Nuh Ha Mim Keller - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nuh Ha Mim Keller (born 1954) is an American
convert to Islam. He is a translator of
Islamic books
[2] and a specialist in
Islamic law, as well as being authorised by
Abd al-Rahman al-Shaghouri as a
sheikh in
sufism in the
ShadhiliOrder.
[3]
Who and what is a Salafi
Who and What is a Salafi
Q-News: © Nuh Ha Mim Keller
The word salafi or "early Muslim" in traditional Islamic scholarship means someone who died within the first four hundred years after the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), including scholars such as Abu Hanifa, Malik, Shafi'i, and Ahmad ibn Hanbal. Anyone who died after this is one of the khalaf or "latter-day Muslims".
The term "Salafi" was revived as a slogan and movement, among latter- day Muslims, by the followers of Muhammad Abduh (the student of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani) some thirteen centuries after the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), approximately a hundred years ago. Like similar movements that have historically appeared in Islam, its basic claim was that the religion had not been properly understood by anyone since the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) and the early Muslims--and themselves.
In terms of ideals, the movement advocated a return to a shari'a-minded orthodoxy that would purify Islam from unwarranted accretions, the criteria for judging which would be the Qur'an and hadith. Now, these ideals are noble, and I dont think anyone would disagree with their importance. The only points of disagreement are how these objectives are to be defined, and how the program is to be carried out. It is difficult in a few words to properly deal with all the aspects of the movement and the issues involved, but I hope to publish a fuller treatment later this year, insha'Allah, in a collection of essays called "The Re-Formers of Islam".
As for its validity, one may note that the Salafi approach is an interpretation of the texts of the Qur'an and sunna, or rather a body of interpretation, and as such, those who advance its claims are subject to the same rigorous criteria of the Islamic sciences as anyone else who makes interpretive claims about the Qur'an and sunna; namely, they must show:
- That their interpretations are acceptable in terms of Arabic language;
- That they have exhaustive mastery of all the primary texts that relate to each question, and
- That they have full familiarity of the methodology of usul al-fiqh or "fundamentals of jurisprudence" needed to comprehensively join between all the primary texts.
Only when one has these qualifications can one legitimately produce a valid interpretive claim about the texts, which is called ijtihad or "deduction of shari'a" from the primary sources. Without these qualifications, the most one can legitimately claim is to reproduce such an interpretive claim from someone who definitely has these qualifications; namely, one of those unanimously recognized by the Umma as such since the times of the true salaf, at their forefront the mujtahid Imams of the four madhhabs or "schools of jurisprudence".
As for scholars today who do not have the qualifications of a mujtahid, it is not clear to me why they should be considered mujtahids by default, such as when it is said that someone is "the greatest living scholar of the sunna" any more than we could qualify a school-child on the playground as a physicist by saying, "He is the greatest physicist on the playground". Claims to Islamic knowledge do not come about by default. Slogans about "following the Qur'an and sunna" sound good in theory, but in practice it comes down to a question of scholarship, and who will sort out for the Muslim the thousands of shari'a questions that arise in his life. One eventually realizes that one has to choose between following the ijtihad of a real mujtahid, or the ijtihad of some or another "movement leader", whose qualifications may simply be a matter of reputation, something which is often made and circulated among people without a grasp of the issues.
What comes to many peoples minds these days when one says "Salafis" is bearded young men arguing about din. The basic hope of these youthful reformers seems to be that argument and conflict will eventually wear down any resistance or disagreement to their positions, which will thus result in purifying Islam. Here, I think education, on all sides, could do much to improve the situation.
The reality of the case is that the mujtahid Imams, those whose task it was to deduce the Islamic shari'a from the Qur'an and hadith, were in agreement about most rulings; while those they disagreed about, they had good reason to, whether because the Arabic could be understood in more than one way, or because the particular Qur'an or hadith text admitted of qualifications given in other texts (some of them acceptable for reasons of legal methodology to one mujtahid but not another), and so forth.
Because of the lack of hard information in English, the legitimacy of scholarly difference on shari'a rulings is often lost sight of among Muslims in the West. For example, the work Fiqh al-sunna by the author Sayyid Sabiq, recently translated into English, presents hadith evidences for rulings corresponding to about 95 percent of those of the Shafi'i school. Which is a welcome contribution, but by no means a "final word" about these rulings, for each of the four schools has a large literature of hadith evidences, and not just the Shafi'i school reflected by Sabiqs work. The Maliki school has the Mudawwana of Imam Malik, for example, and the Hanafi school has the Sharh ma'ani al-athar [Explanation of meanings of hadith] and Sharh mushkil al-athar [Explanation of problematic hadiths], both by the great hadith Imam Abu Jafar al-Tahawi, the latter work of which has recently been published in sixteen volumes by Mu'assasa al-Risala in Beirut. Whoever has not read these and does not know what is in them is condemned to be ignorant of the hadith evidence for a great many Hanafi positions.
What I am trying to say is that there is a large fictional element involved when someone comes to the Muslims and says, "No one has understood Islam properly except the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) and early Muslims, and our sheikh". This is not valid, for the enduring works of first-rank Imams of hadith, jurisprudence, Qur'anic exegesis, and other shari'a disciplines impose upon Muslims the obligation to know and understand their work, in the same way that serious comprehension of any other scholarly field obliges one to have studied the works of its major scholars who have dealt with its issues and solved its questions. Without such study, one is doomed to repeat mistakes already made and rebutted in the past.
Most of us have acquaintances among this Umma who hardly acknowledge another scholar on the face of the earth besides the Imam of their madhhab, the Sheikh of their Islam, or some contemporary scholar or other. And this sort of enthusiasm is understandable, even acceptable (at a human level) in a non-scholar. But only to the degree that it does not become taassub or bigotry, meaning that one believes one may put down Muslims who follow other qualified scholars. At that point it is haram, because it is part of the sectarianism (tafarruq) among Muslims that Islam condemns.
When one gains Islamic knowledge and puts fiction aside, one sees that superlatives about particular scholars such as "the greatest" are untenable; that each of the four schools of classical Islamic jurisprudence has had many many luminaries. To imagine that all preceding scholarship should be evaluated in terms of this or that "Great Reformer" is to ready oneself for a big letdown, because intellectually it cannot be supported. I remember once hearing a law student at the University of Chicago say: "I'm not saying that Chicago has everything. Its just that no place else has anything." Nothing justifies transposing this kind of attitude onto our scholarly resources in Islam, whether it is called "Islamic Movement", "Salafism", or something else, and the sooner we leave it behind, the better it will be for our Islamic scholarship, our sense of reality, and for our din.
© Nuh Ha Mim Keller 1995
The Delusional Salafi | Mohamed Ghilan
The Delusional Salafi
Mohamed Ghlian /
August 28, 2011
I have a question that I still can’t find the answer to. Since when did 1400 years of traditional Islamic scholarship, with a countless number of traditional Muslim scholars coming from as far east as China, and going as far west as Andalusia, have been reduced to 7 individuals? I’m speaking from a personal experience right now, and after having traveled to several cities and discussed this matter with people from literally all over the globe, I’ve realized that my experience may not be so personal after all. As I sit through the sermon on Fridays, the imam cannot mention the commentaries on Quran and prophetic tradition of anyone else but Imama Ibn Taymiyyah, Imam Ibn Katheer, Imam Ibn Al Qayyiem, Shaykh Ibn Uthaymeen, Shaykh Bin Baz, and Shaykh Al Albani may God have mercy on all of them. There is literally no one else to be mentioned. Moreover, Since Imam Ibn Katheer and Imam Ibn Al Qayyiem were the students of Imam Ibn Taymiyyah, and they spent their lives for the most part after his passing basically reiterating what he said and mostly defending his positions on the issues he dealt with, one can take it down from 7 individuals to just 4. Here is another interesting bit as well; these 4 are all Hanbali scholars. What’s puzzling is the claim that the imam constantly makes, as well as those who follow suit in the path he’s on, that they’re on the way of the
salaf, i.e. the pious predecessors. The talk is always about the saying of the Prophet peace be upon him as narrated in many of the Hadith books, including
Musnad Imam Ahmed and others:
The best of generations are mine, then the one that follows us, then the one after them
خير القرون قرني ثم الذين يلونهم ثم الذين يلونهم
The question that begs itself is this: if these people who claim that they are on the way of the
salaf are indeed true in their claim, why are the scholars they always mention when they speak or preach
NOT from the
salaf? The oldest one of them, Imam Ibn Taymiyyah, is from the 7th Islamic century. Shaykh Ibn Uthaymeen, Shaykh Bin Bazz, and Shaykh Al Albani are all from within this century.
So now there are two common themes amongst these scholars to be taken note of; none of them are from the
salaf, and they’re all from the Hanbali School. Interestingly enough, if you were to look into the books from the Islamic tradition that examine comparative jurisprudence (
Al Fiqh Al Muqaran), you will find that up until around the 6th century there was not a recognized Hanbali School the way the Hanafi, Maliki, and Shafi’i Schools were. These older books only mention the opinions of the latter three schools and there is no mention of a Hanbali opinion. Reason for that is two folds: Imam Ahmed, although being an amazing scholar in many of the Islamic sciences and
from the
salaf, was mainly grouped with the scholars of Hadith; secondly, Imam Ahmed’s initial students did not do as the other three imams’ students had done, namely serve the school by authoring and spreading its teachings and opinions. In fact, it wasn’t until the 6th Islamic century that the Hanbali School really became a
widelyrecognized 4th school of Islamic jurisprudence, which is generally attributed to be due to the efforts of Ibn Quddama Al Maqdisi may God have mercy on him, who served it like no other Hanbali scholar, especially with his authored work
Al Mughni. Remarkably, even if you look nowadays, the Hanbali School has always had the smallest number of followers, who mainly come from the Arabian Peninsula with a few coming from the area around Syria as well.
I suddenly feel the need to clarify something before I continue writing here. This is not an attack on the Hanbali School, and it’s not an attack on any of the scholars I’ve mentioned. I’m strictly a student that holds nothing on par with any of these great people. It’s simply a questioning of the methodology being followed by some modern day followers of these scholars, who for some reason feel it is an obligation upon themselves to shove down the throats of every Muslim in their path their own brand of Islam, which they deem the most correct.
So back to what I was saying, we have 4 scholars, none of which are from the
salaf, all of which are from the Hanbali School, representing a minority among Muslim scholars, and somehow they’re the bringers of “true” Islam to life. It would seem that before the 7th Islamic century and the advent of Imam Ibn Taymiyyah, the whole Muslim global community was in darkness and he was the “only” shining light that came to save it. Then after him the whole Muslim global community went into darkness again until Shyakh Bin Bazz, Shaykh Ibn Uthaymeen, and Shaykh Al Albani showed up as the new “only” shining lights coming once again to save the Muslims from wandering in darkness with their stupidity and ignorance due to other misguided scholars. Here is a thought, this type of attitude can only be described as a bad assumption of God. To assume that God will leave all of the Muslims wandering in darkness for all these periods is not only ludicrous; it’s blasphemous in my estimation. Furthermore, since when did God intend for everyone to be exactly the same? Imam Malik, who is in fact
from the
salaf, and one of the only two imams of schools in Islamic jurisprudence (as far as I know) to have the Prophet peace be upon him foretell about in a saying (Imam Shafi’I is the other one), was asked by the Muslim ruler during his time about taking his book
Al Muwatta’ and spreading it all over the Muslim world and enforcing it upon the people to follow. His response was simply: don’t do it, for knowledge has spread around and people know different things and they’ve been acting upon different realities (which all conform to Islamic teachings anyways). Here is a
salafi imam doing the exact opposite of what of these modern day so-called
salafi Muslims do.
Then there is the claim to be bringing people back to the truth and fixing the wrong and fighting innovation, all to purify Islam from all the ignorance that has taken it over:
Akhee, we want to be on the true path of Allah and it’s as Shaykh Al Islam Ibn Taymiyyah said this and that, and as the saying of the Prophet PBUH that was authenticated by Shaykh Al Albani says, which is why Shaykh Ibn Uthaymeen said…
It’s a very interesting claim indeed to make. Why don’t these people reflect on the verse from the Quran that says:
And when it is said to them, Do not make mischief in the land, they say: we are but peace-makers. Now surely they themselves are the mischief makers, but they do not perceive – Al Baqara (2:11-12)
وإذا قيل لهم لا تفسدوا في الارض قالوا إنما نحن مصلحون 11 ألا إنهم هم المفسدون ولكن لا يشعرون 12 – البقرة 11-12
Imam Al Qurtubi mentions towards the end of his commentary on these verses in his
Al Jami’ Li Ah’kam Al Qur’an:
These people claiming to be fixing the conditions are only assuming so, while in reality they’re sowing corruption. Furthermore, the people of meaning say: “whoever makes a claim has lied”, which is true.
So the lesson here is to not make a claim for that is the first sign of one’s delusion.
The true practical test of Islam being a religion of truth is not restricted in one’s appearance and most definitely not in how intense they are in their devotional activities. It’s in how Islam is reflected in their lives and character. If Islam is truly the path of truth, and as some of these so-called
salafi Muslims claim it to be “The Solution” to mankind’s problems, then what they offer has to be much better than any other way of living. Their character would be the best of character, and how they carry themselves in this world should on its own be a testament and attract people to want to be like them. They don’t even need to preach Islam using their tongues because it would be drowned by how loud their actions are being. A historical example of that is in Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia, where they have the greatest concentration of Muslims. Muslim merchants, mainly from Yemen, through their travels were the main cause behind the mass conversion of people in those lands to Islam, and the single most commonly cited reason was due to the character of these Muslim merchants and how they carried themselves. From my own personal observation, the majority of so-called
salafis that I’ve come across have reduced Islam to an intellectual discourse, where they try to intellectually convince others. I can’t really say I’m surprised, because when it comes to the character and personal conduct and interaction department, most of those so-called
salafis are quite bankrupt.
Quick pause, I’m not speaking about general masses and I’m definitely
not saying that all these so-called
salafis are the way I describe. I’ve met some wonderful individuals that ascribe themselves to wanting to follow the way of the
salaf. I am saying that from my own personal interactions and travels the majority are in fact the way I’m putting it here.
What has this resulted in when it comes to the community at large is a testimony to the bankruptcy of the methodology these so-called
salafis follow. One of their telltale signs is their emphasis on following the Qur’an and the Sunnah of the Prophet PBUH directly.
While this sounds good on the surface, it’s an emotional plea that has no intellectual foundation. They feel that it’s the duty of every Muslim to investigate and look into every little detail about everything when it comes to Islamic teachings. As I heard one of them once say:
We’re all intelligent people here studying in university in the most difficult fields, and we can read the books and discern things for ourselves
This has resulted in what many of the Muslim scholars today call “
al fawda ad’deenya”, (الفوضى الدينية), i.e. religious chaos. Even if we assume that every single Muslim out there is well versed in the Islamic sciences to the level of the great scholars of the past, they will still not arrive at similar conclusions from reading the same texts. How can they not, when aside from having different intellectual aptitudes, they also come from different backgrounds and cultures, as well as have different experiences growing up. To give a simple example, someone growing up as a single child will have a very different worldview and experience than another that grew up in a large family and another who had only sisters or brothers for siblings. While there are certain rigorous requirements and rules guiding how the tradition is approached, the simple possession of the tools is not a guarantee of arriving to the same conclusions on certain matters. If anyone thinks otherwise they can only be described as delusional. Need proof? Look at the great Imams in the Islamic tradition who have the 4 jurisprudential schools named after them; Abu Hanifa, Malik, Shafi’i, and Ibn Hanbal. They all achieved the highest level attainable in Islamic scholarship, and yet they arrived to different positions and disagreed in many of their religious rulings. Not only that, scholars from within each school had their own disagreements. In fact, Al Azhar scholars from Egypt went through and counted the number of jurisprudential rulings where there are differences in opinion amongst the scholars, and the final tally was one million two hundred thousand issues (1,200,000)!
What does this mean? It means that you can almost guarantee yourself, outside of clear-cut matters that are not open to any interpretation, if you think a certain matter is settled in jurisprudence, you’re simply ignorant of other opinions. The problem arises when you believe that what you think is the only way and the only right one. Since the so-called
salafis assume that everyone can just look through the Qur’an and Sunnah of the Prophet PBUH directly, without the need to refer to scholars, everyone in the community becomes the boss of themselves. The result of this is the constant argumentation about religious issues amongst Muslims, and sometimes fights that take place in the mosques because while one person thinks the ruling on a certain matter is one way, the other disagrees since they see it a different way, and it all becomes an ego trip. This eventually reflects in poor character and manners as everyone feels they’re an authority onto everyone else. As
Dr. Umar Faruq Abd-Allahhad put it during the
2011 Deen Intensive Rihla in Turkey:
The crisis of the Muslim community is a crisis of
adab, i.e. a crisis of character and manners
Don’t get me wrong here. I don’t have a problem with following the Qur’an and the Sunnah of the Prophet PBUH. The issue I have is: based on whose understanding? Based on yours? Based on mine? I don’t have the tools to approach the tradition and arrive to sound conclusions on my own, so I’ll constantly go back and refer to scholars and see what they said. Unlike the modern day so-called
salafis I don’t rely on a single individual scholar or only a handful of them
no matter how scholarly they are. I take after a full school that is 1300 years old, which started with an actual
salafi imam, and has had that many years of formation and examination by a countless number of scholars, which got it to arrive to the rulings in jurisprudence that it has nowadays. I’m not a Hanbali, so what these so-called
salafis have to offer when it comes to jurisprudence – with what Imam Ibn Taymiyyah or Shaykh Ibn Uthaymeen or Shaykh Al Albani said – is none of my interests. Some of them may not like hearing this, but on certain issues, where they use the Qur’an and Hadith of the Prophet peace be upon him, and believe in their heart of hearts that it’s the majority opinion, it may be in fact the minority opinion because of other Qur’anic verses or other Hadiths they may not be aware of. Just because the Hanbalis have a ruling that is one way does
NOT mean that it’s the only way. Islam is much bigger than this.
So here is an interesting fact to the so-called
salafi; the way the Prophet peace be upon him used to recite the Quran was not how the great majority of Muslims recite it today. The most common recitation style heard today, including in Mecca and Medina is the recitation of
Hafs from Asim. However, the recitation of the Prophet peace be upon him was similar to what is known as the recitation of
Warsh from Nafi’. The accent of the tribe of Quraysh did not have the “hamza” letter when it came in the middle of the word. For example, they would say “moomin – مومن” not “mo’min – مؤمن” (believer). The styles of recitation were revealed for a couple of purposes. One is to encompass all possible rhetorical meanings in verses, which add to its miraculous nature. But the other was to accommodate the tribes in the Arabian Peninsula who did not pronounce words the same way the Quraysh tribe did. Furthermore, Imam Ahmed Ibn Hanbal was asked by his son Abdullah about which recitation he preferred, and he said
Nafi’because it was the language of Quraysh, but if not, then
Asim would be the second choice. Imam Malik went further than that and considered the recitation of
Nafi’ to be a sunnah because that’s how the Prophet peace be upon him recited Quran most of the time. Nowadays, the accommodation became the established basis that everyone recites in, and the foundation became the accommodation. My question to the so-called
salafi is this: if your recitation of the Quran doesn’t even conform to how the Prophet PBUH recited, what else are you doing that you think is how the Prophet PBUH did it all the time, yet it was something he PBUH only did sometimes.
One final pause for those who think I’m lowering the status of a recitation of the Quran. That is not my intention here. I’m just making a point that the Beloved peace be upon him recited most of the time in one style and only sometimes in the others. If the so-called
salafi truly wants to emulate the Prophet peace be upon him as he was in most of what he did, why don’t they start with the Quran? I say this because I’ve yet to meet one so-called
salafi who recites in any other recitation other than
Hafs from Asim. Many don’t even know how the
Warsh recitation even sounds like let alone be able to do it themselves.
Typically, and this is my own conclusions to this matter here, those who spend their time trying to get everyone to do things their way are doing so out of insecurity. It’s quite understandable as it is part of human nature to seek approval, and one of the ways to do so is by having others conform to what one does. It’s much more comfortable to walk around dressed in a certain way if everyone else is dressed similarly, because otherwise it looks odd. However, those without insecurity issues don’t seem to bother much with what others might think of them. They do not need anyone else to see things the way they do if they truly believe with conviction that they’re right. They might discuss it with others and present arguments for their vision in trying to convince them to see it in their way. But they definitely will not shove it down anyone’s throat the way some of the modern day overzealous so-called
salafi Muslims do. It’s narrated that a man came to Imam Malik and was trying to argue about a certain matter. Imam Malik quickly responded with:
As for me, I’m in a state of certainty from my Lord about what I’m doing. As for you, you’re in doubt, so go find someone else in doubt like yourself to argue with
So all in all, may God have mercy on the souls of Imam Ibn Taymiyya, Shaykh Bin Baz, Shaykh Ibn Uthaymeen, and Shaykh Al Albani, and elevate their status for serving the Hanbali School. But to the so-called
salafi is a quick reminder: I’m
not a Hanbali
and so are not most Muslims, these great scholars are not from the
salaf that the Prophet peace be upon him talked about in the Hadith (even though they tried their best to walk in the
salaf’s path) despite how high of a status they achieved in knowledge and piety, and you most certainly need to let go of trying to make everyone else like you.
Mohamed Ghilan
Graduate Student
UVic Cellular Neuroscience
- 23 thoughts on “The Delusional Salafi”
- Muhammad Raflin Suandi Hambali
August 28, 2011 at 11:43 PM
Subhanallaah..I do feel the same about them. This is an eye opener to the people who honestly seek the knowledge. May God protect us and our family from this fitnah!..ameen
- andra
August 29, 2011 at 12:56 AM
Brother, there is one important thing I have to tell you, that is: even Ibn Taymiyyah, Imam Hambali, and Ibnul Qoyyim Al Jawziyyah did not refuse tasawwuf, tabarruk, nor tawassul, they are all following the other Imams, even Muhammad bin Abdul Wahhab, which is mostly quoted by Salafis, did not mention in his single word of takfir or tabdi’ (calling people disbeliever or heretical), but their followers who are fanatic to literal understandings of Quranic and Sunnah texts, they who had hidden the words of these scholars, making everyone thinks that these scholars were opposed to tabbaruk, tawassul or tasawwuf… you can read the book written by Imam Allamah Sheikh Dr. Muhammad Sayyid Alawi Al Maliki Al Hasani titled Mafahim Yajib An Tusahhah, where he – rahimahullah – quoted so many words from Ibn Taymiyya or Muhammad Ibn Abdil Wahhab explaining that they never did the takfir or tabdi’ or they even did not hold any responsible for the lying done upon their names…..even Ibnul Qoyyim Al Jawziyyah is one of the biggest sufi of his time…. wallahu a’lam….
- Yaqeen Ul Haq Ahmad Sikander
August 29, 2011 at 9:47 AM
A very nice article brother…though I do not agree with everything you have said…nevertheless its really good and an eye opener for many…including me…
- David A Kearns
August 29, 2011 at 10:53 AM
Could you expand on “only two imams of schools in Islamic jurisprudence to have the Prophet PBUH foretell about in a saying (Imam Shafi’I is the other one)”?
- mohamedghilan
August 29, 2011 at 11:57 AM
I had a friend of mine actually confirm a saying of the Prophet PBUH foretelling the coming of Imam Abu Hanifa as well, making it three imams instead of two.
Hadith about Imam Abu Hanifa: “If knowledge was suspended from Pleiades and the Arabs are unable to reach it, then a man from the sons of Persia will be able to reach it.”
Hadith about Imam Malik: “A time is about to come when people will mount their camels in travel seeking knowledge and they will not find a more knowledgeable man than the scholar of Medina”
Hadith about Imam Shafi’i: ” A time is coming when the knowledge from the kid of Quraysh will be about to encompass the horizons”
Several scholars have commented on these sayings of the Prophet PBUH and attributed them to each of those imams.
That and God knows best
- concerned
September 10, 2011 at 5:40 PM
Islam teaches us moderation in everything. Therefore, if you find yourself adhering strongly to anything (with the exception of the Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet ASWS) you should take a step back and critically ponder what it is you are upon. To state that the Malaki “school of thought” is better than any other is quite a strong statement. In fact, it is exactly these thoughts that will lead to the 73 sects mentioned in the hadith, only one of which will enter Jannah.
As a self-proclaimed student of knowledge, you should know that the scholars (yes, the scholars themselves!) when they used to visit the Masajid of other scholars, they used to follow the opinions of those scholars and not their own. This was done as a sign of respect and to avoid fitnah. To make the statement that you made, you are essentially denying the validity of those seven scholars mentioned because of the short period of time that they have been around (or the length of time that has passed since the time of the Prophet ASWS). Do you think that those scholars have brought a new Islam that was not around before? Do you not think that they learned from all of the pious predecessors?
And fyi, Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal had access to many, many more ahadith than the scholars before him.
Lastly, the “madhab” of ALL of the scholars is not Hanbali or Malki or whatever other names there are; it is Muhammadi, if anything.
- greenpen
September 20, 2011 at 5:56 AM
to concerned:
to your last point: It’s like saying there is no difference between Yale and Harvard. Can one ever reach a conclusion on which school produces better lawyers? Do certain legal courts only accept Yale graduates vs. Harvard? More so, can either Yale or Harvard really be the only law schools in America? How funny would it be if Harvard, Yale, Stanford all combined forces to become known as “Law School” sans any other name? It’d probably be a really bad idea. But they all aim for a JD and get it at the end.
You can say that is almost the same extent of difference between the different schools of thought (madhahib). What works for one doesn’t work for another. So long as we understand there will be people who will disagree with us, and maybe practice Islam a little differently than us, and that is 100% okay, and we are all still within the folds of Islam, alhamdulillah – and thats what gets us to our destination.
(also its like having the never-ending Mac vs. PC debate. They are different products for different people. But in the end they are just computers that get the work done, and that’s what matters. alhamdulillah. 
- concerned
September 29, 2011 at 8:37 PM
To add to your example about the different universities, do you see how the extent of the rivalry between the Ivy League schools? Is this something that we should have in Islam? It is exactly these kinds of thoughts that lead to disunity in the Muslim Ummah. Each will try to blindly (yes, blindly!) adhere to their respect school while disregarding the rest. Some may even go so far as to say that it is ONLY their school that is correct. Yes, I have witnessed this personally and I am not just making a conjecture.
Furthermore, you cannot assume that people will understand and accept (read: acknowledge) the different schools. Almost everyone that I have met who associate themselves with a certain madhab absolutely refuse to abide by the opinion of another madhab. Whether it is an issue of taraweeh prayer, or the position of the hands in prayer or any other issue, they are absolutely adamant that their belief is correct. Add to that the misconceptions that have been attributed to the different schools of thought and you have a stubborn individual who says “this is what I was taught and this is my madhab.” Does this not sound familiar? Doesn’t Allah SWT tell us in the Quran about those who have come before us and what they responded with to His messengers? “That is the religion of our fathers!”
The strict, blind adherence to the madhab is -as I have mentioned earlier- what will, and has already, lead to the different sects of which only ONE will lead to Paradise.
By all means, follow the rulings of a certain scholar but do not elevate his status to Prophet. All scholars are humans and all humans err. All ideas can be taken or discarded except the Quran and the Sunnah.
- Mohamed Ashour
September 22, 2011 at 5:37 PM
“if you were to look into the books from the Islamic tradition that examine comparative jurisprudence (Al Fiqh Al Muqaran), you will find that up until around the 6th century there was not a recognized Hanbali School the way the Hanafi, Maliki, and Shafi’i Schools were” ..Well being a Hanbali Fiqh student myself, I can tell you that this assertion you made is extremely inaccurate. The Hanbali school was fully formed and recognised as an independent school during the era from the mid 4th to the early 5th century at the hands of the Imams Al-Kheraqi & Ghulam Al-Khallal. One of the reasons why the Madhab didn’t have the privilege of having as many followers opposed to the other schools, was the fact that it was not historically adopted by any Muslim state, which of course is a decisive factor in spreading any Madhab.
- mohamedghilan
September 22, 2011 at 10:23 PM
While I could be wrong, I don’t think it’s “extremely inaccurate” to say that the Hanbali school did not have the weight the other schools had for it to swing it as they did with its jurisprudential opinions until around the 6th century. It might have been recognized as an independent school as you say from the mid 4th to the early 5th century. But as far as I’ve been exposed to from several different teachers of different schools and my own personal readings, I believe that my statement about the Hanbali opinions being put up consistently with the other 3 schools didn’t happen until around the 6th century is accurate.
At the end of the day it’s history of formation that is up for contention and doesn’t really affect the validity of the great tradition the Hanbali school has and its position as one of the four Sunni schools that we have today.
- Mohamed Ashour
October 1, 2011 at 3:19 PM
There is no denying that the so-called Salafis are much, and above all, influenced by the Hanbali School in Fiqh matters, but it must also be pointed out that they have gone against the Madhab in so many positions. As a matter of fact, they have even gone against some of the opinions of Sheikh Ibn Taymiyyah himself. I guess what I am trying to emphasise here is that although many of the Imams the Salafis quote are Hanbalis, they’re not one and the same.
- Alex Gorin
October 9, 2011 at 1:06 AM
An interesting and thought-provoking article. The reason that the Hanbali school took so long to be established is that Imam Ahmad forbade his students from recording his fiqhi opinions. He did not want to establish another madhab and was mainly concerned with ahadith. It was the students of his students that started to do so. Hence, you find a wide disparity between opinions ascribed to him in which later scholars, especially Ibn Qudamah, tried to make tarjih. Nevertheless, it is a great school, with great scholars, and is dear to my heart (I study it along with the Shafi’i school).
The Hanbali school is very similar to the (old) Shafi’i school (Ahmad being one of the preservers of the Madhab al-Qadim in Iraq, having the book, Kitab al-Hujjah) and some of our scholars actually consider Ahmad to be a Shafi’i (see the Tabaqat works). Ibn Khuzaymah said, ‘what was imam Ahmad, except a student of imam al-Shafi’i!’ Some scholars even argued that Imam Ahmad was not a Mujtahid Mutlaq. This was stated clearly by Ibn Jarir, inferred by Ibn Abdul Barr in his book “Al-Intiqa’ fi Fada’il A’immat Al-Thalathat al-Fuqaha.” Yet his ikhlas was rewarded and great khidmah was given to him by having some outstanding followers. Do you know that many of Ahmad’s usuli principles correlate with Malik’s?
Many ‘Salafis’ today actually resemble Zahiris and follow shadh opinions from Ibn Hazm and Abu Dawud al-Zahiri. Al-Albani, may Allah have mercy on him, was not a Hanbali and his fiqhi opinions are generally rejected due to his weakness in usul al-fiqh. He is mainly referenced as a muhaqqiq in hadith, but his stature is falling. Ibn Uthaymin, on the other hand, has great standing in the madhab and will be recorded among its scholars due to his wonderful sharh on Zad al-Mustaqni’. Bin Baz was considered an expert on aqidah more than anything else.
You are aware, of course, that Qalun also narrates from Nafi’? And that Qalun recites the hamza in mu’min? I do have to disagree with you on the statement that the way the Prophet, peace be upon him, recited is not how the majority recite today. Hafs ‘an ‘Asim is authentically ascribed as one of the several ways in which the Prophet, peace be upon him, recited. You are right in that ‘Salafis’ wouldn’t know any of this, having taken knowledge from books (and even worse – the internet) rather than at the feet of scholars with ijazah. I can imagine their faces now watching you leading Fajr, with your hands at your sides, reciting in Warsh ‘an Nafi’!
- mohamedghilan
October 9, 2011 at 2:24 AM
Mashallah and jazak Allah khair for your comment. Quite an interesting input on the Hanbali school. I always appreciate it when students of other schools correct some of my information about their schools and/or add to what I’ve learned.
Just a note about the different recitations business, because some have misunderstood what I said. I never said that the Hafs recitation is not an authentic or not one of the multiple-transmitted recitations. I simply pointed to the fact that out of all the recitations, the Prophet peace be upon him recited the Quran mostly in what is currently known as the Warsh from Nafi’ recitation. It is known among the scholars of Quranic Recitations that the accent of the people of Quraysh in how they spoke Arabic omitted the hamza letter from the middle of words such as in the example I’ve given above. Interestingly enough, Imam Qaloon was deaf and there are two narrations regarding how he learnt how to recite from Imam Nafi’. One says that although he was deaf, he could hear the Quran, and that was a karama (miracle) given to him from God. The other says that he learnt how to recite by copying lip movement. Either way, he was honored by God to be one of the two recitations related from Nafi’, which today is the one recited in Libya. So while the Quran was revealed in multiple different recitations styles, which aside from accommodating the different Arab tribes’ accents, also served to complete the meanings and miraculous rhetorical nature of the Quran, it was just the simple fact that what we know today as the recitation of Warsh from Nafi’ was how the Prophet peace be upon him recited the Quran most of the time. That’s not to say that he did recite in the other styles on some occasions. I was using this example to show that for someone to claim that they are the true preservers of the Sunnah while everyone else is either an innovator or one who abandoned it, the least they could do is start with themselves and recite the Quran in the most favorable recitation to Imam Ahmed, which was considered a Sunnah by Imam Malik.
And about me leading the prayers, I’ve actually had someone come up and attempt to “correct” my recitation at the end, and was shocked when told that how I recited was a valid recitation! The ignorance of those who fallaciously claim to be on the way of the salaf is mind-blowing.
May God guide us all to what pleases Him.
- englishandeducation
October 9, 2011 at 2:09 PM
Jazak Allahu khayran for the clarification. I misread what you meant and after reading again can see what you intended.
That’s a very interesting perspective about Qalun and reading lips. I knew the story about him being deaf and the karama that he could only hear al-Qur’an, but the lip reading account does explain some things. One of the reasons we love Qalun because Imam al-Hudhayfi recites it all the time in Masjid al-Nabawi and he is beloved to our hearts.
Someone told me that one reason Hafs ‘an ‘Asim is so widespread today is due to the famous Egyptian Qaris, and it may have roots in the spread of the Ottoman Empire. Wallah ‘alim. Either way, I accept your argument that Warsh ‘an Nafi’ is probably the most authentic recitation. Nafi’ is afterall the student of Abdullah b. Umar (part of the Golden Chain). May Allah grant us all the blessing of mastering al-Shatibiyah and all the authentic recitations. Ameen!
- عماد الدين
April 12, 2012 at 3:40 AM
Masha Allah sidi, very well written.
May Allah bless you and grant you the best in both abodes.
- Al-Habib
April 12, 2012 at 9:30 AM
salafi’s are morons. no wonder their ‘shuyukh’ get banned from north american islamic conferences and are under the close watch of security all around the world. its because their methods of ‘shoving it down the mouth’ has become quite violent and their militant attitude and mindset needs to be put to rest or else they will cause (or have already) more fitnah to the Ummah.
- Abdul HAMID
April 12, 2012 at 11:12 PM
Jazkahallah khair only one thing ibn kathir rahimullah was shafi not hanbali .
- Yusuf Smith
April 21, 2012 at 6:52 AM
As-Salaamu ‘alaikum,
The claim that Ibn Kathir was “a student of Ibn Taymiyyah” exaggerates the latter’s influence: he was one of many, many scholars that Ibn Kathir took knowledge from. Sh Nuh Keller said that Ibn Kathir was a hafiz of hadeeth, which Ibn Taymiyyah was not, and that Ibn Kathir had a long and fruitful career that continued for 46 years after Ibn Taymiyyah died.
- mohd masri
September 15, 2012 at 5:45 PM
Assalamualaikum w.b.t
Can you please clarify what did you mean when writing this:
Imam Malik, who is in fact from the salaf, and one of the only two imams of schools in Islamic jurisprudence (as far as I know) to have the Prophet peace be upon him foretell about in a saying (Imam Shafi’I is the other one)
—
As far as I know, there is no such authentic hadeeth which mentioned any names of any imam of 4 mazahib.
- mohamedghilan
September 15, 2012 at 6:10 PM
Wa’alykoum As’Salam Wa Rahmatullahi Wa Baraktu
The Hadith about Imam Malik is narrated in Al Mustadrak by Imam Malik and was authenticated by Imam Muslim, and it says what can be translated to mean “A time will soon come when people will strike the sides of camels searching for knowledge, and they will not find a more knowledgeable person than the scholar of Medina”. Imam Malik is taken to be that scholar because during his time no one travelled to any other scholar than Imam Malik.
The Hadith about Imam Shafi’i is narrated in Musnad Imam Ahmed and by Al Bayhaqi and others, and it says what can be translated to mean “the knowledge of the scholar from Quraysh will encompass the planet”. Imam Shafi’i is a descendent of the Quraysh lineage and this Hadith has been taken to be about him because truly his knowledge has encompassed the planet.
Some brothers have tried to bring up Shaykh Al Albani as having considered these Hadiths weak, but that can be easily responded to from two angles. One is the most obvious one, which is the experienced reality of these Hadiths. The other angle is more technical, and it has to do with which chains of transmission Shaykh Al Albani was able to get axis to. These Hadiths have been narrated through several chains by many scholars, so Shaykh Al Albani might have only seen weak chains of transmission through his research. But that doesn’t necessarily mean he exhausted all the available chains of transmission. After all, he is only one person going against many other Hadith scholars who narrated this Hadith as authentic in their opinion and not weak.
That and Allah knows best!
Is there any real problem with SALAFIS?
» On Salafi Islam | Dr. Yasir Qadhi
On Salafi Islam | Dr. Yasir Qadhi
Dr. Yasir Qadhi
April 22, 2014
508 Comments
IV. Conclusion
Rashid Rida (d. 1935) was the first scholar to popularize the term 'Salafī' to describe a particular movement that he spearheaded. That movement sought to reject the ossification of the
madhhabs, and rethink through the standard issues of
fiqh and modernity, at times in very liberal ways. A young, budding scholar by the name of al-Albānī read an article by Rida, and then took this term and used it to describe another, completely different movement. Ironically, the movement that Rida spearheaded eventually became Modernist Islam and dropped the 'Salafī' label, and the legal methodology that al-Albānī championed – with a very minimal overlap with Rida's vision of Islam – retained the appellation 'Salafī'. Eventually, al-Albānī's label was adopted by the Najdī
daʿwah as well, until it spread in all trends of the movement. Otherwise, before this century, the term 'Salafī' was not used as a common label and proper noun.
[21] Therefore, the term 'Salafī' is a modern term that has attached itself to an age-old school of theology, the
Atharī school.
I believe that the Salafī movement is a
human movement, like all other movements of Islam. That is because Allah did not reveal the 'Salafī movement'; rather He revealed the Qur'an, and sent us a Prophet
. The Salafī movement is as human as the people who are a part of it are, which means its mistakes will be the mistakes of humans. This also explains why there is no 'one' Salafī movement, but rather a collection of miscellaneous movements that all can be gathered under the rubric of Salafism. I believe that no one movement can claim to be
the exact understanding of Islam, and while some no doubt are closer to the truth in some matters than others,
every movement is human and fallible. I do not believe any one sect, group or theology has a monopoly of the truth.
The Salafī movement as a whole has some noble ideals that it strives to achieve, but one cannot ignore its many faults as well. Someone might ask, “Is it not possible to divest Salafism of these negatives, retain its positive elements, and redirect it in a better course?” Indeed, that is what many within the movement seek to do, and in all honesty I support such efforts, in Salafism and in all trends in Islam. However, the question becomes: when so many methodological mistakes and negativities are associated with a label, and the label itself no longer reflects what it originally aspired to, then why continue to identify oneself with it? This is especially the case when one realizes that this label has no intrinsic religious value and was in fact popularized only very recently in Islamic history.
Because of this, I no longer view myself as being a part of any of these Salafī trends discussed in the earlier section. For those who still wish to identify with the label, I pray that you recognize the faults listed above and work to rectify them. Those who choose to abandon such a label have every right and excuse to do so as well. Islam is broader than any one label.
While after more than two decades of continuous research, I do subscribe to the
Atharī creed, and view it to be the safest and most authentic creed,
Islam is more than just a bullet-point of beliefs, and my ultimate loyalty will not be to a humanly-derived creed, but to Allah and His Messenger, and then to people of genuine
īmān and
taqwa. Hence, I feel more of an affinity and brotherhood with a moderate Deobandi Tablighi Maturidi, who might differ with me on some issues of
fiqh and theology and methodology, but whose religiosity and concern for the Ummah I can relate to, than I do with a hard-core Salafī whose only concern is the length of my pants and my lack of quoting from the '
Kibār' that he looks up to. Such a moderate Sufī, as well, will see me as a fellow believer in Allah and His Messenger, with trivial differences, whereas the standard hard-line Salafī will have already pigeonholed and classified me based on his pre-conceived perceptions, and his only concern will be to 'warn against me'. And while I might agree with the hard-core Salafī that Allah has indeed
istawā 'alā al-arsh (risen over the Throne) in a manner that befits Him, his myopic narrow-mindedness of the problems facing the Ummah, and self-righteous arrogance, and his cultish mentality, will be major turn-offs for me personally, and harmful to the Ummah as a whole. Hence, I do feel more of an affinity with a moderate Sufī who reads more Qur'an than I do and is more conscious of his earnings being
ḥalāl than I am, than I do with a fanatic Salafī from whom no religiosity is seen other than quoting creeds and refuting 'deviants'. That doesn't make the Sufī 'right' in his theology; it is merely is an indication that Islam, and Islamic allegiances, are broader than some issues.
One last point, and an important disclaimer.
Those who have long held grudges against the Salafīs will, understandably, use this article to cast further aspersions against the movement. That, in essence, translates into
allother trends in Islam: from the progressives and modernists to the Shīʿites and Sufīs and Ashʿarīs. The fact that someone like myself, who was for a time associated with the movement, is pointing out mistakes that these other groups verbalized will naturally cause them to rejoice. For all of those who wish to exult, realize that my theology is still the same as it was two decades ago, and that your movements are just as human as Salafism.
In other words, I believe that
each and every movement of Islam is a
human one, with positives and negatives, and while some movements are closer than others to the Prophet's Sunnah in some areas, no one movement with its human scholars can ever claim to be
the representative of our Prophet
, and officially represent
the religion of Allah, on earth. Amongst all the movements, the Salafīs do have some great contributions in the area of creed, but that does not make them the champions of truth in each and every area of Islam. We should take the good from them, and correct their mistakes whenever possible, in a wise and gentle manner. And whoever wishes to reform the movement from within, my prayers and thoughts are with him, but we all have our niche, and I find myself more useful and enthused benefitting the broader Ummah.
As for the disclaimer: I shall always retain respect for a movement that has shaped me immensely, and whose scholars I benefitted from and genuinely admire, even if I disagree with some methodological issues. Therefore, if anyone feels that there is undue harshness at places in this article, I do sincerely apologize for that, for it is not my intention to insult or malign. Perhaps, if harshness is felt, it may be attributed to the fact that I expected better from a movement that claims to follow the
salaf of this Ummah, but that I feel falls far short of that noble goal. It is my earnest desire that the Salafī movement in particular, and in fact all movements of Islam in general, live up to the pure ideals that our religion calls for, and our Prophet
demonstrated.
In the end, the best speech is the Speech of Allah, and the best guidance is the guidance of His Messenger; and all righteous and sincere Muslims, Salafīs and non-Salafīs, are attempting our best to understand and implement, to the best of our abilities, the best of all Speech, and the best of all guidance.
A note to my detractors: It is un-Islamic to quote one sentence from this article and portray it as representative of my entire opinion. Context is crucial, otherwise even the Qur'an and Sunnah can easily be misunderstood. Feel free to differ, but please link to the entire article, and let educated readers decide my views for themselves as they read the complete article, and see my praise alongside my criticisms of the movement, and the disclaimers in the end.
Salafism for Dummies | The Revealer
Salafism for Dummies
Jul 26, 2012 • 11:43 pm
3 Comments
Aha! This diagram, attributed to the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point’s “Militant Ideology Atlas,” tidily summarizes the relationship between Muslims, Islamists, Salafis and Jihadis.
by Alex Thurston
The word “Salafism” is on many reporters’ and analysts’ tongues these days. In post-uprising Egypt and Tunisia, Salafi parties – Egypt’s
Nour (Light) and Tunisia’s
Islah (Reform) – have garnered significant attention, especially as observers parse relationships between Salafis and “Islamists,” represented by Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood (which established the Freedom and Justice Party) and Tunisia’s Nahda (Awakening). In a much different context, violent Muslim movements in sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere, such as Nigeria’s Boko Haram or Mali’s Ansar al Din, are labeled “salafi-jihadi” by some analysts. Suddenly, Salafism seems to be everywhere:
mainstream Salafism,
political Salafism,
Wahhabist Salafism,
Arab Salafism,
Islamist Salafism,
radical Salafism, and at least
one instance of salafist-fundamentalist cage-fighting-ism.
This post is the first in a series attempting to disrupt several recurring tropes in the media concerning who Salafis are and what they want. This installment looks at definitions of Salafism and questions of political identity, especially as they concern electoral politics. There have been two interrelated problems in media coverage of Salafis’ relationships with politics, especially in the post-Arab spring Middle East. The first is categorizations that too rigidly differentiate Salafis from Islamists. The second is analysis that too rigidly demarcates the boundaries of “politics.”
Salafism: Definitions
Defining Salafism is tricky. The Arabic
salaf means “ancestors” or “forefathers,” a reference to the Prophet Muhammad, his Companions, and the succeeding two generations of Muslims. To say that Salafis today look to these generations as models for conduct and worship is true but insufficient, since other Muslims also define themselves in relation to the early Muslim community. In Northern Nigeria, where I did fieldwork in 2011-2012, some Salafis refer to themselves as Ahl al Sunnah wa al Jama’a (Arabic: “The People of the Prophetic Model and the Muslim Community.”) But this phrase can refer to the Muslim community as a whole. One young Sufi leader (Sufis are sometimes condemned as heterodox by Salafis) told me that he felt the Salafis’ appropriation of this phrase was improper.
A tighter definition of Salafism, then, would include reference to how Salafis invoke the model of the early community. Salafism relies on a particular methodology that demands any Muslim practice must be legitimated by a proof-text, i.e. by a text from the Qur’an or from the Sunnah (as represented in individual
hadith reports). Other Muslims also rely on proof-texts, but Salafi methodology is distinctive in its skepticism toward esotericism, its strict understanding of monotheism, and its willingness to reject and question the personal authority of later Muslim leaders (including Sufi sheikhs but also, in some cases, legal thinkers within the four major schools of Sunni Islam – some Salafis, unlike the majority of the world’s Muslims, do not adhere to any formal legal school). An even more rigorous definition, however, would note that Salafis do often recognize intellectual authorities beyond the early Muslim community. In historical terms, then, we can speak of a Salafi intellectual and activist tradition that includes Sheikhs Ahmad ibn Hanbal (d. 855), Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328), Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al Wahhab (d. 1792), and more contemporary thinkers like Sheikh Nasir al Din al Albani (d. 1999).
These definitions are incomplete, and they address an ideal, not a living reality. When it comes to understanding how Salafis today interact with politics, the situation is even more complex.
Egyptian youth holding a poster of the Salafist al-Nour Party, 2012. (Photo: Pan-African Newswire.)
Salafism and Politics
Dr.
Jonathan Brown’s writing on Egypt (.pdf, p. 5) has demonstrated why it is a mistake to treat “Salafis” and “Islamists” as two completely distinct camps:
It is difficult to draw a clear line between Salafis and other religiously inclined Egyptian Muslims. Many Egyptians who listen to Salafi lectures in their cars or who watch Salafi satellite channels at home do not sport the Salafi long beard or wear distinctive clothing. They are average Egyptians whose religious temperament draws them to Salafi teachings…There is also no clear line of distinction between Salafis and the membership of the Muslim Brotherhood. The two groups share important teachings and an appreciable number of adherents. The Brotherhood emerged from the same reformist wave as modern Salafism, rejecting the byzantine complexities of Islamic law and theology as well as the superstitions of popular Sufism. While the Brotherhood took the path of modernized social and political activism, however, the vast majority of Salafis adhered to a traditional focus on honing belief and ritual practice.
Just because there are parties labeled “Salafi” and “Islamist” in the formal political arena, in other words, does not mean that strict lines between the two groups can be mapped onto entire societies.
As the lines between Salafis and Islamists become blurry outside of the realm of electoral politics, so too does the notion of “politics” itself. We
hearfrequently in media coverage that Salafis have now decided to “
enter politics” after a long period of being politically quietist. That assertion is only sustainable if “politics” is limited to electoral competition. If, in contrast, we understand politics as a struggle for power and influence, a debate over individual and group identity, and a set of relationships between groups attempting to advance different programs for society, then Salafis have long been implicated in politics, sometimes against their will.
Consider Dr.
Stéphane Lacroix’s remarks (.pdf, p. 2) on the origins of Egypt’s Nour Party:
The Nour Party was founded by an informal religious organization called the “Salafi Da‘wa” (alDa‘wa al-Salafiyya), whose leadership is based in Alexandria. The origins of the Salafi Da‘wa date back to the late 1970s, when its founders – students at the faculty of medicine at Alexandria University – broke away from the Islamist student groups known as al-Gama‘at al-Islamiyya (“Islamic groups”). Among them was Yasir Burhami, currently the dominant figure in the organization. The Salafi Da‘wa’s stance against violence and refusal to engage in formal politics made it relatively acceptable to the Mubarak regime. To be sure, the group did at times endure repression; its leaders were kept under close surveillance and were forbidden from traveling outside Alexandria. However, the Salafi Da‘wa often benefited from the covert support of the regime apparatus, which tried to use Salafis to undermine the Muslim Brotherhood’s influence.
Here we have several forms of politics: factionalization within Muslim associations, and multiple relationships between Salafis and the regime (surveillance, support, and repression). To push the argument even further, even stances against violence and against “formal politics” represent political choices. Politics is hard to avoid.
Strict separations between formal and informal politics are also not always tenable. One of my dissertation chapters concerns Salafis’ struggles for control of a Friday mosque in Kano, Northern Nigeria. Neighborhood-level disputes over a mosque may constitute “informal” politics, but the dispute soon drew in the city’s traditional leaders and the state’s elected governor, Ibrahim Shekarau. Shekarau faced re-election in 2007 while the controversy over the mosque was still raging. Some Salafi leaders even began to mobilize against him in the electoral arena. This incident demonstrates how futile it is to separate ‘formal’ from ‘informal’ politics.
I do not want to minimize the significance of Egyptian and Tunisian Salafis’ decisions to form political parties and contest elections. But if we base our understanding of Salafism today on bounded political entities and narrow assumptions about what politics is, we miss much of the complexity of Salafism (including as a political force) and much of the complexity of how struggles over Muslim identity are playing out in communities around the world.
Alex Thurston is a Ph.D. candidate in Religious Studies at Northwestern University. For 2011-2012, he is conducting dissertation fieldwork in Northern Nigeria. Alex has written for the Christian Science Monitor, Foreign Policy, and The Guardian. He blogs at http://sahelblog.wordpress.com, and is aregular contributor to The Revealer.
http://archives.cerium.ca/IMG/pdf/WIKTOROWICZ_2006_Anatomy_of_the_Salafi_Movement.pdf
Conclusion: The Purist Paradox
The debate over takfir illustrates the central point of this article: the anatomy of the Salafi movement and its internal divisions are based on differences over contextual interpretation and analysis rather than belief. All Salafis share the same beliefs or creed (aqida). They all emphasize tawhid and reject a role for human desire and intellect in understanding how the immutable sources of Islam should be applied to the modern
world. But this application involves human evaluations of the modern world and its particular problems and issues, evaluations that are vulnerable to the subjective nature of human judgment. Whether the issue is the legitimacy of takfir or other contemporary dilemmas, the factions are predominantly divided over how Muslims should understand the context to which beliefs are to be applied, rather than the beliefs themselves.
In terms of U.S. strategy, the primary concern should be how strategy can influence these interpretations of context to empower the purists. Although the purists are strongly anti-Western (and anti-American), they are also the least likely to support the use of violence. To the extent that the United States can amplify the purist contextual reading at the expense of the jihadis, the movement of Salafis toward the radical extremists will
likely slow.
The difficulty is that the purists remain relatively ill-positioned to engage and refute the jihadi and politico assessments of contemporary politics and international affairs. The most powerful critique of the purists is that they are either unable or unwilling to effectively address pressing crises currently afflicting the Muslim world and have therefore become irrelevant to the Muslim community. In this argument, politicos and jihadis
hold themselves up as viable alternatives in the struggle for sacred authority, and the popularity of scholars like Hawali indicates that this argument has traction. To counteract the growing influence of the politicos and jihadis, the purists need to become better informed about politics and current affairs. This could include more nonreligious training in seminaries and Islamic institutes of higher education so that they have a better understanding of the world. This would equip the purist scholars with more sophisticated contextual insights and allow them to effectively counteract the political analysis of bin Laden and others. A purist scholar with a Ph.D. in the Islamic sciences as well as advanced education in international relations would be well situated to deconstruct and rebut Al Qaeda’s worldview (although there is obviously the danger that purists might arrive at similar conclusions about politics).
At the same time, however, strengthening credentials related to contextual analysis undermines the identity of the purist scholars, which is based on isolation from the corruptive influences of politics and current affairs. These influences are seen as sources of emotional provocation, Western intrigue and guile, and threats to the purity of tawhid. This creates a paradox for the purists. To avoid losing influence among Salafis (and
even Muslims more generally), purist scholars must engage current affairs and politics, an action that undermines the very mission of the purist faction. How to strike a balance between informed contextual analysis and defending the purity of Islam is the great conundrum for the purists. To counteract the influence of the other factions, and thereby stem the tide of violence, the purists need to find a way to reconcile this tension.
