Ruling on Islāmic Discord Servers [Sa’eed Rhana]

Questioner :

Assalaamu ‘alaykum wa Rahmatullaahi wa Barakaatuhu Shaykh,

I hope you received this message in the best of health.

We wanted to seek your advice and I personally was prompted to seek advice from yourself from one of the duaats I personally know. We had a few questions regarding the application called Discord (it’s a chatting application in which people can make accounts and chat with each other and make servers).

Some brothers have khayr with them and they make servers under the banner of Salafiyyah, they share from the known elders, students, maraakiz such as Spubs, Troid, Germantown Masjid, etc. and they take from the elder scholars wa lillaahi al-hamd.

These servers call to the Da’wah, they have many channels and sources explaining Salafiyyah, Tawheed, etc. And most sources (if not all) are taken from reliable websites, channels, etc. They also have categories about deviant callers exposing their deviancy with detailed refutations, for example on certain individuals such as Ismail Menk, Yasir Qadhi, Muhammad Hijab, Daniel Haqiqatjou, etc.

The issue regarding some of these servers is that they are owned and run by brothers who are quite young in terms of age and in the da’wah.
Some of these servers are easy going with regards to who is allowed to join and type messages.

The questions asked before them being able to enter the server are sometimes too easy, and some brothers are let in as “Salafis”, but later on we see from them some speech of takfeer against the rulers, or they precede the elders in speech or some other issues. Sometimes they take from unknown or unclear individuals who may be hizbis/mubtadis.

Due to some brothers being easy going, it leads to some brothers speaking on matters they don’t have knowledge of, and we don’t have moderation/control over some servers/chats.

At the same time, by the Tawfeeq of Allaah, some of these brothers have accepted the Salafi Da’wah by way of this.
In some of these servers, they join a vocal channel in which they put on a lecture of students of knowledge (such as the lecture of Shaykh Abu Talhah rahimahullaah about the Sharh of Thalaathatul Usool), they benefit from it and they don’t do lessons on their own.

One final benefit regarding these servers is that there is need for servers like this upon Salafiyyah, due to the fact that there are many servers who claim to be Muslim servers while they are run by clear cut innovators like Sufis, deobandis, etc. and some young brothers join these servers and they don’t know any better.

After giving the context about the situation on Discord, we wanted to ask some questions regarding it :

1) What is your advice to the brothers that run these discord servers?

2) Would you advise them to keep the server running or should they close it?

3) If they should keep the server running, would you advise the server to be overseen by the students of knowledge/du’aat?

4) Is it ok for us to allow everyone to join and have access to the server for the purpose of benefitting, but they won’t be able to write or chat. And if they want to, then they will be tested before being able to write and share (with questions of manhaj, who they take from, who knows them, etc.)?

جزاكم الله خيرا

Shaykh Sa’eed Rhana :