The Re-Formers of Islam The Mas'ud Questions

Nuh Ha Mim Keller - Question 6

The Ijazas of Ibn Baaz and al-Albani

The Salafis allege that both Ibn Baz and al-Albani have ijazas (authorizations of
mastery of a book, etc. in Islamic knowledge from the scholar it was studied with)
from great sheikhs. They say that al-Albani has an ijaza from some sheikhs in
Syria, do you have any information on this?

Answer
Our teacher in hadith, Sheikh Shu‘ayb al-Arna’ut, tells my wife and me that
Sheikh Nasir al-Albani learned his hadith knowledge from books and
manuscripts in the Dhahiriyya Library in Damascus, as well as his long years
working on books of hadith. He did not get any significant share of his knowledge
from living hadith scholars, according to Sheikh Shu‘ayb, for the very good
reason that there wasn’t anyone in Damascus at the time who knew much about
hadith, and he didn’t travel anywhere else to learn. I have heard Salafis say that
he has an ijaza from one person in Syria, but it could only be (according to Sheikh
Shu‘ayb) from someone with far less knowledge than himself

I believe Sheikh Shu‘ayb about this, because his family, like Sheikh Nasir’s, were
of the Albanians who emmigrated to Damascus at the collapse of the Ottoman
Empire, and they all know each other rather intimately. The impression one gets
is that Sheikh Nasir’s father, Sheikh Nuh al-Albani, was so strict a Hanafi that he
produced something of an over-reaction in Sheikh Nasir not only against Abu
Hanifa and his madhhab, but against traditional Islamic sheikhs as well.
According to Sheikh Shu‘ayb, Sheikh Nasir studied tajwid or ‘Qur’anic recitation’
and perhaps the Hanafi fiqh primer Maraqi al-falah [The ascents to success] with
his father Sheikh Nuh al-Albani, and possibly other lessons in Hanafi fiqh from
Sheikh Muhammad Sa‘id al-Burhani, who taught in Tawba Mosque, in the
quarter of the Turks on the side of Mount Qasiyun, near Sheikh Nasir’s father’s
shop. Sheikh Nasir subsequently found that his time could be more profitably
spent with books and manuscripts at the Dhahiriyya Library and in reading
works to students, and he did not attend anyone else’s lessons

As for his ijaza or ‘warrant of learning,’ Sheikh Shu‘ayb tells us that it came when
a hadith scholar from Aleppo, Sheikh Raghib al-Tabbakh, was visiting the
Dhahiriyya Library in Damascus, and Sheikh Nasir was pointed out to him as a
promising student of hadith. They met and spoke, the sheikh authorized him "in
all the chains of transmission that I have been authorized to relate"—that is to
say, a general ijaza, though Sheikh Nasir did not attend the lessons of the sheikh
or read books of hadith with him. Sheikh Raghib al-Tabbakh had chains of
sheikhs reaching back to the main hadith works, such as Sahih al-Bukhari, the
Sunan of Abu Dawud, and hence had a contiguous chain back to the Prophet
(Allah bless him and give him peace) for these books. But this was an
authorization (ijaza) of tabarruk, or ‘for the blessing of it,’ not a ‘warrant of
learning’—for Sheikh Nasir did not go to Aleppo to learn from him, and he did
not come to Damascus to teach him

This type of authorization (ijaza), that of tabarruk, is a practice of some

traditional scholars: to give an authorization in order to encourage a student
whom they have met and like, whom they find knowledgeable, or hope will
become a scholar. The reason I know of such ijazas is because I have one, from
the Meccan hadith scholar Sheikh Muhammad ‘Alawi al-Maliki, which authorizes
me to relate "all the chains of transmission that I [Muhammad ‘Alawi al-Maliki]
have been authorized to relate by my sheikhs," including chains of transmission
reaching back to the hadith Imams Malik, al-Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Dawud, al-
Tirmidhi, al-Nasa’i, Ibn Majah (Mecca: Muhammad ‘Alawi al-Maliki, 1412/1992).
Though my name is on the authorization, and it is signed by the sheikh, it does
not make me a hadith scholar like he is, because aside from some of his public
lessons, my hadith knowledge is not from him but from Sheikh Shu‘ayb, whom I
have actually studied with. Rather, Sheikh al-Maliki knows my sheikhs in
Damascus, that I am the translator of ‘Umdat al-salik [Reliance of the traveller]
in Shafi‘i fiqh, that we have known each other for some time, and he approves of
my way. The scholarly value of such ijazas is merely to establish that we have met.

As for Ibn Baz, I do not know who he studied with, though from his broadcasts on
the radio, I would be most surprised if he had ever studied with someone
uncommitted to what he and his colleagues simply call the da‘wa or ‘propagation,’
that is, of the revisions of Islam advocated by Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab.

As it is unlawful to say anything disliked about a Muslim except for an interest

countenanced by Sacred Law, the following discussion will not exceed (a)
whether these revisions constitute a sectarian emphasis differing from traditional
Islam; and (b) if sectarian, how this influences issues that Sheikh Nasir and Ibn
Baz might otherwise be believed about

I mention this to you, because, as you may know, some people take offense at the
word Wahhabi—and with good reason, if we mean to suggest that they do not
love Islam, or are not trying to practice it to the best of their understanding and
ability. I feel this is true of virtually all separatist groups, from the beginning of
Islam. Provided they do not negate something necessarily known to be of the
religion (necessarily known meaning that which any Muslim would know about if
asked), all these groups may be said to have tried to understand and apply the
Qur’an and the sunna, even though their understanding has brought them to a
mistaken conclusion. This is why Shari‘a manuals say things like:

They [those who rise in insurrection against the caliph] are subject to Islamic
laws (because they have not committed an act that puts them outside of Islam
that they should be considered non-Muslims. Nor are they considered morally
corrupt (fasiq), for rebels is not a perjorative term, but rather they merely have a
mistaken understanding), and the decisions of their Islamic judge are considered
legally effective (provided he does not declare the lives of upright Muslims to be
justly forfeitable) if they are such as would be effective if made by our own judge
(Reliance of the Traveller, 594).

The fact that such people may consider other Muslims not of their sect to be non-
Muslims—the hallmark of heterodox (batil) sects of all times and places—does
not change the above rulings, and the caliph or his representative may use only
enough force to end the strife. We find in the Hashiya radd al-muhtar ‘ala al-Durr
al-mukhtar sharh Tanwir al-absar [(Ibn ‘Abidin’s) Commentary: the guide of the
perplexed, upon (Haskafi’s) The choice pearls, an exegesis of (Tumurtashi’s)
Illumination of eyes], whose every word is considered a decisive evidence (nass)
in the Hanafi school:

(al-Haskafi:) Those who revolt against obedience to the imam [meaning the
caliph or his representative] are of three types:

(1) highwaymen, and their ruling is known [n: i.e. the death penalty, if they do
not give themselves up before they are caught];

(2) rebels (bughat) against the caliphate, whose ruling will be discussed below
[n: i.e. they are fought with as much force as needed to make them desist, as in
the Reliance above];

(3) and kharijites, meaning men with military force who revolt against the
imam because of a mistaken scriptural interpretation (ta’wil), believing that he is
upon a falsehood of unbelief (kufr) or disobedience to Allah (ma‘siya) that
necessitates their fighting him, according to their mistaken scriptural
interpretation, and who consider it lawful to take our lives, our property, and take
our women as slaves, and who consider the Companions of our Prophet (Allah
bless him and give him peace) to be disbelievers. Their ruling is the same as that
of rebels (bughat) against the caliphate [n: (2) above] by unanimous consensus of
fiqh scholars.

(Ibn ‘Abidin:) His words and who consider the Companions of our Prophet (Allah
bless him and give him peace) to be disbelievers are not a condition for someone
to be a kharijite, but rather are a mere clarification of what those who revolted
against ‘Ali (Allah Most High be well pleased with him) in fact did. Otherwise, it
is enough to be convinced of the unbelief of those they fight against, as happened
in our own times with the followers of [Muhammad ibn] ‘Abd al-Wahhab, who
came out of the Najd in revolt, and took over the sanctuaries of Mecca and
Medina. They followed the Hanbali madhhab, but believed that they were the
Muslims, and that those who believed differently than they did were polytheists
(mushrikin). On this basis, they held it lawful to kill Sunni Muslims (Ahl al-
Sunna) and their religious scholars, until Allah Most High dispelled their forces,
and the armies of the Muslims attacked their strongholds and subdued them in
1233 A.H. [1818] (Hashiya radd al-muhtar, 4.262).
The Shafi‘i mufti of Mecca, Ahmad ibn Zayni Dahlan (d. 1304/1886), a historian
as well as a scholar, recorded the story of the Wahhabis’ takeover of the holy
places in a number of books, one of which, his two-volume history al-Futuhat al-
Islamiyya [The Islamic conquests], gives the following description of what
became perhaps their most famous, and certainly their most lethal ijtihad;
namely, that the sunna of tawassul or ‘supplicating Allah through an
intermediary’ was shirk:

Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab claimed that his aim in this school of thought he
innovated was to make sincere the belief in Allah’s unity (tawhid), and to abjure
worshipping false gods (shirk), and that Muslims had been worshipping false
gods for six hundred years, and that he had revived their religion for them. He
interpreted Qur’anic verses revealed about worshippers of false gods (mushrikin)
as referring to those who worship Allah alone, such as the word of Allah Most
High,

"And who is further astray than he who supplicates apart from Allah someone
who will not answer him until Resurrection Day, while they are oblivious to their
supplication" (Qur’an 46:5),

and His word,

"Do not supplicate besides Allah what will not benefit or harm you" (Qur’an
10:106).

There are many such verses in the Qur’an , so Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab
said that whoever seeks the help of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him
peace) or others, of the prophets, the friends of Allah (awliya’), or the righteous;
or calls on him or asks him to intercede—was like such worshippers of false gods,
and was referred to by the generality of such verses. He believed the same thing
about visiting the tomb of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) and
all others of the prophets, friends of Allah, or the righteous. He said about the
word of Allah Most High, who quotes the idolators about worshipping their idols:

"We only worship them that they may bring us the nearer to Allah" (Qur’an
39:3)

that people who pray to Allah by means of an intermediary (tawassul) are like
these worshippers of false gods who said, "We only worship them that they may
bring us the nearer to Allah." He said that the worshippers of false gods didn’t
believe their idols created anything, but rather that the Creator was Allah Most
High, as shown by Allah’s word

"And if you ask them who created them, they will say, ‘Allah’" (Qur’an 43:87),

and,
 "And if you ask them who created the heavens and earth, they will say, ‘Allah’"
(Qur’an 31:25),

such that Allah did not judge them to have committed unbelief and worshipping
false gods except for their saying, "that they may bring us all the nearer to Allah,"
and in consequence, these people [Muslims who make tawassul] are like them.

And this is simply wrong, for Muslim believers do not take the prophets (upon
whom be peace) or the friends of Allah as gods or make them co-partners
(shuraka’) with Allah, but rather, they believe that they are created slaves of Allah
and do not deserve any worship

As for the worshippers of false gods whom these Qur’anic verses were revealed
about, they believed that their idols were gods, and reverenced them with the
reverence of godhood, even if they acknowledged that they did not create
anything—while believers do not hold that the prophets or awliya’ deserve
worship or godhood, and do not reverence them with the reverence due solely to
the Divine. Instead, they believe that they are the servants of Allah, and His
beloved ones, whom He has elected and chosen, and through His blessings to
them (baraka), He shows mercy towards His slaves. Their intention in seeking
blessings through them is the mercy of Allah Most High, and much attests to the
validity of this in the Qur’an and sunna.

The creed of the Muslims is that the Creator—He Who Afflicts, He Who Benefits,
He who deserves worship—is Allah alone. They do not believe that anyone else
has any effect whatsoever; and they believe that the prophets and awliya’ do not
create anything, do not possess any ability to benefit or harm, but merely that
through Allah’s grace to them (baraka), He shows mercy towards created
servants.

It was the belief of the worshippers of false gods that their idols deserved worship
and godhood that made them guilty of associating co-partners with Allah (shirk),
not merely their saying, "We only worship them that they may bring us the nearer
to Allah." For it was only when it was proved to them that their idols did not
deserve to be worshipped—as they believed they did—that they said by way of
excuse, "We only worship them that they may bring us nearer to Allah."

So how should Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab and his followers consider believers who
acknowledge the unity of tawhid to be comparable to those worshippers of false
gods who believed in the godhood of their idols? For all the above-mentioned
verses and those like them specifically refer to non-Muslims and worshippers of
false gods, while not a single believer enters into them.

Bukhari relates from ‘Abdullah ibn ‘Umar (Allah be well pleased with father and
son) who related from the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) that in
[foretelling the] description of the Kharijites, he said that they would "proceed to
Qur’anic verses revealed about non-Muslims, and interpret them as if they
referred to believers."

And in another hadith, also from Ibn ‘Umar, the Prophet (Allah bless him and
give him peace) said, "The thing I fear most for my Umma is a man who
interprets the Qur’an taking it out of its context"; both of these hadiths being
applicable to this sect

If believers’ praying to Allah through an intermediary (tawassul) and the like

were worshipping false gods, it wouldn’t have been done first by the Prophet
himself (Allah bless him and give him peace), his Companions, and the Muslim
Umma, from first to last (Dahlan, al-Futuhat al-Islamiyya [Cairo: al-Maktaba al-
Tijariyya al-Kubra, 1354/1935], 2.258–59).

This passage shows us why the Wahhabis’ were considered like Kharijites, men
who, as al-Haskafi notes above, revolted against the imam "because of a mistaken
scriptural interpretation (ta’wil)," believing that he was "upon a falsehood of
unbelief (kufr) or disobedience to Allah (ma‘siya) that necessitates their fighting
him."

The main difficulty with their theory that tawassul amounted to worshipping
false gods was the fact that it was taught to the Umma by the Prophet (Allah bless
him and give him peace)—something you have asked about and will be discussed
in question (9) below—which was perhaps why no one in the previous eleven
centuries of Islamic scholarship before Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab had ever
noticed that it was unbelief

In this respect, it is fortunate that Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab didn’t get his hands on his
own Imam, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, who enjoined his most outstanding student, Abu
Bakr Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Marrudhi (d. 275/888) to make tawassul
through the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace). Al-Marrudhi relates
the tawassul of the hadith of the Companion (Sahabi) ‘Uthman ibn Hunayf
containing the words, "O Allah, verily, I turn to You through Your prophet
Muhammad, the Prophet of Mercy (Allah bless him and give him peace); O
Muhammad, verily I turn through you to my Lord, that He may fulfill my need
[emphasis the translator’s]"—which al-Marrudhi relates from Ahmad ibn Hanbal
in the "Chapter on Supplications" of his Kitab al-mansak [Book of Hajj and
‘Umra]. This is mentioned by Ibn Taymiya (Qa‘ida jalila fi al-tawassul wa al-
wasila [N.d. Reprint. Beirut: al-Maktaba al-‘Ilmiyya, n.d.], 98), whom I tend to
believe on it, since it is something whose sunna character he tries to disprove his
Imam about, though without conceiving it to be idolatry (shirk) or unbelief
(kufr), as the Wahhabis did more than four centuries later.

Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab is gone today, together with the fatwas he gave
that resulted in the attacks on Mecca, Ta’if, and Medina beginning in 1205/1790
by "reformers" who believed that the lives, women, and money of ordinary Sunni
Muslims who did not feel that tawassul was shirk could be lawfully taken by those
who did. There are no more Wahhabis in this sense. As King Fahd (who, on the
whole, has had a positive, moderating influence) said a few years ago in a speech,
"We are not Wahhabis, we are Hanbalis."

Yet if the "revolt" (in al-Haskafi’s words) is gone, the "mistaken scriptural
interpretation" remains; and its intellectual influence is still strong on all aspects
of the religious establishment in Saudi Arabia. Many of the questions you have
asked deal specifically with ideas aggressively packaged and exported to other
Muslim countries under the aegis of Ibn Baz, and given currency by the support
of Sheikh Nasir and his followers

These are revisions to traditional Islam, and if many ordinary Muslims have
forgotten this, it is due to the extent to which they have succeeded, abetted by
heavy subsidizing and the present lack of traditional scholars (‘ulama) to teach
Muslims the truth. Yet one cannot but feel they mark a transient phase, for Allah
has promised to protect the din, and if the rebuttals of classical scholars were
heard, these innovations would melt away. In the meantime, "reforms" have been
slated for all three pillars of the din, Islam (Shari‘a), Iman (‘Aqida), and Ihsan
(Tariqa), and can perhaps be best summarized under these headings:

(1) Islam (Shari‘a): To their credit, the movement we are speaking of has revived
interest in hadith among Islamic scholars across the board. But the emphasis on
hadith and its ancillary disciplines to the exclusion of other Islamic sciences
equally essential to understanding the revelation, such as fiqh methodology, or
the conditioning of hadith by general principles expressed in the Qur’an , has
created the false dichotomy in many Muslims’ minds of either fiqh or hadith. And
this is an intellectual bid‘a of the most ominous sort for Islam, which has never
accepted ijtihad from non-mujtahids, or anything short of the fiqh (literally
"understanding subtle points") of hadith.

One sad outcome of dichotomizing fiqh and hadith is the revival of Dhahiri
thought we have talked about above, with its "fallacy of misplaced literalism" in
interpreting primary scriptural texts. Such literalism necessarily forces itself
upon someone trained in hadith alone (like Sheikh Nasir) if he tries to deduce
Shari‘a rulings without mastery of the interpretive tools needed to meet the
challenges that face the mujtahid, for example, in joining between a number of
hadiths on a particular question that seem to conflict, or the many other
intellectual problems involved in doing ijtihad. This strident Dhahirism—
especially among Sheikh Nasir’s followers—has made some contemporary
Muslims seriously believe that it is a matter of either following "the Qur’an and
sunna," or one of the schools of the mujtahid Imams

Now, the big lie has only gained credibility today because so few Muslims
understand what ijtihad is or how it is done. I believe this can be cured by
familiarizing Muslims with concrete examples of how mujtahid Imams derive
particular Shari‘a rulings from the Qur’an and hadith, examples which first,
demonstrate the breadth of their hadith knowledge (Muhammad ibn ‘Ubayd
Allah ibn al-Munadi (d. 272/886) relates that Ahmad ibn Hanbal said that having
memorized three hundred thousand hadiths was not enough to be a mujtahid),
and second, demonstrate their mastery of the deductive principles that enable
one to join between all the primary texts. Until this is done, the advocates of this
movement will probably continue to follow the ijtihad of non-mujtahids (the
sheikhs who inspire their confidence), under the catch phrase "Qur’an and
sunna" just as if the real mujtahids were unfamiliar with the obligation of
following these. The followers perhaps cannot be blamed, since "for someone who
has never travelled, his mother is the only cook." But I do blame the sheikhs who,
whatever their motivations, write and speak as if they were the only cooks

(2) Iman (‘Aqida): The uncritical acceptance and subsidizing of Ibn Taymiya’s
and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya’s opinions in ‘aqida has had a number of results

One is that Ibn Taymiya’s denial of all figurative expression (majaz) in the Qur’an
, what we have called above "misplaced literalism," has caused the
anthropomorphism it brings to most minds to spread to the horizons, under the
slogan of a "return to the ‘aqida of early Muslims," which, as explained above, it
most certainly is not

In this connection, I was recently speaking with Mawlana ‘Abdullah Kakakhail, a

scholar of Islamic belief (usul al-din) from Islamabad, who told me that he
graduated from the Islamic University in Medina in 1966, and shortly afterwards,
on the verge of returning home, had been summoned to the office of the vice-
rector of the university, who expressed his disappointment that the student had
not benefited more from his studies in Islamic faith (‘aqida). The vice-rector said
he knew ‘Abdullah was returning to Pakistan with the same tenets of faith he had
had when he came. They got to talking about the mutashabihat or ‘unapparent in
meaning’ Qur’anic verses and hadiths, and the discussion turned to Allah’s ‘hand’
(Qur’an 48:10). "You say," the young man told the vice-rector, "That ‘the hand is
known, but the how of it is unknown.’ What does the unknownness of this how
mean?" The vice-rector said, "It means we do not know whether the hand is black
or white, or whether it is long or short." The vice-rector’s name was Ibn Baz, and
this was what was being offered at the time as the da‘wa or ‘invitation’—
apparently to the faith (‘aqida) that inspired the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Secondly, the yawning gulf between this kind of anthropomorphism and the
entire previous Qur’an tafsir literature has necessitated the explanation that
someone (namely, the Ash‘ari school) has crept in upon the Umma and altered
the "‘aqida of the early Muslims" that is alleged to have been there before (but
now cannot be found). This has in turn divided the field of ‘aqida into two camps,
pro- and anti-Ash‘ari, whereas for the previous thousand years, Sunni Muslims
agreed upon the orthodoxy of the Ash‘ari and Maturidi schools. Why was
something fixed that was not broken?

Indeed, when a wealthy trader from Jedda brought to life the long-dead ‘aqida of
Ibn Taymiya at the beginning of this century by financing the printing in Egypt of
Ibn Taymiya’s Minhaj al-sunna al-nabawiyya and other works, the Mufti of Egypt
Muhammad Bakhit al-Muti‘i, faced with new questions about the validity of
anthropomorphism, wrote: "It was a fitna (strife) that was sleeping; may Allah
curse him who awakened it."

But perhaps the most ill-starred ‘aqida legacy of the historical Wahhabi
movement is something now practiced from the Najd to the Indian Subcontinent,
to the East and the West; namely, the ease with which Muslims call each other
"unbelievers." Whether it is over a fiqh question like tawassul, or an ‘aqida
question like the above, this is precisely the sectarianism which Allah forbids in
the Qur’an with the words,

"And do not be like those who separated into factions and differed between
themselves" (Qur’an 3:105),

Sectarianism of this sort is something that did not exist in traditional Sunni Islam
for the previous thousand years, but rather represents a break with that tradition.
Whether we justify it in the name of an ‘Islamic reform,’ or a ‘return to early
Islam,’ sectarianism is and remains the kind of bid‘a of misguidance of which the
Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said in the hadith of Muslim,

"Whoever innovates something in this matter of ours that is not from it shall
have it rejected" (Muslim 3.1343).

(3) Ihsan (Tariqa): The third of the re-forms, and among the most aggressively
pursued today is an attempt to finish tasawwuf or ‘Sufism’ as one of the Islamic
sciences, though there is no doubt that it has been considered as such by virtually
all classical scholars since the religious sciences were first recorded. Our times
have seen the printing and reprinting of works like ‘Abd al-Rahman ibn al-Jawzi’s
Talbis Iblis [The Devil’s deception] passages of which criticize "the Sufis"
(meaning groups of them in his time) without mentioning that a great many of
the biographies of his five-volume Sifa al-safwa [Description of the elect] are the
very Sufis quoted in extenso in Qushayri’s classic work on Sufism al-Risala al-
Qushayriyya.

Though Sufism exists for the good reason that the sunna we have been
commanded to follow is not just the words and outward actions of the Prophet
(Allah bless him and give him peace), but also his states, such as reliance on Allah
(tawakkul), sincerity (ikhlas), forbearance (hilm), patience (sabr), humility
(tawadu‘), perpetual remembrance of Allah, and so on. Many, many hadiths and
Qur’anic verses indicate the obligatory character of attaining these and hundreds
of other states of the heart, such as the hadith related by Muslim that the Prophet
(Allah bless him and give him peace) said,

"No one will enter paradise who has a particle of arrogance in his heart"
(Muslim, 1.93).
or the sahih hadith in the Sunan of Abu Dawud about the obligatoriness of having
presence of heart in the prayer (salat), that ‘Ammar ibn Yasir heard the Prophet
(Allah bless him and give him peace) say,

"Verily, a man leaves, and none of his prayer has been recorded for him except
a tenth of it, a ninth of it, an eighth of it, a seventh of it, a sixth of it, a fifth of it, a
fourth of it, a third of it, or a half of it" (Sunan Abi Dawud [N.d. Reprint. Istanbul:
al-Maktaba al-Islamiyya, n.d.] 1.211).

Half a minute’s reflection should show each of us where we stand on these

aspects of our din, and why in classical times, helping Muslims to attain these
states was not left to amateurs, but rather delegated to ‘Ulama' of the heart, the
scholars of Islamic Sufism

As in other Islamic sciences, mistakes historically did occur in Sufism, most of

them stemming from not recognizing the Shari‘a and tenets of faith (‘aqida) of
Ahl al-Sunna as being above every human being. But these mistakes were not
different in principle from, for example, the Isra’iliyyat (baseless tales of Bani
Isra’il) that crept into Qur’anic exegesis (tafsir) literature, or the mawdu‘at
(hadith forgeries) that crept into the body of prophetic hadith. These were not
taken as proof that tafsir was bad, or hadith was deviance, but rather, in each
discipline, the errors were identified and warned against by the Imams of the
field, because the Umma needed the rest. And such corrections are precisely what
we find in books like Qushayri’s Risala, Ghazali’s Ihya’ and other works of Sufism.

In contrast, the re-formers of our times have hit upon the expedient of creating
doubts of there being any genuine Islamic science to attain spiritual sincerity in a
systematic and knowledge-based way. But perhaps today they are beginning to
realize that if one ends all spiritual aspiration, one will only produce numbers of
aggressive Muslims with no other means of feeling more religious than by
arguing to prove their fellow Muslims are less so—an unenviable condition
described in the hadith of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace),

"No people went astray after guidance, except that they were afflicted with
arguing."

To summarize, the movement to re-form our din attacks the scholarly authority
that has traditionally been the support of its three pillars: in Islam, by turning
Muslim’s hearts against the madhhabs that are our Shari‘a; in Iman, by
presenting Ibn Taymiya’s anthropomorphism as the ‘way of the early Muslims’;
and in Ihsan, by trying to close the door of traditional Islamic spirituality once
and for all.

Sheikh Nasir and Ibn Baz are among the main luminaries of the movement, and
the latter’s whole career shows an emphasis on these reforms, from the
publications printed under his auspices and distributed across the globe, to the
funding of Wahhabi U. graduates to return from Medina to their homelands to
disseminate the teachings of sect, tirelessly retelling of how few Muslims scholars
over the last fourteen hundred years have truly understood Islam as it was
understood by the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) and themselves.

So perhaps the best answer to your question about the ijazas of these two men is
to ask in turn: What relevance to such re-formers should the traditional ijaza
system have, when its function was to preserve intact the understanding of Islam
by traditional scholars down through the centuries, an understanding they wish
to change?