī. It’s strange that someone who has barely left his 30s, with a background such as this, is taken as an authority in attacking Salafīs under false pretences.
Heads
ʿArafāt al-Muḥammadī
Al-Rifaʾī is following up on the failed attempts of his companion, Dr. ʿArafāt al-Muḥammadī to expel me from Salafiyyah and split the daʿwah here in the UK because I contested his lies, distortions and fabrications and violation of the Salafī methodology in how to deal with Ahl al-Sunnah, upon the way of Fāliḥ al-Ḥarbī and Muḥammad bin Hādī. So al-Rifāʾī has come on to the scene and is looking for scraps which he can use to aid the cause of his companion.
And in this, we see the strangest type of Salafiyyah, whereby you praise misguided innovators who attack the Imāms of the Sunnah and have your students benefit from them, after the Salafi scholars declared him astray—because of the “shuffling of the deck”—yet you seek to destroy Salafīs who have a long history of defending the scholars of Ahl al-Sunnah from these very accusations, by lying upon them, fabricating against them, and twisting their speech in the most horrendous manner, and accusing them of what they are innocent of, just because they are obstacles to your nefarious agendas. However, you make excuses for misguided innovators, praise them a lot and send your students to them! This is a counterfeit type of Salafiyyah.
ʿAbd al-Ilāh al-Rifāʿī
Abd al-Ilāh al-Rifāʿī is said to be a former student and follower of the extreme Ḥaddādī known as ʿAbd Allāh al-Jarbūʿ and his nurturing as a youth is said to be an Ikhwānī one, with affiliation to and defence of the likes of ʿĀʾiḍ al-Qarnī, Nāṣir al-ʿUmar and others, having only entered Salafiyyah during or at the end of his undergraduate studies at the Jāmiʿah. This is what is said—and it may be that he repented from that way, but sometimes a man's past can remain with him unless his repentance has been genuine, deep and truly rectifying—and as such, this man's background needs further investigation for verification and corroboration, due to his suspect activities.[1]
Coming to the issue, an audio recording and translated transcript of some speech of al-Rifāʿī was posted on social media today, 6 Dhū al-Ḥijjah 1446 (2 June 2025), which was intended as a refutation against me in relation to an entry on the Brixton Contract. It's unclear to me as to why al-Rifāʿī seems so sensitive and offended by the contents of that entry, unless he has a guilty conscience and feels that the article applies to him.