[citation needed] He worked and campaigned against the Wahhabi movement and the reformers in Cairo like Muhammad Abduh and al-Afghani who were changing Sunni Islam.
He believed in the law, or Shariah in restricting all Sufi activity, being of the Shafi madhab or thought of Sunni Islam holding a similar stance to al-Ghazali in his later years on Sufism.
He left a second time in 1300 Hijri when he was appointed Chief Justice of the al-Jaza court in Latakia on the Syro-Palestinian sea-shore.
After living there for five years the Ottoman government transferred him to be the grand Mufti, or Chief Justice of al-Quds or Jerusalem.
In addition he named a number of other teachers in his books "Hâdî al-Murîd" and "Jâmi` Karâmât al-Awliyâ".